Popular Japanese department storeTakashimaya is one of the retailers dealing with mounting losses due to the ongoing pandemic.Image Courtesy: asia.nikkei.comThe retailer reported 20,530 million yen or US $ 190 million in losses for the May quarter blaming COVID-19-related costs and falling sales.This is the first time the company has reported losses ever since it started disclosing quarterly earnings in February 2004. In March-May quarter of 2019, Takashimaya posted a net profit of 10,597 millio

Wesfarmers, which owns the Australian unit of US department store operator Target, is accelerating the integration of its online and offline retail brands. A year after acquiring Catch, Wesfarmers has gone ahead to fully integrate the e-commerce site into its department store division, launching thousands of Target Australia products on the Catch website.Described the move as a ‘significant opportunity’ to increase the digital presence of department stores and reach more customers, Target Austra

JW Anderson, the UK-based fashion retailer, is all set to win the hearts of South Koreans again!Image Courtesy: cpp-luxury.comThe retailer, known for its exquisite menswear and womenswear collections, has opened its second store in Seoul.The new store, located at Galleria Luxury Hall East in Cheongdam, will be showcasing some of the finest collections of apparels in addition to exhibiting footwear, handbags and accessories.The interior design of the store is already catching the attention of man

LONDON - British sustainable fashion start-ups Colorifix and Spintex have made the shortlist of this year’s Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge.Photo: ColorifixIt means they are in with a shout of receiving the €500,000 (US$563,000) top prize at the international sustainability competition’s final in September.Colorifix has created a new and innovative sustainable dyeing technique that aims to revolutionise the textile dyeing industry.Source:Eco Textile

At a recent virtual roundtable in Mumbai, United Kingdom-India Business Council (UKBIC) managing director Kevin McCole signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) chief executive officer P Anbalagan to help the state proactively improve its business environment and strengthen its collaboration with British businesses.Speaking on the occasion, Kevin McCole, UKIBC, said: “This, I think, is vitally important because, as our economies and soc

LEICESTER - Fast fashion brand Boohoo has been dropped by major retailers Asos, Next and Zalando over concerns for the pay and conditions of garment workers in its UK supply chain factories.The company this week had more than £1.5 billion wiped off its stock market value following allegations that conditions in its supplier factories in Leicester had contributed to a coronavirus spike that saw the city put back into lockdown.Meanwhile, an undercover reporter for the Sunday Times claimed that one

Vietnam has faced a 14.5 percent decline year-on-year to over $10 billion in textile and apparel export in the first 5 months of the year, country’s General Office said this on 2ndJune. However Vietnam targets 5 percent annual GDP growth in 2020.Figure: Vietnam apparel export decline by 14.5 percent. File PhotoUnited States, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and China are among its largest market. In first two months of the year Vietnam’s export of garments and textile products reached $5.3

IntroductionFashion is one of the key industries that is currently being redefined by digital disruption. This phase of digital disruption has not been good news for traditional players in the industry.Traditional fashion companies and brands have been slow to adapt to this new shift and are feeling the heat. This change is to react to the shift from offline to online sales, which innovative digital technologies accelerated.Figure 1: The impact of this disruption can be seen everywhere in the fa

LONDON – The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) and FairWear have published joint guidance for brands on how to conduct their supplier relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic.The COVID-19: Loss of Jobs and Wages Series is based on four webinars which lay out guidance to member brands on upholding their responsibilities to workers in supply chains during the pandemic.ETI and Fair Wear have also published a handbook, consolidating learning from the webinars, which covers situations such as where

FESPA Global Print Expo will no longer take place in Madrid in October 2020, due to the continued public health risks and business disruption caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. FESPA will now host its next flagship international event at the RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from 9-12 March 2021, again co-locating FESPA Global Print Expo, European Sign Expo and Sportswear Pro.© FESPA.FESPA CEO Neil Felton explains: “In March 2020 we took the decision to delay FESPA Global