Worldview | Australian Fashion Week Pulls Back From the Brink

🇦🇺 Australian Fashion Week pulls back from the brink. On Friday, Australia’s annual industry showcase came to a close following uncertainty six months ago as to whether it would go ahead at all. The event’s US owner IMG abruptly pulled the plug on its Australian showcase in November, leaving local designers in limbo. The Australian Fashion Council swiftly stepped in, supported by the New South Wales Government, and last week delivered the first not-for-profit industry model in the event’s 29-year history. A reduced, trade-focused schedule ensued, with some 30 labels showing collections over five days — around half the labels from the previous year. From Carla Zampatti’s opening on Sydney Harbour to a theatrical finale from Romance Was Born, the schedule featured collections from emerging and established brands including Aje, Iordanes Spyridos Gogos, Ngali and Bianca Spender. Event organisers banned all wildlife materials including fur, exotic animal skins and feathers on the catwalk. Going into the event, the consensus among insiders was that this would be an interim edition, after which industry consultation would continue ahead of a reimagined model for 2026. [Glynis Traill-Nash for BoF]

🇰🇪 Kenya’s fashion manufacturers grow anxious ahead of AGOA expiry. Garment and textile exporters in the country are reportedly growing nervous ahead of the September expiry of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which since 2000 has granted tariff-free access to the US to eligible sub-Saharan African countries. Factory owners and workers in the sector, which employs tens of thousands of people, are concerned that the US Trump administration may not renew the trade agreement. Last year, forty companies operating within Kenya’s Export Processing Zones (EPZs) under AGOA increased capital investment by 21.1 percent. Of the 54 countries on the continent, 31 were eligible last year, according to the USTR website. [Kohan Textile Journal, USTR]

🇸🇬 Singapore e-tailer Shopee owner’s profit tops estimates. Tech giant Sea Group, the parent of Shopee, reported better-than-expected results, a sign that the fashion-to-electronics e-commerce giant is holding up well against rivals TikTok and Lazada. Shopee operates sites mainly in Southeast Asia including Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia but in recent years it has expanded to Latin American markets Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Chile. Sea Group’s American depositary receipts jumped as much as 8.4 percent in New York after Sea reported net income of $410.8 million for the first quarter through March, compared with a year-earlier loss. [BoF]

🇧🇷 Fair Labor Association flags human rights risks in Brazil’s leather sector. The Washington D.C.-based non-profit has released a report on the opaque nature of working conditions in the supply chains of the global leather trade, highlighting Brazil as a high-risk location. “There is no certification, from a leather perspective, at the slaughterhouse or at the birthing farms. It’s the meat packaging industry that has inspections there and that information is not available to the apparel sector,” FLA vice president Richa Mittal told the Sourcing Journal. “This is the merger of two different sectors, which is not the case in, for example, cotton, which is only used in textiles. Here, the main product is meat, which is used for food, and leather is a byproduct for apparel and footwear.” [Sourcing Journal]

🇨🇳 Valentino unit in trouble over Chinese subcontractors’ labour exploitation. A Milan court has placed Valentino Bags Lab Srl under judicial administration for a year after uncovering worker abuse inside its supply chain. The court found that the firm, which makes Valentino-branded handbags and travel articles, subcontracted production to Chinese-owned firms in Italy that exploited workers, according to the 30-page ruling reviewed by Reuters. It is the fourth fashion company to be targeted by the same court for similar labour issues since 2023, including an Italian unit of French luxury giant LVMH’s Dior, Italy’s Armani and Italian handbag company Alviero Martini. [BoF]

🇮🇳 India’s Reliance Industries reportedly secures a $2.9 billion loan. About 55 lenders joined the bank group facility, making it the largest of its kind for a syndicated loan in Asia so far this year, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. The retail arm of Reliance Industries, an oil-to-telecoms conglomerate and India’s largest company by market value led by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, is a leading player in India’s fashion industry through diverse holdings including Ajio, Tira, Vimal, Reliance Jewels, Reliance Trends, The White Crow, local joint ventures with brands like Versace and Burberry, investments in Indian designer brands like Manish Malhotra and luxury mall Jio World Plaza. [Economic Times]

🇰🇭 Cambodia’s fashion and textile exports surge 20% in Jan-Mar. The value of exported textiles, clothing, footwear, travel goods and bags reached approximately $3.5 billion in the first three months of 2025, up 20.1 percent compared to the same period last year, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training. The US market saw the strongest year over year growth at 25.7 percent, followed ASEAN countries at 24 percent, Europe at 20.8 percent, Japan at 19.9 percent, the UK by 5.6 percent. Minister of Labour Heng Sour said the sector now consists of around 1,608 factories, employing 913,000 workers – mostly females. [Khmer Times]

