Naira depreciates as central bank moves to intervene again

The naira on Wednesday depreciated sharply to N465 per dollar in the parallel market due to upsurge in demand for dollars importers travelling to China.

Investigations revealed that the parallel market exchange rate rose from N448 per dollar on Tuesday to close at N465 per dollar at the close of business on Wednesday, indicating N17 depreciation.

Skyscanner sold to China travel firm Ctrip in $1.75bn deal

Skyscanner, the UK-based travel search business, has been bought by Ctrip, China's biggest online travel firm.

According to BBC News, the deal values Skyscanner at about £1.4bn ($1.75bn).

The firm, which has its headquarters in Edinburgh, is available in more than 30 languages, with about 60 million monthly active users.

It was set up to let users compare prices from different travel sites when searching for flights, hotels, and rental cars.

Skyscanner said it would continue to run independently, with the same management team.

Ctrip was founded in 1999 and is one of China's best-known travel businesses.

The deal would "strengthen long-term growth drivers for both companies," said James Jianzhang Liang, co-founder and executive chairman of Ctrip.

"Skyscanner will complement our positioning at a global scale and Ctrip will leverage our experience, technology and booking capabilities to Skyscanner's," he added.

Skyscanner was set up in 2003, and co-founder and chief executive Gareth Williams said the deal took his firm closer to its goal "of making travel search as simple as possible for travellers around the world".

"Ctrip and Skyscanner share a common view - that organizing travel has a long way to go to being solved. To do so requires powerful technology and a traveller-first approach," Mr Williams said.

The sale comes about a year after Skyscanner announced a fresh round of investment to help it expand. Its backers include investment firm Sequoia as well as the Malaysian government's strategic investment fund, Yahoo Japan and fund manager Artemis.

Shanghai-based Ctrip became China's biggest internet travel service after merging with a similar business, Qunar, last year. That deal gave Chinese internet giant Baidu, which controlled Qunar, a 25% stake in Ctrip.

Japan fashion told to forget Paris, focus on Tokyo

Tokyo may be the style capital of Asia, but with South Korea and China snapping at its heels and Japan’s most iconic brands rooted in Europe, the city is being urged to haul its fashion week into the big leagues.

Tokyo Fashion Week kicked off its spring/summer 2017 season showcase on Monday with six days of events intended to promote 50 brands, a mixture of the established and the new.

Yet Japanese labels that are household names in the West — led by Kenzo, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Comme des Garcons — eschew home shores for the bright lights, prestige and visibility of Paris.

Tokyo Fashion Week attracts only 50,000 visitors — just a quarter of the total number that attend New York’s two annual fashion weeks, and also lagging behind London, Paris and Milan.

Held after the fashion merry ground exhausts the “big four”, few make the extra trip to Tokyo, and not many in Japan believe they are missing out.

According to a poll from local website Fashionsnap.com, only 20 percent of the Japanese fashion industry, including designers, stylists and editors, consider Tokyo’s events to be of interest.

The calendar, the no-show by the biggest brands, reluctance to open their doors to the wider public and sluggishness to embrace see-now, buy-now were all listed as shortcomings by the 221 people surveyed.

– ‘Focus on your own’ –

The award-winning, Milan-based Turkish designer Umit Benan, wants to change all that.

“Everyone needs to get together to make the Japanese fashion week much better,” the menswear designer told reporters after making his Tokyo debut, having announced he would ditch Paris fashion week

He called Japan’s menswear the “most sophisticated you’ll see in the streets” and said Tokyo was packed with the world’s most creative buyers and designers, along with some of the most sophisticated consumers around.

“I think you really need to focus on your own fashion week, trying to create new waves in Japan fashion,” he said, joking that he loves Japan so much, he visited 40 times in the last five years.

He called Japanese fabric second only to Italy’s. But unlike in Italy, where high fashion is governed by precision, he said the Japanese were willing to take risks, such as mix nylon with cashmere.

“The Italians don’t have the balls to mix nylon into a 200 euro fabric,” he said. “In Japan they’re very flexible and very creative, spontaneous… when you touch it you’re like my God what is this?”

While Tokyo has long been a springboard for up-and-coming designers, neighbouring Seoul, with its vibrant street style, and Shanghai, as the commercial capital of China, are attracting increased interest.

“To me, Tokyo is the Asian fashion centre with long fashion-forward history,” said Hong Kong designer Vickie Au who brought her “Urban Chill” collection to Tokyo after showing in New York.

The street look, minimal style and clean lines of her House of V label, this season inspired by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry is well suited to Japanese taste.

– ‘Beauty of the craft’ –

While she has boutiques in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, and online, she is looking to break into the Japanese and US markets.

Au cited Yamamoto, the famed Japanese designer based in Paris, as an inspiration, praising him as a master of “modern and avant-garde tailoring”.

Christelle Kocher, creative director of up-and-coming French label Koche, also said she had learnt from Yamamoto and that it had been special to be the only French brand participating in Tokyo this season.

“Japanese culture is really refined and I think may be more than other places, they understand the beauty of the craft and the beauty of the time to make beautiful things,” she said.

US retailing giant Amazon is sponsoring Tokyo Fashion Week for the first time, and among the fashion set in Japan there are hopes that it can help rebrand the event into something brighter and larger.

The company is already the largest clothing retailer in the United States and fashion vice president for Amazon Japan, James Peters, signalled that he is determined to replicate that success in Japan.

While Tokyo still follows a six-month delay between catwalk and store, he said Amazon would be happy to help Japanese designers facilitate see-now, buy-now collections increasingly at the fore in New York.

“I think if that’s what the designers want to do, we’re ready to do it,” he told AFP at the week’s launch party.

The son of a Chinese billionaire bought his dog eight iPhone 7s

Wang Sicong has been nicknamed "the nation's husband" online.

Apple fans lined up across China last week to get their hands on the latest iPhone, while others tried to smuggle handsets in from Hong Kong.

But one iPhone user didn't have to worry: Coco the Alaskan malamute.

Coco's owner Wang Sicong, son of Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin (estimated worth $30 billion), bought the dog eight iPhone 7 handsets on the day of their release, according to photos posted on the dog's verified Weibo social media account - China's equivalent of Twitter. 

 

 

Coco the Alaskan malamute poses with her iPhone 7 handsets.

"I don't understand all the show-off posts on (social media)," read the post alongside the photos.

"What's the point? Don't make me do it?"

In China, an iPhone 6 costs 6,988 yuan ($1,047), while the larger iPhone 7 Plus goes for 7,988 yuan ($1,197). 

 

Coco poses with her black and rose gold iPhone 7 handsets.

This isn't the first time Wang has doted on Coco in this fashion.

In 2015, he attracted widespread outrage in China after posting photos of the dog wearing two Apple Watches with luxury bands worth upwards of $37,000.

He's part of China's fu'erdai or second-generation rich -- the sons and daughters of tycoons that are best known for flaunting their decadent lifestyles.

Nicknamed "the nation's husband" for his status as China's most eligible bachelor, Wang has come under fire from state media for his outrageous displays of wealth.

 

Last year, the official Xinhua news agency published a blistering commentary about Wang accusing him of having "stained the purity of the Chinese (people)" and warning others not to copy the "arrogant and coarse celebrity."

That came after Wang created a furore by saying the only characteristic he looked for in potential girlfriends was the size of their breasts, causing Xinhua to accuse him of having "Berlusconi-style arrogance."

Criticism over "buxomgate" got so strong that Wang's father appeared on state television to address the controversy, blaming his son's behavior on "Western schooling."