LA-based womenswear brand Reformation is believed to be preparing to confidentially file an initial public offering (IPO) in the coming week, with plans to potentially go public in July, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Reports suggest that the company has been mulling an IPO for years, with rumours of such discussions spanning as far back as 2023, when Bloomberg reported on a potential public listing.

The brand is said to be on track to rake in more than 500 million dollars in revenue this year, an increase of 40 percent on its 2023 turnover.

Sales are largely driven by its direct channels, with 70 stores located globally, including five in London. It also operates via retail partners like Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Liberty.

Founded in 2009, Reformation has remained under the majority ownership of Permira since 2019. At the time, stakes in the business were retained by CEO Yael Aflalo, president Hali Borenstein, and investor Stripes Group, which remained a partner.

The brand emphasises a commitment to sustainable materials, and operates via a vertically integrated model for both manufacturing and distribution.

Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, an heir to Ray-Ban parent company EssilorLuxottica, is believed to be seeking expanded influence over the eyewear conglomerate's holding company as the future of the empire's ownership structure comes into question.

According to Reuters, the 31-year-old executive, who serves as chief strategy officer at EssilorLuxottica and chairman of Ray-Ban, is reportedly exploring financing worth around 10 billion euros to acquire the stakes of two siblings in Delfin, the Luxembourg-based holding company that owns 32.4 percent of EssilorLuxottica.

If completed, the transaction would increase Del Vecchio's holding in Delfin from 12.5 percent to 37.5 percent, making him the company's largest shareholder.

The move follows the death of EssilorLuxottica founder Leonardo Del Vecchio in 2022, when ownership of the family holding company was divided equally among eight heirs. Since then, differing views among shareholders have reportedly complicated decision-making within the group.

Despite potentially gaining a significantly larger stake, Del Vecchio would not gain full control of Delfin, as major strategic decisions require enhanced shareholder majorities under governance rules established by the founder.

The news comes after EssilorLuxottica reported a weakening profit in fiscal 2025, despite an improvement to global revenues. For the year, group net profit dropped 1.9 percent to 2.32 billion euros, while operating profit fell 2 percent year-over-year.

Annual revenue for the period rose 7.5 percent to 28.49 billion euros, with double digit growth seen across North America, EMEA and Asia-Pacific.

The group is currently initiating a medtech strategy that sees it pivot from traditional eyewear towards a holsitic healthcare ecosystem, driven by the vertical integration of medical research and advanced devices to create therapeutic treatments and connected wearables.

Reju has joined Recycling Europe as the organisation’s newest partner. The textile-to-textile recycling firm is now part of the Recycling Europe Textiles branch, underlining what it says is a commitment to advancing textile circularity and supporting recycled materials markets.

In a statement, Reju’s chief executive officer, Patrik Frisk, said: “Building partnerships like this one are important and we have the opportunity to establish a genuine circular ecosystem for textile recycling and invite collaboration across the entire value chain.”

Recycling Europe’s secretary general, Julia Ettinger, added that the “partnership shows how industry collaboration can scale textile circularity at the speed Europe now needs – unlocking both environmental and economic opportunity”.

With a focus on textile regeneration, Reju specialises in creating solutions for polyester textiles and post-consumer PET waste. It currently operates from a pilot Regeneration Hub in Frankfurt, Germany, and has revealed plans to expand through future industrial sites in Chemelot, the Netherlands; New York, US; and Lacq, France.

By joining Recycling Europe Textiles, Reju will collaborate on a collective mission to scale mechanical and chemical recycling technologies for post-consumer textiles, transitioning them back to raw materials and reducing emissions.

Plans for a new round of US-Iran talks have been postponed after US vice president JD Vance delayed a scheduled visit to Switzerland, slowing progress on the implementation of a recently signed ceasefire agreement.

The talks were due to focus on the next phase of a 14-point memorandum of understanding (MoU) agreed earlier this week, which brought to an end nearly four months of conflict between the two countries and paved the way for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The waterway is one of the world's most important shipping routes, connecting manufacturers and suppliers across Asia and the Gulf with European and US markets. Recent disruptions in the region have raised concerns around freight costs, shipping delays and supply chain reliability.

The MoU includes the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, the restoration of commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the gradual removal of US sanctions and a commitment to negotiate a final agreement within 60 days.

While shipping traffic is said to have begun to recovering following the deal, uncertainty remains, particularly amid renewed violence in Lebanon, where Israeli strikes reportedly killed at least 18 people overnight.

Upcoming negotiations are expected to focus on implementing the agreement and addressing longer-term issues, including Iran's nuclear programme, as governments and businesses work towards ensuring stability for global trade routes.

October’s Very Own (OVO), the lifestyle and apparel label co-founded by rapper Drake, is facing a lawsuit over allegations of partial debt repayments and contractual breaches. The claims have been made by A.R.I. OVO Growth Capital, which said despite previous attempts to resolve legal issues, it now sought to enforce its rights and protect investors.

The investment firm, which commenced litigation in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, is seeking the recovery of around 4.6 million dollars in relation to owed funds, contractual default interest, legal fees and other expenses.

A.R.I. established a financing agreement with OVO in early 2025, injecting funding via separate transactions, including a senior secured credit facility and convertible promissory notes. The firm said it had initially viewed the globally-recognised brand as an attractive credit opportunity with substantial value enterprise potential.

OVO was founded in 2008 by Aubrey ‘Drake’ Graham, Oliver El-Khatib, and Noah ‘40’ Shebib, and is currently helmed by chief executive officer Derek ‘Drex’ Jancar. The brand sits within the premium lifestyle and luxury streetwear segment, and has become known for its activations across fashion, music, and sports.

Tensions heighten following acquisition rumours and equity raising efforts

In February 2026, however, OVO was alleged to have defaulted under the governing agreements after failing to repay debts on time. A.R.I. said it had worked to remedy the situation outside of court and ultimately entered into a forbearance agreement in which OVO approved the validity of unconditional payable obligations.

In a statement, the firm noted that it had “worked extensively with OVO through a formal workout process and provided the company substantial time and flexibility to resolve the situation outside of court”.

By May, A.R.I. claimed to have received a wire payment of around 3.8 million dollars transferred from a third-party account, making up part of the 4.6 million dollars owed. According to the case filing, however, OVO is alleged to have taken a stance that no further payments are withstanding.

Concerns over the deal were heightened upon A.R.I. learning of OVO’s reported efforts to secure a 30 million dollar equity financing transaction, which it said may be used to repay approximately 10 million dollars of indebtedness. The company is also believed to be facing approximately 12 million dollars in cumulative losses between 2022 and 2024.

A.R.I. further pointed to a recent report by media platform Puck that suggested OVO was mulling a transaction with Authentic Brands Group, which is believed to be considering the acquisition of 50 percent ownership. The investment firm said such discussions should have been disclosed as part of the contractual agreement.

FashionUnited has contacted OVO and Authentic Brands Group with a request to comment.

Zurich - Swiss watch exports remained almost stable in May, recording a modest increase of 0.4 percent to 2.1 billion Swiss francs, amid a sharp decline in China, the watch federation announced on Thursday.

This stabilisation, however, helps “to mitigate the cumulative decline observed over the first five months of the year,” the federation noted in a statement. The decline since the beginning of January now stands at 3.1 percent.

During the past month, Swiss watch exports rebounded by 12.3 percent to the US and by 24.9 percent to the UK, according to the watch federation's records.

France, however, showed the strongest increase among the major watch markets. Growth there amounted to 57 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. The federation highlighted that France is “driven by its role as a logistics hub” for re-exporting watches to other markets.

In contrast, exports to China fell by 21.4 percent, dampening hopes of a recovery in this key market for Swiss watchmakers.

These statistics “probably confirm that Chinese demand is mixed,” reacted Jefferies analysts in a market commentary. This comes as statistics since the beginning of the year had suggested an improvement after two difficult years in this market.

The basis for comparison was, however, “weak,” notes Manuel Lang, an analyst at Vontobel. For Lang, this drop in May “could serve as a warning for those who were betting on a recovery in China.”

After reaching peaks in 2023, the Swiss watch industry has experienced two more difficult years with the fall in demand in China since 2024, to which were added customs duties in the US in 2025. A glimmer of recovery seemed to be emerging in China in the watch federation's statistics since the beginning of 2026.

Watch exports to China had recovered by 5 percent in January, then fell by 11 percent in February but rebounded by 4.2 percent the following month. In April, they strengthened significantly, recording an increase of 17.1 percent.

The temperature is 35 degrees celsius but feels like 40 degrees due to the humidity. The air is stifling, the garment dust making it hard to breathe. The old ceiling fan is creaking and full of dust too, barely cooling the air. Workers, used to not drinking too much to avoid frequent bathroom breaks, sip on water spiked with electrolytes but fainting, nose bleeds and heatstroke are common.

What sounds like a dystopian narrative is very much a reality in many garment factories right now. The heat wave that is currently gripping large parts of South and Southeast Asia is stalling work in garment and textile factories and making workers’ lives even harder.

A strong El Niño is currently pumping massive reservoirs of oceanic heat into the atmosphere, compounding the long-term effects of human-induced climate change to drive global temperatures to record-breaking levels: 38 degrees Celsius in India and between 32 to 34 degrees Celsius in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

If you have ever exited a plane that just landed and been exposed to the jet exhaust for a few seconds while doing so, imagine being in there for hours. Across Asia, this is what it feels like at the moment, with shifting tropical weather patterns suppressing rainfall and weakening trade winds, thus trapping stagnant, dry air over the continent and triggering prolonged, extreme heatwaves. Heat strain starts from a temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius; heat stress from 32 degrees Celsius.

What is heat stress?

A recent report by the NYU Stern Centre for Business and Human Rights, entitled “Too Hot to Ignore: Extreme Heat in Garment Supply Chains,” warns the garment and textile industry not to ignore heat stress. The World Health Organization identifies heat stress as the leading cause of weather-related deaths. It occurs when the body cannot cool itself sufficiently through sweating and thus experiences symptoms like headaches, heat exhaustion, heatstroke, kidney damage, reproductive health issues or aggravated underlying health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma and mental health disorders. Heat stress arises when individuals are exposed to excessive heat and humidity or undertake strenuous activity in hot environments - such as working in a garment factory for instance.

The report makes the point that climate-driven extreme heat can no longer be dismissed as a distant environmental concern; it has rapidly transformed into a core operational hazard. It underlines that rising ambient temperatures and soaring humidity levels across South and Southeast Asia are actively disrupting production ecosystems right now. It reframes extreme heat not merely as a peripheral sustainability metric, but as an immediate occupational safety and health crisis that fundamentally threatens the resilience of the global fashion supply chain.

To substantiate these findings, the research methodology employed by the NYU Stern team combined broad corporate tracking with deep, localised field analysis across India, the world’s sixth-largest garment exporter that is increasingly exposed to extreme heat.

The researchers conducted on-site investigations across ten apparel factories, collectively employing nearly 9,000 workers and spanning key industrial states, including Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Odisha, Maharashtra and Karnataka. They supply brands for the domestic (D-mart, V-mart, Joki) and international market (Jack & Jones, Levi’s, Marks & Spencer, Primark, S.Oliver, Target, Tom Tailor, Uniqlo and others).

The empirical fieldwork included interviews with approximately 80 workers onsite at nine of the factories and a further 40 interviews with them off-site to get a feel for heat exposure at living conditions. The report also tracked internal environmental variables and evaluated medical-room logs across multiple facilities to capture seasonal health spikes. Additionally, the researchers surveyed international footwear and apparel brands to evaluate the stark misalignment between corporate awareness and actual compliance oversight on the factory floor.

What physical and financial toll does heat stress take on workers?

The human toll of this escalating climate crisis falls square on the individuals operating the sewing lines. The report documents how indoor microclimates in manufacturing facilities often eclipse the dangerous conditions found outdoors, particularly within heavily industrialised zones. For instance, researchers recorded indoor temperatures reaching a staggering 43 to 45 degrees Celsius inside a fabric dyeing and processing unit, which actually exceeded the outside ambient heat by as much as 5 degrees Celsius. This oppressive indoor environment triggers severe physiological strain, with workers frequently reporting acute episodes of dizziness, chronic headaches, debilitating dehydration, fainting, skin rashes and severe kidney or urinary complications brought on by a lack of proper cooling and restricted rest periods.

Crucially, this physical suffering translates into a severe financial penalty for a workforce that is already heavily economically marginalised. The report reveals that heat-related healthcare costs and defensive expenditures—such as buying electrolytes or paying for medical treatment—drain between 500 and 1,000 rupees (5.30 to 10.60 US dollars) per month from a worker's pocket. Given that average monthly garment wages in these regions hover between 11,500 and 18,000 rupees (around 122 to 190 US dollars), these climate-induced out-of-pocket expenses represent a devastating chunk of household income. This financial erosion is compounded by immediate wage losses whenever workers are forced to take unpaid sick days due to heat exhaustion, illustrating how the poorest stakeholders in the fashion ecosystem absorb the direct economic shocks of global warming.

What does heat stress mean for factories and supply chains?

From a strictly commercial standpoint, the report outlines how extreme heat actively dismantles factory efficiency and compromises product standards during peak summer periods. Factory managers interviewed across nine operating facilities reported measurable productivity drops ranging from 3 to 10 percent during intense heatwaves, alongside an increase in worker absenteeism of roughly 2 to 5 percent. The physical toll on the workforce forces a natural slowing of the production pace, which directly jeopardises tight delivery schedules. Furthermore, extreme heat strains the machinery itself, causing frequent generator overloads and grid outages, such as an incident in April 2024 at a Faridabad knitwear facility that forced the complete closure of an entire production floor.

Beyond volume drops, the physical realities of a sweating workforce degrade the actual quality of the garments being manufactured. Excessive worker perspiration leads to fabric staining, while open windows and struggling ventilation systems allow external dust contamination to compromise clean assembly lines, resulting in a spike in stitching errors and structural defects.

“Extreme heat is now a predictable supply chain risk for apparel brands. Factories are losing output, quality is suffering and delivery timelines are at risk, not as a future scenario, but right now,” notes Lucy Siers, senior research scientist for global labour at the NYU Stern Centre. This reality forces manufacturers to choose between absorbing the costs of rejected merchandise or facing stiff penalties from brands for late shipments.

Whose responsibility is heat stress?

The broader narrative of the report exposes a profound governance failure within global fashion supply chains, characterised by a severe imbalance of power and responsibility. The researchers found that while 94.1 percent of international brands surveyed openly acknowledge that extreme heat poses a moderate to significant threat to their operations, their internal purchasing practices tell a completely different story. Only 35.3 percent of these brands mandate that their suppliers track internal heat or humidity levels, and absolutely zero brands collect this data on a continuous basis. This creates a convenient informational blind spot, allowing multi-national retailers to demand strict compliance with labour standards while remaining entirely ignorant of the literal sweatshop conditions their pricing structures perpetuate.

This operational disconnect means that the immense financial burden of climate adaptation is pushed entirely onto the suppliers. Tight purchasing margins, volatile order volumes and brutally short lead times imposed by brands systematically starve factory owners of the capital needed to invest in necessary structural overhauls.

Michael Posner, Director of the NYU Stern Centre, addresses this systemic failure directly, arguing that brands sourcing from heat-exposed regions have a clear commercial and ethical mandate to remain and assist: “The answer is not to walk away from these sourcing regions and leave workers and suppliers behind. It is to invest in making them more resilient by requiring heat monitoring, setting clear safety standards, building flexibility into purchasing practices when heat disrupts production and sharing the cost of cooling and ventilation upgrades."

Key recommendations

To redress these structural vulnerabilities, the report offers a series of targeted, non-negotiable recommendations for all key actors across the textile value chain, starting with global buyers. First, brands and retailers must formally categorise extreme heat as a core occupational safety hazard and integrate continuous indoor temperature monitoring into their standard supplier audits.

They are urged to move towards a shared-responsibility financial model, co-funding engineering upgrades like passive cooling infrastructure and high-volume fan installations, while building explicit timeline flexibility into production schedules during heatwaves. A successful precedent is highlighted at Epic Group’s Bhubaneswar facility, where a joint financial partnership with the International Finance Corporation utilised automated systems to maintain a stable indoor environment of 28 degrees Celsius.

Simultaneously, the report calls for aggressive intervention from domestic governments and international industry regulators to codify these protections. National regulatory bodies must establish legally binding indoor workplace temperature thresholds and enforceable work-rest schedules that trigger automatically when specific heat indices are breached. Governments should also extend existing national heat action plans to formally encompass indoor industrial environments and classify heat stress as a compensable occupational illness within state-sponsored social protection frameworks.

Finally, suppliers must implement immediate local safeguards, such as ensuring worker wages are fully protected during heat-induced output drops, and establishing democratised factory committees to give workers a direct voice in identifying and mitigating heat risks on the floor.

Hollister is venturing into the home and decor category as part of a collaborative collection with Target. The US lifestyle label has designed a line for college dorm rooms or bedrooms, marking an expansion beyond apparel alone to cater to evolving consumer needs.

The first drop, set to launch June 28, includes nearly 60 pieces across men’s and women’s apparel and bedding, including twin/twin XL and full/queen comforters and sheets; wearable throw blankets; decorative and study buddy pillows; and weighted plushies. A line of fleece tops and bottoms, sleep pants and sleep shorts complement the range.

In a statement, Corey Robinson, chief product officer of Hollister’s parent company Abercrombie & Fitch Co., said the assortment was a translation of the brand’s details and draws on signature elements, like ditsy florals and stripes. “Each category is intentionally connected through a shared colour, print and pattern that allows customers to style what they wear and how they live in a cohesive way,” Robinson said.

The line, dubbed ‘The Hollister Collection at Target’, will become available via Hollister and Target’s respective e-commerce sites, as well as most Target stores and select Hollister stores. Further products will roll out ahead of the holiday season and in spring 2027.

Deckers Outdoor Corp has lost a high-profile lawsuit against Quince over look-alike iterations of Uggs’ Australian shearling boots.

A federal jury in California found that while Quince’s boots may have infringed on Deckers’ design patent, the patent itself was invalid due to functional, indefinite, and obvious design characteristics.

Deckers had first sued Quince back in 2023 over allegations of infringement for US Patent No. D927,161, a design patent that covers object designs instead of inventions, this one specifically in relation to the Ugg Classic Ultra Mini boot.

This latest decision is another blow to Deckers in this long-running dispute. The apparel group, which also owns Hoka and Teva, had previously brought trademark-related claims against Quince earlier in the legal battle.

Last year, however, a US district judge determined the Ugg design was too generic for trade dress protection.

Quince then filed an antitrust lawsuit against Deckers in February, accusing the Ugg owner of attempting to claim an improper monopoly over basic, category-wide footwear features like rounded toes and thick soles.

Sportswear retail giant Decathlon is doubling down on its employee ownership model by introducing a new scheme that grants eligible employees 2,000 euros in free shares or asset incentives.

Dubbed ‘The Decathlon Seed’, the initiative intends to “reflect the diversity of the group while maintaining a shared principle of fairness and value sharing”. The project allows staff to become “partners, co-owners, and co-responsible contributors to the company’s growth”, a press release explained.

Each employee will receive an allocation worth 2,000 euros, which will vest after three years. During that time, the value of the allocation will evolve alongside the company’s performance.

The launch of the programme, developed over the course of a year, comes as Decathlon celebrates its 50th anniversary. It expands on the company’s long-existing value proposition of sharing success, evident in the more than 56,000 employees that are already shareholders in the business.

Decathlon CEO, Javier López, commented: "With The Decathlon Seed, we are investing in the future by building on one of Decathlon's core values for the past 50 years: sharing the value we create together.

“The initiative is the result of collective work carried out with all our markets and our family shareholders, and reflects our conviction that value is created on the ground and should be shared with those who create it."

Original Penguin is venturing in a new direction. Under brand director Laura Colagrande, the US lifestyle brand is moving towards the accessible luxury sector for its spring/summer 2027 collection, which was unveiled for the first time at Pitti Uomo.

At the Florentine menswear fair, the label is housed in both a showroom and outdoor deck, where a full range of its collections, from Icons to Golf, sits alongside new categories, such as accessories, hats, and bags.

These complement what is described to be a “high-tier” SS27 collection, which features “elevated fabrics, advanced construction, and refined silhouettes”.

The new look comes ahead of major European expansion plans for Original Penguin, bolstered by the opening of a showroom in London earlier this year.

The company is currently eyeing growth in Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, and Scandinavia, while in the UK, its presence has expanded through a partnership with retailers like John Lewis.

Colagrande said the team was specifically plotting the rollout of wholesale and strategic distribution partnerships. She further revealed plans to open flagship stores in London, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, and Berlin over the next few years.

In a statement, Oscar Feldenkreis, CEO of Original Penguin’s parent company, Perry Ellis International, underlined the brand’s “distinct positioning” and said its return to Pitti served as a “statement of intent about where we’re taking this brand”.

“We are accelerating our European growth and moving Original Penguin into refined contemporary channels while staying true to the craftsmanship and storytelling that have defined us for more than seven decades,” Feldenkreis said.

The chief executive officer of Dr. Martens, Ije Nwokorie, has purchased around 85,600 pounds worth of shares in the footwear specialist, signalling a boost in confidence after the company reported a growth in profit for the fiscal year 2026.

A London Stock Exchange filing showed Nwokorie had snapped up 112,500 ordinary shares at a price of 0.761 pence each.

A separate form further revealed that Nwokorie and Giles Wilson, the company’s chief financial officer, had upped their holdings via the company’s Share Incentive Plan. According to the filing, both Nwokorie and Wilson secured 202 partnership shares at 74.37 pence per share, and further received a matching allocation of 202 free shares.

The news comes after Dr. Martens reported an improvement to performance amid an ongoing turnaround plan designed to pivot the brand from a channel-led to consumer-first operating model.

The company delivered a return to profit growth for the financial year ending March 29, 2026, with pre-tax profit rising 61 percent. A 2.9 percent drop in revenue reflected efforts to reduce clearance activity and wholesale reliance.

Looking ahead to FY27, Nwokorie said there was “more work to do” in pivoting the business as it enters the “scale phase” of its strategy by upping investment and initiating an improved retail strategy.

British retail giant Matalan has narrowed its annual losses and achieved a slight increase in total revenue for the full year, driven by its ongoing strategic transformation, improvements in its product ranges, and strong online performance.

For the 53 weeks ended 28 February 2026, total statutory revenues rose by 0.2 percent to 987 million pounds, up from 985 million pounds in the previous fiscal year. This growth was bolstered by a 10 percent increase in online sales and positive customer reception to core womenswear ranges, which helped the retailer gain volume market share.

Meanwhile, Matalan's loss before tax narrowed by 18 percent to 55 million pounds, down from 67 million pounds in the year prior. This bottom-line improvement was driven by tighter cost management and gross margin gains, which benefited from stronger product margins and reduced shipping costs, despite a discount-heavy UK retail market.

In a statement, Henrik Nordvall, who has helmed Matalan as CEO for just a few months, said: “We delivered strong EBITDA growth and improved gross margin in the period, despite a challenging and highly competitive retail environment, all while continuing to invest in the areas that are driving growth.”

He noted that a key driver of this progress was a "continued focus on delivering everyday style, quality and value for customers”, with positive responses seen towards its product offer and refreshed stores.

FY27 starts strongly as continued momentum expected

Looking forward, the company expects the momentum to continue into the 2027 fiscal year. In the first quarter, Matalan reported a revenue increase of 2 percent year-on-year, alongside market share gains in both volume and value.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter rose by 45 percent to 14.9 million pounds. The retailer plans to continue investing in its digital proposition, including the launch of a new mobile application later this year to support its omnichannel growth strategy.

Nordvall added: “While we remain mindful of the wider environment, we have started FY27 strongly, with positive sales growth and continued market share gains – particularly in womenswear.

“What gives us confidence is the scale of opportunity still ahead of us. With a large and loyal customer base, significant untapped omnichannel opportunity and clear evidence that our strategy is working, we believe the long-term growth opportunity for Matalan remains substantial.”

American Exchange Group (AEG) has announced a new partnership with WSG Brands in finalising the acquisition of Allbirds. The group, which revealed plans to acquire the US footwear brand in March, said it would split ownership and capabilities as part of the deal.

While WSG will serve as a key operating and growth partner, AEG will oversee design and manufacturing of the brand’s footwear. The partnership forms part of AEG’s long-term strategy for Allbirds, centred around strengthening the business under an asset-light model for its next phase of expansion.

The group intends to pursue new opportunities across product, retail, distribution, licensing and international markets, combining its expertise with WSG while preserving Allbirds’ "authenticity and values that have made the brand so distinctive”.

AEG’s chief executive officer, Alen Mamrout, noted that while Allbirds had already built a “globally recognised brand by bringing a distinct point of view to the market”, there was a “compelling opportunity to build on that foundation and unlock the brand’s next phase of growth”.

For AEG, specifically, the acquisition was described as an exciting milestone as the group continues to increase its focus on brands that have “strong consumer relevance, differentiated positioning, and significant long-term growth potential”.

WSG, meanwhile, has been diversifying its own portfolio of brands, having most recently acquired lifestyle label Von Dutch, where it is said to have “successfully executed a licensing-led growth strategy” that allowed for distribution, retail, category and market expansion.

In a statement, WSG Brands founder and CEO, Jack Cheika said: "We believe Allbirds represents one of the most compelling brand opportunities in the market today. The brand has built meaningful awareness and consumer affinity around the world.

“Our vision is to preserve what consumers love about Allbirds while expanding its reach into new categories, markets, and partnerships. Having successfully executed this strategy with Von Dutch, we are excited to begin the next chapter of growth alongside AEG."

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition was secured alongside a consortium of strategic investors, manufacturers, and operating partners. Further announcements are expected in the coming months.

Spanish fashion and lifestyle brand Ecoalf, a pioneer in promoting circularity and the use of more sustainable materials and processes within the fashion industry, has reported its results for its latest fiscal year. The company, founded by Javier Goyeneche, completed the 2025 financial year with a positive net profit for the first time.

According to information shared by the Spanish company's management, Ecoalf closed its 2025 fiscal year, which ended on February 28, 2026, with total turnover of 64.8 million euros. This figure represents an increase of 11.72 percent compared to the 58 million euros in revenue generated during the previous 2024 financial year.

In terms of profitability, the company reported Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) of 5.6 million euros, representing a year-over-year increase of 65.7 percent from the 3.4 million euros reported a year earlier. This translates into an EBITDA margin of 8.64 percent on sales and ultimately resulted in a net profit of 0.4 million euros, the first positive net profit in the company's history.

“Ecoalf closed the 2025 fiscal year with the best financial results since its founding, demonstrating that sustainability is not only compatible with business growth but can also become a scalable and profitable business model,” the company stated regarding its 2025 accounts. Management added that “transforming the industry does not require choosing between impact and profitability, but rather redesigning business models so that both can grow together.”

The results, they continued, “also reflect the company's strategic evolution in recent years, increasing the weight of direct channels to build a closer relationship with consumers and a more balanced growth model.”

40 Percent of Sales Generated Through the B2B Channel

Reflecting this evolution during the 2025 financial year, Ecoalf maintained a balanced business model across its distribution and sales channels. The model was slightly led by its wholesale and business-to-business (B2B) operations, which accounted for 40 percent of total sales, equivalent to approximately 25.92 million euros. Physical retail operations represented 38 percent of annual sales, or around 24.62 million euros, while online sales accounted for the remaining 22 percent, totalling approximately 14.25 million euros.

Although the company did not provide a detailed breakdown by market or geography, it highlighted that Ecoalf continued to expand its global retail network throughout the year. This expansion helped strengthen its identity as an international brand, with notable store openings in Biarritz, France; Bolzano, Italy; and Tokyo, Japan. In Spain, the company opened stores in key locations including San Sebastián, Bilbao, Madrid, and Barcelona.

Alongside its commitment to retail and direct-to-consumer channels, the brand also continued investing in what remained its primary revenue stream in 2025. It secured new commercial agreements with leading international multi-brand retailers. Partnerships for the distribution of its collections include prominent department stores such as La Rinascente in Italy, Kastner & Öhler in Austria, and Manufactum in Germany.

First Impact Profit and Loss Account

In an effort to translate the environmental and social value generated by its business model into economic terms, Ecoalf conducted its first Impact Accounting exercise. This resulted in the publication of its first Impact Profit and Loss Account (Impact P&L).

The report is based on a double materiality analysis, assessing both the impact of the company's operations on society and the environment and the influence of environmental and social factors on the business itself.

As a result, 121 impacts, risks, and opportunities (IROs) were identified as relevant to Ecoalf's activities and value chain. Of these, 45 were classified as materially significant, including 26 impacts, 12 risks, and 11 opportunities. These factors will serve as a framework for future business decisions from a long-term perspective.

Ecoalf's first Impact P&L also includes a series of preliminary findings. Among them, the company highlights a net positive impact of 0.02 euros for society and the planet for every euro of sales generated. This compares favourably with the sector benchmark, which reflects a negative impact of -0.06 euros per euro of sales.

“Although these are preliminary results, they point to a very relevant conclusion,” the company emphasised: “the more Ecoalf grows, the better it is for the planet.”

The company added: “Traditionally, company accounts have only reflected financial performance, leaving out the impacts generated on society and the environment. Impact Accounting seeks to incorporate these aspects into the same language used for business and investment decision-making.”

By integrating business performance with impact metrics, Ecoalf aims to strengthen decision-making, improve dialogue with investors and financial institutions, anticipate regulatory requirements, and continue demonstrating that sustainability can scale.

“The future competitiveness of companies,” the company concluded, “will depend not only on revenue growth but also on their ability to create measurable value across financial, environmental, and social dimensions.”

The Paris Commercial Court ordered the opening of receivership proceedings for the company Coperni on June 11, 2026. The observation period will expire on December 11, 2026.

The date for the suspension of payments was set for May 29, 2026. Creditors have a two-month period from the publication of the judgment in the BODACC to file their claims with the court-appointed administrator.

According to Coperni, cited by Vogue Business, the cash flow difficulties do not stem from a slowdown in commercial activity but from the non-payment of sums owed by Tomorrow Ltd., its majority shareholder and exclusive distributor.

Observation period open until December 2026

Since the acquisition of Tomorrow by the Italian company Progetto 11 in March 2026, Coperni's founders, Arnaud Vaillant and Sébastien Meyer, have reportedly been seeking to regain control of their brand. According to Vogue Business, discussions are still ongoing.

Tensions with the shareholder have reportedly already had operational consequences. Coperni notably decided against holding a show during Paris Fashion Week in March 2026.

During the observation period, which runs until December 11, 2026, the company will continue its activities under the assistance of the court-appointed administrator. This phase is intended to establish an economic and financial diagnosis of the company and to explore various options, including a recovery plan, the entry of new investors, or a potential sale.

The Digital Product Passport (DPP), part of the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), will create a standardised system for sharing comprehensive product data, from information about durability and recyclability to recycled content and environmental footprint.

“It is emerging as one of the most transformative regulatory and business shifts the fashion industry has faced in decades,” agree global trend forecaster Future Snoops (formerly Fashion Snoops) and enterprise SaaS (Software as a Service) platform GreenStitch in their joint report “Digital Product Passports: Designing for Future Regulation, Now.”

“While many organisations still see DPPs primarily as a compliance or IT initiative, the reality is far broader: DPPs will fundamentally reshape how products are designed, sourced, manufactured, marketed, sold, repaired, resold and valued across their entire lifecycle,” they emphasise.

The clock until implementation is ticking

Given that textile products placed on the EU market will require standardised digital product records linked to physical products only from mid to end 2029, many brands are under the impression that they still have time. But this is a misconception. “This is no longer a future watch item and action is required now. Brands should assume that DPP readiness will require robust product data, better design, upstream supplier engagement and efficient digital infrastructure able to support traceability, product transparency and lifecycle information at scale. In most cases, this will take 18-24 months to establish at scale.”

”The brands that win will be the ones that build for both compliance and commercial value from day one.“

In addition, the EU’s anti-greenwashing regulation (Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition, ECGT) is coming into force from September 2026, requiring brands to provide product-level data that is credible, structured, traceable and defensible. “Companies that wait until the 2028 Delegated Act risk entering the compliance window with fragmented data, disconnected systems, inefficient operations and significant compliance exposure,” warn Future Snoops and GreenStitch.

Three strategic directions

Growth, design decisions and digitalisation are the strategic perspectives to act on now. DPPs can create the digital product infrastructure needed to power resale, repair, authentication, customer engagement, warranty services, smarter product development and stronger sustainability claims, thus providing growth, efficiency and competitive edge. “The brands that win will be the ones that build for both compliance and commercial value from day one,” predict the organisations.

Some of the most critical drivers of DPP success are product design decisions as they determine material choices, fibre blends, trims, chemical treatments, construction methods and repairability. Thus, up to 80 percent of a product’s future compliance, circularity and commercial value is determined at the design st age.

Lastly, a company’s ability to digitise will determine how fast it can scale. DPPs will create massive data complexity across the fashion value chain, making manual management impossible. “Success will depend on software platforms, systems integration, automation and AI to manage and scale hundreds of product-level data points across materials, chemicals, suppliers, manufacturing, logistics and end-of-life pathways,” caution the report authors.

How can brands get started?

Future Snoops and GreenStitch recommend a five-step approach to DPP readiness. First, there needs to be a cross-functional DPP transformation team including design, sourcing, sustainability, IT, legal, finance, operations and marketing. The team should undertake a readiness gap assessment and audit all active sustainability marketing claims ahead of the ECGT directive enforcement in September. Unsubstantiated claims should be removed.

