Iconic Fashion Designer Karl Lagerfeld Dies

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Article from BizCommunity

NEWSWATCH: Celebrated fashion designer and Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld has died at the age of 85. The cause of death has not yet been released.

German-born Lagerfeld began his career as an assistant to Pierre Balmain in 1955. He also served as the creative director of the Italian fur and leather goods fashion company Fendi and his own eponymous fashion label.

But it was his role as artistic director for luxury fashion house Chanel that cemented his status as a visionary. Lagerfeld held his role at Chanel for a record-breaking 36 years, and he’s credited with turning the label into one of the most profitable and admired luxury brands in the world.

Known for his slick white hair, black sunglasses and gloves, Lagerfeld died in Paris following rumours of ill health.

The designer was a no-show at Chanel’s haute couture shows during Paris Fashion Week. The company later said that Lagerfeld had skipped out because he was tired, however his absence fueled speculation about his health, reports IOL. This was the first time he had ever missed giving a bow at the end of a Chanel catwalk show.

In addition to his design talents, Lagerfeld was a photographer and filmmaker, and he shot and creatively directed all of Chanel’s advertising. According to Business of Fashion, he also designed hotel rooms, video games, motorcycle helmets, a BMW, and a cosmetics range inspired by his also-famous cat, Choupette, and directed an ad campaign for Magnum ice cream bars that featured a life size sculpture of model Baptiste Giabiconi rendered in chocolate.

In 2017, he was awarded Paris’ highest honor, La Médaille Grand Vermeil de la Ville, on top of many other accolades, including the Outstanding Achievement Award at the British Fashion Awards in 2015 and the Couture Council Fashion Visionary Award in 2010.

Scaling e-commerce in Africa

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Article posted on BizCommunity by Dean McCoubrey

 

At present, e-business in Africa remains a challenge. It may be better than it ever has been, but the truth is that lower literacy and internet penetration levels continue to limit the growth on the continent.

However, this will not remain the status quo for long, as smartphone proliferation increases, data costs decrease, and usability improves. E-wallets, now commonplace, are an excellent example of this, bypassing the continent’s challenges around depositing, withdrawing and transferring cash, as well as buying airtime and electricity.

Untapped market

Africa represents one of the world’s finest untapped markets, pointed out by MTN’s Herman Singh during his presentation on ‘Scaling in Africa’ at the recent edition of Africacom.

Unpacking the success story that is Jumia, Africa’s largest online marketplace, he illustrated that the growth of the platform across the continent is comparable to, if not more impressive than Paypal. In addition, 41,000 active merchants in the ecosystem offered over 6.1 million products ranging from hotels, to real estate, jobs, TV, airtime, restaurants, flights and more.

He explains, “Africa’s e- and m-commerce opportunity has a potential client base of 400 million internet users, and a rapidly emerging middle class expected to grow by 54% between 2020 and 2030 and decreasing data costs in some countries (43-45% decrease in the lowest data plan in both Egypt and Nigeria between 2016 and 2017.”

Additionally, in building out financial ecosystems – stores that offer a diversity of products or even online “malls” – Africans will no longer be limited by their location, as long as logistics and payment issues can be solved. Singh stated that Jumia has created a network of over 4,000 logistics partners in order to work across the 15 countries they had been working in. And payment by cash at this stage was still commonplace, causing significant challenges.

Regulatory issues

With respect to payment, enterprises on the continent are seeing the opportunity as well as global merchants now eager to be active in Africa but need to understand and fast-track the regulation – or lack thereof – across infrastructure issues, handling of cash, wallets and alternative payment methods that they are not accustomed to. They want a one-stop payments provider to get them to these markets, so they don’t have to deal with the complexities.

Payment intermediaries

Karen Nadasen, country manager of PayU South Africa, the country’s leading payments provider, explains that the role of a ‘payments intermediary’ will be critical, having already dealt with the complexities in these countries and created its own relationships, partnerships and agreements but underpinned by the credibility, infrastructure and proven results of a global brand.

Nadasen says: “Global enterprises do not have the time to make mistakes. Hyper-localisation means we are knowledgeable about the markets we are in and ‘speak’ the local language. This is particularly important with regards to licensing. As we know, some markets in Africa are not as regulated as SA, but this is starting to change. Our partnerships in SA, Kenya and Nigeria have been an essential springboard as we branch out through these ‘hubs’ to cover the rest of Africa.”

Smart device growth

The opportunities will be compounded as sub-Saharan smart device growth is now the fastest in the world. As literacy levels increase, amidst Africa’s new dawn, digital services such as microfinance will improve lives and enable people to do business, while marketplaces will bring products and stores to people so they can make purchases – assuming enterprises like Jumia continue to expand the delivery network and solve logistics challenges.

