This Week in Review ☕️: UK Elections | Nike tumbles to losing market share | Diana’s precious belongings auctioned for millions | M&S moves towards sustainability | Koo to shut down services |

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Quick Bites:

Politics 🙌🏻 : UK election: What’s happened and what comes next?

The Labour Party has won the UK general election and Sir Keir Starmer will become the new prime minister. 

“The result ends 14 years of Conservative government, during which five different prime ministers have run the country.“

Rishi Sunak, the outgoing PM, conceded at around 04:40 in the morning, acknowledging Labour had won and saying that he had called Sir Keir to congratulate him.

Ps; In his victory speech minutes later, the Labour leader promised “national renewal” and that he would put “country first, party second”. 😎

Key Highlights :

💡 Britain’s House of Commons has 650 MPs, or members of parliament. Each of their “seats” represents an individual constituency – or area – somewhere in the country.

💡 Labour will win 410 seats, the Conservatives will pick up 144 and centrist Lib Dems will take 58. Reform UK, a successor to the Brexit Party, is set to pick up four seats.

💡 As constituencies have declared their results live on television – with all candidates lined up next to each other on stage – there have been some major moments.

💡 Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Conservative business secretary and arch-Brexiteer, was one of the biggest names to suffer defeat. He lost his East Somerset and Hanham seat to Labour.

💡 Mr Sunak also won his seat in Yorkshire with a comfortable majority of around 12,000 – but used his acceptance speech to concede and confirm his party had lost the election.

Our Thoughts 💭:

Ps; Things move pretty fast in British politics – there is very little time between an election result and the installation of the new prime minister.🤯

Rishi Sunak will be out of 10 Downing Street – the British equivalent of the White House – within 24 hours, and Sir Keir Starmer will be installed swiftly afterwards.

But there is a process. Mr Sunak will offer his resignation to the King, and Sir Keir will formally invited by the monarch to form the next government in a meeting that normally happens at Buckingham Palace.

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Business 👟: Nike tumbles as upstarts grab market share

Nike has said it expects a surprise 10% drop in quarterly revenue, as it faces growing competition from newer rivals such as On and Hoka.

The news sent Nike shares plunging more than 12% in after hours trading, which could mean a loss of $15bn in market value if the losses hold on Friday.

Ps; The world’s largest sportswear company also told investors it is facing weakening demand in international markets, including in China.

💡 I wonder can brand like “Nike” a consumer’s favourite can also face a Low dip due to new competition🤯

But Nike is optimistic that new products and a marketing campaign at the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris will help the company regain momentum with consumers.

Our Thoughts 💭 :

💡 There’s a sense that Nike just hasn’t innovated enough, it hasn’t marketed enough, it hasn’t told enough stories around its products.

💡 The sportswear giant’s strategy to sell its products through its own stores and website instead of wholesales like Foot Locker hurt sales.

💡 Nike is currently the top sponsor of jerseys at the UEFA Euro 2024 football tournament, beating out brands like Adidas and Puma.

💡 They are sponsoring nine national teams including England, France and Portugal.

Ps; Nike needs to get on the front foot again in terms of persuading people to buy its products !! 🛍️🛒👟😎

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Culture 👗: Diana’s gowns and royal items auctioned for millions 💵

A collection of items once owned by members of the royal family, including dresses and notes by the late Princess Diana, has sold for more than £4 million at auction in California.

The sale featured more than 200 items, and was billed by auctioneers as the most extensive collection of Diana’s personal belongings since she held her own charity auction two months before her death in 1997. 

A magenta silk and lace off-the-shoulder evening dress designed by British Victor Edelstein, which Diana wore in London and Germany in 1987, topped the sale at $910,000 (£720,000) – four-and-a-half times its original lower estimate.

British creator Edelstein also designed the famous navy blue dress the princess wore when she danced with John Travolta at the White House in 1985.

Ps; We wonder what Princess Diana has to say about her precious items being sold off 🙈 Am a fashion icon 😎 will always will be…

Key Highlights, Reported by BBC:

💡 Princess Diana’s favourite designers including Edelstein, Caroline Charles, and Catherine Walker all featured in the auction titled Princess Diana’s Elegance & A Royal Collection, which was held at The Peninsula Beverly Hills in Los Angeles on 26 June.

💡 Meanwhile, a Murray Arbeid midnight blue strapless gown Princess Diana wore twice in 1986 and to a Royal Opera House performance of Cinderella in 1987 also topped its estimate. The gown sold for $780,000 (£617,000), almost four times its lower estimate.

💡 A pink floral silk shirt dress designed by Walker, which Diana wore to Prince William’s sports day at Richmond Stadium in 1988 as well as leaving Prince Harry’s school in Notting Hill in 1992, sold for $444,500 (£352,000).

💡 A portion of the auction proceeds from this gown will benefit Muscular Dystrophy UK, alongside other specified lots. The auction also featured more than 20 handwritten letters, notes, and holiday cards from Princess Diana.

💡 Many of the letters were written to Maud Pendrey, a former housekeeper at the Spencer family home at the Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire, where Diana grew up.

