Burberry’s sales were down one per cent last year. Pre-tax profits grew five per cent and its operating margins were at 15 per cent. Burberry is known for its trademark check fabric. The 160 year old British luxury brand still concentrates on check tartan outerwear, but its luxury range includes perfumes, watches, eye wear and leather handbags.

The group has over 400 stores worldwide, half in emerging markets. Moving into leather goods has attracted some attention as it wants to turn from one known for its outer wear into a broad luxury brand. Selling more bags is part of its plan for a number of reasons. Bags offer higher margins, require less selling space and no changing rooms. As part of its strategy Burberry has acquired CF&P, an Italian leather supplier. In Burberry’s case, leather goods account for only one-fifth of its sales.

Burberry is also rationalising store space, investing in technology and reducing costs. The coming years will see store reductions but stores will also be upgraded. The group is embracing technology, having struck a deal with online fashion retailer Farfetch as a one-stop shop for its high-end brands in southeast Asia.

The London Textile Committee report has recommended immediate measures to increase the cotton output in India, Egypt and Sudan, besides controlling the export of Egyptian cotton in order to safeguard the requirements of the British Empire and its Allies.

The report also recommends immediate measures to increase flax production in Ireland, Canada, India and other parts of the Empire. It suggests the Allies to conserve flax supply for each other’s use in priority to other demands. The Committee also recommends that advantage be taken of India’s monopoly of jute production to safeguard jute supplies for Britain and her Allies and also impose export duty on the same.

Australia has kicked off negotiations for a free trade agreement with the European Union to drive Australian exports, economic growth, and create new Australian jobs. The agreement will give Australian businesses preferential access to the EU. Australia will look to lock in access and create new commercially meaningful opportunities for Australian services exporters, with a focus on education, financial, and professional services. It will also explore rules and initiatives to support the digital economy, innovation, and increase opportunities for high-technology startups.

Australia similarly signed a free trade agreement earlier this year with 11 Pacific Rim nations. This is the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership CTPP 11 signed by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Brunei, and Chile. It will take effect in Australia by the end of 2018. South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia have shown strong interest in joining the TPP as well as Colombia. The United Kingdom, which will complete Brexit next year, could also join.

The original TPP was signed in February 2016 by the US, but was then dumped. China is unwilling to join instead favoring the RCEP, which is being negotiated between China, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Top NBA draft prospect Marvin Bagley III has signed a five-year footwear and apparel endorsement deal with Puma as a part of a plan to aggressively relaunch its basketball footwear business.

According to the deal, Bagley is expected to be a featured athlete in several upcoming category and brand global initiatives. The brand will also commit to a grassroots infrastructure with the Bagley family that will focus on skill development for a future generation of AAU players.

Puma also signed Manchester United soccer player and Belgium international Romelu Lukaku to a multiyear deal that is the largest sponsorship deal in the company's history. The brand will also sign additional rookies in the 2018 draft, before signing established players that have existing shoe deals expiring later this fall.

The brand has found recent success and resurgence in the marketplace thanks to partnerships with entertainment mogul Jay-Z, pop star Rihanna and several other endorsers in the lifestyle category.

EU countries approved a raft of tariffs targeting US goods including blue jeans, whiskey and motorcycles in retaliation against painful duties imposed by Trump on European products. Europe’s move fuels a growing transatlantic trade war just days after a disastrous G7 summit in Canada.

The European counter measures aimed at €2.8 billion euros ($3.3 billion) of American imports come after Trump on 1 June followed through on his threat to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminium exports. From blue jeans to motorbikes and whiskey, the EU’s hit-list of products targeted for tariffs with the US reads like a catalogue of emblematic American exports.

However, Trump abruptly rejected the text of a G7 statement and bitterly insulted his Canadian host, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump demanded America had been obliged to levy the metals tariffs as it has been exploited as the world’s “piggy bank” under existing arrangements.

His counterparts however said they were equally determined to protect “rules-based” international trade.

The European Commission has also launched a legal challenge against the US tariffs at the WTO.