“From an African perspective, we use our single integration point for merchants to springboard into Africa using our global infrastructure – leaders in emerging markets in India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America – and then hyper-localising the expertise through our groundwork in Africa, offering cross-border execution on payments, compliance and fulfilment. It’s our experience across these emerging markets that has allowed us to deliver a user experience that works in these types of market, keeping it simple and accessible.”

In his “What it takes to win” conclusion, Singh outlined why Jumia has been Africa’s most successful online case study to date. He attributes the company’s explosive growth to ten factors – establishing a community of users, building trust, access to the channel itself, a robust payment and micro-payment partner, fulfilment and logistics, merchandising, location and maximising customer insights.

Research firm Statista estimates that the e-commerce sector in Africa’s 54 countries and 1.25 billion people generated $16.5 billion in revenue in 2017 and forecasts revenue of $29 billion by 2022, despite internet penetration lying at only 35 percent. The potential most certainly exists.

Six UK Fashion Retailers fail to cotton on to Sustainability

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Article from The Guardian

 

Audit committee singles out firms who take no action to reduce impact on environment

Major UK fashion retailers are failing to promote environmental sustainability or to protect their workers, a parliamentary committee has said.

The six companies, which include Amazon UK, JD Sports, Sports Direct and TK Maxx, have not taken any action to reduce their carbon, water and waste footprint. None of them use organic or sustainable cotton and only two – Sports Direct and Boohoo – use recycled material in their products.

The interim report by the environmental audit committee singles out Amazon UK for its notable lack of engagement in sustainability.

It said: “Though Amazon and TK Maxx are subsidiaries of international corporations that manage their initiatives, the committee believes this does not absolve them of their responsibilities.”

None of the six retailers singled out as the least engaged, have signed up to the Action, Collaboration, Transformation living wage initiative (Act) or to voluntary targets in the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan to reduce the carbon, water and waste footprint of UK firms.

The committee wrote to 16 leading UK fashion retailers in autumn after revelations that Burberry burned £28.6m worth of unused products in 2017 to protect its brand and prevent excess stock from being sold at knockdown prices. The committee said it welcomed a commitment by Burberry to end its burning of unsold stock.

Its report said Next, Debenhams, Arcadia Group and Asda Stores were “moderately engaged”, while Asos, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Primark and Burberry were the “most engaged” in addressing issues of sustainability and fair wages. Kurt Geiger did not respond to requests for written evidence.

Mary Creagh, the Labour chair of the committee, said: “It’s shocking to see that a group of major retailers are failing to take action to promote environmental sustainability and protect their workers.

“It’s disappointing that only a third of the retailers we wrote to are signed up to Act, an important global initiative working towards getting a living wage for all garment workers.”

She said she hoped the report would motivate underperforming retailers to start taking responsibility for their workers and their environmental impact.
The report concluded that the business model for the UK fashion industry was unsustainable. It said exploitative practices must end and that retailers must lead change.

The final report will be published in the coming weeks, setting out recommendations to government.

Prague buckles up for Bata Fashion Weekend 2019

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Article by Bata

 

Prague, the historic capital of the Czech Republic, is to host the Bata Fashion Weekend 2019. This year, as the brand also celebrates its 125-year anniversary, the event will take place on 12-14 April at Žofín Palace.

Bata Fashion Weekends always feature catwalk shows, exhibitions, great stories from history to the future and much more. This is the second time that Prague has hosted the event. Bata representatives, celebrities and designers from all over the world are expected to attend. The public can also join, and entry is free.

This year’s Bata Fashion Weekend is expected to be doubly special. Not only will the event feature its usual high energy performances and catwalk shows, but the brand will also celebrate its 125th anniversary.

Bata’s Head of Global Marketing, Jana Chadova Barbati explains the theme of the event this year: “After the themes of ‘The Essence of Style’ in 2017 and ‘The Sound of Style’ in 2018, 2019 will all be about ’The Evolution of Style’. Evolution represents the Bata brand, connecting its roots and showing that brands with a strong heritage and with such a long history can indeed be modern, fresh, innovative and dynamic.”

As well as a range of events, including a fashion show, Bata Fashion Weekend will also see the announcement of the winners of the Bata Young Designers’ Challenge 2019. This is a competition which sees the most exciting design students from three participating countries – the Czech Republic, Italy and Kenya – competing to find out whose designs will be chosen to be put in production and sold in selected Bata stores globally.