Bruce Nordstrom, part of the third generation of family leadership that took stewardship of the Nordstrom chain of department stores in the 1960s, died on Saturday, according to local press.

The Seattle Times reported a statement from his sons Pete and Erik Nordstrom saying, “Our dad will be remembered not only for his significant contributions to Nordstrom but also for his unwavering dedication to his family and friends.”

The two serve as president and chief executive officer of the retailer respectively. “His passion, integrity and tireless work ethic served as an inspiration to everyone around him. But perhaps his greatest achievement was being an amazing father, husband and grandfather.”

Nordstrom was instrumental in the company’s expansion and its 1971 initial public offering.His son and former company co-president Blake W. Nordstrom, died in 2019, aged 58.

Learn more:

Buyout Firm Sycamore Vies to Take Nordstrom Private, Sources Say

Nordstrom shares rose 6 percent on the news, giving the company a market value of about $3.3 billion.

Designer Mara Hoffman is closing her brand after 24 years, marking an abrupt end to one of New York’s most high-profile sustainability focused fashion brands.

“This has been by far one of the hardest and most important decisions I have ever made,” the designer said in an open letter posted on Instagram in which she alluded to the challenges involved in trying to operate with the fashion industry under different, more responsible model.

“We have been fighting for what feels like a long time to make this vision and model work,” Hoffman wrote. “For anyone in this industry, specifically within the sustainability movement, you are aware that it has been far from easy on so many levels.”

The designer has never been afraid of bold moves. In 2014, she totally overhauled her label in a bid to operate in a way that was more environmentally and socially responsible. She started by shifting away from polyester to use organic and recycled materials wherever possible and restructured her supply chain to prioritise fair working conditions. Last year, she received the CFDA’s Award for Environmental Sustainability in recognition of her decade of work in the space.

But as with so many independent designers, industry recognition is not enough to sustain a brand. Mara Hoffman’s Spring 2024 collection will be the label’s last. Hoffman is still deciding what to do next.

“Although I am choosing to redirect my participation, I remain hopeful that there is potential for positive change,” Hoffman said in her post. “Knowing that there are so many incredible people working towards new systems, technology and legislation, we have a chance at this.”

Learn more:

It’s Cool to be Sustainable. But It’s Not Easy.

Brands are amping up sustainability initiatives in response to demand from Millennial and Gen Z consumers, but can fashion’s current model of conspicuous consumption ever be considered sustainable?

Checking in on the Sneaker Upstarts

Newish sneaker brands continue to nibble away at Nike’s and Adidas’ market share, a trend that will be on full display this week with Amer Sports (owner of Salomon) and Deckers (Hoka’s parent company) reporting results. Remarkably, as much as these brands have seemed to dominate the sneaker discourse in recent years, there are still plenty of people who have never heard of them, let alone run a mile in their shoes. That’s a big reason why these brands can grow sales year after year; in some markets, they’ve barely scratched the surface of potential demand. Often first contact comes through wholesale retailers, but customers who like what they see will shop on the brands’ own websites for their next pair.

Wholesale is one way to build awareness, but the Paris Olympics are certain to be a big moment for these performance-minded brands (On, for one, is preparing to go all out, sponsoring athletes and opening a store on the Champs-Élysées.) Something to watch for this week is how these brands plan to branch out beyond their signature sneakers. Earlier this year Hoka released the Cielo X1, a high-performance shoe intended for marathoners, which costs $100 more than its bestselling sneakers. It’s only barely scratched the surface on apparel.

It’s safe to say all of these brands have avoided becoming the next Allbirds. The question is whether any of them can become the next Nike.

Corporate Intrigue at Macy’s and VF

The battle for Macy’s has gone quiet since mid April, when the department store chain appointed two candidates nominated by the activist hedge fund Arkhouse to its board. That was a temporary truce at best; Arkhouse and a second fund are still pushing to take Macy’s private, now from the inside. Meanwhile, chief executive Tony Spring is pressing ahead with his turnaround plan, which centres on closing underperforming Macy’s and opening more upscale Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury beauty stores. This week’s results are important but probably not decisive; a bad miss would strengthen the activists’ case, while middling to good sales buys Spring some time.