Second, brands should approach DPP design with business value in mind, not just compliance alone. “Build DPP use cases for resale, repair, authentication, aftercare and consumer engagement from the outset. Integrate DPP data requirements into new product development from the design stage, adding scoring tools to material and product approval processes,” advises the report.

Third, Tier 1, 2 and 3 supplier onboarding should start immediately. This includes assessing supplier data readiness early on, given that upstream traceability and data capture will be one of the most time-consuming elements of implementation. “Fabric mills, dye houses and material suppliers will likely create a big dat a bottleneck,” cautions the report.

The fourth step is to build the digital backbone, which includes a revision of existing systems like product lifecycle management (PLM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), lifecycle analysis (LCA) and traceability. This should identify any gaps in interoperability, data quality and scalability. “Prioritise digitalisation, system integration, automation and AI-enabled workflows to efficiently manage data,” advise Future Snoops and GreenStitch.

Last is the pilot phase, which is also a chance to learn and ultimately scale. Future Snoops and GreenStitch recommend to launch three to five product pilots in 2026 and 2027 to test data flows, technology integration, supplier readiness and consumer engagement. A roadmap covering governance, systems, process changes, AI enablement and readiness milestones will help, as well as monitoring evolving DPP technical standards to refine implementation plans as requirements are confirmed.

What kind of data will be required?

While the details for DPP data fields are still being worked out, core performance indicators or so-called design options (DOs) have emerged: The robustness score (DO1) assesses physical robustness of a garment after washing while the recyclability score (DO2) looks at blend composition and construction, both on a scale of 1 to 10. DO3, recycled content, determines the percentage of recycled fibre by mass and distinguishes between open-loop and closed-loop sources. DO4 looks at the carbon/environmental footprint of manufacturing (Tier 1– 3), likely including greenhouse gas emissions/carbon, energy, water and water pollution. Tier 4 will be likely excluded from Phase 1.

Other areas include substances of concern (SoC) like hazardous chemicals, microfibre risk with an initial qualitative classification and a potential move toward quantitative shedding metrics at a later point, supply chain traceability with mandatory Tier 1 facility identifiers and Tier 2-targeted, fibre composition and care, use and end-of-life guidance with contact details and instructions for repair services voluntary in this phase.

The advanced phase with a broader environmental and social data scope will start in 2033, requiring primary product specific LCA and full Tier-2 traceability. Social and due diligence fields are expected to enter the scope, as well as a quantitative microfibre shedding rate. The full circular phase will start from 2036 and be operational across the EU with real-time lifecycle tracking, cross-border data exchange and secondary data markets.

“A digital product passport is not just a compliance checkbox, it is the infrastructure for trust. When a brand can show, at the SKU level, exactly where a fibre came from, what its carbon footprint is, and how it should be handled at end-of-life , that product becomes legible to every stakeholder in the value chain. The brands that start building this data foundation today will already be ahead when DPP becomes a law within the next two to three years,“ sums up GreenStitch CEO Narendra Makwana.

How will consumers engage?

Current research, for example by Certilogo, shows that almost half (49 percent) of consumers are very or somewhat familiar with DPPs, more than previously thought. Transparency is the most appreciated benefit, with close to three fourths of consumers (71 percent) believing that DPPs will increase their trust in brands. “This trust comes from data, not claims, as consumers grow tired of green terms and far-reaching goals that amount to little,” states the report.

According to research by Authentique, a majority (90 percent) of consumers especially looks for material and composition, driven by both health and environmental considerations, followed by a certificate of authenticity (87 percent) from brands in view of counterfeiting concerns, especially when it comes to luxury products. Aftercare and repair instructions are third most likely to be used by consumers seeking to extend the lifetime of prized possessions.

Resale is perhaps “the most interesting element of DPPs for consumers” according to the report as 82 percent of consumers are looking to access product details and original imagery via DPPs. This aligns with data from Vogue Business according to which more than half (56 percent) of consumers would be more likely to purchase second hand items when a DPP is available. Warranty, sustainability data and rewards is also information that consumers would likely look for.

In terms of technical aspects, consumers are used to scanning QR codes, not only for fashion items. According to research by QR code management and marketing platform QRCodeChimp, close to half (44.6 percent) of global internet users scan at least one QR code per month and almost two thirds (64 percent) of shoppers have scanned a product QR code in-store. However, doing so requires a smartphone, internet access and digit al literacy to navigate QR inter face s and interpret data. “Elderly populations, lower-income consumers and those in digitally underserved regions lack one or more of these prerequisites. These communities are often the most impacted by fast fashion,” cautions the report.

Who has successfully implemented the DPP?

Brand case study: Nobody’s Child

London-based womenswear brand Nobody’s Child started in 2015 with the aim of improving its impact through design. More than half (51.4 percent) of all garments are designed with monomaterial fabrics and all styles are designed to be worn and re-worn. The brand’s partnership with the Reskinned platform facilitates easier recycling and resale.

DPP piloting began in 2023 with 25 products initially; currently, the DPP has been implemented on more than 1,500 stock keeping units (SKUs). Full collection implementation is planned for fall/winter 2025. The B Corp certified brand is currently working towards Tier 4 traceability across all collections, while finding ways to use DPP insights beyond compliance.

“Getting to where we are today hasn’t alway s been straightfor ward... [but]our approach remains the same as our overarching sustainability strategy: progress over perfection,” comments sustainability lead Philippa Grogan.

Among the brand’s key learnings is that good data and a strong, harmonised data architecture will create a solid foundation while supporting suppliers throughout the transition is also essential to success, as well as a cross-functional DPP task force, early adoption and scaling beyond pilots.

Supplier case study: Sutlej Textiles & Industries Ltd.

As one of India's largest integrated textile manufacturers, Sutlej Textiles & Industries Ltd. produces a wide range of spun yarns and fabrics for global brands across the UK, Europe and beyond. The company was committed to sustainability but lacked verifiable product data to proof it, hence decided on implementing the DPP for 75 yarn and fabric products through a hybrid approach: While GreenStitch enabled LCA methodology, DPP creation and regulator y tracking, Sutlej's own systems provided the manufacturing data backbone. It took just one month from kick-off to 75-product DPP coverage. Looking ahead, Sutlej plans to expand from gate-to-gate to cradle-to-gate LCA, broaden product category coverage and deepen supplier traceability.

“A Digital Product Passport is not a compliance document but a commercial argument. When environmental data sits next to price and lead time, sustainability stops being a cost and becomes your competitive advantage, ” states Sutlej CEO Ashish Kumar in the report.

A key recommendation for anyone starting out is to fix the data first before building passports as the DPP is only as reliable as its underlying data infrastructure. Another learning is to view the DPP as an analytical engine that provides operational insight, not just transparency. As seen on the brand’s side as well, ownership across departments and functions is key. In addition, sector-specific expertise matters as generic ESG platforms cannot replicate the process-level understanding that textile-specialist partners bring to the table. Last but not least, data reluctance is a trust problem, not a capability problem. Phased onboarding and clear data-use agreements can increase supplier engagement.

Ovs spa reported net sales of 381 million euros in the first quarter, an increase of 7 percent compared to the same period in 2025. Adjusted EBITDA jumped by 27 percent to 35.7 million euros.

During the period, the EBITDA margin on sales grew from 7.9 percent to 9.4 percent.

All major banners and brands performed excellently, with positive results in every product segment, the management explained in a note. Womenswear collections continue to see double-digit growth.

“The integration of Goldenpoint is proceeding excellently,” the company explained.

On a consolidated basis, net sales reached 397 million euros, an increase of 12 percent compared to the same period in 2025, with an adjusted EBITDA of 29.4 million euros.

In the quarter, the operating cash profile showed an improvement of 7.5 million euros. As of April 30, 2026, adjusted net financial debt was 260.6 million euros, with a leverage ratio further improving compared to April 30, 2025.

“In the quarter, the market was positive, with growth of around 2 percent. However, all of the Ovs group's main banners and brands experienced much higher growth, highlighting the increasing strength of our commercial positioning and the correctness of our product choices. Within the organic perimeter, Ovs and Upim grew by 7 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Stefanel achieved double-digit growth, reaching break-even during the period, which demonstrates a strong acceleration in its relaunch journey,” emphasised CEO Stefano Beraldo.

“The positive top-line performance recorded to date leads us to look with optimism at the remainder of the year. This is combined with the improved quality perception of the Ovs banner and the appreciation for our house of brands strategy. The strategy is particularly characterised by the excellent performance of Piombo and Les Copains, as well as all our other brands,” the management added.

CEO interview

Mustang returns to Pitti Uomo. Following its debut in January, the German denim brand now aims to establish concrete partnerships and drive its international expansion. In an interview, CEO Andreas Baur discusses wholesale strategy, product development and his goals for 2026.

You exhibited at Pitti Uomo for the first time in January and are now returning. What are your expectations for the trade fair?

Our first participation in January was an important step for Mustang. The quality of the conversations and the international interest clearly confirmed that Pitti Uomo is the right platform for us.

This time, our focus is on following up on these initial contacts, converting interest into concrete partnerships and positioning Mustang as a modern European denim and lifestyle brand with clear commercial relevance.

Which markets are you looking to enter?

Our goal is to continue to strategically expand Mustang's international presence. We are looking closely at key European markets where denim remains commercially strong and where Mustang's positioning as an authentic European denim brand resonates clearly.

At the same time, we are exploring selected international growth markets with the right partners. The goal is not to be present everywhere, but to grow where Mustang can be relevant, visible and profitable.

What is your overall expansion strategy in the wholesale sector?

Wholesale remains a central pillar of our growth strategy. We see considerable potential in developing high-quality international wholesale partnerships, especially with partners who understand the brand and can present Mustang at the point-of-sale in the right environment. Shop-in-shop concepts are also an important part of this approach, as they allow us to strengthen brand visibility and improve the customer experience. Overall, our strategy is selective and quality-oriented, not purely volume-driven.

Are you also planning to further expand your retail network?

We continue to pursue a disciplined retail strategy. Our focus is not on aggressive expansion, but on optimising the existing network and making targeted investments in locations where we see sustainable profitability and a clear brand impact. For us, every location must contribute both commercially and strategically.

It seems that your own outlet stores also play an important role in this...

Yes, outlets are a relevant part of our omnichannel model. They offer customers an accessible entry point to the Mustang brand and allow us to reach a broader audience in a controlled environment.

At the same time, they help us to manage different product channels efficiently. The crucial thing is to maintain a clear balance between our full-price channels and the outlet business, ensuring that each channel supports the brand and its positioning.

How has the year been for you so far?

The market environment remains challenging, especially as consumer sentiment in many markets continues to be subdued. Against this backdrop, we have further stabilised the business, improved efficiency and strengthened our operational base. We also continue to find that our core categories and general brand direction remain relevant to consumers and partners.

Overall, it is a year of consistent implementation and preparation for the next phase of growth.

Which products are currently selling particularly well?

Denim remains the clear core business and continues to define Mustang. We are also seeing solid performance in complementary categories such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, shirts and jackets. This confirms our development from a denim specialist to a broader lifestyle brand that remains connected to its roots.

How is the womenswear collection set to develop in the coming season?

In womenswear, we are seeing continued demand for a balanced mix of modern silhouettes and wearable fits. The focus is increasingly shifting to modern straight and wide-leg cuts, while slim-fits remain part of the range and skinny silhouettes are being deliberately scaled back.

We are refining the collection with updated styles; carefully crafted details; innovative fabric elements; and a higher-quality label concept. The aim is to offer denim that feels modern, feminine and easy to wear.

And for menswear?

In menswear, the focus remains on reliable fits, high quality and everyday comfort. A particular highlight is our newly developed Travel Denim collection, which includes jackets, shorts and long denim trousers. The pieces are made from exceptionally soft and comfortable denim and are designed for a mobile lifestyle. With their lightness, flexibility and functional comfort features, they are ideal for travel, long days on the go and effortless everyday life.

What other goals and plans do you have for Mustang?

After significant operational progress, we are now clearly in the next phase: sustainable, profitable growth. This includes expanding our international business, further developing our e-commerce and strengthening Mustang's positioning as a modern European denim and lifestyle brand.

Our heritage gives us credibility. Our focus is clearly on making the brand more relevant to today's consumers.

How do you want to close 2026?

Our clear priority for the rest of 2026 is to maintain stability in a challenging market while laying the foundations for scalable growth.

We will continue to strengthen our core denim business, improve profitability and develop selected growth opportunities in key markets. The aim is to end the year with a stronger operational base, a sharper brand profile and good momentum for the next phase of growth.

This interview was conducted in writing.

Rottendorf - S.Oliver Group announced on Tuesday the formation of a new joint venture with the Bischofswerda, Saxony-based retail company Private Textiles Holding GmbH (PTH Group).

The new joint venture, Brand Collective GmbH, will be responsible for “the takeover, continuation and strategic repositioning” of retail spaces previously operated by Catches, a multi-brand concept owned by the PTH Group.

“Specifically, around 18 locations will be transferred to the joint venture, rebranded and will continue to operate under the S.Oliver Group's brand and distribution concept in the future,” explained the company, which includes labels such as S.Oliver, Comma, Liebeskind Berlin, Copenhagen Studios and Lala Berlin. The launch is planned for the third quarter of this year.

S.Oliver to tap into growth potential in travel retail and East Germany

The agreement enables the S.Oliver Group to “specifically accelerate its market expansion, take advantage of existing location opportunities at short notice and tap into additional growth potential – especially in the travel retail segment and in East Germany,” a statement read.

Johannes Rellecke, one of the co-CEOs of the S.Oliver Group, explained the plans. “With Brand Collective GmbH, we are creating a scalable platform to quickly and efficiently occupy attractive retail locations and specifically expand our market penetration,” he explained in a statement. “The partnership with PTH allows us to combine operational excellence with strong brand management and thus capitalise on new growth opportunities in brick and mortar retail.”

Madrid – Alongside the presentation of its 2025 financial results, for the fiscal year running from March 1, 2025, to February 28, 2026, Tendam's chairman and chief executive officer, Jaume Miquel, has outlined the key points of the company's new Strategic Plan. He also detailed the terms and objectives for its execution. The company is accelerating this process starting this year, 2026.

Further to the information on the year-end results reported earlier, coinciding with the presentation of the 2025 results, Jaume Miquel held a series of meetings with journalists from Spanish general and financial media outlets, including Expansión, Cinco Días, El Confidencial and El Español. In these brief interviews, the chairman and chief executive officer of the owner of Cortefiel, Springfield and Women’secret discussed key aspects of the new strategic plan being implemented by the Spanish fashion multinational. The approach was more informal than what is typical for a company of Tendam's size and aspirations.

Miquel highlighted that this roadmap formed the basis of the “successful and orderly” transition, which concluded in July 2025 with the acquisition of 67.91 percent of its capital by the Emirati group 2PointZero, formerly known as Multiply, for approximately 880 million euros. He emphasised that this strategic plan was agreed upon as the business plan to be executed following 2PointZero's entry. The agreement was made between the new majority investor; the investment funds CVC Funds and PAI Partners, which remain as minority shareholders; and Tendam's management, led by Miquel.

With this context, everything discussed by Tendam's chairman and chief executive officer during his various meetings yesterday can be summarised into six main sections. These sections cover investment and shareholder remuneration commitments for this year; growth objectives for the physical channel; objectives for the online channel; diversification of its commercial offer; international business expansion; and its forecasts for the year-end and the medium term. We will now develop each of these areas in detail.

Investments of 100 million euros for 2026

Starting with the strategic area of capex investments, Tendam has maintained an investment level of between 40 and 50 million euros annually in recent years. This figure has been doubled for the current fiscal year to around 100 million euros, a clear sign of the acceleration in the execution of its new strategic plan in 2026. These committed funds will be used to drive the development and strategies of this roadmap, focusing on bringing the company closer to its short and medium-term objectives.

Additionally, in financial terms, Miquel highlighted the net financial debt of 304.3 million euros with which Tendam closed the 2025 fiscal year. This debt represents a financial leverage ratio of 1.32 times net equity, in line with the company's goal of maintaining it between one and 1.5. This rate will allow the company to establish its new shareholder remuneration policy, introducing a dividend based on the previous year's results equivalent to 60 percent of the net profit. In 2026, this remuneration commitment will lead to 2PointZero, CVC Funds and PAI Partners sharing approximately 67.2 million euros of the 112 million euros net profit recorded by Tendam in 2025.

Franchise absorption and 2,500 stores by 2030

Focusing on its performance by distribution and sales channels, starting with the physical channel, Tendam added 43 net new stores to its retail network in 2025, comprising 29 own stores and 14 franchises, ending the year with a total of 1,844 points of sale. The company has already surpassed this pace at the start of 2026. In the first quarter, it added 42 stores to its network, including 34 own stores and eight franchises, out of the more than 100 stores committed for this fiscal year. This means Tendam has added only one less store at the beginning of this year than it did throughout the entire 2025 fiscal year, again highlighting the company's acceleration in executing its new strategic plan.

Following this rapid progress in the first quarter of the year, the period from March 1 to May 31, Tendam currently has approximately 1,886 active stores. Another 58 stores are set to be added this year, which would leave the company ending 2026 with a network of about 1,944 points of sale. The objective is to increase this number by 556 stores to reach 2,500 open stores by 2030, of which 700 would be operated as franchises and 1,800 would be directly managed. This would involve adding 600 more own stores to the nearly 1,200 the company currently operates. This goal demonstrates a stronger and more decisive commitment to a direct-to-consumer sales model. Tendam's CEO also mentioned that the company is considering a selective buyback of franchises. This process could even occur at a market-wide level, involving the absorption of operations or the creation of joint ventures to allow the company greater control over its operations in key countries.

More omnichannel, and more third-party brands

Regarding the online channel, Tendam appears more than satisfied with its digital performance. In 2025, the group's online sales grew by +12.9 percent, accounting for 17 percent of the company's total sales. This growth occurred while the return rate remained at 26 percent, compared to the industry average of 35 percent, as cited by Miquel.

Key factors contributing to this strong performance, which the company will continue to focus on, include its omnichannel approach. This strategy has resulted in 28 percent of digital sales being made in its stores; 54.8 percent of online purchases being collected in-store; and 82.3 percent of online purchase returns being processed at the group's brand outlets. Additionally, loyalty clubs with over 27.6 million members help reduce return rates because the “member” knows their size well. The company also promotes a commercial offer more aligned with a “slow fashion” model than “fast fashion,” encouraging more considered purchases over impulse buys.

This stance needs to be analysed to see how it aligns with the widespread discount policy that Tendam's main brands maintain throughout the year. In any case, these brands are also seeing their sales operations, both physical and online, boosted by the inclusion of third-party brands in their stores and platforms. This is a risky move, currently involving some 211 third-party brands. Miquel only plans to limit this if cannibalisation of the group's own brands is detected. He assures that this has not happened to date, so the company will continue to supplement its offer with third-party brands.

Acquisition of a new brand for 2026

In line with 2PointZero's ambitions to make Tendam the key element of its new retail vertical, the Emirati group's intentions to expand its fashion portfolio through new acquisitions to fuel inorganic growth are well known. Tendam's chairman and chief executive officer has confirmed that the company expects to make its first acquisition under the 2PointZero umbrella in 2026, or at least to announce it before the end of the year.

In this regard, Miquel reiterated that the company's objective is to strengthen its portfolio of own brands by acquiring Spanish and/or foreign companies that are financially solvent and not in “distress” or at risk of default. This contrasts with the case of Hoss Intropia, which was acquired during its liquidation process in 2019. The aim is to acquire firms that can gain momentum with the support of the Spanish fashion multinational, following the example of Slowlove, the brand by Sara Carbonero and Isabel Jiménez acquired by Tendam in 2021. That acquisition, however, would not fully align with the new purchasing policy guidelines. It is added that Tendam's goal for its first acquisition under 2PointZero is to secure a more established, medium-sized firm with a mid-range profile, which is neither a “fast fashion” nor a luxury brand. From there, the focus will shift to larger companies.

Completing the information on this matter, Miquel ruled out the company launching any other own brand created “in-house” for now. This diversification strategy previously led Tendam to strengthen its portfolio after the pandemic outbreak with the creation and launch of the brands High Spirits, Dash and Stars, OOTO and Hi&Bye, with Springfield Kids as the latest launch. The strategy now is to consolidate by giving each of its native brands its own “space” in the market. To this end, and in line with the strategy to reach 2,500 stores by 2030, the hundred new stores committed for 2026 will open mainly under the names of Tendam's newer and currently smaller brands, such as Hoss Intropia, Slowlove, OOTO or Dash and Stars.

Larger international footprint

Regarding its performance by market, Tendam's main ambition through the implementation of its new strategic plan is to sustainably and consistently boost its international footprint. This currently accounts for 440.19 million euros, or 30 percent of the 1.47 billion euros in revenue the company generated in 2025. They plan to increase this percentage to between 40 and 50 percent by 2030, as the group's brands drive growth outside of Spain and enter new markets.

On this subject, following its entry into Romania in 2025, the company does not rule out entering a new market in 2026. However, its growth strategies will primarily focus on Mexico, in addition to Spain, as well as the strategic markets of Portugal, Hungary and the Balkan region. Regarding the Middle East, a priority region for the company following the entry of the Emirati group and where Tendam operates through some 200 points of sale, Miquel claims performance has been better than expected since the outbreak of the conflict in Iran. This has not prevented the company from recording a drop in sales in the region, where its growth strategies are on hold. They hope to reactivate these plans as soon as the situation stabilises.

Doubling sales and profits by 2030

Finally, after a first quarter in 2026 where the company achieved sales of 288.2 million euros (+10.4 percent) and an EBITDA of 62.7 million euros (+11.9 percent), Tendam expects to close the fiscal year with a revenue increase of between +8 and +10 percent. This growth will keep the company on track to meet its medium-term objectives, which involve doubling the sales volume and profitability recorded at the end of 2025 by the 2030 fiscal year. In the five years until then, Tendam's forecast and goal is to boost its turnover to nearly 2.9 billion euros and its net profit to around 220 million euros.

The US global retail platform Vince Holding Corp. (VNCE) has reported its financial results for the first quarter ended May 2, 2026. Net sales for the company increased 10.5 percent to 64.04 million dollars compared to 57.93 million dollars in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.

The year-over-year (YoY) growth was driven by a 15.6 percent increase in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) segment, which reached 31.97 million dollars. The wholesale segment also experienced growth, with sales increasing 5.9 percent to 32.07 million dollars.

Operating losses decrease as margins improve

Gross profit for the quarter rose to 32.39 million dollars, representing 50.6 percent of net sales, compared to 29.16 million dollars, or 50.3 percent of net sales, in the prior year period. The gross margin expansion was supported by approximately 130 basis points from higher pricing and 100 basis points due to lower discounting, which helped offset the impact of higher tariffs.

Selling, general, and administrative expenses were 35.04 million dollars, or 54.7 percent of sales, compared to 33.60 million dollars, or 58.0 percent of sales, in the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Loss from operations narrowed to 2.65 million dollars from a loss of 4.44 million dollars in the same period last year.

Net loss for the company decreased to 2.10 million dollars, or 0.16 dollars per share, compared to a net loss of 4.80 million dollars, or 0.37 dollars per share, in the first quarter of the previous fiscal year. Adjusted EBITDA was minus 1.13 million dollars, improving from minus 3.03 million dollars YoY.

Full year guidance raised on strong momentum

The brand ended the quarter operating 54 corporate stores, reflecting a net decrease of four retail locations since the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Total borrowings under debt agreements stood at 29.13 million dollars at the close of the period, with 31.20 million dollars available under its revolving credit facility. Net inventory increased to 70.81 million dollars, including 4.50 million dollars in higher carrying costs related to tariffs.

Vince Holding Corp. chief executive officer, Brendan Hoffman, stated that the results demonstrate accelerated business momentum across both channels. Hoffman noted that strategic investments in customer experience contributed to double-digit growth in new and reactivated customers while supporting full-price selling.

For the second quarter of fiscal 2026, the company expects net sales to increase between 10 percent and 12 percent compared to the prior year period. For the full fiscal year 2026, the group has raised its outlook, now forecasting a net sales increase of approximately 7 percent to 8 percent YoY.

Canadian specialty apparel retailer Reitmans (Canada) Limited [RCL] has announced its financial results for the first quarter ended May 2, 2026, revealing progress in narrowing its net loss amid an ongoing strategic transformation.

Net revenues for the Montreal-based company grew 0.8% to 160.1 million Canadian dollars during the quarter, compared with 158.9 million Canadian dollars for the first quarter ended May 3, 2025. This growth was achieved despite operating seven fewer stores year-over-year. Net revenues from brick and mortar retail stores increased by 2.9%, driven by locations not included in comparable sales that benefited from investments in new store concepts.

Improved retail performance

Comparable sales, which encompass both store and e-commerce net revenues, ticked up by 0.3%, primarily supported by higher sales dollars per transaction. Gross profit remained steady at 89.1 million Canadian dollars compared to 88.5 million Canadian dollars in the previous year, while the gross profit percentage held completely stable at 55.7%.

The company successfully reduced its selling, general and administrative expenses by 2.2% to 96.9 million Canadian dollars, down from 99.1 million Canadian dollars. This reduction was primarily achieved through workforce reductions executed as part of its strategic turnaround plan. Consequently, the net loss for the quarter narrowed by 37.0% to 6.3 million Canadian dollars, compared to a net loss of 10.0 million Canadian dollars in the first quarter of the prior year.

Strategic transformation gains traction

Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) showed a significant 49.1% improvement, rising by 5.2 million Canadian dollars to negative 5.4 million Canadian dollars from negative 10.6 million Canadian dollars.

Andrea Limbardi, president and chief executive officer of RCL, stated: “RCL delivered an improved first quarter compared to last year, with solid progress shown across the business despite a challenging economic environment.” Limbardi noted that the rise in fuel costs continues to strain consumers, but noted that investments in the store network are yielding results.

As part of the optimization of its retail footprint, the company unveiled a new concept flagship store for its Reitmans banner at Carrefour Laval, near Montreal. Additionally, after the quarter-end, the company-owned banner RW&CO completed a transformation of its Toronto Eaton Centre location. The updated store has exceeded corporate expectations since its reopening on May 29, 2026.

As of May 2, 2026, the retailer maintained working capital of 126.0 million Canadian dollars, including cash reserves of 101.9 million Canadian dollars. The group reported no significant long-term debt outside of lease liabilities, with no amounts drawn from bank credit facilities. During the quarter, the business also purchased 235,600 Class A non-voting shares for cancellation under its normal course issuer bid, representing a total cash consideration of 0.5 million Canadian dollars. The company intends to seek regulatory approval to renew this share repurchase programme when it expires in August 2026.

RCL operates 387 stores across Canada under three distinct retail banners, consisting of 217 Reitmans locations, 85 PENN. locations and 85 RW&CO locations.

The new Champion Athlete Managing Partner (CHAMP) investment fund, a joint partnership launched in April 2026 between L Catterton, Patricof Co and more than 250 athletes, has announced a strategic investment in Rhoback, an American active lifestyle apparel brand.

The move marks CHAMP’s first partnership and will see the fund joining forces with Rhoback as a strategic partner to help accelerate the brand's next phase of growth, working alongside the company's co-founders, Kevin Hubbard, Kristina Loftus, and Matthew Loftus, who retain control of the business and will continue to guide its long-term vision and day-to-day operations.

In a statement, Rhoback, known for its distinctive dog logo and premium apparel, said it would use the investment to continue to expand beyond its direct-to-consumer roots, as the company looks for its first retail location. It will also support its rapidly expanding wholesale and collegiate licensing businesses, as Rhoback was an early leader in Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), partnering with many of college football's most recognisable student-athletes.

Champion Athlete Managing Partner to help accelerate Rhoback’s next phase of growth

Founded in 2016 by friends Kevin Hubbard, Kristina Loftus, and Matthew Loftus, Rhoback has grown from a bootstrapped start-up selling shirts from a wooden camper into one of the fastest-growing active lifestyle brands in North America. The company has remained profitable since its inception and has never previously raised outside capital. The brand currently has more than two million customers worldwide, has shipped over 3.5 million orders, and employs more than 100 people. Revenues in 2025 topped 150 million US dollars.

Commenting on the investment, Rhoback co-founders said: “When we started the company, we had no apparel experience and no outside funding, just a passion to create the highest quality apparel that kept up with our active lives. We've grown one customer at a time by creating products we believe are the best on the market and fostering a community around our 'Crave Activity' lifestyle.

“We weren't looking for capital; we were looking for the right partner. CHAMP brings together unmatched expertise across consumer brands, sports, and culture, and we're excited about what we can build together while staying true to what makes Rhoback unique."

Scott Dahnke, global chief executive of L Catterton, added: "Rhoback represents exactly the kind of brand CHAMP was designed to support. The company has built a distinctive brand through premium products, authentic storytelling, and a deeply engaged community.

“We believe Rhoback is well-positioned to benefit from CHAMP's unique combination of consumer expertise and athlete engagement."

CHAMP investment fund: Turning athletes into business owners rather than just paid spokespeople

The CHAMP partnership was designed to pursue brands across the consumer landscape, which could benefit from authentic athlete involvement to accelerate awareness, deepen consumer engagement, and unlock new avenues for growth. With the fund stating it is particularly oriented toward companies “with strong underlying brand affinity but untapped visibility,” where its athletes could help activate growth.

The concept also represents a distinctive new athlete ownership model, where athletes participate directly alongside L Catterton and Patricof Co as co-owners of portfolio companies “to create powerful and authentic alignment of interests that differs meaningfully from traditional athlete-brand relationships”. So, rather than just being the face of a brand, the athletes will be true business owners.

Athletes invested in CHAMP include Cade Cunningham, Cooper Flagg, Kevin Durant (35V), Tyrese Haliburton, Azzi Fudd, Cameron Brink, Sophie Cunningham, Dak Prescott, Ja'Marr Chase, Joe Burrow, Justin Jefferson, Bobby Witt Jr., Corbin Carroll, Logan Webb, Mike Trout, Tarik Skubal, Nacho Figueras, Patrick Cantlay, and Livvy Dunne.

Commenting on the investment fund, Dahnke, said: "Consumer behaviour is undergoing a profound and secular shift driven by the convergence of culture, technology, and media. Our proprietary research shows that athletes are among the most trusted and influential voices to emerge in this landscape.

"This partnership reflects a thoughtful extension of L Catterton's consumer investing approach. By combining our global investment platform and deep understanding of the consumer with Patricof Co's athlete relationships, CHAMP seeks to execute a distinctive approach to partnering with consumer brands and a systematic framework for translating cultural relevance into sustainable growth while preserving the rigorous investment diligence for which we are known."

Mark Patricof, founder and chief executive of Patricof Co, added: "We have spent years building trust-based relationships with some of the world's most prominent athletes, and observing that those athletes can drive better outcomes when they have skin in the game.

“CHAMP is the institutionalisation of these collective insights. We believe that partnering with L Catterton, a firm that shares our conviction and brings deep consumer investing experience, enables us to take our demonstrated outcomes to an institutional platform scale."

Debenhams Group, the British retail group formerly known as Boohoo Group, has announced that the year to February 28, 2026, was “a year of significant and successful transformation” for all its brands, but especially PrettyLittleThing, which returned to profit.

In its audited results, Debenhams posted adjusted EBITDA of 53.3 million pounds for the year, up 35 percent year-on-year, adding that every brand it owns, Boohoo, BoohooMan, PrettyLittleThing, Karen Millen and Debenhams, were profitable at EBITDA level.

Group revenue fell 24.7 percent to 917 million pounds during the year, which the group notes reflects its decision to transition towards the higher-margin marketplace model, while gross merchandise value (GMV) before returns declined 21.6 percent to 1.82 billion pounds year-on-year, due to the business prioritising driving profitable sales, explains the retail group.

While sales dropped, the retail group did narrow its losses, reporting loss before tax dropping by 69.2 percent to 108.6 million pounds, reducing from 326.4 million pounds a year earlier. While operating costs reduced 28.2 percent to 415.4 million pounds, reflecting warehouse consolidation into Sheffield, which saved 33 million pounds, the migration to a single technology platform, saving 38 million pounds annually, and renegotiated over 150 contracts, saving 35 million pounds.

Debenhams Group reports 35 percent increase in earnings as “all brands profitable”

Dan Finley, group chief executive officer of Debenhams Group, describes the turnaround as being “firmly on track,” and continuing at “pace” as FY26 marked the completion of the first year of the group’s multi-year turnaround strategy.

At the heart of the transformation was the major turnaround at PrettyLittleThing, which returned to profitability, from a 1-million-pound loss in FY25 to a 14-million-pound profit in FY26. The group also reported that Debenhams' brand continued to “go from strength to strength,” delivering double-digit growth with GMV up 11.6 percent to 730 million pounds, making it the largest brand in the group.

The group also added that its marketplace model now represents 34.1 percent of total GMV, up from 23.3 percent last year, with marketplace GMV increasing 14.9 percent to 620.4 million pounds, reflecting the group's continued scaling of the capital-lite model.

Looking ahead, Finley states that the group’s focus now “shifts to growth,” adding that Debenhams Group returned to growth in the first quarter of FY27, with GMV up 0.5 percent year-on-year, and May GMV was “trading particularly strong” at 8 percent GMV growth, with trading in June continuing “to be strong”.

Debenhams Group adds that it expects a double-digit improvement in adjusted EBITDA for FY27, and is on track to deliver 100 million pounds worth of cost savings over the period.

Finley added: “This has been a year of significant and successful transformation for Debenhams Group.

“Under new leadership and a new strategy, the business is well positioned for significant future growth, with the successful Debenhams turnaround providing the blueprint for the wider Group.”

