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The Glossy Podcast
Week in Review: London Fashion Week preview, Forever 21 bankruptcy, EU waste legislation
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Podcast Host
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Jamie Elden
I think it's going.
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Danny Parisi
To be huge in 25 and in.
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Jamie Elden
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Danny Parisi
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Jamie Elden
List Track, our sponsor on this episode of the Glossy podcast. Later in the show, custom talks with Jamie about how beauty brands are using personalization, working to stand out and new creative formats on the horizon.
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Danny Parisi
Hello and welcome back to the Glossy Week in Review podcast. I'm your host, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi. I'm here with our international reporter Zofia Zviglinska. Hello Zofia, thank you for being here.
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Jamie Elden
Thank you for having me. It's so fun to be on.
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Danny Parisi
We love having you on, especially because it's London Fashion Week. We're recording this Thursday, which is the first day, but you'll be hearing this Friday. So London Fashion Week will already be one day old by the time this episode goes out. Zofia, you will be covering the week and on this episode you're going to give us a little preview of who's showing, what are some of the what's the vibe in London right now? There's been some last minute changes to the schedule. The schedule across Fashion Month has been a little weird for all the weeks this season. Like there's this big gap between New York and London where there usually isn't. So we'll talk all about what's going down at London Fashion Week. But then after that we're going to talk about Forever 21 being very close to its second bankruptcy in like six years. And then finally we will talk about some legislation happening in the EU about extended producer responsibility, basically making companies responsible for what happens to their products after they're sold. There's actually been some similar legislation here and there in the us so we can talk about both sort of political regions experimenting with this type of legislation, which is really interesting and definitely have a big impact on fashion brands. But yeah, let's start with London Fashion Week. I will let you take it away, but give us a little preview of what's going down this week.
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Jamie Elden
Yeah, of course. So obviously London Fashion Week is starting today, Thursday, and it's going on until Monday, early next week. So a very kind of short and packed schedule. Typically there's usually more catwalks and presentations than there are evening events. I feel like this season in particular that has switched and switched quite significantly. I think that that's also brought on by the fact that New York and London now have a week long break. So a lot of designers have been actually putting on smaller events and little like dinners over the course of this week, even before London Fashion Week starts. And I think that that has something to do again with the kind of wider economic situation. A lot of brands are, I guess like worried about how expensive putting on a show is. And so they're looking at different formats to I guess connect with their customers better, but also connect with press and kind of people. They in a smaller way. I think there's been conversations in New York that February is almost like the smaller Fashion Month season. And it still feels that way in London as well. But there are still going to be some interesting events and shows that are coming up. So in terms of shows, I think we've got Simone Rocher, Erdem, Burberry. Those are typically the biggest ones that are showing and those are still as catwalk shows. Those are not going to be presentations, whereas some of the others have reformatted. And then in terms of independence, designers or designers which may be slightly less well known, it'll be Labrum London, like the standard ones, like Connor Ives, who's been showing in Paris for a couple of seasons now he's come back to London, which is really nice. And then there's going to be a kind of newer, almost like a little shopping event with some of the younger brands on Monday, including Masha Popova. I think there'll be some Caroline, Vito, Derek, there'll be some new ones coming in there on Monday as well. So people will be able to browse. And that'll be under Ida Peterson, who's been a big kind of supporter of young designers and brands over the last couple of years. So it's going to be a different format, but at the same time, the catwalks are still going to be as interesting. You know, you have Dilara Fintokoglou who's come in from New York, and she's gonna be doing some shows here in London now, as well as some others as well. So exciting, but at the same time much more muted than before. And I think it's interesting this whole shift to evening events and dinner formats had some good chats with some designers about that.
