In June 2023, the United Nations published a report with a radical message for fashion brands: stop pushing overconsumption.

“The Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook” published by the United Nations Environment Programme and UN-backed Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action took aim at the core of fashion’s business, examining the role marketing plays in driving the cycle of overproduction and overconsumption that underpins the industry’s environmental impact.

It’s an issue signatories to the UN Fashion Charter, who include many of the world’s biggest brands, have pledged to tackle. But it also strikes at the heart of one of fashion’s biggest sustainability hurdles: businesses geared towards driving more consumption will always be part of the problem.

Increasingly, regulators are looking to tackle the challenge from various angles, looking at ways to make brands responsible for textile waste and incentivise designing for long life and circularity. But the role marketing plays has been overlooked, said Rachel Arthur, a sustainability strategist and sustainable fashion advocacy lead at UNEP.

That needs to change, but that doesn’t mean the end of fashion, it just means a new focus, she said.

BoF: Rachel, you spearheaded the playbook project. Why did you feel like this was the thing to focus on?

Rachel Arthur: This started on the UNEP side with a piece of work that was looking at the role of communication to help drive change and inspire action within the industry.

Typically, a piece of work like that would lead to a consumer-facing campaign on the need for greater sustainability within the fashion sector [or] more sustainable consumption. Actually, the outcome from strategy was that while that kind of work was possible and viable and could be considered necessary, there seemed to be a much more powerful lever to consider, not just looking at what consumers could do, but why consumers were consuming in the way that they were.

That comes down to primarily the brands and then the media, and the ecosystem that surrounds them. The industry is so good at creating desire. But we’re making people fall in love with something that isn’t serving us on a planetary basis. The primary message put forward is based on a linear economic model and on messages fundamentally of overconsumption.

These job functions need to be part of this conversation. Communication needs to be aligned to sustainability. The playbook basically is the “how.”

BoF: What are the key recommendations?

RA: Basically, there’s a role for marketing, there’s a role for storytelling. Brands need to make sure that everything they’re doing in sustainability is matched by what they’re putting out in the world. Within the playbook, we spell that out, with [a set of] pillars of work.

First, how do we ensure we’re not greenwashing or putting forward anything in the way of misinformation? I’d say that’s kind of table stakes. This is not new to the industry, but unpacking it is quite complex and it’s evolving fast as more policy comes in.

Then we start moving into areas that are newer, and I think typically where the communication professional has more of a forte or skill set that can be brought to the table that hasn’t existed here previously. This is where we’re looking at culture change.

We clearly call out that we need to eradicate messages of overconsumption. This is probably the heaviest area [of what we are outlining] in terms of complexity in practice. Marketers are ‘KPI’d’ on how much they can sell, so this is going against that logic.

But we really present positive solutions. We’re not trying to do away with fashion as it exists, but change the focus of it. From a marketer’s standpoint, it’s about saying, how can we put more of our effort, energy, creativity, budget towards circular solutions?

BoF: Can you outline what you mean by circular solutions?

RA: Ultimately, you’ve got to start with people buying less, but then you might look at other ways of consumption — resale, rental, keeping what you’ve got for longer, so the repair market, with the last thing on the list being recycling before you buy something that’s completely new and unsustainable. There’s a lot of room within that for exploration, creativity.

And it is important here to recognise that there isn’t one size fits all. Sustainable consumption looks different in different markets. In some markets, we know that basic needs still need to be met, so we’re not asking for reduction in consumption as a blanket global view.

[But] the third section is about ‘reimagine values,’ and this section could underpin all of it. We’re trying to inspire people to think and aspire to something different. We call [fashion marketers] ‘architects of desire,’ so how can we redirect aspiration towards sustainable lifestyles?

BoF: You’ve already alluded to the tension underlying this work: you’re essentially trying to encourage marketers to start selling something that is at odds with their current KPIs and where it’s not clear what the business model is. How does this fit with broader conversations around sustainability?