Sunnei srl is in liquidation. The brand's name is a play on the Italian mispronunciation of 'sunny', as the founders decided to satirise the use of English in other languages.

The first hearing to examine the statement of liabilities has been set for September 16, 2026. The ruling of May 14, 2026, states that the debtor is "notified that they may request to be heard and may intervene in the aforementioned hearing, to also be heard on the claims for admission to the liabilities".

The brand was founded in Milan in 2014 by Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo. The project originated from their cross-disciplinary skills, which allowed the founders to observe the system from the inside.

The brand is based on Via Cironi in Milan.

Last September in Milan, the Sunnei show turned out to be an auction of the brand and its creative directors.

The audience witnessed an auction held in collaboration with Christie's. During the event, the brand and its two creatives were symbolically put up for sale instead of a new collection.

In essence, the May liquidation ruling chronicles an end that was foretold.

"The fusion of our cultures is reflected in the brand's distinctive features. Simone, originally from Southern Italy, brings simplicity of form; I, coming from France, bring a touch of sophistication. Furthermore, regardless of our origins, Sunnei conveys much of what the city of Milan is about, where we have lived for a few years and decided to create our brand spontaneously," the two founders said in an interview with Luisa Via Roma's magazine a few years ago.

"Sunnei was born after some experiences we have had in various areas of fashion. We have worked as photographers, buyers, and press officers; in the past, we have been everything but designers. It is precisely these experiences, however, that have allowed us to have a 360-degree view of the industry. Our naïve approach is what keeps us moving forward with an open mind. Never having had any design experience meant that we could throw ourselves into something new from scratch, without preconceptions. We have learned everything along the way, from selecting fabrics to organising fittings before the show," Messina and Rizzo added.

Canadian lifestyle brand Roots reported that Q1 sales, for the period ended May 2, rose to 6.5 percent to 42.6 million Canadian dollars, while it continues its review of strategic alternatives, including the possible sale of the company.

Sales growth in Q1 was driven by both its direct-to-consumer (DTC) and wholesale businesses, with DTC sales, which include stores and e-commerce, increasing by 3.3 percent to 35.8 million Canadian dollars, while comparable sales climbed 3.2 percent. This was achieved through “positive traffic across both channels, supported by a thoughtfully curated product assortment,” explains the retailer.

For the retailer’s wholesale Roots-branded products and custom products, it reported “significant growth,” increasing by 26.6 percent to 6.8 million Canadian dollars in Q1 2026, compared to 5.4 million Canadian dollars in Q1 2025.

Despite the sales gains, Roots reported a net loss of 10.1 million Canadian dollars, or 26 cents per share, compared with a loss of 7.9 million Canadian dollars, or 20 cents per share, a year earlier.

As the first quarter historically represents approximately 14 percent of the full year sales at Roots, the impacts of the non-recurring projects had “a more pronounced impact” on net earnings. Adjusted net loss, which excludes costs associated with the company's distribution centre transition and strategic review, was 7.6 million Canadian dollars, compared with 7.4 million Canadian dollars in Q1 2025.

Meghan Roach, president and chief executive officer of Roots, said in a statement: “Within the first quarter, we continued to diversify our product offering with both our lifestyle and activewear offerings increasing as a percentage of sales.

“These results reflect the continued strength of the business as we advance two significant initiatives this year: the transition of our distribution centre to Metro Supply Chain, and the review of strategic alternatives being led by our Board. The costs associated with these initiatives are reflected in our results. We remain focused on disciplined execution and building long-term value for all our shareholders.”

In March, Roots launched a strategic review to maximise value for shareholders, including selling the company, and has spent 600,000 Canadian dollars on consulting and legal fees.

Madrid – Spanish fashion multinational Tendam, the parent company of chains such as Cortefiel, Women'secret and Springfield, reported its results for its latest 2025 fiscal year this Tuesday morning. The period ended on February 28, with the group achieving further growth in revenue and profits. These results will serve as a foundation to accelerate its expansion and consolidation plans starting from 2026.

Tendam has now officially presented the accounts for its latest 2025 financial year. This completes the Spanish fashion multinational's records for the 2025 calendar year, which were previously reported by FashionUnited in February based on financial information from its parent company. The company completed the period, from March 1, 2025, to February 28, 2026, with total sales of 1,467.3 million euros. This amount represents an increase of 6.8 percent compared to the annual turnover in 2024. The company also reported a 6.1 percent increase on a like-for-like basis.

In terms of profitability, the company reported a net profit of 112 million euros in 2025. This figure represents a 26 percent increase compared to the profit recorded in 2024. This was supported by a gross margin that, although contracting by three percentage points, stood at 62.4 percent. EBITDA also rose to 368 million euros in 2025, a 9.4 percent increase.

“The results for the 2025 financial year confirm Tendam's strength as a unique and distinctive omnichannel ecosystem in the market,” emphasised Jaume Miquel, chairman and chief executive officer of Tendam, in a statement shared by the Spanish group's management. “It is a strategically solid model that has reached almost 1.5 billion in revenue with above-market growth in total sales; comparable sales; EBITDA; and net profit. These indicators show how we continue to grow in the market and strengthen our connection with the customer through advanced analytics, a firm and accelerated commitment to artificial intelligence (AI) where it generates the most value for us, and a benchmark multi-brand proposition.”

Generalised growth, by segment

Delving into the company's performance in its last fiscal year by business area, Tendam highlighted that sales growth was widespread across all its operational segments. In the adult fashion segment, combined sales from the Cortefiel, Pedro del Hierro, Hoss Intropia, Slowlove and Ooto brands increased to 394.6 million euros, a 7.8 percent rise. Its specialised lingerie and sportswear chains, Women'secret, Dash and Stars and Hi&Bye, saw sales grow to 466.8 million euros, a 9.9 percent increase. The youth fashion segment, including Springfield, High Spirits and Springfield Kids, grew more moderately. It remains the group's largest segment with revenues of 495 million euros, a 3.5 percent increase. This breakdown of sales is completed by its outlet segment, which includes the Fifty store chain and its associated brand Milano, with sales of 110 million euros, a 5.5 percent increase.

Regarding the company's performance by channel, online sales grew by 12.9 percent in 2025, although the total amount and its percentage of the company's total annual revenue were not specified. In its physical channel, the group expanded its retail network during the last fiscal year with the addition of 43 net openings. This included 29 of its own stores and 14 franchised stores, ending the year with a total of 1,844 operating points of sale.

Finally, by market, the company highlighted that Spain, Portugal and Mexico remain its key geographies. In Mexico, it recorded “significant” sales growth of 17.9 percent, or 25.2 percent at constant exchange rates, without specifying the final revenue figure for the Mexican market. The company demonstrated its strong growth ambitions for the country by opening 11 new stores in Mexico during 2025. Tendam closed the year with 88 of its own stores in the country.

Tendam to open over 100 stores in 2026, starts year with 10 percent growth

As a final update, Tendam reported that during the first quarter of its new 2026 fiscal year, from March 1 to May 31, the group recorded total sales of approximately 288.2 million euros, a 10.4 percent increase. It also recorded an EBITDA of 62.7 million euros, an 11.9 percent increase. The company celebrates these metrics in the face of the “geopolitical and economic uncertainties” that have occurred since the beginning of the year. It is also confident of accelerating as its strategic expansion plan is executed. This roadmap includes more than 100 openings throughout 2026. These will mainly feature group brands such as Hoss Intropia, Slowlove, OOTO and Dash and Stars, in line with Tendam's objective of providing each of its portfolio brands with an independent and representative physical presence.

“If 2025 was notable for our growth and a change in majority shareholding, led by 2PointZero, which I would describe as successful and orderly, 2026 represents the beginning of the deployment of Tendam's full potential,” added Miquel. “This is in terms of international expansion; development of own formats for the new brands; expansion of existing stores; strengthening our digital business; and a decisive commitment to investment in AI to accentuate our differential advantages.” He detailed that this comes after, “despite the global geopolitical and economic turmoil,” Tendam has managed to complete “its first quarter growing above the market in each of the main markets in which we operate.” This “demonstrates, once again, the power of our differential model and makes us look to the future with confidence and ambition for all that remains to be built.”

Two Japanese fashion brands are joining forces. Human Made Corporation is acquiring 100 percent of the shares of Undercover Co. Ltd., according to various media outlets including Hypebeast. The deal will make Undercover a subsidiary of Human Made from the first quarter of the 2028 financial year.

The two companies are no strangers to each other. Human Made founder Nigo has been friends with Undercover founder Jun Takahashi for decades. Both are leading figures in Japanese streetwear culture. For several years, Nigo has also been the creative director of the fashion house Kenzo. He is also the founder of the brands A Bathing Ape and Billionaire Boys Club.

With this acquisition, Human Made aims to support companies that are culturally relevant but may not be the most profitable.

With the rise of social media and increasingly online lifestyles, products are constantly scrutinised in public, and brands rely heavily on influencers to shape perception. Independent designers are struggling to take action against large fashion retailers that may be copying designs from smaller businesses.

At the same time, shifting economic pressures have normalised the purchase of “dupes,” removing much of the stigma that once surrounded imitation goods. As consumers become more accepting of lookalike products, companies are more than willing to replicate successful designs. This has in turn resulted in a noticeable increase in copycat litigation.

We are seeing copycat disputes play out in court across the world. Take Sol de Janeiro’s complaint filed against Australian beauty brand MCoBeauty in New York, alleging MCoBeauty created cheap knockoff perfume mists that infringe Sol de Janeiro’s rights by copying the look and feel of the Brazilian-inspired brand's products. The complaint alleges false advertising, trade dress infringement and unfair competition.

Other high-profile lawsuits in the US include Deckers v Last Brand Inc. (the parent company of Quince), in which Deckers alleged design patent infringement in relation to its Ugg mini boots, and Brandy Melville’s lawsuit filed in California against Shein (the trade mark claims were dismissed but the court has allowed the copyright claims to proceed along with claims on how Shein operates and profits on its platform). Brandy alleges that Shein used Brandy’s product images to market lookalike products.

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In Denmark, we’ve seen Ganni battle it out with Bianco Footwear over a range of buckle shoes and in Belgium, the Dr Marten’s boots with yellow stitching were found to have been infringed by Redisco’s orange stitching on similar boots.

These types of copycat disputes are emerging across the globe, with brands having more success in some jurisdictions than others.

Below we discuss two important cases in the UK in relation to trade mark and unregistered designs rights and how the courts are dealing with copying at a time when dupe culture is rife.

Copying unregistered designs in the UK

Boohoo v Edwards is a case from last summer whereby designer Sonia Edwards filed a claim for infringement of an unregistered design against fashion retailer Boohoo. Edwards argued that Boohoo copied bikini designs, puffy shoulders on tops, curved waist bands on trousers, etc. Designs are covered by section 213 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Design protection arises when a design is recorded in a design document or when an article has been made of the design (i.e. clothing made from designs). In this case, the design right was alleged to be in the clothing itself and not in a design document.

Unfortunately for Edwards, the court determined there was no evidence of copying and therefore found no infringement. The court noted that features that cannot be seen on a piece of clothing - for example, concealed patterns - or features which are not present, i.e. a lack of a zipper, cannot form part of protection for design rights. One of the arguments made by Edwards was that a design’s shape and configuration can vary when worn. The court disagreed and said the design right must be clear.

For the fashion industry, the case highlighted that as huge quantities of clothing are designed and produced weekly, there are only so many ways to design clothes to fit the body. Edwards had a small social media following and the court found it unlikely that a large company like Boohoo had taken inspiration from her social media account. In the end, Boohoo successfully defended the action and the court acknowledged that it’s unsurprising that designs resemble previous designs given the large-scale production in this industry. However, the outcome of the case suggests that where intentional copying can be demonstrated, brand owners may find the courts more receptive.

Using benchmarking to copy products

In contrast to the difficulties faced by Edwards, the recent UK trade mark case Thatchers v Aldi represents a significant and encouraging outcome for brand owners, particularly in tackling “copycat” strategies used by some retailers. Though it relates to product packaging rather than fashion, the decision is relevant to fashion brands as the ruling strengthens the application of section 10(3) of the Trade Marks Act 1994, which protects marks with a reputation from unfair advantage, even where there is no likelihood of consumer confusion.

Thatchers, a long-established UK cider producer, launched a lemon-flavoured cider after decades of producing only apple-based products. The brand invested heavily in promoting the product, prominently featuring lemons on its packaging, and it quickly became successful. Aldi, known for developing own-brand goods based on leading products, used Thatchers’ lemon cider as a benchmark for its Taurus lemon cider. Trial evidence showed Aldi closely referenced Thatchers’ packaging when designing its own product, despite opting for a cheaper formulation without real lemon juice.

Thatchers was unsuccessful at first instance, but the Court of Appeal ruled in its favour for the s.10(3) Trade Marks Act 1994 claim, concluding that Aldi intentionally sought to benefit from Thatchers’ established reputation.

Aldi was able to achieve strong sales without comparable marketing investment, effectively capitalising on Thatchers’ promotional efforts. Importantly, this was the intention of Aldi, determining factors in the decision.

What fashion brands need to know

From Boohoo v Edwards, the challenge of arguing a design right sitting within a piece of clothing becomes clear. The court had emphasised how many items are produced on a weekly basis and that its highly likely some designs will resemble others. Having a design recorded in a design document is a better approach, as this would set out dimensions and specifications, and it could make it easier to establish infringement in court.

Fashion brands need to know that concealed elements in the clothing will not be protected by designs in the UK. Smaller brands or independent designers should take advice when considering suing larger brands, as the mass produced nature of clothes means that large fashion retailers can argue they did not copy smaller brands and designers.

In the case of Thatchers, however, there is evidence that is it becoming riskier for copycat businesses to copy products, particularly when there is a demonstrable intention to benefit from the reputation of the benchmarked product.

Some brands may not have registered rights in what is being duped, and if this is the case, the common law of passing off could be the legal remedy, however, providing enough evidence to prove actionable goodwill and misrepresentation to succeed in a passing off case can be difficult. Therefore, it is advisable that brands obtain registered trade mark protection for their valuable brand assets.

Fashion brands may struggle in similar situations to obtain registered trade mark protection for items of clothing, but could seek protection for the packaging, provided it is distinct from the product.

What should you do if you find out there is a copycat product on the market?

Stobbs has developed a counter-copycat strategy that includes the following: First, establish what rights you have in the product or packaging; second, keep records of the infringing activity; and third, gather evidence of reputation and any confusion from the public. Once these steps have been conducted, fashion brands can assess if further trade mark filings are a good strategic option.

What should you do if you want to take inspiration from a leading product without infringing? The key element, as highlighted in the Thatchers decision, is the commercial fairness of the conduct. Aldi’s conduct was unfair and there was the intention to benefit from the investment Thatchers had made.

Whether protecting your own product or drawing inspiration from competitors, understanding and managing intellectual property rights is essential. Fashion brands should be aware of the issues in proving design infringement and should record designs in a design document. They should also consider obtaining registered trade mark protection for the packaging, so that when a copycat is identified, brands are in the best position to tackle it.

UK retail conglomerate Frasers Group plc has announced an unsolicited all-cash on-market takeover offer to acquire all outstanding ordinary shares in Australian performance and lifestyle footwear retailer Accent Group Limited that it does not already own.

The offer is set at 0.65 Australian dollars per share, valuing the remaining 77.10 percent stake in the business at approximately 316 million Australian dollars, which is equivalent to 166 million pounds. The offer attaches no conditions and values the entire Australian retail group at 390 million Australian dollars.

The UK corporate entity currently holds a 22.90 percent stake in Accent Group, acquired at an historical average price exceeding 0.90 Australian dollars per share. Under the Australian Corporations Act, a formal takeover bid is required for Frasers Group to increase its holding beyond the 20 percent threshold.

Accent Group board advises shareholders to take no action

The board of directors at Accent Group, working alongside financial adviser Luminis Partners and legal adviser Arnold Bloch Leibler, has issued an initial statement advising its shareholders to take no action regarding the unsolicited proposal.

The board highlighted that the offer price of 0.65 Australian dollars represents zero premium relative to the last closing price of the shares on June 12, 2026. Board members also noted that because the bid is structured as an on-market offer, shareholders who sell their equities through the market broker will be unable to withdraw their sales or participate in any potential price improvements or superior competing proposals.

The official offer period is scheduled to commence at the opening of trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on June 30, 2026, and will conclude at the close of trading on July 30, 2026, unless extended or withdrawn. Shareholders are permitted to sell their equities to the appointed broker, Barrenjoey Markets Pty Limited, on-market starting from June 15, 2026.

Strategic disagreements over cross-border retail rollout catalyst for offer

The hostile bid follows a downward adjustment of an ongoing retail partnership between the two companies. In April 2025, the businesses entered a subscription and distribution agreement to launch the retail banner Sports Direct in Australia, targeting 50 store openings over a six-year horizon.

The initial expansion target was revised downward in May 2026 to eight stores by December 2026 and 30 stores within three years, with the 50-store goal deferred indefinitely. Frasers Group chief financial officer Christopher Wootton stated that the recent financial performance, capital management, and approach to growth under the leadership of Accent Group chairman Lawrence Myers served as the catalyst for the takeover bid.

The UK firm stated it had made repeated attempts to engage constructively with the incumbent management team regarding declining earnings, rising borrowings, and high dividend distributions, but received no meaningful response. The primary objective of the offer is to reach a minimum 26 percent ownership level, which triggers the contractual right to nominate a second board director to influence strategic operations and protect the value of the investment.

The transaction follows a broader international expansion strategy by Frasers Group, which launched a voluntary public takeover offer last week to acquire the remaining shares of German fashion house Hugo Boss AG for approximately 1.98 billion euros.

Madrid – Spanish department store group El Corte Inglés reported the results for its last fiscal year 2025 on Monday morning. For the period ending February 28, 2026, the company increased its revenues and profits while continuing to reduce its debt.

According to information provided by the Spanish company's management, El Corte Inglés (ECI) closed its 2025/2026 financial year with total revenues of 17,247 million euros. This figure represents a +3.43 percent increase from the 16,675 million euros generated in the previous fiscal year 2024. The company specified that 14,988 million euros of this revenue was recorded as turnover. This represents an increase of just +1.36 percent compared to the 14,786.06 million euros the group generated from its operations in 2024.

In terms of profitability, the company reported a net profit of 628 million euros at the close of the financial year. This is a +22.65 percent increase compared to the 512 million euros in profit recorded a year ago. This figure translated into a recurring net profit of 522 million euros, up +11 percent from the 470 million euros of recurring net profit recorded in 2024.

Rounding out the main economic indicators for the 2025 financial year, the management of El Corte Inglés highlighted both the growth in EBITDA, which rose from 1,209 to 1,266 million euros (+4.7 percent), and the reduction of its net debt to 148 million euros. They noted this reduction allowed the group to end the year with a debt level of 1.3 times its EBITDA, “the lowest in almost two decades”.

“These results demonstrate the company's strength and allow us to confidently approach the coming years with greater investment and growth, with the aspiration of always making the experience unique for all El Corte Inglés customers,” stated Cristina Álvarez, president of El Corte Inglés. This was the first results presentation since her effective appointment as the new president of the board of directors on January 15.

Fashion and beauty as a key business unit

Analysing the group's performance by business area, the retail business is once again the main source of revenue for ECI, with a total revenue of 13,216 million euros (+1.84 percent year-over-year growth).

As part of this performance, sales in the 'Fashion and Beauty' division continued to be a key element of the group's balance sheet, with turnover rising to 5,882 million euros (+3.11 percent). This was followed by sales from the 'Food and Catering' division at 3,064 million euros (+0.66 percent); 'Home and Electronics' at 2,776 million euros (+2.94 percent); and a third miscellaneous category of other income amounting to approximately 1,494 million euros (+42.17 percent).

By channel, the company did not specify the breakdown of this retail revenue between its brick and mortar stores and its e-commerce platforms. The online environment is understood to still have a minor impact on ECI's balance sheet. It was only noted that the company has 16.3 million registered customers on its online platform, and that visits to the group's websites and apps rose in 2025 to over 1.01 billion (+12.93 percent).

Viajes El Corte Inglés grows by +70 percent

Regarding the performance of its other business lines outside of retail, revenue from 'Space Commercialisation' rose to 95 million euros (+14.93 percent), and 'Viajes El Corte Inglés' revenue reached 3,489 million euros (+69.88 percent). The breakdown is completed by the 'other business lines' in which the department store group participates. These include 'Financiera El Corte Inglés', which ended the year with a net profit of 56 million euros (+10.7 percent), and 'Seguros El Corte Inglés', which posted a net profit of 71 million euros (+6.3 percent).

Increase in investments

The company has confirmed new investments of around 650 million euros for the 2026 financial year. This decision follows the strong performance of its business divisions, improved financial control leading to debt reduction, and a 311 million euro increase in the Group's asset value from investments made in 2025. This amount was previously announced in January, coinciding with Cristina Álvarez's official start as president of El Corte Inglés, and will be part of the company's new strategic plan for 2025 to 2030. This roadmap includes a commitment to invest three billion euros, of which 567 million were executed in 2025. This initial 'investment effort' has now been increased by +14.63 percent to the 650 million euros committed for 2026 by ECI's management. The company will hold its next General Shareholders' Meeting on July 24.

Paris - More than two years after a bill to curb the rise of “fast fashion”, epitomised by the giant Shein, was adopted by the National Assembly, its progress will resume in parliament. A highly anticipated meeting has been scheduled for next week.

Adopted by MPs in March 2024 and then by the Senate in June 2025, the bill from Horizons MP Anne-Cécile Violland was subsequently sent to the European Commission to assess its compliance with European law.

The EU executive opposed the text on several points, leading to lengthy discussions with the French government. This delayed the convening of a joint committee (CMP), a necessary next step for the bill to be passed by parliament. Several associations expressed outrage at the deadlock.

This meeting between MPs and senators, which must result in an agreed text between the two chambers, has finally been scheduled for June 17, Violland announced on Friday. The government has confirmed this information.

"France has responded firmly and with reasoned arguments to the European Commission's observations," the MP stated in a press release. "The CMP will be the precise opportunity to find a robust, ambitious wording that is compatible with the European legal framework," she added.

The bill introduces a whole range of tools to limit the rapidly expanding phenomenon of “fast fashion”, this ultra-ephemeral fashion, through measures such as an advertising ban and financial penalties.

"This law must finally distinguish, in our legislation, between companies that have chosen the ecological transition (...) and those that continue to thrive on a destructive model – for the planet, for our health, and for French textile jobs," stressed Anne-Cécile Violland.

If a compromise text is approved in the CMP, it will still need to be adopted by both chambers for the law to be definitively passed.

Madrid – The president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has announced that the country has reached a definitive peace agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This will put an end to the armed confrontations between the two countries and will allow for the complete, toll-free reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The treaty will be officially signed by representatives of both countries this coming Friday, June 19, 2026.

The armed conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran erupted with attacks by the first two countries against the Islamic republic last Saturday, February 28. A contentious bilateral ceasefire, fraught with tension, was announced in early April. Three months have now passed, leading to a definitive treaty to end this latest conflict that has been shaking the entire Middle East region since the beginning of the year. The agreement has now been finalised, with only a few minor issues remaining to be settled before its final signing this Friday, June 19, 2026.

The president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, made the announcement via his official account on his social network, Truth. The profile serves as a de facto press office for his presidency, frequently used to disseminate significant information affecting the country and its foreign relations. This time, the news concerned the definitive peace agreement reached with the Republic of Iran. Trump reported the news just a few hours after admonishing Israel for its recent attacks in Lebanon. He was also participating in the “UFC Freedom 250” celebrations. The highly controversial fight took place on Sunday evening, June 14, 2026, Washington DC time, on the White House lawns. It was held to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country's founding and President Trump's 80th birthday. The event featured the undisputed lightweight title fight, which resulted in a victory for American Justin Gaethje over Spanish-Georgian Ilia Topuria.

“The agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” President Donald Trump announced on his Truth account at 11:29pm this Sunday, June 14, US East Coast time. “Congratulations to all,” the US president celebrated, before continuing to decree that “I hereby fully authorise the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz and, simultaneously, authorise the immediate withdrawal of the United States naval blockade.” He added, concluding with “ships of the world, start your engines” and “let the oil flow!”.

Following up on that first announcement, about an hour later, around 12:27am on Monday, June 15, Washington DC time, Trump posted an additional note, also on Truth. He highlighted that “this great agreement will bring peace and security to the entire region.” The US president congratulated himself, stating, “Many presidents have tried to achieve peace with Iran, and all have failed before me.” He continued, “The leaders of the region have, for the first time, found a president who can help them achieve true peace.” “With the opening of the strait after the signing of the agreement on Friday, and the removal of the mines, oil will flow again at both ends for the region, and for the world.”

Signing on Friday, June 19, in Switzerland

It has not yet been confirmed who will participate in the treaty signing ceremony. It is not even out of the question that the US president himself, who is travelling to Europe this week for the G7 summit starting this Monday in the French city of Évian, may ratify it. However, the prime minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, had already announced that the signing would take place on Friday before Trump did. The Pakistani leader, acting as a mediator in the negotiations, also added that the signing will take place in Switzerland. He confirmed that the treaty includes an end to all military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.

“After intense negotiations, we are pleased to announce that a Peace Agreement has been reached between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Sharif announced on his official X account. Under the agreement, “both parties have declared an immediate and definitive cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.” He continued, “The official signing ceremony will take place on Friday, June 19, in Switzerland.” Looking ahead to the ceremony, he added, “we thank the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran for their commitment to finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict.” “We also express our sincere gratitude to our brothers in this mediation effort, to the great leadership of the state of Qatar, for their support in reaching this agreement.” “We especially thank the visionary leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Turkey for their immense contributions in this regard.” “With the agreement now closed, the mediators will facilitate a series of meetings this week.” These “pre-implementation talks,” the prime minister of Pakistan noted, “will lay the groundwork for the technical negotiations and the official signing ceremony.”

The digital product passport (DPP) is currently being rolled out under the EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). From 2027, it will be mandatory for priority product groups, including garments and textiles, and will apply to almost all physical goods sold in the EU, regardless of where the manufacturer is located.

For fashion brands and retailers, the DPP provides many advantages that go beyond mere compliance, from transparent communication with consumers to tracking and documenting one’s carbon footprint. On the data side itself, switching from various, fragmented data sources to one comprehensive platform is a big relief, avoiding duplicate data entry and being able to respond to data requests faster and more efficiently.

FashionUnited looked at six brands and their DPP story as well as one solution provider that managed to build successful data identities and the data foundation behind it. By “simply showing the work behind a product,” they are tapping into the future of fashion

Dedicated

Stockholm-based label Dedicated evolved from a retail-only T-shirt business into a full-fledged fashion brand in 2012, proving that bold colours and playful graphics can be sustainable. When corporate social responsibility (CSR) head Margaux Schleder joined the company in 2019, it knew all its Tier 1 suppliers and had partial visibility into Tier 2 and some cotton sources, but traceability information was stored in Excel files, which were maintained manually. “I was spending more time organising data than using it. And traceability is not a goal on its own. You need it for communication, for carbon footprinting, for B2B clients. We needed a system,” recalls Schleder in an online statement.

Joining the transparency platform by software provider Retraced had two key advantages: better internal traceability workflows and customer-facing transparency tools. Today, 88 percent of Tier 1 suppliers have been onboarded, 85 percent of the product volume can be traced back to cotton producers and 100 percent of DPPs have been integrated into the online shop. Retraced’s built-in widgets makes it easy to publish verified supply chain data directly to product pages.

Looking ahead, Dedicated wants to strengthen its traceability system further. The next step is onboarding more suppliers and using the new Supply Chain Mapping feature to track sourcing decisions earlier in the process. “We want to be involved from the beginning, especially with the current disruptions in organic and fair trade cotton,” explains Schleder.

King Louie

Dutch fashion brand King Louie started as a vintage market stall in Amsterdam and today has more than 900 stores across Europe. The label is known for vintage-inspired clothing that is made to last and sourced responsibly. In 2025, 77 percent of the collection was made from certified organic, recycled or lower-impact materials, and 99 percent of transport is done without airfreight.

“We are not a brand that shouts how sustainable we are. But we want to be transparent. Our customers care and so do we. That is why we needed a way to show the work behind each product,” states Laura Tol, CSR specialist at King Louie, in a blog post. Documentation and speed was the problem: Sustainability data lived in folders and spreadsheets and follow‑up was manual, document collection was done via email. This meant less capacity for strategic improvements and slower responses to buyers’ compliance deadlines.

“At some point, we were spending more time chasing documents than using them. We needed a system that helped us stay on top of things without adding another layer of work,” recalls Tol. King Louie implemented Retraced as a centralised system to support all of the brand’s supply chain activities from onboarding and compliance to communication and collaboration.

Today, all active suppliers have been onboarded and manage their data in the platform. Certification tracking is fully automated, thus reducing the need for monthly follow-ups. DPPs have been completely integrated in the online shop, in stores and in B2B showrooms. That means every product comes with a DPP, which shows the supply chain including audit scores and certifications. “We train our store teams to talk about it. Our marketing team uses it in campaigns. And our customers can scan the tag and see the full story. Some want just the basics. Others go deep. It works for both,” confirms Tol. In addition to the platform, King Louie hosts swap events, upcycling workshops and product styling sessions as part of an independent sustainability content and community strategy designed to make eco-friendly practices more engaging and accessible.

KnowledgeCotton Apparel

Danish sustainability-driven brand KnowledgeCotton Apparel was inspired by the organic fibre work of the founder’s father. Since foundation in 2008, it has grown into a globally recognised brand. However, keeping track of suppliers, certifications and data requests became increasingly difficult as the business grew. “We had the information — it just was not accessible,” recalls COO Anders Langhoff-Jensen in an online post. “If a buyer asked for a specific audit or certificate, we had to dig through folders or Excel files.”

Implementation into one system began country by country, starting with Tier 1 suppliers and working down to the raw material level. “We have now mapped every supply chain. Not just Tier 1 and 2, but all the way to the source,” reports buying assistant Mads Mariboe. “It was a challenge at first, especially in regions like China. But the Retraced team supported us closely. Their Mandarin-speaking staff helped us onboard even the more cautious suppliers.”

Since early 2024, every KnowledgeCotton garment includes a DPP via QR code, which gives access to its full production journey, regardless if a product is accessed in store or online. “We added the QR code from Retraced to our care labels and hangtags. Now sales teams and customers can see all the production steps without needing to ask or wait. It is very helpful in retail settings. When a customer asks where something was made, the answer is a scan away. It can reveal the 15 steps behind a single T-shirt,” explains Langhoff-Jensen.

Going forward, KnowledgeCottton Apparel wants to include a garment’s environmental footprint. “We are working with Carbonfact to link emissions data to the same product-level QR code,” adds Langhoff-Jensen. “Ideally, everything a customer or partner needs to know is available through one label.”

Löffler

Austrian brand Löffler, founded in 1973, not only makes performance apparel but also produces more than two-thirds of its fabrics in-house and handles nearly every step of the supply chain: from yarn selection and knitting to finishing, cutting and sewing. While the company gained deep insights into its supply chain through this vertical integration, the challenge was to make this transparency visible to retailers and end customers.

Personal contact over the course of three months helped bring over 50 suppliers onto the platform, from yarn suppliers and dye houses to trim providers and sewing partners. “Emails were not enough. I learned that a short 15-minute video call worked best. I would walk them through what needed to be done in Retraced, and we would get it done on the spot. We kept things simple at first and only asked for core company data, certifications and short descriptions. We would expand over time, but the foundation is there,” states Markus Reisegger, head of Sustainability at Löffler, in a blog post.

Every product in the brand’s main collection, apart from gloves and socks, now features a QR code that links to its supply chain data, thus laying the DPP foundation. One hundred percent of the own-brand summer 2026 collection will be traceable via QR code. The next step is to explore modules for product-level environmental data and to deepen supplier engagement.

Pangaia

Pangaia was founded in 2019 as a platform to scale breakthrough material solutions. Today, the London-based clothing brand is offering contemporary wardrobe staples made from bio-based, regenerative, recycled and responsibly sourced materials. Communicating that to the consumers has been always been a priority: “At Pangaia, we have long believed that transparency and circularity require a digital layer that travels with a product throughout its lifecycle. That is what initially drew us to digital product passports and why we explored this space so early on, before it became a regulatory priority,” explains Maria Srivastava, chief impact officer at Pangaia, when talking to FashionUnited.

“What has been most interesting to watch since then is how the industry conversation has evolved,” she adds. “A few years ago, digital passports were often viewed as a bit of an experiment. Today, they are increasingly recognised as critical infrastructure for the future of fashion. Brands are realising that trusted product-level data can support everything from compliance and traceability to resale, repair, authentication and deeper consumer engagement.”

Asked about one of the biggest lessons from early efforts across the industry, Srivastava mentions that “the challenge is not simply creating a digital identity—it is building the data foundation behind it.” She stresses that this “requires greater visibility into fashion’s notoriously complicated supply chains, stronger collaboration with partners and understanding of the systems that can connect information from multiple sources in a way that makes sense.”

The way forward is thus not about the ‘why’ of DPPs but the ‘how’. “As regulations accelerate and consumer expectations continue to evolve, I think we are reaching an inflection point. The most forward-looking brands are no longer asking whether they need digital product passports; they are asking how to use them to create better products, more transparent customer experiences and new circular business models. That is where the real opportunity lies, beyond compliance and into shaping the industry’s future,” concludes Srivastava.

