A new report by Mintel has revealed the UK's online retail boom is slowing down.While the growth rate is very much healthy, it has slowed down annually since 2008, when online sales grew exponentially by 50 percent, compared to 15 percent in 2012. Online retail sales growth in the UK slowed for the fourth year running, leaving retailers with a tougher fight to gain market share. Mintel, an online consumer and market insight group, said the UK's retail sector is still growing up to 14 percent a

Hugo Boss Spring/Summer 2013 Campaign | Source: Hugo Boss Hugo Boss AG reported second-quarter earnings that beat estimates, with the gross margin improving, after the German luxury-clothing maker opened more stores. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and one-time items rose to 101.8 million euros ($135 million) from 77.9 million euros a year earlier, the Metzingen-based company said in a statement today. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg wa

Rihanna | Source: Reuters Barbadian singer Rihanna on Wednesday won a legal case against British fashion chain Topshop over the use of her image on T-shirts it sold without her approval. High Court Judge Birss ruled in Rihanna’s favor following a four-day hearing earlier this month. In March last year Topshop, which is owned by billionaire Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, started selling a T-shirt with an image of Rihanna on it. The image was a photograph taken by an independent photogr

As online fashion sales expand, more large firms are committing investment to both websites and back-end logistics, while pure play e-tailers are launching new brands specifically for the online channel. JapanConsuming reports. Embellish | Source: Embellish.jp Online fashion sales in Japan are growing fast — so fast that it’s becoming hard to measure. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry says total online apparel sales hit ?144 billion (about $1.5 billion at current exchange r

LVMH continues to add to its sharehold in Hermès. LVMH's participation in the Birkin handbags maker has increased from 22.6 percent on December 31, 2012 to 23.1 percent on June 30, 2013. LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC), the world’s largest luxury goods maker, said it increased its stake in Hermès International (RMS) SCA to 23.1 percent from 22.6 percent in what it described as “an opportunistic move,” reported Bloomberg. “It doesn’t say anything about our attitude in the future so you

For the fourth fiscal quarter ended June 29, 2013, Coach net sales rose 6 percent compared to the same period of the prior year. During the quarter, gross profit rose 6 percent while gross margin was 73 percent. SG&A expenses, as a percentage of net sales, totaled 42.6 percent compared to the 40.5 percent reported in the year-ago quarter. For the full year, operating income was 2 percent above the operating income reported in the year ago period, while operating margin was 31.1 percent vers

J. Crew has been much talked about in the news this week. Firstly, the US upmarket high street giant confirmed it would open a separate men's boutique in London. The collegiate brand will launch its new store in Lamb's Conduit Street, the menswear style destination in London Bloomsbury. J. Crew charges up to 40 percent higher prices in UK The other feature concerns a comparison of J. Crew's UK prices. As the brand prepares for its standalone store launch, it's marketing team has gone into o

What is it about supermodels and their inability to age? From Kate Moss’s new campaign for St. Tropez to Naomi Campbell’s recent stroll down the catwalk at Versace, the classic beauties look almost the same as when they stepped into the modeling game over twenty five years ago. The same can be said for Christy Turlington Burns, 44, whose newly released campaign for Calvin Klein Underwear had us confusing the images with the model’s past campaigns for the brand dating back to the mid 1990s. Sh

JNBY Fall/Winter 2012 | Source: JNBY Have you heard of Chiu Shui, JNBY or Vandoren? Behind these names — which might easily evoke a Mexican puppy, a New York law firm and a Belgian chocolate-maker, respectively — are, in fact, three sizeable womenswear brands established here in Hangzhou in mid-1990s. Hangzhou is an important hub for the Chinese fashion industry. Although 80 percent of China’s garment factories are still located in the Pearl River Delta, Hangzhou has about 1,000 manufactur

Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana closed their Milan stores over the weekend to protest at being “pilloried” over their tax evasion conviction, which the duo say they will appeal. The designers, who were given 20-month jail terms, emblazed their nine boutiques in the Italian city with the words “Closed for Indignation” along with a newspaper article in which Councillor Franco D'Alfonso suggests that the label shouldn't be allowed to show its next collection in the cit