David Kahan

Great post Matt- good to see numbers for Run! The price issue is not all brand margin related, new polymers and processes are really expensive and factories are mostly left to do all development and pre-production as brands lack qualified talent and are mostly staffed by those looking to avoid adding risk or attachable decisions to their daily- to try and keep the desk! Nike’s well chronicled layoffs (also your posts!) have further spooked the industry creative/engineering and Production players! I do not see prices coming down any time soon, due to China avoidance and Vietnam capacity tightening ( plus the political footballs in Cambodia/Myanmar) - so those walls will need to be climbed to grow the category and capture market share from the big brands! Well spotted on womens as the fastest growth market - which will hopefully drive investment capital and we continue to see better technical/well fitting products come to the segment! #mattpowell #runningshoes #femalerunners

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It was such a privilege to share some of the work we are doing at Cascale, with Fibre2Fashion, especially to provide some updates on the new member engagement model we are implementing... While it is not an easy task, and we are still learning, it is essential that we strive to ensure balance and inclusivity, that enable voices to be equally heard in the work we do in global value chains...our new approach is designed to support this vision... #traceability #circularity #higgindex #sustainablesupplychains #collaboration

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U.S. Footwear Sales Drop to $10.5 Billion in Q3, Can It Recover in Q4? HERE ARE 4 KEY TAKEAWAYS You Need to Know While Q3 of 2024 (July through September) brought a slight decline in the U.S. footwear market, There's this wave of optimism as we head into the holiday season. Latest data shows a 1% decrease in footwear sales for Q3, Reaching $10.5 billion across U.S. wholesale markets, excluding direct to consumer (D2C) channels (Online sales) Despite this minor setback, industry experts are hopeful for a strong Q4. Let's look at a few key highlights Key Highlights: [1] Performance Footwear ▪ Performance footwear held its flat ground at $2.2 billion, ▪ As this segment saw a continued demand for soccer & tennis shoes. ▪ Running shoe sales increased by 4% in Q3, reflecting interest from fitness focused consumers. [2] Leisure Footwear ▪ The leisure footwear category saw a 3% YoY increase to $5.2 billion, ▪ Indicating consumer preference for comfort driven casual styles. [3] Fashion Footwear Challenges ▪ Fashion oriented footwear declined by 6%, totaling $3.1 billion for the quarter. ▪ High shaft boots saw a 30% increase & winter/snow boots rose by 10% compared to Q3 2023. ▪ Market also saw a notable growth as back to school season (In August & September) boosted sales in flats & slippers. [4] Holiday Season Outlook ▪ Industry analysts suggest that the upcoming Holiday Purchase Intentions report brings an optimistic outlook, ▪ With consumers expected to spend 2% more on this year’s Black Friday compared to last year. This optimism is driven by shoppers increasingly viewing apparel & footwear as essential holiday purchases. Despite Q3 challenges, the U.S. footwear market is set for a potential rebound during the upcoming holiday season. Rising consumer confidence & holiday travel may create the perfect environment for a strong finish to the year. Let's hope for the best. ❓ Are you seeing similar trends in other retail sectors? Let's discuss in the comments below! #FootwearMarket #RetailTrends #HolidaySeason2024 #ConsumerConfidence #FootwearIndustry #Athleisure #Footwear #Blackfriday ----- P.s. For more such insights, JOIN MY FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER https://lnkd.in/gEqbb_Sw