RA: It is the elephant in the room. I think most businesses along that sustainability journey now recognise that, but that doesn’t mean they’re yet willing to address it at the board level or the senior executive level. This is new, not in the sense that nobody knows about it, but it’s not yet been a true conversation. What we have been trying to do with the playbook is to say this needs to be on the table.

It’s not on the shoulders of those who work in a communication capacity, of course, but if you look at the bigger picture of what the playbook is talking about, it is addressing the system’s challenge, which is to say that we can push as hard as we possibly want with all of the evolution that is needed, but we won’t get anywhere within that if we don’t also look at volume.

BoF: When we talk about systems, regulation often comes up as a lever for change. What role should policy play?

RA: We’re seeing policy come down the line that is focused on the green claim side of things, but it is interesting starting to think about what that could look like from a sustainable consumption standpoint and what might be indeed possible within all of that.

The fourth section of the [playbook’s] principles is called ‘drive advocacy.’ It looks at a couple of lenses. Obviously, how do we push for greater education from a broad consumer-based standpoint? Within that, we talk about the internal lever that communicators can help play to help ensure that there’s accountability for change within the business. Also [they can] help play a role within the policy landscape, recognising that a lot of these businesses are incredibly powerful and that there could be an opportunity from a very competitive standpoint to advocate for wider change that facilitates sustainability in a wider sense.

BoF: How do you see the regulatory landscape at the moment?

RA: There’s so many things going on within the policy landscape, which are interesting, potentially exciting, highly complex and bewildering for a lot of the industry to get their head around.

The green claims side of things, the industry is kind of ready for it. Everybody just wants that guidance. Yes, there are going to be hurdles to actually get people on the right page, but just having black and white, ‘this is what you can and this is what you can’t do,’ it’s going to be really helpful for everybody. And it also helps level the playing field.

In a wider sense, I think we’re at an interesting juncture in terms of policymakers recognising this role of consumption as a result of unsustainable production. The waste side of things is a very interesting lever. We have to recognise in this conversation around overconsumption just how much waste there is in terms of the stuff that was [never sold].

What we also really need to see is incentives for businesses around doing ‘the right thing.’ On the one hand, that’s [encouraging the use of] sustainable preferred materials so consumption that is happening is less impactful, but also do we push for circular solutions to be more easily facilitated or incentivised?

I’m not sure that we’re seeing that play out fully as yet but I think all of those things combined — which we know is not going to happen overnight — would be incredibly beneficial.

BoF: Are things missing from the conversation, and in particular the policy conversation?

RA: This elephant in the room around production levels and volume. It’s really interesting to think about what that looks like at a policy level. While we see certain regions looking at reducing, for instance, fast fashion, I think there’s a much bigger picture that isn’t necessarily in there, which is looking at consumption behaviour, and how that’s perpetuated by an overproduction model and how we look at that holistically in terms of the way that businesses are measured on success.

Lastly, the area that we don’t include as much as we should is around the worker side. How do we ensure that garment workers are being paid a living wage or the right amount for what they’re creating. What does that look like in a world of creating less?

This interview has been edited and condensed.

This article first appeared in The State of Fashion 2024, an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company.

“You’re hired!”

These days, there’s a chance that job candidates receiving that news were handpicked — by artificial intelligence.

A growing number of fashion and beauty brands are turning to AI to help solve age-old recruiting challenges, from wading through piles of résumés to writing job postings. The technology is also seen as a potential way to reduce biases that human managers bring to the hiring process.

While many companies have used algorithms to automatically screen applicants for years, AI is starting to catch on as a solution for more specialised tasks, such as predicting a job candidate’s future performance and providing real-time feedback to applicants and employers, including which of their hiring tactics are resonating the most. Some start-ups are even taking aim at executive recruiters, a profession built on the very human (for now) idea of matching exactly the right person to a highly specialised role.

When Skims was opening its first pop-up stores outside its home base of Los Angeles in 2022, it turned to Dweet, a London-based fashion jobs marketplace powered by AI, said Laura Buckle, senior director of global recruitment and talent at Skims.

