Burberry Gets (Indie) Sleazy. The luxury fashion brand is continuing its push to boost brand relevance by launching a new campaign centered on festival season. Indie sleaze queen and fashion muse Alexa Chung stars in the campaign alongside Cara Delevingne, Goldie, and even Oasis frontman (and hot-head) Liam Gallagher and his kids. Set in an open, muddy field, the creative is a clear nod to the mess of festival culture, and is timed a few weeks before Glastonbury, the UK’s biggest music fest.

Burberry has steered away from ultra-luxe, polished campaigns and is instead embracing more authentic and cultural campaign themes. “Wrapped in Burberry” has been an ongoing narrative thread, with the brand showing real people donning Burberry plaid. 

Curiously, Hunter boots are featured in the campaign, which entered administration (the UK equivalent of bankruptcy) in 2023. Hunter was subsequently acquired by Authentic Brands Group. Future Commerce’s own Brian Lange wrote about post-memesis saturation of brands, including Hunter and Stanley 1913 (and others), in “Post-Memesis Washout.”

‍Fast-Fashion Sticker-Shock. Were Trump tariffs all it took to get US consumers to give up fast-fashion? According to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, they’re saying goodbye to Temu and Shein in droves to bypass jarring fees: from March to May, Temu’s daily active user rate dropped 52%, while Shein’s fell 25%. 

But will the shift away from $9 lounge sets and $7 sandals be a long-term reality? Although the Trump administration has closed the de minimis loophole, the president yesterday revealed that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had a “very positive” first meeting and that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will hold additional trade talks with Chinese representatives soon. 

Late last month, Trump and Jinping agreed to lower their respective tariffs for a 90-day period to support further negotiation: the US tariffs on Chinese goods went from 145% to 30%, while China reduced taxes on US goods from 125% to 10%.

Get Crafty. Michaels continues to benefit from the deaths of its industry counterparts. First, the arts and crafts retailer responded to Party City’s closure by expanding its party supply selection by up to 200%, including balloons. Now, it has scooped up the intellectual property (IP) of Joann after its January 2025 bankruptcy. With this deal, Michaels will add Joann’s Big Twist brands to its portfolio so it can broaden  its fabric, sewing, and yarn assortment. Michaels has seemingly become an all-in-one destination for creative projects, from flower arrangements to DIY weddings.

Bringing Joann’s IP into the mix will help broaden Michaels’ reach and relevance, especially among loyal Joann customers who are seeking a reliable source for their fabric and sewing needs. That is, if the retailer actually plans to do anything meaningful with the IP.

Mass Meta A(I)dvertising. Meta may have said goodbye to seamless in-platform checkout, but it continues to go all-in on AI-powered advertising. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company plans to add to its existing rolodex of AI-powered tools for advertisers by powering the entire creative process, from concept to optimization. There are widespread implications on what this will mean for consumers, who will likely be hit with an onslaught of same-same content and creative. 

And while industry players report that these new offerings will be a boon for small- and medium-sized businesses who don’t have the size or scale to expand their ad operations, we can’t help but question what this means for how brands show up in-feed (and beyond), and what it means for ad performance. If consumers are going to be fed nearly-identical “AI-approved” campaigns, ad resonance and impact will undoubtedly take a hit. Brands will essentially be in a creative prison of their own making, something retail strategist Melissa Minkow explored in this week’s Insiders.