For its 50th anniversary, Zara has partnered with 50 designers and creators for a collection you might not expect from a fast-fashion mall brand. The Spanish fashion retailer unveiled its 50th anniversary collection at Paris Fashion Week with collaborators that include photographer Annie Leibovitz, supermodel Cindy Crawford, stage designer Es Devlin, and musician Robbie Williams. Available worldwide beginning October 6, the collection does include plenty to wear (Leibovitz contributed a photo for a T-shirt), but what stands out most are the non-apparel items. This is about a whole lot more than clothes. Es Devlin [Photo: Zara] Devlin, who builds stages…
Author: Staff Writer
It’s the life of a saleswoman. Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales—which include physical and digital formats—in its first day in the U.S. That’s according to Luminate, an industry data and analytics company. The album was released Friday. The sales are impressive for a number of reasons. Swift has broken her record for most first-week sales . . . in one day. Her last album, 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, amassed 2.61 million equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week. The Life of a Showgirl has also become the second-largest sales week…
A quarter of a century after the Acela began whisking passengers between Washington, New York, and Boston, the Acela’s slightly faster replacement finally began service at the end of August. But the most obvious upgrade NextGen Acela offers over its predecessor is not speed, but shininess. On the train’s second day of revenue service, I boarded a train in Washington, D.C., for a day trip to New York. Standing alongside a previous-gen Acela at Union Station, my train was positively gleaming, and looked just as sharp on the inside. Then came the ride, which took just as long as previous trips…
According to the company’s annual analysis, this year’s shopping season won’t just break records—it’ll rewrite the playbook. AI assistants are set to steer how people search, shop, and spend, while buy-now-pay-later plans help stretched consumers keep the holiday magic alive. Each year, Adobe uses data from its Adobe Analytics platform to predict what the shopping landscape and consumer behavior will look like between November 1 and December 31. According to Adobe’s description, the data includes inputs from many of the top 100 retailers in the U.S., covering over 1 trillion visits to retail sites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product…
Last week, subscribers of Microsoft’s Game Pass were in an uproar over plans to hike the price from $19.99 per month to $29.99. One of the most surprising reactions, however, came not from gamers, but from retail partner GameStop. While you’ll pay $30 per month if you sign up for Game Pass Ultimate directly with Microsoft, you’ll get the same old price — for some indefinite period — if you stick with GameStop. “Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is still $19.99 a month with us. You’re welcome,” the retailer wrote in a social media post. Gamers can subscribe to GamePass directly…
Some good news on the weight-loss front: Customers can now go to Costco to get Ozempic and Wegovy, brand-name injectable prescription drugs manufactured by drug maker Novo Nordisk, which contain the same active ingredient: semaglutide. The Danish pharmaceutical firm announced Friday that both are available at the big-box retailer’s pharmacies nationwide, for $499 for a month’s supply—the same price as sold in CVS, Walmart, and the company’s direct-to-consumer website. You’ll still need a prescription to buy the drugs. Fast Company has reached out to both Costco and Novo Nordisk for comment. Also—Costco is offering a 2% discount for both Costco…
ASIA: The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today: • NIKKEI 225 increased 2,175.26 points or 4.75% to 47,944.76 • Shanghai closed • Hang Seng decreased 183.15 points or -0.67% to 26,957.77 • ASX 200 decreased 6.00 points or -0.07% to 8,981.40 • SENSEX increased 582.95 points or 0.72% to 81,790.12 • Nifty50 increased 183.40 points or 0.74% to 25,077.65 The major Asian currency markets had a green day today: • AUDUSD increased 0.00099 or 0.15% to 0.66140 • NZDUSD increased 0.00043 or 0.07% to 0.58351 • USDJPY increased 2.694 or 1.83% to 150.123 • USDCNY increased 0.00635…
Some flavor crazes flirt with us and fade. Others stay and make themselves at home. It’s too soon to tell for sure, but the Dubai chocolate movement seems to have put down roots and is spreading at a brisk clip. The sweet flavors and thick texture that have made Dubai chocolate bars a hit are morphing into other kinds of confections too. Let’s back up for a minute. The original and now-classic Dubai chocolate bar was created by Fix Chocolatier in the United Arab Emirates in 2021, and by 2023 had exploded on social media. Rich and indulgent, it features a thick,…
Semiconductor maker AMD will supply its chips to artificial intelligence company OpenAI as part of an agreement to team up on building AI infrastructure, the companies said Monday. OpenAI will also get the option to buy as much as a 10% stake in AMD, according to a joint statement announcing the deal. It’s the latest deal for the ChatGPT maker as it races to beef up its AI computing resources. Under the terms of the deal, OpenAI will buy the latest version of the company’s high performance graphics chips, the Instinct MI450, which is expected to debut next year. The agreement calls…
Below, Tim Higgins shares five key insights from his new book, iWar: Fortnite, Elon Musk, Spotify, WeChat, and Laying Siege to Apple’s Empire. Tim is a business columnist for the Wall Street Journal, where he covers Silicon Valley and writes about the world’s most influential business leaders. He is also a frequent contributor to CNBC and has previously written for Bloomberg News. What’s the big idea? Those who operate in the digital world accessed by the iPhone have no choice but to operate by Apple’s rules—or do they? Objections that Apple has overstepped fair play in the app economy resulted in pushbacks, including…