Tom Tailor

At Hamburg-based fashion brand Tom Tailor, starting the implementation process had two main objectives: to achieve transparency across the supply chain, down to the raw material level, and to ensure compliance with the Due Diligence Act and other upcoming regulations. It took only three months to onboard 80 Tier 1 and 160 Tier 2 suppliers; today, this number is at 100 percent.

“It was about genuine collaboration—engaging with our suppliers at eye level and fostering a spirit of partnership. By approaching them with gratitude and recognising their role in helping us to meet these standards, rather than applying pressure, we achieved a more effective and supportive working relationship,” recounts Juliane Nowakowski, head of sustainability & corporate responsibility at Tom Tailor, in an online post.

The tracing journey started with a pilot in early 2023, where the brand selected three purchase orders (POs) per sourcing country, across nine countries, resulting in around 27 to 30 orders to trace. Following the successful pilot, Tom Tailor decided to fully integrate the tracing process for every product, starting from January 2024. Since April 2024, the company has implemented Retraced’s QR codes on every product’s wash care label, detailing each product’s journey.  

“Since we started tracing on purchase order level in early 2024, we have already traced 17 percent of more than 5000 POs to the raw material level and a further 13 percent to yarn level. Tracing for these POs is still ongoing,” reports Nowakowski.

Insights from Retraced

Many of the brands mentioned above went on their DPP journey together with Retraced, an AI-first platform for sourcing, product compliance, and supplier lifecycle collaboration. FashionUnited spoke with Lukas Puender, co-founder and CEO of Retraced, to find out more about the challenges that the company and brands usually face, data gaps and how to close them.

What prompted Retraced to focus on the DPP early on, even before it became mandatory?

Retraced actually arose from a completely different problem. The story begins with Cano, a shoe brand with which Philipp Mayer and I wanted to bring Mexican huaraches to Germany. Production took place under fair conditions, and the leather was vegetable-tanned. But how do you communicate that credibly? We wanted our customers to be able to scan the shoe to digitally see who made it, how it was manufactured and where the materials came from.

But there was no suitable solution available. So we built it ourselves, which laid the foundation for Retraced. That was in 2018, years before the DPP was even a topic of discussion in Brussels. Our starting point, therefore, was not compliance but the conviction that consumers have the right to know what they are buying, and that brands that can demonstrate this have a real advantage. The digital product passport was therefore, from the very beginning, an instrument of proactive transparency for us.

What challenges did you face initially, and what challenges exist now?

Initially, we had to do a lot of explaining: How can a brand communicate transparency to consumers? How does that pay off economically? Back then, for many, it was still just a “nice to have.”

Today, regulation has settled that discussion. The challenge is different: How do you build reliable data across four or five supply chain tiers? Many brands know their Tier 1 suppliers well. What happens along the chain, at spinning mills, dye factories and raw material suppliers, is often still a black box. That is precisely where the real work lies. And the larger the brand, the more complex the supplier network becomes, and the more a transparency solution needs to be scalable and efficient.

What data gap have you discovered when mapping multi-tiered supply chains?

Tier 1 suppliers, the direct manufacturing companies, are generally well documented. The problem starts at Tier 2, with weaving mills, spinning mills and dye factories. Most brands audit their Tier 1 suppliers, but many risks, such as environmental violations or poor working conditions, are hidden further down the chain and often only surface late.

The underlying structural problem is that each stage of the supply chain has its own formats, its own certification schemes, its own way of documenting—or not documenting—data. Proprietary formats and silos make it difficult to combine or compare data across schemes, actors, and regions. There is no common data model for multi-certification scenarios in multi-tiered supply chains. We are building precisely this common infrastructure. With over 30,000 suppliers in our network, we are already well on our way to achieving this.

How do you motivate suppliers and customers who are hesitant to disclose information about their production facilities or other relevant data?

Hesitation almost always has a specific reason. Suppliers often fear that transparency makes them vulnerable to competitors, auditors or brands that might then exert price pressure. This cannot be solved with a fancy onboarding brochure. What truly helps is building trust before requesting data. This means clarifying who has access, what happens to the data and what does not. It also means starting with suppliers who are already open, so others can see that transparency is not a trap.

Our argument is pragmatic: Once data is cleanly entered into Retraced, it does not need to be reprocessed for every new brand. Suppliers exchange verified product and material data once, stay synchronised with buyer requirements and reduce repetitive tasks through a single collaborative system. This is not about doing the brand a favour; it saves the supplier time and resources.

For the brands themselves, the motivation is usually a mix of pressure and calculation. Regulation is coming anyway, as the DPP will become mandatory in 2030. Those who start now build the data foundation step by step. Those who wait will only create stress for themselves.

At what point in the manufacturing process is the digital identifier (QR code) actually assigned?

This depends on the product type and the maturity of the supply chain, but the clear recommendation is: as late as possible in the process, and at the item level. A decision must be made as to whether to identify products at the item, batch, or model level, and how this ID will appear on the product, ideally as a 2D barcode such as a QR code, which can coexist alongside existing retail barcodes.

Assigning the QR code at the fiber processing level makes little technical sense because too many production variables remain undefined. A more realistic approach is to assign the ID after the garment is finished, either on the hanger or in the label, at a point when the product ID is stable and can be linked to all stored supply chain data.

How can brands ensure that the digital ID remains legible even after years of washing or heavy use?

The DPP makes product data accessible via a digital carrier, and QR codes, NFC chips, or RFID are all fundamentally possible. QR codes are currently considered the de facto standard for the DPP because any smartphone can read them without a special app. RFID is better suited as a supplementary carrier for logistics, not as a primary access point for consumers. NFC chips are an interesting interim solution, more robust than printed codes, but more expensive per unit.

Crucially, however, the durability of these data carriers over multiple usage cycles is an open standardisation issue that legislation has not yet resolved. So we don't yet know exactly what the EU will ultimately mandate. What we do know is that the actual data is not contained in the code, but in the underlying data system. The carrier is merely the key. This means that even if a QR code fades after years or a label needs to be replaced, the product passport remains intact. The challenge is physical, not digital. We work closely with label manufacturers on this, as they have more experience in this area than we do.

Regarding certified materials, how does the new module help with the automated management of transaction certificates?

Let's take GOTS-certified cotton as an example. The Scope Certificate confirms that a factory is certified. The Transaction Certificate confirms that the specific shipment actually comes from this certified factory. Both are needed to credibly substantiate a material claim. Currently, this is usually done via email, as a PDF, stored somewhere in a folder, and if an auditor asks, the search begins. In the Retraced platform, all documents are automatically retrieved from the suppliers.

The Retraced platform automatically collects all documents from suppliers. Scope Certificates from production facilities and their corresponding transaction certificates are then stored in one central location, complete with expiration alerts when a certification is about to expire. The transaction certificates are also directly matched and linked to the product deliveries. If a transaction certificate doesn't match the delivery, the system issues a warning. While this may sound straightforward, in practice it saves an enormous amount of time—in our experience, around 90 percent of the work. For many brands, this equates to several weeks of manual effort. This solution closes precisely the gap that fuels many greenwashing accusations today.

All interviews were conducted in written format.

In a fashion landscape defined by increasingly complex supply chains and globalised tensions, the UK’s ‘farm to fashion’ movement has emerged as a stabilising presence. Such setups are not exactly new in the way of localisation, yet the format is being revived and modernised alongside a cross-industry call for a return to “Britishness”.

Many of these systems are rooted in the heritage and indigenous nature of certain textiles in the UK. Materials like leather, wool and flax have long been associated with the country. However, as industrialisation and globalisation took hold, they lost their status to cheaper, more scalable imports.

Now, in the wake of geopolitical shifts, agricultural challenges, and a broadening desire for transparency, fashion brands seem to be turning inwards in their pursuit of a viable textile supply and production process. In addition, fresher labels have emerged as captains of this movement, operating entire ecosystems that are wholly based inland and, often, just a stone’s throw away from where their products are finalised.

Many of these companies are built by one individual or a small team who have ingrained traceability into their framework from the outset. They therefore serve as examples of moving beyond industrialised systems and globalised supply chains, and returning to a homegrown approach to creation.

What has unfolded is a movement focused on rebuilding regional fibre and craft networks; taking the consumer from soil to garment, preserving heritage crafts, boosting rural economics, and cutting down the carbon footprint typically associated with clothing production. Here are some companies leading the way.

Herd: “The ‘grow to wear’ movement offers genuine connection in an increasingly fast-paced world…”

Self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur Ruth Alice Rands had a vision for a brand that not only produced high-quality knitwear, but also prioritised local production methods. She was specifically drawn to the intricacies of British wool and its long-spanning history, and embarked on a journey to source wearable local yarn. It was the wool of the native Bluefaced Leicester sheep she landed on, having identified the material for its power to soften blends.

Merging an ability to knit with a passion for provenance, Rands then established Herd in 2020. The company’s wool is sourced from over 40 sheep farmers across the North of England before it’s transferred to factories in Yorkshire less than 50 miles away. “It is a more lengthy and costly process but this uncompromising attention to detail shows in the hand-feel of our knitwear and tweed,” Rand told FashionUnited. “Not only does this mean we can consistently offer the finest British yarn, we also pay farmers directly, guaranteeing them a fair rate every year.”

Rands had initially started out in yarn wholesale, supplying brands like Sunspel and Toast. This division was then halted in 2022 when momentum for Herd’s own knitwear took off. The company has since expanded into leather, cotton and linen, and for its latest SS26 collection has included localised details like lace and buttons from the last remaining UK suppliers for these products. Rands’ philosophy extends into all aspects of the business, including colouring yarn with plant dye, a process that has been scaled with a Yorkshire-based factory.

To Rands, the farm-to-fashion movement–akin to farm-to-table movement–celebrates provenance and natural philosophies that work with nature’s abundance and support personal and worldly wellness. “Our customers love knowing the details, from the characteristics of the breed to the methodology of our plant dyeing, which makes the finished pieces so special and timeless,” Rands said. “The ‘grow to wear’ movement offers genuine connection in an increasingly fast-paced world, and insights into the pre-digital worlds of farming, manufacturing and craft, an increasingly necessary balm of our times.”

Billy Tannery: “Customers are bored of empty sustainability statements, we’re focused on showing the whole process…”

Billy Tannery was founded in 2016 by Jack Millington, who returned to the Midlands after a stint in London in pursuit of a more hands-on lifestyle. He set out to find a solution for waste from the food industry while also addressing the decline in British leather. What emerged was the establishment of a small-batch tannery, which had at first focused on the production of handmade goat leather goods, before expanding into deer leather and bespoke hospitality products.

The farm answers the question of what happens to animals that may not make it through the food chain. Male goats born on a dairy farm, for example, were often killed straight after birth before meat companies stepped in, while numerous deer were being culled each year to prevent damage to native ecosystems, yet their skins were going to waste. Millington tapped into the UK’s centuries-old leather knowledge to provide an alternative to this waste, and sought to challenge misconceptions surrounding leather by setting up a framework for bringing production methods closer to home.

According to the company, all leather is sourced as a food by-product and tanned using bark extracts in the UK, creating products that embrace natural variations and are therefore free from plastic coatings and pigments. Products, most of which are bags, backpacks and accessories, are made with two artisanal workshops in Somerset and Leicestershire and typically consist of clean lines and seasonless designs.

Millington said: “At Billy Tannery, connecting the dots in our entire supply chain - from the source to our farm micro-tannery and workshops, and directly to customers - is all about trust and transparency. Customers are bored of empty sustainability statements so instead we’re focused on showing the whole process as honestly as possible. Our small-batch methods are less about scarcity and more about total oversight. Our customers want to feel connected to the British countryside and we want our leather to be the medium. Scars and all.”

Glencroft: “It’s essential our customers understand they are paying for a product that is better made because it’s entirely traceable…”

Family business Glencroft has specialised in classic countrywear since 1987, and has used 100 percent British wool for all of its knit products throughout its lifespan. As the business grew, the team–consisting of founders, husband and wife duo Richard and Justina Sexton and their son Edward Sexton–began to question how to incorporate wool from sheep within Clapham–their corner of Yorkshire–and in turn support farmers looking to broaden their scope.

In 2021, Glencroft began expanding with its own wool, starting with the minimum commercial quantity of 500 kilograms. After partnering with the Yorkshire Dales National Park, the project took off, resulting in what is now known as Clapdale Wool. The initiative sources fleeces from seven local farmers, many of whom Edward grew up with at the local school and now own local breeds like Dalesbred and Texel, which are not traditionally associated with knitting wool.

“The global supply chain is efficient but it has caused consumers to lose touch with where their products actually come from,” Edward Sexton said. “As a small family business, we can’t compete on price with massive brands manufacturing overseas. But while these brands pay lip service to sustainability, it creates an opportunity for smaller brands like us to use our local connections, and in our case our proximity to Yorkshire - one of the oldest wool processing areas in the world.”

Clapdale uses wool with little monetary value to create premium, traceable products, each made within a local supply chain network. In 2022, the company sourced three tones of wool to make mixed-breed yarn for limited edition knitwear or to weave into tweed products. Farmers were then paid a premium of at least one pound per kilo to cover their shearing costs, and a further 10 percent share of profits. While Clapdale recognised the challenge of processing and selling through this amount of wool, the company said it was looking forward to sourcing more in summer 2026.

Sexton added: “For a small business making premium knitwear, it’s essential that our customers understand they are paying for a product that lasts longer and is made better because it is entirely traceable. There is absolutely no disconnect between our brand, the fibres, and the people involved from the beginning to end. I can even take you into the fields next to our office and show you which sheep our jumpers are made from.”

Madrid – Spanish robotics start-up Theker Robotics has confirmed the closing of its latest funding round of 85 million dollars. The emerging company specialises in the design, production and marketing of robots for industrial process automation. The funds were contributed by a diverse group of investors, both old and new. These include the Inditex group and one of the Arnault family's investment firms, who are key shareholders in the luxury multinational LVMH.

According to information provided and made public by Theker's management, the 85 million dollars raised make this Series A funding round the largest ever closed by a robotics company in Europe. This specific round was led by US venture capital firm CRV, marking one of its first investments in a Spanish company. It was also backed by South Korean technology multinational Samsung, which is noted as its first investment in a Spanish company. Support also came from Aglaé Ventures, a venture capital firm with offices in Paris, New York and San Francisco. Aglaé Ventures is backed by Groupe Arnault, the family holding company through which the Arnault family controls its stake in the French luxury multinational LVMH.

In addition to these names, the robotics company also highlighted the participation of both existing and new investors in this round. These include groups, investors and venture capital firms such as Cathay Innovation; 20VC; Henkel Ventures; Korelya; Bright Pixel Capital; Carles Reina; Itnig; Spanish investment firm Kfund; Kibo Ventures; Mission; and Inditex. The Spanish fashion multinational has thus once again shown its support for the robotics start-up through investment. It announced its entry into the emerging company almost a year ago, during its 2025 Annual General Meeting last July.

Robotic solutions for the automation of industrial processes

Founded in 2022 in Barcelona by entrepreneurial duo Carla Gómez Cano and Jiaqiang Ye Zhu, Theker Robotics presents itself to potential clients and investors as a robotics company capable of designing, producing and marketing any type of robot for industrial process automation. These solutions are approached from an integral, holistic and circular perspective, and the company intends to accelerate their development thanks to the funds raised in this latest investment round.

In this regard, while stressing that the company does not produce prototypes but that its artificial intelligence (AI) powered robots are already in production, the investment raised in this round will be used to accelerate the integration of its high-capability robots into large industrial conglomerates; to strengthen Theker's technology, AI and robotics platform; and to expand its software, electronics, mechanical engineering and operations teams.

Theker said in a statement, “this round is not the end of the journey, but another step in the right direction. For that reason, thank you to everyone who has helped us get this far, and especially to our team, which maintains a standard that most people consider extremely demanding; to our customers, who push us to be better; and to our investors, old and new, who could see it before the rest of the world. We are building generalist, AI-native robots that adapt in real time to changing environments, with one goal: to solve 100 percent of industrial physical work and to build the world's largest company from Barcelona.”

Interview

“Our goal is to create an ecosystem, not simply a fabric marketplace,” Jeanine Ballone, co-founder and CEO of World Collective explains when asked what her mission is. Ballone launched the digital sourcing platform in 2022 after years of working across what she described as a fragmented and relatively outdated global supply chain. To address these issues, Ballone sought to create a centralised, democratised and inclusive materials library designed to inform and support brands of all sizes.

It was imperative for Ballone that World Collective went beyond sustainability alone. During her time building supply chains from the ground up, specifically at companies like PVH and Germany’s Otto Group, the exec witnessed overused and undervalued systems dominated by huge brands that still lacked the necessary infrastructure to back scalability. “There was no central ecosystem where suppliers, brands, and creatives could connect, share information, and discover opportunities,” Ballone reflects.

A joint infrastructure and SME accessibility

World Collective was therefore established to serve not only as a marketplace, but as a storefront for suppliers, housing materials, innovation, and knowledge under one roof. This was then opened up to brands, many of which didn’t have the resources to access innovative materials due to the minimum order quantities required to source them. In response, World Collective built a demand aggregation platform enabling even SMEs to get involved.

Ballone explains: “A small brand in Japan may only need 25 kilograms, while another brand in Amsterdam may need a similar amount. Together they can reach the supplier's minimum requirement and gain access to materials that would otherwise be unavailable.”

The platform’s launch came amid an industry under pressure, with many brands now operated by reduced teams and, in turn, narrower bandwidths to manage sourcing complexities. As a result, Ballone says she has seen a strong demand for tools that remove friction.

Her vision was shared by other industry leaders who joined in building up the World Collective’s foundations. Julie Tran, who now serves as chief growth officer, has applied her 24-years of experience across workforce management, technology and business operations to the role. After questioning why innovative materials were failing to scale, Tran was drawn to World Collective’s mission and asked to join the team. “What has remained constant is our focus on materials innovation, accessibility, and creating process efficiencies that help brands make better decisions,” she says.

‘We don’t dictate what sustainability means for a brand…’

To ensure consistent quality, all suppliers are vetted and curated with an emphasis on innovation and natural fibres. “We don’t dictate what sustainability means for a brand,” Ballone explains. “Instead, we provide the tools and search criteria that allow brands to make informed decisions based on certifications, standards, and values that matter to them. For example, users can search based on certifications such as Oeko-Tex or Bluesign and identify materials that align with their requirements.”

Such information has become even more integral ahead of incoming EPR regulations, just one definitive factor dictating an industry speedily moving towards regulated transparency and brand accountability. To get ahead of the curve, World Collective has been exploring the idea of a compliance-ready textiles library made up of supplier-level data specifically designed to cater to Digital Product Passport (DPP) laws.

A pilot of the DPP-Ready Library launched for a set period last month alongside DPP infrastructure firm Kinset, initially spotlighting nine certified materials from three suppliers, each displaying information spanning composition to compliance to handling. After initial testing, the library has been put on pause as it moves into its next iteration, with additional materials expected to roll out further into its timeline.

Balancing compliance and regulatory burden

The pilot was a reflection of a long-standing belief of World Collective’s team: that material information should be captured at supplier level and travel with the product through its lifespan. The creation of a supplier-first infrastructure intends to balance out the burden of compliance so that responsibility doesn’t rest entirely on brands.

Despite the library launching prior to DPP regulations being set in stone, Ballone said she could already see where the industry was headed, and so the early introduction was a no-brainer. The mission is to disrupt a currently dysfunctional compliance system, marred by an industry that “keeps pushing responsibility downstream to suppliers without creating the support structures they need”.

The library therefore aims to make the process more efficient, allowing suppliers to maintain more control over their information, adjusting it in one place and approving brand access when needed.

From a brand perspective, Tran also notes benefits, specifically that in the present day these companies are being run by individuals who aren’t necessarily experts in regulatory frameworks. She explains: “Their priority is building products and growing their businesses, not studying global compliance frameworks. We remove that complexity by giving them access to vetted materials and DPP-ready information. That makes it easier for them to build responsibly without needing to become compliance experts.”

While much of World Collective is about accessibility, challenges in the current marketplace also extend to larger brands. To address this, the platform is currently working with brands of this scale on pilot projects targeting specific material categories. The process begins at the design stage, during which teams are aided in the identification of materials that meet their criteria. They are then supported through sampling, sourcing, manufacturing, DPP integration, and impact reporting.

‘We’re building roads, not just vehicles…’

“Better informed businesses tend to produce better products,” Ballone notes. “One of the biggest reasons innovative materials fail is that stakeholders don't have all the information upfront. By providing visibility into costs, impact metrics, certifications, and sourcing requirements early in the process, we increase the likelihood that those materials make it to market.”

As World Collective develops, so too will its features, with new technologies, such as mood boards and metric comparisons, currently being developed to make sourcing through the platform even more intuitive. Future initiatives will also look to support artisan-led and women-led programmes around the world, giving them access to brands through digital storefronts.

All of this contributes to the company’s vision of a future fashion supply chain defined by more visibility and greater business control. Brands, meanwhile, would be able to bring their existing supply chains into the platform, and use it as a sourcing and decision-making hub. “The goal is simple: give people better information so they can make better decisions. When sourcing, compliance, pricing, and impact reporting all exist in one place, decision-making becomes much easier,” Ballone says.

In the end, it is all about infrastructure for World Collective. “We’re building roads, not just vehicles,” Ballone concludes. “We don’t need to be the middleman. We simply want to provide the infrastructure that allows everyone to connect, communicate, and transact more effectively.”

US investment firm Elliott Advisors is believed to have emerged as a potential bidder for The Very Group as it reportedly mulls a deal that could value the UK retailer at two billion pounds.

This is according to Sky News, which had also reported in May that Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com was another interested party, eyeing the group as part of UK expansion plans.

The Very Group and Carlyle declined the media outlet’s request to comment.

The interest comes after private equity firm Carlyle took over The Very Group last year, ending the retailer’s long-standing relationship with the Barclay family.

Reports in January suggested Carlyle was preparing an auction process that valued the platform between two billion and 2.5 billion pounds.

Next to owning the Very and Littlewoods brands, the group also operates a financial services division, offering revolving credit facility options like buy now, pay later to shoppers.

For the 2025 financial year, The Very Group reported an 8.4 percent uptick to its EBITDA, driven largely by the home goods category, which expanded by 9.9 percent. Fashion and sportswear, meanwhile, declined by 3.7 percent, impacted by aggressive market-wide discounting.

In February 2026, Carlyle secured a long-term funding deal to extend and renew debt facilities, injecting 150 million pounds in financial support to position the retail group for its next stage of growth.

Polish fashion retailer LPP Group has reported a 10.5 percent year-over-year (YoY) increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2026, reaching 5.5 billion Polish zloty (1.50 billion dollars). The growth was primarily driven by the ongoing expansion of the brick and mortar retail chain, particularly the Sinsay brand, alongside an increase in total commercial floorspace.

However, the rate of sales growth fell below initial company expectations due to unseasonably low temperatures at the start of the spring/summer 2026 season. February and April recorded temperatures below long-term averages, restricting consumer demand for early summer collections. Consequently, LPP recorded a 2.8 percent decline in like-for-like (LFL) sales for the period.

Brand performance and omnichannel development

Performance varied significantly across the corporate brand portfolio. Positive LFL growth was driven by 14.6 percent increase at House, 3.1 percent at Reserved and 0.7 percent at Cropp.

Conversely, negative LFL ratios were registered by Sinsay at minus 6.8 percent and Mohito at minus 15.5 percent.

Despite the LFL drop, Sinsay remained the largest revenue contributor, generating 3.13 billion Polish zloty, which represents a 13.9 percent YoY increase. Traditional brick and mortar sales for the group rose by 15 percent YoY, supported by 121 new store openings, 102 of which belonged to Sinsay.

Online sales grew by a modest 0.7 percent YoY to 1.46 billion Polish zloty. The e-commerce channel remained impacted by prolonged order fulfillment times in South-Eastern Europe, stemming from a warehouse fire in Romania in June 2025. Additionally, a strategic reduction in performance marketing spend to prioritise online profitability compressed e-commerce to a 26.6 percent share of group revenue, down from 29.2 percent in the prior year.

Geographically, international sales outpaced domestic growth, increasing 13.9 percent YoY to account for 56.8 percent of total omnichannel revenues, with Romania, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and Hungary emerging as top-performing markets.

Record gross margin and rising operating profits

LPP achieved a record gross profit margin for a first quarter, rising by 4.5 percentage points YoY to 58.5 percent. This profitability milestone was reached despite an increasing volume of lower-margin Sinsay products.

Driven by strong margin performance, operating profit (EBIT) grew by 47 percent to 688 million Polish zloty, resulting in an EBIT margin of 12.6 percent. Total net profit for the quarter closed at 475 million Polish zloty, up from 335 million Polish zloty in the prior year period.

Technical investments and future targets

During the first quarter, LPP accelerated its logistics automation strategy by expanding its autonomous robot fleet more than sixfold to over 3,500 units across Poland and Romania. The group also initiated the construction of a new e-commerce fulfillment centre in Tczew, scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2027.

For the full 2026 financial year, LPP targets total sales of approximately 26 billion to 27 billion Polish zloty, backed by a planned 15 percent increase in retail floorspace that includes around 750 new Sinsay stores. The group projects a full-year gross margin of roughly 56 percent and capital expenditure of 2.5 billion Polish zloty.

Looking further ahead to 2027, the company forecasts revenues to reach between 30 billion and 31 billion Polish zloty. In addition, during the years 2028–2029, the company aims to open around 750 new Sinsay stores in 2028, and around 300-350 per year from 2029 onwards and anticipates positive LFL growth, and 15–20 percent growth in online sales.

Chinese e-commerce giants Pinduoduo and JD.com were among five major platforms summoned on Thursday for talks over misleading advertising, Beijing's market watchdog said.

Social media sites Douyin and RedNote, along with Alibaba-owned e-commerce platform Taobao, were also summoned.

The talks with company representatives, held by the Beijing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation, come as local and national authorities crack down on excessive "involution-style" competition.

Official efforts to tame "involution" -- a popular tag used to describe the race to outcompete that ends up nowhere -- has hit major Chinese firms across online shopping, food delivery and electric vehicles.

The Beijing watchdog said it had identified issues including false advertising for promotional events, irregular rules and failing to disclose merchant information, according to a statement.

It proposed "rectification requirements" aimed at preventing and mitigating risks during the so-called "6.18" online shopping festival this month.

Some of the platforms had launched "10 billion (yuan) subsidy" campaigns for the shopping event but did not detail actual subsidy amounts or the length of the promotion, the statement said.

AFP has reached out to the firms for comment.

Executives from leading UK retailers have called on the government to address policies believed to be making it harder to hire young people. Over 80 business leaders have signed a letter co-ordinated by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) warning that taxes and red tape are pushing up the cost of entry-level jobs.

Chief executive officers from All Saints, Ann Summers, Dune Group, JD Sports, Dr Martens, Marks & Spencer, Matalan Retail, Monsoon Accessorize, Reiss, TFG Brands, Seasalt, The Very Group, and Mamas & Papas are among those to have signed.

Karen O’Rourke, managing director of H&M UKIE and another signatory, said: “Too many young people are still being locked out of opportunities, and at H&M we see firsthand how important it is to create clear, inclusive pathways into work.

"Retail has a unique role to play in opening those doors, which is why we fully support the BRC’s call for stronger partnership with government to remove barriers and expand access to meaningful jobs. By working together, we can help more young people build the skills and confidence needed for long-term, sustainable careers.”

Concerns over youth unemployment rates were emphasised in an interim report by Alan Milburn, which suggested that 1.25 million under-25s could become unemployed in the next five years. Rising business costs, including an increase in National Living Wage, and changes to employment rights are also said to be impacting hiring methods.

The retail sector, which has historically remained entry-level, has particularly been hit hard by sweeping cuts. According to the BRC, around 400,000 jobs have been lost over the past decade, reducing entry-level opportunities for young people.

In response, business leaders are calling on the government to strengthen support by establishing a joint government-retail taskforce to enhance employment routes. The letter also requests for a reduction in employment costs and the implementation of reforms that support entry-level recruitment.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, added: “Retail and its supply chain account for almost a quarter of all youth employment, making our industry uniquely placed to support young people through flexible, entry-level roles and clear routes for progression. But this first step on the ladder is cracking under the weight of government-imposed costs and regulations.”

Dickinson continued: “Youth unemployment is a challenge that government and business must tackle together. If government wants more young people in work, it must create the conditions that allow businesses to hire, train and develop the next generation.

“Retailers stand ready to work in partnership with government through a joint retail-government taskforce to strengthen routes into employment, remove barriers to hiring and help more young people take that crucial first step into the world of work.”

The association Paris Good Fashion asked participants in its citizen consultation the question: “How can we make dressing sustainably and ethically desirable?”. Over 168,000 participants took part in the exercise.

The main finding was that respondents' primary expectation is for more information, transparency and education, as they find the current offering complex to understand.

Second citizen consultation led by Paris Good Fashion

From February 19 to April 16, 2026, the Paris Good Fashion association conducted a second citizen consultation, following the one in 2020. This was in partnership with Make.org, the city of Paris and with the support of several companies (Etam, Groupe Eram, Kiabi, Lacoste, Printemps, Galeries Lafayette, Le Bon Marché, SMCP, Karla Otto).

The question posed to participants was: “How can we make dressing sustainably and ethically desirable?”. The consultation involved nearly 170,000 participants in several countries: around 107,000 in France, 32,000 in Italy, 17,700 in the US and 11,499 in the UK.

481,156 votes were recorded, resulting in 1,680 proposals submitted, 1,449 validated after moderation and 915 receiving over 70 percent approval.

The first finding was that women were the majority of participants, accounting for 82 percent, compared to 17 percent men and one percent non-binary individuals.

The second finding was that those over 55 represented 52 percent of respondents. The 35-54 age group accounted for 32 percent of the sample, versus 16 percent for 18-34 year olds.

Information, transparency and education: need to simplify the message becomes more urgent

Information, transparency and education was the theme with the most proposals, at 31 percent in 2026 compared to 15 percent in 2020. Citizens stated they do not understand sustainable fashion and requested simple, reliable and comparable information.

“The first thing that stands out is that the people consulted do not understand sustainable fashion,” commented Isabelle Lefort, co-founder and executive director of Paris Good Fashion. “They do not know how to buy sustainable fashion and there is a general sense of suspicion about the information provided.”

Additionally, 43 percent of proposals related to information on fashion's impact. A further 28 percent called for greater product transparency. “People want education, information, explanations, guidance and training,” added Lefort.

Circular economy: repair and second-hand remain priorities

The circular economy was the second most cited theme, with 219 proposals making up 23.9 percent of the total. Its significance is considered broadly stable compared to the 2020 consultation, at 23.9 percent in 2026 versus 25 percent in 2020.

The primary topics mentioned were repair, second-hand fashion and clothing rental, with the latter identified as a point of controversy.

Pace of fashion: consumers call for a slowdown

This was the third most mentioned theme, with 13.9 percent of proposals. The subject is not limited to ultra-fast fashion. Participants condemned the volume of products, the proliferation of collections, marketing pressure and the feeling that “fashion is moving too fast”.

According to the organisers, respondents from the US and the UK support this idea of a slowdown even more than those from France or Italy.

In parallel, an emerging trend was that participants are calling for more clothing adapted to diverse body shapes. This theme was absent from the 2020 consultation.

They specifically mentioned issues with accessing clothing due to the available sizes and cuts. “Customers want to find clothes they like, but when they get to the store, they cannot find anything to wear,” noted Lefort.

Health: clothing quality becomes a central criterion

The organisers had expected the issues of price and ultra-fast fashion to feature prominently. This was not the case.

The citizen consultation revealed a strong demand for sustainable clothing, natural materials and products deemed to be of higher quality and more desirable. “There is a desire for creative, quality products that last. People are willing to pay a fair price, provided they are sure of what they are buying.” This directly contradicts the idea that price is the respondents' main concern.

In this regard, health is an emerging concern, particularly in relation to textile composition and regulatory compliance.

A total of 38 consensus-based proposals directly mentioned skin allergies; PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances); endocrine disruptors; and carcinogenic risks associated with clothing.

According to PGF and make.org, this subject was completely absent from the previous consultation five years ago.

Relocalisation: respondents expect increased support from public authorities

Relocalisation accounted for 12.5 percent of proposals. Manufacturing in France is associated with quality, compliance with standards and local employment. “Producing in France is synonymous with quality and respect for employment regulations.”

In general, 255 proposals called for greater intervention from public authorities to regulate, supervise, arbitrate and support the ecological transition.

To present the full results of this citizen consultation, Paris Good Fashion has scheduled its next key event, the Midsummer Camp, for July 8 and 9, 2026, at the Domaine de Chaalis.

VF Corporation has announced the inauguration of a new addition to its EMEA headquarters in Stabio, Switzerland. The 2,500 square metre space includes offices, flexible coworking areas, a multifunctional auditorium and spaces dedicated to wellbeing and sport.

The site is “designed to bring people together and support how we work, connect, and grow”, VF said in a post on LinkedIn. It expands on an existing campus that already houses over 1,000 associates from over 40 nationalities, the company added.

The news comes amid an ongoing turnaround strategy at the apparel conglomerate, which returned to revenue growth for the first time in three years for FY26. The period was characterised by portfolio optimisation, most notably the sale of Dickies and Supreme, and an alignment of the Outdoor and Active categories.

Total revenues rose 4 percent to 9.3 billion dollars, while its adjusted gross margin reached 55.2 percent. Its operating income came to 650 million dollars, with an adjusted operating margin of 7 percent, reflecting a 110 basis point increase.

VF’s CEO, Bracken Darrell, said brands like Vans, which had been at the centre of dedicated turnaround efforts, were particularly showing momentum, with the footwear label now on track to achieve its medium-term targets, including an exit run rate of a 10 percent operating margin.

