Outrageous Barbaric ‘mindless’act / Moment historic Sycamore Gap tree is allegedly cut down

Two men filmed felling of Sycamore Gap tree during ‘mindless’ act, court hears

 

 Jury shown phone footage with sound of chainsaw and toppling tree, in trial of pair who deny criminal damage

 

 Mark Brown North of England correspondent

Tue 29 Apr 2025 14.26 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/29/two-men-felled-sycamore-gap-tree-mindless-criminal-damage-court-told

 

 Two men filmed themselves using a chainsaw to fell the famous Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian’s Wall in an act of “mindless criminal damage”, a court has heard.

 

 Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, embarked on a “moronic mission” to cut down in minutes a tree that had stood for more than 100 years, the prosecutor Richard Wright KC told Newcastle crown court.

 

 The two men, from Cumbria, have denied two charges of criminally damaging the tree and Hadrian’s Wall, where it stood.

 

 Wright said the tree had been in a dip in the wall in Northumberland national park. It had become “a famous site, reproduced countless times in photographs, feature films and art”, he said.

 

 Graham and Carruthers travelled in Graham’s Range Rover from Cumbria in the late hours of 27 September 2023, the court heard.

 

 “By sunrise on Thursday September 28, the tree had been deliberately felled with a chainsaw in an act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage,” Wright said. “It fell on to a section of Hadrian’s Wall, causing irreparable damage to the tree itself and further damage to the wall.”

 

 Wright said the people responsible were Graham and Carruthers, who, in the technique they used, showed “expertise and a determined, deliberate approach” to the felling.

 

 He said: “First, they marked the intended cut with silver spray paint, before cutting out a wedge that would dictate the direction in which the tree would fall. One of the men then cut across the trunk, causing the sycamore to fall, hitting the wall. Whilst he did that, the other man filmed it, filmed the act on Daniel Graham’s mobile telephone.”

 

 The jury was shown the phone footage, lasting two minutes 40 seconds, in which the chainsaw and the sound of the tree toppling can be heard and the silhouette of a figure using the saw can be seen.

 

 The wedge was put in the boot of Graham’s Range Rover – “perhaps a trophy taken from the scene, to remind them of their actions. Actions they appear to have been revelling in,” Wright said.

 

 “During that return journey Mr Carruthers received a video of his young child from his partner. He replied to her: ‘I’ve got a better video than that.’ Minutes later the video of the felling of the tree was sent from Graham’s phone to Carruthers’ phone.

 

 “At the time of that text conversation the only people in the world who knew that the tree had been felled were the men who had cut it down.”

 

 The next day the world’s media began reporting on the tree’s felling and the two men shared social media posts, Wright said, with Graham messaging Carruthers: “Here we go.”

 

 Wright said Carruthers sent Graham a Facebook post from a man called Kevin Hartness saying: “Some weak people that walk this earth … disgusting behaviour.”

 

 Two minutes later Graham replied to Carruthers with a voice note saying: “That Kevin Hartness comment. Weak … fucking weak? Does he realise how heavy shit is?”

 

 Carruthers replied with his own voice note saying: “I’d like to see Kevin Hartness launch an operation like we did last night … I don’t think he’s got the minerals.”

 

 Wright said this was “the clearest confirmation, in their own voices, that Carruthers and Graham were both responsible for the deliberate felling of the tree and the subsequent damage to Hadrian’s Wall.”

 

 The prosecutor said messages between the two men talked about the felling of Sycamore Gap going “wild” and “viral”. Wright said: “They are loving it, they’re revelling in it. This is the reaction of the people that did it. They still think it’s funny, or clever, or big.”

 

 Carruthers and Graham were once good friends, the jury was told, but not now. “That once close friendship has seemingly completely unravelled, perhaps as the public revulsion at their behaviour became clear to them,” Wright said. He said each man may now be trying to blame the other.

 

 Graham, of Carlisle, and Carruthers, of Wigton, are jointly charged with causing criminal damage worth £622,191 to the tree. They are also charged with causing £1,144 of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, a Unesco world heritage site. The wall and the tree belong to the National Trust.

 

 Graham and Carruthers deny all the charges against them.

 

 The trial continues.

2013 Awards Celebration - Gretchen Dow Simpson / Gretchen Dow Simpson, Creator of New Yorker Covers, Dies at 85

Gretchen Dow Simpson, Creator of New Yorker Covers, Dies at 85

 

A Massachusetts native, she painted geometrically precise images of rural and seaside New England dwellings that found fans among the storied magazine’s ardent readers.

 

Alex Williams

By Alex Williams

April 25, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/arts/gretchen-dow-simpson-dead.html

 

Gretchen Dow Simpson, an acclaimed Rhode Island painter whose moody, highly geometric images of seaside cottages, snow-covered farms and other totems of New England life drew comparisons to Edward Hopper and graced the covers of 58 issues of The New Yorker, died on April 11 at her home in Providence, R.I. She was 85.

 

The cause was complications of Lewy body dementia, her daughter Megan Wolff said.

 

Ms. Simpson was best known for her meditative images of the seaside and country architecture of the Northeastern seaboard — “those rather Protestant exteriors and interiors that Edward Hopper was so taken with,” Carl Little wrote in 1997 in reviewing a Manhattan exhibition of her work for Art in America.

 

While modest, solitary buildings were often her subject matter, Ms. Simpson's work was not purely representational. A former commercial photographer, she applied a telephoto approach to many of her paintings, zooming in on windows, doorways or rooftops to emphasize the juxtaposed angles and intersecting lines that characterized her work, giving it the feel of abstract art.

 

As ARTnews noted in a 1995 review of an exhibition of her paintings, Ms. Simpson’s “emphasis on the solid geometry of the buildings as well as the planar geometry of surface decoration is further enlivened by the strong contrasts of light and shadow.”

 

Her style became so recognizable that in 1993, Absolut Vodka included it in its celebrated series of print advertisements featuring the distinctive shape of its bottle in a series of playful themes, like the work of Andy Warhol or the sparkling swimming pools of Los Angeles. The “Absolut Dow Simpson” ad, which fittingly ran on the back cover of The New Yorker, featured a haunting late-afternoon shadow in the shape of the bottle, cast upon a white clapboard wall.

