Three Brands Looking to Strike Olympic Gold
This week, everyone will be talking about the start of the Tokyo Olympic Games and the lifting of lockdown restrictions in the UK.
NEW BRANDS ON THE OLYMPIC STAGE
- The Summer Olympics open in Tokyo on July 23, after a one-year delay due to the pandemic
- No fans will be permitted in Olympic venues due to Covid restrictions
- Telfar, Skims and Athleta are among the brands looking to get a big boost from the games
The Olympics are a gargantuan opportunity for fashion, though it is typically brands with international marketing budgets capable of matching the scale of the games that benefit most. Nike, Adidas and other big activewear brands blanket events with their logos and showcase their latest performance gear in competition. Ralph Lauren has used the uniforms worn by US athletes during the opening and closing ceremonies to burnish its all-American branding since 2008.
But there are some new entrants onto the Olympic stage this year, each with its own plans to make a splash. Telfar is sponsoring the Liberian team and designing their uniforms (the designer Telfar Clemens emigrated from the West African country when he was five). The brand will use the event to build buzz for an upcoming sports-inspired collection, including workout gear. Meanwhile, American athletes will be wearing Skims, the shapewear label launched by Kim Kardashian in 2019, underneath their Ralph Lauren and Nike. With its body-positive and racially-inclusive messaging, the brand is staking its claim as the next generation’s take on Americana. And Athleta, the Gap-owned women’s athletic wear brand, has signed two of America’s most prominent Olympic athletes, track star Allyson Felix and gymnast Simone Biles. Both are central to Gap’s plans to double Athleta sales to $2 billion by 2023 amid a women’s sports boom.
The Bottom Line: The pandemic is creating complications for fashion brands looking to leverage the Olympics. There will be no crowds in the stands, limiting on-site activations. And the audience at home may be smaller; most major sporting events have seen reduced television viewership since the start of the pandemic.
ENFORCING THE RULES
- The UK is expected to lift most remaining pandemic restrictions on July 19
- Parts of France and Italy are imposing new rules on gatherings and masks as the Delta variant spreads
- Retailers often must enforce mask and proof of vaccination mandates themselves
The arrival of “Freedom Day” in the UK, when the final lockdown restrictions will be lifted, marks the return of nightclubs and mask-free shopping, both welcome developments in certain fashion circles. It also signals the beginning of a confusing period for British retailers, which will need to set and enforce their own mask rules. In the US, where most mask mandates were lifted weeks ago, the transition has gone relatively smoothly. (At least, if there’s been a repeat of last year’s spate of maskless customers violently lashing out at terrified store employees, it hasn’t made the rounds on YouTube.) UK brands also have it easier than their counterparts in France, which may soon require proof of vaccination to enter public spaces. Whether it’s checking masks or vaccination cards, it’s a big ask to require sales associates to play bouncer as well.
The Bottom Line: Even a gradual return to a pre-pandemic shopping experience has come as a huge relief for retailers, with sales rebounding rapidly. That’s worth enduring a few more months of awkward encounters with rule-flouting customers.
Another Dangerous Heat Wave Returns To Northwest This Weekend
The Pacific Northwest and the central Rockies and especially in south-central Canada, are experiencing the next round of heat this weekend.
This new round of scorching temperatures began on Saturday. It will continue through early next week, will bring above-average temperatures to the Pacific Northwest region, the central Rockies, and South-central Canada. The epicenter of the heat wave will be in Montana, where parts of the state will be 20 to 25 degrees or more above historical averages.
The Western US has been plagued with four heat waves this year. An extremely hot spring/beginning to summer has resulted in megadroughts, water shortages, and wildfires.
"A major concern on Sunday and Monday is the prospect of dry thunderstorms, from the Sierra Nevada mountain range northward through much of northern Nevada, eastern Idaho, and central Montana. These storms could unleash cloud-to-ground lightning that ignites new blazes," Washington Post said.
Wildfire statistics in California, through July 11, show a dramatic increase over the prior year, which may suggest a dangerous fire season is ahead.
Tens of millions of people could experience temperatures topping 100 degrees across the Pacific Northwest, the central Rockies, and south-central Canada. The heat wave will intensify Sunday and continue through Tuesday.
Steve Bowen, head of catastrophe insight at Aon, told Axios that "much of the West is a tinderbox right now and if dry lightning or human actions lead to even more fires, the potential for explosive growth is seriously concerning."