What was the return on the last pop-up? Which deals were finalised in the meeting with a supplier three months ago? What observations did the sales team relay from their latest conversation with a key client? In most companies, answering such questions still requires a fragmented search. Information is typically scattered across documents, emails, management tools and conversations between departments.

This everyday problem was precisely what led Diego Arroyo, chief executive officer of the Barcelona-based firm Laagam, to develop an infrastructure capable of turning corporate knowledge into a real-time accessible resource. The system centralises information from across the entire organisation. It allows users to query the history of decisions and operations using natural language. It also links data from different areas and executes actions immediately, from generating reports to drafting contextualised commercial communications.

Now, the company has decided to release this technology as open source. This move transcends the fashion industry, a sector historically driven by creativity and product. Increasingly, competitive advantage no longer depends solely on having information, but on the ability to transform it into actionable knowledge.

95 tools, 3,000 documents, zero engineers

According to the executive's own LinkedIn account, the company has been operating for months on what he describes as an “AI operating system”. This architecture connects 95 digital tools, processes more than 3,000 internal documents and executes operational tasks automatically by department. The main engine is Claude, Anthropic's artificial intelligence model. The team has fed it with years of their own corporate memory, all without a single engineer on staff.

Cases like this are currently proliferating at a speed that would have seemed exaggerated just a year ago. Since large language models became accessible without needing to write code, a team without a highly technical background can connect its internal data to an AI model and achieve real operational results. This is possible simply by having a clear idea of the problem to be solved. What once required a technology department now primarily requires judgement.

Fashion companies that have accumulated data for years—including emails; meeting transcripts; sales histories; and supplier communications—are beginning to understand that this disorganised archive is actually their most valuable asset. The key is not the AI model, which anyone can use, but the proprietary context that feeds it. That context is non-transferable and very difficult to replicate.

631 euros per month

However, Arroyo himself is honest about the real scope of the impact. The system has not directly boosted sales. Its value lies in freeing up decision-making time for the management team by absorbing the routine operational workload. It does this for 631 euros per month, the cost of maintaining the AI infrastructure.

Laagam has published the complete system openly under the name Compai. It includes the 53-chapter manual, templates by department and the technical architecture, so that other SMEs can replicate it.

London - British apparel company Frasers Group (Frasers) announced on Wednesday its intention to acquire the remaining capital of German premium clothing group Hugo Boss for almost two billion euros (2.31 billion. Frasers already holds more than a quarter of the company.

As Hugo Boss is listed in Frankfurt, Frasers intends to “launch a voluntary public takeover bid in accordance with German law” for these shares. These represent “approximately 73.94 percent of the share capital,” the British group stated in a press release issued after the markets closed.

“Hugo Boss is a key brand partner for Frasers and one of the top five brands within the group,” added the British company. It plans to offer 38 euros per share, totalling approximately 1.98 billion euros, for the capital it does not yet own.

Shares in the Hugo Boss group, whose net profit increased by 17 percent to 249 million euros in 2025, closed at 36.46 euros on Wednesday in Frankfurt.

Positioning itself as a “long-term investor” in the German company, Frasers stated it is “supportive” of chairman of the supervisory board Stephan Sturm and chief executive officer Daniel Grieder. The group praised their “strategy of sustainable growth and strengthening brand value”.

Frasers expects the transaction to be “finalised in the second half of 2026”.

The British group, which owns the Sports Direct chain, saw its net profit fall by 23 percent to 292.1 million pounds in its fiscal year ending late April 2025. These are the latest annual figures available.

Madrid – Galician fashion multinational Bimba y Lola has today reported on the profitability data recorded by the company at the close of its last fiscal year, 2025. These metrics provide a clearer and more complete picture of its actual performance over the past year. They supplement the initial estimated sales figures released by its management in early March of this year, 2026.

Based on information provided by the Spanish company's management, Bimba y Lola closed its last full financial year 2025 on February 28, 2026, recording total sales of 250 million euros. This amount represents a growth of +6.83 percent compared to the 234 million euros invoiced by the company during its previous full financial year of 2024. This rate reflects an acceleration in turnover levels compared to the +3 percent growth recorded in 2024 against the previous year's sales.

In terms of profitability, Bimba y Lola reports an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 32 million euros in 2025. These are indicators that the company's management was reluctant to make public for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 financial years. This figure represents a growth of nearly 13 million euros, or +68.42 percent, compared to the 19 million euros recorded at the close of the previous fiscal year. This has resulted in an EBITDA margin of 13 percent on sales.

Completing this performance in terms of profitability, the company reports a net profit that reached eight million euros at the end of the year. This amount is up +433 percent from the nearly 1.5 million euros the company recorded as net profit at the close of 2024, after adding 6.5 million euros compared to the previous year's result. With this, Bimba y Lola recovers some of the ground lost due to expansion and consolidation initiatives carried out in recent years. It also moves closer to the 18.2 million euros in net profit it achieved in 2019. This was the last financial year to be completed without the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The company completed that year with sales of 226.8 million euros and an EBITDA of 35.8 million euros.

“Our year 2025 has been really positive in many ways,” highlighted Jose Manuel Martínez, chief executive officer of Bimba y Lola, in a statement released by the management of the Spanish fashion multinational. “The positive evolution of our comparable sales in all markets makes us feel a growing affection for the brand and encourages us to continue improving. We also greatly value the continuous strengthening of our teams and our resources to be able to continue building Bimba y Lola as a Spanish brand with a global reach.” A goal towards which, he adds, “now that we have completed our first 20 years, we remain enthusiastic about this adventure.”

Spain as a growth driver

Delving into the other indicators presented by Bimba y Lola regarding its performance during 2025, by channel, 78 percent of sales, amounting to some 195 million euros (+5.48 percent), were generated from the physical points-of-sale that the store has across 34 markets worldwide. These points-of-sale, both owned and franchised, totalled a network of 321 stores in 2025, after the addition of 11 net openings to the 310 points-of-sale the firm had at the close of the 2024 financial year.

Completing these records, the digital channel closed 2025 representing 22 percent of Bimba y Lola's global turnover, for some 55 million euros (+11.92 percent). This level of revenue shows the online channel continues to gain greater prominence within the company's balance sheets, increasing from 21 to 22 percent of its global sales. This is despite experiencing a slight reduction in its growth rate compared to the +15 percent recorded in 2024 versus 2023.

Finally, by market, nearly 58 percent of Bimba y Lola's 2025 sales were generated in Spain, for a value of around 145 million euros (+10.65 percent), compared to the 56 percent they represented of 2024 sales. This revenue stream is completed by an international business that is shrinking in weight within the company's balance sheets, dropping from 44 to 42 percent of the company's global revenue, for some 105 million euros (+1.98 percent). Bimba y Lola's management has nevertheless been keen to clarify that the company's sales experienced “good development” in all the markets in which it operates, in comparable terms.

As for why EBITDA has increased by almost 13 million euros while net profit has increased by 6.5 million, this “more moderate improvement than that of EBITDA” was “mainly due to the major investment effort made by the group between 2018 and 2024”. The company justifies this by stating that “the investments made in international expansion; the modernisation of the store network; the automation of logistics; the provision of systems; and the construction of a new headquarters are key elements for the brand's medium and long-term strategy.” However, they “entail a higher level of amortisation and a higher short-term financing cost.”

British sportswear giant Sports Direct has partnered with delivery platform Zapp to offer FIFA World Cup 2026 merchandise to customers across London, with the goal of making products available within 20 minutes.

The collaboration will run throughout the tournament and gives football fans access to official merchandise, including shirts and match-day essentials, alongside groceries and drinks through a single order.

The move comes as retailers look to capitalise on major sporting events through faster and more flexible fulfilment options. According to Zapp, 78 percent of football-related orders are placed within 90 minutes of kick-off, often outside traditional retail trading hours.

A Sports Direct spokesperson said: “The FIFA World Cup is one of the biggest moments in the global sporting calendar. Through our partnership with Zapp, we're extending access to our FIFA World Cup 2026 range across London, combining Sports Direct's industry-leading football offering with Zapp's on-demand delivery capabilities.”

Zapp said that interest in football-related products has already accelerated ahead of the tournament, with the company's commercial director Rowan Lawson adding that searches linked to football on the platform have increased by more than 300 percent since teams arrived in the US.

The announcement follows the launch of Sports Direct's World Cup campaign, “When Football Was Football”, which focuses on the nostalgia and cultural significance of the tournament.

British brand conglomerate easyGroup is entering the online retail sector with the launch of easyShop.com, a new marketplace platform developed in partnership with e-commerce company OnBuy.

Scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of 2026, easyShop will initially operate across 21 European countries and aims to bring retailers together on a single cross-border marketplace.

The platform will be powered by OnBuy's proprietary marketplace technology and operate as a pure marketplace model, meaning it will not hold inventory or compete directly with sellers.

Its mission is to allow retailers to access customers across multiple countries without managing separate local marketplaces, while consumers will be offered a value-focused shopping experience under the easy brand.

In a statement, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder and owner of the easy family of brands, said: “The easy family of brands has expanded into many new sectors by focusing on simplicity and value for money. I believe an online retail marketplace using a great domain like easyShop is a natural next step.”

Haji-Ioannou added that the company is already preparing to recruit sellers ahead of a consumer launch later this year.

Cas Paton, founder and chief executive of OnBuy, said the platform is designed to help retailers expand internationally more quickly by removing “many of the barriers that typically slow retail expansion”.

Keel Labs, the US startup behind the first fabrics made from seaweed, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with the North Carolina court on June 5. The company has an estimated ten million dollars in assets and one million dollars in liabilities.

To produce Kelsun, biopolymers are extracted from seaweed and converted into threads through a chemical process. These threads are then spun into fibres. Keel Labs describes Kelsun as a “plug-and-play integration”. The material can be knitted and woven, and blended with other fibres such as cotton or hemp. In 2024, the innovation earned the company the ‘Innovation Project of the Year’ award at the Textile Exchange Climate & Nature Impact Awards.

Founders Tessa Callaghan and Aleksandra Gosiewski started in 2017 in a small laboratory in Brooklyn. Then operating under the name AlgiKnit, their mission was to introduce ocean-derived fibres into the polluting fashion sector. In 2022, a significant growth spurt followed thanks to a Series A investment of 13,000,000 dollars from investors including Collaborative Fund, H&M Co:Lab and Horizons Ventures.

Almost a decade later, the founders seemed to have proven that seaweed can be an excellent raw material for clothing. After the Covid-19 period, Kelsun's profile grew rapidly through collaborations with major names. For instance, Kelsun created a fine-knit tank top for Stella McCartney (2023); a cotton shirt from the Californian brand Outerknown (2025) contained one-third Kelsun; and finally, H&M and & Other Stories (2025) released a capsule collection featuring the material.

In 2024, in an interview with FashionUnited, the company expressed its satisfaction at having overcome the most difficult growth phases of a scale-up. Garments featuring Kelsun entered the market in batches of over 100 units at a competitive price point. The “next-gen”, sustainable material seemed ready for the mainstream fashion system.

While the current bankruptcy filing does not necessarily mean Keel Labs is ceasing operations, it does raise questions. What is needed to run a viable business in the alternative fibre segment? How can a small company produce scalable, high-quality, lower-impact fibres while simultaneously maintaining a healthy cash flow?

River Island has reportedly returned to profitability following a major restructuring programme, with the retailer posting a pre-tax profit of 11.6 million pounds for 2025.

The result marks a significant recovery for the British fashion chain, which recorded an operating loss of 65.3 million pounds in 2024 and only just avoided administration before launching a business-wide turnaround plan last year.

The restructuring included the closure of 33 stores, rent reductions across dozens more locations and changes to the leadership team, including the return of Ben Lewis as chief executive.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, Lewis said he was “very pleased and optimistic” about the results, adding that the company’s actions had been creating a “rapid impact” on performance.

Looking ahead, River Island plans to invest further in digital growth and open new stores across the UK and Ireland. The retailer has also recently expanded its wholesale reach through Marks & Spencer’s online marketplace and increased its focus on brand collaborations.

Despite the improved performance, Lewis warned that rising costs continue to weigh on retailers. “You either must manage these costs, or you must get the economy to grow,” he told the media outlet.

Online resale platform ThredUp has launched a new peer-to-peer selling feature, marking an expansion beyond its traditional managed resale model.

The new offering, dubbed Direct Listing, is being introduced in open beta and allows users to list individual items for sale directly through ThredUp’s marketplace. The move means sellers can now choose between the company's existing Clean Out service, where ThredUp handles the resale process, and a self-managed option for higher-value products.

Direct Listing enables sellers to set their own prices and access the platform's existing customer base, while the company uses AI tools to automate product descriptions, pricing suggestions and image editing. ThredUp will also manage returns on behalf of sellers.

The company said early testing showed strong demand for premium inventory. During the beta phase, nearly 18 percent of listed items were priced above 100 dollars, while the average selling price reached 60 dollars, more than double the average value of products sold through ThredUp's traditional marketplace.

ThredUp added that the addition of peer-to-peer selling is intended to broaden its appeal to consumers looking to resell individual high-value items while continuing to support large-scale wardrobe clear-outs through its existing services.

The launch reflects growing demand for more flexible resale models as consumers increasingly participate in secondhand fashion through a mix of managed and peer-to-peer channels.

Fast fashion giant Shein has opened a new e-commerce logistics centre in Dublin, Ireland, as it expands its regional fulfilment network in response to growing demand.

The new 16,000 square foot facility is located in Greenogue Business Park in Rathcoole, and will support 30 jobs across warehouse and office roles, RTE reported.

In a statement to the media outlet, Shein’s corporate communications director, Robin Kiely, said the company was proud to expand its operations in Ireland, a country which “plays an important role in our wider European growth strategy”.

Kiely added that “this investment strengthens our ability to provide improved, more efficient services for customers across the country”.

“The new facility also creates additional warehouse and office roles locally, while supporting our long-term commitment to investing in infrastructure, technology and operational capability across Ireland and Europe,” he continued.

The introduction of the Dublin site builds on broader efforts by Shein to grow its European logistics footprint.

The company opened a primary distribution centre in Wroclaw, Poland, last year, which was followed by a logit logistics warehouse in the UK Midlands that opened last month.

In Ireland, Shein is currently facing an inquiry by the Irish Data Protection Commission over concerns of personal data transfers between the EU/EEA and China.

The company has also been issued a 22 million euro fine from the French government over allegations related to product traceability, environmental claims, withdrawal periods and delivery times.

European fashion retailers lose over 12 billion euros (13.88 billion dollars) annually on clothing and a further 2.7 billion euros on jewellery and handbags. This is according to research by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which enforces intellectual property.

The EUIPO states that consumers are willing to pay more for ‘designed’ products like fashion, furniture and electronics. This means there is added value in the design element, which makes design-intensive markets vulnerable to counterfeiting.

Social media makes it even easier for cheap knock-offs to reach the mainstream. In the EUIPO's research, over a tenth of respondents admitted to knowingly purchasing counterfeit goods. For Gen Z consumers under the age of 24, this figure rises to more than a quarter.

Around 28 million EU citizens work in design-intensive sectors, contributing 16 percent to the gross domestic product. The EUIPO therefore strongly advises companies to officially register their designs. Registering a simple product costs 350 euros. The rights are valid in all member states and can be renewed every five years, up to a maximum of 25 years.

Lifestyle Retail Group (LRG) is rebranding as Secret Sales Group to reflect the scale of its off-price retailer, Secret Sales, and an industry shift towards tech-led platforms.

The name change will only apply to the group’s corporate identity, with consumer-facing brands to retain their existing names and operations.

While Secret Sales itself has “become one of the most recognised names in European off-price retail”, Chris Griffin, CEO of Secret Sales Group, said momentum was being seen across the group’s wider portfolio and core markets.

Next to Secret Sales, the company also operates via a slew of international platforms acquired in recent years, including Germany’s Dress for Less; Spain’s Dreivip; and Sweden’s Afound. Such deals have allowed the group to globally expand, leveraging existing consumer bases while also applying its own infrastructure.

This growth has continued into 2026, during which the company has added 150 sellers, more than 500 brands and increased available inventory by over 100 percent.

“Those numbers demonstrate the growing demand from brands and retailers for a pan-European solution that allows them to efficiently monetise excess inventory while maintaining control of pricing, presentation and brand positioning,” Griffin said.

He continued: “The retail landscape is changing rapidly. Brands are increasingly moving away from traditional clearance models and towards technology-led solutions that give them greater control, greater flexibility and better outcomes.

“We believe that shift is only just beginning. Our ambition is simple: to become the first place brands think of when they need to efficiently distribute excess inventory across Europe. The combination of AI, automation, data and scale is helping us get there faster than ever."

StockX is venturing into a new field. The resale platform has announced the launch of a real-time live shopping experience, bringing it into the social commerce space.

Due to debut in summer, ‘StockX Live’ will allow buyers to participate in live auctions, giveaways, and live chats enabling direct seller-buyer engagement.

Its initial rollout will focus on building communities of buyers and sellers within categories like sneakers, apparel, collectibles and vintage fashion, with further categories to follow post-launch.

Sellers will be backed by dedicated marketing support and a Live team, while having the potential to reach the platform’s existing 30 million unique monthly visitors.

The feature will be available to all US iOS customers across mobile and web platforms.

For StockX, the launch marks an evolution into a “multi-experience marketplace built for the next generation of commerce”, a “natural extension” of the platform itself, the company’s CEO, Greg Schwartz, said.

“We’ve spent years building a scaled, trusted, and transparent marketplace and now we’re bringing all of that into a live experience. I couldn’t be more excited to get this product in front of our community later this summer,” Schwartz added.

Asics Corporation has announced plans to spin off its Onitsuka Tiger business. The company's Board of Directors has approved the transfer of the business to OT Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Asics, through a simplified absorption-type company split. The restructuring is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027.

Under the new structure, Onitsuka Tiger will operate with greater independence, while the brand's activities within existing regional subsidiaries will also be reorganized globally under OT Group. Asics said the move reflects the brand's rapid international growth, expanding market presence and rising recognition as a luxury lifestyle label.

Asics to separate Onitsuka Tiger

The Japanese sportswear company noted that Onitsuka Tiger has successfully strengthened its position in the premium segment through the expansion of its directly operated retail network. By establishing an independent operating structure, ASICS aims to accelerate decision-making, enhance competitiveness tailored to the brand's luxury positioning, improve transparency of business performance within the broader group, and strengthen governance and management accountability.

The transaction qualifies as a simplified absorption-type company split under Japan's Companies Act and therefore does not require approval from Asics shareholders. As part of the restructuring, OT Group will issue 400 common shares, all of which will be allotted to Asics. The company added that there will be no change to its stated capital or stock acquisition rights as a result of the transaction.

Onitsuka Tiger to be reorganized globally under OT Group

OT Group, established on February 25, 2026, will serve as the global headquarters for the Onitsuka Tiger business. Although the subsidiary has yet to report financial results, it is expected to oversee operations spanning approximately 160 countries and regions. The business will be supported by regional sales hubs in Japan, China, Europe and Southeast Asia, a global network of around 190 directly operated stores, and a workforce of approximately 2,800 employees, including 550 office-based staff and 2,250 retail employees.

Asics said the reorganisation is intended to position Onitsuka Tiger for its next phase of growth as a global luxury lifestyle brand. As the transaction involves a wholly owned subsidiary, the company expects the impact on its consolidated financial results to be minimal.

Online giant Amazon will introduce next-generation AI warehouse robots that are designed to respond to conversational prompts in its European warehouses to improve its deliveries. The upgraded Proteus robot was unveiled by Amazon at an event in its Dartford ​fulfilment center east of London, and is part of a broader 10 billion euro investment in improving its European fulfilment network. 

The new Proteus robot builds on its predecessor and is designed to take on physically demanding tasks, such as moving heavy carts and covering large distances, so warehouse workers can spend more time on managing inventory flow and quality control, according to Amazon. The current Proteus robot, introduced in 2022 as Amazon's first fully autonomous robot and in use at 25 fulfilment centers across the United States, is used in docking areas to move carts weighing close to 400 kgs (882lbs). 

The upgraded version, which will be launched in Europe during the first half of 2027, can travel farther and be used across the entire warehouse, transporting containers from the arrival site to workstations. The next-gen Proteus, roughly the size of a 50-inch flat screen TV, also reacts to conversation cues, making it easier for workers to instruct it. "You tell it what needs to be done. It figures out the priority, the route, the timing," said Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics, in a statement. "It becomes your assistant for material movement."

In addition to unveiling the next-gen Proteus, Amazon also presented Stark, a robotic tote-handling system that stemmed from an operations employee idea to improve process and support site safety. The collaborative system is designed to pick full totes from conveyors and place them on carts, reducing repetitive heavy lifting for warehouse workers. First piloted in Barcelona, Amazon plans on rolling it out to 15 European fulfilment centers by  2027. Amazon also showcased Vulcan, its first-ever robot with a sense of touch, designed to handle more complex picking tasks at Amazon's Hamburg facility in Germany.

"This transformation is designed to deliver a step-change in how we support our employees and serve our customers," said Armin Cossmann, vice president of operations for Europe. "Customer expectations aren't slowing down—and neither are we."

As part of its investments in Europe, Amazon is set to increase its European fulfillment center workforce by 25,000 over the next few years. The news comes as Amazon plans to open three new fulfillment centers in France, creating a total of 8,000 new permanent jobs. "Europe is at the center of how we're building our operations for the future," added Dresser. "The investment we're making here, the talent we're building with here, the technology we're deploying here—this is where the next chapter of operations innovation is being written."

Chinese sportswear brand Li-Ning is continuing to push its global strategy plans with a new long-term partnership with basketball star Stephen Curry, who parted ways from his previous partner Under Armour last year.

In a statement, Li-Ning said the partnership with Curry is built on “long-term brand co-creation,” with a focus on multi-category performance product development and sports culture initiatives, as well as commitment to engage the next generation of athletes as it looks to “shape what's next for global sports brands”.

The deal will see NBA star Curry wearing Li-Ning basketball sneakers on court, with the Golden State Warriors player stating he was impressed by the Chinese company’s technological innovation and product performance capabilities.

Commenting on the partnership, Curry said in a statement: "The quality, comfort and performance of their shoes are what impressed me the most. That experience gave me real confidence in Li-Ning sneakers on the court and helped me see that Li-Ning could be the right partner to deliver the innovation and design I want Curry Brand to stand for."

The move will also see Li-Ning backing his Curry Brand, which originally launched in 2020 as a sub-brand under Under Armour. When he left the American company, he kept full ownership of all his logos, trademarks, and intellectual property.

NBA star Stephen Curry finds a new home at Chinese sportswear brand Li-Ning

Li-Ning adds that it plans to advance the global development of the Curry Brand, starting with basketball and golf, before extending into broader consumer lifestyle sport categories. The Chinese giant also said it has plans to open stores in China and the US, as it continues expanding its global footprint.

Curry added: "When I think about the future of Curry Brand, I think about building something that lasts, something that continues to push the game forward and creates real impact for athletes around the world.

"That's what makes this partnership with Li-Ning so exciting. Mr Li Ning built this company from the perspective of an athlete, with the same belief that sport can change lives and inspire the next generation. I felt that in the conversations we've had and in the product I've tested. The quality, performance and innovation are real, and it instils confidence in what we can create together across basketball, golf and lifestyle.

“For Curry Brand, this is about growing the right way, with a partner that understands the standard we're trying to set and the good we want to do."

World-renowned Olympic gymnastics champion Li Ning founded the sports brand in 1990, shaped around his experiences of sport and performance, offering footwear, apparel and hard-goods equipment for basketball, running, fitness, badminton, table tennis, and sports lifestyle, and in recent years expanding into outdoor, tennis, and pickleball.

It has grown into one of the top sportswear and athletic equipment companies in China, reportedly pulling in around 4.3 billion US dollars in annual revenue. While the majority of Li-Ning's revenue has come from inside China, the company is hoping that its landmark partnership with Curry will boost its global presence.

"Sport has the power to ignite passion and inspire each generation to push beyond its limits," said Li Ning, founder and chairman of Li-Ning Company. "Li-Ning and Curry share a deep understanding of sport and a common commitment to performance, innovation and the next generation of athletes. We look forward to building on this partnership to keep pushing boundaries and create new possibilities for global sport."

Madrid – The Valencian company Recover has announced its entry into the recycled cotton yarn market. This move advances its dual objective of establishing itself as the global benchmark for sustainable solutions in the fashion industry, while also promoting its evolution towards a more environmentally committed model. The offering is available to manufacturers and brands from today through its new family of recycled cotton yarns, “Recover Yarns”.

According to the Valencian company's management, Recover is launching “Recover Yarns” to accelerate the use of recycled cotton throughout the textile and fashion value chain. This new and first range of finished, ready-to-use recycled cotton yarns is being made available to brands and manufacturers of all sizes by the Spanish company, a leader in textile innovation and one of the world's largest producers of recycled cotton fibres. Externally, the launch advances the company's goal of driving the textile industry's transformation towards a more sustainable model. Internally, Recover completes its business model and diversification strategy. It is now an integrated platform offering sustainable, industrial-scale solutions for manufacturers and brands, ranging from recycled cotton fibres, to fabrics and finished garments, and now yarns.

“By transforming our fibre into ready-to-use yarns, we make it easier for brands and manufacturers to move from ambition to implementation of their sustainability strategies,” stated Anders Sjöblom, chief executive officer of Recover, in a statement shared by the textile company. With the launch of this new yarn vertical, the company now operates as “a fully integrated ecosystem encompassing fibre, yarn, fabric and finished garment, connecting every stage of the value chain under the umbrella of a reliable brand, guaranteeing clarity, traceability and circularity” for its customers, “from raw material to finished product”.

An adaptive solution for any scale, use and destination

Available for purchase from today, Recover highlights the unique characteristics of its new recycled cotton yarn family. The company emphasises its value as a flexible solution adaptable to multiple uses, production scales, and manufacturing origins and destinations. These features make the collection an optimal solution for any active participant in the textile and fashion industry.

The new yarns, developed in collaboration with Recover's existing global network of spinning mills, offer a wide variety in terms of composition, blends and technical capabilities. This diversity allows them to be used for applications ranging from jeans and denim garments to jumpers, workwear and fleece linings. The Valencian company highlights that thanks to its global network of over 150 collaborating spinning mills, the “Recover Yarns” range can support brands in any geographical location, regardless of their required production volume.

The “Recover Yarns” respond “to the need for adaptable product solutions that allow the integration of recycled cotton at an industrial scale,” noted Enes Adak, product director at Recover. The textile company highlights that its new yarns “simplify the sourcing and development of recycled cotton yarns” within the industry. They offer “a versatile range of options and yarn collections that adapt to market needs, innovative blends and technologies.” This “adaptive approach” ensures the “Recover Yarns” platform can support brands of all sizes in terms of volume, geography, price points and end uses, while facilitating long-term collaboration with business partners. The company reiterates that it offers “a flexible and scalable solution that evolves alongside the production and sustainability strategies” of industry players, “keeping recycled cotton at the heart of its portfolio” of solutions.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK has opened a formal review into Ebay’s planned acquisition of Gen-Z focused fashion resale platform Depop, to determine the “impact that the transaction could have on competition in the UK”.

The UK’s competition regulator said it has finished the first part of its information-gathering process and closed its invitation to comment, which allowed interested parties to comment on the proposed transaction.

According to the CMA, the merger inquiry will run until August 6, when it will then clear the deal or suggest further investigation.

Ebay announced in February that it planned to buy Depop from Etsy for approximately 1.2 billion US dollars in cash, with the acquisition expected to close in the second quarter of 2026.

The deal is expected to help Ebay expand its reach among younger shoppers, as nearly 90 percent of Depop’s 7 million active buyers are under 34.

In February, Jamie Ianonne, chief executive officer of Ebay, said: “Depop has built a trusted, social-forward marketplace with strong momentum in the pre-loved fashion category, and we are confident that as part of Ebay, Depop will be even more well-positioned for long-term growth, benefiting from our scale, complementary offerings, and operational capabilities.”

Washington - The United States released an updated list on Monday of Chinese companies it considers to be aiding the country's military.

The list includes, among others, e-commerce giant Alibaba, search engine provider Baidu and electric vehicle manufacturer BYD.

The US Department of Defense announced the designations just weeks before President Donald Trump was due to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, as both sides sought to maintain stability in their bilateral relationship.

The Pentagon's update comes months after it released—and then withdrew—an earlier version of the list without explanation.

The new list is largely similar to the version briefly published in February.

Two memory chip manufacturers were reinstated to the blacklist after being removed at that time: ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies.

“This updated list of Chinese military companies is a warning to American companies, all levels of government and the American people,” said representative John Moolenaar, republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China.

In a statement, he urged US companies to “stop doing business with these threats to our national security” or risk “facilitating China's military rise”.

Among the companies affected are also some of China's leading technology giants involved in the artificial intelligence race, such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent.

Baidu rejected its inclusion on the list in a statement on Chinese social media, calling the accusations “completely unfounded”.

“The claim that Baidu is a military company is completely baseless. We will not hesitate to use all resources at our disposal to have the company removed from the list,” a spokesperson said.

Alibaba called its inclusion on the list “a mistake” and threatened legal action.

“Alibaba Group is not a Chinese military company nor is it part of any military-civil fusion strategy,” the company said in a statement.

Trump invited Xi to visit Washington in September. The list could stoke tensions between the world's two largest economies.

Madrid – British investment group Cap Capital is finalising the details of the new strategic plan for the relaunch of Pronovias. This follows the court-ordered award of its production unit to the investment holding company by the Commercial Court No. 9 of Barcelona. The fashion group has just revealed the main key points of this roadmap.

According to information from Pronovias' management, the bridal fashion group is entering a new chapter under the control of Cap Capital. The company has stressed that it will continue to focus on developing and growing based on the same pillars that have “defined its trajectory”. These pillars have led it to become a historic mainstay of the bridal world, stemming from its role as a pioneer in bridal prêt-à-porter. These pillars are identified by its firm commitment to design, quality, innovation and its international focus.

Building on this foundation, Pronovias is entering a new phase. The bridal fashion group highlights that the “new Pronovias” under Cap Capital's control will maintain its main objective of promoting a renewed business model. This model will be more modern, more connected and better prepared to lead “the next evolution of the bridal sector”. They emphasise that this framework will be supported by the “stability” and “long-term” vision with which the British investment group has taken control of the historic Spanish bridal fashion group. The company will focus on implementing strict operational discipline to boost its growth. The aim is to return the fashion group to its position as a leading and benchmark company at the forefront of the bridal world.

“The company is facing this new cycle with a clear objective”, which involves “strengthening the shopping experience, evolving the boutique model and accelerating its international growth through a stronger, closer and more connected commercial network that meets the needs of brides”, Pronovias' management stated. “In this context”, they added, “franchises will play a key role in expanding the brand's presence and accelerating its development in strategic markets”.

Franchises, the United States and AI

Delving into this new strategic plan, Pronovias has announced that it will be officially presented on September 8, 2026. During this event, the bridal company will also present its new store concept, “designed to elevate the shopping experience, strengthen the connection with customers and open a new stage of growth for the brand”. It is positioned as one of the main pillars of the roadmap, alongside a strong focus on the United States and advancements in the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI).

Regarding these three main strategic pillars in more detail, Pronovias has confirmed the “key role” that franchised stores will play in the new commercial and business structure of the “new Pronovias”. This commitment to the franchise model will be complemented by the company's reduced and well-maintained network of own-brand stores. The number of stores is expected to shrink significantly from the 53 it operated before the acquisition by Cap Capital. This aligns with the investment holding's intention to reduce the company's operating expenses, as stated in its acquisition proposal for Pronovias.

The second strategic pillar is a sustained commitment to internationalisation, which will translate into a decisive and prioritised offensive in the US market. In this country, Pronovias will seek to strengthen its presence and increase its consolidation through a more local and competitive offering and experiences. At the same time, the company remains firm in its determination to continue strengthening its position in Europe.

Finally, the third pillar, which ties in with the previous points, is the key role that new technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI), will play in this new chapter for Pronovias. This point initially creates some friction and reveals potential risks. Technology itself, and even more so AI, tends to feel cold, distant and disconnected. These feelings do not align with the emotional universe on which the bridal industry is based. However, Pronovias is developing a project “aimed at redefining the bridal experience, integrating inspiration; personalised advice; customer knowledge; and commercial capabilities into a more connected ecosystem”. More details about this initiative are expected to be revealed at the September presentation. It will seek to “improve the bride's experience and enhance the relationship between the brand, the ‘boutiques’ and its international network”.

“We are starting a new phase focused on strengthening our distribution channels, evolving the in-store experience and accelerating our international growth,” summarised the management of Pronovias. For this new chapter, “we want to be closer to brides, offer an increasingly personalised experience and continue to expand our presence in key markets such as the United States”. They added that in pursuit of these key priorities and objectives, “technology and artificial intelligence will be fundamental tools to accompany this transformation and build the future of the bridal experience”.

South African specialty retail group TFG (The Foschini Group) reported a 29.4 percent increase in sales to 488 million pounds (652 million dollars) for its TFG London division during the financial year ended March 31, 2026.

The growth was primarily driven by the recent acquisition of British fashion brand White Stuff, which performed well and recorded pro forma sales growth of 4.3 percent. Excluding the impact of the White Stuff acquisition, legacy UK turnover remained flat in pounds. Management attributed the stagnant organic sales to a highly constrained discretionary consumer spending environment across the UK, which has been severely impacted by elevated living costs and subdued consumer confidence.

