Shopping and Retail

September 8, 2020

Guitars Are Back, Baby!

Not so long ago, things didn’t look so great for the guitar, that global symbol of youthful freedom and rebellion for 70 years running. With hip-hop […]
September 2, 2020

Ho, Ho, Hum: Struggling Retailers Brace for a Muted Holiday Season

It’s only September, but Santa Claus is already nervous about coming to town. And he is not worried about whether kids are naughty or nice, as […]
September 2, 2020

Politics Is Back in Fashion

Around this time four years ago, the American fashion industry did something it had never done before: It pledged its troth, publicly, and practically unanimously, to […]
August 3, 2020

Nordstrom Uses Influencers to Promote Safety and Draw Anxious Shoppers

Wendy Nguyen, a fashionable Instagram personality with 1.1 million followers, is regularly tapped by retailers like Macy’s and Banana Republic to promote their wares on social […]
July 23, 2020

Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant Owner Ascena Retail Files for Bankruptcy

The owner of Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant, which just a few years ago was one of the country’s largest clothing retailers for women and girls, […]
July 22, 2020

Diane von Furstenberg’s Brand Is Left Exposed by the Pandemic

At the end of February, just as the coronavirus was beginning to cast its pall over Europe, an elite crowd that included the likes of Anna […]
July 16, 2020

Saying Goodbye to Totokaelo

Jill Wenger, the founder of the boutique Totokaelo, described her former customers like this: “Mature. Women that were not interested in doing what everyone else was […]
July 8, 2020

Brooks Brothers, Founded in 1818, Files for Bankruptcy

Brooks Brothers, the retailer known for dressing the great and good of the United States since 1818, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, buckling under the pressure […]
July 5, 2020

With Department Stores Disappearing, Malls Could Be Next

The directory map for the Northfield Square Mall in Bourbonnais, Ill., has three glaring spaces where large department stores once stood. Soon there will be a […]
June 18, 2020

How to Buy a Bike

It’s the summer of Covid, and bikes are everywhere — in parks, at protests, speeding across bridges and locked up outside. Every day, more people seem […]