Mulberry is planning to let go of a quarter of its global workforce. The British brand best known for its luxury handbags is already preparing to shutter its offices in Paris and Hong Kong. According to information obtained by FashionNetwork.com, starting Spring/Summer 2021, the brand also intends to discontinue its footwear and ready-to-wear collections, which are produced under licence by Onward Luxury Group.

The brand is hoping to refocus on London and leather goods, its core activity. It will also continue to offer jewellery and its eyewear line, which is produced under licence. Bags and small leath er goods account for 70 per cent of the brand's total sales.

Both Brexit and the current economic climate have been hard on the brand which, faced with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, is now in serious trouble. On 8 June, Mulberry issued a profit warning and announced that it would have to "manage [its] operations and cost base accordingly to ensure the company is the correct size and structure to reflect market conditions."

In reality, the fate of the brand's ready-to-wear line already looked to be sealed in March, with the announcement of the departure of creative director Johnny Coca. His last collection for Fall/Winter 2020-21 is still on sale. Coca joined the house in July 2015, as it sought to reposition itself around the high-quality accessible luxury segment and push forward with its international development.

According to Drapers, Mulberry is also on the verge of closing one of its two British, Somerset-based production sites, where the company manufactures almost half of its bags and leather goods. The factory in question is "The Rookery," which is located not far from Bath, in Chilcompton, where the brand was founded in 1971.

Milano Digital Fashion Week's has adopted a hybrid format that mixes digital and physical elements. From Tuesday 14 July to Friday 17, some 37 brands will unveil their menswear collections for Spring/Summer 2021, with around a dozen presentations being shown per day. Fashion will also take over the streets of the Lombard capital, with videos that being projected on giant screens in the city's major squares and avenues.

Oraganizer Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI) has created a digital platform offering a range of different content, thanks to the support of Accenture, Microsoft and PwC, as well as an international partnership with The New York Times. Along with the official calendar of video presentations made by brands, visitors to the platform will also be able to access different pages or "rooms".

There will be thematic rooms devoted to cultural and digital personalities, an institutional room featuring interviews with businessmen, and two spaces dedicated to emerging design: the International Hub Market and Together for Tomorrow. Each brand will also have its own digital showroom, accessible via the CNMI platform.

Bestseler’s’ digitalization transformation took a big step forward last week as Jack & Jones streamed its Spring 2021 collection launch to colleagues from 21 countries around the world.

In total, Jack & Jones broadcast 20 hours of content from 16 different showrooms via Direct. The global event consisted of 15 individual streams, plus corresponding Q&A sessions via Microsoft Teams and numerous pre-produced videos – including one with Formula 1 driver Kevin Magnussen – while Anders Holch Povlsen and brand director Anders Gam made special live appearances.

Going forward, Jack & Jones will be working with two different livestreaming options: a simple ‘plug-and-play’ solution that can be easily implemented on a day-to-day basis and an advanced livestream solution for bigger events.

Global Fashion Group expects a second profitable quarter on an adjusted EBITDA basis, as well as its first cash flow-positive three months. It’s expecting the second quarter to end with net merchandise value (NMV) growth on a constant currency basis of above 20%, despite the virus impact in April, driven by more than two million new customers.

The company operates webstores such as The Iconic, Zalora, Dafiti and La Moda in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe. They sell own labels, as well as major brand names under partnership deals from Mango to Dorothy Perkins, Lee, Topshop, Guess and many more.

It’s predicting its adjusted EBITDA profitability will be due to a strong gross margin and “significantly better marketing efficiency”.

The company also said it has seen improved Marketplace share of more than 30% (up from 19% in Q2 2019) and around 90% Marketplace NMV growth “as a result of category mix shift and increased Marketplace SKU share”.

The company added that profitability, alongside disciplined working capital management and capital expenditure, resulted in strong cash generation and a pro-forma cash balance at 30 June of around €260m, up €50m from the end of March.

The newly released report ‘Nature of Fashion by the Biomimicry Institute’ notes many apparel and beauty brands like Adidas and Genusee are using recycled plastics to make their products. In 2020, Adidas plans to produce a record 15 to 20 million pairs of shoes made with plastic waste in partnership with Parley for the Oceans. The brand will also make 50 per cent of its polyester from recycled plastic this year.