 

Over the years, Ms. Simpson’s work was commissioned by The Atlantic Monthly (now The Atlantic), New York magazine and other publications, and featured in solo exhibitions in New England and New York City. But it was her two-decade run producing cover paintings for The New Yorker that most shaped her legacy.

 

Even so, it took her almost a decade to break through. As she recounted on a 2011 radio program, she had been receiving rejection notes from the magazine for nine years before the art director, Lee Lorenz, called her into a meeting in 1974.

 

As for the subject matter, she recalled, Mr. Lorenz told her, “Paint what you like, not what you think we would like.” She ended up snapping a photograph of the hallway of a friend’s apartment, which had an arched doorway, and using it as the basis of her first New Yorker painting, which appeared on the cover of the Aug. 19, 1974, issue.

 

Ms. Simpson went on to produce 57 more covers for The New Yorker, attracting fan mail from readers around the country. “They react in such a personal way that they write me letters telling me details about their family life,” she said in an interview with the magazine. “They’re practically inviting me to come in and eat the leftovers from their icebox.”

 

Gretchen Hansell Dow was born on May 17, 1939, in Cambridge, Mass., the eldest of four children of Richard Dow, the director of a real estate firm, and Elizabeth (Sagendorph) Dow.

 

After graduating from the Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Mass., in 1957, she spent two years studying painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. She then moved to New York City, where she worked as a photographer at an advertising agency while pursuing her artistic ambitions.

 

In 1968, she married John Simpson Jr., an actor, and the next year they moved to Waverly, Pa., near Scranton, where Ms. Simpson spent afternoons painting in a converted barn studio. The couple had two daughters before divorcing in 1982. Ms. Simpson settled in Providence in 1987.

In 1989, just before her 50th birthday, Ms. Simpson tallied her 50th New Yorker cover, a close-up image of gold and silver dance shoes. It was a sly tribute to her midlife turn as a competitive ballroom dancer, whirling her six-foot-tall frame around the floor to achieve mastery in the fox trot, the tango, the cha-cha and other dances.

 

While she “hadn’t done much dancing since my coming-out cotillion in Boston,” she said in a 1989 interview with The New York Times, she found satisfaction in dancing as both art and exercise. “Jogging bores me, aerobics gives me a headache, tennis is too social and squash too claustrophobic,” she added. “With ballroom dancing, you’re using every muscle and along with that you have the plus of glamour and illusion.”

 

In 2013, at age 73, Ms. Simpson married again, to James Baird, a retired Brown University chemistry professor. He survives her. Over the years, she unveiled a number of murals in Pawtucket, R.I., including a giant one on Interstate 95 of the interior of an industrial building. It’s still there today.

 

In addition to her husband and her daughter Megan, Ms. Simpson is survived by her other daughter, Phoebe Bean, and four grandchildren.

 

Her long run at The New Yorker ended in 1993, the year after Tina Brown, the swashbuckling former editor of Vanity Fair, took over and ushered in a series of sweeping changes, including more topical and gag covers in place of the traditional stately ones that had served as artworks in their own right.

 

As Ms. Simpson later recalled, Ms. Brown “did buy one painting to be used as a cover, but only because it reminded her of her own property in the Hamptons.”

 

Alex Williams is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.

The Zonnetje‘ is going down / It makes me sick’: the Amsterdam shops closing because of soaring rents

 

‘It makes me sick’: the Amsterdam shops closing because of soaring rents

 

As Dutch capital prepares to celebrate 750th anniversary, small business owners fear for independent retail

 

Jennifer Rankin

Jennifer Rankin in Amsterdam

Sun 27 Apr 2025 05.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/27/it-makes-me-sick-the-amsterdam-shops-closing-because-of-soaring-rents

 

The floral perfume of tea and coffee fills the air in ‘t Zonnetje (The Sun), as – behind the counter – Marie-Louise Velder weighs out loose leaf tea, parcelling black leaves into paper packets. Mahogany-coloured shelves are stacked with pots containing beans from Ethiopia, Java, India, alongside bric-a-brac, such as vintage tea tins and old master-style pictures.

 

But in less than two months, the sun will set for good on this cosy shop in Amsterdam, which was founded in 1642. For the owner, the rent is just too high.

 

Velder, an energetic 76-year-old, who took over the business 26 years ago from an English family, paid 975 guilders (about €440 or £376) rent a month in 1999. Now she expects a monthly bill of up to €4,500, backdated to last September, after a legal dispute with her landlord. That was reduced from €6,000 by an independent arbiter, but still represents a hefty increase on the €3,000 she pays now.

 

“It makes me sick, that’s all I can say,” she said over a cup of Ceylon tea. Traditional shops, she said, “are all dying” because of soaring rents.

 

Since the Amsterdam-based newspaper Het Parool revealed the closure last week, she said she had received a huge response from customers – “love, only love”.

 

As another independent shop closes, fears are growing that the city will be increasingly dominated by chain stores and shops catering to tourists.

 

Johannes Wilhelm, a 63-year-old local businessman, who had cycled over for some lapsang souchong, described ‘t Zonnetje’s imminent disappearance as a real pity. “There are a lot of cheese and Nutella-pancakes and all kinds of tourist shops. Tourists are fine [and] good. But this should be here as well,” he said.

 

Rents have been growing in the “most sought after high street retail locations” across the Netherlands, according to one market analyst.

 

Although the future of the shop site is uncertain, Karel Loeff, the director of the conservation organisation Heemschut, has observed that higher rents tend to mean bigger companies with more standardised offers move in when sole traders move out.

 

Founded in 1642, the shop on Haarlemmerdijk began by selling herbs, coal and buckets of water, but as the Dutch empire prospered it offered tea and coffee.

 

In the modern shop, Velder makes Earl Grey in the chilly basement by steeping Assam leaves in bergamot for three days, a blend that took two and a half years to perfect. She once sold 350 varieties of tea, but her offer is sharply reduced as she runs down her stock.

 

Loeff said preserving living heritage – one of the aims of Heemschut – was very hard.

