The Loom

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) introduced the Clothing Microplastic Transparency Act of 2026 on Nov. 5. It would require any company selling clothing to disclose the estimated mass of microplastic in each item on a stamp, tag or label. The Federal Trade Commission, consulting the EPA, would have one year after enactment to issue rules, including a standard test method companies must use to estimate the content. Violations would be treated as unfair or deceptive practices under the FTC Act.

"While current labels list fiber content, they do not disclose microplastics. Our bill puts the facts on the tag," Mace said.

Garment workers in Bangladesh have protested since Saturday, Oct. 31, demanding the monthly minimum wage rise from 12,500 taka to 30,000 taka (about $245), saying food, housing and transport costs have eroded their pay. Hundreds of factories have shut. On Wednesday, Nov. 4, police fired tear gas and used stun grenades in several industrial areas outside Dhaka; dozens were reported injured in Fatullah, and workers blocked a highway in Gazipur, NBC reports.

On Sunday, Nov. 1, the government formed a six-member wage board of government, worker and factory-owner representatives, Al Jazeera reports. Its chairman, Syed Azad Subhani, said workers would get their first pay under a new scale in January; Arab News reports the board agreed on Nov. 4 to start the revised structure from December but has not yet set the size of the increase. More than 100 factories in Ashulia suspended work again on Thursday, police said.

Bangladesh is the world's second-largest garment exporter after China. The sector employs about 4 million workers, mostly women, earns more than 80% of export income and supplies brands including H&M, Inditex (Zara's owner) and Walmart.

The Paris Economic Activities Court opened judicial reorganisation proceedings (redressement judiciaire) for SEGM BHV on Monday, Nov. 2, according to a document seen by AFP, Sortiraparis reports. Management had announced on Oct. 27 that it had filed for bankruptcy and asked for receivership; it says the BHV Marais store on the Rue de Rivoli stays open while it tries to keep operations and jobs.

Karl-Stéphane Cottendin, in charge since June, cites a cash shortfall and blames Brookfield, which has owned the building since January 2026, for not paying compensation owed for space the store handed back. Sortiraparis says the dispute adds to unpaid bills reported by several brands and the fallout from the store's controversial partnership with Shein, which led many retailers to leave. The store's summer recovery plan focuses on the return of several brands and on home goods.

Founded in 1856, the store is marking its 170th anniversary this year.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced on Thursday, Nov. 5, that its next Costume Institute exhibition, the theme that usually sets the Met Gala dress code, will be "extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday." The museum says it will show how designers transform "jeans, T-shirts, and puffer coats" and materials like paper, plastic and metal. Per The New York Times, as cited by ARTnews, it will hold 200 to 230 objects, about a third from the museum's collection, including Brooke Shields' Calvin Klein jeans and Matthieu Blazy's trompe l'oeil jeans for Bottega Veneta.

The theme replaces a planned John Galliano exhibition that the Met cancelled about two months earlier after backlash over the designer's 2011 antisemitic and anti-Asian remarks, NBC reports. ARTnews notes donor discontent and that next year's gala falls on Yom HaShoah. Curator Andrew Bolton told the AP, "I had no Plan B, to be honest." The Times reported that Anna Wintour played no role in choosing the new theme, according to ARTnews.

British hairstylist John Frieda has died at 75, according to a statement posted to his Instagram on Tuesday, Nov. 3, NBC News reports. The statement said he "passed away peacefully ... surrounded by his family" and called him "a true icon of the hair industry." The cause of death was not immediately clear.

Born in London in 1951, where his father owned a west London salon, Frieda told The Standard in 2012 that his father wanted him to become a doctor. He worked his way up the London scene, styling models for Vogue shoots, and went on to open salons in London, Los Angeles and New York. His clients included Princess Diana, Madonna, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, the Beatles, Sarah Jessica Parker and Scarlett Johansson. In the 1990s he launched Frizz Ease, starting with a serum to tame frizzy hair; the line is now sold in drugstores and salons worldwide.

