Welcome in, today is Tuesday, September eighth, and we begin with WWD's report that Icicle has a new creative director. Icicle has appointed Sabato De Sarno as creative director, WWD reports, five months after the Shanghai brand took a minority investment from Kering. That puts a former Gucci designer at the head of a Chinese label with global ambitions, and makes it a live test of whether Western creative credentials travel in that direction. Per that reporting, De Sarno will oversee women's and men's ready-to-wear, accessories and eyewear, and shows his first collection for the fall twenty twenty-seven season. He had been a free agent since parting with Gucci in February twenty twenty-five, after two years steering that house toward a more minimal aesthetic. Bénédicte Laloux stays on as design director of the women's show collection, working under him. Icicle was founded in nineteen ninety-seven, runs more than two hundred stores in China, and is the flagship of ICCF Group, which also owns Carven. Chief executive Ye Shouzeng said the arrival pairs global creative talent with the company's industrial strength in China. Kering's stake came through House of Wonders, the platform it launched in April to back brands from emerging luxury markets. Also today, Lululemon's second-quarter operating profit fell thirteen percent year on year, to four hundred fifty-three point seven million dollars, for the quarter to the second of August. That is Drapers reporting, which also has the company lowering its full-year outlook. Market-side reaction leans toward reading that as a demand and brand question rather than a financial one, with some pointing to North American comparable sales and gross margin rather than the balance sheet, and treating a second guidance cut in the same year as the more telling signal. A recurring framing in the channel is that elevated inventory and the markdowns that follow are not company-specific, and read as an early warning for premium athleisure more broadly. Separately, Next has won an appeal overturning a twenty twenty-four ruling that it must pay shop staff the same higher basic rates as its warehouse workers, per Drapers. For any retailer running separate shop-floor and warehouse pay bands, that removes, for now, the back-pay exposure carried since the original decision. Professional reaction leans toward treating the outcome as a broadly applicable precedent rather than a retail-specific one, with attention centring on the market-forces and material-factor defence, and on whether it reaches any employer justifying pay differences between roles recruited from different labour markets. A recurring counterpoint is that it settles a comparability question without touching sector-wide low pay. Now, to the parcel fight in Europe. Euratex president Mario Jorge Machado told FashionNetwork.com, at a meeting of European textile and clothing federations in Paris, that the three-euro tax on small parcels is not enough, even with handling fees of two to four euros still to come. The argument is that Europe is effectively discounting customs duty for shoppers buying outside the bloc, with no visibility into how those goods were made. That read also faults charging by product category rather than by item, and calls for vigilance that platforms do not bulk-import into European warehouses and dispatch from there to avoid the charge. Asked about Shein's Polish warehouse, he said ultra-fast fashion must not be allowed to find further loopholes. Low-value parcels are the channel most direct-to-consumer volume moves through, so the ask lands on anyone shipping into the bloc. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Drapers reports British sportswear brand Castore has drafted in advisers at JP Morgan as it reportedly explores a sale. Market Screener reports Rothschild and Co Redburn has downgraded Kering to sell from neutral and cut its price target, while reiterating buy on LVMH with a raised target. WWD reports Harrods is backing Brand63Africa with a fifth-floor pop-up at its Knightsbridge flagship, meant to move African and diasporic labels toward the luxury main floor. Per Drapers, John Lewis Partnership is recruiting ten thousand four hundred Christmas roles across John Lewis and Waitrose ahead of the golden quarter. And finally, The Wall Street Journal reports Hermès is fighting a perception that shoppers buy its watches mainly to improve their odds of landing a Birkin.