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DHAKA, May 18 (Reuters) - Apparel makers in Bangladesh are considering rare bulk exports by air to Europe and the United States, as they race to meet deadlines and avoid cancellations after a cyclone delayed shipments, caused power cuts and disrupted production. Bangladesh, the world's second-largest garment exporter, has already been hit by weakening global demand, with exports falling in both March and April. Another garment owner who supplies H&M said some of his shipments had been delayed. Power cuts in the last two months, first due to a scorching heatwave, and then the cyclone, have put more stress on apparel companies. "Now there are also chances of missing orders for the next season, as we are struggling to provide samples on time due to the regular power cuts," Ehsan said.

☆ These 2 millennial brothers quit their jobs to focus on their side hustle so they could 'get out of bed and not dread work'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Josh and Arran Stewart quit their jobs in March to focus full-time on their side hustle. They started clothing brand Illicit Bloc with about $2,500 after being furloughed in the pandemic. After being furloughed, the brothers decided to launch their clothing brand, Illicit Bloc, as a side hustle in April 2020. After the brand started gaining some traction last year, the brothers from Buckinghamshire in England realized it might be time to focus on their side hustle full-time. Arran and Josh Stewart work together on the design and sampling.

☆ New York Is Full of Empty Offices After Covid. Make Way for the Playground City. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Edward L. Glaeser | Carlo Ratti | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +20 min

We are witnessing the dawn of a new kind of urban area: the Playground City. The transformation toward the Playground City will not happen on its own. To draw people into the Playground City, we need to show, not tell. 6.Engage citizensGovernments should empower citizens to participate directly in making the Playground City. The Playground City sees people as both a means and an end, and it should involve them in the process of its creation.

☆ Why Should Charles III Be King?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Tanya Gold | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +7 min

King Charles(Francis Xavier,Professor X) III Prof. King Charles III, a telepath and the leader of the X-Men, is powerfully gifted, like the real Charles III (a noted gardener and watercolorist). King Charlize (Theron) III Charlize III is a gifted actor, which all good monarchs need to be, and an extraordinarily beautiful woman. King Charles III, theMadame Tussauds waxwork Wax Charles III lives in Madame Tussauds on Baker Street, and more people met him in 2022 — 2.5 million — than the real king will meet during his whole reign. King Charlie (Sheen) III Another actor, who has the advantage of already being from a famous dynasty: his father played Jed Bartlet, the philosopher king from “The West Wing.” King Charlie (Sheen) III would be handsome but not as handsome as King Charlize (Theron). King Charles (Dickens) III could not function in a country with failing public services and a system that taxes earnings, not wealth.

☆ Nothing Says Fashion in 2023 Like a Corset Hoodie
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Jessica Testa | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There is a certain futility in making sense of fashion trends of late. Just try to follow the path from naked dressing to stealth wealth without taking the pink-drenched detours of cottagecore, balletcore and Barbiecore. Three years later, one consequence of this convergence has emerged: the corset hoodie. The garment is a fashion Frankenstein — cozy hoodie on top, restrictive corset on bottom — that is both a conjugation and rejection of its parent trends. The corset half was sheer with visible boning.

☆ I make almost $5,000 a month renting out clothes online I hardly wear. It only takes a few hours a day — here's how I got started.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Lola Christina Alao | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

I'm a size 14 and most of the clothes were in a size 8 or a size 10. It's become one of my most popular items. I started with a portfolio of around 20 items from my closet that I was happy to rent out. I'd love to wear them myself, but as a full-time mom, I don't do enough to wear these types of clothes. On Hurr, I rent items out for four days, and on By Rotation, I rent them out for three days.

