Tom Ford Relaunches Under Peter Hawkings and Moschino Celebrates 40 Years 

A model walks the runway at the Tom Ford fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 on September 21, 2023 in Milan. (AFP)
A model walks the runway at the Tom Ford fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 on September 21, 2023 in Milan. (AFP)
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Tom Ford Relaunches Under Peter Hawkings and Moschino Celebrates 40 Years 

A model walks the runway at the Tom Ford fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 on September 21, 2023 in Milan. (AFP)
A model walks the runway at the Tom Ford fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 on September 21, 2023 in Milan. (AFP)

Milan Fashion Week continued Thursday for the second day with mostly womenswear previews for next spring and summer under a steady rain.

Here are some scenes as Milan designers try to keep the focus on warm weather:

TOM FORD RETURNS TO MILAN ROOTS Peter Hawkings has come full circle, making his runway debut as creative director of the Tom Ford brand Thursday in Milan, where he started working with Ford at Gucci 25 years ago.

Fashionistas entered the Tom Ford world through plush, champagne-colored carpet, beckoning luxury.

Models trod comfortably on stiletto heels, showing leg in shorts worn with tailored jackets, revealing their form in clingy, floor sweeping dresses, and fully inhabiting velvet suits with silken shirts with the trademark Tom Ford plunging neckline.

Hawkings freely acknowledged that his design codes owe a lot to the 25 years he worked alongside Ford, who passed the torch last April. "The design ethos is ingrained in me," he said backstage.

The collection was inspired by Donyale Luna, a Detroit-born Black supermodel who was a muse to Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon.

But Hawkings said his wife, Whitney, equally embodies the Tom Ford woman, one with strong opinions. The pair met at Gucci back in the day.

"I run everything by her. She will tell me whether she loves something, hates something, how it fits, how comfortable it is. I can't try the clothes on, but she can. And she can give me constant feedback," he said.

Whitney wiped tears after the show. "I feel hugely emotional about the whole thing," she said. "It is like going back, but it is a huge step forward. It’s a lot going on. It’s family after all."

MOSCHINO EMPOWERS WOMEN AS IT MARKS 40TH ANNIVERSARY Moschino briefly passed the torch to four top female stylists as the brand marked its 40th anniversary with an homage to founder, the late Franco Moschino.

Fashion designer Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele created a high-low, mix-match collection that can go anywhere and suit any woman. Gabriella Karefa-Johnson tapped a rap vein with high-energy hip looks featuring ruffled, tiered skirts, denim and granny squares that were size-inclusive.

Lucia Liu tapped Moschino's romantic vision, capping her collection with a cake-topper dresser with layers of pink bows, rosettes and boas, fit for the Barbie-moment. And Katie Grand let loose with dancewear from leotards with humorous graphic references and cutouts, exaggerated tutus and ironic slogans like Loud Luxury. Her models — professional dancers — brought the runway to life with a writhing, grinding, irreverent routine.

"We found the codes that we thought would be the most visually dissonant from one another," Karefa-Johnson said. "The challenge was creating cohesive looks within that, which is what I love as a stylist."

A successor to Jeremy Scott, who stepped down in March after a decade as creative director, is pending. But the spirit of Franco Moschino lives on.

BENETTON REACHES ACROSS GENERATIONS There’s a lot of floral-on-floral action in Benetton’s new co-ed, generation-spanning collection for Spring-Summer 2024, unveiled Thursday on the second day of Milan Fashion Week.

The Italian brand known as much for its consciousness-raising ad campaigns as for its bright knitwear is not looking to nudge into the luxury space, but rather into the every-day rotation of colorful dressers looking for elevated basics.

Andrea Incontri, in his third collection for the brand, reimagined Benetton’s mainstays and injected fun with bright monochromes that segued into the season’s upbeat strawberry and banana motifs, closing with tight floral prints that the designer treats as a wildflower patch: mix and match at will.

