Marc Bain

Kamala Harris caused a stir this past September when she stepped off a plane in Milwaukee.

Levi’s, the global leader in denim, sees a bright future in sweatpants.

Last March, US senators Dick Durbin, a Democrat representing Illinois, and Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, introduced a bill called the INFORM Consumers Act. The legislation would force companies operating third-party marketplaces online to verify the identity of “high-volume” sellers on their platforms, meaning those making 200 or more sales totaling at least $5,000 in one year. The marketplaces would be required to gather details from sellers such as their government ID, bank information, and contact information.

While many companies are still suffering in the pandemic, some of luxury fashion’s biggest names are already showing signs of a recovery.

Boohoo, an online fast-fashion retailer, today announced (pdf) it is buying Debenhams, a UK department store, in a £55 million ($75 million) cash deal. Boohoo will get Debenhams’ brands and any associated intellectual property. It will also allow Debenhams, which since 2020 has been in administration—a rough British equivalent of bankruptcy—to continue running its website until Boohoo can relaunch it. Not included in the purchase are Debenhams’ 118 stores, which are to permanently close.

Joe Biden faces a number of urgent challenges in his first days as the new US president, but one certain to receive high priority is managing the ongoing rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine. The process so far has not gone smoothly, and states have vaccinated just a fraction of the population expected.

For his swearing in as president of the US today, Joe Biden wore a navy suit and overcoat by Ralph Lauren. Jill Biden, who became first lady, opted for clothes from a lesser-known name. She chose a custom wool tweed coat and dress by Markarian, the small New York-based company of designer Alexandra O’Neill.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is a devout supporter of outgoing US president Donald Trump. On right-wing shows and on his social media accounts, he has pushed the baseless claim that Trump actually won the November election and it was stolen from him through fraud. On a Jan. 15 visit to the White House just over a week after the pro-Trump insurrection at the Capitol building, he was photographed carrying notes that referred to invoking martial law if necessary.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO, realized early on his site would never be the “everything store” he imagined if it had to purchase and store every product it sold like a traditional retailer. It would need an infinite supply of warehouse space and capital.

The US government today issued a sweeping ban on imports containing any cotton or tomato products originating in China’s Xinjiang region, where at least 1 million members of the country’s Uyghur ethnic minority are estimated to be held in camps and widely pressed into forced labor.

US federal authorities are seeking help identifying a suspect in connection with pipe bombs found at the Republican and Democratic national committees on Jan. 6, the day of the violent storming of the Capitol building by supporters of president Donald Trump. Photos of the individual don’t leave much to go on. His face—presuming it’s a man—is covered by a mask, and the hood of his sweatshirt obscures the rest of his head. His clothes are plain and don’t offer clear identifying details.

It was an opportunity ripe for Vogue to create magic. The fashion bible, known for creating exceptional imagery, will feature Kamala Harris on the cover as the star of its upcoming issue, just as Harris is about to become the first female vice president of the US—and the first woman of color—when she’s sworn in this month. Vogue had all the ingredients to produce a stunning and historic cover.

China’s transformation into the world’s manufacturing powerhouse has been remarkable. When it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, it was a minor player on the global manufacturing stage. But after years of reforming its economy around producing goods for export, its formal entrance to the WTO helped its output soar. In the years since, it has offered itself up as the world’s low-cost factory, making labor-intensive products such as textiles, toys, clothes, footwear, and furniture for companies, and ultimately consumers, around the globe.

Chances are you haven’t noticed all the times you used Shopify to buy stuff online. That’s quite a feat for a company now estimated to be the second-largest e-commerce platform in the US, edging out eBay and trailing only Amazon. To consumers, Shopify is “virtually invisible,” co-founder and CEO Tobi Lütke wrote in a letter to shareholders in 2015, the year Shopify went public. “This,” he said, “is by design.”

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Supporters of US president Donald Trump clashed with police and overran the Capitol building in Washington today in a chaotic scene that resulted in at least one person being shot.

The Georgia runoff election did not go as planned for Kelly Loeffler. The Republican US senator lost her reelection bid to Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock, a church pastor who will become Georgia’s first Black senator. It was a crucial race that could help swing the balance of power in the US Congress in favor of the Democrats.

It’s not often that a giant public company calls a US senator a sore loser on social media. So it drew a lot of notice when Walmart, the largest retailer in the US, lashed out at republican Josh Hawley of Missouri on Twitter.

It’s been yet another record-breaking holiday season for Amazon, the company says. Having only grown stronger as Covid-19 drives a surge in e-commerce, Amazon delivered more than 1.5 billion items globally, including toys, personal care and beauty products, electronics, and much more. It can’t claim all the credit though. It had plenty of help.

The holidays are always a busy season for delivery networks in the US, but this year stretched them to the limit.

Clothing serves a variety of purposes. It can keep us warm, protect us while we work, or help us stay cool and dry when we sweat. Much of the clothing we buy in wealthy consumer cultures, however, has a less explicitly practical use: We wear it to be seen in.

In 2021, the gap between fashion’s winners and losers is set to widen even further, creating the conditions for a wave of consolidation in the industry, according to a joint report by consultancy McKinsey and trade publication Business of Fashion (BoF).

A coalition of groups calling for an end to the repression of Uyghurs in China is demanding a number of prominent companies come clean about their lobbying and other actions to alter or weaken a proposed bill targeting imports made with Uyghur forced labor.

It’s not an ideal period for many watchmakers, given the ubiquity of digital devices such as smartphones, smart watches, and fitness trackers that have taken over the job of telling users the time.