Editors' Top Reads: News from Zara, Boden, the Oscars and more...
Here are some of this week’s news and features highlights handpicked by TheIndustry.fashion team.
Glittering glamour: Stars embrace sparkles, feathers and bold colour at 2026 Oscars
I have to admit - I'm a total awards-show fan. From the Baftas to the Oscars to the Brits, I’ll be watching every red-carpet moment. I love the films and pop culture, of course, but it’s the fashion that really steals my attention - and this year’s looks did not disappoint.
Glamorous sparkles are an awards-season staple, and celebrities like Emma Stone, Teyana Taylor and Elle Fanning showed how to bring the trend into 2026 at the 98th Academy Awards earlier this week.
Emma Stone, who has absolutely dominated awards season (that butter-yellow dress at the Golden Globes is still unforgettable), once again embraced glamorous minimalism in a silvery-white Louis Vuitton gown. With Jane Austen-inspired capped sleeves and a 21st-century twist in the form of a dramatic scooped back and plunging neckline, it was the perfect balance of elegance and modernity.
Beyond sparkle, Jessie Buckley - who won Best Actress for her leading role in Hamnet - brought colour to the red carpet, wearing a vibrant custom Chanel creation that made a statement without a hint of shimmer. She wasn’t alone in her choice of bold colour.
Meanwhile, feathers also proved to be one of the season’s biggest trends. Demi Moore, nominated at last year’s Oscars for The Substance, wowed in a dramatic feathered gown by Gucci, while Nicole Kidman embraced the trend in a soft-pink Chanel ensemble.
Sophie Smith, News Editor & Senior Writer.
Harvey Nichols and J.D. Williams among hundreds of employers named for failing to pay minimum wage
Just ahead of the April increase in National Minimum Wage, Harvey Nichols and J.D. Williams were among the 389 employers named by the UK government for underpaying staff. Both Harvey Nichols and J.D. Williams have since told TheIndustry.fashion that there was never a deliberate breach of National Minimum Wage regulations, and that action had been taken to resolve any issues immediately.
The planned increase of the statutory hourly rate for workers aged 21 and over from £12.21 to £12.71, which will come into effect in April, has already seen several retailers boosting the wages of their retail employees:
Tesco announced that its workers will get a pay rise at the end of this month, with pay for shop workers and staff at online fulfilment centres increasing by 5.1% to £13.28 an hour from 29 March, while employees working in London will see their hourly allowance increase by £1.27, taking the hourly rate to £14.55 for those within the M25.
M&S also announced that it will increase pay by at least 6.4% from 1 April for retail staff, offering rates above the national minimum wage (£13.41 an hour nationwide, or £14.74 per hour for those based in London).
Even so, these rates still fall short of the voluntary Real Living Wage, which is a benchmark designed to reflect the real cost of living and is currently set at £13.45 an hour in the UK and £14.80 in London.
At Net-A-Porter, concerns of the Real Living Wage also intensified this month: Workers from luxury retailer's-owned Charlton warehouse in South London are currently voting on strike action over being paid a London Living Wage, with the ballot closing on 25 March. The luxury retailer reportedly promised workers the London Living Wage in 2021 but has now offered lower pay, according to the trade union GMB.
Yet while hourly rates for retail workers are increasing, the number of retail jobs available in the UK is decreasing, as retail employment costs rose by £5 billion in 2025 owing to increases in employer National Insurance Contributions and a higher National Minimum Wage. The consequence? The UK recorded the lowest four-quarter average on record for retail jobs this week, with 2.81 million retail jobs in 2025, 68,000 lower than in 2024. Meanwhile, the latest survey of retail Chief Financial Officers and Finance Directors by the British Retail Consortium revealed a “sharp rise in anxiety” about labour costs over the next year.
How the government will address these multitude of pressures and support the long-term health of British retail remains an open question.
Camilla Rydzek, Senior News & Features Writer
John Galliano returns to fashion with Zara creative partnership
You sensed John Galliano might be due to make a comeback. His appearance on the front row the Dior Haute Couture show in January, along with the many references to Galliano-era Dior in the show itself, felt like a prelude to something, though I wasn’t sure what. It prompted me to go and revisit the High & Low documentary on Netflix, and if you haven't seen it or not seen it in a while, do go and watch. It's painful and you will be morally conflicted afterwards.
Some people seem morally conflicted when it comes to Galliano’s latest career move, which I did not see coming. He has signed a creative partnership with Zara and will be designing seasonal collections for the global fashion giant, based on items from its archive. I am genuinely curious to know what is in that archive, as no doubt there will be pieces based on Galliano’s own designs from back in the day, so some of those items may come full circle.
That aside, the appointment has caused much hand-wringing and snobbery on social media. And, of course, there are those that feel he should be forever shunned (space doesn’t permit me to get into that but I believe Galliano was wrung dry by the luxury fashion industry, before his final and incomprehensible act of self-destruction).
For my part, though, I believe Galliano is someone who needs to create and his talent is up there with the likes of Saint Laurent, Dior and Lagerfeld themselves. And why shouldn’t he turn his hand to the high street, as so many have? I’m just happy we will get to see more of his work and I may be able to afford it too.
Lauretta Roberts, Co-founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief.
Boden heads to Nashville for second US store
I was curious to learn this week that British clothing brand Boden, which was founded as a mail-order menswear business by Johnnie Boden from his kitchen table in 1991, is set to open its second store in the US this summer, this time in Nashville, Tennessee.
That will add to its only other physical store - having seemingly closed its London flagship at 20-23 Duke of York Square on London’s King’s Road - which opened in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 2025.
Not your regular destinations for Brit brands carving a business across the pond, that’s for sure, so I wonder where might be next, given that the US apparently now accounts for almost half of Boden’s global sales.
I was also not aware until recently that Boden has ditched menswear, with a firm focus on womenswear in its US store, though its website also has clothing for girls, boys and babies.
While Boden continues to operate concessions in John Lewis stores in the UK, as well as on its website, the US appears to be the market where the brand believes it has the biggest potential moving forward.
In fact, since launching digitally in the US in 2002, Boden has built a strong and loyal following and is also stocked in Nordstrom department stores across the US.
I guess it was through its US online sales that Boden determined where to open stores, so if the shopping data says Atlanta, Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee, are its strongest sales outposts, then fair enough. I’m intrigued to see where this new business model leads.
