Store upgrades were big last year, and 2025 looks not different with footwear retail giant Schuh opening a bigger, better offer in key Dublin destination Dundrum Town Centre.
Schuh
Opening Thursday (20 February), the revamped store “plans to cement the brands reputation as the go-to footwear destination for Irish shoppers”.
With it comes Schuh’s latest store design concept, including a bigger and better kids department, together with an expanded product offering for the youth customer featuring top-selling brands such as adidas, UGG and Nike.
The Dundrum Town Centre store opening follows schuh’s December opening in Rushmere Retail Park in Craigavon, bringing the brand’s total Irish store count to 14, including six in Dublin alone.
Neil Partington, the brand’s chief retail officer, said: “Ireland is an important market for Schuh where we continue to invest. Dublin, in particular, plays a major role in [our] growth.”
Don Nugent, senior general manager for Dundrum Town Centre, added: “[Our] centre prides itself on being Ireland’s best destination for the very best in retail. This investment by schuh aligns with [our] objective to deliver the best shopping experience for our 16 million visitors each year.”
The Dublin upgrade comes despite Schuh introducing a cost-cutting programme late last year, including a round of staff cuts. The footwear retailer began a voluntary redundancy process, “citing rising costs and challenging economic conditions”.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. posted its fastest pace of revenue growth in more than a year, as the Chinese internet pioneer co-founded by Jack Ma takes another step toward a recovery after years of turbulence.
The Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. headquarters in Hangzhou – Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg – Reuters
The company reported better-than-anticipated revenue gains in its two most important divisions: e-commerce and cloud services, which houses its AI endeavors. That hints at a bounce-back in Chinese consumption from post-Covid troughs, and initial success at beating back rivals from ByteDance Ltd. to PDD Holdings Inc. that in recent years eroded its market share. The company’s stock rose as much as 11% after markets opened in New York on Thursday.
Investors may have also been bullish because of Alibaba’s growing determination to compete in artificial intelligence. Chief Executive Officer Eddie Wu said Alibaba will spend more on AI infrastructure over the next three years as it did in the past decade. He went as far as to say that Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, is the company’s “primary objective.”
“This is the kind of opportunity for industry transformation that really only comes about once every several decades,” he told analysts on a conference call. “So when it comes to Alibaba’s AI strategy, our first and foremost goal is to pursue AGI.”
The financial results show Alibaba is already righting a business knocked off-kilter by a government clampdown that began in 2020. It regained its footing after Beijing signaled a pullback in scrutiny in 2023. Joe Tsai and Wu — two of co-founder Jack Ma’s most trusted lieutenants — took the helm that year and refocused investment on AI and e-commerce. On Thursday, Alibaba reported a faster-than-projected 8% rise in sales to 280.2 billion yuan ($38.6 billion) in the December quarter, after cloud services revenue expanded its most on a quarterly basis in about two years.
That division, which houses the company’s AI-related projects and hosts computing power for external clients, grew revenue 13% to $4.3 billion. International commerce sales — driven by overseas marketplaces such as AliExpress and Trendyol — surged 32%.
Alibaba has gained some $100 billion of market value in 2025, though it’s still far from its pre-crackdown peak. Ma himself joined a select group of the biggest names in Chinese technology and business at a televised summit convened this week by Xi Jinping — signifying Alibaba’s return to favor after years in the cold. The gathering featured entrepreneurs across a broad swath of industry, notably from the sphere of artificial intelligence.
“Now that Alibaba has defended its main e-commerce business, and its side AI business is also booming, we could see Alibaba’s results flourish in upcoming quarters,” said Li Chengdong, head of Beijing-based Internet think-tank Haitun. “Their government relationship wasn’t in a good shape in the past few years and that must have led to a huge loss of clients. Now the AI business is finally reviving the group.”
Ma was the highest-profile casualty of Xi’s crackdown on the internet and private sector in 2020, when authorities scuttled the blockbuster initial public offering of Alibaba-affiliate Ant Group Co.
That episode kicked off a yearslong campaign to tighten state control over the economy, rein in the nation’s billionaire class and shift resources toward Xi’s priorities including national security and technological self-sufficiency. Once one of China’s most outspoken entrepreneurs, Ma largely disappeared from public view.
But authorities have taken a less combative approach as China’s economy slowed and companies aligned themselves with Xi’s push for leadership in areas like AI. Alibaba, which operates one of the world’s biggest cloud services platforms, wowed investors this year by making major headway in that arena during the post-ChatGPT era.
“The results show very good progress — a very clear ‘back to basics’ strategy is paying off,” said Jeffrey Towson, partner at TechMoat Consulting.
Since the advent of OpenAI’s chatbot, Alibaba has invested in a clutch of China’s most promising startups, including Moonshot and Zhipu. It prioritized the expansion of the cloud business that underpins AI development, slashing prices to win back the customers that fled during the turbulent years.
It also decided to spend big on AI, joining a race led by Baidu Inc. at the time. DeepSeek’s sudden rise to global prominence last month – a shock to both Silicon Valley and Wall Street — boosted Chinese tech stocks including Alibaba in recent weeks. Since then, Alibaba has unveiled a Qwen model that performed well in official benchmark tests and signaled the company’s growing relevance in the field. Apple Inc. is incorporating Alibaba’s AI technology into Chinese iPhones, a vote of confidence in its prowess.
On Thursday, Wu talked up Alibaba’s aspirations to ride the AI wave and develop AGI — the industry holy grail touted by prominent advocates from OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Masayoshi Son.
But like many of his peers, the Alibaba CEO stopped short of outlining a profitable use case for AI. It should however enhance services throughout the business, while Alibaba itself as an infrastructure provider should benefit, he said.