Operations hit by category weakness and cyber disruption

The performance of the legacy TFG London brand portfolio was negatively affected by several operational headwinds during the 12-month period. Key factors included:

Weakness across core occasion-wear categories;

Softer overall trading volumes within department store concession channels;

Significant operational disruption resulting from a major cyber incident that affected a key online concession partner.

Negative leverage pressures operating profit

Although regional management remained focused on protecting operating profit margins through targeted cost containment and reduction initiatives, the flat organic sales generated severe negative operating leverage.

Consequently, segmental EBIT declined by 65.4 percent before accounting for brand impairments and the acquisition costs incurred in the prior financial year.

Reflecting a deterioration in long-term cash flow expectations under current economic conditions, the parent group recognised non-cash impairment charges against its UK-based Phase Eight brand. Moving forward into the next financial year, profitability for TFG London will remain heavily dependent on disciplined gross margin protection and strict cost management.

French womenswear prêt-à-porter brand Grain de Malice is exploring its entry into the Spanish market. This will be through a franchise-based expansion model and the search for a local operator. The brand already reaches Spain indirectly through its digital channel, with a presence on platforms like Zalando.

The company, which specialises in mid-range womenswear, is planning this move as part of its international growth strategy. It already operates more than 200 points of sale outside its home country.

Founded in 2007, the brand has positioned itself in the accessible womenswear segment. Its collections are aimed at women over 35 and sizes range from approximately 36 to 50. Its offering focuses on garments designed for different body shapes, with a stated emphasis on comfort, fit and in-store advice.

The planned expansion model for Spain is based on a commission-affiliation system. Under this system, the brand would retain ownership of the stock and the franchisee would act as a point-of-sale, receiving a commission on turnover. The estimated initial investment is around 100,000 euros, with an entrance fee of 12,000 euros, no royalties, and a marketing fee of 2 percent plus an additional 1 percent. The planned stores have an average area of around 160 square metres, with five-year contracts and a minimum population requirement of 40,000 inhabitants.

On a corporate level, the company has undergone significant changes in its shareholding structure in recent years. After being linked to the Mulliez group ecosystem, it was acquired in 2023 by an investment consortium. This consortium was formed by Groupe Philippe Ginestet, the FE2T fund and its current management team. This change has been accompanied by an acceleration of its retail expansion and a greater commitment to international growth.

British women’s fashion brand Wyse London has appointed former Boden executive Cathy Newnes-Smith as its new chief executive officer, with immediate effect.

Newnes-Smith joins Wyse London following three and a half years as CEO of British lingerie and sleepwear brand Stripe & Stare, where she led the business through a significant period of growth and brand development.

Prior to this, Newnes-Smith spent 12 years at British clothing brand Boden, most recently serving on the executive leadership team as chief design and customer experience officer. In this role, she oversaw product design, buying, content and brand marketing, as well as creative and creative services.

In a statement, Wyse London said that Newnes-Smith brings “extensive experience” across brand building, customer experience, creative leadership and commercial growth, and will lead the brand through “its next chapter as the business continues to expand both its retail presence and digital offering”.

Commenting on the appointment, Marielle Wyse, founder of Wyse, said: "Cathy brings a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of our customer, making her an exceptional fit for Wyse London and our ambitions for the future. Her values, vision and commercial expertise are closely aligned with who we are as a brand and where we are heading.

“Both personally and professionally, I have enormous admiration and respect for Cathy. I have every confidence that she is the right person to lead Wyse through its next chapter, building on our strong foundations and driving the business forward as we continue to grow.”

Newnes-Smith added: "I am delighted to be joining Wyse, a brand I have admired for many years. Marielle and the team have always put customers at the heart of Wyse, understanding the power of clothes to give confidence, strength and joy.

“I am very much looking forward to working with Marielle and the team to continue growing the Wyse community in the years to come."

Founded in 2014, Wyse London began as a colourful cashmere brand and has grown into a full lifestyle label spanning knitwear, dresses, denim and outerwear. The contemporary brand also has a growing retail presence in the UK with stores in London, York, Burnham Market, and Southwold.

Portuguese technology company Smartex has added a colour measurement and control tool for the textile industry to its solutions portfolio, strengthening its digitalisation offering for dyeing and manufacturing companies. The new solution, named Smartex CTRL Color, is now available in Europe. It is part of a broader strategy combining technological development, a closer relationship with fashion brands and a future funding round aimed at accelerating the company's international expansion.

The product was originally developed by a British company and is now integrated into the Smartex ecosystem. According to Portugal Textil, it allows for the automatic detection and monitoring of colour variations in knitted fabrics. With this addition, the company completes one of the capabilities it had not yet covered within its platform, which until now had focused mainly on the automatic detection of defects during manufacturing processes.

The integration of CTRL Color aligns with the company's vision of building a digital infrastructure capable of connecting various textile manufacturing processes. Beyond developing inspection systems, Smartex aims to consolidate a platform that allows for the capture and management of production data throughout the entire value chain, from fabric manufacturing to garment construction. The company has even developed a label that can adhere to textiles and withstand the chemical processes typical of the dyeing stages.

As Gilberto Loureiro, president of Smartex, explained a couple of weeks ago at the ETP annual conference, colour measurement represents one of the most complex challenges in textile quality control and is a leading cause of product rejection in the final stages of production.

This commitment to digitalisation has also led the company to invest nearly two million euros in traceability and Digital Product Passport (DPP) technologies. Although the adoption of these solutions remains limited, especially outside of Europe, Smartex believes that future regulatory changes will ultimately drive their development. Currently, Portuguese companies such as Impetus, Familitex, Acatel and Tintex are already using Smartex Loop, the platform developed by the company to manage traceability and production information.

The company has also entered a new organisational phase with the appointment of Max Easton as chief executive officer, while Gilberto Loureiro has taken on the presidency. The change aims to strengthen the direct relationship with fashion brands, an area the company considers strategic for accelerating technological adoption in the supply chain. Although Smartex already collaborates with groups such as H&M, Inditex and Calvin Klein, the company acknowledges that there is still significant growth potential in this segment.

With nearly 80 employees, a presence in more than ten countries and over 45 million euros raised since its founding, Smartex is now preparing for the next phase of its development. The priority is to consolidate its solutions for finished fabric and strengthen its positioning among international brands. In parallel, the company is considering a new funding round to accelerate its expansion and broaden the reach of its technological proposal, with which it aims to become one of the leading digital partners in the global textile industry.

British certified B Corp underwear and sleepwear brand Stripe & Stare has appointed co-founder Katie Lopes as its new chief executive officer.

In a statement, Stripe & Stare said that Lopes appointment marks a “new chapter” for the brand, and will see her leading the next phase of its “ambitious global expansion” plans.

Lopes co-founded the lingerie and sleepwear brand in 2017, where she spearheaded the six years of research and development for the brand’s signature knickers, which are crafted from Tencel fabric, 95% biodegradable and claim to offer a fit where the style doesn’t ride up or dig in.

The female-founded brand now generates more than 10 million pounds in annual revenue and has evolved into a thriving global direct-to-consumer business, disrupting a category traditionally dominated by heritage players. Its stockists include Selfridges, Shopbop and Nordstrom.

Stripe & Stare strive to become the leading comfort-led underwear brand

Commenting on the appointment, Tracy Lewis, board chair of Stripe & Stare, said: “Katie has been the heartbeat of Stripe & Stare since day one. Her passion, entrepreneurial spirit and unwavering commitment to our customers and community have helped build an extraordinary brand.

“She is uniquely positioned to lead Stripe & Stare into its next era of growth, and we're all so excited to see the business reach even greater heights under her leadership.”

As CEO, Lopes is being tasked with making Stripe & Stare the world's leading comfort-led underwear brand, through accelerating investment in product innovation, deepening customer relationships, and expanding its international footprint, as well as further strengthening its environmental commitments.

Lopes said: "Stepping into the role of CEO is both a privilege and an incredible opportunity. Eight years ago, we set out to create underwear that women never wanted to take off. Today, Stripe & Stare is so much more than a lingerie brand, it's a community, a movement and a business proving that purpose and profitability can thrive together.

“I'm enormously proud of what we've built and incredibly excited for what's next as we continue to scale globally, innovate relentlessly and bring the world's most comfortable knickers to even more women around the world."

US fashion group G-III Apparel Group (G-III) has reported its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, ended April 30, 2026. The company reported net sales of 536 million dollars, representing an 8 percent decrease compared to the same period of the prior year.

Despite the revenue decline, net income for the first quarter increased to 66.50 million dollars, or 1.50 dollars per diluted share, including a 77.90 million dollar benefit under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. On a non-GAAP basis, net income per share for the first quarter was a loss of 0.21 dollars per share, compared to an income of 0.19 dollars per diluted share last year, while gross margin increased by 2,270 basis points to 64.9 percent.

G-III chairman and chief executive officer, Morris Goldfarb, stated: “The quarter was better than expected with both our net sales and earnings coming in ahead of guidance. Our go-forward portfolio saw continued momentum and healthy full-price selling, which contributed to meaningful gross margin expansion versus the prior year.”

Strategic acquisition of Marc Jacobs

The financial report follows the company's recently announced definitive agreement to acquire the US designer brand Marc Jacobs in partnership with brand management firm WHP Global. The transaction will establish a 50/50 joint venture to hold the intellectual property of the brand, with G-III managing the global operating business.

Goldfarb added: “Marc Jacobs is one of the most influential brands in fashion, and we see tremendous opportunity to build on its strong foundation and drive long-term growth across categories, channels, and geographies.” The current financial outlook does not incorporate any potential impact from this pending transaction.

Revision of fiscal year 2027 earnings outlook

Based on the first quarter performance, G-III has updated its financial guidance for the full fiscal year ending January 31, 2027. Net sales are projected to reach approximately 2.71 billion dollars, down from 2.96 billion dollars in fiscal year 2026. This estimation accounts for an anticipated loss of approximately 470 million dollars in sales from Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger products.

Full year net income is expected to range between 171 million dollars and 175 million dollars, with diluted earnings per share between 3.85 dollars and 3.95 dollars. This is an increase from the net income of 67.40 million dollars reported in fiscal year 2026. Non-GAAP net income is projected between 95.00 million dollars and 99 million dollars, down from 116.20 million dollars in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA is forecast between 178 million dollars and 182 million dollars, compared to 192.40 million dollars in fiscal year 2026.

For the second quarter ending July 31, 2026, G-III expects net sales of approximately 570 million dollars, compared to 613.30 million dollars in the second quarter of the prior year. Second quarter net income and non-GAAP net income are both projected to sit between 7 million dollars and 11 million dollars, compared to 10.90 million dollars and 11.20 million dollars respectively in the same period last year.

The US bankruptcy court for the southern district of Texas has approved the reorganization plan of Saks Global Enterprises LLC (Saks Global), a US multi-brand luxury retail company. The plan gained support across the capital structure from participating creditors, with an overwhelming majority voting in favour. Confirmation of the plan allows the company to exit chapter 11 in the coming weeks with a strengthened financial foundation.

“Securing approval of our Plan is an incredible achievement for Saks Global, and the broad-based support we have received from our capital partners, brand partners and other key stakeholders reflects confidence in our future,” said Geoffroy van Raemdonck, chief executive officer of Saks Global. Van Raemdonck added that with the commitment of capital partners and the dedication of the team, the company is on track to emerge stronger and more focused, poised for profitable and sustainable growth.

Upon emergence, the debt of Saks Global will be reduced significantly, by nearly 75 percent, and the company will have the liquidity necessary to support operations and invest in its future. The plan establishes the foundation for the retailer to accelerate sales growth, with a focus on strong full-price selling. The company aims to generate 9 billion dollars in total gross merchandise value and double-digit adjusted EBITDA by fiscal year 2030.

Progress toward sustainable growth

Brandy Richardson, chief financial officer of Saks Global, noted that with significantly reduced debt on the balance sheet at emergence and having already achieved substantial cost savings through the optimization of its footprint, operations, and organization, the business is well positioned for future success.

In less than five months, Saks Global has progressed in evolving its business to support a more sustainable future. This includes establishing an improved capital structure and strengthening relationships with brand partners to facilitate the delivery of a curated product assortment.

The company has also optimized its store footprint and supply chain network to support its integrated retail model. This model is anchored by the best-performing stores in markets with a high concentration of luxury customers, alongside distinct e-commerce platforms and remote selling services. Saks Global has also focused on its core luxury business by streamlining the majority of its off-price business to prioritize luxury and full-price selling, while right-sizing the corporate team to align with this strategy.

The actions of the company are translating into sustained momentum. Store sales for the go-forward operations continue to show steady improvement, reflecting stronger customer engagement as a result of increased inventory.

Shares of Lululemon Athletica fell about 8 percent on Friday to an over seven-year low of 109.36 dollars, Reuters reported, after the activewear retailer cut its full-year profit forecast and signalled mounting operational pressures. The sharp selloff reflected growing investor concern about the pace of the activewear retailer's turnaround and the challenges facing incoming chief executive Heidi O'Neill, who is set to assume the role in September.

The earnings disappointment has intensified scrutiny of a business grappling with weakening brand momentum, rising competition and a series of product-related setbacks. The market reaction has also significantly compressed Lululemon's valuation, with the company now trading at roughly 10 times forward earnings, well below rivals such as Nike and Adidas.

Brand challenges and product missteps weigh on sentiment

Investor confidence has been undermined by concerns over both brand perception and product execution. Management acknowledged that recent sales trends were affected by negative media coverage and social media commentary linked to a prolonged proxy battle with founder Chip Wilson.

Wilson has publicly criticised the company's leadership, arguing that the brand has lost some of its premium appeal while attempting to broaden its market reach. Those concerns have been amplified by customer complaints regarding product quality and innovation.

The company faced backlash following the launch of its 108-dollar "Get Low" leggings, with consumers posting on social media that the garments were see-through. Other recent collections have also drawn criticism over fit, design and overall product quality, raising questions about Lululemon's ability to maintain its premium positioning.

Analysts warn of structural risks

The operational slowdown prompted French banking group BNP Paribas to downgrade the stock from Neutral to Underperform and cut its price target to 88 dollars, implying further downside from post-earnings trading levels.

In a research note, analysts Laurent Vasilescu, Aubrey Tianello and Leah Yang argued that the company's challenges extend beyond short-term execution issues and reflect deeper structural concerns that could persist through fiscal 2027.

Among the key risks identified was Lululemon's continued expansion of its store footprint despite declining comparable sales in the Americas, where same-store sales fell 5 percent. Analysts warned that the resulting fixed-cost pressures could weigh on profitability for several years.

They also pointed to what they described as a dilution of focus within the company's core business. Investments in newer categories, including footwear, self-care and technology products, have coincided with weaker performance in Lululemon's foundational yoga apparel business.

At the same time, growth in China—long regarded as one of the retailer's strongest expansion markets, has begun to slow. Excluding the benefit of a Chinese New Year calendar shift, comparable sales growth in the region moderated to approximately 5 percent.

Profitability under pressure

First-quarter results highlighted the scale of the financial challenges facing management.

Operating income declined 37 percent year over year to 276.95 million dollars, while operating margin contracted by 730 basis points to 11.2 percent. Net income fell to 195.05 million dollars, resulting in diluted earnings per share of 1.69 dollars, compared with 2.60 dollars a year earlier.

According to estimates cited by brokerage firm William Blair, Lululemon's full-year operating margin is expected to decline by approximately 380 basis points to 16.1 percent, which would represent the company's lowest margin level since 2006.

O'Neill faces high-stakes leadership transition

The pressure on incoming CEO Heidi O'Neill is mounting as analysts reassess the company's prospects. At least nine brokerages have reduced their price targets in recent months, with the median target falling from 205 dollars to 149 dollars over the past three months.

Investors remain uncertain whether management's strategy of increasing discounts on older inventory will be sufficient to stabilise demand and improve performance.

The challenge for O'Neill is compounded by the long lead times inherent in apparel manufacturing, meaning many product decisions for 2027 have already been made. As a result, investors will be closely watching whether she can oversee a successful product reset, restore confidence in the brand and reignite growth in North America while preserving Lululemon's premium market positioning.

Mystery shopping has long been a familiar tool in fashion retail for assessing in-store customer experience. Previously used primarily to monitor service agreements, its focus is increasingly shifting towards learning and improvement. Retailers now use insights from store visits as input for coaching, training and discussions on the shop floor. To better understand this development, FashionUnited spoke with fashion retailers, industry organisations and a retail expert.

Research agency Excap, based in Groningen and Antwerp, no longer views mystery shopping as a standalone measurement tool. It is now seen as part of a broader analysis of the customer experience. Arjen van Hijum, managing director of Excap, personally confirmed this to FashionUnited. The agency, which began with in-store mystery shopping over 20 years ago, now focuses on the entire customer journey, incorporating both physical stores and online touchpoints. “How a customer experiences a brand depends on many touchpoints,” stated Excap. Within fashion retail, the store remains a key moment for orientation, advice and trying on products.

According to Excap, retailers use mystery shopping for a variety of reasons. Brands use it to assess how their products are presented and recommended in stores. Other organisations use it to measure the extent to which employees apply trained sales techniques on the shop floor. Larger retail chains also use the tool to monitor whether brand values and desired practices are consistently implemented across different branches. The emphasis is often on aspects such as customer approach, product knowledge and the progression of the sales conversation.

G-Star and My Jewellery on mystery shopping as a development tool

FashionUnited spoke with G-Star and My Jewellery about their use of mystery shopping within their retail organisations. Both brands collaborate with the platform Secret View, using the tool systematically to measure the store experience with a strong focus on coaching and team development.

At G-Star, a mystery shopper visits every store each quarter to assess the customer experience based on predetermined criteria. The results are immediately accessible to store managers, who then discuss them with their teams. Pascal de Boer, retail director at G-Star, emphasises that the insights are used not just to measure performance, but to implement targeted improvements and share successes within the organisation. Dashboards also allow for the analysis of results at a regional, national or channel level, revealing broader trends.

My Jewellery also employs mystery shopping to monitor the experience within its physical boutiques. The focus is firmly on service as a key differentiator in its stores. According to the brand, the results provide insight into how customers perceive the store and highlight opportunities for improvement. These insights subsequently form the basis for training and coaching at both team and organisational levels.

Both retailers use dashboards to monitor performance and track developments. G-Star emphasises the systematic measurement and analysis of store performance. My Jewellery, however, explicitly uses the outcomes to further optimise the store experience, focusing on customer approach, product knowledge and visual merchandising.

According to both brands, the effectiveness of mystery shopping is closely linked to the internal application of its results. Transparency, a focus on development and the active involvement of store teams in the follow-up process are crucial. When insights are used as a basis for feedback and training, employees generally perceive the tool as both educational and motivating.

At G-Star, this approach has led to measurable improvements in store performance, with a consistent rise in mystery shopping scores between the first assessment in 2025 and the first in 2026.

More retail examples: Inno, Carhartt, Les Soeurs, Ziengs and Batavia Stad Fashion Outlet

G-Star and MyJewellery are not the only companies using mystery shopping services. Several providers offer these services in the Netherlands. Companies such as Inno; Carhartt; Les Soeurs; Ziengs; and Batavia Stad Fashion Outlet (in no particular order) work with Excap, for example.

According to the agency, each of these organisations uses mystery shopping to meet specific objectives. It is used to assess how brands are promoted within multi-brand environments; to test the application of sales and advisory skills training by employees; and to gain insight into the quality of sales conversations on the shop floor. Larger organisations also use the tool to monitor the consistent implementation of brand values, terminology and desired customer approaches across different branches.

More focus on omnichannel and speed

The application of mystery shopping is also shifting towards a broader view of the customer journey. There is a greater focus on the cohesion between online and offline channels, for instance by including e-commerce experiences or in-store return processes.

The speed of reporting has also increased. While results were previously available only after several weeks, clients now often expect insights via dashboards within a few days. “Our clients expect and, if requested, receive insight into results within 48 hours. This ranges from individual visit reports to a dashboard where we link various data sources,” stated Excap.

According to Excap, mystery shopping also requires a clear cost-benefit analysis. The initial investment can be a barrier for some organisations, with the return not always being immediately apparent. The agency emphasises that success depends partly on internal positioning. Excap notes that mystery shopping is more readily accepted on the shop floor when introduced as part of a broader vision for employee training and development, rather than as a standalone monitoring tool.

This approach aligns with the experiences of G-Star and My Jewellery, where mystery shopping is explicitly used as a learning instrument. By sharing results transparently and using them for coaching and training, store teams there generally find the tool motivating and educational.

The agency also notes an increase in online mystery shopping. The tool is used to test digital applications, such as e-commerce functionalities or new technologies for online fitting and personalisation. Companies use mystery shoppers in these instances to gain insight into the usability and customer experience of these tools. According to Excap, combining these insights with existing customer data allows organisations to better connect customer experience with commercial performance over time.

De Onderzoekfabriek on how its use is shifting towards development

In fashion stores, mystery shopping often focuses on moments of personal contact between staff and customers. This includes the greeting; enquiring about needs; providing suitable product advice; assisting in the fitting room; and completing the sale. A spokesperson for De Onderzoekfabriek told FashionUnited that these interactions are crucial in determining whether a customer ultimately makes a purchase. Retailers also use the results to identify differences between branches, allowing them to investigate where service agreements are being met more or less effectively.

The spokesperson provided FashionUnited with a practical example. At a large shoe chain, mystery shopping revealed that while customers were greeted, staff often asked only general questions such as “can I help you?”. After coaching on asking more targeted questions, such as the occasion for the shoes or the desired style, there was an improvement in both the mystery shopping scores for advice and closing the sale, as well as in the number of purchases.

The agency observes developments similar to those seen by Excap. These include the use of dashboards and data analysis for faster access to results and the growing integration with online customer journeys via e-commerce or chat. De Onderzoekfabriek also notes an increased use of photo and video materials to more concretely illustrate situations from store visits during the coaching or training of store teams.

Retail expert Dirk Mulder: objectivity depends on execution

To gain a broader, independent perspective on this development, FashionUnited also spoke with retail expert Dirk Mulder of ING. He believes the value of mystery shopping depends heavily on how organisations implement the tool. “If you use it to hold employees accountable, it remains a monitoring tool. If you use it as a basis for feedback, training and discussion, it becomes a coaching instrument,” Mulder stated.

He believes mystery shopping can help improve service and customer experience, but the measurement tool is not entirely objective. The outcomes depend on factors such as the timing of the assessment, the frequency of visits and the mystery shopper's interpretation. Establishing clear criteria and scenarios beforehand can, however, increase objectivity.

When organisations use the results as a basis for training and development, it can contribute to a better store experience and, in the long term, to commercial performance. He notes that direct effects on revenue are difficult to prove. Improved service can, however, encourage customers to stay in the store longer, spend more and return more frequently.

Looking ahead, Mulder expects mystery shopping to evolve further towards a broader, omnichannel approach. This will involve assessing not only the physical store experience but also online touchpoints and the cohesion between both channels throughout the entire customer journey.

Pinterest has extended its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as it doubles down on AI infrastructure. The social media platform has confirmed a four billion dollar commitment to utilise AWS Trainium and Graviton to train and run AI models at scale through 2031.

The agreement, described as the largest infrastructure deal in the company’s history, will see Pinterest put to use Amazon’s custom silicon chips to host and run language models and vision-language models that power personalised visual search and AI-assisted discovery. Pinterest will also expand its use of Graviton, AWS’ processors designed for cloud computing workloads, to run discovery systems.

This latest agreement expands on Pinterest and AWS’ existing relationship spanning back to 2010. Since the partnership’s inception, the duo have worked to enhance Pinterest’s reliability, efficiency and performance, and have built what is said to be “one of the largest-scale data lakes” – a repository that stores raw data – on AWS.

Pinterest has also been broadening its use of AI in an effort to enhance discovery. The platform has introduced features such as Taste Graph and Pinterest Assistant that provide users with advanced recommendation systems and conversational discovery options, all to improve and personalise its online experience.

Now, the company said the renewed commitment supports the next phase of growth across AI model implementation, with AWS to provide further flexibility, hardware optionality, and infrastructure efficiency to accelerate its AI vision, Pinterest’s chief technology officer, Matt Madrigal, stated.

“This strategic partnership will help accelerate AI innovation at Pinterest, improving both our consumer experience and advertiser performance by advancing our proprietary models and our use of open-source models,” Madrigal added.

The Middle Eastern market is facing significant disruption due to geopolitical tensions, inflation, and a decline in tourism. Experts from CXG are offering advice on crisis management and resilience for luxury brands already present in the Gulf countries or heavily reliant on this clientele.

CXG (Customer Experience Group) is a consulting and customer experience measurement firm specialising in the luxury and premium sectors. It currently supports over 200 luxury brands in more than 70 countries, particularly those facing major crises. The Gulf countries are currently experiencing such a situation.

The issue is particularly strategic because CXG considers Middle Eastern consumers a crucial clientele for high-value luxury purchases. Dubai and Riyadh have also established themselves as key hubs for the industry.

According to CXG, luxury brands have often successfully leveraged crises to evolve. In response to the current situation, the firm provides several potential courses of action.

Market diversification

CXG advises against depending on a single region. Brands must diversify their geographical exposure. Among Middle Eastern markets, they should consider Saudi Arabia a long-term priority due to Vision 2030.

Vision 2030 is Saudi Arabia's economic diversification strategy. It aims to reduce oil dependency by investing in tourism, culture, and high-end consumption.

Furthermore, luxury brands would benefit from serving their Gulf clients where they travel and make purchases, rather than focusing solely on boutiques within the region.

Extending relationships beyond the boutique

The boutique remains at the heart of the luxury experience, but it should no longer be the sole point of contact. According to CXG, brands must develop private clienteling; remote personalised services; proactive interactions with their clients; and strengthen local cultural integration.

Additionally, international brands would benefit from better understanding local cultural references rather than applying a uniform model across all markets.

Customer experience as a competitive advantage

The authors highlight that Middle Eastern consumers are not just experiencing logistical disruption but an emotionally complex situation. Brands are therefore encouraged to show empathy in their communications and interactions and to implement a controlled pricing policy to better cope with economic uncertainties.

For CXG, the ability to make each client feel recognised, understood, and valued remains the primary advantage of luxury.

In summary, according to CXG, the fundamentals of the Middle East remain strong: wealth; a young population; strong brand loyalty; and an appreciation for craftsmanship. The distinction will be between brands that use this period to strengthen their client relationships, organisation, and cultural understanding, and those that simply wait for a return to normality.

The summer of football begins next week with the opening match of the men's World Cup, held in the US, Canada, and Mexico. US sportswear brand Capelli Sport will also be participating, equipping the national team of Cape Verde and distributing licensed products from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

In Europe, the team sport specialist is primarily known for its partnerships with clubs such as VfL Osnabrück, Grasshopper Club Zürich, and Sheffield FC. Capelli Sport has been based for over ten years with its European headquarters in Ratingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, near Düsseldorf, in a major football hub.

In this interview, Mourheg discusses the company's expectations for the tournament, current business performance, and the markets Capelli Sport plans to expand into.

World Cup is approaching. What are your expectations for the tournament?

The tournament is particularly interesting for us for several reasons, especially because it is taking place on our doorstep. Our parent company is based in the US, with headquarters in New York City and New Jersey, and our distribution centre is just five minutes from the MetLife Stadium, where the final will be held.

This is an extremely important event for the market there. We are already the market leader in US amateur football; everything below Major League Soccer (MLS) is our core business. When a mega-event comes to the country, it boosts the entire sport. For us as the market leader, this means a noticeable push in revenue, player numbers, and membership growth, and new football clubs are formed. That is why we definitely want to be involved, with at least one nation on the pitch.

Do you have a rough idea of the revenue boost the tournament will bring?

It depends on how many of our existing clubs benefit and how many new clubs approach us. Historically, the entire market's focus shifts heavily towards football during such periods.

The host nation's performance also plays a role; if they are eliminated in the group stage, the effect quickly dissipates. In the US, one mega-event follows another seamlessly. It would therefore be beneficial for the sport if the US team progresses as far as possible. We anticipate a short-term increase of up to 10 percent in US youth football. Furthermore, World Cup years are generally growth years for sports brands. Since we serve the team sports market directly, bypassing retail, we feel such developments immediately within the current year.

How has the first half of the year been for you, both globally and in Europe?

Good. The Cape Verde partnership alone, announced this half-year, has automatically generated a lot of interest. Considering how few brands besides the three major players are represented at a World Cup, it is really just a handful. This helps us enormously, including in direct conversations with clubs. We also had other strong areas: lacrosse and field hockey, with the latter becoming increasingly active with the upcoming European Championship. Overall, it has been an eventful first half.

Can you comment on revenue development?

Not yet definitively. It is a very seasonal business, and a lot still happens over the course of the year. We are not a brand that waits for pre-order rounds. Since we serve the team sports market directly, our revenue developments are more immediate. When the season starts, we see what the year has brought. Other brands have long since closed their order books and can do little to change things for this year. Our cycle is different; there is still a lot of movement.

Besides the sportswear segment, you are also responsible for Capelli New York. Do you notice differences between the two areas given the current consumer sentiment?

Yes, definitely. The sports industry is developing differently from fashion. In the fashion and accessories sector, we are heavily dependent on general consumer sentiment and even the weather. If people shop less, it is immediately reflected. In team sports, however, the business is more stable. As long as the ball is rolling, there is momentum, relatively independent of the weather. There are more relevant cycles about the World Cup schedule, mega-events, or the sporting success of a national team.

How large is Capelli Sport in relation to the fashion division?

The sports brand is clearly the group's major growth sector. The fashion accessories business, primarily under Capelli New York, has existed since the company was founded 36 years ago. We are the market leader there, generating around 300 million in revenue. The growth potential in this segment is largely exhausted.

In sports, however, we have enormous growth rates. The brand has been around for 12 years, and we are now the market leader in US youth and amateur football, generating around 85 million in revenue worldwide. This is more than some long-established brands in Germany have achieved after over 100 years. Therefore, the balance between the two divisions at the group level is shifting rapidly. The focus is clearly on the sports brand.

How does this differ in Europe?

In Europe, the ratio is more balanced; we have been active here with the fashion division for 26 years. The revenue split between sports and fashion is approximately 50-50.

How are the sales channels structured?

In the fashion sector, it is a classic wholesale business. More importantly, we market our brand on our own self-managed spaces in large department stores without our own staff but with our own brand presence. We are present in stores like Galeria and P&C, among others. This is complemented by white-label production for large retailers and private label listings.

In the sports segment, direct sales is the core business. Our own sales team sells directly to clubs, building personal relationships. Wholesale plays a subordinate role there and is limited to merchandise products, such as fan jerseys like those for Cape Verde. We also work with sports generalists like Engelhorn, as well as with equipment, accessories, and balls, with the exception of club kits, which are not sold through retail.

Your football partnerships range from professional level to amateur sport, which are also present with integrated fan shops on your website. Where do you draw the line between sponsorship and customer?

It is not always about sponsorship. Many clubs cooperate with us because we provide services for them, such as creating a club collection or setting up a team shop in our online store. These are collaborations without a sponsorship character. A sponsorship begins at a certain level, and league affiliation is not the decisive criterion for us.

We do not see being present with our logo on television broadcasts as a primary goal. It is more important for us to build brand awareness in the region through an engagement with a professional club and then more easily enter into discussions with amateur clubs in the area. The bread-and-butter business is amateur football. The merchandise business with clubs like Alemannia Aachen or VfL Osnabrück, which have a large fanbase, is an added bonus.

There are no standalone Capelli Sport stores, correct?

Correct, we currently have no standalone stores. There were once pop-ups in New York on Fifth Avenue, but no permanent locations.

Do you rely solely on showrooms for these partnerships, and do all the clubs come to you in Ratingen?

Ratingen is the headquarters with a showroom and distribution centre, where we welcome many clubs. We also have many people on the ground in various regions, whether in Bavaria or the north, as well as abroad. In addition, there are separate showrooms in places like Manchester, London, Greece, and other markets. Sometimes, we also have partnerships with clubs where we use a local space for meetings, sample presentations, or as a base for our field sales team.

You are active in more than 20 markets in Europe. Which are the key markets?

Strategically, in the long term, it is of course the 'Big Five' – the markets where we must have a presence: England, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France. We have had a very strong presence in England with our own offices from the beginning, and Germany is our largest market and will remain so in ten years' time. Besides these two markets, we are also currently well-positioned in other markets.

Which countries are those?

We are really pushing ahead in Poland and have good clubs and partnerships there, currently with two teams in the top league. Denmark is a very strong market, which has grown partly because we are represented with our own club in the second division. The Capelli Sport stadium is about a quarter of an hour from Copenhagen, where we host many activities. That has grown very quickly and organically.

We are also very strong in the Balkans, with the Serbian national team and our own local team, among others. In Greece, we have an office and started very early with AEK Athens, back when they were in the Champions League.

Is a major club or a national team the door-opener for you in a market?

That is the classic approach. You start with a major club and build a structure around it to then be able to penetrate deeper into the individual markets.

We do not do everything at once. In some markets, we currently only have one major club and are putting deeper development on the back burner for now. It is also a relationship-driven business; often, a new market has emerged that was not even on the roadmap because a strong partnership presented itself. The great thing about Europe is that this works relatively smoothly, without trade barriers or currency differences. Whether we win a club in Bavaria or the Netherlands, the distance to the neighbouring country is even shorter.

You just mentioned the 'Big Five'. Are the other markets besides Germany and England more difficult to enter?

Yes, Italy is a classic example of this. We do not have a single partner there yet. The football market there is romantic and visibly very appealing; it clearly belongs to the 'Big Five' and must be addressed at some point. It is, however, a more complex market than others. As long as we still have enough growth potential in other markets, we prefer to take the easier path because it leads to success more quickly.