Christian Dior tops as a retailer in Forbes annual list of the “world’s largest public companies”, known as the Global 2000 list. The massive report is being released for the 16th consecutive year and counts high-profile household names like JPMorgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of America, Apple and Chase among its top-ten rankings. In general, Christian Dior is ranked as the world’s 150th largest company.

The second-largest retailer in the apparel, accessories and footwear space is Zara and Nike comes in third place.

Christian Dior definitively takes the top spot with a market value of $76.4 billion USD, with a combined score of revenues, profits, assets and market value higher than any similar numbers for other companies in its lane.

The fashion house benefits from a 41 per cent stake in LVMH, the French luxury empire that owns 70 brands including Louis Vuitton, Dom Pérignon and Sephora. LVMH, which is run by French billionaire Bernard Arnault, in turn wholly owns Christian Dior. The companies have had a complicated ownership structure for years, with LVMH acquiring the remaining portion of Christian Dior that it didn't already own last year in a $13 billion deal.

The Oregon-based company, which was founded in 1964 by college track runner Phil Knight and his coach, initially distributed Japanese running shoes. It found success in sponsoring legendary athletes like Michael Jordan, Roger Federer and Lance Armstrong and is now the world's largest athletic retailer with annual sales of $35 billion.

Despite consumer preferences, the activewear is now dominated by synthetics, research reveals that could be detrimental to the wearer’s health and the environment at large.

Companies have been trying to be eco-friendly by making fabric from used plastic bottles. But the bottles and the resultant polyester are both made from polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, which is derived from crude oil. The bottles are shredded and the remnants are thrown in a mixture of chemicals and water, dried into pellets, and then melted and extruded into polyester yarn. Creating polyester requires more energy than producing cotton.

According to Cotton Incorporated’s Lifestyle Monitor research 45 per cent of the consumers believe that clothing made of polyester, compared to cotton and rayon, has the biggest odor issue or traps odor.

On the other hand, studies such as one conducted at the Cornell Composting Facility in 2010 suggest that cotton decomposes at a much faster rate than polyester. Various fabric technologies developed by Cotton Incorporated offer an edge to manufacturers that want to offer performance activewear made of natural cotton. Transdry technology wicks and spreads perspiration so cotton fabrics dry faster as well as or better than most high-tech synthetic fabrics. The wicking window technology is a moisture management application that eliminates the feeling of wet fabric against the skin. Storm cotton technology protects the wearer from the outside as it’s a breathable, water-repellent finish for cotton fabric.

"The recent edition of Denim Première Vision brought to fore many developments in the denim sector. Global companies such as Bossa, Kilim and Berto presented fabrics made with fiber from post-consumer recycled denim. A panel discussion was devoted to the developments in post-consumer recycled denim (PCRD) and best practices to scale and promote it at the consumer level. Lori DiVito, Professor at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and co-founder of the Alliance of Responsible Denim, emphasized there needs to be a leadership in order to experiment. She said, it’s all about experimenting, so having the time and dedicated team to experiment with recycled denim is the key element. That means allocating resources not only financially but human resources that can test PCRD, design it, see how it performs in the market and then adopt it on a greater level."

The recent edition of Denim Première Vision brought to fore many developments in the denim sector. Global companies such as Bossa, Kilim and Berto presented fabrics made with fiber from post-consumer recycled denim. A panel discussion was devoted to the developments in post-consumer recycled denim (PCRD) and best practices to scale and promote it at the consumer level. Lori DiVito, Professor at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and co-founder of the Alliance of Responsible Denim, emphasized there needs to be a leadership in order to experiment. She said, it’s all about experimenting, so having the time and dedicated team to experiment with recycled denim is the key element. That means allocating resources not only financially but human resources that can test PCRD, design it, see how it performs in the market and then adopt it on a greater level.