Dweet’s AI help write postings for temporary roles in New York and London, then served up a shortlist of applicants from a pool that today includes more than 40,000 people who had created profiles in the start-up’s system. While much of the matching (between applicant and brand) is done by AI, Dweet does employ “talent managers” who manage feedback from both sides to help mitigate AI’s shortcomings, said Eli Duane, Dweet’s co-founder.

“I actually now feel that I have this pool of people who are very interested in working for Skims on a full time basis,” Buckle said. “I think AI in recruitment is amazing. It’s magical. But what it does best for me is it casts the net wider.”

Dweet is one of many start-ups applying AI to recruiting challenges. While matchmaking applicants to employers is one of the most popular uses, some companies are trying to help employers plan ahead. Eightfold Ai, for instance, says its platform can predict what roles an employee might be good for in the future.

Most of these tools are in the early stages of development, meaning they’re not at the point yet where employers can turn over hiring to the machines. There’s also the possibility that automated hiring could amplify biases. AI image generators are notorious for serving up image after image of white men when asked to depict corporate executives; an AI-powered hiring tool left to its own devices might reach the same conclusion when screening applicants for an open CEO role.

AI innovations are only as good as the data they have on hand and many are still relying on dated filters and algorithms with their own inherent biases, said Aniela Unguresan, an AI expert and founder of Edge Certified Foundation, a Switzerland-based organisation that offers Diversity, Equity and Inclusion certifications.

“One of the things about these technologies is that to implement and use them is extremely simple,” Unguresan said. “But because it’s so easy and [fast], companies don’t always think to ask themselves the critical questions like ‘why do our candidates look similar across different roles? When and how can humans come into play to correct the technology’s shortcomings?’

What AI Can Solve

Most fashion firms are already using some form of AI to whittle down the hundreds and thousands of résumés they can receive for a single job posting.

Newer solutions build upon this process. Where a simple AI might weed out résumés that are missing essential skills or experience, improved models can identify transferable skills and future potential thereby broadening the criteria for what makes an applicant a match for the job.

Dweet offers a free-of-charge tool for job candidates who can post their résumés and view open positions; and a suite of programmes for companies that range from a free job description generator to a more dedicated candidate search tool, for which brand’s pay only after they make a hire, Duane said.

In a competitive labour market, fashion retailers are increasingly betting on AI to not only increase the speed and volume of their job postings — but to help them find the right language and visuals to make their open positions more attractive.

“On the recruiting side … one benefit is really in trying to poach talent from other companies,” said Daniel Ives, managing Director and senior equity analyst for financial services firm Wedbush Securities.

Finding the Right Candidates

AI can’t eliminate biases around age, gender, race and other qualities, especially if the companies themselves haven’t addressed the issue internally.

One approach some tools are taking is to create a “positive bias” in their résumé filtering — rather than looking to disqualify as many candidates as possible, they sort for desired skills, Unguresan said.

Dweet’s software, for instance, can flag candidates with “service experience” who might be a good fit at a high-end retailer, even if they haven’t worked in a store before. It also won’t penalise a candidate for résumé gaps or, in some cases, not reaching a certain education or degree level, Duane said.

“We believe this will help companies make better hires as sometimes the real stars are hiding away from the human eye,” he said.

Down the line, AI tools could help retailers better identify the sales associates and other entry level employees most primed to succeed at a brand’s headquarters, experts say. At corporate, these same innovations may help fashion firms sidestep the high cost of talent attrition by placing candidates in the best roles from day one or providing insights to leaders to help them place existing employees to positions that better suit their strengths.

In the best case scenario, AI would remove low-stakes tasks like rummaging through résumés and drafting an offer letter, and free HR talent up to focus on high-quality assignments like talent development and candidate onboarding, experts say.

The biggest impediment — or boon — to the success of AI in recruiting comes down to recognizing when and how to employ human talent, said Unguresan.

“In the best cases we’ve seen, recruiters that use these AI tools are very aware of the shortcomings of the technology when it comes to amplifying bias and discrimination,” she said. “Then they bring people back into the system and into the ultimate decision making process to correct the shortcomings.”

