David Beckham is getting into the wellness game.

On July 11, Prenetics, a biotech firm, announced Beckham was now a strategic investor, and that he would be a co-founder of IM8, a new consumer health brand.

In a statement, Beckham said his professional career has allowed him access to medical, fitness and exercise professionals who have supported his success. “Their guidance has been crucial to my health and well-being,” he said, describing Prenetics as a company dedicated to innovation. As well as being a co-founding partner, Beckham will also be an ambassador for the brand.

Information about IM8 is not yet available, although its website says it was developed in partnership with NASA’s former chief scientist.

Danny Yeung, CEO and co-founder of Prenetics said Beckham’s involvement makes a “transformative era” for the firm. “David [Beckham] epitomises the values of discipline, teamwork and health... we have a unique opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the consumer health and wellness industry,” said Yeung.

Prenetics was founded in Hong Kong, and went public via a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) in 2021.

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How Kelly Slater Learned to Love Sunscreen

The surfing legend, a vocal opponent of chemical-based sun protection, is launching his own line of natural skincare products this week.

Customers have booked out South Korean cosmetics giant AmorePacific’s new artificial intelligence beauty lab, where robots custom mix face products and the latest technology recommends the most suitable lipstick colours.

“Everyone has their own specific skin tone, but usually they buy the most common colour available over-the-counter,” said Kwon You-jin, a 32-year-old customer at the firm’s bespoke skin cosmetics service.

“Knowing more data about my own skin, and seeing the before-and-after firsthand, is a very good experience,” she said, after receiving an AI-generated report on the condition of her skin.

A robot then mixed a foundation that perfectly matched her skin tone.

More cosmetics firms are embracing AI to boost sales, with global brands such as L’Oréal S.A. and LVMH-owned Sephora using it to tailor products to customers’ needs.

Global beauty industry sales including cosmetics hit $625.6 billion in 2023, climbing steadily annually since dipping in 2020 during Covid-19 according to Statista Market Insights.

AmorePacific said it uses AI to recommend the best choices for a customer from 205 different skin foundations or 366 different lip product colours.

“We used deep learning, machine learning techniques to take the process that experts use to evaluate data from many peoples’ skins into an (automated) service,” said engineer Lee Young-jin, an adviser for AmorePacific’s custom beauty business.

Analysts said using AI instead of human consultants could speed up product development and reduce variables.

“No matter how professional an expert is, individual deviations can be large, and evaluating cosmetics by consulting 30 to 40 experts all the time is difficult,” said Yang Yong Suk, principal researcher at South Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute who co-developed a deep learning model for a cosmetic product’s texture.

“These days, product development time has shortened, and an ever-larger amount of new products are launched faster,” Yang added. “Combining AI technologies could lower hurdles further.”

The market for using AI in beauty and cosmetics industries is forecast to more than double from $3.27 billion in 2023 to $8.1 billion in 2028 as services such as personalised beauty recommendations, skin analysis and diagnostics, and virtual makeup artists expand, analysis provider Business Research Company said in January.

By Daewoung Kim and Hyun Young Yi

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Can AI Pick Your Next Favourite Beauty Product?

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Prices for the most sought-after luxury watches slipped on the secondary market again last month, extending a two-year decline as investors turn elsewhere after a pandemic-era rally fizzled.

The Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index, which tracks the 50 most-traded watches by transaction value, declined less than 1 percent in June. It’s fallen 8 percent in a year and 23 percent in the past two years, data provided by Subdial, a UK-based watch trading platform shows. That contrasts with a 27 percent surge in the S&P 500 Index, the US stock market benchmark, in the past year.

Top Swiss brands including Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet have undergone an about-face after soaring to unprecedented levels on the secondary market in early 2022, when stuck-at-home shoppers shovelled pandemic savings into pricey timepieces. During the 12 months to June 2022, the Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index surged 40 percent, while the S&P 500 fell about 1 percent.

While many of the most-traded models continue to change hands above retail prices, speculators who piled into the market betting watches would keep appreciating have been shaken out as equities and other investments offered better returns.

