Retailers are paying up to keep the shelves full. The bill may be hiding somewhere much uglier. This is Fashion Business Daily. Today: freight panic, beauty loyalty wars, and whether a stronger body mist can fetch a higher price. Plus, a rental app makes a rom-com. First: the inventory squeeze behind the air-freight rush. Here's Melissa Daniels at Modern Retail:
Some brands are increasingly justifying the higher costs of air freight to get inventory on shelves faster when their global supply chains get jammed up. The International Air Transport Association, or IATA, reported in its latest release that jet fuel prices are still nearly 46% above levels from 2025, before the war in Iran caused widespread spikes in oil and fuel prices. The higher fuel prices, in turn, have boosted air freight rates.
Michael Kors' inventory is down 25% year over year, and some of that was planned markdown cleanup. But congestion at Asian ports has also left full-price product running late. You can’t sell the good stuff if it’s floating somewhere. That 25% is company-reported, and it’s where to start. Capri says revenue fell 7.1% last quarter, expects second-quarter inventory to be down high single digits, and cut its 2027 revenue outlook to $3.4 billion. So they’re selectively flying product in while jet fuel remains nearly 46% above 2025 levels, per IATA. Great—pay extra to get the handbag into the store, then hope the customer doesn’t notice the margin evaporating. It’s a margin trade-off. Fewer markdowns can help, but air freight is an emergency lever. If late full-price receipts become routine, you’re spending more than the markdowns you were trying to avoid. This one's from Glossy:
Amid a competitive beauty retail environment where an omnichannel approach is non-negotiable for many brands, major retailers like Sephora are experimenting with new loyalty perks to keep consumers shopping from their stores. At Sephora, those efforts include gamified rewards activities, extra points on select brands and an increasing emphasis on experiential activities.
Four-times points on The Ordinary this Thursday is Sephora admitting glycolic acid has become a commodity. Ulta has pickup, Amazon has the two-pack, TikTok Shop has free shipping—points are the counterpunch. Sephora has 46 million Beauty Insider members to work with. It calls this relationship-building. In practice, it’s a huge customer file, and Sephora needs those members buying there—not wherever toner is cheapest. Rouge still requires $1,000 in annual spend, and the August events are for those customers. The bigger shift is extending Rouge access to Sephora at Kohl’s—loyalty is becoming a distribution tool, not just a points program. I like the masterclasses more than another coupon blast. But a gamified badge won’t save Sephora if the same hot product is sitting one click away with a bundle and free shipping. This one's from Glossy:
Sol de Janeiro is banking on the staying power of the ever-growing body mist category. On Monday, the Brazilian-inspired body care and fragrance brand announced the launch of its new Intense Perfume Mists, a more potent version of its famed body mists with the promise of up to 10 hours of wear.
Sol de Janeiro wants $34 for Intense, versus $26 for the original mist. It’s a 31% jump for up to 10 hours of wear—a tidy stress test: are people buying the scent, or the whole beachy Sol fantasy? The company won’t disclose the exact fragrance concentration; it only says it’s more than double the original. The price premium is clear. The formula math is still company framing. They did bring back Jérôme Epinette, who made Cheirosa 62, and added Cheirosa 74 with pineapple and orange flower. That helps—there’s real newness here beyond a pricier bottle. Ulta gets 62, 59, and 74 on August 23; Sephora gets Cheirosa 91 as an exclusive later this year. For an 11-year-old brand already called Sephora’s top seller, how it sequences distribution matters more than the word “prestige.” Glossy writes:
URBN’s fashion rental platform Nuuly has quickly become one of the top rental platforms in the industry. Now, as the company seeks to capitalize on the buzz and growth it has seen over the last two years, it is testing a new marketing strategy: social-native microdramas.
A 12-part rom-com for a rental app is genuinely weird—and I mean that as praise. Nuuly’s dropping minute-long episodes of “Heart On My Sleeve” starting August 19, with fall looks threaded through dates and cliffhangers. Nuuly says it wants the series to avoid feeling like an ad. Fine. What matters is whether organic viewing turns into rentals during the fall campaign, because paid social can buy attention for almost anything. And they hired Dayna’s House—founded by former Vogue video producer Dayna Carney—and filmmaker Milky Tran, not some template factory. Wally Baram playing an art teacher on a new date every episode gives the show an actual premise. That’s already more effort than slapping a cardigan into a TikTok haul. Maybelline, Marc Jacobs, Crocs, and even Procter & Gamble have all tried branded microdramas. Nuuly has a natural wardrobe-refresh angle with rental. The risk is twelve episodes turning into twelve very expensive outfit placements. This one's from Modern Retail:
Women’s bag brand Baggallini is branching out this year to win over new customers in two crucial cohorts: millennials and Gen Z. The company, which is best known for its interlocking anti-theft bags, is introducing more products designed for the woman on the go. Its new active collection, BG Active, has a sleeker profile and uses more lightweight materials designed to take its wearer from yoga classes to coffee runs.
Baggallini’s first pop-up is in Montauk through September 5, which is a pretty telling choice. If you’re trying to make an anti-theft bag feel relevant to concert-going and coffee runs, put it where people can actually touch the lightweight stuff—not buried behind a travel-use-case product page. The brand was founded in 1995 by two travel agents, and its core customer is still the millennial mom. BG Active, Jet Set, and Manhattan broaden the assortment, but we have no sell-through, price, or traffic figures to call the Montauk experiment a growth engine. “From yoga to coffee” is retail’s most overworked sentence. But a sleek, light bag with genuinely useful organization can win—especially if Baggallini stops making function look like a concession you make after age thirty. Lydia Feniger’s pitch is removing friction from the day. Fine. It comes down to whether younger shoppers buy a second bag for commuting or fitness, instead of treating Baggallini as the bag they borrow from their mother before a trip. If you found today’s briefing useful, please subscribe or leave a review wherever you’re listening. Reviews help other people find Fashion Business Daily, and they mean a lot to our team.
Coming up: Sephora’s four-times Beauty Insider points promotion for The Ordinary starts Thursday, August 20. Sol de Janeiro’s Intense Perfume Mist versions of Cheirosa 62, 59, and 74 launch at Ulta Beauty on August 23. And Baggallini’s first Montauk pop-up runs through September 5.
Links to every story are in the show notes, so check out the ones that caught your attention. That’s Fashion Business Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.