Blog

EU Digital Product Passport: What It Will Show on Your Clothes
The EU’s Digital Product Passport will attach a scannable record to clothes sold in Europe, covering fibre composition, care, durability and origin. The textile rules are due to be adopted... Read more...
Primark Profit Falls 12% as Price Cuts Squeeze Its Margin to 10.2%
Primark’s adjusted operating profit fell 12% to £1.01bn in the year to 12 September, as permanent price cuts on staples squeezed its margin to 10.2%. Sales rose only because of... Read more...
Bangladesh Forms a New Garment Wage Board After Protests Halt 529 Factories
Bangladesh formed a new minimum wage board for garment workers on 1 November after protests disrupted 529 factories and nearly a million workers. The minimum is Tk12,500 a month; production... Read more...
BHV Marais Enters Receivership in Paris After Its Shein Bet, 700 Jobs at Stake
A Paris court placed the BHV Marais department store into receivership on 2 November. Sales fell from €274m to €170m in 2025, brands including Dior left after it hosted Shein,... Read more...
US Clothing Tariffs: Why $1 of Duty Can Add $2.50 to the Price Tag
Since 24 July, clothing imported into the US has paid its ordinary duty plus a Section 301 tariff of 10% or 12.5%, depending on origin. How that duty is multiplied... Read more...
EU Green Claims Ban: What ‘Eco-Friendly’ Means on Clothing Labels Now
Since 27 September 2026, EU law bans generic green claims such as “eco-friendly” on clothing unless backed by recognised top environmental performance, along with home-made sustainability badges and offset-based “carbon... Read more...
What Happens to a Fashion Brand After a Luxury Group Sells It?
When a luxury group sells a label, the buyer is usually a rival group, a brand-management company that licenses the name, or a founder or specialist. How Versace, Marc Jacobs... Read more...
Is It OK to Give Secondhand Gifts? How to Buy Pre-Owned That Feels Special
Most people now say a secondhand gift is fine — and many say they would prefer one. A ThredUp survey found 62% of Americans plan to buy pre-owned gifts this... Read more...
Hugo Boss Reverses Its Pakistan Accord Exit, Rejoining the Factory Safety Pact
Hugo Boss will rejoin the Pakistan Accord, the legally binding factory safety agreement with global unions, from January 2027. The German group had declined to renew earlier this year, prompting... Read more...
What ‘Made in Italy’ and ‘Made in France’ Actually Mean on a Clothing Label
A ‘Made in Italy’ or ‘Made in France’ label tells you where a garment had its last substantial transformation — not where the fabric, yarn or design came from. Here... Read more...
Selling Clothes on Vinted or eBay: Do You Pay Tax in the UK?
Most people selling their own clothes on Vinted or eBay owe no tax, HMRC says. Platforms report sellers above 30 sales or about £1,700 a year, but tax applies only... Read more...
UK Budget Makes Amazon, Shein and Temu Collect VAT for Sellers Above £90,000
Chancellor John Healey’s Budget on 28 October makes online marketplaces including Amazon, eBay, Shein and Temu responsible for collecting VAT from UK business sellers above £90,000 from October 2027, and... Read more...
Etsy Returns to Buyer Growth as Revenue Rises 10.9% — and Ads Take a Bigger Cut
Etsy reported third-quarter revenue of $692.5 million on 28 October, up 10.9%, as active buyers grew for the first time in two years after the sale of Depop. The company... Read more...
EU €2 Parcel Fee From 1 November: What It Means for Temu and AliExpress Orders
The EU’s €2 handling fee applies from 1 November to every item line in parcels shipped to shoppers from outside the bloc, on top of the €3 duty in place... Read more...
Can a Tailor Take In Clothes After Weight Loss? What Alterations Can Fix
Tailors and cobblers report rising demand for alterations as more people change size. Here is what a tailor can take in easily, what is hard or impossible to alter, what... Read more...
Shein Agrees to Pay $100m to Settle US FTC Probe Over Delivery Complaints
Shein will pay $100 million to settle a US Federal Trade Commission probe into delivery delays and customer complaints, Reuters reported. What the figure means, why it lands at a... Read more...
Can ChatGPT’s Virtual Try-On Tell You If Clothes Will Fit?
ChatGPT added a virtual try-on button to its shopping results on 1 October. It is useful for judging colour and proportion, but OpenAI warns images may not show true fit.... Read more...
Vinted and Rivals Agree Four Steps to Block Looted Goods After French Riots
Vinted, Amazon, eBay, Leboncoin, Meta and TikTok agreed four measures with French ministers on 19 October to stop goods looted in the 17 October riots being resold online, including tighter... Read more...