Even during the downturn, prices for some brands are rising. The Subdial index for Cartier watch prices has gained almost 2 percent in a year as timepieces made by the French jewellery brand owned by Richemont have become more popular with collectors. Cartier watches are also generally less expensive than Rolex, Patek or Audemars Piguet and tend to change hands at values below retail.

In June, Rolex models, which make up the majority of the index, were largely flat, while sister-brand Tudor declined. Prices for entry-level luxury watches, as well as Swatch Group AG’s Omega and the Cartier brand indexes, showed modest gains during the month, the data from Subdial shows.

By Andy Hoffman

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Top Rolex Seller Sees Signs of Stability in UK Watch Market

Watches of Switzerland said sales of used watches doubled in its fourth quarter from the prior year and are now its second-biggest source of revenue.

The Japanese operator of fashion giant Uniqlo on Thursday raised its forecast for what would be its third consecutive year of record profits, buoyed by strong sales at home and some overseas markets.

The domestic market was a bright spot for Fast Retailing, aided by a surge in duty-free sales from tourists taking advantage of the yen’s slide to a 38-year low.

Meanwhile the company said there were signs of maturing in China, its largest overseas market.

It lifted its full-year operating profit forecast to 475 billion yen ($2.94 billion) for the year ending in August from 450 billion yen, citing strong performance since the second half.

“The solid results were fuelled by Uniqlo Japan as well as the Uniqlo International business segment, which saw strong performances in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia,” the company said.

Uniqlo is renowned for its quality and affordable basics, and Fast Retailing is benefiting from a slide in the yen that has boosted the value of its sales abroad.

The weak yen helped in Japan too, as the proportion of duty free sales doubled in the nine-month period, the company said.

“If the number of inbound customers increases going forward, we will of course make every effort to try to capture that demand,” CFO Takeshi Okazaki said.

But the weak yen and the domestic inflation it fosters contributed to very different results at convenience store leader Seven & i, whose quarterly operating profits fell 28 percent.

The president of Seven & i’s domestic convenience store business said customers had become more cost-conscious due to price increases and other factors.

Fast Retailing is plotting an aggressive growth path overseas, taking advantage of a post-pandemic shift among many consumers for value over luxury.

With more than 900 stores in mainland China, Fast Retailing is a bellwether for global retailers operating in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Through the nine-month period, operations in Greater China saw a decline in revenue and a large drop in profit, partly due to strong performance the previous year and a general slowdown in consumer appetite, the company said.

Fast Retailing now plans to open 50 to 80 stores in the market annually, compared with targets of up to 100 openings in recent years.

“Chain-store development has matured and we are approaching a turning point,” Uniqlo Greater China CEO Pan Ning said.

For the most recent quarter ended in May, Fast Retailing’s group operating profit rose 31 percent to 144.7 billion yen from a year ago, beating the consensus forecast of 127.1 billion yen, based on a LSEG poll of six analysts.

The company’s shares have risen about 26 percent so far this year, nearly in line with the advance in the benchmark Nikkei gauge.

By Rocky Swift and Maki Shiraki; Editing by Kim Coghill, Miral Fahmy and Arun Koyyur

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Does America Need Another Fast-Fashion Brand? Uniqlo Thinks So

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This week, beauty’s biggest bust-up was all about semantics.

It started with a Vogue editorial showcasing former Miss Universe Olivia Culpo’s nuptials to San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey. Once the online commentariat finished picking over her dress (Culpo said she ‘”didn’t want to exude sex in any way”), the discourse latched onto an otherwise throwaway comment about her beauty regime: Culpo said she wasn’t wearing mascara, lip liner or eyebrow makeup.

Eschewing quotidian cosmetics products on her wedding day, especially in the face of celebrity guests and when photographed for Vogue, seemed like a bold choice. Culpo told the magazine it stemmed from her desire for simplicity and elegance. What irked some readers was what went unsaid: Culpo may have skipped cosmetic products, but she appeared to still be relying on a bevy of semi-permanent beauty treatments.

“She has lip filler, Botox, lash lift and microbladed eyebrows so I can see why she doesn’t need makeup for that,” read a typical comment on one of many TikTok videos dissecting her suspected treatments.

