Watanabe, who will star in Kate Spade's Spring 2020 handbag campaign, earned the crown as Japan's most followed person on Instagram in 2019, with a current follower count of 9 million. 

According to data analytics firm Launchmetrics, sustainability and diversity are two of the biggest themes currently driving the changing conversation around fashion weeks, as formats and front rows continue to evolve.

LVMH, the world’s largest luxury group, posted yet another year of record sales, racking up global turnover of €53.7 billion in 2020, a 15% increase on the previous year.

Jeremy Scott has cancelled his upcoming runway show in New York, in a move that will significantly weaken the American fashion catwalk season. Instead, the designer will show during haute couture in Paris in July.

Alessandra Facchinetti has been named creative director of Harlan + Holden, an Asian fashion company that defines itself as the world’s first “time-saving” clothing brand.

The Trump administration plans to unveil efforts on Friday to crack down on counterfeit goods sold on major e-commerce sites and urge companies to do more to vet third-party sellers and increase self-policing efforts.

LVMH brand Louis Vuitton will open its largest flagship store in Japan in Osaka’s Shinsaibashi on February 1 and will open its first café and restaurant inside the flagship store on February 15.  

The second-hand clothing chain owned by Japan’s GEO Holdings announced on Thursday that it is opening its fourth U.S. location in Torrance, California.

English designer Anya Hindmarch has quietly regained joint ownership of her namesake fashion business, after retaking the chief executive position to lead a turnaround.

Aspinal of London has hired financial advisers from KPMG to explore its strategic options if an attempt to sell the business fails to find a suitable buyer.

The spread of the deadly coronavirus in China could mean the world’s luxury industry seeing sales dented by fewer Chinese shoppers travelling abroad, tax-free payments specialist Planet said on Thursday.

Multibrand retailer Wolf & Badger has seen a “consistent rise in overall global sales and strong performance from its flagship stores in London and New York” to give it another period of higher full-year revenues.

Ulyana Sergeenko showed her new couture collection at Paris' Hôtel Mona Bismarck, unveiling pieces partly inspired by the famous style icon that owned the mansion, with Dita von Teese on hand to present the creations.

Burberry’s Q3 update offered further signs of the strength of the firm’s growth strategy. It had “a good quarter” and “continued to shift consumer perceptions of our brand and align the network to our new vision”.

Chanel couturier Virginie Viard went back to the roots of the house for inspiration this couture season, back before Coco imagined she would be a designer – all the way to her convent school deep in rural France.

Premium-contemporary brand Tiger of Sweden has announced the departure of its creative director Christoffer Lundman, saying the company and the designer “have mutually agreed to part ways after two years”.