Luxury brands Watches of Switzerland and Burberry suffer on Trump tariffs April 3, 2025 The share prices of high-end retailers Watches of Switzerland and Burberry both slid today in the wake of Trump’s tariff announcement. Watches of Switzerland saw its share price drop more than 15 per cent, while Burberry’s share price fell by nearly seven per cent. “There are heavy losses for the luxury sector,” Kathleen Brooks, research [...]
Five key business travel trends in 2025 and beyond April 1, 2025 Just three years ago, the future of business travel hung in the balance. Office spaces were being relinquished, metaverse technologies promised a life of WFA (Work From Anywhere), and the threat of another Covid wave loitered on the horizon. But a new “Business Travel Trends 2025” report co-authored by the trend forecasting agency Globetrender and Amadeus [...]
Boutique Leicester Square hotel handed £42m price tag April 1, 2025 A recently-converted boutique hotel in London’s Leicester Square has been put on the market for £42m. The former office building on 2-5 Charing Cross Road has undergone a significant conversion project and is set to be fully operational by June. The announcement comes as former Natwest bank on London’s Piccadilly is also set to become [...]
Harvey Nichols: Losses near £100m at luxury department store chain as sales fall April 1, 2025 Harvey Nichols has now lost almost £100m since it last made a pre-tax profit, it has been revealed, after being hit by the cost-of-living crisis and high inflation during its latest financial year. Delayed accounts for the iconic retailer, which was founded in 1831, have revealed its pre-tax loss went from £21.2m to £35.3m in [...]
Aston Martin to accelerate bonuses after struggling to attract top talent March 26, 2025 Aston Martin is planning to pay its top bosses more than its fellow FTSE 250 companies after having struggled to attract talent in recent years. The Warwickshire-headquartered luxury car maker is proposing to increase the bonus opportunities for its chief executive and chief financial officer from 200 per cent to 250 per cent of their [...]
Will rising costs kill off Savile Row’s renaissance? March 25, 2025 On a Wednesday morning earlier this month, there was plenty of activity on the shop floor at the Georgian townhouse that plays home to Richard James’ bespoke suit-making. One staff member is on the phone discussing colours and time frames, another getting a glass of water for a customer in the changing room, and smartly [...]
Stella McCartney: Fashion brand suffers sales slump amid huge loss March 11, 2025 Sales at Stella McCartney’s fashion brand were slashed almost in half as its losses widened by £15m in the year before the designer bought out LVMH, it has been revealed. Accounts filed almost six months after the Companies House deadline show Stella McCartney Ltd’s turnover was slashed from £40m to £21.9m in 2023. The accounts [...]
Aboriginal healing: mind-body-spirit therapy unlike anything else March 10, 2025 Aboriginal healing therapies use some of the oldest techniques in the world. Lisa Kjellsson ventured into the wilderness to look inwards I’m in a location on the travel wish list of landscape photographers the world over. The sandstone cliffs above Number 16 Beach, in Rye on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, overlook a rock formation that resembles a dragon’s [...]
Diving for wine in the ocean paradise of the Maldives March 7, 2025 You don’t think of the Maldives as a wine country. It’s dry for a start, and no vines grow on these sandy atolls. But exciting things are happening here. Emerald Maldives Resort and Spa have started aging wine on the sea floor and, to show there are no depths I will not go to for [...]
No luxury markets outperformed the FTSE 100 last year March 5, 2025 The once reliable luxury market suffered last year, with even the top performers in the market only posting modest gains in a weak market. The Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII), which tracks the performance of 10 popular investments, fell 3.3 per cent for the second year in a row. The FTSE100, meanwhile, posted gains [...]