 

“We can preserve the wooden beams and shelves … but we can’t preserve a function. We can’t say this is an original tea shop and you should preserve this for the future.”

 

Local shops run by private owners for decades “are what make cities unique”, he continued. “If you push them away and you only have standard brands and shops, the attractiveness of the city disappears.”

 

Amsterdam has been grappling for years with how to preserve its heritage in the face of increasing numbers of homogenous chain stores and tourist-friendly novelty shops selling sweets or rubber ducks in the historic centre. In 2017, the city government announced that retailers catering mainly to tourists, such as bike-rental companies or cheese shops, would be prevented from opening in parts of the city centre.

 

Iris Hagemans, an urban geographer at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, cautioned about generalising. Amsterdam has places where tourism has created a “monoculture in the shopping landscape”, she said, citing the congested central Damstraat. But just a few hundred metres away “the atmosphere is completely different” and shops confronted with dwindling demand from residents and competition from online shopping are benefiting from tourist footfall. “I think this monoculture is sometimes portrayed as a kind of oil spill that will eventually spread throughout the city, but the effect is much more local.”

 

Government support for independent businesses, such as intervention to control commercial rents, was a tricky area, she said. “There can be quite a big gap between the type of shops that people claim to want to see in their neighbourhood and … the kind of shop that they actually frequent … I think there’s a risk there of supporting a function for which there is not really a demand.”

 

Hagemans favours government action to protect basic needs, such as access to healthy food, healthcare and other essential services, but cautions against the state as an arbiter of taste. “The retail landscape should be able to respond to the market and be dynamic. And it’s democratic in the way that you vote with your wallet.”

 

Down the road from ‘t Zonnetje, near a pizza joint and lemonade shop, a banner has gone up to mark the 750th anniversary of Amsterdam, which falls in October. Velder has heard there are plans afoot to support small business owners in this anniversary year, “but it is too late for me”.

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European wines face alarming ‘forever chemical’ contamination, new study finds / ‘Alarming’ increase in levels of forever chemical TFA found in European wines

 

European wines face alarming ‘forever chemical’ contamination, new study finds

 

From Austria to Spain, not a single wine tested came back clean, exposing the reach of ultra-persistent chemicals in Europe’s food chain.

 

April 24, 2025 4:29 am CET

By Bartosz Brzeziński

https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-wine-faces-alarming-forever-chemical-contamination-new-study-finds/

 

BRUSSELS — Europe’s favorite bottle of red or white may come with an unwanted ingredient: toxic chemicals that don’t break down naturally.

 

A new investigation has found widespread contamination in European wines with trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) — a persistent byproduct of PFAS, the group of industrial chemicals widely known as “forever chemicals.” None of the wines produced in the past few years across 10 EU countries came back clean. In some bottles, levels were found to be 100 times higher than what is typically measured in drinking water.

 

The study, published on Wednesday by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, adds fresh urgency to calls for a rapid phase-out of pesticides containing PFAS, a family of human-made chemicals designed to withstand heat, water and oil, and to resist breaking down in the environment.

 

Wine production is among the heaviest users of pesticides in European agriculture, particularly fungicides, making vineyards a likely hotspot for chemical accumulation. Grapes are especially vulnerable to fungal diseases, requiring frequent spraying throughout the growing season, including with some products that contain PFAS compounds.

 

Researchers found that while TFA was undetectable in wines harvested before 1988, contamination levels have steadily increased since then — reaching up to 320 micrograms per liter in bottles from the last three vintages, a level more than 3,000 times the EU’s legal limit for pesticide residues in groundwater. The study’s authors link this rise to the growing use of PFAS-based pesticides and newer fluorinated refrigerants over the past decade.

 

“This is a red flag that should not be ignored,” said Helmut Burtscher-Schaden of Austrian NGO Global 2000, who led the research. “The massive accumulation of TFA in plants means we are likely ingesting far more of this forever chemical through our food than previously assumed.”

 

The report, titled Message from the Bottle, analyzed 49 wines, including both conventional and organic products. While organic wines tended to have lower TFA concentrations, none were free of contamination. Wines from Austria showed particularly high levels, though researchers emphasized that the problem spans the continent.

 

“This is not a local issue, it’s a global one,” warned Michael Müller, professor of pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry at the University of Freiburg, who conducted an independent study that confirmed similar results. “There are no more uncontaminated wines left. Even organic farming cannot fully shield against this pollution because TFA is now ubiquitous in the environment.”

 

The findings highlight the growing scrutiny on PFAS — a broad class of fluorinated compounds used in products from non-stick cookware to firefighting foams and agricultural pesticides. These substances are prized for their durability but have been shown to accumulate in the environment and in living organisms, with links to cancer, liver damage and reproductive harm.

 

While the risks of long-chain PFAS have long been recognized, TFA had until recently been considered relatively benign by both regulators and manufacturers. That view is now being challenged. A 2021 industry-funded study under the EU’s REACH chemicals regulation linked TFA exposure to severe malformations in rabbit fetuses, prompting regulators to propose classifying TFA as “toxic to reproduction.”

 

“This makes it all the more urgent to act,” said Salomé Roynel, policy officer at PAN Europe. She pointed out that under current EU pesticide rules, metabolites that pose risks to reproductive health should not be detectable in groundwater above 0.1 micrograms per liter — a limit TFA regularly exceeds in both water and, now, food.

 

The timing of the report adds political pressure just weeks before EU member states are due to vote on whether to ban flutolanil, a PFAS pesticide identified as a significant TFA emitter. Campaigners argue that the EU must go further, pushing for a group-wide ban on all PFAS pesticides.

 

“The vote on flutolanil is a first test of whether policymakers take this threat seriously,” Roynel said. “But ultimately, we need to eliminate the entire category of these chemicals from agriculture.”

 

Industry groups are likely to push back, arguing that PFAS-based pesticides remain crucial for crop protection. But Müller counters that claim, saying alternatives are available: “There are substitutes. The idea that these chemicals are essential is simply not true.”

 

With the EU’s broader PFAS restrictions currently under discussion, the wine study injects fresh urgency into debates over how to tackle chemical pollution and protect Europe’s food supply.