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One day after EssilorLuxottica announced its deal to acquire Supreme from VF Corporation, Meta, Facebook's owner, is in talks to acquire a stake of about 5% in the eyewear company. Based on recent market value, a roughly 5% stake could be valued at around $5 billion, a relatively small for Meta, given its market value of around $1.2 trillion. EssilorLuxottica makes Meta's Ray Ban smart glasses and sales of the glasses have exceeded expectations. The devices, an important part of Meta’s hardware strategy, allow users to take photos and listen to music with the frames of their glasses, among other features. Maintaining ties with Luxottica is crucial for the success of smart glasses devices and the company’s ambitions to build the so-called metaverse, which is a term used to describe people interacting in a 3-D version of the internet simultaneously. A third generation of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, expected to include a small screen display, is expected to be ready for consumers in time for the 2025 holiday season. The allure of Luxottica’s Ray-Ban brand is important to the success of a tech device that users are expected to wear on their faces. Luxottica’s ownership of LensCrafters, the prescription-eyewear retailer, also plays a key role in selling the Ray-Ban Meta to users who require prescription lenses. The two companies began working together several years ago for the release of the first generation Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses, which went on sale in 2021. The initial device struggled to catch on with consumers, and among the glasses that were sold, only 10% of the Ray-Ban Stories were actively used by their purchasers. The second-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses went on sale in September and have done significantly better than their predecessors. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses operate more quickly and have better cameras than their predecessor. The Ray-Ban Meta also includes nascent generative #AI technology that allows users to ask the device for information about the things in front of them, such as the breed of a cat. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses have proven popular for users who want to shoot hands-free videos of their children playing and first-person videos of themselves while going on roller coasters or riding bikes. Meta hasn’t said how well the Ray-Ban Meta glasses have sold, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in April that the device was doing well and that a market for that type of device was developing sooner than he would have expected. Meta sells its own devices to employees at a discount, and offers the Ray-Ban Meta glasses at a 15% discount with a limit of 3 pairs per employee. The new glasses have proven so popular internally that some employees have tried to get extra pairs from their colleagues after hitting the 3-pair limit. #strategy #technology #smartdevice https://lnkd.in/ePwG-bSc?

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The key factor pushing synthetic diamond prices lower will not be short term over-inventory. It will be the continued severe decline in the cost of producing synthetics and the fact that B2C competition will pull B2C prices down to B2B levels. Watch WalMart and you will see the price of synthtics drop to tens of dollars per carat. Jewelers selling synthetics at outrageous markups are destroying their customer base. The higher they go the harder they will fall. The sooner synthetic sellers go out of business the better.

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For those of us working in Sustainability in fashion it can feel lonely. When I worked at Theory 19 years ago, one of my responsibilities was to develop all the trims. I insisted that all metal trims be "nickel free" Nickel is a hard silvery-white metal that may cause irritation to the skin. Exposure can harm the lungs, stomach, and kidneys. Exposure to nickel may lead to cancer. Workers may be harmed from exposure to nickel.This was not popular because nickel finishes are super shiny and appeals to design sensibilities and cheaper. Luckily I had the authority to insist that we only use nickel free products. Eight years ago when I was heading up production at 3.1 Phillip Lim we were faced with the dilemma of a coating on a fabric that would make it waterproof but contained PFAS, versus a coating that would only be water repellent that did not contain PFAS. Again I insisted we should proceed to not use the waterproof coating despite sales would like it to be waterproof. PFAS is a forever chemical that has health effects on immunological, developmental or reproductive, hepatic, hormonal and carcinogenic – basically everything from asthma to testicular cancer. There is now the beginnings of a ban on them. Often there may not be regulations or awareness of the harm many of the materials or substances used in the production of clothing. Sustainability at a fashion company is not a department that drives revenue, your actions are often not popular like turning over rocks in the supply chain. But your work is important and vital. As I reflect on actions I made in the past this week, I am grateful that I insisted and that they had impact for both people and the environment.

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A steep, uphill climb. Victoria’s Secret & Co. relaunch of their once ubiquitous activewear line VSX, as triumphant an announcement as it may seem, is one that will most likely have an uphill climb ahead. For a starter, the activewear market and category have moved on significantly over the years while VS was grappling with their own existential crisis: 1️⃣  First and foremost, formidable brands have entered the arena, think Vuori or Alo Yoga, just to mention some of the fiercest players out there. Their product offerings, the experience they offer to consumers and their community building efforts are nothing short of exceptional. Swaying customers away from best-in-class experiences promises to be the toughest climb for the lingerie behemoth 2️⃣ On top of that, the overall market has been showing signs of slowdown if not contraction, after the boom of the pandemic and immediate post-pandemic years, with customers now gravitating more towards ‘casualwear’ categories, such as pants and skirts, vs the sporty leggings look of past years Activewear is still a very attractive market, one where we will continue to see new and 'new-ish' players, like VSX, pop up. However, as other markets if not more, it is one where only the fittest thrive. Read more about Victoria’s Secret relaunch of their once beloved VSX activewear line at the Fashion Network article linked below in the comments👇 #retail #lingerie #activewear #sportswear #fashion #brandextension #linkedinpostsbymariopace

In a step towards further consolidating luxury retail, the involvement of Amazon and Salesforce in this acquisition, coupled with a substantial technology investment, raises the question: could this initiative rescue the luxury retail market? #retail #saksfifthavenue #amazon #salesforce #neimanmarcus #retailtechnology

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What time do you wake up in the morning? CEOs and top execs from leading footwear brands tell us what time they start their days.