Reuters GraphicsMany U.S. importers are still sanguine, but their supply chains could still be disrupted as Vietnam's apparel makers depend on China for about half of their input materials, according to the country's industry association. XINJIANG LINKSWhile the halted shipments represent a tiny portion of the $27 billion worth of garments and footwear Vietnam exported to the U.S. last year, compliance risks may lead to more painful adjustments for Vietnam. That, in turn, will hit U.S. consumers as Vietnam is their main source of cotton apparel, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. However Nike has significantly reduced its output of apparel and footwear in Vietnam despite the country remaining its main manufacturing hub, according to its latest annual report updated to May 2022. Two officials from U.S. footwear and apparel industry trade associations said the new rules have had no major impact so far on Vietnam and blamed recent job cuts on lower global demand.

☆ Harry Belafonte, calypso star and civil rights champion, dies at 96
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Alex Johnson | Diana Dasrath | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Singer Harry Belafonte speaks during a press junket at The Bing Decision Maker Series with the Sing Your Song Cast and Filmmakers on January 22, 2011 in Park City, Utah. American singer Harry Belafonte performing in a recording studio, circa 1957. By the early 1960s, Belafonte had become a force in the civil rights movement. A crowd of over 10,000 civil rights marchers gathers in the Manhattan Garment Center as Harry Belafonte sings at spiritual at a civil rights rally. A capacity audience of civil rights advocates turned out to watch a glittering array of theater personalities perform.

☆ Retailers to tackle sustainability at key conference
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

They will discuss the challenges facing their businesses as inflation causes consumers in Europe and elsewhere to reduce spending. The European Commission is drawing up new rules on textile waste that will make companies responsible for managing the waste their products create. Decathlon, the world's biggest sporting goods retailer, sells repair services, spare parts and tools for people to repair their own bicycles, tents, and kayaks. Retailers are working with local authorities ahead of an EU law that will require member states to separately collect textile waste by Jan. 1, 2025. Firms including Decathlon, Mango, Inditex, and IKEA recently created an association in Spain for the management of textile waste.

☆ Opinion | The True Cost of a $12 T-Shirt
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( E. Benjamin Skinner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Across the country, while inflation has siphoned middle-class wealth, American consumers have enjoyed a consolation prize: Apparel is dirt cheap. In 1993, you could buy a T-shirt for $13 — and get a midsize tank full of gas for about the same. Today, the full tank would cost more than three times as much. Over the last decade, the voices of the over 75 million vulnerable workers in the global garment and textile industry have been, like the products they made, steadily devalued. In mid-19th century Manchester, the textile trade fostered technological leaps that led to higher wages and lower prices for consumer goods.

☆ A Grim Anniversary for Survivors of the Rana Plaza Disaster
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Elizabeth Paton | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Kabir Mollah said he was inspecting garments when a friend called his cellphone, screaming that the building was on a perilous tilt. On the morning of April 24, 2013, more than 1,100 people were killed when Rana Plaza, an eight-story building that housed five garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed in about 90 seconds. It is considered the deadliest accident in the history of the modern garment industry, and one of the worst industrial accidents ever. Many major retailers used the factories to produce their clothes, and the disaster led to a reckoning around workplace safety for garment workers and the responsibility of brands selling low-priced clothes to Western consumers. And for current garment industry workers, where has progress been made?

☆ 'Quiet luxury' is back for the first time since the Great Recession. Here's what it is and what brands stand to benefit.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The quiet luxury trend is dominating 2023 after years of trends like "dopamine dressing." David Russell/HBOLike most other fashion trends, the move toward quiet luxury, or "stealth wealth," is part of a cycle. Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty ImagesAt this point, quiet luxury has become so popular that even luxury brands themselves are being asked about it. She also highlighted Italian luxury house Brunello Cucinelli, French leather goods firm Hermès, and Armani, who has been doing quiet luxury for nearly two decades. If that's a bit outside your budget, there are mass-market retailers partaking in what the quiet luxury trend is promoting: durable, sustainably made clothing in timeless fabrics and silhouettes.

