Common Threads Round Up #20
Guess what? More updates on tariffs! And other things you might have missed in fashion.
🗓️ Wednesday, May 14th 2025
Source: Vogue Business
🇨🇳 US and China Agree To Slash Tariffs for 90 Days In Major Trade Breakthrough - CNBC
Let’s talk tariffs! Reciprocal tariffs are cut for 90 days under a new trade deal with China. There’s no guarantee what will happen after those 90 days, so while there is breathing room for brands to figure out next steps, there’s still a lot of whiplash and uncertainty. Vogue Business reports that brands who were considering a move out of China will still likely do so given the tumultuous global trade situation. One thing that didn’t change in this agreement? The de minimis loophole that Shein and Temu used to avoid duties on goods under $800.
And one more thing about tariffs? They’re helping make the US a lot of money so we don’t expect they’ll all just disappear.
🏷️ See How Shein Outfits Cost More Under Trump’s Trade War - Washington Post
Speaking of Shein…Rachel Lerman and Jeremy Merrill put together an article for WaPo that breaks down the price increases (but with fun illustrations!). As the US market is uncertain and demand has shrunk over tariff fears, Shein is investing more in advertising across Britain and Europe to make up for softening sales. Will be interesting to see how they do in countries where transparency in fashion is expected and consumers care more about how and where their goods are made. Just look at this piece from Le Monde about their visit to Shein’s factories.
👗 Inside the secretive world of Zara - BBC
So much of our fast fashion coverage talks about Shein and Temu that Zara has been sliding under the radar a bit. Zara is notoriously a bit secretive, but they chatted with BBC about tariffs, inspiration and trend forecasting, sales and its design process.
💸 Resale Welcomes a Wave of ‘Tariff-ied’ New Customers - BOF
Okay one last mention about tariffs and then we’ll move on - they’re driving customers to download more resale apps and shop secondhand options. Forbes also covered this topic.
✈️ Vogue’s Vintage Guides
Okay no more politics. We stumbled upon Vogue’s vintage guides to various cities - you can find more on their site, but here are links to to Dallas, Sao Paolo and Tokyo. More of this! It’s nice to see the media promote secondhand and vintage stories, brands, businesses, products - especially as so much of their revenue comes from affiliate sales which are harder to make an impact on secondhand items as there is no buying in bulk.
That’s it for now! Until next week 🤙
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