 

“The more we delay, the worse the contamination becomes,” said Burtscher-Schaden. “And because we’re dealing with a forever chemical, every year of inaction locks in the damage for generations to come.”

 

The European Commission declined to comment on the report.

 

This story has been updated with a no comment from the European Commission.

‘Alarming’ increase in levels of forever chemical TFA found in European wines

 

Wines produced after 2010 showed steep rise in contamination of trifluoroacetic acid, analysis finds

 

Ajit Niranjan Europe environment correspondent

Wed 23 Apr 2025 10.35 CEST

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/23/alarming-increase-forever-chemical-tfa-european-wines

 

Levels of a little-known forever chemical known as TFA in European wines have risen “alarmingly” in recent decades, according to analysis, prompting fears that contamination will breach a planetary boundary.

 

Researchers from Pesticide Action Network Europe tested 49 bottles of commercial wine to see how TFA contamination in food and drink had progressed. They found levels of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a breakdown product of long-lasting Pfas chemicals that carries possible fertility risks, far above those previously measured in water.

 

Wines produced before 1988 showed no trace of TFA, the researchers found, but those after 2010 showed a steep rise in contamination. Organic and conventional wines showed a rise in TFA contamination, but levels in organic varieties tended to be lower.

 

“The wines that contained the highest concentration of TFA, on average, were also the wines we found with the highest amount of pesticide residue,” said Salomé Roynel from Pesticide Action Network Europe, which has called on the European Commission and EU member states to ban Pfas pesticides.

 

The researchers used 10 Austrian cellar wines from as early as 1974 – before policy changes they suspect led to the widespread use of precursor chemicals to TFA – as well as 16 wines bought in Austrian supermarkets from vintages between 2021 and 2024.

 

When the initial analysis revealed unexpectedly high levels of TFA contamination, they asked partners across Europe to contribute samples from their own countries.

 

The results from 10 European countries showed no detectable amounts of TFA in old wines; a “modest increase” in concentrations from 13 micrograms per litre to 21 between 1988 and 2010; and a “sharp rise” thereafter, reaching an average of 121 micrograms per litre in the most recent wines.

 

Pfas are chemicals that are widely used in consumer products, some of which have been shown to have harmful effects on people.

 

Authorities have historically not been troubled by potential health effects of TFA contamination, but recent studies in mammals have suggested it poses risks to reproductive health. Last year, the German chemical regulator proposed classifying TFA as toxic to reproduction at the European level.

 

A study in October argued the persistent nature of the substance and the growth in concentrations imply that TFA meets the criteria of a “planetary boundary threat for novel entities”, with increasing planetary-scale exposure that could have potential irreversible disruptive impacts on vital Earth system processes.

 

Hans Peter Arp, a researcher at Norwegian University of Science and Technology and lead author of the study, who was not involved in the Pesticide Action Network report, said that although the new research was only a preliminary screening, the results were “expected and shocking”.

 

“Overall they are consistent with what the scientific community knows about the alarming rise of TFA in essentially anything we can measure,” he said. “They also provide further evidence that Pfas-pesticides can be a major source of TFA in agricultural areas, alongside other sources such as refrigerants and pharmaceuticals.”

 

The main sources of TFA are thought to be fluorinated refrigerants known as F-gases, which disperse globally, and Pfas pesticides, which are concentrated in agricultural soil. Concentrations of F-gases rose after the 1987 Montreal protocol banned ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons, while Pfas pesticides are thought to have become widespread in Europe in the 1990s.

 

A study in November using field data from southern Germany revealed a “significant increase” in TFA groundwater concentrations when comparing farmland with other land uses.

 

Gabriel Sigmund, a researcher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and co-author of the study, who was not involved in the Pesticide Action Network report, said TFA could not be degraded by natural processes and was very difficult and costly to remove during water treatment.

 

For most TFA precursor pesticides, there is little to no available data on their TFA formation rates, he added.

 

“This makes it very difficult to assess how much TFA formation and emission potential agricultural soils currently have, as accumulated pesticides can degrade and release TFA over time,” he said. “So even if we completely stopped the use of these pesticides now, we have to expect a further increase in TFA concentrations in our water resources and elsewhere over the next years.”

Market Talk: Why tariffs are bad news for luxury brands | Reuters/ Hermès to open new French factory as rival LVMH threatens Trump-inspired US move

Hermès to open new French factory as rival LVMH threatens Trump-inspired US move

 

The Birkin bag-maker doesn’t seem as put off by the threat of U.S. tariffs as its chief rival does.

 

April 22, 2025 6:28 pm CET

By Giorgio Leali

https://www.politico.eu/article/hermes-factory-normandy-france-lvmh-bernard-arnault-donald-trump-united-states-tariffs/

 

PARIS — Hermès said Tuesday it will open a new factory in France, hiring 260 artisans to staff a leather workshop in Normandy just as its just as its main competitor, LVMH, is threatening to increase production to the United States at Europe's expense.

 

The announcement from the Birkin bag-maker comes just days after LVMH boss and Europe's richest man Bernard Arnault said Europe needs to do more to prevent its companies from offshoring to the U.S. to avoid any possible tariffs from the Trump administration.

 

Trump slapped tariffs on all imports into the U.S. earlier this month before backtracking amid financial turmoil, suspending the highest tariffs proposed for 90 days to create an opening to negotiate a trade deal.

 

Arnault has been an outspoken fan of Trump's plans to woo manufacturers and has slammed the French government and the European Union for, respectively, raising taxes and enacting regulations that, in his words, "penalize our economic sectors."

 

French President Emmanuel Macron had urged European business to freeze investments in the U.S. in response to Trump's tariffs.

 

The French luxury sector is particularly exposed to the ongoing trade war as it is heavily reliant on exports. But while LVMH registered a decline in sales in the first quarter of 2025, Hermes' sales went up in the same period, according to earnings reports released last week.

 

Amid investor concerns over LVMH's slump, Hermès last week overtook the Arnault-owned conglomerate as France's most valuable luxury house and the biggest company listed on the French CAC40. The two traded positions over the following days.

