Archive | International

Up a Creek Without a Padel

Pickleball has been one of the fastest-rising sports—in participation and licensing interest—in the last couple of years. But another up-and-coming racket sport, padel, is emerging in mainstream popularity and seems to have similar potential to pickleball. Padel, played with four people per team, is described as a cross between tennis and squash. It takes place […]

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Painting a Picture

One of the products in the gift shop at this year’s sold-out Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is a licensed plush figure depicting Dick Bruna’s rabbit character Miffy as Vermeer’s The Milkmaid. This is the latest in a small but growing group of collaborations, mostly taking place in Europe or Asia, whose design inspiration […]

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Asian Designers Shine in New Year Collabs

Each year, more marketers—of various sizes, working across categories and geographic regions—have been celebrating the Lunar New Year with collaborations involving designers, artists, influencers, and other creatives based or born in China or other Asian countries. This year is no exception. Among the many examples for the 2023 Year of the Rabbit, which began yesterday, […]

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Tea Party

An estimated 450,000-plus tea and tea-drink shops were operating in China at the beginning of this year, according to the China Tea Marketing Association. These include both traditional tea shops and new-style shops focused on flavored milk, fruit, bubble, and even cheese teas, with new-style chains growing quickly over the past several years (despite a […]

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South African Fashion Goes Global

Designers and labels from South Africa have gradually been expanding their presence on the world stage over the past several years, including through collaborations with global fashion companies and corporate brands. Four of the seven examples included here debuted this year: Just last week, Reebok announced it was launching a collection with athleisure brand Nao […]

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Just for Kicks

While collaborations between fashion labels and football/soccer clubs in Europe and elsewhere are nothing new, the landscape is expanding, with more clubs and more fashion labels entering into such agreements. The fashion styles range from luxury to streetwear to denim; in many cases the club’s main kit supplier is part of the equation as well. […]

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A Licensing Community at War

The war in Ukraine has disrupted the flow of licensed products across the world, especially for companies doing significant business with or in Russia, a growing licensing market before the war started. But, as the pictures in the news everyday can attest, no one in the licensing community has been more affected than those in […]

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