Malia Group: spreading risk in the Middle East
Opening the only five-star hotel in Iraq two years ago was a bold move by any standards. Throw in marketing cigarette makers in Lebanon and distributing Shell Lubricants in Iraq, and Malia Group looks like a controversial risk-taker. Continue reading »
Pablo Escobar: got the t-shirt?
Still in need of some Christmas gifts? What about some t-shirts sporting the face or the arrest warrant of Pablo Escobar, the violent leader of the Colombia’s Medellín drug cartel who terrorised the Andean country in the eighties and early nineties.
Almost 20 years after his death, Escobar’s son -born Juan Pablo Escobar Henao, now named Sebastián Marroquín-, has launched a clothing line, “Escobar-Henao”, which appears to be gaining adepts in the US, Mexico, Spain, and Austria. Continue reading »
KupiVIP brings fashion sense to Russia’s internet
By Ben Aris of bne
What’s the point of belonging to the emerging middle class if you don’t look good? That’s the idea behind KupiVIP, Russia’s leading online fashion store, which expects annual revenues to reach a billion dollars by the end of the decade. Continue reading »
Corporate watch: Croatian shoemaker in need of repair
By Guy Norton of bne
Shoemaker Borovo was once the second largest company in Yugoslavia, employing 23,000 people, producing 23m pairs of shoes, 580,000 tyres and 12,500 tonnes of rubber goods a year, all exported around the globe.
Based in Vukovar, Croatia, it survived the city’s 1991 bloody siege, despite suffering damage totalling an estimated €300m. Now it is facing another battle for its existence, this time in the face of an onslaught of cheap imports from Asia. Continue reading »
China fashion hits London
Although China is by far the world’s largest exporter of clothes, its wares are almost all sold under foreign labels.
This is now changing, with Bosideng, the Chinese fashion brand specialising in down-filled clothing, opening a flagship store this month in London’s West End.
While a handful of other Chinese fashion brands have concessions inside European and North American department stores, this is, as far as beyondbrics can establish, the first time a large mainland Chinese fashion group has hung its sign over the front door in the west. Continue reading »
LVMH looks to paint India Pink
Anyone who has ever been to an Indian wedding knows that the subcontinent loves big bright colours. And anyone who has ever walked down a street in Mumbai or Delhi knows that Indian men aren’t afraid of making bold fashion choices, either.
Now LVMH is set to see whether Indians are ready – beyond those wedding outfits – for bold colours in their dress shirt, after Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Brands announced that it had formed a joint venture with the French company to sell its Thomas Pink line of clothing on the subcontinent. Continue reading »
Hermès loses China trademark dispute
It could soon become a badge of honour for successful foreign brands in China.
Following in the footsteps of Apple (and basketball star Michael Jordan), Hermès – purveyor of fine silk scarves – has become the latest company to find itself in a tussle over a trademark. Continue reading »
Fungs: more European style to China
News that Fung Brands is in negotiations with Sonia Rykiel, the French fashion house, to buy 80 per cent of the company, suggests that the private company owned by the Hong Kong billionaire Fung brothers, William and Victor, is taking a page out of the playbook of the luxury menswear company, Trinity Group, also controlled by the Fungs. Continue reading »
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