Fashion news

Activists on the New York catwalks, the return of slogan T-shirts and a wave of feelgood campaigns - with global politics in turmoil the fashion industry has come out fighting, says Phoebe Luckhurst

The luxury industry’s Chinese woes could be coming to an end as shoppers begin once again to buy luxury brands on home soil. But as the region starts to show promise, how can brands ensure they build on the momentum without making the mistakes of the past?

Even if you’re not much of a fashionista, it’s been hard to miss the firestorm that has recently engulfed the Ivanka Trump brand. And foreboding signs are continuing to pile up: Panjiva, a global trade data company, says that imports of products that bear the Ivanka Trump name were 54.4 percent lower in the three months ended Jan. 31 compared with the three months that ended Sept. 30, the period that represents the peak of imports of that brand in Panjiva’s records.

People tend to like things that make money. If you buy into this idea, you can understand quite a lot about the stock market, for example, or how wealthy villains in ‘80s teen movies still managed to have friends, or why a segment of the population thinks Donald Trump makes a perfectly suitable President, tax returns be damned.

Though bitter rivals on many counts, Nike and Adidas share at least one thing in common. In two powerful new ads, the athletic wear and sneaker companies are making it known that they value a diverse, inclusive vision of society that stands in contrast to the isolationist ideologies that have lately risen to the surface in US and European politics.