F&F, the clothing range sold by British supermarket chain Tesco, is taking off to expand in the Middle East, as Tesco just announced. F&F has unveiled plans to open more than fifty new franchise stores over the next five years in new markets across the Middle East and in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. "We've had a strong year and our combination of good quality and contemporary design appeals to customers across the world. I'm excited to see F&F moving into these new m

Next’s group property director Andrew Varley is to step down from his position with the high street retailer next year after 27 years. Varley will retire from Next in June next year but will also step down from the board on May 31 this year. In a statement Next said: “Andrew’s departure next year does not represent a change to the strategy of the business; the profitable expansion of our trading space remains a key part of the Group’s plans going forward.” During his time at Next Varley has h

Global superstar Rihanna is suing British fashion retailer Topshop for 5 million US dollars for selling t-shirts bearing her image without her consent, it has emerged. According to the New York Post, Rihanna’s team has been trying to negotiate with Topshop owners Arcadia Group for the past eight months regarding the rights to her image, though these talks broke down after the retailer offering the popstar a 5,000 US dollars settlement. The t-shirt in question was on sale at Topshop at the end o

Abercrombie & Fitch chief executive officer Mike Jeffries has come under fire recently for comments he made (several years ago) regarding the store's sizing policy and effort to market to only "good-looking people." Abercrombie doesn't sell a size bigger than "large" for women. Here's what he said: “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitud

Blame it on my Seattle grunge-girl roots, but I typically gravitate toward edgier fashion designers and steer clear of the pretty and romantic, which means you won't find a lot of lace or velvet in my closet. That was before I saw Dior designer Raf Simons' cruise collection, which hit the runway at Monaco's Hotel de Paris on Saturday night. It was full of lace-y moments that are anything but precious. I predict we will see Jennifer Lawrence (face of Miss Dior) on the red carpet very soon in

A combination of dwindling current crop supplies, sustained demand from China and concern over new crop production prospects has ensured that the upward trend in European flax prices, evident through much of the year to date, has been sustained during the past few weeks. Offtake in China may have been driven to some extent by the popularity of linen in some summer fashion lines. Very little flax remains unsold at the major origins. Moreover, early new crop development in France and Belgium h

Sources in India noted a steady pace of yarn business last week on both domestic and export markets. However, buyers remained wedded to a hand-to-mouth purchasing strategy, in what is generally perceived to be an uncertain short to medium-term business outlook. July and August traditionally represent a very quiet period of trading. Prospects for movements in raw material replacement costs are also considered particularly opaque at present. Unsold volumes of domestic old crop cotton are dwindling

The value-added textile sector has drawn Mian Nawaz Sharif’s attention to the export of cotton yarn, the sorely needed raw material of the textile sector, at throwaway prices. In a letter to the incoming prime minister, Javed Bilwani, coordinator of the value-added textile sector, said Pakistan’s entire textile sector was itself in urgent need of cotton yarn. “Only value-added fine count cotton yarn should be allowed to be exported with monitoring of the price which should not be lower than

Pressure is mounting on India at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to pare subsidies and incentives given to its textiles sector. The European Union and Japan have joined hands with the US and Turkey to demand that India stop giving fresh subsidies and gradually phase out the existing ones as the textiles sector had already achieved export competitiveness. India, however, maintains that many of the subsidies identified by the US and others are not subsidies and merely a reimbursement of inpu

The price of texturised polyester yarn, the benchmark yarn variety, has fallen from Rs 120 a kg in March to Rs 105 a kg, owing to the drop in the prices of PX, PTA and MEG. With the prices of raw materials such as paraxylene (PX), PTA and MEG dropping over two months, polyester yarn makers are heaving a sigh of relief. PX prices have fallen 11 per cent-- from $1,611 a million tonne (mt) on March 1 to $1,432.5 a mt. During the same period, PTA and MEG prices have dropped from $1,150 a mt to $1