🇮🇳 Indian designers cast a new mix of Bollywood stars for Lakme Fashion Week. This season’s showcase, held from Oct. 11 to 15, saw actors like Athiya Shetty, Karisma Kapoor, Ananya Pandey, Rana Daggubati, Janhvi Kapoor, Disha Patani and Parineeti Chopra walk the runway. Cosmetics giant and title sponsor Lakme, owned by Hindustan Unilever, joined forces with the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) and Reliance Brands to host the biannual event which alternates between Mumbai and Delhi for the winter festive and summer resort seasons. The latest edition was held in the latter city, featuring local labels like Tarun Tahiliani, Amit Aggarwal, Falguni Shane Peacock, Aneeth Arora and Raw Mango as well as international guests including New York-based Bibhu Mohapatra. [Arnika Thakur for BoF]

🇨🇳 Shiseido’s online sales hit by Chinese boycott of some Japanese cosmetics. Since June, a cohort of Chinese consumers have been concerned about Japan’s release of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, even though Tokyo maintains that the water from the Fukushima nuclear plant damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 has been extensively treated, bringing it in line with the World Health Organization’s drinking water standards. The ensuing boycott has caused Shiseido’s online sales in China to decline 7 percent over the past six months, according to Chinese data providers, but a Bernstein analyst said that “eventually consumers will realise there is limited exposure and move on.” [Financial Times]

Middle Eastern stores and events affected by Israel-Hamas war. Ten days after Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel, the conflict looks set to intensify as Israel prepares the next phase of its military response in Gaza, where the United Nations is warning of a “calamitous situation” for the civilian Palestinian population. Many fashion professionals are mourning the loss of life on both sides of the conflict and some brands are donating to charities to provide humanitarian relief. Shortly after the initial attacks, global brands such as H&M and Zara temporarily shuttered their Israeli stores but some Israeli fashion factories, retailers and companies, such as Delta Galil, continued uninterrupted or quickly resumed operations. In Gaza, where critical infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, retail districts have also been affected. Fashion business leaders are now monitoring how the situation could further impact the industry in the wider Middle East region. So far, Dubai Fashion Week went ahead as planned and Riyadh Fashion Week said it plans to proceed in Saudi Arabia, but the Fashion Trust Arabia and We Design Beirut events were postponed in Qatar and Lebanon respectively. At brand level, some luxury players are postponing or cancelling events in Dubai, but others are going ahead. [Reuters, Sourcing Journal, Jerusalem Post, Al Jazeera, BoF Inbox]

🇲🇽 Fashion Week Mexico celebrates 40th edition with varied line-up. Mexico’s main fashion week, presented by title sponsor Mercedes-Benz in the Mexican capital from Oct. 9-12, saw local designer heavyweights like Carla Fernandez, Lorena Saravia and Francisco Cancino present their latest collections alongside guest designers from the wider Latin America region such as Venezuela’s Efrain Mogollon. [BoF Inbox, Forbes Mexico]

🇺🇿 Activists accuse major Uzbekistan cotton producer of human rights violations. The Uzbek Forum for Human Rights filed a complaint against Indorama Agro, claiming it had engaged in union busting and “land grabbing” in the Central Asian nation which is one of the world’s top ten cotton producing countries. The move prompted Better Cotton to suspend the firm from the sustainable cotton initiative, and a response from the firm saying the allegations were “flawed, misleading and biased.” [Sourcing Journal]

🇨🇳 China Duty Free Group’s parent company posts 29% surge in profit. China Tourism Group Duty Free Corporation Limited (China Tourism Group), one of the world’s largest travel retailers and a major player in China’s domestic duty-free hub Hainan where global fashion and beauty brands continue to invest, saw operating income rise to 50.837 billion yuan ($6.96 billion) for the nine months ended 30 September. [Moodie Davitt Report]

🇮🇳 India’s Mensa Brands raises $40 million in growth capital from EvolutionX. Founded by former Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan in May 2021 and becoming a unicorn six months later, the Indian e-fashion group has amassed $200 million in equity from prominent global investors since then. It secured the latest round of funding from the Singapore-based debt financing platform established jointly by DBS and Temasek. Mensa’s portfolio of e-commerce and digital-first consumer brands includes fashion companies Dennis Lingo, High Star, Anubhutee, Hubberholme, Kagiri, Ishin Fashions, Priyaasi, Bonkids and Lilpicks. [Business Standard]

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia’s Cenomi Retail to bring global high-street brands to Uzbekistan. The Riyadh-based firm, formerly known as the Alhokair Fashion Retail unit of Fawaz Abdulaziz Alhokair Co., has a portfolio of franchise businesses and other partnerships with more than 95 brands, including Zara and Aldo, for markets in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, Caucasus and Balkans regions. It has signed an agreement with the new Tashkent City Mall to bring several international brands to Uzbekistan’s capital after it opens. [Middle East Retail News]

🇳🇬 Nigeria-based World Shoe Inc. sets up antimicrobial footwear factory in Ghana. The social enterprise founded by Nigerian businessman and philanthropist Manny Ohonme, targets some of the world’s poorest consumers, providing a product that prioritises comfort and breathability in a range of climates and protects against tropical disease and soil-transmitted helminths through a durable antimicrobial EVA foam. “This [shoe]… has the potential to revolutionise how we achieve greater health and economic equity,” said Astor Chambers, VP of marketing for World Shoe, and a veteran of Nike and Adidas. [Business Wire]

🇰🇷 Louis Vuitton taps South Korean girl group Le Sserafim as brand ambassadors. The five K-pop band members, Kim Chae-won, Huh Yun-jin, Hong Eun-chae, Kazuha and Sakura, have appeared in a campaign for the French luxury brand featuring a capsule collection of bags available in the Korean market. The group joins other K-pop stars who have partnered with the brand including Stray Kids’ Felx, Got7′s Jackson Wang, BTS’s J-Hope and NewJeans’ Hyein. [L’Officiel Singapore]

Taipei Fashion Week designers focus on streetwear and youth culture. Taiwan’s main fashion week showcase is holding runways and events from Oct. 11- 19 across Taipei featuring the Spring/Summer 24 collections from brands including Acrypsis, 67Arrow, Anowhereman, Just in XX, Plateau Studio and Oqliq. The event, which was renamed in 2018 and overseen by Taiwan’s deputy minister of culture Sue Wang, is now led by the general manager of Condé Nast Taiwan, CM Liu, who acts as the lead project manager. This season, the event overlaps with the Taipei Innovative Textile Application Show (TITAS), which kicked off on the 17th. [Taiwan News, Fibre2Fashion, BoF Inbox]