Kering said on Thursday, Nov. 5, that Balenciaga creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli is leaving after less than 16 months. Piccioli, who spent 25 years at Valentino, replaced Demna, who moved to Gucci. The exit follows the recent departures of Anthony Vaccarello from Saint Laurent, Kering's second-biggest brand, and Sean McGirr from Alexander McQueen, as the group tries to reverse years of falling sales.

Kering CEO Luca de Meo called Piccioli "an exceptional couturier and creative talent" and said the group wants to "build on Balenciaga's avant-garde spirit." Kering said the house's new creative direction will be announced shortly. U.S. outlet Puck has reported that British-Jamaican designer Martine Rose, who consulted on menswear at Balenciaga under Demna, will take over; Kering did not confirm that.

Lagos Fashion Week ran Oct. 28 to Nov. 1, its 15th year since fashion entrepreneur Omoyemi Akerele founded it in 2011. Organised by Style House Files, this edition's theme was "CRAFTED: Heritage. Innovation. Circular Futures," putting traditional techniques such as weaving, dyeing, embroidery and beadwork at the centre, alongside reuse and less textile waste, 88Lately reports.

More than 50 labels took part. The main runway shows ran Oct. 29 to 31 at the LagosFW Tents at the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island. Opening presentations on Oct. 28 included Sisiano's Spring/Summer 2027 collection "Some Birds Fly South", Orange Culture's "The In-Between", and "Akwete Reimagined", a capsule by ALÁRA and Emmy Kasbit built around Akwete, a traditional Nigerian woven textile.

Versace confirmed on Wednesday that Pieter Mulier's first collection as chief creative officer will be haute couture, shown during Paris Couture Week in January 2027, nss magazine reports. It brings Atelier Versace back to the couture calendar for the first time since July 2016; Mulier's ready-to-wear debut comes later, so his clothes won't reach stores until well into 2027.

Atelier Versace was announced in 1989 and first showed in Paris the next year; it paused in 2004 for lack of orders, returned in 2012 and went on hiatus again in 2016. nss reads the couture-first plan as a sign the Prada Group, which now owns Versace, wants to reposition it at the top of luxury, as Mulier did at Alaïa. StyleRave notes Paris Couture Week runs Jan. 25-28 and that the exact date and venue are not yet announced.

Aldo is launching a 20-piece capsule with Beirut couture house Zuhair Murad, priced from $40 to $300, Glossy reports: platform sandals, slingback pumps, evening bags, jewelry and eyewear with metallic finishes and celestial details. It was unveiled online and in stores on Oct. 28, launches globally on Nov. 2, and will sell in about 25 markets including the U.S., U.K., Canada and the Middle East.

It is Aldo's first partnership with a couture house and Murad's first with a mass-market brand, about two and a half years in the making after an introduction through a Middle Eastern Aldo franchisee. "We wanted people... to think, 'I didn't know Aldo could do that,'" said Aldo's Amanda Amar. Murad told Glossy it was a way to reach a much wider audience. The rollout is backed by hundreds of creators and Murad's 10.5 million Instagram followers.

With 60,000 runners and 2 million spectators expected at the Nov. 1 New York City Marathon, brands are filling the week before with pop-ups, carb-loading dinners and "shakeout runs," Glossy reports.

New Balance, Nike, Adidas, On, Puma, Saucony and Hoka are all hosting pre-race shakeout runs; Nike's include a Women's Night run with a live podcast taping, and Saucony's "Jorts Mile" asks runners to do a mile in jean shorts. Vuori is holding pre- and post-race parties and a race-day pop-up. Non-running brands are in too: H&M hosted a run followed by saunas and red-light therapy to launch an H&M Move running capsule, and Manhattan club Moss teamed with Salomon.

Moss's Julie Wandzilak, who ran the 2022 marathon, told Glossy the pre-race shakeout is the best moment for brands because "the training is over."

Food-themed fashion has gone from novelty to saturation, Eater argues. Loewe's summer collection included a $4,150 lambskin tomato clutch, while Walmart sells rotisserie-chicken bag-like purses and charms from $5.97; Moschino has made a trompe l'oeil celery purse.