2 weeks ago: trump’s tariffs threaten the *entire* fashion industry / Explainer: How Trump’s Tariffs Threaten Luxury Fashion

Luxury

Explainer: How Trump’s Tariffs Threaten Luxury Fashion

 

The Trump administration’s radical changes to US trade policy won’t push retail prices up enough to directly dampen sales, but the effects on the global economy and consumer sentiment could seriously dent an industry still struggling to bounce back from a sharp downturn in demand.

Donald Trump's trade policies will have a sweeping impact on fashion.

 

By Joan Kennedy, Simone Stern Carbone

04 April 2025

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/luxury-industry-trump-tariffs-impact/

 

At a press conference in January, fresh off a promising earnings report and a stop at US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, LVMH chief Bernard Arnault — who had pegged hopes of a luxury recovery on growth in the US market — was singing America’s praises.

 

“I have witnessed the winds of optimism in the US,” he said. “In the US, you get the feeling that you’re welcomed with open arms.”

 

But from the Rose Garden yesterday, as Trump announced the implementation of the most severe set of tariffs in over 100 years, the president took a different tone: “Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream.”

 

In one swoop, Trump created an unprecedented level of ambiguity and complexity for a luxury industry already beleaguered by widespread sales slowdowns and tempered consumer demand. The levies are set to directly impact some of the sector’s biggest manufacturing hubs, including a 20 percent tariff on the EU, 10 percent on the UK, 31 percent on Switzerland and 34 percent on China.

 

Luxury stops dropped

The US had become increasingly important to luxury’s post-pandemic recovery, especially as sales in China and other key geographies still lag. In turn, brands have invested more in the market, opening stores in untapped regions beyond the coasts and directly catering to American shoppers.

 

But Trump’s trade policies — and the knock-on effects of an era of American uncertainty — could complicate luxury’s recovery plans. A straight path to cyclical recovery for luxury is looking less likely than ever, according to analysts.

 

BoF unpacks what Trump’s tariffs mean for luxury.

 

Why is the US so important for luxury?

The US, with its wealthy, consumption-forward population and outsize share of billionaires, has always been a vital market for luxury. Lately, it has become crucial in pulling the industry out of a years-long slump as malaise in other growth regions, namely China, persists.

 

Over the past five years, American shoppers — known for their resilience and appetite to spend even in troubled times — have become an increasingly important part of global luxury demand. As fears of a downturn bubbled up throughout 2024, a tumultuous election year, retail spending bucked expectations and didn’t fall off. Last October, HSBC analyst Erwan Rambourg noted Americans were the only consumers “with a bit of signs of life.”

 

luxury tariffs

All this has made the US look like a land of unbridled opportunity for luxury — and fashion has even pushed westward, opening stores in regions once considered luxury deserts: Louis Vuitton in Indianapolis and Hermès in Austin, with another to come in Nashville. Gucci and Moncler are soon to open shops in Minneapolis.

 

Trump’s re-election in November was largely welcomed by the industry, with investors noting the correlation between tax cuts, a strong stock market and luxury spending. Not to mention, the cultural shift: Trump’s high-octane lifestyle and unabashed flaunting of wealth and power were seen as having the potential to provide a boost.

 

But since his return to office — and particularly in the lead-up to his trade policy announcement — markets have been volatile. The S&P 500 plunged 5 percent on Thursday, the biggest daily drop since June 2020, at the peak of the pandemic.

 

What’s the immediate impact of the tariffs?

Wednesday’s more drastic-than-anticipated tariff announcement rocked the industry. With Trump, predicting what’s next is difficult. Circumstances still may change, particularly after negotiations between affected regions and industries ensue — but just about every fashion item sold in the country will be hit with additional duties, as the US imports more than 98 percent of its clothing and about 99 percent of shoes.

 

The immediate impact won’t be as dramatic for luxury, which operates at a higher gross margin than other categories, allowing it to more easily pass costs on to shoppers. Plus, its wealthier consumer base tends to fare better under economic pressure, and could potentially plot out summer trips in order to move their spend to shopping hubs abroad should prices rise at home.

 

Luxury players have paid tariffs (around 15 percent) for decades when exporting to the US. If the new 20 percent tariffs are non-incremental, the impact would be minimal, requiring only a 1 percent retail price increase to offset costs. If the tariffs are incremental, brands would need to raise prices by around 4 percent, Bernstein analyst Luca Solca said in a note today.

 

Still, some brands will feel the pain more than others: The impact of tariffs depends on a company’s exposure to the market and where its products are made. Moncler has lower revenue exposure to the US market, for example. Burberry — which just saw momentum in the US start to pick up — has a slightly higher mix of Asia-based manufacturers than other European labels, meaning it’s particularly vulnerable, said RBC in a note.

 

The situation also presents a unique challenge for Swiss watches, Citi analyst Thomas Chauvet said in a note Thursday. Richemont, a bright spot in the downturn thanks to its strong perception and focus on hard luxury, faces a higher, Switzerland-specific tariff of 31 percent.

 

LVMH started hedging its bets on American manufacturing during Trump’s first term, building three Louis Vuitton facilities in California and Texas, which account for around 50 percent of volumes and 1/3 of the value of its US business, according to a note from RBC. In January, Arnault indicated his interest in bolstering US production again.

 

For others, including Kering, manufacturing stateside “makes no sense,” said François-Henri Pinault on its Q4 2024 earnings call in February. “We’re producing in Italy and in France … we’re selling a part of our culture." Cachet aside, shifting a supply chain represents a logistical juggernaut. Finding a new manufacturer with scale and luxury know-how is challenging; moving to a region that felt less of an impact is futile, with circumstances in flux. The US does not have much local infrastructure or workers skilled in apparel manufacturing beyond Los Angeles, where the focus is on knits and denim.

 

“You can’t move the fashion supply chain on a dime,” said Brian Ehrig, partner in Kearney’s consumer practice. “Where are you going to go?”

 

Regardless of approach and positioning, a degree of change is inevitable. As costs rise, brands and their suppliers will take a margin hit, pass increases onto consumers or find other workarounds. For many — including Kering and Hermès — price hikes, should duties increase, were already on the table.

