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These are the stories making headlines in fashion on Friday.
DTC brands are taking on the luxury watch industry
Luxury watches from giants like Rolex and Patek Philippe can cost tens of thousands of dollars and can even go as high as more than a million dollars. Now, digitally-native watch sellers with comparably affordable price points are gaining traction in the industry. British watchmaker Christopher Ward’s Bel Canto sonnerie watches, which first launched last year, were priced at $3,795 and sold out in hours. The brand, along with other “micro” brands such as Baltic, AnOrdain, Brew and Furlan Marri, are moving up the market by selling direct-to-consumer at more accessible price points. “The rise of these (micro brands) have democratised the industry,” Adam Craniotes, co-founder and president of RedBar Group, a global association of watch collectors, told Business of Fashion. “People who have Rolexes, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, still want these other brands.” {Business of Fashion/paywalled}
Resale companies find success on TikTok Shop amid fakes
TikTok Shop is driving sales for resale companies like U.S. luxury marketplace MyGemma. It’s now MyGemma’s second-biggest revenue driver (after its own website) and the retailer expects 15% of its total 2023 revenue will come from livestreams across TikTok, Instagram and Whatnot. TikTok Shop has more than 200,000 registered sellers and more than 100,000 creators use the livestream shopping features, and although sellers have to pass an audit, the screening hasn’t stopped the sale of counterfeit products, Zofia Zwieglinska writes for Glossy. To address fakes on the platform, TikTok Shop has partnered with Entrupy, an AI-powered luxury authenticator with a 99.1% accuracy rate. “TikTok is doing everything they can and is focused on pushing authenticity,” MyGemma CEO Andrew Brown told Glossy. “It is the big hurdle to (earning) any (social commerce) sales. But the trust element will come, especially for those native to the platform.” {Glossy}
Inside Adidas and Kanye West’s tumultuous partnership
Adidas cut ties with Kanye West last year after the rapper’s inflammatory comments on Jews and Black Lives Matter, but The New York Times reported that the partnership that made West a billionaire had been fraught from the start. After interviewing current and former employees of Adidas and West and reviewing internal documents such as contracts, text messages and financial documents, The New York Times shares the fullest account to date of what Adidas’ and West’s partnership looked like behind the scenes. The publication found that West had a fixation on Jews and Hitler (he drew a swastika on a sketch he disliked and told a Jewish Adidas manager to kiss a portrait of Hitler every day), brought pornography into the workplace, experienced major mood swings, and that Adidas largely looked past West’s misconduct as the partnership earned more than a billion dollars. {The New York Times/paywalled}
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