VF Corp. is more of a wild card. Last quarter, sales at all four of its biggest brands, Vans, Timberland, The North Face and Dickies, fell by double digit percentages compared with a year ago. The company intends to sell some smaller brands, and use the cash to pay down debt and invest in its core assets. Initially VF was thought to be shopping around its backpack brands (Eastpak and Jansport) but recent reports indicate Supreme, which it acquired in 2020, is on the table as well.

Brands on a Roll

E.l.f. Beauty and Ralph Lauren are experts at the expectations game. Quarter after quarter, they beat sales forecasts, thanks to strategies that have existed more or less in their current form for years. For E.l.f., the secret sauce is mastering the art of duping high-end cosmetics while building a strong brand identity of its own. Last week’s “So Many Dicks” ad, highlighting a lack of diversity on corporate boards, was a prime example. Ralph Lauren is all about elevation — fewer discounted polos, more fashionable clothes and accessories that it can sell at higher prices (also there’s still plenty of polos, preferably sold at full price).

Much like with the sneaker brands, while it’s true that nothing lasts forever, there’s little indication this will be the quarter the music stops for either company.

What Else to Watch for This Week

Tuesday

Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen - three days of talks and events centred around sustainability

Amer Sports, Macy’s report results

Wednesday

E.l.f., VF, TJ Maxx report results

Thursday

Deckers, Ross, Ralph Lauren report results

Friday

Louis Vuitton holds a cruise show on an island in Italy’s Lake Maggiore

The Week Ahead wants to hear from you! Send tips, suggestions, complaints and compliments to brian.baskin@businessoffashion.com.

This week, Burberry reported sales down 12 percent in its most recent quarter, while full-year revenues of £2.97 billion ($3.77 billion) were flat at constant exchange rates.

Shares in the company have fallen 57 percent over the past year and are now trading at their lowest level since 2016, ratcheting up pressure on Burberry chief executive Jonathan Akeroyd and creative director Daniel Lee to deliver a long-awaited turnaround.

Burberry’s woes are, in part, the product of a more difficult luxury market: inflation and slowing economic growth have taken their toll, particularly among the Chinese customers who used to power the brand’s business both domestically and in European shopping hubs.

But the company’s wounds are also self-inflicted: after building massive name recognition and a $3.8 billion per-year business in the 2000s and early 2010 — with a strategy rooted in an easy-to-digest interpretation of its British identity and a price positioning that straddled the line between top luxury houses and premium labels like Polo Ralph Lauren — Burberry has been bogged down in a decade of stagnation as its strategy to push upmarket falters.

To be sure, the downfall of US department stores and the rising cost of manufacturing high-quality products made the brand elevation strategy feel like a necessity. The brand bet that its bags and shoes goods could surely be lifted in line with the luxury clout of its flagship trenchcoats. Meanwhile, the prospect of one day being acquired by a big luxury group like LVMH or Kering offered further enticement to the top end of the market.

Efforts to elevate the Burberry brand began in the mid-2010s under Christopher Bailey (then serving as both CEO and creative director) and intensified under former CEO Marco Gobbetti and designer Riccardo Tisci from 2018 to 2022. Now on its third CEO and third designer (and third logo) in a decade, Burberry is persisting in the Sisyphean task of convincing the world to buy $2,700 Italian-made handbags from a British outerwear brand.

That’s not to mention tough sells like $1,000 khaki chinos or $1,450 cardigans. Those prices are roughly in line with wardrobe staples from European luxury houses like Celine and Loewe. But while those brands have bag businesses big enough to justify a more niche, top-end approach to ready-to-wear, Burberry is an apparel brand: selling clothing at prices clients are willing to pay is the core of its business.

The long-standing disconnect between Burberry’s strategy and its identity as a purveyor of premium outerwear is taking a toll.

“The combination of weak social media and Google search trends, as well as muted feedback from the trade on Burberry’s new collection, give no reason to believe that its momentum is accelerating,” UBS analyst Zuzanna Pusz said Tuesday in a note to clients.

There are some signs of progress. Akeroyd, a seasoned merchant from McQueen and Versace, is working to fill stores with a revamped menu of carry-over items across categories, backing up the brand’s runway vision with more accessible propositions. A new store concept is lighter and more engaging, mixing vivid colours, textures and product categories in places where the previous leadership had over-indexed on monochrome, visually static displays of the brand’s increasingly expensive handbags.

