Fashion: Change or sink?
How will textile retailers reinvent a business to succeed after the Covid-19 crisis? For the time being, bad news is piling up. An example is the announcement of Inditex, the Spanish leader in ready-to-wear, operator of Zara, Pull & Bear or Oysho, that up to 1,200 stores will close over the next 2 years. In the first quarter of 2020, losses reached €409 million. Celio International reported similar disastrous results, with losses of nearly €100 million between March and May 2020. All 1,585 stores were shut. This represents 488 points of sale in France, 484 in India, 62 in Spain, and 61 in Italy. This loss of earnings and an absence of agreement with banking partners prompted the company to launch a retrenchment. In a press release, Gaëlle de la Fosse, President of Celio from February 2019, assured the market that operations in 46 countries offer a position to “overcome this crisis”.