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Riyadh, Seoul, Mumbai and São Paulo are the new fashion capitals shifting the industry’s center of gravity. And they are doing it on their own terms.
Operators across the US, Europe, Latin America, and the Gulf reported Q1 2026 grocery retail earnings shaped by three very different forces: revenue earned beyond the shelf, currency swings, and geopolitical stability.
The new EU tax on fast retail lands on Shein, Temu and AliExpress, and on every small sender outside the bloc shipping anything under €150. Whether that adds up to meaningful reform is a different question entirely.
The Altagamma-Bain Monitor 2026 reveals a global luxury market that is stabilizing in numbers but transforming in every other way.
AI adoption in retail is accelerating at a pace that has no precedent. Across every major study published in the last six months, the returns tell a different story.
Ten years after the Brexit vote, the EU-UK trade data proves that political promises never materialized. With Britain's seventh prime minister incoming and single market re-entry back on the table, the Brexit trade impact is finally at the center of the conversation.
Eurostat’s consumer price map is widely referenced and rarely questioned. It is also missing the one major variable that makes it useful for retail: what consumers earn.
The most senior executives in fashion and luxury voted live at the 2026 RLC Fashion Summit in Milan. Several of their answers run counter to what the industry publicly professes to believe.
China's exports rose 14.1% in April 2026, beating forecasts by a wide margin, as AI-driven global demand absorbed the disruption caused by the war in Iran. The trade surplus widened to $84.82 billion. The numbers demand explanation.
The Q1 2026 fashion earnings season is the most revealing in years. Across luxury, sportswear, fast fashion and heritage retail, the results expose a single defining fault line: brand clarity. Here is what the numbers say, and what they signal for the rest of the decade.
In a market where geographic expansion no longer guarantees growth, luxury brands face a more fundamental challenge: how to remain wanted.
On 4 June 2026, the 2026 RLC Fashion Summit brought together the CEOs, investors and institutional leaders defining the next phase of the fashion and luxury ecosystem, for a full day of closed-door strategic debate at the Four Seasons Hotel Milano.
Three forces — consumer retrenchment, a geopolitical shock in the Middle East, and US trade tariffs — are hitting the global textile industry simultaneously. And the sector has never looked more exposed.
While the broader MSCI Europe index grew 5.7% in Q1 2026, European consumer discretionary earnings fell more than 12% — well below the projected 2.4% decline, making consumer discretionary the worst-performing sector of the season.
Because the conversations shaping fashion and luxury have become more intentional, more strategic, and ultimately more consequential.