Then there’s the creative execution: Lee has managed to gradually turn up the brand’s cool factor while updating the brand’s messaging on the key topic of Britishness. Where former creative director Riccardo Tisci had focused on exploring codes and archetypes of British dress, Lee has tackled Britain and Britishness as a cultural hotbed and attitude. Shygirl and Skepta have starred in campaigns, while his “London Portraits” series shows how a diverse cast of stylish Britains can inhabit the Burberry wardrobe in modern ways.

But too many of the brand’s communication efforts under Lee have advanced a niche vision that has little to do with how typical customers see (or want to see) Burberry or Britain. And fashion fans likely to connect with Lee’s vision have other places they can splurge on $1,300 strappy sandals.

Niche fashion can provide a welcome halo effect for corporate fashion giants when the rest of the business is firing on all cylinders, but stronger counter balances are needed to keep a global business on track. Louis Vuitton, for example, has signed on for another 5 years of womenswear director Nicolas Ghesquière’s time-travelling, ür-sophisticated fashion collages.

But Ghesquière’s collections are just one plotline in the brand’s broader story. In addition to onboarding pop star and producer Pharrell Williams as menswear creative director, Vuitton recently hired Blake Harrop, a Wieden+Kennedy executive who has orchestrated campaigns for mass market giants like Nike and McDonalds, in the role of executive vice president for image and communications.

By over-indexing on top-end, niche fashion, Burberry is leaving money on the table: its singular position as Britain’s only megabrand requires a broader approach. The brand needs more accessible prices and more accessible marketing — and quick.

THE NEWS IN BRIEF

FASHION, BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY

Canada Goose beats estimates on China strength. The Toronto-based company reported revenue of C$358 million ($263 million) for the fiscal fourth quarter. Sales grew 22 percent from a year earlier.

Swiss sneaker company On reports record quarterly revenue of $560 million. The bulk of this growth was driven by the expansion of its direct-to-consumer business. The brand’s shares were up over 14 percent in early trading Tuesday.

Anglo American explores De Beers IPO as part of break-up, say sources. The London-listed miner set out its plans for a potential break-up via a demerger or sale of some of its assets, as it fights off a $43 billion takeover bid from BHP Group. CEO Duncan Wanblad said the plan was to spin out or sell De Beers, without giving further details.

Converse cuts jobs as part of parent Nike’s cost-savings plan. Nike is undergoing a $2 billion cost-cutting plan that includes slashing 2 percent of its workforce. Layoffs have hit its Oregon headquarters across two rounds, with the process expected to conclude by the end of its fiscal year.

Roksanda sells to The Brand Group. Citing “recent volatile market conditions,” Roksanda said it had filed a notice of intent to appoint an administrator, before finding a white knight in TBG. Roksanda Ilinčić will remain at the brand as creative director.

Hugo Boss and David Beckham partner up for design collection. The collaboration includes collections designed and curated by David Beckham for both formal and casual menswear. Beckham will already appear in the brand’s global campaign in autumn this year.

Victoria’s Secret fashion show to return in late 2024. In an Instagram post, the intimates retailer said the show will “reflect who we are today, plus everything you know and love.” The televised runway show was put on indefinite hiatus in 2019.

US retail sales unexpectedly flat in April. Sales rose 3 percent year-on-year in April. Consumers are focussing spending on essentials and cutting back on luxuries amid higher prices, but sales have held up as a strong labour market helped households navigate the high inflation environment.

Temu targeted in EU Consumer Group’s complaint to the EU regulator. The company often failed to provide consumers crucial information about the sellers, the BEUC said. Under the European Union’s Digital Services Act, online marketplaces and intermediaries are required to fight illegal and harmful content as well as counterfeit products on their platforms.

THE BUSINESS OF BEAUTY

Walgreens contacts potential buyers for Boots drugstore chain. A sale would undo a blockbuster transatlantic merger that took place in stages beginning more than a decade ago. The company’s stock jumped 7.2 percent to $18.43 following the news.

Natura’s losses rise to $181 million but margins grow. Natura’s first-quarter net revenue dropped 5.7 percent year-on-year to 6.1 billion reais ($1.18 billion). Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose 4.1 percent to 682.8 million reais, bringing the closely watched EBITDA margin up 110 basis points to 11.2 percent.

