Russia has imported leather and footwear worth USD 3.9 billion in 2018, and India's exports to that country stood at only USD 52.6 million, said Panaruna Aqeel Ahmed, chairman of Council for Leather Exports (CLE).

"The newly launched footwear range is available in 90 stores. We plan to further expand and make it accessible at more stores in the coming seasons," said Somdeb Basu, head of foot apparel and accessories at W.

The donation will impact a number of countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia-Pacific, including India.

The pandemic is also likely to catalyse the shift to e-commerce.

Women’s share in the activewear category has gone up for sports brands such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas and Puma because of an increase in their participation in sports and other activities such as running, yoga, pilates and Zumba.

The production of high-tech running shoes at its so-called speedfactories in Germany's Ansbach and in the US city of Atlanta "will be discontinued by April 2020 at the latest", Adidas said in a statement.

Big brands have quit Amazon's platform due to sales of counterfeit products and unauthorised sellers which undermines the value of the original brands.

The brand will expand into Hyderabad, Goa, Kochi, Pune and Mysuru next year by introducing products through a mix of exclusive and multi-brand outlets, Xtep India director Vijay Chowdhary said at an event here organised in memory of US-born boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

Chhetri joins the brand's roster of global players like Antoine Griezmann, Romelu Lukaku, Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero among others.

French retailer Decathlon’s refusal to do business with customers who refuse to share their contact details has sparked a wave of protests on social media.

Campus Activewear is part of the Synergy Action Group that sells 100,000 pairs of shoes every day through more than 50,000, mostly third-party, outlets, according to Action Shoes’ website.

Sportswear makers say sales in tier II and III towns have grown exponentially in the last few years and contribute a sizable percentage of their revenue now.

"Our business activity in Greater China has been around 85 percent below the prior year level since Chinese New Year on January 25," Adidas said in a statement.

“The Puma and First Mile programme has diverted about 40 tonnes of plastic waste from landfills and oceans, just for the products made for 2020. This roughly translates into 1,980,286 plastic bottles being reused,” said Stefan Seidel, head of corporate sustainability for Puma, in a press statement

Puma operates 365 owned stores in India, and over the past three years, has signed up cricketer Virat Kohli, boxer Mary Kom, footballer Sunil Chhetri and actress Sarah Ali Khan to endorse its products.

According to the company, Puma's collaboration with the Indian cricket captain saw a massive rise in sales in FY2019 with sales through One8 accounting for almost 10 per cent of its overall sales, and cementing the leadership position by a wider margin.

Vatika has leased this space to French firm Decathlon, which is into retailing of sports goods, at its project 'Shopper's Village INXT' in New Gurugram, Haryana.

In a letter to the brand’s business partners, Bjorn Gulden, global CEO of Puma SE, announced Ganguly’s elevation in the company adding that that he will continue to work out of Puma’s India head office in Bengaluru.

Khan will be the face for Puma’s soon-to-be launched collection of low-intensity training apparel collection targeted at workouts such as yoga, barre, and pilates. The new line will be launched in April and retailed both online and offline.

China accounted for 20% of Adidas sales in 2018. It sells its products from about 12,000 stores in China, most franchises plus fewer than 500 of its own stores. Almost a fifth of its shoes and apparel are produced in the country.

With this campaign, the brand aims to highlight the inspirational stories of real women, influencers and athletes from different age groups and fields through the medium of a film, said the company.

"We would like to wholeheartedly apologise. We have paid our landlords the rent for April." Adidas, which made a net profit of nearly two billion euros ($2.2 billion) in 2019, has been hard hit by a slump in Chinese sales and store closures around the world.

Adidas said 60% of its business was currently at a standstill, with more than 70% of its stores closed worldwide and all big sporting events - including the Tokyo Olympics and Euro soccer tournament - postponed or cancelled.

Puma said it expected all markets to recover by the end of the year and for growth to return in 2021, noting that the crisis has made many people do more sports than before and has strengthened the trend towards more casual dressing.

No large-cap company in the FMCG/ retail space is offering growth visibility as high as Titan.

​​​​Voganow Fashion owned Brune & Bareskin sells leather jackets, footwear, bags and accessories for men on online platforms such as Myntra, Jabong and Snapdeal.

