Rush for bags and scarves helps Burberry offset China Covid slump

Burberry offset a plunge in Chinese sales of more than a fifth amid Covid disruption, thanks to the return of tourists to Europe who snapped up bags, scarves and trenchcoats in the run-up to Christmas. The British luxury goods firm reported a 1% increase in global sales in the three months to the end of December, below its 2% target and sharply down compared with the 11% growth reported in the previous quarter. Burberry sales plunged 23% year on year in mainland China because of Covid lockdowns followed by a…

Xinjiang cotton found in Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss tops, researchers say

Researchers say they have found traces of Xinjiang cotton in shirts and T-shirts made by Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss, appearing to contradict the German clothing companies’ promises to revise their supply chains after allegations of widespread forced labour in the Chinese region. Recent reports have suggested more than half a million people from minority ethnic groups such as the Uyghurs have been coerced into picking cotton in Xinjiang, which provides more than 80% of China’s and a fifth of the global production of cotton. The US banned cotton imports…

‘They took my world’: fashion giant Shein accused of art theft

Vanessa Bowman paints the world around her: the 19th-century village church, her back garden, the leaves on the trees in the fields where she walks her dog. Once she has chosen a scene from her rural Dorset idyll, she puts brush to canvas, sometimes poring over the details for days in her studio. Over three decades she has honed a unique style and earned a loyal fanbase, with 20,000 followers on Instagram and commissions from House & Garden, Prince Charles’s Highgrove shop and Farrow & Ball. But when she received…