Denim looks punctuated the color, in two sweet miniskirt-jacket combos for her and shorts for him. The collection was mirrored across generations, underlined by babies and children accompanied by model parents.

Incontri said backstage that his aim is not to create iconic pieces so much as make the wearer feel that "you are iconic. You are expressing yourself with style."



Uniqlo Operator Fast Retailing Seen Posting 14% Jump in Q2 Profit as Tariffs Loom 

Shoppers walk past Uniqlo store in King of Prussia Mall, as global markets brace for a hit to trade and growth caused by US President Donald Trump's decision to impose import tariffs on dozens of countries, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, US, April 3, 2025. (Reuters)
Shoppers walk past Uniqlo store in King of Prussia Mall, as global markets brace for a hit to trade and growth caused by US President Donald Trump's decision to impose import tariffs on dozens of countries, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, US, April 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Uniqlo Operator Fast Retailing Seen Posting 14% Jump in Q2 Profit as Tariffs Loom 

Shoppers walk past Uniqlo store in King of Prussia Mall, as global markets brace for a hit to trade and growth caused by US President Donald Trump's decision to impose import tariffs on dozens of countries, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, US, April 3, 2025. (Reuters)
Shoppers walk past Uniqlo store in King of Prussia Mall, as global markets brace for a hit to trade and growth caused by US President Donald Trump's decision to impose import tariffs on dozens of countries, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, US, April 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The operator of Uniqlo, Japan's Fast Retailing, is expected to post another quarter of strong earnings on Thursday, but the focus will be on how the global clothing chain navigates a trade environment thrown into disarray by new US tariffs.

Fast Retailing is expected to post a 14% rise in operating profit to 125.9 billion yen ($866 million) in the three months through February from a year earlier, based on the LSEG consensus forecast drawn from six analysts.

That would be a record for the second quarter and a near doubling of the 7.4% profit growth of the first quarter.

From one store in Hiroshima, western Japan, 40 years ago, Uniqlo has grown to more than 2,500 locations across the world, selling inexpensive fleeces and cotton shirts made primarily in China and other Asian manufacturing hubs.

But that business model has been upended by widespread tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump, along with retaliation by some of America's trading partners.

The company has recently looked to North America and Europe for growth due to a slowing economy in China, its largest overseas consumer market with more than 900 Uniqlo stores on the mainland.

The tariffs will certainly be a negative for Fast Retailing, said independent analyst Mark Chadwick, but the measures will have the same impact on its retail peers and have a worse effect on other industries.

"Textile supply chains are probably more flexible than, say auto supply chains," said Chadwick, who writes on the Smartkarma platform. "In short, US tariffs will have a negative impact on Fast earnings looking out over the next 12 months, but less so than other global firms like Nintendo, Toyota."

SHARES RETREAT AFTER 2024 JUMP

Fast Retailing shares have fallen more than 4% this month, as Trump laid out his tariffs plan. They are down 19% in 2025, after surging nearly 50% last year.

Its founder Tadashi Yanai, Japan's richest man, aims to make his company the world's No. 1 clothing brand. Yanai, due to speak at Thursday's earnings briefing, has long been an advocate of free trade and has defended the company's business dealings in China when human rights concerns there have sprung up.

Trump said Japan would be hit with a 24% reciprocal tariff on non-auto products, while duties on Chinese goods will rise to 104%.

UBS analysts said that Uniqlo goods shipped to North America are procured from sources outside China, and Fast Retailing's tariff costs would be an estimated 34.3 billion yen next fiscal year, curbing business profit by about 6%.

"We will be watching closely whether a heightened price consciousness among consumers leads them to re-rate the balance between value and pricing at Uniqlo, potentially translating into business opportunities over the medium term," UBS's Takahiro Kazahaya wrote in a report this week.

Fast Retailing expects operating profit to reach 530 billion yen in the fiscal year ending in August, which would be a fourth straight year of record earnings.

Domestic sales have recently gotten a boost from a surge in duty-free shopping amid a tourism boom in Japan fueled by a weak yen.