How to Check a Designer Bag Before Buying Secondhand, Step by Step
A step-by-step guide to checking a pre-owned designer bag: test the seller and the price first, then the leather, stitching, edges, hardware, stamps and serial or date code, judge condition... Read more...
Quince Launches in the UK With £50 Cashmere. Here’s How to Test It
Quince, the San Francisco retailer valued at $10.1 billion, launched its UK website on 19 October with Mongolian cashmere jumpers from £50, silk blouses at £55 and leather bags from... Read more...
Cashmere Grades Explained: What Actually Decides the Quality of a Jumper
Grade A, B and C cashmere are retail labels, not a standard. The legal definition is fibre averaging 19 microns or less. This guide explains what fineness, fibre length and... Read more...
Double Denim Is Back for SS27: How to Wear It and Buy Denim That Lasts
Double denim is one of the clearest SS27 runway trends, from Tibi and Zimmermann to Sacai and Prada. Here is how to wear jacket-and-jeans without it looking like a costume,... Read more...
How to Read a Clothing Label: What the Fibre Percentages Really Tell You
Every clothing label must list its fibres by percentage of weight, largest first. Here is what EU and US rules make brands disclose, what they let them leave out, which... Read more...
Armedangels’ $298 Wood-Fibre Windbreaker Named a TIME Best Invention
TIME has named Armedangels’ 100% lyocell windbreaker, made without a membrane, synthetic fibres or PFAS, one of its Best Inventions of 2026. The $298 jacket is built for wind and... Read more...
EU Ban on Destroying Unsold Clothes: What It Covers and What It Means for You
The EU’s ban on destroying unsold clothing, accessories and footwear has applied to large companies since 19 July 2026. Here is what it covers, the eight exceptions, why handbags are... Read more...
Sheth London Debuts With Gujarati Handweaving and Runs Capped at 30 a Style
Designer Dimple Sheth has announced Sheth London, a womenswear label built with a 12-person artisan family in Gujarat. The debut has seven ready-to-wear styles and 19 accessories, runs of about... Read more...
How to Judge a Wool Coat in the Shop: Label, Weight, Fibre and Make
How to tell a good wool coat before you pay: what the composition label must disclose in the EU and US, why cloth over 400 g/m² matters more than a... Read more...
Physical Stores Are Carrying Fashion Growth While Online Goes Backwards — What the Numbers Hide, and Why Return Rates Are the Real Argument
UK fashion posted a seventh week of growth carried entirely by physical stores, with in-store up 6.72% and online down 1.53%. The base effects make that far less dramatic than... Read more...
Recycled Polyester Sheds as Much Microfibre as Virgin, and Sometimes More — the Most Common Green Claim in Clothing Points at the Wrong Variable
New research finds recycled polyester sheds microfibres at the same rate as virgin, and by particle count up to 55% more — because shedding is governed by yarn, fibre length,... Read more...
Seven Stores, Two Centuries of Name, and Bids Under Forty Million — the Luxury Middleman Is Finished and the Curating Job Is Now Yours
Harvey Nichols is being sold with bids under £40m for seven stores and two centuries of name, after five straight years of losses — and one of the bidders publicly... Read more...
A Mid-Market Retailer Is Compounding While Luxury Stalls — the Counter-Evidence This Argument Has to Answer Honestly
A mid-market British retailer raised guidance for the second time this year while luxury houses reported break-even margins and guidance cuts. Any thesis that cannot accommodate that is a slogan.... Read more...
A Designer Silhouette Has Arrived at High Street Prices — Four Checks to Run on the Rail, and What the Answer Teaches You
H&M's capsule with WARDROBE.NYC brings a severe, reduced silhouette to high-street prices. The design transfers completely, because a pattern is cheap to reproduce; cloth weight, shoulder construction, lining and hardware... Read more...
The Brands That Ignored Resale for a Decade Are Now Trying to Enclose It — and Their Own Figures Explain Why They Cannot
Zara, H&M, Levi's and others are building owned resale operations against a secondhand market projected at $393bn by 2030. The most revealing figure is one they published themselves: after five... Read more...
A Shrinking Company Bets on a Celebrity Sub-Line While an Independent Marks Twenty Years — Borrowed Attention Against Earned Position
A design chief was named for a celebrity sub-line at a company whose sales fell 10% last quarter, while an independent designer marked twenty years and observed that creativity without... Read more...
A Small Brand Targeted Four Times Its Size in Three Years and Is Now in Liquidation — How to Tell One That Will Survive From One That Will Not
A Spanish menswear brand with roughly €4.5m of turnover set a €17m target and has entered liquidation. It did not fail because it was small; it failed trying to stop... Read more...