🇮🇳 India’s Raymond Lifestyle reports $5.2 million loss in Q4. The company, one of the world’s largest producers of suit fabric and a maker of men’s shirting fabric and branded apparel, recorded consolidated net profit of 45 crore rupees ($5.2 million) for the quarter ended Mar. 2025, amid both global and domestic economic headwinds. “Despite the challenges, we opened 170 new stores in [the 2025 financial year], taking our retail footprint to 1,688 stores, including 152 Ethnix outlets,” said executive chairman Gautam Singhania, adding that he is “optimistic” demand will recover next year. [Economic Times]

🇨🇳 Luxury brands show less enthusiasm for China’s shopping festival 520. Although some brands did invest in dedicated marketing campaigns for this year’s romance-focused 520 shopping festival, Prada, Balenciaga and others either piggybacked on existing activations they were planning or repurposed campaigns. The festival has become a lower priority for brands amid China’s luxury slowdown and a crowded, fragmented retail calendar for romantic occasion consumption with both western Valentine’s Day and the Qixi Festival competing for brands’ investment throughout the year. [Jing Daily, BoF Inbox]

🇮🇳 Indian fashion retailer Arvind’s profit surges 29% in Q4. The Bengaluru-based firm, which has a portfolio of owned and licensed international brands including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger and a denim fabric manufacturing business, reported consolidated net profit of 93 crore rupees ($10.8 million) in the quarter ended Mar. 2025. Vice chairman Punit Lalbhai cited India’s recent trade deal with the UK as a means of potentially reducing dependence on the US amid tariff uncertainty in that market. [Economic Times]

🇨🇳 Temu slowly resumes Chinese shipments to the US amid tariff pause. The China-founded ultra-fast fashion e-tailer has resumed some deliveries from Chinese suppliers to the US in a gradual reversal of its move earlier this month halting shipments altogether. The turnaround follows US president Donald Trump’s recent announcement of a 90-day pause on the implementation of ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and a reduction of the de minimis levy to 54 percent from 120 percent for items valued at up to $800. [Sourcing Journal, Wall Street Journal]

🇧🇷 Brazilian fashion retail giant Lojas Renner sees Q1 profits rise 59%. The Porto Alegre-based group operating a chain of 600 stores selling fashion brands Renner, Ashua, Youcom and Repassa across Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay has recorded net profit of 221 million reais ($39.1 million) in the period, up 59 percent year over year. “Our company’s solid cash position of 1.6 billion reais ($283 million) enables us to make strategic investments aimed at growth and to capture opportunities in the current environment,” said chief executive Fabio Faccio. [BoF Inbox]

🇨🇳 Sherry Lang is appointed managing director of Condé Nast China. The local unit of the publisher of magazines including Vogue China has tapped Lang, a former Asia-Pacific vice president of digital and marketing at Moncler and a long-time executive at Alibaba Group before that, to lead the company, effective Jun. 9. Lang’s predecessor Gill Zhou stepped down in December after two years on the job. Zhou had replaced Li Li who also lasted for around two years. Li had taken over from Sophia Liao, former chief executive officer of Condé Nast China, who was ousted in 2020 following a dispute that later led to a legal battle between Liao and the company. [BoF Inbox]

🌏 Ferragamo revenue falls 1% in Q1, dragged by weak sales in Asia.The Italian luxury company reported the sales decline at constant exchange rates for the first quarter, amid weak sales in the Asia-Pacific region. The company, currently without a chief executive officer after the exit of Marco Gobbetti two months ago, posted revenues of €221 million ($247.50 million) in the period, slightly below a Visible Alpha analysts’ consensus of €223 million. [BoF]

🇨🇳 China’s Xiaohongshu reportedly partners with JD.com and Tmall. The social commerce app sometimes dubbed ‘China’s Instagram’ and backed by internet giants Tencent and Alibaba has reportedly linked up with China’s two rival e-commerce giants. The collaboration allows brands to link Xiaohongshu posts directly to products on JD.com or Alibaba’s Tmall platforms, enabling customers to complete purchased without leaving the Xiaohongshu app. [Jing Daily]

🇸🇻 Textile recycler Recover partners with Intradeco for El Salvador facility. The Spanish firm has entered a joint venture with Miami-based Intradeco which manufactures apparel and textiles in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to produce its recycled cotton fibre in the latter country. Recover’s existing production hub spans Bangladesh, Pakistan and Spain. [Apparel Resources]

🇸🇬 Chanel to stage a replica cruise show in Singapore in November. The French luxury brand will hold a repeat of its 2025/26 season show in the Southeast Asian city-state on Nov. 4, with the brand’s president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky calling Singapore an “important hub in our development.” [Straits Times]

🇮🇳 Indian multi-brand designer boutique Ensemble opens two new stores. Co-founder Tina Tahiliani Parikh, and her daughter Aria Parikh, have launched a store in Gurugram and another in Mehrauli in Delhi, bringing the luxury retailer’s total store count to nine spanning from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. [BoF Inbox]