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YIKES, VF Corporation was cut to junk by S&P Global b/c Vans, The North Face, Dickies® & Timberland hit another qtr of decline (Bloomberg) They never organized around real-time, trend-making TikTok consumers Only SHEIN rose to the task at 1st, but now there's Temu, TikTok Shop, & Amazon Haul as I broke yesterday you can't compete w/that In another daily blow to fashion ByteDance's chatbot Doubao racked up 51 MAU’s You know what they added to it? An ai video generator lol OpenAI's bots will come in Jan ChatGPT is the 8th-largest global website by traffic That was fast! There's an 87% increase in UGC this month alone Why it matters? Your campaigns can't just target humans when the humans deploy dozens of bots to do their bidding/creating It requires new strategies You can't apply a persona to a bot when they r personalized for diff parts of a person's varied interests We need new skilled labor b/c current digital illiteracy is leading to historic losses See Nike $28B wipeout Reminder: All of Silicon Valley is starting at the same point w/gen ai To come after ecomm A $75T market by 2030 They saw Shein et al success so I'd follow the updates Today Apple released Final Cut Pro 11 w/advanced AI tools Magnetic Mask + Transcribe to Captions 4 easy video editing Keep in mind they announced the launch date of microLED glasses in Oct, right after Meta And today Baidu, Inc. announced AI-powered glasses too I’m waiting for ByteDance glasses b/c 2025 will be the year tech giants try to replace the phone for individual Hollywood grade movie making Not something I ever saw coming - but this a.m. Mark Zuckerberg released a song w/T-Pain for a cover of Lil’ Jon’s “Get Low" Why? Maybe b/c finance experts recently said “Mark Zuckerberg is sitting on a shopping empire 4X bigger than Amazon” 3.3B MAUs is not nothing 40% are actively shopping on Marketplace per Capital One See above - when all the tech giants start out w/new tech at the same time, I'd watch the one w/the most users suddenly getting into fashion + entertainment deals/collabs Now that TikTok is allowing people to seamlessly transfer their community to Lemon8 to avoid the ban, i bet they will too Today YouTube introduced an endless scroll feature kinda like TikTok's... I'm guessing it's b/c individual creators accounted for 89% of US views 1st week of Nov (Source: Tubulr) This on the same day Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios say they may roll out a very YouTube TV-style multiview experience The hits just keep coming We'll see more examples like VF b/c it's the creator economy on gen ai rockets now Mark my words - tech is coming for content-driven ecomm b/c they see S&P 500 giants delisting The only way forward is to spot & execute real time stories to break through infinite noise (+ direct to manufacturer) in an era of of movie-making chatbots Not trends past their virality like Moo Deng who released the, “Moodeng Moodeng” song TODAY #thegreatfashionreset

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Know your #cotton: Thanks Lauren Schenkman for covering the story on our CertainT Market Insight 2023-2024 report. As I stated in this article: “These results are highly concerning given the prevalence of #Xinjiang cotton in a wide range of #apparel, #footwear, #hometextiles, and other #consumerproducts... Under the UFLPA, the amount of Xinjiang cotton entering the U.S. should be zero. Anything above zero percent should be eliminated.” Learn more at certaint.com #textile #compliance #ethicalsourcing #sustainability #sustainablefashion #fashion #forcedlabor #manufacturing #isotopetesting #originverification #verification #fiber #pimacotton #regenerativecotton #egyptiancotton #UFLPA #CSDDD #humanrights #TruthTuesday #sustainablecotton #bettercotton

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We have been asking this question for several years! Has the apparel market turned a corner? It is going down a new path for sure! I look forward to learning about Robert Antoshak’s perspective on this United States Fashion Industry Association webinar next week. Thanks Bob for sharing your insights! #textile #usa #apparelmarket

