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KEY TAKEAWAYS / 07.16.2024

Daily news and stories covering everything from the Fashion System, Investment, and AI to WEB3 and Crypto that truly matter in Metaverse Fashion.

ATHLETES DON'T WANT NIKE OR ADIDAS ANYMORE. THEY WANT INDEPENDENCE | [FASHION SYSTEM]

The Business of Fashion

💥 Scoring an endorsement deal with Nike or Adidas used to be every up-and-coming athlete’s dream. Not only do these deals typically come with a hefty paycheck, an endless stream of free products and access to a global network of fitness gurus and training facilities, they also bring serious starmaking power. You get to feature in campaigns, trial new products before launch, show up at high-profile brand events and turn up to match or race days decked out in the latest gear.

🦄 Big brands like Nike have considerably pared back endorsements to focus on only the most marketable names in each sport. Other athletes receive small payments, or sign “product-only” arrangements. Contracts can be highly restrictive, with marketing obligations and exclusivity clauses that restrict them from wearing other brands’ items in public.

🌵 Now, several start-up brands and manufacturers see an opportunity in the disillusionment many elite athletes feel with sportswear’s giants. Stars like Roger Federer and Stephen Curry have signed with less-expected brands in the past — On and Under Armour, respectively — and labels like Skechers, Lululemon and China’s Anta have struck deals with top NBA and Premier League players.

🏈 Among NFL athletes and insiders, word is quickly spreading about a new footwear manufacturer, Fctry Lab. Founded by former head of innovation at Adidas-Yeezy and veteran footwear designer Omar Bailey, the LA-based company is making custom-built cleats for six players across the league to wear in the upcoming season, which starts in September.

⚽ Athletes are also choosing to invest their own money — rather than have brands pay them — into endorsement deals that align with their personal values and interests. Sokito, a UK-based brand specialising in football boots (also known as soccer cleats) made from bio-based materials such as corn, sugar cane, bamboo and Tencel wood fibres, onboarded its first athlete investor two years ago. It now has just under 50 footballers — male and female — who have joined the business as shareholders, and its boots are worn by professionals from the Premier League to the MLS, founder Jake Hardy told BoF.

👘 As athletes continue to explore the value of their marketing power independent from sportswear behemoth brands, there will be increasing opportunities for savvy entrepreneurs and start-up brands who can offer them a way to cash in on their name, image and likeness while wearing products created specifically by or for them, in a manner that aligns with their personal values and stylistic preferences.

BURBERRY ROPES IN JOSHUA SCHULMAN AS CEO AFTER DISAPPOINTING Q1 | [FASHION SYSTEM]

FashionUnited

👾 The company also separately announced the appointment of Joshua Schulman as new chief executive officer and executive director, replacing Jonathan Akeroyd who is stepping down and leaving the company with immediate effect by mutual agreement with the board.

📉 The company said that the slowdown in trading experienced in the first quarter continued into July. And if this trend continues through the current quarter, Burberry expects to report a first half operating loss and FY25 operating profit to be below current consensus.

📊 The company added that, operating against a backdrop of slowing luxury demand, all key regions were impacted by macroeconomic uncertainty contributing to the sector’s slowdown. In this context, first quarter comparable store sales fell 21 percent and all regions declined outside of Japan. Asia Pacific decreased 23 percent with Mainland China down 21 percent, South Asia Pacific down 38 percent, South Korea down 26 percent, while Japan increased 6 percent.

🤖 The company said in a statement that an American national, Schulman, 52, joins Burberry with a track record of driving transformative growth and value creation as CEO of global luxury, fashion, and retail businesses.

Schulman was previously CEO of American fashion brands Michael Kors from 2021 to 2022 and Coach, where he also served as brand president from 2017 to 2020. Prior to this, at Neiman Marcus Group, he was president of Bergdorf Goodman for five years. From 2007 to 2012, Schulman was CEO of Jimmy Choo in London. Earlier, he was executive vice president/ worldwide merchandising and sales at Yves Saint Laurent and worldwide director/ women's ready to wear at Gucci.

MANGO AIMS TO CROSS 4 BILLION EUROS IN REVENUE BY 2026 | [FASHION SYSTEM]

FashionUnited

💲 Leading European fashion brand Mango closed the first six months of the year with the highest revenue in its 40-year history to 1.6 billion euros, representing a 6.3 percent increase over the same period last year.

🚀 As part of its 4E Plan announced last March, Mango, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2024, aims to exceed revenue of four billion euros in 2026. To achieve this, the company will reinforce its differentiated value proposition and open more than 500 stores over the next three years.

💈 During the first half period, Mango launched new capsule collections, such as the collaboration with Victoria Beckham for its woman line, a new collaboration with the Italian tailoring house Boglioli for Mango man and new editions of its capsule and selection collections, among other new initiatives.

💹 With a presence in more than 115 markets, the company’s international business represented more than 78 percent of the group’s total. By geographical region, the company added, Spain, France, Turkey, Germany and the US are the markets that recorded the highest revenue during the period.

📽 The company continued its expansion of the physical channel, with 57 net store openings, to reach a total of 2,743 stores worldwide at the end of June 2024, 1,725 of which are company-owned and franchised stores and 1,018 are corners.

🌈 Physical channel has been boosted not only by new openings, but also double digit growth in the like for like sales at constant rate. The company’s online channel also posted slight growth compared to the last year, representing approximately 33 percent of the total revenue.

HANK GREEN RECKONS WITH THE POWER — AND THE POWERLESSNESS — OF THE CREATOR | [COMMONWEALTH]

Techcrunch

📽Hank Green has had a while to think about how social media has changed us. He started making YouTube videos in 2007 with his brother, novelist John Green, at a time when the first iPhone was in development, Myspace was still relevant and Instagram didn’t exist. Seventeen years later, posting videos on the internet is no longer just a hobby, but a $250 billion industry. And yet, after all this time, the Green brothers remain two of the longest-tenured and most respected creators in the game.

💎Green founded the crowdfunding platform Subbable, which Patreon acquired in 2015, and he co-founded the companies DFTBA (an e-commerce company for creators) and Complexly (an educational media company). He was CEO of both of those companies until 2023, when he stepped down after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. Fortunately, Green is now in remission. He even performed astandup comedy special about the experience of cancer treatment, because he’s Hank Green, and even chemotherapy can’t stop him from making new things.

🎮At this year’s VidCon — the online video conference that the Green brothers co-founded in 2010, then sold to Paramount — the creator economy is navigating its increased attention from the broader tech world. In the expo hall, teenagers are still cosplaying as Hatsune Miku and lining up for meet-and-greets with Minecraft YouTubers. But the scene is different upstairs on the “industry track,” where venture capitalists like Slow Ventures’ Megan Lightcap are detailing the strategy behind investing in creators, and MatPat explains how he managed to become one of the first creators to successfully sell their company.

🌹Creators navigate the same challenges as any small business owner, but they’re also subject to the unpredictability of social platforms and consumers’ changing interests. These Big Tech companies are incentivized to generate as much engagement as they can, and if a small tweak to an algorithm can mean your videos stop showing up on TikTok’s For You page, then creators are left feeling helpless. And if a creator loses access to their account — sometimes via coordinated reporting campaigns by bad actors — it’s not likely they’ll be able to get in touch with someone from the platform to help.

Daily news and stories covering everything from the Fashion System, Investment, and AI to WEB3 and Crypto that truly matter in Metaverse Fashion.