posted: 22 March, 2019

Welcome to the fourth edition of Dispatches, our hand-picked round-up of the most interesting ideas, innovations, and insight from the global retail, fashion, and tech industry news.

This week we raise an eyebrow at Instagram stepping out in fancy new mall garb (spoiler alert – we reckon this’ll be BIG), the mixed-up world of co-mingled orders fulfilled by Amazon, chin-stroke at how Levi Strauss endures like your dad’s old 501s , and much more besides.

Feed your mind (and the rest will follow)…

• Instagram wants to be your mall
  Shopping has long represented a major opportunity for the platform. A new feature, introduced with Nike, Burberry, Zara and more, will grease the wheels by letting you buy without leaving the app.
  [NY Times]

• Amazon (sub)Prime?
  [FT Alphaville]

• How Sears lost the American shopper
  It once dominated retailing – an oral history of its undoing from executives and employees who lived it.
  [WSJ]

• Levi’s, whose jeans are a rugged symbol of Americana, prepares to go public
  The maker of denim and Dockers will start trading this week, a milestone for a 165-year-old company that has experienced a resurgence in the past decade.
  [NY Times]

• Levi Strauss is as enduring as a pair of vintage jeans
  The denim company’s brand has proved tough enough to survive years of wear and tear.
  [Financial Times]

• The war on tax avoidance has been a remarkable and lucrative success
  [Times]

• The watchmaker of Shenzhen
  Lin Yong Hua, a self-taught creator, is one of the few craftsmen in China accredited by a Swiss industry association.
  [NY Times]

• A View from the Top with Jo Malone: ‘When I’m creating, I come alive’
  The entrepreneur’s second brand, Jo Loves, was born without any external help and she tells Zlata Rodionova she is now finally ready to take it onto the global stage.
  [Independent]

• Hudson Yards is Manhattan’s biggest, newest, slickest gated community. Is this the neighborhood. New York deserves?
  [New York Times]

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