Fashion
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Mellow yellow
Spring is here and it’s time to get friendly with this season’s shorts. If it’s a bit early to bare, we suggest lightweight cotton trousers, 1920s-inspired knits and blazers for mooching.
Time warp
As timepiece sales fall, watchmakers look to their archives, relaunching or emphasising classic, sober designs that represent long-term investments for customers and promoting consistency over crisis in a nervous market.
The X-tractor
We visit a 90-year-old tractor firm in northern Italy. Through innovation and careful brand acquisition, it has quietly remained an engineering powerhouse, proving the DNA of its enduring success.
Raising the steaks
Omi beef from Japan’s Shiga prefecture is little known internationally. But its butter-soft consistency means that restaurateurs, meat producers and diners from New York to Australia are taking notice.
Speed merchant
Tadashi Yanai, president of Fast Retailing and the richest man in Japan, is expanding his Uniqlo empire. Following record sales, he is taking his low-cost chain to Paris and Singapore.
Fashion
The new shoemaker with old-fashioned values, hand-embroidered dresses from Mexico and Peru, a new take on desert boots, and Adidas's latest diffusion.
Show must go on
In the shadow of a retail slowdown, this year’s Pitti Immagine Uomo had an air of solidarity and optimism, with bright, playful clothing bucking the usual neutrals of ‘recession chic’.
Variety show
Gumpendorferstrasse in Vienna’s Mariahilf area offers a diverse shopping experience. Let the late 19th- to mid-20th-century signage that crowns the shop windows be your guide on this stand-out street.
The shopping forecast
A special report on the state of global retail and how to go about fixing it.