West Bakes in Another Weekend of Intense Heat as Wildfires Spread
Some communities say blazes complicate plans for a return of tourism after halt during Covid-19 pandemic
Intense heat began engulfing the Northern Rockies and High Plains, while high temperatures and dry air made matters worse for firefighters working to control dozens of wildfires burning across the parched West.
State leaders had issued emergency orders activating resources before the weekend, while some local communities said the blazes were complicating plans for a resurgence of tourism and local events after an interruption during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Heat waves have already engulfed Western states this summer, including one in June that left more than 100 people dead in the Pacific Northwest. Now a “heat dome” is expected to bring stifling temperatures over the weekend and early next week to the Northern Rockies and High Plains, including parts of Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming, according to an AccuWeather forecast.
It will be “dangerously hot, especially for those that are more vulnerable to the heat,” said John Wetenkamp, the science and operations officer for the National Weather Service in Billings, Mont., which put out an excessive-heat warning for noon Saturday through late Thursday.
July has already brought some scorching days to parts of Montana, he said, but residents now face a succession of them. Temperatures in Billings were climbing Saturday and could hit 102 degrees on Sunday and 105 on Monday—potentially breaking a record set in 1960.
There was, however, a chance that smoke from nearby wildfires could reduce some of the heat, according to AccuWeather.
Meanwhile, officials in several states said the long-term drought, low humidity and heat are making it harder to handle fires.
The largest fire currently burning in the U.S., the Bootleg Fire in south central Oregon, was 22% contained Saturday morning after growing by 40,000 acres Friday night and was sprawled over 281,208 acres, said Marcus Kauffman, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry.
Temperatures in the area of the Bootleg Fire are about 5 to 10 degrees above normal, though they still aren’t as high as a few weeks ago, said Misty Firmin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Medford, Ore.
The safety concern isn’t so much the warm weather as the low humidity, dry and gusty winds and vegetation that is much drier than normal for mid-July.
“Tinder dry,” Mr. Kauffman, of the Oregon forestry department, said of grass, shrubs, brush and trees there. “If there’s a spark that flies from that fire, it will ignite.”
The fires are generating their own extreme weather. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory said Friday that current wildfires are generating a record number of pyrocumulonimbus clouds—created by intense heat driving air rapidly upward from a fire.
This phenomenon has occurred in the Bootleg Fire, pulling embers, branches, leaves and particulates aloft in a column that then comes down with a force that intensifies the blaze, said Mr. Kauffman.
Nationally the current fire season has so far been on par with recent years. More than 70 large active fires have burned nearly one million acres across the West.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday declared a state of emergency in 19 counties, saying unprecedented heat there caused failures to roads, bridge joints and other types of infrastructure.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties that have endured evacuations and damages to critical infrastructure from the Beckwourth Complex Fire—lightning-induced blazes that as of Saturday totaled 105,348 acres and were 70% contained.
‘There’s really no relief in sight for the next several days.’— John Wetenkamp, National Weather Service
In Lassen County, which is included in the emergency order, organizers were working Saturday to prepare for the county fair. After a cancellation last year, this year’s slogan is “Back in the Saddle Again.”
Fire evacuees who were sheltering at the fairgrounds have been moved to Lassen Community College, said Holly Mueller, vice president of the fair advisory board. “Everybody is all hands on deck to make the fair happen,” she said. “Just to be able to draw the community back together.”
In a sign that the West’s drought is getting worse, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Friday that it was taking the unprecedented action of releasing more water from reservoirs upstream to Lake Powell to help keep its level high enough for power generation.
The lake, which straddles the Arizona-Utah border, has fallen to a third of its capacity during drought conditions for much of the past two decades.
Lake Powell serves as the largest holder of Colorado River water after Nevada’s Lake Mead, and the turbines at Glen Canyon Dam generate power across the Southwest. According to the federal agency’s forecast released Friday, there is a 79% chance of Lake Powell’s falling under a threshold below which a power cutoff could occur.
In all, 181,000 acre-feet of extra water will be released through the end of the year from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming, Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado and Navajo Reservoir in New Mexico to raise Lake Powell by 3 feet.
“We hoped we would never have to go down this road, but now we have to,” Wayne Pullan, the bureau’s regional director in Salt Lake City, said in a video briefing with the media Friday.