Finally, what are the next goals for the brand?

We want to expand our reach even further, especially in amateur football. In markets where we have so far only been active through professional engagements, we want to penetrate deeper: Denmark, Poland, Switzerland, and of course, Germany. In Germany, sales remain the clear number one priority; we are tapping into more and more regions and continuing to expand the sales team.

In the professional sector, the hope is always that existing clubs will continue to develop. A good example is VfL Osnabrück. We already had them under contract in the 2. Bundesliga, then unfortunately, they were relegated shortly after, and now they are back. That is the ideal scenario! You do not have to convince a new second-division club; instead, you write great stories together with the club. At the same time, we are in talks with all realistic professional clubs from league one to league four that become available, and new engagements will follow in the near future.

Canadian athletic apparel brand Lululemon Athletica Inc. (Lululemon) reported its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, ended June 4, 2026, revealing steady international growth alongside deceleration in its domestic market. As detailed in the official press release, total net revenue for the period reached 2.47 billion dollars, representing a 4 percent increase compared to 2.37 billion dollars in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025. On a constant dollar basis, net revenue increased by 2 percent.

The company experienced varying performance across geographic regions. In the Americas, net revenue decreased by 3 percent, or 4 percent on a constant dollar basis. Conversely, international net revenue grew by 22 percent, driven by a 16 percent increase on a constant dollar basis, highlighting robust demand in overseas markets.

Comparable sales and margin contractions

Total comparable sales, which encompass company-operated retail locations and e-commerce, rose by 1 percent during the quarter, though they declined by 2 percent on a constant dollar basis.

Domestic retail channels remained constrained, with comparable sales in the Americas declining by 5 percent, or 6 percent on a constant dollar basis. International comparable sales cushioned this performance, increasing by 13 percent, or 8 percent on a constant dollar basis. Within the international segment, Mainland China delivered a 20 percent increase in comparable sales.

Gross profit decreased by 3 percent to 1.34 billion dollars from 1.38 billion dollars in the prior year period. Consequently, gross margin contracted by 410 basis points to 54.2 percent. Net income stood at 195.05 million dollars, representing diluted earnings per share (EPS) of 1.69 dollars. This performance marked a decrease from a net income of 314.57 million dollars, or 2.60 dollars per diluted share, in the same period last year.

Product updates and strategic agility

The financial update coincides with organizational adjustments following leadership shifts. Lululemon interim co-chief executive officer and chief financial officer, Meghan Frank, noted that while the team executed with speed, the business is currently navigating headwinds that have prompted revisions to the full-year outlook. Frank stated during the investor call that spikes of negative media and social commentary regarding product compositions and proxy contests impacted traffic, predominantly in China and the US.

Furthermore, Frank acknowledged that certain product launches failed to meet expectations. To address these trends, the brand is accelerating its chase capabilities by 20 percent relative to last year to read and react faster to consumer demands, with product focus shifting toward outerwear and lounge fabrics.

Interim co-CEO, president, and chief commercial officer, André Maestrini, reiterated that teams remain focused on core priorities to reignite growth, specifically building upon successful product capsules across train, tennis, and run.

Inventory control and store network development

Lululemon ended the first quarter of 2026 with 1.51 billion dollars in cash and cash equivalents, and maintained 593.60 million dollars of available capacity under its revolving credit facility.

Total inventories at quarter-end grew by 2 percent to 1.69 billion dollars compared to the first quarter of 2025. However, on a unit basis, inventories decreased by 4 percent, indicating healthier stock management and reduced volume risk. During the period, the company allocated 358.30 million dollars to repurchase 2.20 million of its own shares.

The activewear retailer continued to grow its physical footprint, opening five net new company-operated locations during the quarter to bring its global store count to 816 locations.

Updated financial outlook

For the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, Lululemon projects net revenue to range between 2.45 billion dollars and 2.48 billion dollars, representing a decline of 2 percent to 3 percent. Diluted EPS is anticipated to fall between 1.76 dollars and 1.81 dollars.

For the full fiscal year 2026, the company lowered its guidance. It now estimates net revenue to land between 11.00 billion dollars and 11.15 billion dollars, translating to a flat to 1 percent decline compared to fiscal year 2025. Full-year diluted EPS is projected to be between 10.95 dollars and 11.15 dollars.

Is this the dawn of a new era for luxury? Faced with a marked slowdown over the past three years, the sector is trying to regain momentum by returning to fundamentals, streamlining portfolios and exploring new avenues.

Profits are down sharply for LVMH and Kering in 2025, and Burberry reported a net loss for its 2024/2025 financial year. The figures show a change in trend. The causes are numerous, including price increases that have tired customers, questions about product quality and a slowing Chinese market.

“Luxury, coming out of Covid-19, was boosted by revenge buying,” recalls Eric Briones, co-founder of the Paris School of Luxury, who has just published a book on the sector's transformation.

“When luxury was faced with this high demand, the artisanal model was undermined,” he says, citing subcontractor scandals in Italy. The Italian judiciary has been investigating major luxury names for two years over working conditions in sewing workshops, suspected of exploiting Chinese labour.

The demand boom was also accompanied by a price increase of up to 50 percent over three years for some brands, “without an increase in quality, or even with a decrease in quality,” he points out.

Price inflation, but also volume inflation: “There is a fundamental question,” explains Christophe Caïs, head of the luxury consultancy CXG. “How many bags can you sell globally before you become a little too present? We want to be exclusive and at the same time we want to do volume. At what point does this volume effect contradict your desire for exclusivity?”.

According to the consulting firm Bain & Company, the luxury market lost 20 million customers between 2024 and 2025, after having already lost 50 million in previous years.

After years of economic and geographical expansion for major luxury groups that have built themselves up as conglomerates, the time for rationalisation has come, specialists point out.

“There is a phase of refocusing on a form of portfolio coherence. We can decide to move away from or find a better partner for certain brands that are less part of a group's DNA,” analyses Léa Hubsch, a partner at the Kearney firm.

Experiential luxury

The global luxury giant LVMH, for example, recently sold the American brand Marc Jacobs after thirty years under its ownership. In January, it sold its Duty Free Shops (DFS) business in China.

On the side of the French group Kering, which is undergoing a major transformation, moves have also begun, including the sale of its beauty division to L'Oréal for four billion euros.

“This consolidation trend is set to continue, with conglomerates divesting their underperforming or strategically less important divisions to focus on their core businesses,” analyses the firm CXG in a recent report.

Another example is the acquisition of the Italian brand Versace by its competitor Prada for 1.25 billion euros in 2025. Other deals are expected, notably for the Italian house Giorgio Armani. In his will, the designer, who died last year, asked his heirs to sell his empire in the medium term to a luxury giant like LVMH or L'Oréal.

Within companies, rigour is the order of the day. Luca de Meo, the former head of Renault appointed to lead Kering last year, stressed during his strategy presentation in April that excellence must take precedence. This includes a return to fundamentals, store closures and a reduction in the number of product references for certain brands.

More broadly, industry specialists speak of a new luxury, one less focused on ostentatious products and more on the huge, fast-growing wellness market.

“Desire has shifted to the experiential: beauty; hospitality; transformative luxury,” says Eric Briones. Experts see the future particularly in wellness and longevity, with clinics worthy of luxury hotels. This is a sector where Kering has already begun to position itself, through a joint venture with L'Oréal announced a few months ago.

Victoria’s Secret has said that its nine director nominees have received approval from three independent proxy advisors in the run up to its annual shareholder meeting, to be held on June 11.

Institutional Shareholder Services, Glass Lewis & Co and Egan-Jones Proxy Services have all issued recommendations for shareholders to vote ‘for’ the director nominees, including independent chair Donna James.

The company said the backing “reaffirms that our board is best positioned to continue overseeing the successful execution of our ‘Path to Potential’ strategy and continued value creation for shareholders”.

The lingerie brand’s leadership has faced increased scrutiny in recent months from activist investor Brett Blundy, whose investment vehicle BBRC International owns a 12.9 percent stake in the label. Blundy’s campaign for representation spans back to 2023, however, the entrepreneur has since escalated his efforts in an effort to secure a seat on the board.

In response, Victoria’s Secret has doubled down on its transformation strategy under CEO Hillary Super, underlining its focus on long-term growth and board refreshment. The company has also reported a 152 percent total shareholder return since Super’s appointment in August 2024.

In its latest statement, Victoria's Secret further shared that the strategy was already “generating very strong results”, with Q1 2026 earnings having “exceeded both top- and bottom-line guidance”. “Our momentum is broad-based across categories, channels, and geographies, and this strength was reflected in the market’s overwhelmingly positive response,” Victoria’s Secret added.

The apparel, footwear and textile industries are bracing for impact as the evolving conflict in the Middle East reshapes the global economic landscape. According to the OECD’s latest “Economic Outlook,” a severe energy shock is driving up inflationary pressures and stifling global growth — factors that directly threaten fashion supply chains, manufacturing costs and consumer discretionary spending.

Two likely scenarios

Given the volatile nature of the crisis, the OECD has mapped out two distinct paths forward, both of which demand immediate strategic pivoting from fashion executives and supply chain leaders: In Scenario 1, a time-limited disruption, energy production and trade in Gulf economies would progressively return to pre-conflict levels starting mid-2026. This would allow disruptions to gradually unwind, though the immediate sting to margins would remain.

Scenario 2, a prolonged disruption, is more dire: Current disruptions to energy production and exports would persist well into 2027. This scenario would affect the garment and textile industry as it assumes sustained high energy prices, intensifying risks of supply chain shortages, and a tightening of global financial conditions that could freeze capital investment.

“The global economy entered 2026 with robust momentum, but the outlook has weakened significantly since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, with effects likely to be felt for some time. The longer the disruptions last, the larger the economic and social costs become,” warned OECD secretary-general Mathias Cormann at the launch of the Economic Outlook on Wednesday.

“Any fiscal support that countries provide in response to the shock needs to be targeted towards those most in need and temporary, to avoid a further increase in public debt and preserve incentives to save energy. More broadly, countries need to lay the foundations for stronger growth and productivity by improving the business environment, enhancing skills and unlocking the benefits of AI and other transformative technologies,” he added, noting that structural agility and smart technological adoption will be vital to weathering the storm.

GDP growth projections and inflationary pressures

For fashion brands, slowing GDP growth translates directly to tighter consumer wallets. The OECD’s projections suggest a stark divergence depending on how long the conflict will last: In case of a time-limited disruption scenario, the OECD projects global growth slowing from 3.4 percent in 2025 to 2.8 percent in 2026 before picking up to 3.1 percent in 2027.

Looking at G20 countries, only India, Indonesia, China, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Turkey would be above that project global average with 7.6, 5.1, 5, 4.5, 4.4 and 3.6 percent, respectively in 2026 and further growth in 2027. In North America, the United States’ GDP growth is projected at 2 percent in 2026 before slowing to 1.8 percent in 2027; Canada’s at 1.2 percent in 2026 and picking up again in 2027 to 1.7 percent while Mexico’s would more than double from 0.8 percent to 1.9 percent in 2027.

In the Euro zone, growth is projected to remain modest at 0.8 percent in 2026 before picking up to 1.2 percent in 2027. Below that average are Italy, France and Germany with a projected GDP of 0.5 , 0.7 and 0.7 percent, respectively, in 2026, with a slight increase to 0.6 percent and 0.8 percent for Italy and France in 2027 and a moderate increase for Germany to 1.1 percent. The UK’s GDP is projected at 0.9 percent in 2026 and 1.1 percent in 2027.

Under the prolonged disruption scenario, global growth would slow to 2.1 percent in 2026 and 1.8 percent in 2027, “leaving a lasting mark on many countries, especially in Asia, Europe and developing economies most vulnerable to the energy and food price shock,” sums up the OECD outlook.

Inflationary pressures would rise in both advanced and emerging market economies with the energy shock leading to higher commodity prices. Indirect effects would boost prices in general, especially for agricultural inputs and food. “In the time-limited disruption scenario, annual consumer price inflation in the G20 economies is collectively expected to rise to 4.0 percent in 2026, from 3.4 percent in 2025, before easing to 3.1 percent in 2027 as energy and food price pressures fade. Inflation would rise significantly higher in the prolonged disruption scenario,” concludes the OECD outlook.

What does that mean for the fashion industry?

The fashion sector is uniquely exposed to the inflationary pressures detailed in the report. Energy shocks act as a double-edged sword for the textile sector as they affect production costs: Synthetic fibre production (like polyester and nylon) is heavily dependent on petrochemicals, making raw material costs highly sensitive to oil price spikes. Logistics and freight is another affected area: Shipping costs are already on the rise as global trade routes adjust to the volatility, threatening margin-starved retail brands.

The inflation’s ripple effect would be felt In the best-case scenario, annual consumer price inflation in G20 economies is expected to climb to 4.0 percent in 2026 (up from 3.4 percent in 2025) before easing to 3.1 percent in 2027. Under a prolonged conflict, inflation would spike significantly higher. Higher food and energy prices mean apparel brands will be competing fiercely for a smaller share of the consumer's wallet.

For fashion and textile insiders, the message is clear: the era of predictable supply chains is on pause. To navigate the remainder of 2026 and 2027, brands must double down on efficiency. This means accelerating the adoption of AI for demand forecasting, optimising inventory to avoid costly overstock, and diversifying sourcing destinations to mitigate regional energy dependencies.

The European circular fashion market could surpass the 100 billion euro (116 million dollars) mark by 2030. This figure, revealed this Thursday by the Fédération de la mode circulaire (FMC) and KPMG, demonstrates the economic power of a market that was once a niche but is now a priority for companies in the sector.

A massive economic impact

The projection of 100 billion euros for circular fashion in 2030 represents more than 58 percent of the current turnover of the entire European textile industry (170 billion, according to EURATEX data). The economic weight of the four pillars of circular fashion – reinvent, reuse, repair and recycle – therefore represents more than just opportunities; it represents the future.

Currently accounting for around 6 percent of the European fashion market, eco-designed products could reach a share of nearly 15 percent by 2030, driven by regulatory changes. They could generate around 71 billion euros on their own. As the FMC points out, the design phase determines nearly 80 percent of an item's environmental impact. This stage is therefore essential to ensure the large-scale development of repair, reuse and recycling models.

European legislation: a catalyst for investment

Above all, the report highlights the decisive role of emerging regulations in supporting demand and investment. The harmonisation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes appears to be one of the most powerful levers for structuring the market.

Europe generates approximately 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste each year, but only about 20 percent is currently collected separately. By transferring end-of-life costs to producers, EPR helps finance the necessary infrastructure for collection, sorting and recycling. In addition, the digital product passport (DPP) and circular VAT projects are expected to increase traceability, transparency and competitiveness in the sector.

A strategic reorganisation of value chains

Supporting local repair and recycling services helps to strengthen the resilience of strategic textile supply chains and create long-term value. Mina Bishop, senior circular economy manager at KPMG, explains the importance of this transition: “For years, circular fashion was treated solely as a sustainability issue. Our study shows that it is also a strategic and industrial issue”.

Maxime Delavallée, president of the Fédération de la mode circulaire, confirms the key role of public institutions: “Our study shows that regulation can be a powerful accelerator for circular fashion.” He notes that appropriate tax measures, such as a circular VAT, would help make repair and resale more financially attractive, allowing the European market to capture a significant share of the 104 billion euros in opportunities identified for 2030.

Madrid – Following the presentation on Wednesday of Inditex's accounts for the first quarter of 2026, we now look beyond the record-breaking sales and profits. This analysis aims to understand exactly how the company has performed at the start of this financial year. The owner of Zara has begun the new fiscal year with a widespread improvement in its main economic indicators.

Firstly, looking at Inditex's sales results for the first quarter of 2026, the company achieved 8.8 billion euros (10.21 billion dollars), a +5.75 percent year-over-year growth. This figure represents the highest sales volume in its history for a first quarter. During the same period, from February 1 to April 30, the cost of goods sold reached 3.4 billion euros. This amount is also a record high for a first quarter for Inditex. However, it grew at a slower rate than sales, increasing by only +3.95 percent compared to the 3,262 million euros in the first quarter of 2025.

As a result of these developments, Inditex reported a gross margin of 5.4 billion euros at the end of the first quarter. This is also the highest ever recorded by the company for the first three months of a fiscal year. It represents a +6.92 percent increase over the 5 billion euros gross margin recorded in the same period last year.

To fully understand how Inditex's operational efficiency has improved, these indicators culminate in a gross sales margin of 61.2 percent. This key metric is an increase of 60 basis points compared to the 60.6 percent gross margin recorded in the first quarter of 2025, setting another record high for Inditex in a first quarter. The company has consistently delivered margins above 60 percent at the start of the year since 2022. However, it has not yet achieved this milestone for a full financial year. The last peak was at the close of the 2025 financial year, which Inditex completed with a gross sales margin of 58.30 percent, after reaching a high of 62.2 percent during the third quarter.

Increased supplier financing

Regarding working capital dynamics, Inditex finished the first quarter of 2026 with an increased inventory level of 3.8 billion euros (+0.55 percent). Simultaneously, the amount owed to the company from specific operations and/or franchisees decreased to 1.06 billion euros (-5.49 percent), while the amount the company owes its creditors, mainly suppliers, rose to 10.8 billion euros (+3.75 percent).

As a result, the company ended the quarter with a negative working capital of -5.9 billion euros. This figure represents a +7.85 percent increase from the -5.5 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2025. It is also +42.75 percent higher than the -4,173 million at the close of the last financial year.

Rounding out the main financial indicators for Inditex in the first quarter of 2026, operating profit (EBITDA) grew to 2.6 billion euros (+7.31 percent), with the EBITDA margin increasing from 28.9 to 29.3 percent. Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) rose to 1.8 billion euros (+7 percent), with the EBIT margin moving from 19.8 to 20.1 percent.

106 fewer stores

Finally, regarding the evolution of its retail network, Inditex ended the first quarter of the year with a total of 5,456 stores. This figure represents a net closure of 106 stores over the past year, compared to the 5,562 stores it operated at the end of the same period last year. Of this net loss, only four stores were closed during this first quarter of 2026, considering the company ended its 2025 financial year with a total of 5,460 stores.

On a year-over-year basis, all of Inditex's chains have seen a reduction in their number of stores, with the sole exception of Lefties, which expanded its network to 217 stores (+8 stores). This contrasts with the net contractions in the retail networks of Zara, with 1,495 stores (-50 stores); Zara Home, with 376 stores (-12 stores); Pull&Bear, with 792 stores (-12 stores); Massimo Dutti, with 509 stores (-19 stores); Bershka, with 851 stores (-4 stores); Stradivarius, with 837 stores (-1 store); and Oysho, with 379 stores (-16 stores).

In this regard, Inditex notes that during the first quarter, optimisation projects were carried out across the retail networks of its various chains in 44 markets. These projects included refurbishments, relocations, new openings, and absorptions. The company is allocating the majority of the 2.3 billion euros in ordinary investments committed for 2026 to these initiatives, as announced last March during the presentation of the 2025 financial results. With these investments, Inditex aims to increase the productivity of its stores. Following its optimisation strategy, the company estimates a gross space growth of approximately +5 percent for 2026.

Italian fashion group OTB (Only the Brave) has acquired the remaining shares it did not already own in Viktor&Rolf. The Dutch fashion house is now fully owned by the Italian group, according to a press release. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

In 2008, the initial deal was signed between Viktor&Rolf and OTB. At that time, a majority stake of 51 percent was acquired. This was increased to 70 percent in 2019, with the remaining 30 percent split between the two founders, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren.

The duo will remain with the fashion house for at least another five years, which “confirms the central role of the two founders,” according to the statement. They will therefore continue as creative directors of the fashion house. The press release states that OTB and the designers intend to further develop the fashion house within the international luxury landscape. No further changes, apart from the shareholding structure, have been indicated. The deal does not appear to have any further direct impact on the Dutch fashion house's operations.

OTB acquires all shares in Viktor&Rolf

“It is our great pleasure to continue working as creative directors for Viktor&Rolf and to explore fashion as a testing ground for ideas and experimentation,” said Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren in the press release.

“Viktor and Rolf are among the most visionary and influential designers in contemporary fashion. Over the years, we have built an extraordinary journey together, based on mutual respect, creative freedom and a constant urge to experiment with the most innovative forms of expression in contemporary couture. With this next step we are taking today, we are further strengthening our bond with a Maison that is truly unique in the international luxury landscape and continues to distinguish itself through its creativity, artistic research and cultural relevance,” said Renzo Rosso, founder and chairman of the OTB Group. The OTB Group is the parent company of Diesel, Jil Sander, Maison Margiela and Marni, among others.

About Viktor&Rolf

Fashion house Viktor&Rolf was founded in 1993. Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren met at school in 1988 and founded the brand after winning an international competition. The duo is known for its avant-garde concepts that regularly blur the line between fashion and art.

British clothing retailer Seasalt has announced the closure of its four US stores just two years on from its expansion into the market.

The Cornish company confirmed the news to Drapers, to which it said it was instead looking to grow its portfolio of partners in the US and Europe in the second half of the year, and thus wished to invest “accordingly in this area of the business”.

The statement continued: “Therefore, in order to focus our efforts and resources on third-party relationships moving forward, we have made a business decision to close our four existing Seasalt stores in the US.”

After first announcing expansion plans in November 2023, Seasalt opened locations in Falmouth, Massachusetts; Ardmore, Pennsylvania; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Shrewsbury, New Jersey.

All sites shuttered on May 17, bringing to an end a rollout that had at one time been fairly ambitious. The company had previously been eyeing around 20 locations in the US over the course of three years.

It added: “We have taken significant learnings from our international trading to date and we are approaching the next year and beyond with confidence despite the ongoing economic headwinds.”

Seasalt continues to report “significant success in the US and Europe” through its partnerships with department stores and online retailers. Its international sales, meanwhile, make up 16 percent of, with the company aiming for that figure to rise to 20 percent within the next year, it told Drapers.

For now, its focus seems to lie in Europe, specifically Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Earlier this year, CEO Paul Hayes confirmed plans to open three new stores in 2026, telling The Times that Seasalt had "built a very resilient business model" and was confident it could navigate this challenging period.

US apparel group PVH Corporation reported solid results for the first quarter of the 2026/27 fiscal year on Wednesday evening. However, management lowered its sales forecast for the full year due to the foreseeable negative impact of the war in Iran.

In the first quarter, which ended on May 3, group revenue amounted to almost 2.03 billion US dollars. This represented an increase of 2.1 percent compared to the same period last year. However, adjusted for currency fluctuations, revenue decreased by 2.3 percent.

Overall, the group exceeded expectations. According to the company, this was primarily due to growth in key categories for its two main brands in its own retail channels: namely denim and underwear at Calvin Klein, and sweatshirts and outerwear at Tommy Hilfiger.

Overall, Tommy Hilfiger's revenue increased by 2.8 percent (a 2.0 percent decrease on a currency-neutral basis) to 1.08 billion US dollars. Calvin Klein achieved an increase of 1.0 percent to 895.2 million US dollars, while on a currency-neutral basis, the label's revenue fell by 2.9 percent.

Middle East conflict impacts development in EMEA region

The individual market regions performed differently in the first quarter. The growth driver was the Asia-Pacific region, with a revenue increase of 10.0 percent (up 5.8 percent on a currency-neutral basis) to 387.0 million US dollars. In the EMEA region, which includes Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the group's revenue rose by 2.0 percent to 946.1 million US dollars. However, on a currency-neutral basis, it decreased by 5.3 percent. The company attributed the unexpectedly weak performance in the region to the “ongoing effects of the Middle East conflict and its broad macroeconomic impact”. In the Americas, revenue shrank by 0.9 percent (down 1.7 percent on a currency-neutral basis) to 602.9 million US dollars. Global licensing revenue fell by 7.0 percent to 89.1 million US dollars.

The gross margin remained unchanged at 58.6 percent compared to the same period last year. According to the company, a favourable product mix; the expected repayment of illegal customs duties; lower product costs; and positive currency effects offset the impact of higher tariffs and more extensive discounts.

The bottom line was a reported net profit of 88.0 million US dollars, compared to a loss of 44.8 million US dollars in the first quarter of 2025/26. However, adjusted for special items, particularly high impairment charges and restructuring costs in the prior-year period, net income decreased by 21.2 percent to 93.4 million US dollars. This was, however, still above expectations.

Management lowers its sales forecast

CEO Stefan Larsson stressed that the group had achieved the goals of its current 'PVH+' reform plan in the first quarter. However, the impact of the Middle East conflict had “put pressure” on consumers in the EMEA region.

In light of the resulting weaker outlook for this region, management revised its sales forecast for the current fiscal year downwards. It now only expects revenue to be on par with the previous year, after previously anticipating a slight increase.

The earnings forecasts, however, remained unchanged. The group therefore continues to expect an operating margin adjusted for special items of around 8.8 percent and an adjusted profit per share in the range of 11.80 to 12.10 US dollars.

US clothing rental platform Rent the Runway has announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, ended April 10, 2026, revealing strong top-line momentum and narrowing losses.

Total revenue for the period reached 89.90 million dollars, representing a 29.20 percent increase year-over-year (YoY) compared to 69.60 million dollars in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025. This performance exceeded the initial guidance provided by the company.

The revenue growth was supported by a 70.40 percent YoY increase in add-on revenue, which also rose 11 percent quarter-over-quarter. Management attributed this improvement to elevated subscriber engagement following a significant inventory expansion and various digital product upgrades executed during the prior year.

Key subscriber metrics and profitability shifts The platform experienced an increase across its subscriber segments during the quarter. The total number of ending subscribers grew by 7.60 percent to 196,147, while ending active subscribers increased by 5.80 percent to 155,692, while average active subscribers grew by 12.20 percent to reach 149,744.

Gross profit rose by 6.40 percent to 23.30 million dollars, however, gross margin contracted to 25.90 percent, down from 31.50 percent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.

Net loss narrowed substantially to 18.90 million dollars, down from a net loss of 26.10 million dollars in the prior year period. Net loss as a percentage of revenue improved from negative 37.50 percent to negative 21 percent.

Adjusted EBITDA was negative 0.80 million dollars, an improvement from negative 1.30 million dollars in the first quarter of 2025. This resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of negative 0.90 percent, compared to negative 1.90 percent YoY.

Executive transition and board appointments

The financial report follows the recent appointment of Teri Bariquit as interim chief executive officer and president. Bariquit succeeded co-founder Jennifer Hyman, who stepped down after 18 years in the leadership role. Hyman will serve as an advisor to the firm until January 2027 to facilitate the transition.

Bariquit, who joined the Rent The Runway's board of directors in October 2025, previously accumulated 37 years of retail experience, including a tenure as chief merchandising officer at US department store chain Nordstrom.

The executive team has been further expanded with the addition of Paige Thomas as chief commercial officer and Dave Loretta as interim chief financial officer. Thomas previously worked at Nordstrom and Signet Jewelers, while Loretta served as financial head at The Honest Company and Duluth Trading Company.

Financial outlook

For the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, the platform projects revenue to fall between 91 million dollars and 95 million dollars, with an adjusted EBITDA margin expected between 5 percent and 8 percent.

For the full fiscal year 2026, the company reaffirmed its previous guidance. It anticipates double-digit revenue growth compared to the full year 2025, driven by product and inventory investments.

The full-year adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to land between 4 percent and 7 percent, while total rental product acquired is projected to be between 45 million dollars and 50 million dollars, down from 74.90 million dollars in fiscal year 2025.

The start-up Tilt, an e-commerce platform specialising in live shopping and live auctions, has reached a key milestone by announcing a 26 million dollar funding round on LinkedIn. While the funding intends to accelerate the platform's technological innovations, the core element of this announcement is the major and highly strategic participation of Vinted Ventures.

Vinted Ventures is the first industry investor from the re-commerce world to back Tilt. With this investment, the financial arm of the second-hand platform provides essential validation for this new vision of live selling.

The partnership between Tilt and Vinted Ventures is not coincidental but stems from a deep industry synergy. While Vinted has structured and democratised the global second-hand market asynchronously, Tilt aims to achieve a similar transformation in real-time through the video format.

In a post on LinkedIn, Abhi Thanendran, co-founder and CEO of Tilt, highlights the power of this alliance: “What Vinted did for the second-hand market, we are doing for live selling. The support from Vinted Ventures, our first strategic investor from the re-commerce sector, is the strongest possible confirmation that the future of the market is right here.”

Other investors, including Balderton Capital, Earlybird and Seedcamp, also participated in this funding round, as reported by Business Insider.

Madrid – Valencia-based startup Flipflow, a market analytics firm specialising in the retail sector, announced this week that it has successfully completed a three million euro funding round. This injection of funds will allow the company to accelerate the technological development of its solutions for the retail industry and its international expansion plans. The company is focusing its efforts on the US and the countries of northern Europe.

According to reports from local media and publications specialising in the Spanish startup ecosystem, such as RH Lab, Expansión and El Referente, the investment round was led by Spanish venture capital firm 4Founders Capital. The Barcelona-based investment firm specialises in early-stage technology startups. Its portfolio includes investments in emerging companies such as GuruSup, a Spanish platform for artificial intelligence agents for customer service and process automation; Vidext, a startup focused on converting text into AI-generated videos; and BCome, a Spanish technology platform that provides solutions and tools for fashion industry companies to measure and manage environmental impact data.

Alongside 4Founders Capital, both new and existing Flipflow investors participated in the round as “strategic investors”. These include Abac Nest; Acurio Ventures; Lanai Capital Partners; Angels Capital, the investment vehicle of Juan Roig, president of Mercadona; Mango; and Puig. Notably, Angels Capital, Abac and Lanai participated in the 900,000 euro round that the startup closed in late 2023. Mango invested in the company through a convertible participating loan via its accelerator, Mango StartUp Studio, in early 2024. Puig is also understood to be among the new investors backing this latest funding round for the emerging company. Puig would be familiar with Flipflow's operations, as Isdin, a Spanish dermatological products company in which Puig holds a 50 percent stake, is one of the startup's clients. The platform reportedly already provides its services to manufacturers and retailers such as Gucci, Nestlé, Unilever, L’Oréal, Isdin and Mango.

Centralised data analytics platform for retail industry companies

Founded in 2021 by the entrepreneurial trio of Ricardo García (CEO), Ismael Gandarillas (chief technology officer) and Mario Rodríguez (chief customer officer), Flipflow launched the first versions of its unified data platform for retail companies that same year. The platform has since scaled up, particularly after joining the Lanzadera acceleration programme in 2022, a startup accelerator created in Valencia by Juan Roig. Roig invested in Flipflow during its first funding round in 2023. This fundraising helped to support its growth into other strategic sectors of the retail industry, attracting interest from new investors such as Mango and now the Puig group.

Continuing this trend of growth and consolidation, the new funds raised in this round will be used to accelerate Flipflow's technological development and international expansion into the US and northern Europe. The startup, which already operates in Spain and Latin America, remains focused on its goal of offering retail companies a centralised platform to manage their commercial, marketing and product management operations. To this end, it has also evolved its artificial intelligence-driven data analysis engines from reactive analysis of company realities to the design of proactive solutions for businesses.

“Retail can no longer be operated with fragmented tools, manual analysis and large consulting expenses,” says Ricardo García, co-founder and CEO of Flipflow. In this context, “our vision is to build the intelligence layer that guides companies to make decisions autonomously and at the same speed as the market moves”. To achieve this, the startup states, “every day we ingest and process millions of market signals using massive crawling, proprietary AI models and normalisation engines that convert chaotic data into a single, coherent and usable vision”. It connects “information from e-commerce, marketplaces, pricing, content, reviews, competitors, prices, promotions and supply, allowing companies to see their business as a complete system, not as silos”. “The retail OS” is “where critical decisions are made and where competitive intelligence becomes a real advantage,” they maintain. In this new reality, “Flipflow constitutes the strategic infrastructure of modern retail: the system that integrates heterogeneous data, interprets it in a unified way and converts it into immediate action within increasingly complex organisations”.

In short, Flipflow is presented as “the central brain of retail,” a “SaaS platform and copilot that unifies disparate data from the retail ecosystem”. This data comes from “online, physical and global market channels, with maximum granularity and precision,” and is then “transformed into actionable decisions”. With this, “our goal is for brands and retailers to understand not only ‘what is happening’” within their companies, they add, “but what each team and person in the organisation should do now” to respond to the reality revealed by the platform's centralised data.

British activewear brand Aybl has become embroiled in a legal dispute between its founders and one of its largest shareholders.

Lewis Morgan, a co-founder of Gymshark who invested 7 million pounds in Aybl in 2021 in exchange for a 20 percent stake, is reportedly suing brothers Reiss and Kristian Edgerton over his departure from the business, according to The Times.

Morgan alleges he was removed from the company under unfair circumstances and claims his position as both a director and employee was terminated following a short-notice meeting.

High Court filings seen by The Times allege that changes to Aybl's corporate structure reduced the value at which Morgan could sell his shares, while Morgan further claimed he was pushed out after refusing to include part of his stake in a proposed public listing.

The Edgerton brothers have rejected the allegations, describing them as unfounded. They argue that Morgan's involvement in Dubai-based supplements and energy drink business Ownkind created a conflict of interest, claiming the venture competed with Aybl's expansion ambitions beyond apparel.

The legal dispute comes as Aybl continues on a rapid growth trajectory, with the athleisure brand recently reporting revenues of more than 72 million pounds for the 15 months to June 2025, while profit after tax more than doubled to 9.4 million pounds.

Online off-price fashion retailer BrandAlley has been acquired out of administration in a pre-pack sale, allowing the business to continue trading under new ownership.

