🇦🇪 Dubai Fashion Week welcomes designers from Malaysia to Morocco. The latest season of Dubai Fashion Week, held between Feb. 4-8 in the United Arab Emirates’ commercial capital, featured a number of brands from beyond the event’s immediate sphere of influence in the Gulf region. Event organisers have diversified the designer roster from brands mostly from the Middle East to those from the wider Islamic world including countries spanning North Africa and Southeast Asia. This edition saw the Moroccan-born Paris-based couturier Sara Chraibi and Malaysian designer duo Rizman Ruzaini present their Autumn/Winter 24/25 collections alongside Dubai residents like Lebanese-born Lama Jouni and Michael Cinco, a Filipino veteran of fashion week. [BoF Inbox]

🇮🇳 India’s S.P. Apparels to acquire Young Brand Apparels. The listed garment and textile manufacturer will pay 95 crore rupees ($11.4 million) for a 51.33 percent stake in Young Brand Apparels, a subsidiary of Bannari Amman Spinning Mills Ltd operating as a joint venture with Jacob Industries (USA) LLC and Intimark of Mexico, which produces intimate wear for export. [Economic Times]

🇲🇽 Latin American designers strike deals at Mexico’s Caravana Americana. The pioneering trade show founded by Regina Barrios and Alessandro Cerutti took place between Feb. 8-11 in Mexico City as part of the capital’s Art Week, showcasing 40 fashion and textile brands from countries like Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to regional retail buyers. [BoF Inbox, FashionNetwork]

🇰🇷 South Korean president’s wife is embroiled in a ‘Dior bag scandal’. President Yoon Suk Yeol has characterised video footage of the country’s first lady Kim Keon Hee ostensibly accepting the handbag as a gift as a “political manoeuvre” ahead of an election but conceded that he should “set clearer boundaries… to prevent something like this from happening in the future.” [Reuters]

🌍 Greenpeace protests companies dumping fast fashion waste in Africa. Activists and German celebrities campaigned at the Brandenburg Gate in front of a mountain of textile waste, sourced from Ghana’s Kantamanto secondhand market, at the start of Berlin Fashion Week, calling the fashion industry’s tactics “waste colonialism.” [Sourcing Journal]

🇨🇳 Global luxury brands diversify Chinese New Year marketing strategies. From Loro Piana’s knitwear featuring subtle dragon motifs to Burberry’s campaign shot in Chengdu of Chinese supermodels wearing outfits in red check print, global luxury brands employed a combination of predictable and imaginative strategies to mark the arrival of the year of the dragon on Feb 10. [Jing Daily]

🇪🇬 Wingoo Investment & Technology invests in Egypt’s Mira Cosmetics & Skincare. The locally made beauty brand founded by Amira Dawood in 2023 has secured a pre-seed round of investment of $200,000 from Wingoo, a firm led by Ahmed Al-Shehabi. [Daily News Egypt]

🇮🇳 Tata-owned Trent’s Q3 profit soars on festive demand in India. The company’s reported consolidated net profit of 3.71 billion rupees (about $45 million) for the quarter was up from 1.55 billion rupees a year earlier. It opened 5 new locations for its Westside department store and 50 stores for its value fashion brand Zudio during the period. [Reuters]

🇨🇳 L’Oréal full-year sales rise 11% but faced a slowdown in China. The French beauty giant reported its third consecutive year of double-digit growth, but sputtering progress in China worried investors. But CEO Nicolas Hieronimus noted that even if the market only grew in the mid-single digits each year, that would still be like adding “half of Italy” every year. [BoF]

🇮🇳 Indian department store V-Mart Retail sees profit rise 41.3 percent in Q3. Citing “good festive demand in the quarter,” the firm posted net profits of 28.23 crore rupees ($3.4 million) for the period across its nationwide footprint consisting of around 368 stores in 235 cities. [Economic Times]

🇧🇷 Farm Rio partners with Brazil’s indigenous Yawanawa community. The Rio de Janeiro-based brand has engaged artisans from Rio Gregorio in Acre state to produce a jewellery collection as part of a years-long partnership. Laura Yawanawa, the community’s leader, called it a “successful collaboration model” for other indigenous communities and companies to consider. [BoF Inbox]

🇮🇳 Indian textiles firm Trident sees profits fall nearly 25 percent in Q3. The firm, which supplies mostly cotton-made products to department stores such as Shoppers Stop, D-mart and Walmart, blamed the decline in profits to 1.09 billion rupees ($13.1 million) on the rising cost of raw materials. [Economic Times]

🇨🇳 Bulgari names Chinese actor Zhou Yiran as brand ambassador. The Italian brand has announced that the star of TV series like “When I Fly Towards You” will be a fragrance ambassador and appear in a new advertisement for Pour Homme Darjeeling Tea perfume. [Jing Daily]

🇮🇳 India’s Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail Limited (ABFRL) expands in Mauritius. The conglomerate, whose holdings include several Indian designer brands, multi-brand luxury retail chain The Collective and joint ventures with international brands including Galeries Lafayette, has partnered with Jetha Tulsidas to open the first stores in the island nation for its menswear brands Louis Philippe and Peter England. [Economic Times]

🇰🇷 South Korean actress Lim Ji-yeon becomes brand ambassador for Loewe. The award-winning star of movies like “Obsessed,” “The Treacherous” and “Luck-key” was tapped by the Spanish luxury brand because her “vibe really aligns with what we do at Loewe,” said creative director Jonathan Anderson in a statement. [BoF Inbox]

🇨🇳 Versace taps Chinese K-pop star Ningning as global brand ambassador. Artistic director of the Italian brand, Donatella Versace, said that she signed the member of South Korean girl group Aespa because “she has a strong, confident vision, incredible energy and talent and she looks amazing wearing our clothes.” [BoF Inbox]

🌍 The LVMH Prize reveals 2024 semi-finalists from around the world. In addition to those who originate in North America and Western Europe, young designers hail from a diverse range of countries across other regions including: Mexico and Brazil in Latin America, Togo in Africa, China, South Korea and Japan in Asia, Israel in the Middle East and Moldova in Eastern Europe. [BoF]

🇨🇳 Emporio Armani appoints Zhou Yutong as brand ambassador. From Spring/Summer 2024, the Chinese actress feted for her performance in ‘Young Blood’ will be the face of the brand’s women’s advertising campaigns for watches, jewellery and eyewear, serving as an ambassador for Greater China & Asia Pacific markets. [BoF Inbox]