Worldview | Indigenous Designers Take Centre Stage in New Zealand

🇳🇿 New Zealand Fashion Week spotlights Indigenous design. The event’s 25th anniversary built on the success of last year’s comeback, following a difficult period that included the cancellation of the 2024 event due to economic uncertainty. Organisers said that attendance and participation are up on last year, when 4,600 tickets were sold to the public for the hybrid industry-consumer event. “We welcomed more people, more designers and more partners this year, all contributing to…an extremely successful outcome,” said event owner Feroz Ali, who bought the event in 2021 from founder Dame Pieter Stewart. This year over 100 designers took part across six days from Aug 17, with a mix of established, emerging and international names taking to the catwalk at Shed 10 on Auckland Harbour and other venues around the city. Veteran designer Karen Walker staged her show at the Auckland Art Gallery, while Zambesi turned the Orakei Wharf into a 200m catwalk against the shimmering waters of Okahu Bay. Indigenous designers received greater prominence this year, with the Kahui Collective runway featuring the work of 16 brands—eight from Maori and Pasifika designers in Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand) and eight from overseas. For the first time, a day-long symposium brought together Indigenous designers and creatives from New Zealand, Australia, the US, Canada, Fiji, Taiwan and other countries. [Glynis Traill-Nash for BoF]

🇦🇪 Falic Group to acquire Abu Dhabi airport’s luxury travel retail concessions. The Miami-based group, which operates Duty Free Americas and a range of beauty, spirits and property businesses, is acquiring DFS’s luxury retail concessions at the UAE’s Zayed International Airport, where more than a dozen fashion brands operate. The move is the latest signal that LVMH is continuing to reduce DFS’s duty-free footprint, having announced the sale of DFS concessions at Los Angeles and San Francisco airports to Duty Free Americas, and the Okinawa airport concession to Avolta earlier this year. “The acquisition of the luxury travel retail concessions at Abu Dhabi Airports marks a key milestone in our Middle East growth strategy and further expands our airport footprint and luxury retail presence,” said Leon Falic, president of Falic Group, noting that future plans include the incorporation of new brands. Duty Free Americas currently operates more than 330 retail concessions at airports in the US, Panama, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and most recently Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE, as well as around 88 stores at land border locations across North and South America. [BoF Inbox]

🇨🇳 China’s Qiaodan piles pressure on Nike in its key overseas market.The Xiamen-based sportswear company, now officially named Zhongqiao but still widely known by its former name Qiaodan, was founded in 2000 by Ding Guoxiong and has grown to around 6,000 stores across China despite a long-running legal battle with Michael Jordan over the Qiaodan name — the Chinese rendering of the American athlete’s surname — and a logo resembling the Jumpman silhouette used by Nike’s Jordan Brand. The company has expanded beyond basketball into running and yoga while investing in more sophisticated footwear technology. It is also pushing beyond China, having opened its first overseas store in Vietnam, and owns the Greater China business of British sportswear brand Umbro after acquiring the regional operating rights in 2020. Qiaodan is one of several increasingly formidable sportswear players based in Fujian province, alongside Anta Sports, 361 Degrees and Xtep, that are challenging international giants as consumers embrace domestic brands. [Financial Times]

🇷🇴 Andrei Morgan-Iovu named Vogue Romania editor-in-chief ahead of launch. The former editor-in-chief of the Romanian editions of Harper’s Bazaar and Esquire has been appointed to lead the Condé Nast title set to debut in spring 2027. Vogue Romania will be published under licence by Aemme Publishing, a media company founded by Italian entrepreneur Mario Antico, who co-founded Mercedes-Benz Bucharest Fashion Week and is president of the Council of Fashion Designers of Romania. The new magazine “will connect the most compelling fashion with our local talent, building a powerful stage that puts the best of Romanian creativity on the global map,” said Morgan-Iovu, who will oversee editorial direction across the title’s six annual print issues, digital content and events. [BoF Inbox]

🇮🇳 Lalithaa Jewellery Mart debuts on India’s BSE and NSE stock markets. The Chennai-based gold jeweller founded in 1985 made its market debut on Monday at about 32 percent above its IPO price. The company plans to use a significant portion of the funding to accelerate retail expansion, with funds earmarked for ten new stores in addition to its current footprint of 61 stores across the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and the Union Territory of Puducherry. Lalithaa had fixed the IPO price band at 190–201 rupees per share, seeking to raise 1,200 crore rupees ($125.3 million) in new capital, while promoter and company chairman Kiran Kumar Jain offered shares worth a further 500 crore rupees. [Economic Times]

🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan eye joint push for circular textile industry. A new United Nations Development Programme study outlines how the neighbouring Central Asian countries could combine their complementary strengths to make their textile and garment industries more circular and competitive. Uzbekistan’s vast cotton industry and vertically integrated textile sector provide raw materials and manufacturing scale, with opportunities to expand recycling, while Kyrgyzstan’s flexible, SME-driven garment industry could expand reuse, repair and upcycling. The study calls for the two countries to cooperate more closely on recycling and waste-sorting infrastructure, technology, skills and traceability to build more integrated circular supply chains while helping producers meet tightening requirements in global export markets. [UNDP]

🇸🇦 Saudi mall giant Cenomi Centers expands into Madinah. The Riyadh-based group has signed agreements with Saudi Downtown Company, a firm owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, to develop and eventually operate a shopping mall at the Al Madinah Downtown project. Cenomi will manage the mall’s development before leasing and operating it for 25 years, extending an existing partnership with Saudi Downtown Company in Al Khobar. The firm currently operates around 20 shopping centres across nine cities in the kingdom. Cenomi Centers (previously Arabian Centres) is one of the companies that emerged from the Alhokair business empire and is now listed on the Tadawul stock exchange. The deal comes amid wider retail investment in Madinah, including Dubai-based Apparel Group’s recently announced expansion plans in Islam’s second-holiest city. [AGBI, Zawya]

🇨🇳 China threatens retaliation over EU probe into JD.com’s German retailer bid. Beijing has ordered Chinese organisations not to assist an European Union investigation into JD.com’s €2.2 billion ($2.5 billion) bid for Ceconomy, owner of MediaMarkt and Saturn, warning of possible countermeasures. The Beijing-based e-commerce giant, which sells everything from luxury fashion to electronics, is expanding in Europe as domestic growth slows. Brussels is investigating whether Chinese subsidies received by JD.com may have distorted competition in the deal, adding another obstacle to the acquisition. [Financial Times]

🇮🇳 Indian jewellery start-up Ekatra Jewels raises $1 million for expansion.The Mumbai-based lab-grown diamond brand raised 10 crore rupees ($1 million) at a 100-crore rupee valuation, just 100 days after launching. The company, which counts Sussanne Khan and investor Ekta Kapoor among its co-founders, will use the funding for retail expansion, product development and brand building in India and overseas. [Economic Times]

🇲🇦 Chinese textile giant Shengtai advances $246 million Morocco expansion. The Shengzhou-based manufacturer has secured Chinese regulatory approval for a major textile and garment manufacturing project spanning sites in Skhirat and Fez. The planned 2.29 billion dirhams ($246 million) Shengtai Morocco Green Textile Industrial Park would include spinning, weaving, dyeing and garment production, with projected annual capacity of 22 million garments and 7,000 jobs expected to be created by 2030. [Fibre2Fashion]

🇮🇳 Indian sneaker brand Zaydn raises funding to accelerate growth. The Delhi-based company, founded in 2022 by Ankit Dass and Vidushi Chaudhary, has raised $681,000 in a seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The funding will support increased production and inventory, new products, marketing and further online expansion. [Economic Times]