​​The Bluetooth-enabled smart sunglasses by Titan’s eyewear division will allow users to listen to music with 8-hour playtime. An in-built mic will give access to Siri and Google assistant and allow hands-free calling.

The company had posted Rs 314.38 crore profit in the year-ago period.

Analysts have largely cut their FY20 earnings forecast for the Tata Group firm by 4-10 per cent.

Our revenues were flat in a quarter where the industry consumption on gold was minus 32% in tonnes.

“We have bagged a multi-million dollar order from the Ministry of Defence to make rucksacks for the Indian army. It is an unchartered territory but creating an ideal rucksack for an Indian jawaan who spends maximum time outdoors in challenging terrain will be good learning. The order will be executed next year,” said Siddharth Sood, cofounder of Wildcraft India.

While early movers like Rolex, Omega and Tag Heuer entered India in early noughties, a clutch of global luxury watches like Panerai are now placing bets on the Indian market, keeping in mind a longer investment horizon. In a bid to create a deeper connect with the Indian consumers, Panerai launched two MS Dhoni special edition watches on Wednesday.

Total expenses for fiscal year 2019 came in at Rs 514.52 crore, up about 20% compared to the year-ago period when expenses were at Rs 429 crore.

“Sales in all divisions in the second half of December were also impacted to some extent due to forced store closures due to the protests in the North East and in many other parts of the country,” the company said in a stock exchange filing on Saturday.

The growth of healthy lifestyle has added impetus to the athleisure trend.

The revenue growth was led by the jewellery segment, while growth in other segments were muted during the quarter.

“We certainly expect FY21 to better than FY20, because we are going to work smarter and harder on many things that we need to do. But at the same time, we are prepared for a situation which is going to be very-very tough.”

Retail in India has not developed at the same pace as the products. Getting good quality retail is a challenge. The country has limited number of malls. There is no high street.

Jewellery remains the main business of the company, generating most of its operating profit (EBIT). It added 34 jewellery stores in the first nine months and plans to add another 16 by the end of the fiscal taking the total store count to 337.

The watchmaker will form a development centre in Hyderabad with HUG in hardware, firmware, software and cloud technology and has appointed the company's founder Raj Neravati to head technology for wearables at Titan Company.

According to the company, each piece will have features such as front quick-access pockets, anti-theft zippers, mesh back padding and multiple spacious compartments found throughout the collection.

“Titan phased out its older models and launched Fastrack’s Reflex 2.0 in the 2018Q3. It helped the brand to get a healthy 70% sequential growth in its overall shipments in the overall wearable segment,” IDC said.

Exports to Hong Kong, the sector's biggest market, plummeted 41.3 percent, while exports to France fell 48 percent, and those to South Korea were down 46.2 percent.

​Chumbak founder Vivek Prabhakar will continue as head of marketing and digital, and co-founder Shubhra Chaddha will continue to head product and design.

Vinyl – Mego

Peter Rehberg, the owner and founder of the label Editions Mego, is behind the moniker Pita. Since the mid nineties he has been a prolific composer but he is more moderate in his solo releases producing only →

The unpredictable resurgence of vinyl has rekindled an interest in physical sonic structures. Gilles Azzaro’s “Macrogroove” realises the idea of a three-dimensional sonogram. It is a 3D printed ‘audio coding’, which is played by a laser beam, scanning the form →

The MIT Press, ISBN-13: 978-0262039802, English, 464 pages, 2019, USA

Nam June Paik is back in the limelight, thanks to an important historical exhibition at Tate Modern (see the report in this issue). There has →

The elderly Viv notices our presence and invites us to sit in her kitchen, right there in front of her, where she can see us. Thus began the interactive video experience “The Visit“, born from the collaboration of the artist →

Duke University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0822368687, English, 288 pages, 2019, USA

Eidsheim starts this book by introducing ‘the acousmatic question’ (“who’s this, who’s speaking?”) to discuss the dichotomy between a sound and its source before and →

Italian artist and teacher Giacomo Verde passed away today. Video artist and activist he has explored the use of electronic and digital video image in theatre and performances. Among the highlights in his career he collaborated with Van Gogh TV →