DSM-Firmenich unveils new ‘Mind Nose Matter’ olfactory exhibition. The showcase translated the company’s global insights consumer study into scent profiles, technologies and fragrances. It also sought to showcase the different formats, including oils, body butters, hand creams, candles and powders, brands could integrate fragrance into.

P&G to downplay corporate name in Olympic ads. The consumer goods giant plans to focus on promoting individual brands rather than its overall corporate values. Procter & Gamble has reduced its spending on Olympics advertising in the United States by 50 percent over the last several games.

Fendi launches fine fragrance collection. The seven-piece range will be available in boutiques and the brand’s e-commerce site from June 20, with each scent priced at $330. The scents are inspired by different members of the Fendi family, as well as by Kim Jones, the fashion house’s artistic director.

PEOPLE

LVMH said to shake up Fashion Group leadership. Former Louis Vuitton CEO Michael Burke is stepping back from overseeing LVMH’s sprawling Fashion Group just four months after he was named the unit’s chief executive, BoF has learned. Whether Burke will exit his role or simply take on a retooled scope remains unclear.

Haider Ackermann is Canada Goose’s new creative director. The company announced the appointment with the launch of a special hoodie, the sales of which will raise money for Polar Bears International. His first collection will follow in the autumn.

Zalando shakes up management after a strategy shift. Co-founder David Schneider will hand over his co-chief executive officer role to David Schröder in September. Schneider will remain on the management board, while fellow founder Robert Gentz will continue in his role as co-CEO.

MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY

Condé Nast chief revenue officer steps down. During her tenure, Pamela Drucker Mann was instrumental in ushering the business into the digital age, said Roger Lynch, Condé Nast’s chief executive. Drucker Mann will remain at her post until the summer while the publisher searches for a replacement.

Compiled by Yola Mzizi.

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Subscribe to the BoF Podcast here.

Background:

Esteban Cortázar first fell in love with fashion as a teenager growing up in Miami. Over the years, his career in fashion has come with lots of ups and downs. After he became one of the youngest designers to ever present at New York Fashion Week he had to shut his label down. He went on to become the creative director of Emanuel Ungaro at just 22 years old, before leaving after he disagreed with the owners’ plans to bring on Lindsay Lohan as a consultant. He relaunched his eponymous fashion house but it closed during Covid. Now, Cortázar is launching ‘Donde Esteban,’ a new brand on his own terms, on his own schedule, celebrating his roots in Colombia, Miami and Ibiza.

“Where we can lack as young designers or as designers doing independent brands is that it’s really like a puzzle,” says Cortazár. “And you have to have all of the pieces in place for it to work. Having an investor is certainly not enough, you really need to have all of the different angles in place, especially today, to be able to sustain a business.”

This week on The BoF Podcast, Cortázar joins me to share his career journey and the lessons he’s learned about building an independent fashion business today.

Key insights:

• Born to a Colombian painter and former British jazz singer, Cortazár’s childhood straddled continents, lifestyles and subcultures, all of which has greatly influenced his artistic sensibilities. “I grew up around a very bohemian environment through my family and my parents — colours and paints and oils and instruments. That already set the tone of a very artistic point of view from a very early stage,” he says.
• Emulating what he saw in the fashion magazines he devoured as a teenager, Cortazár’s early shows were always organised to a professional standard despite his young age and lack of training.
• Cortazár jumped at the opportunity to become creative director of Ungaro at the age of 22. “I knew how much questioning there was going to be from the industry about me and my age, my experience, my lack of experience. I just took it and I went for it because I knew that that kind of opportunity wouldn’t just continue to come like this.”
• Heavily influenced by his upbringing, Cortázar’s new label Donde Esteban is somewhat of a homecoming. “My take on fashion has changed and evolved and I wanted to create something that felt so authentically me, that really celebrated the multicultural aspect of my life. The fact that I was born in Colombia, grew up in Miami, then went to New York, then went to Paris, that I spent all my summers in Ibiza.”