☆ Fact Check-2019 image of Nigeria's Buhari praying at Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mosque mistakenly linked to 2023 trip
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A photo from 2019 of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari praying at Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mosque is being falsely attributed online to his 2023 trip to the kingdom. April posts on Facebook show Buhari wearing a white garment and praying next to his wife, Aisha (here and here). Captions suggest the image was captured at the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. While he did pray at the Prophet’s Mosque in the city (here), the photo shared by social media users is from a different occasion. He said it showed Buhari at the Grand Mosque in Mecca while the president was undertaking the Umrah pilgrimage.

☆ Old Navy’s response to slumping sales: More pockets
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Parija Kavilanz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Old Navy, known for its low-priced basic and trendy seasonal clothing, has adopted an interesting sartorial tactic amid sinking sales. The new dress styles with pockets rolled out into Old Navy stores this month and the retailer said it will also increase the number of summer dresses with pockets. As such, it is a good move for Old Navy to add them,” said Neil Saunders, retail industry analyst and managing director of GlobalData. Old NavyOld Navy’s fourth-quarter sales fell 6% over the previous year, while sales at its stores open at least a year fell 7%. Specifically, Old Navy and Gap brands both said shoppers were pulling back their spending on babies’ and kids’ items.

☆ Nike envisions a wild future with Olympics in outer space, clothing made of spider silk, and footballs make of stardust
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Matthew Kish | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Nike recently published a fun and thought-provoking book about the company's next 50 years. The company playfully envisions athletic competitions in space and footballs made from stardust. The small 192-page book is mostly a fun, futuristic read about what Nike might be doing in 2073. Sam Grawe, who wrote the 2021 book Nike: Better is Temporary, is an editor and contributed essays. On a more terrestrial level, Nike foresees clothing made from spider silk and the emergence of volcanic glass compounds.

☆ Nike faces shareholder proposal on human rights
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Katherine Masters | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - Activist shareholder platform Tulipshare is calling on Nike (NKE.N) to offer more transparency on working conditions in its supply chain. In a shareholder proposal released Thursday, London-based Tulipshare requested a report from Nike on whether its policies effectively address its stated equity goals and human rights commitments. The company’s most recently available impact report from fiscal 2021 cites forced labor, supply chain transparency and labor rights as some of its essential priorities. “Nike did not engage with garment worker unions representing Nike supply chain workers about those impacts, despite the OECD Guidelines’ expectation that multinational enterprises do so and despite unions’ requests for dialogue,” the complaint states. In a fiscal 2022 statement on forced labor, Nike said it is growing its business "through long-term relationships with suppliers that are committed to our strict standards of sustainability and human rights, product excellence and compliance with local laws."

☆ The guy behind the viral fake photo of the Pope in a puffy coat says using AI to make images of celebrities 'might be the line' — and calls for greater regulation
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An AI-generated image showing the Pope in a luxurious puffer coat went viral over the weekend. "I just thought it was funny to see the Pope in a funny jacket," he told the outlet. And while he hadn't considered the impact of AI images before, added: "It's definitely going to get serious if they don't start implementing laws to regulate it." He added that he had "no ill will" and "just thought it was funny to see the Pope in a funny jacket." "I figured I was going to get backlash," he told BuzzFeed.

☆ Adidas event shut down by protestors as factory wages become hot-button issue for the sneaker and garment industry
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Matthew Kish | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Protestors on Thursday disrupted an event featuring Rupert Campbell, Adidas' top US executiveThe protestors allege Adidas has not paid Asian contract factory workers and demanded payment. A speaker rose roughly 40 minutes into the one-hour event and demanded Adidas pay wages he alleged are owed to contract factory workers in countries including Cambodia and Indonesia. The $11.7 million allegedly owed to Adidas workers comes from a report produced by trade unions and other industry groups. Before protestors disrupted the event, Adidas North American President Rupert spoke about his childhood and his career path. Ballinger noted several recent instances of factory workers getting restitution for unpaid wages, including at a Nike contract factory in Cambodia.