“We’re still in very early days when we’re talking about the advancement of artificial intelligence technology,” Wu said. “The future business business models and the future ways in which these models will be monetized are not necessarily clear to anybody today.”
Phoebe Philo has shifted to a higher gear, opening its first physical store in France, a 50-square-metre space on the first floor of Galeries Lafayette Haussmann in Paris that was inaugurated on February 19. Last November, Phoebe Philo opened its first shop-in-shop in London at Dover Street Market. The Paris opening coincides with the recent launch on Phoebe Philo’s e-shop of the second drop of the B Collection, the label’s second collection.
A look from Phoebe Philo’s B Collection – Phoebe Philo
Just over a year after launching its first collection, the high-end ready-to-wear and accessories label distinctive for its chic minimalist style has reached a new milestone with this sizeable new Parisian shop-in-shop. It isn’t a fully-fledged monobrand store yet, but it looks very much like one.
Philo, the former creative director of Chloé and Céline, took her time to develop and prepare her project over the course of two years. She initially commercialised her label only through an e-shop in a handful of countries, presenting a limited number of items.
In April 2024, she made a first foray into physical retail by granting US department store Bergdorf Goodman, for a limited length of time, the exclusive opportunity to sell a selection of clothes and accessories in advance. A few months later, in September, she announced she had inked commercial deals with six other physical retailers: Dover Street Market in London and Paris, 10 Corso Como in Milan, Maxfield and Neiman Marcus in Los Angeles, and The Webster in Miami. For the retailers in question, it was guaranteed success.
Finally, last October, Phoebe Philo announced its entry into the Asian market through phoebephilo.com, as well as via various multibrand retailers that are commercialising its products adopting the same model deployed in Europe and the USA. The label established partnerships in Tokyo, Japan, with Dover Street Market Ginza and Isetan Shinjuku; in Sydney, Australia, with Parlour X; and in Seoul, South Korea, with Shinsegae International.
Philo founded her eponymous label in London in September 2020 with her husband, real estate entrepreneur Maximilian Wigram. The LVMH group has bought a minority stake in the label. In recent months, Phoebe Philo added to its staff by appointing, among others, Bruno Sialelli, former creative director of Lanvin, as head of ready-to-wear design.
On Thursday, France’s Parliament is set to definitively approve an environmental bill restricting the manufacture and sale of products containing perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS), a “ground-breaking” new piece of legislation for the European Union. PFAS, also known as ‘forever chemicals’, are ubiquitous in everyday life, and their impact on health is a concern for the general public and the authorities.
A demonstration calling for a PFAS ban held on May 26, 2024 in Oullins, France – JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK / AFP/Archives
The bill, which was approved in a first round at the National Assembly (the French parliament), and then redrafted by the Senate in May, should be approved as passed in the Senate, therefore coming into force.
The bill is top of the list in the so-called ‘ecologist slot’ — the day dedicated to the parliamentary activity regarding social and environmental legislation.
Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France’s Minister for ecological transition, introduced the debate by stating she supports the bill, while calling for a nuanced discussion, urging Parliament to “keep science firmly in mind” and “avoid generalised hostility to PFAS.”
“There are thousands of PFAS. Some are well-known, others less so. Some are dangerous, others are considered low-impact,” she said.
PFAS are virtually indestructible and are present in scores of objects and products. They accumulate over time in the air, soil, water, food and, ultimately, in the human body, especially in the blood and kidney and liver tissues.
Although knowledge of the health risks associated with the various types of PFAS is insufficient or in some cases absent, also according to the health authorities, several forever chemicals are said to cause adverse effects on the human metabolism.
The bill’s key article proposes to prohibit from January 1 2026 the production, import and sale of cosmetics, wax product (for skis) and clothes containing PFAS, with the exception of some industrial textiles or textiles that are “needed for essential use.”
The bill also includes a provision for taxing manufacturers whose activities result in PFAS discharge, following a ‘polluter pays’ principle.
Although the bill’s initial scope has been reduced – notably by excluding kitchen utensils from the proposed ban – rapporteur Nicolas Thierry (MP for Les Ecologistes party) claimed at the session that the bill is “a first response” that will make France “one of the best-equipped countries for protecting its population from the risks linked to forever chemicals.”
MP Cyrille Isaac-Sibille (of the MoDem party), author of a report on the subject a year ago, described the bill as a “foundation stone” in the fight against PFAS, one that will broadcast “a message to Europe saying that France is ready and that swift thinking is needed.”
“Markers”
Once the bill will have passed, MPs will turn to more divisive legislation, the “markers” that will allow ecologist politicians to “plant in the [political] landscape” the “elements of their future programme” for the next elections, said MP Pouria Amirshahi.
The debate is expected to turn lively in the case of the proposed ‘Zucman tax’, a flat 2% tax on the assets of the “ultra rich,” individuals with assets worth over €100 million.
The bill is the brainchild of economist Gabriel Zucman, who defended it on Sunday in a forum with other politicians, trade union members and citizens on French newspaper Le Monde, calling it a “common-sense measure” while noting that “billionaires pay almost no income tax.”
The governmental coalition opposed the bill in a parliamentary committee last week. “France is neither a tax haven nor an island,” and “we would be … the first country to implement this kind of taxation,” while France is already “the most highly taxed country,” argued Mathieu Lefèvre, speaking for Macron‘s party.
The other five bills proposed by the environmentalists aim to establish on an experimental basis “food security for all,” to “sustainably protect the quality of drinking water,” to “facilitate labour market access for asylum seekers,” to “prevent stock market-prompted redundancies,” and to guarantee daytime working hours for cleaners.
All of the bills were adopted at committee level, which does not automatically mean they will be passed by parliament. It is unlikely that all of them will be examined, as MPs will have to conclude their work at midnight, as provided by these parliamentary ‘slots’.
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