Additional resources:

• Turning Point | Esteban Cortázar, Comeback Kid. Before the debut of his second capsule collection with Net-a-Porter, set to launch on July 17th, designer Esteban Cortázar spoke to BoF about why leaving Ungaro was the best decision of his life, his new business model, and why slow and steady wins the race.
• Esteban Cortázar Tackles Fashion’s Timing Gap. For Paris-based Colombian designer Esteban Cortázar, designing and pre-selling a trans-seasonal collection, delivered eight weeks after fashion week, is the solution to the ‘broken’ fashion system.
• Unlikely Directions at Esteban Cortázar. Esteban Cortázar’s pairing of Berlin nights and gymnastic inspiration made for a stirring, if unlikely, combination.

Since 2022, Netherlands-based tannery Ecco Leather, supplier to top luxury labels and parent company Ecco Group’s namesake shoe brand, has brought in casts of creatives to design for its collaborative project aimed at raising awareness for the material’s potential, At.Kollektive. For its fifth season, the project will get a new name — Ecco.Kollektive — and include work from British menswear designer Craig Green, Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient, the duo behind Berlin-based womenswear line Ottolinger and French menswear designer Louis Gabriel Nouchi.

The collection, which includes shoes, accessories and ready-to-wear, will be presented at men’s week in Paris on June 20. Green’s designs for Ecco.Kollektive will also be shown in his Spring/Summer 2025 presentation in London on June 5. Prior Ecco collaborators include Kiko Kostadinov, Bianca Saunders, Peter Do and Nina Christen.

Green’s designs are more casual, menswear products. Ottolinger’s pieces are feminine and make leather look different than shoppers are used to, while Nouchi twists leather in a way that makes it appear more premium, said Panos Mytaros, CEO of Ecco. The collection will be available on the project’s site and select retailers including Ssense, Nordstrom and Kith Tokyo from November, with prices starting at €225 ($244).

Mytaros said the name change represents a maturation of the programme and was driven by a desire to make the tie to Ecco more clear.

“The goal was to unite everything we do under one umbrella … and put even more emphasis on [the fact that] there is this powerhouse behind this, and the name is Ecco,” said Mytaros.

Learn more:

Natacha Ramsay-Levi and Bianca Saunders Join New Leather Design Collective

Netherlands-based manufacturer Ecco Leather also tapped designers Kostas Murkudis and Isaac Reina to found AT.Kollektive, a new design project that aims to highlight the creative potential of leather.

London-based womenswear brand Chopova Lowena has been named the winner of the 2024 British Fashion Council/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund.

Founded by Central Saint Martins graduates Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena in 2017, Chopova Lowena is known for its mixture of folksy and sportswear design elements — seen in its popular pleated and pinned kilt-style skirt — and use of deadstock fabrics.

The designers will receive a cash prize of £150,000 ($190,000) and access to mentorship. Ahluwalia, Knwls and Nensi Dojaka were among the labels shortlisted for the prize.

”This duo has built a real community around their brand and the cult of their signature carabiner skirts is a testament to what they do,” said Chioma Nnadi, British Vogue’s head of editorial content. “When it comes to a creative vision, they’ve fearlessly marched to the beat of their own drum, challenging conventional fashion system rules.”

Learn more:

16Arlington Wins BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund 2023

Emerging British label 16Arlington, founded by Marco Capaldo and the late Federica “Kikka” Cavenati, has been awarded this year’s BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund prize, receiving a £150,000 cash prize and business mentoring.

Five years after lighting firms Flos and Louis Poulsen merged with Italian sofa maker B&B Italia to form “Design Holding,” the luxury furnishings group owned by Carlyle and Investindustrial has rebranded its operation as Flos B&B Italia Group.

The moniker hardly rolls off the tongue, but the rebrand could help to boost the group’s profile as it seeks to scale its brands in the fragmented design space. Unlike the vaguer, more passive “Design Holding,” the new name trades on the appeal of the group’s two biggest and most internationally recognisable units, as well as helping to set the company apart from competitors including Cassina-owner Lifestyle Design Group and its licensing subsidiary Luxury Living (which manufactures the furniture extensions for Versace, Dolce & Gabbana and Bentley).

“It made more sense to go out in front with our two best-known names,” said chief executive Daniel Lalonde, who joined the group in 2021. “It says more exactly who we are… It helps to clarify things — including that we’re not in the licensing business. We’d rather own and develop our own brands.” (The company does operate one luxury fashion extension, Fendi Casa, but as a joint venture with LVMH rather than a licence.)

