The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
The decision comes as the company faced public pressure to halt operations in the country, as a wave of retailers, including fast fashion rivals H&M and Zara, shut up shop.
Until today, the Japanese clothing giant had been a lonely voice maintaining its intention to continue operating its 50 stores in the Russian market.
”Clothing is a necessity of life. The people of Russia have the same right to live as we do,” Tadashi Yanai, the founder and chief executive of Uniqlo-parent Fast Retailing was quoted as saying by Japan’s Nikkei newspaper earlier this week.
The comments prompted a negative response from many users on social media and Ukraine’s ambassador to Japan, Sergiy Korsunsky, criticised the retailer on Twitter.
ADVERTISEMENT
Companies continuing to operate in Russia are also facing mounting logistical and operational challenges as a results of sanctions and broader corporate exits.
”[I]t has become clear to us that we can no longer proceed due to a number of difficulties,” Fast Retailing said in a statement Thursday, pointing to both operational challenges and the worsening conflict in Ukraine.
The company also said it has donated $10 million to UNHCR.
— Casey Hall
Whether or not brands keep doing business in Russia is largely being driven by logistical challenges rather than moral commitments.
As Ukraine faces its darkest hour, the country’s fashion community is asking the wider industry to act.
The sanctions against the Russian diamonds now have the diamond trade at the centre of the war, and could send jewellery companies reeling.
Local streetwear brands, festivals and stores selling major global labels remain relatively small but the country’s community of hypebeasts and sneakerheads is growing fast.
This week’s round-up of global markets fashion business news also features Senegalese investors, an Indian menswear giant and workers’ rights in Myanmar.
Though e-commerce reshaped retailing in the US and Europe even before the pandemic, a confluence of economic, financial and logistical circumstances kept the South American nation insulated from the trend until later.
This week’s round-up of global markets fashion business news also features Korean shopping app Ably, Kenya’s second-hand clothing trade and the EU’s bid to curb forced labour in Chinese cotton.