A Fibre Producer Is Closing Plants and the Industry Admits It Cannot Compare Its Own Chemistry — Why the Composition Label Is the Only Fact on a Garment
A fibre producer is closing two lyocell plants while an industry project sets out to benchmark PFAS alternatives, admitting comparable data does not yet exist. Neither story involves a collection,... Read more...
Resale Authentication Has Become Infrastructure — It Proves an Item Is Genuine, and Tells You Nothing About Whether It Is Any Good
Resale authentication now covers more than a hundred fashion brands across two markets, a luxury watch database spans three countries, and a major secondhand marketplace has changed hands. Authentication is... Read more...
A Charity Has Solved the Problem That Sank Every Venture-Funded Rental Business — and the Answer Was to Own No Inventory at All
Oxfam has launched a national clothing rental service using donated stock too distinctive for ordinary shop ranges, from £22 for fourteen days. The interesting part is the economics: donated inventory... Read more...
A Fashion Week That Chose to Be Small and Gated — What Thirty-Six Shows and an Entry Requirement Recover That the Big Four Have Lost
Copenhagen Fashion Week is running with thirty-six shows and a sustainability standard as a condition of entry. The size and the gate are the point: a schedule small enough to... Read more...
A Succession Appointment and a Boot Brand Sold to a Specialist — Why Who Owns a Label Decides Whether It Is Made Well or Merely Marketed
A succession appointment at the holding company above the world's largest luxury group, and the sale of a technical boot brand back to a ninety-year-old specialist manufacturer. Neither is about... Read more...
A Marketplace Beat on Revenue, Raised Its Guidance and Cut Twelve Percent of Its Staff — What That Gap Means If You Buy From Independent Makers
Etsy beat on revenue, raised its growth guidance and cut roughly 220 jobs — 12% of staff, mostly product and engineering — on the same day. The gap between those... Read more...
Two Brands Under One Roof Moved in Opposite Directions in the Same Quarter — the Cleanest Evidence Yet That Specific Beats Broad
Inside one holding company in a single quarter, Jimmy Choo grew 9.3% while Michael Kors fell 7.6% — same owner, same macro, opposite directions. Ralph Lauren, meanwhile, grew 14% on... Read more...
A Court Heard That a Luxury House Was Shredding Thousands of Bags Every Six Months — and the Destruction Was the Pricing Model Working as Designed
A Hong Kong court jailed four former Chanel employees for stealing goods destined for destruction — and in establishing the case, heard that between ten and twenty thousand products were... Read more...
Profit Up, Revenue Down, and an Archive Partnership — What It Looks Like When a Brand Maintains a Reputation Instead of Spending It Down
A British heritage brand reported pre-tax profit up 5% on revenue down 1.61%, and announced a research partnership with a menswear archive. Together those describe something rare: a company content... Read more...
A Bid for the Buildings and a Platform Measuring Throughput — Nobody in Modern Retail Is Paid to Judge Whether Clothes Are Any Good
A private firm bid $934m for 117 former department store properties, roughly $8m a site, while an online platform reported gross merchandise value up 20.7%. One is real estate, the... Read more...
One Country Wants Its Textile Industry Back and Another Has Outgrown Its Reputation — How the Way Clothes Are Bought Decides How They Are Made
Two manufacturing stories from opposite ends of the supply chain describe one broken relationship. Britain is being urged to use public procurement to rebuild a textile base it lost; Bangladesh... Read more...
A Fair-Fashion Pioneer Changed Hands and a Fast-Fashion Giant Funded Fibre Research — Only One of These Can Be Checked, and That Is the Whole Lesson
In one week, a German fair-fashion pioneer passed to a new owner and a fast-fashion giant funded university research into turning brewery waste into textile fibres. One story is about... Read more...
The Market Has Cut Its Price for Ultra-Fast Fashion by Two Thirds in Under Four Years — and a Valuation Is a Better Argument Than Any Editorial
Shein is reportedly targeting $30–40bn for a Hong Kong listing, against a private valuation of $98.2bn in 2022 — a markdown of roughly two thirds in under four years. The... Read more...
A Scarcity Designer and a High Street Chain Are Rising in the Same Index — the Barbell Market Is Real, and the Middle Is Where It Breaks
In a single quarterly demand index, Phoebe Philo and Celine surged while the high-street brand Massimo Dutti entered the top ten. Craft-led scarcity and honest accessibility are rising together, and... Read more...
A Luxury House Put Seven Hundred Million Into Making Things Instead of Raising Prices — and the Capital Expenditure Line Is the Most Honest Number in Fashion
Buried in a set of full-year luxury results is one of the most revealing numbers in fashion: roughly $700m of capital expenditure directed into manufacturing capacity, alongside fashion price increases... Read more...