At the forefront of Innovation

Companies like Google, with the help of Current Global are turning to the problem-solving method as pressure to be more sustainable mounts. Liz Bacelar tells Vogue Business that “They sound good. But if they were judged on actual results and ideas that could actually go to market, I think their perceived value would diminish.”

“Luxury will always do the showroom model because it’s an entirely different approach — it’s seeing clothes off the runway in a commercially led environment so buyers can inspect it and make their decisions,” says Liz Bacelar, an industry consultant who is CEO & co-founder of Current Global.

Luxury brands are deciding to show their runway collections in China, but they must overcome certain factors to fully unlock these opportunities. Jing Daily turns to Current Global to advise on the upcoming retail trends in Asia.

Antavo’s Loyalty Experience Kiosk made its grand debut to the public, at a VIP exhibition at NRF 2020. The futuristic in-store solution was officially unveiled to the public at Current Global’s Innovation Mansion – an intimate gathering of high-level retail innovators and industry leaders.

As part of its NRF coverage, Retail Connections headed over to the Innovation Mansion, a luxury destination set in New York’s vibrant SoHo. It found a hotbed for innovative new retail concepts, where D2C brands – that originally existed solely online – are now forging new paths in physical retail.

As researchers work to understand the impact of policies—including those that encourage more secondhand shopping—to make the fashion trade more sustainable, the industry is poised to see major changes, says Rachel Arthur, Chief Innovation Officer at Current Global, an innovation consultancy. “Do I think we’re going to step away from fast fashion and the consumerist nature of our society entirely?” she says. “No. But I do think we’re going to have increasing choices [to encourage] consumers to shop more sustainably. And in doing so, that will make [companies] not addressing this quickly left behind.”

The tech giant brought on the fashion innovation consultancy Current Global and partnered with eco-luxury brand Stella McCartney to track the environmental impact of cotton and viscose, two of the most commonly used fibres in clothing. Their goal: create a tool that can quantify even the most obscure links in the fashion supply chain.

On Wednesday morning Google, innovation consultants Current Global and Stella McCartney announced they were teaming to provide fashion brands with a data analytics machine learning tool powered by Google Cloud technology. Current Global kicked off the project, analyzing where the industry’s largest environmental challenges were, and then worked with Google to help find solutions.

“This pilot will enable us to test the effectiveness of the tool on these different raw materials, building out the possibilities for expansion into a wider variety of key textiles in the market down the line,” wrote Google Cloud head of retail Nick Martin. Martin noted that the work builds on Google’s collaboration with Current Global, an innovation consultancy that helps brands reach sustainability goals with “relevant technologies.”