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Stephanie Downs, the founder of UNCAGED Innovations, one of our portfolio companies, has penned a compelling op-ed challenging the conventional view of leather as a 'natural' choice. She introduces innovative alternatives that promise sustainability without sacrificing quality. A must-read for anyone interested in the future of sustainable materials. Dive into her insights and join the conversation on redefining 'natural' in our industries. #SustainableMaterials #Innovation #VentureCapital Read her op-ed here: https://lnkd.in/gUtu4-F6

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New York and Paris: Fashion Capitals at a Crossroads New York has long been revered as a global fashion capital, much like Paris. But as McKinsey & Company's latest insights reveal, New York is at a pivotal moment, facing challenges and opportunities that could redefine its status. As someone deeply connected to the worlds of fashion and brand strategy, I see a fascinating parallel between the dynamics of these two iconic cities. Paris, my home city, has always been synonymous with timeless elegance, a place where history meets innovation in every couture house and concept store. Like New York, Paris has had to navigate the shifting tides of consumer preferences, sustainability demands, and technological advancements. Both cities share a legacy of being at the forefront of fashion but must now adapt to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving global landscape. For New York, the challenges are clear: from economic pressures to the need for more inclusive and diverse representation. But challenges bring opportunity. Just as Paris reinvented itself with initiatives that merged heritage with modernity, New York's fashion industry has the chance to innovate, embrace sustainability, and build on its unique multicultural edge. Fashion capitals are not defined just by their past but by their ability to anticipate the future. For brands and retailers, the lesson is the same: adapt, evolve, and stay ahead of the curve. After all, in both Paris and New York, fashion isn't just about clothing—it's a statement, a reflection of society, and a powerful force for change. Let's keep our eyes on these two iconic cities as they continue to shape the future of fashion. ✨ #FashionIndustry #BrandStrategy #Sustainability #Innovation #Retail #NewYork #Paris #GlobalMarkets #Leadership #FutureOfFashion

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California's passage of SB-707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024, represents a forward-thinking approach to environmental stewardship. By requiring producers to fund and implement programs for the reuse, repair, and recycling of textiles, the bill directly addresses the growing issue of textile waste in the state. With 1.2 million tons of textiles discarded in California annually and only 15% being recycled, SB-707 sets a critical framework to enhance sustainability by promoting a circular economy for textiles. This legislation not only benefits the environment but also strengthens thrift stores and charities by providing better support for handling unsellable garments. Additionally, it incentivizes the use of sustainable materials, which helps reduce the overall environmental footprint of the fashion and apparel industries. The bill’s passage also highlights California's leadership in sustainable policy-making. It demonstrates how collaboration between environmental organizations, industry stakeholders, and lawmakers can result in meaningful progress. The Act's focus on creating new recycling and upcycling markets shows the state's commitment to innovation, ensuring that environmental concerns align with economic growth. By working closely with industry groups like the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) and addressing their concerns, California has developed a balanced approach that allows businesses to thrive while encouraging responsible production and consumption practices. This proactive stewardship serves as a model for other states looking to foster sustainability in their own textile industries. #textilerecycling #circularfashion #circularity #circulareconomy

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Mourning voices for Esprit are pouring over the internet as the clothing group recently announced its focus solely on the licensing business. Unfortunately, Esprit’s relaunch attempt will be remembered as a sad example of brand destruction, highlighting management failure and toxic leadership. The brand's decline culminated in a series of fatal missteps: 1️⃣ Pharaonic spend on new corporate offices in Europe and the US 2️⃣ Pop-up retail shops around the world without a clear omnichannel strategy 3️⃣ Excessive PR investments with lavish photoshoots and launch events 4️⃣ Lack of understanding of core markets and target consumers Esprit's relaunch missed the mark, failing to resonate with consumers and showcasing a disconnect with market realities. As one former manager lamented, unrealistic visions and misguided approaches led to Esprit's demise. Farewell Esprit, a cautionary tale for brands. Read more about Esprit’s sad ending in the linked article below👇 #retail #branding #strategy #leadership #toxicleadership #sales #fashion #linkedinpostsbymariopace

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