☆ Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus Supplier Paid California Workers $1.58
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The Department of Labor randomly investigated 50 clothing companies in Southern California. It found that more than 80% were breaking one or more provisions of federal labor law. One garment maker was paying workers just $1.58 an hour. In what the department described as a "particularly egregious case," one garment manufacturer — making clothes for brands including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Stitch Fix, and Von Maur, per investigators — was found to be paying some workers an hourly rate of just $1.58. It shows, she argued, "that strong federal action is needed to change the abusive pay rates in the American garment manufacturing industry."

☆ Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them in Indonesia
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +19 min

While the sample was small, the fact that none of these shoes made it to a Singapore recycling facility underscores weaknesses in the system. Dow said these builds will use the 10,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds) of recycled shoe material that have been produced through the Singapore recycling project so far. Reuters had dropped those shoes into a Dow recycling bin at a Singapore community center in September, three months earlier. Recycling flopsThis is not the first novel recycling scheme launched by Dow that hasn’t lived up to its billing. In its Jan. 18 statement, Dow said the shoe recycling partners are “energized by the common vision of sport championing a greener and more sustainable Singapore.” Dow did not comment on the Journal of Consumer Psychology study.

"High spot LNG prices and dwindling domestic production will mean that Pakistan will continue facing issues with ramping up gas-fired power generation," said Poorna Rajendran, LNG consultant at FGE. Despite LNG prices having fallen from last year's record highs, the superchilled fuel is still expensive for South Asian buyers as their currencies have weakened sharply, making it hard for them to boost LNG imports this year. Ship tracking data from Kpler shows Pakistan's LNG imports in 2022 fell 17% from the previous year to a five-year low. Bangladesh's LNG imports in 2022 fell 14% from the previous year, according to Kpler, which drove down power output while demand was rising. LNG prices are unlikely to ease enough to help Bangladesh and Pakistan, with analysts expecting a rebound in Chinese purchases to push prices up in 2023.

☆ I'm a plastic surgeon who does Brazilian butt lifts. BBLs are my most popular procedure, but some people shouldn't have it done.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Jen Glantz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Dr. John Paul Tutela has offered Brazilian butt lift surgery since he started his practice in 2014. I started offering the BBL procedure as soon as I opened my practice and it continues to grow in popularity. Getting a Brazilian butt lift requires pretty aggressive liposuction to help sculpt the body's shape. I'd never tell this category of people to gain weight for the surgery, I'd just recommend they don't do it. What is the recovery time for a Brazilian butt lift?

☆ Fashion brand 'Unhidden' brings clothes made for all bodies to London Fashion Week
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Sarah Mills | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Designer Victoria Jenkins poses following her catwalk show "Unhidden: A New Era in Fashion", with designs presented by models who all live with a disability, chronic condition or visible difference, during London Fashion Week in London, Britain, February 17, 2023. REUTERS/Henry NichollsLONDON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Fashion designer Victoria Jenkins unveiled stylish and practical clothes made for people with disabilities on the runway at London Fashion Week on Friday, in a collection intended to address a gap in the market. "Unhidden is an adaptive fashion brand… primarily targeted at inclusion within fashion of people with disabilities," Jenkins told Reuters. "It also has openings all down the arm," she said, so that anyone going through treatment "can access their arm without taking any clothes off. Model and content creator Jessica Ping-Wild, who uses a prosthetic leg and struggles to find suitable trousers, said a brand like Unhidden makes all the difference.

☆ Fashion Faces Recycling Fees Similar to Other Industries
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Dieter Holger | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Electronics and packaging companies have banded together to help pay for recycling programs under government rules. EPR programs charge producers tiny fees—often a fraction of a penny—on individual items to fund waste collection and recycling. The fees from the relevant products, such as packaging, electronics or clothing, then fund recycling, including infrastructure, collection, sorting and public communications. Recycling successEPR programs can significantly boost recycling rates, according to a study published this month from the Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit group. It is expanding its textile recycling beyond its customer network, which includes Levi Strauss & Co. and VF Corp. -owned The North Face.

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