Drapers

O’Connor joins football player Kylian Mbappé and Thai actors Lingling and Orm in Dior’s roster of brand ambassadors. The luxury maison shared in a release: “Dior is delighted to welcome Josh O’Connor as the new ambassador for Jonathan Anderson’s collections.

Hague, who will also star in the dedicated campaign, shared the news via her Instagram story, stating “I can’t quite believe I’m saying this… but in 2026 I’ll be officially partnering with @adidasuk on a limited footwear collection”. Photos were shared via a collaborative Instagram post between Hague and Adidas, showing Hague standing on the back of an Adidas-branded lorry, retrieving piles of Adidas’ classic blue shoeboxes.

Retail and consumer corporate finance specialists at international advisory firm Interpath, Neil Sumner and Nicholas Hill, share their expectations for fashion mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in 2026. After a steady 2025, fashion and retail M&A are set for a pragmatic rebound in 2026. We’ll see a continuation of non-core disposals and consolidation.

Seymour will be tasked with driving and scaling talent and people operations across fashion, lifestyle and beauty, reporting into Skims CEO and co-founder Jens Grede. Seymour has almost three decades of HR experience behind her, across various Fortune 500 companies, most recently founding her own strategic HR advisory, Leadership Amplified, working closely with CEOs, executives and boards on more involved talent challenges.

Harvey Nichols last upgraded its loyalty scheme in 2022. A spokesperson told Drapers that it is now “upgrading the current loyalty programme to align with our new creative direction and the way our customers engage with us”. The luxury department store chain is revamping its Knightsbridge flagship under CEO Julia Goddard, who joined in 2024, and has stepped away from own-brand food products and holiday hampers in an effort to right size and reduce overheads.

Shields first joined Next as a sales assistant in 1985, climbing to sales director in 1999, then group sales and marketing director in 2010, and was appointed to the board as such in 2013. In his new role, Barnes will cover the lion’s share of Shields’ operational remit, across ecommerce, brand marketing, retail stores and online customer services. Barnes, who will join the board in his new role, joined Next in 1999. Several other non-executive changes have also been announced.

Carlyle is employing the services of Barclays and JP Morgan to facilitate the sale, which is expected to start imminently. The Barclay family, from whom Carlyle seized ownership of the business, had drawn up a series of earlier plans to offload the group. Plans for the sale process of Very Group, which owns Very and Littlewoods, were revealed via a Companies House filing by administrators to VGL Holdco, a corporate entity which now has no connection to Very’s operations, Sky News reports.

The business said that despite a “weak market”, “Tu clothing achieved a strong performance”. Within Christmas categories, Tu “delivered an exceptional performance”, notably in record sales of Christmas pyjamas. Volume growth “outperformed” the clothing market by 10 percentage points, which Sainsbury’s said reflects “a step up in style and quality perceptions and improved availability both in-store and online”.

Total UK footfall in 2025 was down 0.8% compared to 2024. The three months to Christmas, dubbed the ‘golden quarter’ in retail, saw a bigger decrease, which was down 2.5% year on year. High street footfall for the five week period was down 0.9% year on year, building on November’s 0.8% decline. Footfall in retail parks was also down, with a 2.5% year on year decline. This is down from a 0.4% dip in November.

Wright has 25 years of retail experience. During her three years at Frasers Group, which concluded in September 2025, she propelled its “Elevation” strategy across all sports brands, developing a priority-driven strategy that promoted business-wide growth. Wright also spent over 14 years at Nike which culminated in two years as VP and GM of its merchandising marketplace for EMEA. This involved ensuring availability of product across the Nike marketplace.