Shoemaker Rothy’s on Tuesday announced a number of leadership changes. Co-founders Stephen Hawthornthwaite and Roth Martin have stepped down from their roles as chief executive and president, respectively. Hawthornthwaite will transition to Rothy’s chair of the board, and Martin will become chief creative and innovation officer.

Jenny Ming, who has served as a Rothy’s board member since 2022, will step into the role of chief executive. Ming previously worked at mall staples Old Navy as president and Charlotte Russe as president and chief executive. Dayna Quanbeck, who was previously Rothy’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, will become the brand’s president. Ming and Quanbeck will help oversee the opening of 10 new retail stores this year — the brand currently has 17 — along with its entrance into wholesale.

But the leadership change also comes after the 11-year-old brand, known for its pointed-toe flats made with machine-washable 3D materials, saw a drop off in sales. In the third quarter of 2023, Rothy’s sales dropped 20 percent following a slowdown in e-commerce traffic, according to a November earnings release by its parent company, Brazil-based Havianas-owner Alpargatas.

The company managed to drive down operational costs, narrowing its losses on the basis of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation by $5 million during the same period.

Learn more:

When Marketing Gets Political

Rothy’s is running a marketing blitz in support of a New York state recycling bill, a sign of fashion’s shifting relationship with politics and advocacy.

Titan Company, India’s largest watch and jewellery group, is on a spending spree. Last year, the Bengaluru-based firm opened three stores for its gold and diamond jewellery brand Tanishq in cities across Texas and New Jersey where affluent members of the Indian diaspora have put down roots. The US entry was part of a broader global expansion plan including two new boutiques in Qatar that brought the brand’s total in the Gulf region to 11 and a debut in Singapore.

Back in India, the company has been opening large format stores in cities like Jaipur, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Vijayawada, Baroda, Indore and Patna in a bid to win over customers in every region. “We’ve also made some of our existing older stores bigger, bolder, better and relocated [some of them to more prominent locations],” said Ajoy Chawla, chief executive of Titan’s jewellery division, which includes brands like Zoya and Mia alongside Tanishq.

Though Titan’s retail rollout has been particularly bold, it is only one pillar of the firm’s strategy to gain an edge over competitors. Another is M&A.

Owned by Tata Group, one of India’s largest diversified conglomerates, Titan has deep pockets to leverage inorganic growth. In August, it spent 4,621 crore rupees ($555 million) to up its majority stake in Chennai-based gold and diamond jewellery brand CaratLane by around 27 percent.

Titan, which has since expanded CaratLane’s physical footprint to around 250 stores across India, first invested in the digital-first business in 2016 to bulk up its jewellery portfolio. “[Back then] we were pretty much only brick-and-mortar [so] we looked at it as an opportunity to leapfrog into digital,” said Titan’s Chawla. The latest deal raised Titan’s ownership to around 98 percent.

Titan is not the only company pouring money into India’s jewellery sector. Private equity and venture fund investment has made its way into start-ups like direct-to-consumer jewellery brand Melorra, online gold and silver jeweller Giva, and jewellery e-tailer Bluestone.

“One thing that [investors] really liked about Bluestone was our strong tech background and our ability to actually leverage that very strongly and efficiently,” Bluestone co-founder and chief executive Gaurav Singh Kushwaha told BoF.

The company, which has raised $113 million so far from institutional investors like Accel, Kalaari Capital and Iron Pillar, and angel investors including Indian entrepreneur Sunil Kant Munjal, reported a 67 percent jump in operating revenue to 770.7 crore rupees ($92.46 million) in the fiscal year 2022-23.

At the same time, some of the country’s largest incumbent brands are also raising the stakes.

Companies like Kalyan Jewellers, Joyalukkas, Malabar Gold and Diamonds (all headquartered in Kerala state), Chennai-based Vummidi Bangaru Jewellers (VBJ) and Mumbai-based Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZ), are expanding their offering and investing in retail networks at home and in overseas markets like North America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East while adding new factories and contract manufacturers to their portfolios.