Lalonde is no stranger to acronyms, nor to the power of leveraging a group structure to accelerate growth: the Canadian executive worked at LVMH for 10 years before joining French contemporary group SMCP, where he led a period of rapid international expansion and orchestrated a sale to China’s Shandong Ruyi at a billion-dollar-plus valuation.

Since joining Design Holding in 2021, the executive has been working to understand how a group structure could have similar benefits for luxury design, a sprawling, fragmented market in which few players have managed to achieve global scale. “As an example, Flos is the global leader in lighting, and it’s only reached around $300 million in revenues,” he said.

The group’s other businesses include Arclinea kitchens, Maxalto furniture and Danish brand Audo.

While design sales slowed amid rising interest rates last year, the $4.4 trillion lifestyle segment — including homeware and hospitality — is nonetheless expected to grow at a compound average rate of 7 percent through 2026, according to a BoF Insights analysis of Euromonitor data. Interest in the high-end design segment has boomed since the pandemic — with events like Milan’s Salone del Mobile drawing record-beating crowds from around the world — but distribution has struggled to keep up. In the last year, design emporiums like The Conran Shop shuttered in France (and will soon close its store in London’s Marylebone), while Habitat declared bankruptcy in both France and Switzerland. Such shifts underscore the tricky retail economics of the design category—as well as abundant white space in the market.

In March, Flos B&B Italia opened a flagship to house the group’s brands on Madison Avenue in New York, a strategy it has also pursued in Washington DC, Miami’s Design District, Tokyo and Dubai. Those locations can leverage the group structure to cross-sell its products to end consumers, as well as architects and designers looking for a “one-stop shop” to supply hotel, restaurant and real estate clients, Lalonde said.

Still, retail expansion only makes sense in certain key locations, as the economics of showcasing large, infrequent purchases like sofas is radically different to selling shoes and bags. “Our journey has been to accelerate directly-operated stores, but only in certain design hubs,” Lalonde said.

Elsewhere, “brandisation” is the focus: setting up branded shop-in-shops within wholesale doors at a clip. Last year, the group added 200 shop-in-shops, versus 30 freestanding stores. The group has also sought synergies in its e-commerce business, sharing resources and best-practices across brands as well as acquiring US online design emporium Lumens.com.

Design sales boomed during the pandemic in 2021 and 2022, and then faltered amid rising interest rates and slowing construction last year. 2023 revenues at Design Holding/Flos B&B Italia fell 9 percent year-on-year to € 785 million ($852 million).

Lalonde expects the first half of 2024 to remain sluggish before trends improve in the second half: housing starts have begun to pick up in the key US market, while slowing inflation has fuelled hopes of interest rate cuts on both sides of the Atlantic this year.

High-end coat maker Canada Goose Holdings Inc. reported higher-than-expected sales growth on strong retail results in China and the US. The shares jumped more than 12 percent in early trading in New York.

The Toronto-based company reported revenue of C$358 million ($263 million) for the fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31, compared with the average analyst estimate of C$316 million.

Sales grew 22 percent from a year earlier.

The company, which sells parkas that cost as much as $2,000, has focussed on improving performance in Asia. The region is home to over 40 percent of Canada Goose stores and recovery there from the pandemic has been slow. The company has also been opening more locations, added three new permanent stores in the fourth quarter.

Canada Goose issued a new outlook that sees slow growth in revenue but higher profitability in fiscal 2025. The company expects sales to grow in the low single digits compared with 2024 as it continues its shift away from the wholesale business to focus on selling products directly to consumers.

But it plans to increase prices, and margins should expand, the company said, projecting that adjusted profit per share will grow “by a mid-teen percentage” over a year ago.

The outlook “assumes global consumer spending will continue to be pressured amid persistently high interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty,” the company said in a statement. “Within our business, we assume continued operational discipline and execution of initiatives focused on delivering further cost efficiencies.”

Sales increased about 30 percent in greater China and nearly 25 percent in North America in the fourth quarter compared with the same period a year earlier.

Canada Goose shares had dropped 3.6 percent so far this year through Wednesday’s close.

By Monique Mulima

Learn more:

Haider Ackermann Is Canada Goose’s New Creative Director

The luxury parka maker is aiming to elevate its image as it faces strong competition.

Fashion’s carbon footprint inched lower in 2022 thanks to a flattering data refresh, but the industry’s planet-warming emissions are still on track to grow by more than 40 percent by 2030, according to new analysis by trade coalition Apparel Impact Institute.