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Danny Parisi
Yeah. Well, I know from talking to you about London Fashion Week the last couple seasons that doesn't it have a little bit of a reputation as being a place where kind of newer, younger, up and coming designers frequently show. It's interesting because at the same time, we were just talking before the recording that London and New York are like two of the most expensive cities, like, in the world. So it's like, let's have all these, like, new up and coming bootstrap designers showing in this super expensive city. I could see renting out a restaurant for a dinner being a lot cheaper than renting out, like a whole venue for a huge show with hundreds of people. So do you think that's a component? It's just that it's. It's more affordable and more intimate and maybe like, the return is better for that.
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Jamie Elden
Yeah, definitely. And actually, I think it's also a little bit of like a jaded idea of people expecting fashion shows, but at the same time not getting a lot of kind of quality time with the designer. Quality time with actually seeing the collection. You're in and out of there within 10 or 15 minutes if there isn't a delay. And that doesn't give a lot of time to actually connect with the clothes or the storytelling, which has been quite an important feature recently. I actually spoke with one of the designers who did a show as part of their dinner this past week, and he said that obviously with the growth of bigger brands on the London Fashion Week schedule, they can afford to put on a show that's going to cost them a million pounds, for example. Whereas for a lot of these designers who are more independent, £30,000 is basically, I'd say that's like $40,000. It works out to be a shoestring kind of show. This is something where you're going to be calling in favours, you're going to be asking for spons. It's not essentially the kind of show that you'd like to produce if you have a bigger vision for it. And even that is quite significant. That ends up taking a lot of the brand's budget for that whole year. And obviously with it just being February, I think people are a little bit more cautious with spending so much at the beginning of the year. They'd rather account for possible changes to the business later on rather than kind of going all out in the second month.
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Danny Parisi
Yeah, I mean, and you're certainly right that in New York, the vibe I got from a lot of designers was that they're saving money by doing something small in February so they can, you know, save up and do something big in September. And I feel like that's probably a common sentiment at all the different fashion weeks. We also talked a little bit about how the schedule, well, the schedule in general of Fashion Month has been a little weird. We've got, like you said, we've got this big gap between New York and London, and then London is also shorter than usual. You also were telling me that there has been some last minute changes to the schedule, people dropping out and new people being added in at the last minute. What do you think is behind that? Is that a troublesome sign or is that just like normal Fashion Week chaos?
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Jamie Elden
I mean, it definitely has been getting more chaotic over the last couple of seasons. Like, it does feel like the invites are being sent out later, the show schedules are announced even later. You know, it's not something where you're able to kind of prepare for it necessarily in advance because so many things are being done last minute. I think S.S. daly was someone who was added onto the schedule within the last week or so, which does cause some confusion because obviously there's a kind of public PDF copy of the whole schedule where he's now not appearing. So I feel like the kind of organizational side of things might need to be tightened up a little bit so these designers as well can get the necessary time, especially with international press who will be following this to make sure they know who's coming up every day. But, yeah, I mean, he's starting. I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of interest in him. You know, he's recently won the Queen Elizabeth II Award and he's had investment from Harry Styles last year. So I think there's still enough of a cachet that maybe the schedule itself won't be the deciding factor on who comes to attend.
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Danny Parisi
Yeah. Well, and as a journalist, I should say I always appreciate a show that's a little more intimate, where I can actually talk with the designer. And it's not like you said, 15 minutes, you go in, you sit down, you watch people walk by and then you leave. I'm less likely to write about it, frankly. And like it's always just, you know, it's better for me when I get to talk to the designer.
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Jamie Elden
Cool.