 

But luxury is in a unique predicament: years of so-called “greed-flation” (where luxury brands hiked prices to drive margin-based sales growth, resulting in costs 54 percent higher on average than in 2019, according to HSBC) and price increases have already put a damper on spending, particularly among aspirational shoppers. Many brands have just started to face consumer fatigue with more entry level products and creative shifts.

 

The industry’s pricing power will be tested again. Brands favoured by higher-income shoppers — Hermès, for example — will naturally find it easier to trade on cachet. It could be more of an uphill battle for Kering, which has more exposure among aspirational shoppers (likely to feel the brunt of inflation) and is in the midst of repositioning its flagship Gucci.

 

But it’s not just the European giants who will feel the pinch of new trade policies: the vast majority of American brands — The Row, for example — manufacture overseas, tapping prowess in regions like Italy.

 

“These tariffs are going to touch everyone … We are in for a rough time. The economy was chugging along. Now it seems it will be out of steam,” Gary Wassner, founder of financing and factoring firm Hildun Corp, told BoF in an email. “How many many small and large companies will fail due to cash flow issues, lower margins and lower sales due to higher prices at retail, remains to be seen.”

 

For up-and-coming independent brands already embattled by ongoing wholesale upheaval, rising costs and margin erosion, a solid path forward feels elusive.

 

“It’s incredibly scary. I thought because I manufacture in so many places, including New York, I was going to be okay,” said Rachel Scott, the designer behind New York-based Diotima, who also produces in China, Italy and India. “Fashion is such an important industry for the States and [this is] going to completely cripple us.”

 

What’s to come?

Trump’s tariffs represent a broader challenge for luxury than just the additional fees.

 

The trickle-down effect of inflation and souring stock-market returns has the potential to hamper spending and put consumers in a distinctly bad mood. US consumer confidence has already taken a beating, falling to its lowest point in years in March, according to The Conference Board. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have both raised the probability of a US recession from 20 and 30 percent to 35 and 40 percent, respectively.

 

Plus, what happens in the US doesn’t stay in the US. Stock markets are already reeling from Trump’s announcement; the downstream impact of this policy could spell drastic implications for other economies.

 

“What we should worry about, in case, are the second and third level impacts of the new American policies, if they precipitate a sharp global recession and stock market correction,” said Solca in a note.

 

Simone Stern Carbone is Luxury Correspondent at the Business of Fashion. She is based in Zurich and Paris and covers fashion and beauty, with a focus on the dynamic luxury sector.

Aston Martin S4 - 1928 (Jeeves & Wooster)

Fri 23 Oct 2009 08:43  Bertie Wooster's Sports Car - bintang

Can anyone identify for me Bertie's gorgeous car, featured in the morning ITV3

broadcasts of the "Jeeves and Wooster" series?

Fri 23 Oct 2009 08:51  Bertie Wooster's Sports Car - Harmattan

Apparently an Aston Martin 1.5 litre although I had thought it was a Lagonda as per Capt. Hastings in Poirot.

https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=79527

The Aston Martin automobiles were initially produced by Bamford and Martin Ltd. from 1913 through 1925. William Renwich and A.C. (Augustus Cesare / 'Bert') Bertelli acquired the company in 1926, birthing Aston Martin Motors Ltd. Near the close of 1926, Aston martin moved to a factory in Victoria Road in Feltham, Middlesex, and a new line of cars was introduced in 1927 at the Motor Show at Olympia. Most of the coachwork applied to Aston Martin vehicles over the next decade were courtesy of Enrico Bertelli (A.C.'s brother) who operated out of an adjacent body shop to Aston Martin, located on Victoria Road.

 

Early production focused primarily on saloons and long chassis tourers known as the T-Type, produced from 1927 through 1928, and residing on a 114-inch wheelbase. In the Pre-War era, Aston Martin's production was low. Only fourteen examples of the T-Type were created, including 6 Tourers and 8 saloons. It is believed that only 1 example of each body style remains in existence.

 

The S-Type Sports Model rested on a shortened chassis and filled the need for more sporting applications. The first example was displayed at the London Motor Show at Olympia in 1928 and sold from the show stand to the Maharajah of Patiala and dispatched to India.

 

The S-Type was powered by a 1,495cc engine with overhead camshafts, Magneto ignition, twin SU carburetors, and paired to a four-speed non-synchromesh transmission.

 

by Daniel Vaughan | Sep 2024

https://www.conceptcarz.com/z20422/aston-martin-s-type.aspx

New Morgan Supersport 500-mile review. Why this is going to be a game-changer for Morgan

‘They act with total impunity’: Paris city hall declares war on graffiti vandals

 

‘They act with total impunity’: Paris city hall declares war on graffiti vandals

 

Officials promise to track down and prosecute those who ‘tag’ city’s historic monuments, statues and grand buildings

 

Kim Willsher in Paris

Thu 17 Apr 2025 18.43 CEST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/17/they-act-with-total-impunity-paris-city-hall-declares-war-on-graffiti-vandals

 

In Paris’s central Place de la République, the magnificent lions at the feet of the statue of Marianne are once again covered in graffiti.

 

Along the nearby Boulevard Saint-Martin – part of the Grands Boulevards that bisect the north of the city – the trunk of every plane tree has been crudely sprayed with a name.

 

The front of majestic stone apartment buildings, some dating back more than 200 years, are similarly “tagged” with stylised initials or names. So are the benches, flower boxes, front doors, post boxes and the plinth under the bust of the half British 19th-century playwright Baron Taylor. In fact, anything that does not move has been tagged.

 

Now Paris city hall has declared war on the vandals and promised to track them down, prosecute and seek fines for some of the estimated €6m (£5.1m) of damage they cause every year.

 

The latest anti-tag campaign is being waged by Ariel Weil, the mayor of France’s central district covering the first to fourth arrondissements on the right bank of the Seine. Weil is particularly infuriated by the repeated vandalism to the Marianne, the female symbol of the nation and a listed historic monument.

 

“I’ve asked police to use cameras and I will take legal action each time and work out the cost to the city in each case,” Weil told Le Parisien. “Everyone needs to work together: city hall, the police and the courts. People have to know that damaging a public building is not nothing.”