Any potential progress driven by large brands’ efforts to meet high-profile climate commitments have yet to show up in the numbers.

Instead, the sector saw its carbon emissions dip by just over 1 percent in 2022 compared to a year earlier on the back of updates to the impact associated with polyester and nylon, according to AII’s estimates. The analysis pegged fashion’s carbon footprint at 879 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or nearly 2 percent of the world’s total carbon footprint.

The fact that the data is getting better is important in itself, said Leonie Schmid, AII’s director of sustainability reporting. But the time lag also means the latest analysis doesn’t fully reflect initiatives the industry has undertaken in recent years, she added.

Nonetheless, assuming business continues as usual, fashion’s carbon footprint is expected to reach 1.2 gigatonnes by the end of the decade. That’s slightly lower than previous estimates, but to keep in line with efforts to stave off the worst effects of climate change they need to nearly halve from current levels.

“The data is clear,” AII’s report said. “While the apparel industry is making progress, the pace of change is far short of what is needed.”

Though hundreds of companies from across fashion’s value chain have now made commitments to drastically lower their emissions and some have begun to make real progress, new technologies that could help deliver on these goals are struggling to scale and investment remains limited.

AII has been trying to raise a $250 million fund to help cut fashion’s emissions since 2022. So far, it’s raised just $89 million. Last year, initiatives it backed helped save nearly 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. It’s aim is to increase that number 500-fold by the end of the decade.

Meanwhile, the risks of inaction are becoming more apparent. Over the last two months Southeast Asia has sweltered under a brutal heatwave, with many of the world’s largest garment manufacturing hubs experiencing days on end of temperatures in the vicinity of 40C. Combined with humidity, that’s well above dangerous levels for even moderately taxing manufacturing work.

A report published last year found that such weather extremes could threaten export earnings worth $65 billion in just a handful of key manufacturing hubs by the end of the decade.

Time is running out to reverse these trends and the industry needs to amp up efforts across the value chain to achieve more than incremental gains. On the positive side, much groundwork has been laid over the last few years that could now enable accelerated action, trade groups say. Large parts of the industry are aligned on broad goals, like shifting to lower-impact materials, with ambitions increasingly underpinned by government regulation.

“We are collectively behind the curve, but every industry is collectively behind the curve,” said Michael Sadowski, a sustainability consultant and the author of AII’s new report. “The apparel industry has a really good understanding [of its hotspots] and money is being driven towards the right places.”

Victoria’s Secret is bringing its runway show back, the company announced Wednesday.

In an Instagram post, the intimates retailer said the show will “reflect who we are today, plus everything you know and love.”

The televised lingerie fashion show began in 1995 and was last hosted in 2018. At its peak it drew over 10 million viewers and featured top models including Gisele Bundchen and Kendall Jenner. In the late 2010s, however, the event saw its viewership dwindle as it faced scrutiny for its casting of predominantly white, thin and cisgender models as calls for inclusivity were gaining steam in the fashion industry. In 2019, the event was put on an indefinite hiatus.

Since then, the company has attempted to revamp its image through a push for diversity — it added more women to its board, increased its size range and cast more diverse models. Despite the shift, Victoria’s Secret continued to lose market share to new lingerie upstarts including Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty, which also produces its own fashion show.

Last year, in an attempt to offer a modern update to the show, the company produced a feature-length film showcasing fashion collections from artists in four cities around the world which was available to stream on Amazon Prime. The film missed the mark with viewers who felt the documentary was not in line with the brand’s image. One Amazon Prime reviewer wrote, ”I have never been less interested in the brand itself until after watching this. As a teen, when VS was at its height of success, I was obsessed ... Now as an adult who actually can afford to spend the money I wish I had 10 years ago, I wouldn’t step foot in the place after this catastrophe.”

The revival of the runway will “deliver precisely what our customers have been asking for — the glamour, runway, fashion, fun, wings, entertainment,” the company said in an email.

Learn more:

Why Victoria’s Secret Is Bringing Sexy Back

A much-hyped image revamp has failed to win back customers. On Thursday, the company told investors about Plan B: spruce up stores, expand into new categories and bring back a bit of the old Victoria’s Secret. As one executive put it, “sexiness can be inclusive.”