Similarly, eyewear brand GlassesUSA.com recently launched its SeaClean collection made from upcycled plastic bottles. Another eyewear brand Genusee has also starting making eyewear from recycled plastic. A report titled Waste & Opportunity 2020 by Plastic Free July shows that though the production of plastic is set to quadruple by 2050, only 13 per cent is recycled in the US, which greatly contributes to climate change. The report predicts green house gas emissions from plastic to reach 13 per cent of the earth’s entire remaining carbon budget by 2050.

Over 110 fashion brands have committed to participate in the 2020 Circular Fashion Pledge launched by Sustainable Brands, the premier global community of brand innovators. The pledge asks brands to commit to one of three goals by the end of 2020: enable take-back or resale, increase recycled content, or design for durability. It provides them with options to either upcycle, repair, donate, or recycle their unsold items.

The community also urges brands to increase the total percentage of certified recycled content or scrap fabric by 10 percent in their top selling items. It also challenges brands to increase the use of non-blended materials, and/or modularity and repairability in their top five selling times.

Of 117 brands, 62 percent have pledged to enabling take-back/resale, 60 percent to increasing recycled content, and 50 percent to design for durability; roughly half have pledged to at least two commitments.

A survey by UK-based End of Tenancy Cleaning Services reveals, there has been a massive surge Google searches for clothes recycling in EU countries. Ireland has registered the highest number of searches with around 12,670 people googling how to recycle old clothes. This is followed by high search results in Germany where 9,390 people and the Netherlands where 6,840 people have searched for the same.

On the other hand countries like Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Slovakia have reported the lowest number of searches with 330 searches in Luxembourg, Slovenia and Slovakia are as low as 300 and 270 searches a month, respectively. Saveonenergy.com/uk also analyzed search volumes to find out which of the most-worn items of clothing are recycled most in each of the Top 10 EU countries. The results show shoes to be the most recycled item of clothing in 70 per cent of the ten countries analyzed, including Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. While jeans are the most recycled item of clothing in 30 per cent of the 10 countries analyzed, including Germany, France, and Italy.

Industry leaders who attended the recent webinar ‘Carved in Blue’ noted denim manufacturers in Pakistan are slowly recovering from the COVID-19 induced lockdown. Hasan Javed, Director, Artistic Garment Industries (AGI), which resumed business by the end of April said his company aims to focus on implementing training and awareness sessions at the facility about how to conduct work safely under the new guidelines. The company aims to resume operations at full scale in July both in the fabric and garment business.

Azgard Nine, which is experiencing a surge of orders due to pent-up demand for garments, particularly from Europe, warned the flurry of orders is fleeting. The company expects Pakistan to regain its share when markets finally resume at a normal level. However, in order to be agile, companies may need to eliminate the number of suppliers essential to production. Zaki Saleemi, Representative, Crescent Bahuman said companies will have to simplify their suppliers and inventories, which may bode well for Pakistan’s crop of vertical denim manufactures.

As per Ebru Debbağ, Executive Director, Soorty, the industry will see an imbalance of supply and demand in future as the purchasing power of the customers have diminished by 50 per cent.

Lowering its profit outlook for the year through April, Japan's Fast Retailing, owner of clothing brand Uniqlo, now expects its annual operating profit to decline by 50 per cent to 130 billion yen rather a previously expected drop of 44 per cent as the company reported operating loss of 4 billion yen in March-May quarter.

However, the company reported a strong rebound in Uniqlo's domestic same-store sales for June as its business in China was recovering at a faster-than-expected pace. Uniqlo's domestic same-store sales, including online purchases, rose by 26 per cent in June from a year earlier. The brand is seeing a faster-than-predicted pace of recovery in Japan and China, and would continue to open more stores around the world. Fast Retailing has also opened most of its stores in China and Japan. The company’s focus on Asia may help shelter it from the worst of the global pandemic.

Gap Inc has launched a B2B product program to supply large organizations reusable, non-medical grade cloth face masks for their employees as they return to work. These masks are made with triple-layer cotton and comfortable ear straps designed per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. They are available in a variety of colors like brown, red, navy, and shades of pink and green with an option to add a custom logo. These masks are sold in packages of five.

Gap has already sold 10 million non-medical grade face masks to employers, including the City of New York, the State of California, Kaiser Permanent and a leading consulting firm. This is in addition to the sourcing of millions of non-medical masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) for the healthcare sector during the pandemic, and production of cloth masks that Gap Inc.’s brands are selling to consumers.

The company’s brands are also donating 200,000 masks to community organizations and causes that help those in need. In May, it signed its first ever multi-brand licensing agreement with IMG to deliver cross-category product extensions with a focus on the brand’s casual, American style that includes support for Gap Kids and babyGap.