“[Many] markets are open for Kalyan to expand into in the immediate future, meaning the next three-four years,” said Ramesh Kalyanaraman, executive director, Kalyan Jewellers, which opened its 19th showroom in the United Arab Emirates in September and is planning to launch 25 mono-brand stores for its digital-first brand Candere in the current financial year.

India’s major luxury fashion players are also shaking up the sector. In addition to Tata, two of the country’s largest multi-sector conglomerates have decided to either enter or expand their presence in the jewellery industry.

Last year, Aditya Birla Group announced its foray into branded jewellery retail with an investment of about 5,000 crore rupees ($600.4 million). The new venture, Novel Jewels, plans to build large format stores across the country, featuring in-house brands. One of its objectives is to counter arch-rival Reliance Industries-owned Reliance Jewels, which has been in the market for 16 years, boasting over 350 outlets and an innovative in-store app Jewels Hub.

But what is driving all this dynamism in the sector?

A Jewellery Market Like No Other

For one, the Indian jewellery market is nearing recovery. Retail sales reached $60.3 billion in 2022, according to Euromonitor International, edging closer to pre-pandemic levels in 2019 of 62.6 billion (sales had plummeted to 48.8 billion in 2020).

Indeed, much of the sector’s recent activity can be attributed to the fact that “the economy is back on track” with “consumer sentiment [being] positive” in India, suggested Kozhikode-based Malabar Gold & Diamonds chairman M.P. Ahammed. According to the World Bank’s latest India Development Update, the country was one of the fastest-growing major economies in FY 2022/23 at 7.2 percent and is forecasted to see growth of 6.3 percent in FY 2023/24.

Malabar, India’s second largest jeweller by retail sales after Titan’s Tanishq, according to Euromonitor, plans to invest 4,000 crore rupees ($479.8 million) over the next two years to boost its retail and manufacturing capabilities, with about a third of that allocated to overseas spending.

One feature of the local market that can help it remain relatively buoyant — even when the macroeconomic picture is less rosy — is that “gold is an intrinsic part of the cultural ethos of our country,” said Ahammed, referring to the auspicious status of the precious metal in India.

Although per capita GDP in India is a modest $2,388.60, according to the World Bank, the country continues to be the world’s second-largest consumer of gold jewellery, with bridal jewels accounting for about half of the market share, according to the World Gold Council.

Thanks not only to demand from the expanding middle-classes and increasingly wealthy high net-worth individuals but also highly motivated lower income consumers, the gems and jewellery sector overall accounts for 7 percent of the country’s GDP, according to India’s ministry of commerce and industry.

There are other unique characteristics to the local jewellery market that help explain the recent wave of investments.

“A large part of the jewellery retail market is still fragmented and unorganised in India. That presents a huge opportunity for growth for the organised jewellery retail players,” said Ahammed.

Indeed, the sector is rapidly formalising, consolidating and professionalising as consumers seek trusted brands and modern designs. Last year the government imposed rules regulating the purity of gold through a hallmark unique identification number (HUID).

According to Chawla, broader regulatory moves like the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and demonetisation have also contributed to the sector’s growing formalisation over the years. The government’s decision to place the gems and jewellery sector within the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is also helping, he added.

Interestingly, another factor compelling some consumers to shift from unbranded to branded jewellery is work-related migration. “[Many Indian consumers] are no longer living in the zip codes they were born in [so] when you go back to your hometown, you might go back to your family jeweller, but when you’re outside, you will gravitate towards brands you think you can trust,” said Chawla.

Many of the family jewellery businesses that were once dominant in a particular region or state, such as New Delhi-based Hazoorilal Jewellers and Khanna Jewellers, or Chennai-based GRT Jewellers, are now beginning to see competition from other organised players expanding nationwide.

“Organisation has [already] happened in the middle of the market. The premium jewellery segment, where Tanishq, Malabar and Kalyan Jewellers play... is where the bulk of the organisation is happening [now, but] the higher end is still dominated by family jewellers,” said Neelesh Hundekari, partner and head of fashion and luxury for Asia-Pacific at consultancy Kearney.

Where does this leave global jewellery brands, particularly European and American players who already have a presence in India?