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Danny Parisi
Well, we will be on the lookout for your London Fashion Week coverage this week. Thank you for the preview of what's going down. And then of course, we will also be covering Paris and Milan later this month when that happens as well. So we'll talk about both those weeks as they come. Let's move to our second topic and talk about Forever 21. Bloomberg reported this on Wednesday that Forever 21 is nearing a potential bankruptcy. It would be their second bankruptcy after they went bankrupt in 2019. And they were bought by who else but Authentic Brands Group, which has bought up every bankrupt and failing American retail brand in the last couple of years. But currently Forever 21's plan is to close 200 out of its 350 stores and then they're seeking a buyer for the remaining stores. And if they can't find one, they're just going to liquidate all of them, which is not a great position to be in so we can dive into it. I mean, I have a lot of thoughts on this sort of licensing arrangement they have with Authentic, where Authentic owns Forever 21, but they license out the operation to a different company, Catalyst Brands. So Authentic is not actually the one operating forever 21. They're just they license out the name and that seems like it can be a good or bad strategy kind of depending on a lot of factors. So. But I'll let you go first. I mean, what do you, what did you make of seeing that news? Is that surprising to you?
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Jamie Elden
Yeah, I mean, I think Forever 21 has always been in a bit of an interesting position considering the rise of like mass fast fashion brands, you know, which have been primarily online and coming in from China. You know, something like Shane or Timi has always been going to get way more customers than Forever 21 and sometimes that is going to end up cannibalizing their customer base because people will be looking for things on discount. I don't think there's many people who go to Forever 21 specifically for, for their aesthetic or their for collections. I think the pricing is still the main draw and as a result I just Yeah, I think that having stores right now is also especially, like, as expensive and if you don't have, you know, kind of nimble fleet or like, smaller stores. And this, this is something we're seeing across the board. Like, a lot of bigger brands are also looking at smaller, kind of easier to format stores. If they've got a bigger presence, then, yeah, those. Those are going to need to be cut just to make savings. I feel like they've always been teetering kind of on the brink of, you know, financially viable or not. And even with the. The Shein partnership that. That was announced in 2023, I feel like they haven't had as much success and I think they've. The Authentic brand's CEO, Jamie Salter, also said that it was a modest success, but not like extensive, let's just say.
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Danny Parisi
Yeah, not. Not knocking it out of the park or anything. Yeah, I think the. The licensing arrangement is really interesting to me. So, like I said, authentic licenses out Forever 21 to Catalyst Brands, which also owns Lucky Jeans and JCPenney. And I think part of the risk of that, when you. When you hand the reins of a brand over to somebody else, you kind of like you're handing over control, obviously, and the success of the brand is kind of not really up to you anymore. I'm sure you can exert some control, but you're kind of just at the mercy and hoping that this company who has taken over is going to run it. Well, I just was speaking with Jinko, who you probably know as making those huge jeans from the 90s, and the owner was telling me that she and her dad who founded the company, had licensed out Jinko for years, starting in like the 2000 and tens, I think, to a Chinese company. And they were so displeased with how this company was running the license that they took it back in 2019, and they've been running it themselves since then with no plans to license it out again. So I think it can be sort of a negative experience sometimes. The difference, though, is that Authentiq owns tons and tons of brands and they license out a lot of them. And I don't think they're super protective in a personal or sentimental way, as maybe someone like Jinko, where you founded this company, it's your baby, and now you're watching somebody else kind of tank it or something. With Authentic, they've got a huge portfolio of brands that they've bought and probably aware that not all of them are going to be huge successes and they probably don't Care that much. I mean, that's just my kind of outside read is like they license a bunch of these things out and if one or two of them doesn't work, it's like not the biggest deal to them. Obviously they want them all to be successful, but they have a huge stable of other brands that I think are performing pretty well.
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Jamie Elden
Yeah, I agree. And to be honest with licensing, I feel like it's a very sticky field in general. Unless it's perfume or specific accessories, I think licensing in general just doesn't work because you lose that creative control, you lose the quality control. And obviously with brand like this, maybe it's not necessarily the biggest factor, but, you know, you've seen other brands kind of focus on how they've been, I guess, like distributing their items. In the uk, for example, we have Primark, which has gone a much better rep in the last couple of years because of the fact that they keep quite a tight control over what they're doing and they're still playing in that kind of fast fashion market. So I think it's bad to see how like, out of hand things can get when a licensing deal goes wrong.
