Tag: fashion

2022 has seen a lot of change in the fashion and retail industry, with several high profile businesses changing leaders, appointing new executives, and launching new strategies.

As we approach 2023, TheIndustry.fashion has curated a list of the most important appointments from the past year. Each headline directs to further information on the appointment.

Matchesfashion appoints former ASOS chief Nick Beighton as CEO

In July 2022, the luxury online fashion destination named former ASOS CEO Nick Beighton has its new CEO. Beighton took over from Paolo de Cesare, the former Printemps Group president who was appointed CEO 10 months prior.

Talking about his appointment, Beighton said: “Using technology, product, logistics and culture, I have helped disrupt existing consumer patterns and galvanise change in organisations and I hope to bring these skills to my new role.”

Joe Browns appoints ex-JD Sports COO Peter Alecock as CEO

Yorkshire-based fashion and homeware retailer

Following months of consistent negative growth against a backdrop of continued challenges, including the cost-of-living crisis and postal strikes, Black Friday “brought retailers a small sigh of relief”.

According the IMRG Capgemini Sales Index, retailers collectively defied the odds and achieved +0.7% year-on-year growth in November. While that figure is low and suggests some customer hesitancy, it marks the first moment of positive-territory growth in the index since April 2021.

Traffic to online retail sites peaked at +2.7% year-on-year in the week commencing 13 November 2022, predominantly owed to early Black Friday activations, which were particularly strong across beauty, home and electrical products. However, there was a decline in traffic in the week commencing 20 November, at -6.1% year-on-year, signalling customers’ response to early campaigning.

As predicted, the number of retailers launching Black Friday campaigns was higher this year. However, the early activations did not deliver increased revenue. When comparing

JD Sports has offloaded a raft of “non-core” premium fashion brands, including Giulio, Cricket, Pretty Green and Tessuti, to fellow listed fashion group Frasers.

The move comes after a strategic review of JD Sports by its new CEO Régis Shultz who joined the business from Al-Futtaim Group in August of this year.

Some 15 brands form part of the deal which were sold to Frasers for an aggregate cash consideration of up to £47.5m. Completion on the acquisition of shares in eight of the divested businesses and on the acquisition of all of the debt owing to JD by the divested businesses took place immediately on exchange with completion on the acquisition of shares in the remaining seven businesses expected in early 2023. 

JD Sports said the move would allow the business to focus on opportunities elsewhere in its group, such as in particular the international and digital expansion

2022 has posed its fair share of challenges (constraints in the supply chain, weakened consumer confidence, high profile designer exits, and an impending recession set to last for at least a year).

However, the upside to this constant stream of challenges, which come hot on the heels of a global pandemic no less, is that fashion brands have gained new-found coping skills, agility, and resilience that will help them to face whatever the market chooses to throw at them next.

Indeed, while it might be expected that brands would be in a gloomy mood, many are finding cause to be optimistic, particularly among NuORDER by Lightspeed’s growing network of more than 3,000 brands.

We asked some of Europe’s most innovative wholesale players to share the key market trends they will be working on to stay ahead of the B2B landscape in the coming 12 months and which strategies they