Accra fashion week fights for female empowerment

Reality star Kim Kardashian and singer Rihanna may have popularised the style overseas, but in conservative Ghana, African designers are hoping to use these racy looks to help young women challenge the traditional status quo. “Everyone should be able to express themselves and not be oppressed in any way,” said designer Josefa Da Silva, an effervescent 29-year-old sporting a halo of ink-blue hair. Da Silva, a native of Cape Verde based in the United States, isn't afraid to make a statement with her designs.

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Accra fashion week fights for female empowerment

Landing with a bump? Germany’s Rocket falls back to earth

By Emma Thomasson and Chijioke Ohuocha BERLIN/LAGOS (Reuters) – When German e-commerce investor Rocket Internet launched Jumia in 2012 as a would-be African Amazon, it was optimistic that a rapidly expanding middle class would quickly shift from street markets to shopping online. Four years on, falling sales for sites like Jumia and slower growth from Nigeria to Russia and Brazil is casting doubt on Rocket Internet's ambition to become the world's biggest Internet company outside the United States and China. The devaluation of Nigeria's naira last week is a new blow for Jumia, which now operates in more than 20 countries in Africa.

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Landing with a bump? Germany’s Rocket falls back to earth

Steffy Argelich is the new face of Lancaster

This week the French leather goods brand announced Spanish model Steffy Argelich as the face of its autumn/winter 2016-2017 collection. Lancaster Paris is the latest brand to sign up this young model, starring her in the label's autumn/winter 2016-2017 campaign. Steffy Argelich rocked her 1970s style for photographer Guy Aroch, who has worked on all of the Lancaster brand's latest campaigns.

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Steffy Argelich is the new face of Lancaster

Adidas to return mass shoe production to Germany in 2017

By Jörn Poltz ANSBACH, Germany (Reuters) – Adidas will launch mass production of running shoes at a German factory operated largely by robots next year and plans to open a similar plant in the United States next year, the company said on Tuesday. Founded by German cobbler Adi Dassler in 1949, Adidas had closed all but one of its 10 shoe factories in Germany by 1993 as it shifted most production from Europe to lower-wage Asia, particularly China and Vietnam.

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Adidas to return mass shoe production to Germany in 2017

Hugo Boss picks financial chief Mark Langer as new CEO

German fashion house Hugo Boss announced Monday that it has chosen chief financial officer Mark Langer to become the new chief executive after the resignation of the former head of the company following a profits fall. Langer, who has been with Hugo Boss for 13 years, will replace Claus-Dietrich Lahrs who stepped down in February after the group's financial forecasts for 2016 were slashed due to a slump in sales in the major markets of the United States and China. “Due to my long-standing work for Hugo Boss, I have a clear understanding of the company's potential and know what we need to do to get it back on track for profitable and sustainable growth,” Langer said in a statement.

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Hugo Boss picks financial chief Mark Langer as new CEO

Chanel brings glamor back to Cuba in catwalk extravaganza

By Sarah Marsh HAVANA (Reuters) – French fashion house Chanel brought glamor back to Communist-ruled Cuba on Tuesday in a runway show on one of Havana's main boulevards, featuring glittering gowns, tulle cocktail dresses and models in Panama hats smoking cigars. Chanel is the first major fashion house to hold a runway show in Cuba, highlighting both warming relations with the West and new inequalities on the island. Former Cold War foes the United States and Cuba formally agreed to restore diplomatic relations last July.

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Chanel brings glamor back to Cuba in catwalk extravaganza

Luxury market growth to reach low point in 2016: Bain

By Astrid Wendlandt and Pascale Denis VERSAILLES, France (Reuters) – Growth in the more than 250 billion euro ($285 billion) personal luxury goods market should pick up next year, boosted by resurgent demand in the United States and China, after hitting a trough in 2016, consultancy Bain & Co predicted. Bain, whose industry outlook is an authoritative and traditionally closely watched barometer of trends because of its extensive coverage of the sector, forecast luxury sales growth this year of around 1 percent at constant exchange rates, against 1.5 percent in 2015. Bain is due to release in a few weeks its updated study and forecasts for the luxury goods market, which includes accessories, clothing, jewelry and watches, and has not yet published any figures to show its latest thinking on the outlook.

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Luxury market growth to reach low point in 2016: Bain

Balmain opens first US flagship

Balmain is opening a New York flagship store — its first in the US, confirming the luxury Parisian fashion house's growing popularity stateside.

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Balmain opens first US flagship

Gucci to unify men’s and women’s collections from 2017

Italian luxury brand Gucci announced on Tuesday it will unify its women's and men's collections starting from next year in an effort to simplify the designer's business. The first show combining womenswear and menswear will be at Gucci's new Milan headquarters, President and Chief Executive Marco Bizzarri said in a company statement. It did not specify when the show will be scheduled, but a source close to Gucci told Reuters it was likely to be during the women's Fashion Week, the one receiving most attention from both media and buyers.  The decision comes amid a growing debate in the fashion industry over the need to combine collections, condense dates for shows as well as putting items on sale immediately after the catwalk presentations.. The Florence-based brand, part of the Kering group, is following in the steps of Britain's Burberry group, which said last November that it would bring its collections under a single brand.

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Gucci to unify men’s and women’s collections from 2017

Arkansas sheriff digs into clothing budget for fashion statement

By Steve Barnes LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) – An Arkansas sheriff with a similar name to a Wild West legend has spent about half of his office’s clothing budget to supply deputies in his mostly urban county with fashionable cowboy hats to top off their uniforms. Sheriff Doc Holladay of Pulaski County, which contains the capital, Little Rock, said he had the money left in the budget for black felt cowboy hats at $155 each for cooler days and white straw versions at $42 each for warmer temperatures. Holladay said he favored the cowboy hat since it had long been traditional in sheriff’s departments across the United States.  “We’ve had no standard for headgear in our department and I don’t think ball caps are necessarily the thing to do,” Holladay said, adding the new headgear “looks sharp.” John “Doc” Holliday was a dentist turned gambler and gunman who joined forces with lawman Wyatt Earp in the famed Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881.

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Arkansas sheriff digs into clothing budget for fashion statement