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Danny Parisi
Yeah, for sure. Last thing I want to talk about is some legislation happening in the eu. So the EU Parliament is getting very close to finalizing some legislation that has been swirling about for, I think, years, and we've talked about in this podcast before, but basically would create extended producer responsibility, which is epr, they call it basically putting some of the responsibility for what happens to products after they're sold on the company that produces the product. So if you manufacture clothes, you bear some responsibility for where those clothes end up even after they're sold, which is not the default. And I think a lot of companies, a lot of industries have sort of benefited from the fact that once it's out of their hands, it's not their problem anymore. So if they're making big mountains of stuff and it ends up in the landfill, it's like, well, it's the consumer's fault for throwing it away and not our fault for making a bunch of garbage. But basically the actual implementation of that, from what I understand, would just mean that companies would contribute financially to waste collection, recycling effort, and I think also would be required to do some tracking and work with external agencies to make sure they're abiding by all the rules and regulations. I think it's. I mean, just my personal feeling is it's a good idea. I definitely think that's a way out for a lot of companies. Of responsibility is like idea that once it's sold, it's not our problem anymore. So I think it seems like a good idea. Wondering, from your perspective, as someone who writes a lot about sustainability, and also, you are not technically in the EU anymore, unfortunately, but you're nearby. I mean, what's your take on. Do you feel like that's. It seems like it's going to pass or it seems like it's close to happening? I haven't seen anything about any legal challenges or anything to it, so I don't know. What's your take on that?
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Jamie Elden
Yeah, I think the main thing has always just been delays because of the language and the kind of administrative efforts that are going to be needed by brands to commit to this. So over the last couple of months, that language has been kind of significantly watered down to make it easier for brands to adopt this and to be able to do this kind of from day one, as you so rightly mentioned, the UK is not part of the eu, so the Waste Framework Directive will not apply to the uk. But obviously the EU still produces a large amount of items, especially textile waste. I think the last number I saw was 12.6 million tons of textile waste. So it's a huge amount. And with the Waste Directive, basically, brands will have to also align with certain requirements. They'll have to make sure that they follow certain rules on that extended producer responsibility side of things. So if there is, you know, specific materials that people know how to dispose of them, how to sort them, I think it's quite a natural way of looking at garment care, because these are not, you know, this is not food that you're able to throw away where it's going to decompose. A lot of the times it's. It's shipped elsewhere, either to Africa or somewhere in South America, left in huge piles in the desert. I think Vestia Collective in particular has been doing some excellent work documenting the problems with the Atacamo Desert and the amount of waste over there. And the Org Collective has been working with people who are sorting through all of these kind of textile waste exports in the Candomato market in Africa. And that's. That's something that I think maybe some brands and countries, and especially in the eu, that seems like a bigger kind of issue. They've been focusing on that a little bit more because a lot of the times now, these countries are now barring imports or else sending them back because they are simply not able to handle the amount of items that are coming in.
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Danny Parisi
Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong. But the regulations would also apply to companies outside of Europe that are selling into Europe. Is that right?
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Jamie Elden
Yeah, exactly. So if you're selling.
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Danny Parisi
So not just European companies.
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Jamie Elden
Yeah, exactly.
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Danny Parisi
Okay, got it. I think that makes sense because I think the wording that I read specifically kind of mentions fast fashion companies, a lot of which are based outside of Europe, as sort of targets for the legislation. I also wanted to mention. So there has been some similar efforts in the US In September, California passed the Responsible Textile Recovery act, which basically does the exact same thing for California. Applies to any company making more than a million dollars annual revenue. It creates extended producer responsibility, requires them to work with external agencies to ensure that they're abiding by all the rules. And I think there's been some similar legislation that's been talked about or proposed in New York and I think Massachusetts and maybe one or two other states. So it's definitely an idea that I think is floating around globally. It's not just Europe, although the EU is very, I feel like, far ahead in a lot of ways than us, which I also wanted to ask about. I mean, do you have any thoughts on why. Sorry. The European Union seems to be just like a lot more ahead of the game with things like this. They've passed some other cool legislation around, like the right to repair similar things. I mean, I don't know. What's your take on that?