 

François Louis, the president of an association of Parisiens who use city hall’s official DansMaRue app to signal damage, dumping and antisocial behaviour in public spaces, says he has heard it all before.

 

He said a core group of about 50 “serial taggers” were responsible for half of the tags across the city and had been operating with impunity for decades.

 

City hall has said it will seek fines for people who ‘tag’ buildings with stylised initials or names for some of the estimated €6m of damage they cause each year. Photograph: Elsa/Getty Images

 

“Some of these serial taggers are arrested, released and are back tagging again the next day. Some take pictures or film themselves and post on social media. They act with total impunity,” Louis said.

 

“We need to catch those who do it time and time again. It shouldn’t be beyond the capability of the national police to investigate, in fact it’s disconcertingly easy. They should be taking images from CCTV, matching it to phone mast records and tracing these serial taggers.”

 

He added: “Can you image if Notre Dame was tagged? When the Gilets Jaunes tagged the Arc de Triomphe it was headline news so why are we letting these people vandalise the historic monument at Place de la République?”

 

Paris police prefecture says the number of tagging cases it has handled increased by 51% in the last two years from 317 to 479. Those taken to court and convicted can face up to two years in prison and fines of up to €30,000 for the most serious damage.

 

Despite repeated threats of clampdowns, there has been only one prosecution in three years. In 2022, a Paris court sentenced a man known as Six Sax to two months in prison and gave him a €17,000 fine.

 

City hall says the cost of repairing the damage falls not only on public authorities but also on private property owners if the graffiti on a building is above the first floor. Officials also worry that the chemicals used are causing permanent damage to the stone of monuments and buildings and the trees.

 

Emmanuel Grégoire, a former deputy mayor of Paris who hopes to be elected as city mayor next year, said the authority had been compiling files on the worst serial taggers with a view to producing evidence for any eventual court cases.

 

“These investigators take photographs and look at social networks and AI to identify the signatures,” he said. “Many of the taggers are not anonymous but operate under their own names with a sense of impunity.”

 

Sitting in a cafe just off Place de la République, Grégoire pointed to tags all along the facade of a building opposite. “They’ve gone along from balcony to balcony tagging the wall. It’s a real problem all over Paris but this is one of the worst-hit areas.”

 

Louis said the ubiquitous tags are a stain on the city’s magnificent Hausmannian avenues of the Grands Boulevards.

 

“They’re like dogs pissing against a wall to mark their territory,” he said. “It gives a very poor impression. People who have a certain image of the city in their mind arrive here and see whole districts trashed by tagging.”

Nantucket Reds

  

https://www.nantucketreds.com/

 

Nantucket Reds are a style of trousers distributed by Murray's Toggery Shop on the island of Nantucket. The pants were featured in The Official Preppy Handbook.

 

Description

Nantucket Reds were originally inspired by cotton trousers worn in Brittany. A characteristic of Reds is that they fade to a "dusty rose" as they age. Since their inception, the cotton canvas pants have been marketed as shorts. The distinctive salmon pink color has since been used on hats, shirts, sweaters and socks. Reds are worn predominantly by summer residents of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Cape Cod in place of khakis or chinos. Because both Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard are popular vacation destinations for wealthy north easterners, reds have become associated with northeastern preppy style and culture.[citation needed] Reds are also commonly worn on Fire Island and the Hamptons.

 

Distribution

Reds are produced by and distributed to the public by Murray's Toggery Shop, which is located on Main Street on the island of Nantucket, in Massachusetts. Nantucket Reds are marketed as "Guaranteed to Fade."

LA DOLCE VITA ORIENT EXPRESS / A train from the UK to Italy? We’ve heard that one before, but I’m on board

Eat, sleep and party’: a taste of La Dolce Vita aboard Italy’s Orient Express

 

Replica of world-famous train aimed at reviving glamour of the classic version makes debut journey from Rome

 

Angela Giuffrida in Rome

Sat 5 Apr 2025 09.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/05/eat-sleep-and-party-a-taste-of-la-dolce-vita-aboard-italys-orient-express

 

A replica of the world-famous Orient Express made its debut journey from Rome on Friday, transporting well-heeled passengers into the heart of Tuscany’s wine region.

 

La Dolce Vita Orient Express, the first Italian-made luxury train, is aimed at reviving the glamour of the classic version as well as the romanticised notion of Italy’s dolce vita, or “sweet life”, all the while promoting slow tourism.

 

The train, the first of a fleet of six, is made up of 12 refurbished carriages that once chugged along Italian rail tracks in the 1960s and which have been decked out with 18 suites, 12 deluxe cabins, a bar, a lounge and a restaurant serving haute cuisine by the Michelin-starred chef Heinz Beck.

 

A collaboration between Orient Express; Arsenale, an Italian hospitality company; and Italy’s state railways, Ferrovie dello Stato, the maiden voyage, which involves an overnight route called “tastes of Tuscan vineyards”, left Rome’s Ostiense station at about midday.

 

Rather than having to mingle with longsuffering commuters, deal with any delays or make do with an espresso and a soggy sandwich from the station’s bar, passengers began their experience in the opulent Dolce Vita lounge, strategically located on the station platform from where their train departed.

 

The itinerary is one of eight that collectively cover 14 Italian regions, from Veneto and Liguria in the north to Basilicata and Sicily in the south. On Friday afternoon passengers travelled along the coast, passing the seaside towns of Santa Severa and Santa Marinella before gliding through the countryside of Tuscan, where by early evening they could sip locally made Brunello wine as part of the aperitivo. As an option, they could disembark and be taken to the hilltop town of Montalcino before returning to the Dolce Vita for their evening meal and entertainment. The train, which also passes through Florence and Pisa, completes its loop back to Rome on Saturday morning.

 

“You eat, you sleep, and you party on board,” said Paolo Barletta, who dreamed up the idea for an experience that combines slow tourism with Italy’s landscape and its diverse regional cuisine. “It’s kind of like the experience of a cruise ship, but instead of being a boat cruise it’s a rail cruise.”

 

The first trip sold out, with 38 passengers partaking. Trips are also fully booked for the rest of April and most of May, with itineraries involving Venice, Portofino, Matera, the Unesco-listed town in Basilicata known for its ancient cave dwellings, and Sicily. On a trip scheduled in November, passengers can explore the Monferrato truffle region in Piedmont, while tasting said truffles and drinking barolo wine.