Antwerp-based denim brand, HNST, will soon start delivering its first batch of jeans made with 56 per cent PCRD. Denim by HNST fosters a circular economy, which means they can be recycled again. Embroidered rivets replace metal pins, buttons are removable, pocketing fabrics include fiber made from recycled white T-shirts, and labels are made from GOTS-certified jacron, a paper-like material. In September 2017, the brand initiated a two-week collection campaign in Belgium, where it collected over 6,000 pairs of old jeans that were sorted and recycled into new denim. Fibres made from the non-wearable jeans were blended with Tencel and woven back into denim fabric in Italy.

This year again, it will host a second harvesting campaign asking consumers to donate unwanted denim to create a new collection. The same phenomenon would continue for years in order to enhance recycling initiative. In order to be sustainable, HNST shares its supply chain partners, from spinning (the European Spinning Group) to dyeing (Italy-based PureDenim), as well as a breakdown of the costs.

Working on bottlenecks

Kuyichi currently uses up to 20 per cent of PCRD fibre in its jeans to maintain quality and hand feel. There are limitations in the percentages of how much recycled denim and cotton one can add to a garment because the fibers are shorter. This also limits the possibilities of fabric. It’s time consuming to ensure that the quality of fabric is what you want, Damen said. However, she emphasised that Kuyichi’s supply chain is motivated by the idea of PCRD and its potential. It’s also time consuming to decipher what’s inside post-consumer garments. HNST created its own protocol and testing to ensure it is using high quality PCRD fibers, but the company fears that other companies may not take on that responsibility. The denim industry needs to come together to bring in checks in place to prevent other substances from staying in the loop.

Consumer connect

Limitations can be managed once companies start interacting with the customers. As Smits highlights, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to designing and promoting PCRD—or sustainability for that matter. There’s a difference between brands that have differentiated themselves on sustainability to start, and a regular jeans brand that starts to communicate about this. However, one fact that all denim brands should take into account is there’s a large growing group of consumers that care about this. The Alliance for Responsible Denim is working on developing a tool box for brands, so they know what questions to ask suppliers, what certifications or standards to look for and how to share this information with end user.

Kuyichi is in the process of making a menu that shares with consumers what new sustainable innovations the brand has added into the makeup of its jeans, where and how it was made and the certification standards it meets. The way Damen sees it, young generations buying denim right now are engaged in sustainability thought and want to make a difference through their buying behaviour. There are huge benefits communicating this story to the consumers because they want to be part of this change.

Inditex , the world's largest clothing retailer and owner of the Zara chain, is developing new technologies, collaborating with tech firms and hiring talent from start-ups. The company has an innovation unit that tests ways of improving stock handling. It has collaborated with California-based Fetch Robotics to test robots to work in stock inventory. It has also partnered with chipmaker Intel to create devices that can quickly gauge the volume of clothing in boxes.

Inditex is focusing on areas like "location intelligence", ultrasound technology used to track footfall in stores, as well as virtual assistants to help customers. Location intelligence allows apps to switch to "instore" mode when a customer enters a store, so the customer can locate products and receive offers. Inditex has also formed development partnerships with technology companies like Jetlore, which uses artificial intelligence to predict consumer behaviour, and Spanish big data start-up El Arte de Medir.

Fast fashion pioneer r21 Holdings has made three new appointments. Laurie Van Brunt was appointed President and CEO of the company. Van Brunt was earlier engaged with Chico’s FAS, Inc, where she was President of Soma Intimates from 2010 to 2017. Here, she led the transformation of the company by repositioning the brand as an omni-channel intimates brand and elevating the fashion aesthetic to fill an opportunity in the market, growing sales from $87 million to $350 million.

Michele Pascoe has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the company. Pascoe was earlier with from Alvarez & Marsal, a financial consulting firm, where she provided financial advisory services for various retail organizations. She began her fashion business career at the Warnaco Group in 1989. She remained in the company assuming progressively more senior positions in the intimates, sportswear, and swimwear brands.

Stephen Sommers has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the company. Employed earlier as Vice President Global Brand Marketing from 2012 to 2016 at Under Armour, the sports apparel company, where he focused on brand marketing by both category and lifestyle, and delivered major campaigns for bricks and mortar, digital and ecommerce, as well as building categories such as footwear.