Culpo denied getting lash extensions or brow lamination, but previously posted pre-wedding content that mentioned lash lifts, Botox and filler, as well as in-clinic facials.

Culpo has stepped into a fiery section of internet discourse. Wearing too much makeup can attract cries of fakery. But making a show of wearing no makeup at all can draw accusations of being a “pick me girl” (a woman who is deemed to be rejecting feminine traits to impress men) and allegations of being anti-feminist, or trying too hard to be relatable. There’s no winning.

“The whole ‘no makeup makeup’ thing is always a bit tongue in cheek,” said Lisa Payne, head of beauty at trends agency Stylus. “One could argue that if you’ve made any steps towards making yourself look better, even if you’ve put a moisturiser on, you’ve cosmetically altered yourself.” Still, plenty of commenters on Culpo’s wedding were positive, praising her for what they saw as a timeless look.

The conversation has only grown more complicated with the rise of treatments such as brow and lash tinting, lamination or microblading of the brows, spray tanning and even lip “blushing,” all of which have rapidly gone from the preserve of the ultra-wealthy to many women’s monthly beauty budgets.

Even before these treatments hit the mainstream, the no-makeup ideal elicited strong feelings. Alicia Keys was applauded by some when she “gave up” wearing makeup in 2016, but others pointed out that with her wealth and ready access to weekly facials, she could afford to skip foundation (In 2023, she decided to embrace wearing it again).

“If you’re not going to wear makeup, just shut up and don’t wear your makeup,” said Amber Leaux, one-half of the podcasting duo Style & City Diaries, adding that she found it equally odd when Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, didn’t use a makeup artist for her wedding day. “It doesn’t make you one of us.”

Mirror, Mirror

The Italian expression for makeup is il trucco, which literally means “the trick.”

The main selling point of tweakments such as lash lifting and tinting, or brow lamination, is that they give the effect of having applied mascara or brow pencil, and last up to six weeks. It turns a daily ritual into a bi-monthly appointment.

Take eyebrows: in years gone by, you could have them shaped, perhaps dyed. If you had little to no hair left, tattooing was an extreme option.

Today, popular treatments include tinting, threading, lamination (a perm-style procedure that relaxes the hairs flat for a brushed-up look) or microblading, a permanent procedure that tattoos hair-thin strokes into the brow to reshape or densify them.

A quick scroll through social media – or the websites of Cosmopolitan and Allure – will give you an exhaustive guide to all the “high maintenance” things one can do to be “low maintenance.” Using a sunless tanner in the correct manner can take the place of foundation, bronzer and contour. A heatless curl wrap can fake a blowout overnight. Lash extensions, applied by a professional or at home, mean a lash curler and mascara is no longer needed. One slogan for DIY lash extension brand Lashify, which sells a $125 starter kit, is “mascara is dead.”

“If I have tweakments, of course I look good without wearing makeup,” said Leaux. “The reason I get my eyelashes done before I go on holiday is so I look peng when I wake up, so I don’t have to wear makeup.” [Peng is a British slang word meaning good or attractive].

Payne said that authenticity is such a prized quality for influencers and celebrities, when a mainstream face appears disingenuous, it angers viewers more than listing a series of expensive treatments might do. And the choice to detail the lack of makeup in proximity to Culpo’s other comments about wanting a pure, clean look was uncomfortable to some.

“There’s a certain sort of unwritten rule that [celebrities] are essentially a vehicle of inspiration for fashion and for beauty,” said Payne.

Though many celebrities, the most recent example being Sophia Richie Grainge, choose low-key beauty looks for their big day, by claiming not to wear makeup, Culpo didn’t let people play along. “[With Richie Grainge] viewers might not be able to afford all the products…but they could at least find dupes,” said Payne.

Culpo’s error then, was not choosing a simpler look, it was how she chose to present it. Saying you want to be a natural beauty doesn’t sit right with consumers when they know an extensive treatment plan has been undertaken ahead of the big day, said Payne. “It comes off more like ‘you can’t afford to look as beautiful as I do naturally on my wedding day’.”

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