The piece traces the trend from a chocolate-chip-cookie bag by Puppets and Puppets on a 2020 New York Fashion Week runway through the pandemic-era "strawberry dress" and Tombolo's vongole shirt to 2022's "seafood kitsch." Creator Cole Poska of Beyond Studios, whose fan-made Cheesecake Factory merch went viral, says food brands have "decades of nostalgia" and devoted fans.

The writer points to fatigue (Bon Appétit asked in 2024 why every dress had pasta on it), fast trend cycles that send gimmick pieces to landfill, and rising food prices that make a $425 oyster cardigan land differently.

Prada climbed five places to No. 1 in Lyst's Q3 2026 Index, with demand on the shopping platform up 55% quarter over quarter, its first time on top since Q4 2023, FashionUnited reports. Chanel slipped to No. 2 and Miu Miu to No. 3; Dior, Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Chloé and Celine filled out the top 10, with Celine entering it for the first time under Michael Rider after rising five places.

Prada's silk duchesse Wish Pouch led the hottest-products list, ahead of COS's Trullo Flap Bag and the Celine x Reebok Freestyle Lo. Diesel returned to the index after Glenn Martens' final show, Khaite debuted at No. 20, and Conner Ives, Emily Dawn Long and Mfpen were named fastest-rising brands.

Lyst says the index combines the shopping behavior of its 160 million annual users with search, social and other discovery signals.

Nike CEO Elliott Hill said this month the company would pull back on retro Jordan launches to correct an oversupply, after Jordan revenue fell by mid-teens percent in the latest quarter; the brand, which brought Nike $8.7 billion in fiscal 2024, is down about 20% from that level, Retail Dive reports.

That hits Foot Locker, Jordan's biggest wholesale partner. BNP Paribas analyst Laurent Vasilescu estimates Jordan is roughly 25% of Foot Locker's revenue (about $1.85 billion) and that the chain faces a roughly $550 million sales hit from spring 2027 unless it replaces that volume; lower-priced brands like Vans and New Balance would mean selling more pairs. Foot Locker's comparable sales fell 3.6% in Q2, and owner Dick's Sporting Goods, which bought it for $2.4 billion last year, already cut its full-year outlook in August.

Cost-of-living protests across France on October 17-18 ended in riots and looting, with about 3,000 businesses damaged, according to the government. Fashion stores were among the hardest hit, especially those stocking brands that sell well on resale, FashionUnited reports; the Alliance du Commerce estimates fashion shops' Saturday sales fell 14% on average, more in Lyon, Grenoble and Nantes. The government approved aid including partial unemployment, deferred social charges and interest-free loans.

On October 19 digital minister Anne Le Henanff summoned Vinted, Amazon, eBay, Leboncoin, Meta and TikTok and told platforms to remove listings for items stolen in the unrest, AFP reports. Vinted said it has "zero tolerance" and has stepped up monitoring; eBay said it could not confirm an increase in such listings.

Al Jazeera reports on AI tools that can generate or reproduce traditional Indian textile designs, from a system built by Shillong professor Bitupan Deka to create new gamusa motifs, to the Rekh Sanganeri dataset of hand-block prints and Tata Consultancy Services' Bridgital Loom, which turns designs into loom instructions and is being piloted in Kanchipuram.

Artisans quoted are split: Bagru block-printer Dinesh Chhipa says he doesn't fault digital tools but asks that they stop borrowing regional names like Bagru and Jaipuri; Kanchipuram weaver Ananthalakshmi Vadivel says machine imitations "can never replace the original." The piece notes that India floated a "blanket licence" for AI training in December 2025, but that intellectual property law assumes a traceable author, while a motif is communal property.

Kering's third-quarter revenue fell 1% on a comparable basis to €3.34 billion, below forecasts, with Gucci down 6% to €1.29 billion after a 2% drop in the second quarter, Vogue Business reports. Asia-Pacific excluding Japan fell 8% while North America grew 1%. CEO Luca de Meo called Gucci's recovery "our defining priority"; Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Brioni grew.