Carving Out a Niche in a Complex Landscape

India is a rising star in the luxury fashion and premium beauty segments with brands like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Estée Lauder, all cementing their presence in the country. However, it continues to be a complex market for foreign jewellery brands with Cartier and Bulgari each operating just two Indian mono-brand stores, and Tiffany & Co, operating one.

“The penetration of foreign brands into the Indian jewellery market is still minuscule [and]… that has not changed in all these years,” Hundekari said.

Experts say it is far easier for foreign players to sell luxury watches than jewellery in India as the country has few big luxury watch brands of its own. The Indian jewellery market, however, continues to be dominated by local companies.

“The daughters of rich families who have lived abroad have a greater fascination for [foreign jewellery brands] and they’ll wear them. But there’s only a small segment of consumers that might actually recognise a Chanel necklace or earrings if somebody’s wearing them. For the larger masses, most [foreign] brands are irrelevant [in the jewellery category or represent]… a niche market,” said Hundekari.

Mithun Sacheti, who co-founded local brand CaratLane with Srinivasa Gopalan in 2008, believes that most foreign players don’t address the full spectrum of Indian consumer needs and desires. “The Cartier love bracelet and Bulgari Serpenti both solve for a status symbol, but they don’t solve for differentiation,” he explained. “Indian consumers value that significantly.”

Cartier’s parent Richemont and other western jewellery companies operating in India contacted by BoF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Of course, as the income and wealth pyramid widens, and lifestyles change, there is bound to be a shift in [consumers’] design ethos [that could benefit foreign brands]. However, I see no reason for domestic brands to be specifically disadvantaged, unless they choose to not adapt and evolve with the shifts in the market,” Hundekari added.

The jewellery business may be particularly challenging for foreign players but that hasn’t stopped luxury groups Richemont and LVMH from opening stores for some of their portfolio brands in India’s newest malls such as Reliance’s Jio World Plaza in Mumbai.

“The primary market for international luxury jewellery brands is [still mostly limited to] Mumbai, Delhi, etc,” Hundekari explained, in contrast to local brands which are sold much more widely in tier two and three cities across the country.

Another area where local players have an edge over their foreign counterparts is in the variety of the offering. Most major jewellers in India say they introduce hundreds of new designs each month, along with traditional pieces relevant to each region in their local stores.

Tanishq, for example, says it has about 4,000-5,000 SKUs in a midsize store, of which 15 to 20 percent would have been launched in the last 12-18 months. Kolkata-based Senco Gold says it would have about 140,000 designs in store of gold jewellery alone. Kalyan, meanwhile, says 30-40 percent of its retail inventory consists of local staple products, like a kasu mala (a type of traditional necklace) or a brahmani nath (traditional nose ring) in Maharashtra.

Understanding how to tap local holidays like Diwali and other cultural occasions is another important factor.

According to Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of retail consulting firm Third Eyesight, the Indian jewellery market is dominated by bridal jewellery, which tends to be more traditionally designed than it is trend-led, and consumers who are driven by an investment and “holding” mindset. “Thus, domestic players have a home-ground advantage, in terms of understanding the design, pricing and purchase behaviour much better,” he said.

The other defining characteristic of Indian consumers that industry insiders say foreign brands can’t cater for as well as locals is value consciousness. Gold jewellery, for example, is still sold on a breakdown basis. This means the jeweller includes the weight of gold, current gold prices, production charges, and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the final bill.

“Indian consumers want to know how much gold is around the diamonds [in jewellery pieces], what is the quality of the stones and so on,” said Hundekari. This makes it hard for luxury brands which have high markups. It also makes it easy for Indian consumers to get some foreign brands’ signature designs copied at a fraction of the cost by a local jeweller.

To succeed in the market, experts say foreign players need to play more to local tastes and improve consumer insights to create the right product mix. Otherwise, “it’s important to face the fact that their core appeal could be [limited] to a customer who is already aware of their brand and what it offers,” said Dutta.