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Jamie Elden
I mean, I think you have to look at the kind of historical and cultural side of fashion in Europe. You know, when you're talking about European fashion, you're talking about France, you know, kind of. There's a long history in Italy of, you know, skilled kind of craftsmanship. There's a lot of, I guess, like, pride in having that history. And I think with all of these new developments, well, new, you know, it's been over the last 20, 30 years or so, but it's still new. I would say in fashion terms, like that has been a such a big kind of development and almost like an out of hand, out of control kind of development as well. There's been, you know, a huge amount of products that cannot be repaired. There's been issues with the textiles aspects as well. And I think it all comes down to the fact that eu, when you think about it, and Europe in general is a very small land mass. So any waste is probably far more noticeable than it would be somewhere like the US and obviously the population increases in Europe have also increased the demand for textiles and for other types of waste. I think it's Just far more noticeable when those kind of things are not done in the correct way and like when there's not a kind of circular loop involved so things are reused. Obviously the kind of culture of throwaway fashion and throwaway consumerism in general has exacerbated that in a bigger way. I think also just people really don't want that relationship with their items. They don't want things to have that inherent breakability. There was that whole thing that now light bulbs don't last as long as they used to because people make them now that they do break every three years so you can repurchase them. I think it extends to textiles and to other products. People want to have a relationship with the items that they own and they want those things to be of good quality. I think some of the best and most well known brands from Europe are ones which have a kind of a long history of quality products, of things which have lifetime warranties. Those are things that are, I think are still quite rare in fashion because obviously you use the items so much more. But there have been brands which have been much more interested in kind of including repairs. There's been some sneaker brands that have actually created repair stores in France and elsewhere as well. And I think that that's kind of the trend where people are seeing that if it's beneficial for everyone, for the planet, it's actually just going to keep everything a little bit more fair and good for everyone. Whereas because I think the size of the US and the focus on the profit has gone the other way.
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Danny Parisi
Yeah, no, I think you're 100% right. I also have to always remind myself that the US is so huge and most European countries just don't have that experience. I feel like in Europe everything's hundreds of years old and in the US everything's hundreds of miles away. We're newer, but very vast and there's just a whole lot of nothing in parts of the country. I don't mean culturally, I mean like literally, like there's uninhabited, just wilderness, you know, that I feel like a lot of countries don't have. Last thing I want to say about that. So in the US there has not been, I think much at all in the way of like a national effort to implement anything like epr. It's mostly been state level and only in kind of the states you would expect like California and New York. One thing that's kind of a new development in American politics is having a. Maybe not new, but recently in the news is having a president who takes a very heavy handed approach to state level matters. For example, in New York we have congestion pricing just implemented in Manhattan last year, which has been a big success. And then the Trump administration this week we're like trying to kind of axe it, even though it's like a state level thing. I wonder if we might see something similar if a big state like California or New York implements some sort of like waste responsibility legislation, if the Trump administration tries to just come in and like put the hammer down on it and whether then that would lead to legal battles and delays and all that kind of stuff. So who knows. But we will talk about that if and when it happens. I think that's all the time we have this week. But Zofia, thank you so much for being here and as always sharing your insight.
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Jamie Elden
Thank you so much. It was so fun.
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Danny Parisi
For those of you listening, don't forget to give us a rating and a review, whether that's on Apple Podcasts or, or Spotify or wherever you listen to this podcast because that helps us out so much. And don't forget to subscribe to the glossy podcast because you'll hear interviews with industry insiders every Wednesday and we can review episodes every Friday. Until next time, thank you all for listening.