Marc Bain

Fashion is known for being so cyclical that even styles once deemed questionable, like high-waisted mom jeans, eventually find a new audience. The industry commonly recycles ideas, and designers from its lowest ranks to its upper echelons look to the past for tomorrow’s concepts. In its laziest form this can become copying, a practice that rears up with stubborn regularity. But even designers who may not intend to can replicate preexisting designs. Clothing has to work with the body, giving it limits that have been thoroughly explored over time. A jacket, it’s generally agreed, needs sleeves, and there are only so many ways to reshape them around human arms while keeping them functional.

Two years ago, singer and rapper Post Malone teamed with Crocs for a special version of its signature foam-resin clogs. It was an unusual deal for a pop star, but Post Malone, with his offbeat style and face covered in tattoos, is a bit unusual himself. By then the company was already gathering a following with US teens, and the collaboration worked well enough that they’ve released several more special-edition shoes since.

Western Europe has long been one of the world’s top spots for luxury shopping, and not just for Europeans. Tourists from the US and around Asia—once mostly from Japan, but more recently predominately from China—were responsible for a large share of the region’s sales, in part because prices for French and Italian luxury brands were much better in Europe.

US and European fashion companies canceled a huge volume of orders from their suppliers after Covid-19 hammered sales earlier this year. The consequences were far-reaching. Many of those factories are in low-wage countries around Asia where workers may live on the brink of destitution. Without orders to complete, many had their hours slashed or cut entirely.

For years, retail spending online rose slowly but steadily.  From 2010 to 2019, e-commerce’s share of spending in the US grew from 4% to 12%, about a one percentage point increase each year.

Fashion companies were not happy when US president Donald Trump started his trade war with China. The additional tariffs on apparel from China raised costs on items coming into the US, speeding an ongoing push to diversify production to other parts of Asia and beyond.

There’s an old debate about whether fashion is art or design. Both can be preoccupied with beauty, but design also has to function to be successful. A painting may serve no earthly purpose other than to reflect, provoke, or inspire. A chair can look magnificent, but if you can’t sit on it, it isn’t a very good chair.

Before 2020, Amazon’s Prime Day was already big. Last year, the company said its discount-loaded shopping bonanza for Prime subscribers, which took place over two days in July, surpassed its sales for the previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Globally, shoppers bought more than 175 million items.

It’s hard out there for a denim company.

Because of Covid-19, crowded indoor spaces have become a serious health hazard. The situation has prompted an upswing in outdoor activities and forced everyday behaviors, such as eating at a restaurant or working out at a gym, to take place outside.

It’s been just over three months since Adidas’s former head of human resources, Karen Parkin, stepped down from her position amid a public, employee-led outcry alleging racism at the sneaker giant.

If you’ve tried buying an exercise bike in recent months, you may have ridden into some trouble.

In the latest sign luxury companies can’t ignore the booming secondhand market, Gucci and luxury consignment site The RealReal today announced a new partnership.

After months of anticipation, Walmart this week announced the details of Walmart+, a subscription service that provides members free shipping on a range of items, discounts on fuel, and other perks for $98 a year. When it launches on Sept. 15, Walmart+ will stand as a direct competitor to Amazon Prime.

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It’s not a good sign for US malls that their top occupant is considering a future elsewhere.

Walmart’s bid to buy the US operations of TikTok with Microsoft came as a surprise, to say the least. Why would the largest retailer in the US—a company that has flourished by selling Americans necessities such as groceries and toilet paper—want a piece of an app known for short videos of teens dancing?

On Aug. 21, Amazon issued a surprise statement on AB 3262, a proposed bill in California that would hold online marketplaces liable for all the products sold on their sites, including those from independent sellers. In a blog post, Amazon said it would back the bill, provided the language was amended so all stores and marketplaces were held to the same standards, regardless of their model for collecting fees.

Louis Vuitton, the jewel in the crown of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury group, is venturing into new territory. The company, founded as a trunk maker in 1854 and known today for its high-end handbags, has created a pro model skateboarding sneaker.

In the US, there’s so much demand for dumbbells they can be near impossible to find for sale online. Kettlebells have been in short supply, too. You can add bikes to that list, and also kayaks.

At a time when many of us have little need for another handbag, shoppers rushed to buy one bag in particular this week.

Through much of the 20th century, the US was on the cutting edge of retail’s evolution. Flashy department stores sprang up in cities, sparkling new malls dotted the suburbs, and big-box stores grew to gigantic proportions around the country. At the end of the century and into the next, as e-commerce started to reshape the industry, many US retailers remained focused on building physical spaces.

Since Covid-19 hit the US in March, retailers around the country have taken store cleaning to another level. To keep shoppers and employees safe—or least feeling safe—companies are scrubbing down high-traffic areas, disinfecting surfaces such as touchscreens more frequently, and even employing robots to wipe floors.

Groceries and cleaning supplies aren’t the only things Amazon is selling during the pandemic.