💡 A three-page handwritten letter to Mrs Pendrey in 1984, written when Diana was pregnant with Harry, sold for nearly 15 times its estimate at $44,450 (£35,000). While a two-page handwritten letter to Mr and Mrs Pendrey from Diana in 1985, which featured reference photos of William and Harry. Diana signed the letter “This comes with much love from the four of us” – and it sold for $28,575 (£23,000).

Our Thoughts 💭:

The phenomenal results of historic auction held just a few days before Princess Diana’s birthday demonstrates why Diana is and always will remain one of the world’s most beloved and inspiring cultural figures.

“These exquisite garments, shoes and accessories made not only fashion statements but also displayed her warmth and humanity that made Diana the most popular and greatest Royal style icon of all time.”

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Fashion 🛍️ : Marks & Spencer to launch clothing repairs service 🧵

Marks & Spencer is launching a new service for clothing repairs and alterations.

From August, customers will be able to book through a dedicated online hub and have their fixed items posted back to them within seven to ten days.

The work will be carried out by Deliveroo-style repairs start-up Sojo, and its in-house team of tailors, with prices starting at £5.

The move comes as retailers try to encourage more sustainable habits among their shoppers.

Ps; Customers now forget to buy new clothes… just get them repaired 🙋🏻‍♀️ We wonder how shopaholic will react to this news 😂. Well Well our dear shopaholic sustainability is important as well… REPAIR & REUSE !!

Sojo launched during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 with a mission to make repairing, not simply replacing, clothing more mainstream.

M&S said its partnership with Sojo aimed to provide customers with ways to extend the life of their clothing.

PS; Through the launch of the repair service, they’re making it even easier for customers to give their clothes Another life, whether they are using the new repair service or long-standing clothes recycling scheme.

Key Highlights:

💡 M&S is not alone in looking to repair services as a way to seemingly embrace and encourage sustainability.

💡 In January, Sojo took up a permanent space in Selfridges on London’s Oxford Street to provide customers with access to its clothing repairs service. The central London department store also gives shoppers access to handbag and trainer restoration services.

💡 Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo, perhaps best known for its viral shoulder bag, offers clothing repairs and additional services such as embroidery for Uniqlo items at six of its UK stores.

💡 John Lewis has made its fashion rental service and recycling scheme a key part of its consumer-facing sustainability strategy, alongside accepting and reselling pre-loved products such as electronics and furniture.

💡 High Street stores Primark and H&M provide customers with online guides for repairing and maintaining their clothes, such as how to sew buttons and zips on to items or rework them entirely. Primark has also held free repair workshops for customers across the UK and Europe since 2022.

Our Thoughts 💭:

It’s the move encouraging consumers to mend their clothes rather than throw them away. The goal is to meeting greater consumer demand for more sustainable practices.👕☘️

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Tech 📱: India’s X alternative Koo 🐥 to shut down services 😵

Millions of social media users in India are stranded after homegrown microblogging platform Koo, which had branded itself as an alternative to X, announced it was shutting services.

The platform’s founders said a shortage of funding along with high costs for technology had led to the decision. 

Launched in 2020, Koo offered messaging in more than 10 Indian languages.

It gained prominence in 2021 after several ministers endorsed it amid a row between the Indian government and X, which was then known as Twitter.

Key Highlights:

💡 The spat began after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government asked the US-based platform to block a list of accounts it claimed were spreading fake news. The list included journalists, news organisations and opposition politicians.

• India’s Twitter alternative with global ambitions
• The Indian government’s war with Twitter

💡 X complied initially but then restored the accounts, citing “insufficient justification”. The face-off continued as the government threatened legal action against the company’s employees in India.

💡 Amid the row, a flurry of supporters, cabinet ministers and officials from Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) migrated to Koo overnight. Many of them shared hashtags calling for X to be banned in India. By the end of 2021, the app had touched 20 million downloads in the country.

💡 However, the platform has struggled to get funding in the last few years. 

💡 On Wednesday, founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka said that Koo was “just months away” from beating X in India in 2022, but a “prolonged funder winter” had forced them to tone down their ambitions.

💡 In February, Indian news websites had reported that Koo was in talks to be acquired by news aggregator Dailyhunt. But the talks did not succeed.

💡 In April 2023, Koo fired 30% of its 260-member workforce as the company faced severe losses and a lack of funding.

💡 The founders said they would have liked to keep the app running – but the cost of technology services for that was high and so, they “had to take this tough decision”.

Our Thoughts 💭:

Too explored partnerships with multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates and media houses but these talks didn’t yield the outcome that they wanted.🤯

“Most of them didn’t want to deal with user-generated content and the wild nature of a social media company. A couple of them changed priority almost close to signing.”

Ps; India will miss you 🐥😣

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Quicker Bites:

• I’m not leaving, Biden says, as pressure to drop out grows.
• Australian Senator resigns after Gaza vote backlash.
• Jeff Bezos to sell another $5bn of Amazon shares.
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• Bad Sisters star Duff to return to London stage.

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