Burton turns fifty and decides it wants to be a streetwear brand in China. Same week a Chinese department-store group drops its earnings guidance. Timing's a choice. Fashion Business Daily, I'm Joey. Snowboards to streetwear, a Chinese department store's books, and a little Italian group with a collab I'm genuinely into. Burton first. New CEO, Manhattan flagship, big ambitions. Let's see how much of it holds up. Follow the show and the next briefing lands in your feed on its own. From Danny Parisi at Glossy:
The first step in Burton’s transformation was hiring a new CEO, Denny Bruce. Carpenter had been serving as interim CEO since previous CEO John Lacy left the company in June, but as of September 21, Bruce, who worked as a regional manager at Burton before stints at companies like Vans and Dickies, has taken over the role.
Okay, Denny Bruce came up through Vans and Dickies. Skate and workwear. No luxury-group middle-manager shuffle here, and I kind of love it. But Vans hasn't been on a heater in years, so what exactly is that pedigree buying Burton? Per Glossy, a wholesale-plus-DTC operator who started as a Burton regional manager. What it isn't buying yet is a scorecard. Mulberry's turnaround at least comes with company-reported revenue. Burton's comes with a Manhattan flagship and a mandate, and he's only been in the chair since September 21. Right, and the streetwear push lives or dies on the jacket you'd actually wear in July. With footwear cycles this choppy, going year-round makes sense for a snow brand. But the product has to earn it off the mountain. Logo hoodies won't cut it. And my favorite line: Donna Carpenter says there's 'no big Chinese conglomerate to answer to', in the same breath as a China expansion plan. So who's the retail partner there? Getting onto department-store floors in that market is not the easy part, and we'll get to exactly why shortly. From MarketScreener India:
For the year the Group expects to record a loss attributable to shareholders of the Company of not more than approximately HKD 780 million for FY2026, as compared to a profit attributable to shareholders of the Company of approximately HKD 25.3 million for the financial year ended 30 June 2025.
So Burton just finished telling us China's the big growth runway, and right on cue a Chinese department-store operator guides to a loss of up to HK$780 million. The timing is brutal. And that number comes straight from New World Department Store China. It's the company's own unaudited guidance. A year earlier they booked a profit of about HK$25.3 million. That's quite a swing. Here's the line I'd circle. The goodwill impairment plus the fair-value loss on investment properties comes to roughly HK$792 million after tax, which is bigger than the entire loss. Run the math and trading before those items is maybe a HK$12 million profit. Still about half of last year's. Which is probably why the stock ticked up almost two percent. But those investment properties getting marked down? Those are the exact buildings a brand like Burton would want a flagship in. When the mall's worth less, the shoppers already went somewhere else. Gianluca Bolelli, writing in FashionNetwork:
“The capsule collection will be available at our mono-brand stores in Milan and at the one due to open in Rome (on October 31 in Via delle Convertite), on our e-commerce sites and in a selection of 100 premium independent multi-brand stores worldwide,” explains to FashionNetwork.com Gabriele Scamardi, recently promoted to head of sales and marketing at the Falc Group
Okay, the best story today is buried under a turnover headline. Flower Mountain's doing a capsule with Norbit by Hiroshi Nozawa. Norbit has real credibility in Japan, and they're capping wholesale at a hundred premium independent doors worldwide. That's a StockX listing before it's a restock. Resale heat is a number I'd love to have. What I've got is Falc guiding 2026 turnover past a hundred million euros. And that's their own projection. Nothing audited yet. Sure, but look at how they're rolling it out. Milan mono-brand, e-com, and the new Rome store on Via delle Convertite opening October 31. The collab's there to fill the new store. Iwano 2, a waterproof hiking-boot build that works in the city. That's a good shoe to open a store with. Then October 31's the date to watch. A hundred doors tells you where it's distributed. It doesn't tell you what sells through. And after Burton's China flagship talk and New World's impairment guidance earlier this hour, a Civitanova Marche group growing with small, curated doors looks like the calmer bet on the board today. Got feedback, a story idea, or a correction? Email us at fashionbusinessdaily at lantern podcasts dot com. We'd love to hear what's on your mind and what you'd like us to cover.
We're watching Falc Group's Flower Mountain open its Rome mono-brand store on Via delle Convertite on October 31, with the Norbit capsule in store. Links to every story are in the show notes, so check out the pieces that caught your eye. That's Fashion Business Daily for today. We'll be back tomorrow. This is a Lantern Podcast.