🇪🇬 Red Sea attacks disrupt fashion’s supply chains through the Suez Canal. Fashion and textile companies using the crucial Asia-Europe shipping lane have reported delays and freight cost rises due to missile and drone attacks on container ships by Iran-backed Houthi militants based in Yemen, ostensibly in protest of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Around 12 percent of global trade passes through Egypt’s Suez Canal, including as much as 30 percent of container traffic. To avoid attacks near the Bab al-Mandab strait along the canal route, shipping giants like Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM have rerouted vessels around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, a longer and costlier alternative. In the week ending Jan. 4, Drewry’s World Container Index, which measures ocean freight costs for eight major trade lanes, increased by 61 percent. The CEO of British fashion retailer Next said he expects delivery delays of 2.5 weeks, describing the diversion as “an inconvenience” but “not a crisis” and one that is unlikely to compel the company to pass cost hikes on to customers. India’s apparel and textile companies have also been affected, with a spokesperson for the country’s Synthetic and Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council calling on the government to provide financial relief through tax rebates to offset the 40 percent surge in freight rates from India to Europe. The Red Sea attacks, which began in mid-December, are being countered militarily by the US and UK navies but, so far, the Houthi militants appear to be undeterred by recent fatalities or warnings of further reprisals from western countries. [Sourcing Journal, Bloomberg]

🇨🇳 E-commerce giant JD.com wins antimonopoly lawsuit against Alibaba. The Chinese online retailer JD.com said that it won a lawsuit in December against its rival, which was slapped with a 1 billion yuan ($140 million) fine over monopolistic practices known as “choosing one from two.” The High People’s Court of Beijing ruled that Alibaba Group had abused its market dominance, JD.com said in a statement published on its WeChat account. [Reuters]

🇧🇷 Brazil’s Alpargatas, parent of Havaianas, names Liel Miranda as new CEO. The footwear conglomerate behind the famous flip flop brand has announced that Miranda, who recently served as president of the local unit of snack food company Mondelez International, will succeed interim CEO Luiz Fernando Edmond on Feb. 1. [Yahoo Finance]

🇮🇳 Indian childrenswear brand Kidbea secures $1 million investment. Founded in 2021 by Swapnil Srivastav, Mohammad Hussain and Aman Kumar Mahto, the bamboo-based brand has secured funding in a pre-series A round led by Venture Catalysts, with participation from Agility Ventures, BestVantage Investments and individual investors including the founders of online car marketplace Droom. [Apparel Resources]

🇮🇳 India plans to open goods showroom and warehouse facility in UAE. The facility called Bharat Park would allow exporters of everything from clothing to heavy machinery to showcase their products under one roof to buyers both in the UAE and in other countries using the emirate as an entry point for distribution, like the one-stop-shop role that Dragon Mark plays for Chinese products in Dubai. [Arabian Business]

🇹🇷 Fashion brands ‘disregarded’ worker rights after Turkey earthquakes. A recent survey conducted by Ankara’s Middle Eastern Technical University of garment factory workers in Adiyaman, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras and Malatya, some of the cities worst affected by last February’s earthquakes, found that 69 percent of more than 200 suppliers received no contact from their buyers following the disaster. [Sourcing Journal]

🇮🇳 Indian fashion brand Uniref raises $190,000 in seed funding round. Founded by Kapil Bhatia in 2021, the brand currently produces garments made of recycled PET bottles among other materials, selling on e-commerce platforms Amazon India and Flipkart. [Economic Times]

🇨🇳 Chinese actor Liu Haoran joins Tag Heuer as ambassador. A star of the film franchise “Detective Chinatown,” the Henan native has become the Swiss watchmaker’s latest ambassador. [Retail Jeweller]

🇦🇪 Emaar Properties founder plans to expand Dubai Mall. “We are planning to renew Dubai Mall, expand it, and change it,” said founder and managing director Mohamed Alabbar in a video on his social media platforms, without providing further details. [Khaleej Times]

🇨🇳 Chinese actor and singer JC-T named as Michael Kors brand ambassador. The 33-year-old entertainer, also known by his birth name Tan Jianci, will be featured in campaigns, appearances and social media collaborations by the American fashion brand in the Greater China market. [Retail in Asia]