Administrators from BDO were appointed to BrandAlley UK on 29 May before completing an immediate sale of the business and most of its assets to BrandAlley International Limited, a newly formed company described as unconnected to the previous owner.

The deal brings an end to a lengthy strategic review, which had been underway for several weeks following the appointment of advisors earlier this year. The company had initially been exploring a debt raise as it sought to address financial pressures despite remaining a sizeable player in the UK off-price market.

Founded in 2008, BrandAlley operates a members-only flash-sales model across fashion, beauty and homeware, working with more than 1,000 brands and offering discounts of up to 80 percent.

In a statement on its website, BrandAlley said the transaction secures the future of the business and that customers will see no disruption. Existing orders will be fulfilled as normal, while returns and refunds will continue to be honoured.

While the rescue preserves a significant portion of the business, it has resulted in job losses, according to various media platforms. Among BrandAlley's 163 employees, 88 have transferred to the new company, while 15 were made redundant upon administration. A further 60 employees have been retained temporarily to support the transition, with a total of 75 roles expected to be lost.

In its statement, the company said the sale marks “an exciting new chapter” and that it remains “business as usual” for customers.

Westminster City Council has said it will no longer pursue a judicial review of plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street, reducing the potential for a major legal battle over one of London's most significant regeneration projects.

The scheme, backed by London mayor Sadiq Khan, will see traffic removed from the area between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street, with the first section expected to become traffic-free later this summer. The project is being overseen by a mayoral development corporation, which transferred planning powers from the local authority to the mayor.

The decision marks a shift from the council's previous position following the Conservatives' return to control of Westminster earlier this month. The party had pledged to establish a legal fund to challenge the plans, yet legal advice indicated a judicial review would be unlikely to succeed and that any challenge would now be too late.

In a statement, the council said: “The advice we have is that a judicial review would be unlikely to succeed and that submitting a late claim for judicial review would result in refusal.”

Despite dropping the court challenge, Westminster said it remains concerned about issues including accessibility, bus routes and the impact on residents and businesses. The council confirmed it is exploring other legal and procedural options and that Swaddle has requested a meeting with Khan to discuss its concerns.

Oxford Street pedestrianisation has been debated for decades, and supporters argue it will help revitalise Europe's busiest shopping destination. Critics, meanwhile, have raised concerns around transport access, safety, servicing and increased pressure on surrounding roads.

France's fraud authority has issued two fines to Shein totalling over 22 million euros (25.56 million dollars), it announced on Wednesday. The authority cited failures related to product traceability, environmental claims, withdrawal periods and delivery times.

The institution, which reports to the French Ministry of Finance, has increased the total penalties imposed on the Asian fashion giant in France in recent years. These now amount to over 210 million euros in total.

The two latest fines were issued following a wide-ranging investigation into several e-commerce platforms, particularly non-European ones, including Shein.

The first fine, for 5.77 million euros, targets Infinite Styles Ecommerce Limited (ISEL), the company that sells clothing and accessories under the Shein brand.

The General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) accuses Shein of failing to respect the 14-day withdrawal period for certain purchased products.

The DGCCRF also cited the omission of mandatory traceability information, such as the countries of weaving, dyeing and manufacturing for its garments. It also noted the failure to mention the presence of microplastics in fabrics. These are mainly found in polyester and are released into the water with every machine wash, which is a significant ecological problem.

Shein stated that the DGCCRF "confuses (...) the right of withdrawal with our more advantageous commercial returns policy". The company also cited a "technical incident" for the "temporary" absence of environmental information.

Furthermore, the DGCCRF fined another Shein company, Infinite Styles Services Limited (ISSL), 16.73 million euros. ISSL manages the marketplace, which is the online platform offering products from both Shein and its partner sellers.

The authority noted numerous breaches of consumer law. At the order confirmation stage, the unit price of each product is not provided. Delivery times, information on the identity of partner sellers and their contact details are also missing. This information must be provided on a "durable medium" to be retained by the customer.

Shein argued that this information is available in the customer's account.

Shein considers these sanctions to be "manifestly disproportionate and discriminatory", while minister of commerce Serge Papin has condemned the platform for "unfair competition".

The US has threatened 60 economies with new tariffs for failing to prevent imports of products made with alleged forced labour or for inadequately enforcing existing import bans. The Office of the US Trade Representative announced this late on Tuesday evening (local time).

Consequently, the European Union (EU), the UK and Switzerland, as well as countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Canada and China, can expect additional tariffs of between 10 and 12.5 percent. “It is unacceptable that our most important trading partners are doing nothing to prevent the import of goods produced using forced labour. This forces American workers to compete on an uneven playing field globally,” said Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, according to the statement. “We will no longer tolerate this inequality.”

Hearing deadline set for early July before new tariffs are due

The US Trade Representative is basing this on an investigation that began on March 12, as stated in the announcement. According to the statement, it was related to the “failure of various economies to enact and effectively enforce an import ban on goods produced using forced labour.” The tariffs are not scheduled to take effect immediately. Instead, objections can be raised until July 6, with a hearing scheduled for July 7.

China criticised the US action. The People's Republic has always opposed any kind of tariff measures, said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning in Beijing. Tariff and trade wars are not in the interest of either side. Regarding the accusation of forced labour, Mao said that China rejects it. “There is no so-called forced labour in China,” she continued.

In the legal battle over his controversial tariff policy, US President Donald Trump achieved a partial victory in mid-May. An appeals court temporarily suspended a lower court's decision that had classified Trump's temporary tariffs on imports from around the world as illegal. Importers must now continue to pay the 10 percent levy for the time being.

Madrid – Following the publication of its first quarter 2026 results, Inditex has called its investors to the 2026 Annual General Meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, July 7. During the meeting, the appointment of José Ignacio Goirigolzarri Tellaeche as a new independent director on the Inditex Board of Directors will be proposed. Goirigolzarri is the former chief executive officer of BBVA and former executive chairman of CaixaBank.

According to information submitted by the Spanish fashion multinational to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), the Inditex Board of Directors agreed to convene the company's ordinary Annual General Meeting during its meeting last Tuesday, June 2, 2026. The meeting is scheduled for 12pm Central European Summer Time (CEST) on Tuesday, July 7. Shareholders of the Spanish company can participate both online and in person by attending the meeting at Inditex's headquarters in Arteixo, A Coruña.

Beyond these formalities, the meeting's agenda has been structured around a total of nine points. The meeting will begin with the approval of the individual annual accounts and management report for the 2025 financial year. This will be followed by the approval of the annual accounts and management report of the consolidated group; the approval of the Consolidated Non-Financial Information and Sustainability Report; and the fourth point, of particular interest to investors, will be the approval of the proposed application of the 2025 financial year's results and the distribution of dividends.

In this regard, and following what was previously announced by Inditex's management during the presentation of its 2025 annual results on March 11, the Board of Directors will propose a dividend of 1.75 euros per share to the Annual General Meeting, charged to the 2025 results. This amount is 4.16 percent higher than the dividend agreed for the 2024 results. It consists of an ordinary dividend of 1.20 euros and an extraordinary dividend of 0.55 euros per share. These amounts will be paid in two equal instalments of 0.875 euros per share. The first was paid on May 4, and the second will be paid on November 2, 2026. The second payment will comprise the 0.55 euros extraordinary dividend and the remaining 0.325 euros per share proposed as the ordinary dividend.

Renewal of the board of directors

Continuing with the agenda, the fifth item will be the renewal of the Inditex Board of Directors. This governing body currently consists of 10 directors. The re-elections to be agreed upon are: Marta Ortega as a proprietary director; Óscar García Maceiras as an executive director; Flora Pérez Marcote—Marta Ortega's mother—as a proprietary director; Denise Patricia Kingsmill as an independent director; Pilar López Álvarez as an independent director; and Belén Romana García as an independent director.

Amancio Ortega, Roberto Cibeira and José Luis Durán Schulz will not be part of this renewal and will remain in their current positions on the board. Rodrigo Echenique Gordillo, however, will leave the Inditex Board of Directors when his term ends on July 12 this year. To fill this vacancy in the Spanish fashion multinational's governing body, the appointment of José Ignacio Goirigolzarri Tellaeche as a new independent director will be proposed to the Annual General Meeting. The board will thus remain unchanged with a total of 10 directors.

A well-recognised figure in the Spanish economic and financial world, Ignacio Goirigolzarri stood out during the 90s and the beginning of the 21st century as one of the main executives at BBVA, where he was appointed chief executive officer in 2001. He held this position until he left the company in 2009, taking early retirement. However, this did not mark the end of his professional life. Goirigolzarri returned to the forefront of the financial world with his appointment in 2012 as executive chairman of Bankia. He led the entity following the departure of Rodrigo Rato and during the period of the bank's partial nationalisation by the state. This stage concluded in March 2021 with the merger of Bankia and CaixaBank, under the latter's brand, with Goirigolzarri appointed as the new chairman of the resulting financial entity. He remained in this position until his resignation was announced on October 30, 2024, effective from January 1, 2025. From that date, the bank has been chaired by Tomás Muniesa, as non-executive chairman, with Gonzalo Gortázar remaining as chief executive officer.

Re-election of Ernst & Young and approval of remuneration policy

Completing the agenda for the upcoming Inditex Annual General Meeting, following the item on re-elections and new appointments to the Board, the re-election of Ernst & Young as the company's auditor for the 2026 financial year will be addressed. The meeting will conclude with the proposal for the approval of the directors' remuneration policy for the 2027, 2028 and 2029 financial years. This will be followed by a consultative vote on the Annual Report on Directors' Remuneration for the 2025 financial year. Finally, as a matter of procedure, the agenda includes the granting of powers for the execution of all resolutions passed during the meeting.

Fine Chaos is closing five years after its launch and will celebrate one last time during Copenhagen Fashion Week.

The Danish fashion brand, founded in early 2021 by Ludvig Isaksen and creative director Marc Møllerskov, will cease operations in August. Isaksen announced the news in an email to FashionUnited.

“The vision we set for ourselves in 2021 was one of the most important things in my life, and I am proud of what we have built,” said the co-founder. “However, the numbers have caught up with us, and we have decided to end the project on our own terms and shape the exit ourselves – in the way we see fit.”

With its dark, foundational aesthetic, Fine Chaos has been a fixture at Copenhagen Fashion Week in recent seasons, also exhibiting at the Danish fashion trade fair CIFF. According to its website, the brand had its own store in Copenhagen. It was also available from various fashion retailers in countries such as Denmark, Austria, and Belgium, as well as in Japan, South Korea, and China.

The brand's own community always played an important role, whether at fashion shows; pop-up and store events; or at hanger parties, clubs and warehouse raves. It was seen as the brand’s “infrastructure” rather than an “extension”. This community will be celebrated at a final event on August 7, the last day of Copenhagen Fashion Week. The final sale, which includes the current spring/summer 2026 collection, has already started on the brand's webshop.

UK online retail group Boohoo Group plc, which operates as Debenhams Group, reported a return to growth for its first quarter ended May 31, 2026. The company experienced an acceleration in its multi-year turnaround momentum, with group gross merchandise value, or GMV, increasing by 0.5 percent year-over-year.

Trading during May was notably strong, achieving GMV growth of approximately 8 percent. This performance was primarily led by the Debenhams brand and PrettyLittleThing, alongside improvements within Boohoo, BoohooMan and Karen Millen.

“Debenhams Group has returned to growth, and Q1 marks the inflection point we have been working towards,” stated Debenhams Group chief executive officer Dan Finley. “Group GMV grew 0.5% year on year - with May trading particularly strong at around 8%, led by the Debenhams brand and PrettyLittleThing.”

Profitability and cost reductions underpin turnaround

Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded during the period, which resulted in a substantial increase in adjusted EBITDA.

The company is progressing with its transition to an asset-light operational model. All fashion brands under the group have transitioned to the marketplace model, with approximately 25,000 brands and partners now integrated into the ecosystem.

Outlook remains positive for fiscal year

The company expects lease costs for the current year to decline to 13 million pounds; these costs will further reduce to 6 million pounds once the vacant US property lease is exited. The remaining 6 million pounds in ongoing lease obligations will cover the fully automated Sheffield warehouse, the Manchester head office, and a small London footprint.

The board of directors expressed confidence in achieving double-digit percentage growth in full-year adjusted EBITDA from the 53 million pounds guided for fiscal year 2026 in March. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA is on track to fall below 1x in the current year, driven by trading cashflow and planned asset disposals. These divestments include the Burnley property and the US warehouse, both of which are scheduled for disposal in the current year.

Finley added that the financial turnaround was driven by warehouse consolidation, a comprehensive cost reset, and the rebuilding of every brand onto a single proprietary platform. The executive reiterated corporate guidance pointing toward double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth and free cash flow generation for fiscal year 2027.

Full-year financial results for the period ended February 28, 2026 are scheduled for release within the next two weeks.

Madrid – Spanish fashion multinational Inditex group reported its results for the first quarter of 2026 earlier today. The company, which owns chains such as Zara, Bershka and Massimo Dutti, completed the three-month period from February 1 to April 30 by recording its best first-quarter results in its history.

According to information submitted by the Spanish group's management to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), Inditex reported first-quarter sales totalling 8.75 billion euros (10.17 billion dollars). This amount represents a 5.75 percent increase from the 8.27 billion euros invoiced by the company during the same period in 2025. The group, chaired by Marta Ortega, has consequently delivered the best first quarter in its history, setting a new record for the first three months of a financial year. This is a very positive result, particularly as the company estimates that at constant exchange rates, sales would have seen even stronger growth of 8.8 percent.

In line with this strong sales performance, Inditex reported a net profit of 1.38 billion euros for the same period. This figure represents a 5.36 percent increase compared to the 1.31 billion euros in net profit recorded during the same period last year. It also marks another new record for Inditex for a first quarter.

Reactivation of growth

A detailed breakdown of how the company's different chains contributed to these total revenue and profit figures is not yet available. This information will be released on September 9 with the publication of the first-half results. However, the figures announced today clearly show a revival in Inditex's performance in both sales and profits compared to the latest financial data released by the Spanish fashion multinational.

Regarding sales performance, the 5.75 percent growth recorded at the start of the 2026 financial year significantly surpasses the 1.52 percent experienced during the same period last year. This growth is also higher than the 4.88 percent recorded in the third quarter, which was the highest of the entire financial year. Furthermore, it exceeds the 3.19 percent growth with which the company concluded the last fiscal year of 2025, achieving total sales of 39.86 billion euros.

Similarly, in terms of profitability, the 5.36 percent growth rate comfortably surpasses the 0.46 percent recorded in the first quarter of 2025 compared to 2024. It is, however, lower than the 12.77 percent growth seen in the fourth quarter of 2025. Inditex completed that year with a 5.84 percent increase in net profit, amounting to 6.22 billion euros.

Outlook for 2026

Looking ahead to the rest of the financial year, the initial estimate for the start of the second quarter shows sales at constant exchange rates between May 1 and June 1 maintaining a year-over-year growth rate of 11.5 percent. For the full 2026 financial year, Inditex reiterates its forecast of a stable gross margin (+/- 50 basis points) and anticipates a currency impact of -1 percent on sales.

The “Mould Crisis” of 2026 is a direct byproduct of the extended maritime detour around the Cape of Good Hope, which has become a semi-permanent fixture due to the 2026 Strait of Hormuz (SoH) closure and continued Red Sea instability.

What began as a logistical delay has evolved into a quality assurance nightmare, particularly for shipments originating in high-humidity hubs like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia. The Financial Times recently dedicated a specialised report (“The Cape Route Detour and the Microclimatic Risks to Global Apparel Intermediaries”) to the subject.

“The prolonged exposure to fluctuating maritime microclimates has turned what used to be a simple transit delay into a catastrophic cargo degradation issue,’ noted a senior supply chain analyst in the report. “We are seeing unprecedented volumes of inventory compromised before they ever touch a European dock, forcing brands to choose between expensive localised salvage operations or complete stock write-offs.”

While the crisis is very real, statements from fashion brands and retailers remain scarce as companies navigate the reputational risks associated with damaged inventory. The fact is, though, that garment and textile supply chains are changing.

The “incubation” effect

Under ‘normal’ circumstances (meaning pre-SoH closure), a garment container from Dhaka to Rotterdam would take around 30 days. Current rerouting has pushed this to 45 to 55 days, equalling 50 to 88 percent longer journeys.

Mould spores (specifically Aspergillus and Penicillium) typically require 14 to 21 days of sustained high humidity to colonise fabric. Thus, the Cape route keeps garments in the “danger zone” for double the usual time, hence brands and retailers need to account for this critical window.

In addition, the longer routes mean that containers now cross the equator twice — once down the coast of Africa and once back up — where they experience extreme temperature fluctuations. This causes “container sweat” or condensation that drips from the ceiling directly onto cardboard cartons, compromising the silica gel packets inside within the first 15 days (the “sweat cycle”).

Two-fold risk mitigation

Logistics managers are currently using a two-tier strategy to mitigate these risks, both of which are eroding profit margins: One is the chemical and mechanical pre-treatment: Brands are mandating “anti-mould stickers,” which release chlorine dioxide gas, and VCI (Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor) liners for all maritime cargo. While the latter are safe for humans to handle when used as directed, breathing in chlorine dioxide gas or ingesting it poses severe health risks, thus increasing the risk to dock workers and anyone opening the containers and handling the products.

Then there is the top-off strategy: Brands are still shipping 80 percent of an order by sea, but because sea freight is quite unreliable, top off the remaining 20 percent via expensive air freight. This ensures that even if a sea container arrives with mould-damaged stock, the air top-off provides enough clean inventory to launch a collection on time.

Mould-prevention measures

While this may work in the short run, the industry is currently also rapidly pivoting toward active rather than passive protection.

Smart desiccants are packets with RFID indicators that change colour or signal when they reach 100 percent saturation. This way, logistics teams can identify at-risk containers before they are even opened. Smart desiccants carry a 5 to 15 percent markup on bulk packaging compared to standard or passive desiccants.

Pneumatic textile channels are integrating airflow structures into the garment folding process. This improves micro-climate stability inside the polybag during long transit. This can be initiated at the stitching stage itself, while robotic air blasts can be utilised through automatic folding machines. While initially incurring costs and reprogramming may be required, this strategy should amortise quickly.

Bio-based fungicides like peppermint or lemongrass-based coatings are applied during the finishing stage of manufacturing. This provides a natural, non-toxic barrier that inhibits spore growth for up to 90 days. Lemongrass is typically abundantly grown and found in tropical climates; it is cheaper than nanotechnology-enabled antimicrobial coatings, which are priced at approximately 19 to 38 US dollars per litre. These solutions are typically applied at a ratio of 0.2 to 1.35 percent of the textile’s dry weight.

The salvage industry

One industry’s loss, another one’s gain — a new sub-sector of logistics has emerged in view of the 2026 mould crisis: ozone remediation centres. Major ports like Antwerp and Felixstowe now have dedicated ‘garment recovery’ facilities where mould-affected shipments are treated with high-concentration ozone gas and UV light to kill spores before being re-packaged for sale. This process costs roughly 2 to 3.35 US dollars per garment, a cost most brands are now forced to build into their 2026 pricing models.

What is mould?

Fabric mould is a type of fungus (like the ones mentioned above) that feeds on organic materials within textile fibres like cotton wool and linen, but also synthetic fibres like polyester and nylon. It thrives in damp, dark and humid environments like sea freight containers. Mould may appear as ‘fuzzy’ or ‘slim spots in black, green, grey or white, depending on the type of fungus. A distinct, musty odour can confirm mould suspicion.

What is the difference between mould and mildew? While mildew is also a fungus, it is a surface fungus that stays flat and looks powdery. It is typically white, grey or yellow in colour and easy to wipe away. Thus, it is easier to eliminate and less of a threat. It can be stopped in most cases with a bit of bleach.

US lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret & Co. exceeded its own targets and analysts' expectations in the first quarter of the 2026/27 financial year. The management subsequently raised its full-year forecast on Tuesday.

In the 13 weeks to May 2, the parent company of the Victoria’s Secret, Pink and Adore Me brands generated sales of 1.56 billion dollars. This represented an increase of 15.3 percent compared to the same quarter last year.

Sales in brick and mortar stores in North America rose by 11.3 percent to 802.8 million dollars. In direct sales, it grew by 8.4 percent to 469.4 million dollars.

Revenue from the international business increased by 44.9 percent to 287.4 million dollars. This was partly because sales in the European Union markets, previously managed in the direct sales segment, are now recorded in this division.

Lingerie retailer more than triples its operating profit

The operating profit rose to 76.3 million dollars, thanks to an improvement in the gross margin. According to the company, this was achieved through lower discounts and more efficient cost management. This was more than three times higher than in the same period of the previous year, when it was just 19.8 million dollars.

The bottom line was a net profit attributable to shareholders of 47.7 million dollars. The group had closed the first quarter of the previous year with a corresponding loss of almost 1.7 million dollars.

CEO Hillary Super praises “strong start”

In light of the latest figures, CEO Hillary Super spoke of a “strong start” to the new financial year. She emphasised that the group had exceeded its own expectations in terms of sales and profit. Double-digit growth for the Victoria’s Secret and Pink brands and in the cosmetics category contributed to this.

The recent development and “continued momentum” prompted the management to raise its forecast for the full year. The sales target, which was previously between 6.85 and 6.95 billion dollars, has been increased to between 7.03 and 7.13 billion dollars. The forecast for adjusted operating profit is now between 550 and 580 million dollars. Previously, only 430 to 460 million dollars had been forecast.

Madrid – Modelia, the Spanish international business-to-business (B2B) platform specialising in AI-generated image creation and management for the fashion industry, has announced the successful completion of a 1.2 million dollar seed funding round. The capital will be used to drive and further scale its operations, with the US currently standing as its largest market.

According to details provided by the Spanish tech platform, Modelia was founded in 2024 by entrepreneurs Iván Rodríguez, its chief executive officer, and René Haas, its chief technology officer. The company has closed a 1.2 million dollar seed round. The funding was led by Spanish investment fund Next Tier, which specialises in artificial intelligence start-ups. Other existing investors also participated, including US-based Rapid Scale and Spanish investment firm Archipelago Next. A group of business angels from the fashion sector completed the round. Notably, Nacho Rivera, co-founder and co-chief executive officer of fashion brand Blue Banana alongside Juan Fernández-Estrada, participated in a personal capacity.

“We are living in one of those moments when an entire industry changes its language,” said Iván Rodríguez, co-founder and chief executive officer of Modelia. He noted that the emergence of artificial intelligence “has made the ability to generate an image accessible to everyone.” However, “producing fashion images on an industrial scale, true to the garment, true to the brand, edition after edition, collection after collection, is still a craft,” which is where Modelia comes in. He argued that while “small brands cannot operationalise AI on their own,” large ones “cannot do it without governance or workflows.” In response to these challenges, “Modelia is the infrastructure that closes that gap,” working towards the goal of “building the standard on which fashion imagery will be produced for the next 10 years.”

“What convinced us about Modelia was finding a team that combines top-tier technical execution with a deep understanding of the sector they serve,” added Patricia Pastor, founder and manager of the Spanish fund Next Tier, which led the investment round. “In applied AI, every advance in large models does not narrow the space for vertical start-ups; it expands it.” She explained that, in this context, “the defensive moat is no longer in the model, but in the application layer, in sector-specific workflows and in the user experience.” Against this backdrop, “Modelia understood before anyone else that fashion brands do not want to choose between AI models; they want production results,” Pastor added. Based on these demands, she stressed, “we see Iván and René, along with their team, as the natural candidates to lead this vertical globally.”

New funds to scale international operations

Modelia's current clients include multinationals such as Desigual and All We Wear Group (AWWG), the parent company of fashion brands Pepe Jeans, Façonnable and Hackett. The platform has also established collaborations with key industry events like Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid, where it was an official sponsor during the last edition in March. This highlights the company's distinctly international profile. Its global footprint is further emphasised by its revenue figures. The management team noted that the United States currently accounts for 44 percent of its total global revenue, with Europe as the second-largest market at 27 percent. The remaining revenue comes from operations in Asia and other smaller markets. Over the last six months, Modelia's platform has processed more than 300,000 SKUs for brands from 26 countries.

Building on these metrics and with the support of the funds raised, the company aims to accelerate and scale its operations. To achieve this, Modelia will “allocate the new funding to completing its enterprise platform layer, with new capabilities for consistency, style control, business rules, approval workflows” and enhancing “collaboration between teams and APIs to integrate into the e-commerce processes of large brands.” The platform aims to strengthen “its commercial expansion in Europe and the United States, its two main markets,” focusing on securing new “enterprise accounts in the fashion sector” with its AI image generation services. These services offer companies “garment fidelity, automatic application of brand guidelines, reusable models, governance, team collaboration and traceability.” This allows “a visual campaign that traditionally required weeks of production, model coordination, photography, editing and channel adaptation” to be “produced in hours, maintaining brand consistency across collections, geographies and commercial formats.”

“We are in a moment of acceleration for the ecosystem,” said Rodríguez. “Each new generation of generalist models reduces cost and latency, unlocking enterprise use cases that were not viable months ago due to ROI.” He continued, “In this context, value shifts to the orchestration and application layer,” where “deciding which model solves each task, integrating it into real production flows and ensuring brand fidelity at scale” is key, and “this is precisely where Modelia operates.” He acknowledged, “we are aware of where we are,” and that Modelia is “a young company in a category that is still being defined.” However, “every advance in large models makes us stronger, not weaker, because our job is not to compete with them but to turn them into reliable industrial production for a brand.” He concluded, “we have the right team, technology, clients and investors to aspire to lead this category globally.”

Madrid – On Running, or simply On for true sports enthusiasts, celebrated the final of its ‘On Squad Race’ initiative in Barcelona this past weekend, featuring teams from France, Italy and Spain. The relay competition has been promoted globally by the brand. FashionUnited had the privilege of participating first-hand, an experience that provided the perfect backdrop to uncover the Swiss sportswear brand's strategy for Spain.

In just over 15 years, On has established itself as a benchmark brand in the sports world. This is a significant milestone for a company that has managed to compete head-to-head with historic giants like Nike and Adidas, whose origins date back over 60 and 75 years, respectively. On is undoubtedly one of the sportswear brands of the moment. From this position, the company is working hard to strike a difficult balance. It aims to continue growing as a premium brand while focusing on further consolidating its identity and, crucially, avoiding becoming a victim of its own success.

The story of falling into irrelevance is a familiar one in the fashion world. On is trying to shield itself from this fate by executing a meticulous and well-studied strategy. This strategy is applied both globally and is aligned with the respective roadmaps designed for each of its key markets, including Spain. This past weekend, Spain hosted the final of the 'On Squad Race' relay between France, Italy and Spain. This international initiative, driven by On, serves as a perfect example of one of the main pillars of its strategic plan and business model: community connection. This key factor currently acts as a unifying constant for all of On's operations and strategies. On this basis, the company outlines and executes its various 'country initiatives'. For On's roadmap in Spain, the Swiss sportswear brand is focusing its attention on the country's two largest cities: Madrid and Barcelona.

More community

As a core element of its business model, we begin our breakdown of On's strategic plan for Spain with its 'connection with the community'. This factor is "multidimensional" in both form and substance, as evidenced by the 'On Squad Race' relay competition. The initiative allows On to go beyond organising the usual running clubs promoted by sports brands in major cities. It offers a different experience to the same community of people interested in sports and running.

To clarify exactly how On is building and assembling a "community" through activations like this, we will use the first-hand experience from this past Friday, May 29, in Barcelona, during the 'On Squad Race' final between France, Italy and Spain. The competition features teams of four runners representing their broader running communities. The Barcelona final was held after preliminary qualifying rounds in each of these countries. The French team Jolie Foulée won, with the Spanish teams No Breaks Squad and Apalarun finishing second and third, respectively. With this result, the French team's runners emerged as the winners of the race, earning a spot in the grand final of this global initiative, which will be held in Los Angeles.

Through the 'On Squad Race', the brand has created a dynamic of healthy competition around a relay race. This allows On to connect with its target audience of sports and running enthusiasts, offering them a unique experience. It also helps establish connections and relationships that extend beyond the product and any commercial transaction. At the same time, On strengthens ties with its commercial partners and local running communities. Through them, it organises the events for the various races and finals taking place worldwide as part of this initiative, from Beijing to Los Angeles; Medellín; Tokyo; Rio de Janeiro; Sydney; Lima; Buenos Aires; Mexico City; and now, Barcelona.

“‘On Squad Race’ is a global series of activations centred around the running community, with a strong focus on community,” emphasises Antonio Melero, marketing director for Southern EMEA at On, during a conversation with FashionUnited just minutes after the Barcelona final concluded at the incomparable setting of Montjuïc castle. “The reality of running communities and ‘Community Cruises’ is that they are emerging very actively within the sports world, especially in major global cities, and brands obviously want to join this trend.” In On's case, we launched the 'On Squad Race' relay competition primarily because “we found it interesting to promote an activation that would bring community members together without necessarily establishing active, direct collaborations with them, and for them to unite simply for the sake of the activity.”

“The whole ‘Community Cruise’ concept, which also has a significant social component, is a fantastic phenomenon that is bringing young people closer to running,” adds Melero. “As a premium brand, we wanted to offer them something that truly fits their community positioning, so they could first enjoy the experience and then also use it as a vehicle to generate visibility.” From an internal perspective, the competition also allows On to “tap into the current fertile ground of ‘Run Cruises’ and the running community at a local level, especially in key cities, to fuel the running industry and rejuvenate it.” At a brand level, On was “interested in reaching a younger consumer and, as a premium brand, providing them with an experience very different from a typical race on an athletics track.” These two factors emerge as the main drivers that will clearly shape the Swiss brand's strategies in its commitment to building more community, both globally and in Spain.

Focus as a premium brand

Focusing on the specific keys of On's "country plan" for Spain, the first thing to highlight is its premium brand approach towards the consumer. On carefully maintains this through all its initiatives and executions as a sports brand, whether through activations like the 'On Squad Race' relay or its commercial activities. The brand admits this was a challenge, facing a price-driven market like Spain. However, they report a very successful performance despite maintaining a no-discount pricing policy and tight control over the brand's exposure in the multi-brand channel.

“In terms of positioning, we will never deviate one millimetre from being a premium brand, which means we operate in a more niche part of the consumer pyramid,” Melero points out. “In a market like Spain, which is very price-driven, knowing how to work it well means making certain decisions that, in most cases, involve giving up a large part of the distribution the market offers. We will not deviate from that,” he warns. This strategy, despite the risks, is clearly proving very positive for the brand. “Even playing the no-discount game and implementing other policies to guarantee this positioning, the market is responding very well. It was one of the big unknowns when you enter a very price-driven market as a premium brand, and you don't know how it will react. Fortunately, Spain is reacting very positively to our commercial strategy.”

New openings in Madrid and Barcelona

On has had its own store in Spain since November 2025, when its first store in the country opened at 17 Calle de Serrano in Madrid. This opening, in the heart of the Salamanca district, the capital's "golden mile," perfectly exemplifies the premium positioning strategy Melero detailed. On's marketing director for Southern EMEA also revealed the next steps the brand plans to take in Spain. Madrid and now Barcelona will be the locations from which it will seek to strengthen its operations in the country.

First flagship store on Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona

Starting with Barcelona, the choice of the city to host the 'On Squad Race' final between France, Italy and Spain is the "icing on the cake" for the brand's investments in the city in recent years. These investments include On's sponsorship of the last two editions of the Barcelona Marathon. The brand's growing presence in the city's sports scene complements the activities carried out from its head office in Barcelona. However, this contrasts with the lack of an On store in the city. The absence of a store is not for lack of trying, but due to the difficulty in finding a retail space that meets all of On's requirements for establishing a presence in Barcelona. On has confirmed to FashionUnited its plans to open its own store in the city. This store is set to be the brand's first flagship in the country, and they are currently waiting to find the ideal retail location for its opening. On emphasises that the location will definitely be on Barcelona's Paseo de Gracia.

As one of the "key cities" identified by On, a label also applied to strategic locations like Milan, Paris, London and Berlin, “in Barcelona, there has been an organic investment over the last three years that is generating very good results and performance. While it's true we don't have our own store yet, it's purely a logistical issue of not having found the location we want,” Melero explains. For the location, “our goal is Paseo de Gracia.” “Until we find the right place, we won't make the move, but the decision has been made,” as has the decision that Barcelona will be a “flagship location.”

Second store in Madrid

The store concept for Barcelona will therefore be different from the smaller "chapter store" model with which On entered Spain and Madrid, with the opening of its first store on Serrano last November. On is already considering reinforcing the operations of this establishment with a second, similar "experiential" store, which would be different from the "flagship store" model planned for Barcelona. This difference is due to On's outstanding performance in Barcelona, which is similar to that in Madrid, but achieved without even having its own point-of-sale to support it.

“We opened in Madrid with the ‘chapter’ concept, which is a more limited format, and with just that one store, things are going as well as in Barcelona, where we haven't invested yet.” From there, “we are already considering a second store in Madrid,” Melero reveals. This opening will align with On's strategic objectives for Spain, just as the first store in Madrid did. For that city, “it was very clear that Serrano had to be one of the main objectives” for the brand, “and it was.” “In Madrid, luckily, things came together very quickly and smoothly, but we still haven't reached the point of investing in Madrid as a city,” in the same way it is already being done in Barcelona. The city, compared to Madrid, “has evolved much more quickly” because “the brand structure is here,” and also because “we decided to bet” on making a series of investments that “have helped us a lot to create a footprint in the local community and with the local customer.” This influence has been capped off “after the investment of recent years with an event” like the 'On Squad Race' final. It will be crowned by the long-awaited On store on Paseo de Gracia.