 

The vast majority of those who have booked so far are Americans, followed by Europeans and visitors from the Middle East. Needless to say, a voyage on the Dolce Vita does not come cheap, with prices starting at €3,500 (£2,982).

 

‘A rail cruise’: the itinerary covers 14 Italian regions, from Veneto and Liguria in the north to Basilicata and Sicily in the south. A voyage starts at €3,500 (£2,982). Photograph: Patrick Locqueneux

By comparison, a one-way trip from Rome to Pisa, on a standard Italian fast train will cost about €45 (£38), even cheaper if you book early. For those wanting to replicate the Dolce Vita feeling, the onboard bar sells half-bottles of prosecco for €12 (£10).

 

Barletta said the Dolce Vita experience is not just the preserve of the super-rich. “A lot of people are booking for the one-time experience,” he said. “Perhaps they are retired and want to spend some of their retirement savings doing something special, or it is an anniversary or they are celebrating a wedding. It’s not only about experiencing the train … people really want to see Italy, and in a slow, relaxed way. The Dolce Vita won’t just take them to famous places like Venice, but also areas that are less well-known, for example Abruzzo.”

A train from the UK to Italy? We’ve heard that one before, but I’m on board

Jonn Elledge

It’s a lot easier to tease new cross-Channel rail services than it is to actually start running trains. I’m crossing my fingers anyway

 

Tue 15 Apr 2025 03.00 EDT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/15/train-uk-to-italy-cross-channel-services

 

Between environmental breakdown, economic crisis and Donald Trump, it often feels like there’s precious little reason to feel hopeful these days. So how’s this for a reason to cheer up: Italian state railway company, Trenitalia, is planning to run trains through the Channel tunnel before the decade is out. It’s studying the option of direct trains from the UK to Italy, too. Eagle-eyed readers may note that those are two separate propositions.

 

Trenitalia is no stranger to the British rail network: it already operates the C2C franchise, which connects London Fenchurch Street via south Essex to Southend. Last week the company announced a €1bn (£860m) plan to launch a new high-speed service connecting London and Paris by 2029, as a direct competitor to the long-established Eurostar. In addition, it’s reported to be “studying the possibility” of extending the route, to Lyon, Marseille and Milan, which could be reached by train from London in eight hours. (Trenitalia already runs from Milan to Paris in just over seven hours.)

 

If some of this sounds a little bit familiar, that’s because we’ve heard it before. Train operators are increasingly vying for ownership of new, and potentially lucrative, routes across Europe. Last month, Richard Branson’s Virgin group announced it was trying to raise £700m to fund a “high-frequency” new cross-Channel route. Switzerland’s SBB, a Dutch startup named Heuro, a British one named Gemini and Spain’s Evolyn (which now seems to have teamed up with the Italians) have all expressed an interest, too. There have been days when I’ve considered having a go myself, just for the attention.

 

All of this sounds like good news for consumers. And it still might be. But it’s a lot easier to announce a new cross-Channel service than to actually start running any trains. In 2010, Germany’s Deutsche Bahn announced plans to run trains from London to Brussels, where they’d split, one half going to Amsterdam, the other to Cologne and Frankfurt. It never happened. Neither did the proposed daily commuter stopping service from London to Lille – a pity, since it might have dealt with the absurd situation in which London’s Stratford International station has never seen a train going further than Kent.

 

If anything, route options through the tunnel have actually declined. For several years, you could get Eurostar trains direct from London to Lyon, Avignon and Marseille: it felt like the supreme achievement of civilisation to be able to board a train on a drizzly Euston Road and get off in sight of the Med. That route stopped running during the pandemic, apparently never to return.

 

Why is it so hard? The problem is neither, as one might assume, platform capacity at St Pancras International, nor space in the tunnel: both could accommodate more trains. There are other practical difficulties – a UK shortage of depot space; a Europe-wide shortage of trains – but these would surely not be barriers to a really committed operator, either. The Office of Rail Regulation says there’s space for more trains at the Temple Mills depot in Leyton, east London. (Eurostar says otherwise but, well, it would.) And while there is currently a lack of 400m trains meeting the stringent fire safety requirements required to operate through the tunnel, that’s hardly insurmountable: just pair a couple of 200m ones together. Trenitalia, which has a large fleet of trains described as “almost tunnel-ready”, says it sees no hurdle here.

 

But the biggest issue facing these ambitious operators is border policy. Even before Brexit, the UK was not in the Schengen area, meaning that travelling on Eurostar required passport checks, which the Home Office insists must be done before boarding, rather than on board the train or on arrival. Every station served by cross-Channel trains needs both passport control facilities and cordoned-off space beyond them; where these do not exist, entire trains’ worth of passengers have been turfed off to do their paperwork at Lille. The need to scan luggage for security threats complicates things, too.

 

All this also means a bottleneck at St Pancras. There may be space for more trains; there’s rather less for more passengers, each of whom has to pass through airport-style security measures before boarding, and even more checks since Brexit reduced capacity by a third. Trenitalia says that plans to address this problem are at “an advanced stage”, but it won’t be easy – the station is a Grade I-listed building. Add in the expense and disruption posed by all those other problems, and you can see why new services are announced a lot more frequently than they ever happen.

 

Perhaps this time will be different. Access to rolling stock and money make the Trenitalia/Evolyn tie-up the most plausible competitor so far, with the possible exception of SBB. (Switzerland has a lot of flights to London and limited airport capacity.) Eurostar itself is promising expansion, suggesting it doesn’t think the capacity problems are insurmountable. And there’s Europe-wide pressure to replace flights with trains.

 

For now, though, the most likely outcome here is surely a bit more competition on the existing routes from London to Paris, Brussels and Lille. That might push standards up, or ticket prices down, both of which would be good. That, though, might be as far as things go. Trains to northern Italy – or even southern France – may be technically feasible, but that doesn’t make them economically viable. Still, we can hope. After all, we all want a better future.

 

Jonn Elledge is an author and former assistant editor of the New Statesman