Hermès reported a 5.5% rise to about €4.1 billion, slightly below analyst expectations but with its full-year outlook confirmed, FashionUnited reports. The Americas rose 10.7% and Europe excluding France 8.6%, while Greater China dipped in the quarter; finance chief Eric du Halgouët cited a still-declining property market, low confidence and new tax rules for Chinese taxpayers.

China's second-hand luxury market grew 15-20% in 2025 while the mainland's personal luxury market shrank another 3-5% after plunging as much as 19% in 2024, according to Bain & Company figures cited by AFP (via FashionUnited). Insight & Info Consulting estimates second-hand sales reached 38.4 billion yuan ($5.7 billion) in 2025 and could top 100 billion yuan by 2030.

Louis Vuitton has closed five stores in mainland China in two years, and Galeries Lafayette shut its Beijing flagship in May. At Shanghai's two-storey Super Zhuanzhuan store, shoppers wear black gloves to handle the goods. "People used to compare who had spent more," a 24-year-old dance teacher told AFP. "But now everyone compares who got a better deal and spent less."

The World of Anna Sui opened at Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on October 21 and runs through February 28, 2027, Michigan Public reports. The show, which originated at London's Fashion and Textile Museum and was adapted by Cranbrook chief curator Laura Mott, covers more than four decades and over 100 looks, from mod and grunge to cowgirl and Pre-Raphaelite styles.

The Detroit-born designer, who calls her suburban upbringing "purely a product of pop culture," said she still has many roots in the city; she has endowed a scholarship at the College for Creative Studies and plans Detroit pop-ups, including one at Third Man Records. Mott says music, "from punk and grunge to mod and psychedelic rock," drives Sui's work.

LVMH opened the workshops, production sites, cellars and archives of 45 of its houses to the public free of charge from October 16 to 18, the first Journées Particulières since 2022, Oui Speak Fashion reports. The sixth edition covered 71 venues in 13 countries, 26 of them opening for the first time, under the theme "Aux Racines du Rêve." Shanghai opened the event with the country's first collective edition at Maison LVMH in the Zhangyuan district.

In Tokyo, Rimowa showed its Re-Crafted repair and refurbishment programme as a pop-up for the first time, and in Paris 69 artisans were named new LVMH Virtuosos. Antoine Arnault said the event avoided VR and AI staging to show artisans as they are and was not a customer promotion.

Textile Exchange named Theory, owned by Fast Retailing, among winners of its 2026 Climate and Nature Impact Awards at its annual conference in Vancouver, FashionUnited reports. Theory shared the Collaboration for Global Impact Award with Australia's Congi Farm, Sea Forest and Italian mill Botto Giuseppe for a pilot that fed the seaweed-based supplement SeaFeed to 2,000 Merino sheep for 120 days.

The pilot cut enteric methane by 43%, avoiding about 54.5 tonnes of CO2e, and the wool went into Theory's spring 2026 Regal Wool collection. Theory's Gonzalo Pertile said the lessons on "measurement, traceability, cost, and scalability" mattered as much as the results. Other winners included Green Worms founder Jabir Karat, Amiha Agro's Amitabh Singh for regenerative cotton and the Circulose recycling ecosystem.

Americans on GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro are altering the clothes they have instead of buying new ones, Reuters reports (via Vijesti and The Independent). Cobblers Direct, which has 25 stores in Texas, says it now shortens up to 500 belts a week; Manhattan's Jim's Cobbler Concierge calls the trend "belt-zempic." Rising out-of-pocket drug costs, a Trimi survey finding about 80% of users wear clothes that no longer fit, and University of Cambridge research showing patients regain an average of 60% of lost weight within a year of stopping make many reluctant to buy a new wardrobe.

In Europe, FashionUnited reports brands from Salomon to Next and Primark launched repair programmes in the first half of 2026. The Fédération de la Mode Circulaire and KPMG value the region's clothing and footwear repair market at about €2.8 billion in 2025, projected to reach €3.7 billion by 2030, though repair is labour-intensive and many low-quality garments aren't worth fixing.