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By Tassilo Hummel and Mimosa Spencer PARIS (Reuters) -Gucci's "see now, buy now" approach for the first collection from new designer Demna, harnessing a buzz around the brand to draw shoppers back to its stores after years of lackluster sales, is showing some early success, data shows. Demna stole the show at Milan Fashion Week last month, dropping images of his first-ever Gucci collection on social media a day before the official debut in the style of a star-studded film premiere, an unusual move. The day after the celebrity-packed event, Gucci again broke with industry conventions, making the new products from the Milan show immediately available in ten flagship stores until October 12.  Big luxury houses usually stick to a rigid calendar of fashion shows months before clothes hit the shops. But Gucci's fast-track approach is showing some early improvements in store traffic in the United States, foot-traffic data compiled by Placer.ai and provided to Reuters by Colliers, shows. At the Rodeo Drive store in Los Angeles, one of the boutiques stocked with the new products, traffic rose steadily in each of the four days following the Milan show on September 23, with weekly store visits up 53% from the previous week, the data showed. At Gucci's Wooster Street store in New York weekly traffic was up 19%. Country-wide store visits in the U.S. reached their highest level in three weeks the weekend after the Demna launch, the data showed. Gucci-owner Kering and Gucci declined to comment when asked about shopper appetite for the Demna collection.     DEMNA'S NEW DESIGNS KEY TO REVITALISING GUCCI BRAND The success of the new collection from Demna, who only uses one name, would be a major step towards reviving the struggling Gucci brand, which makes up a majority of sales and profit at French conglomerate Kering. Kering CEO Luca de Meo and Gucci's boss Francesca Bellettini, both recent appointments, are under pressure to reverse Gucci's two-year sales decline. Gucci's revenue plummeted 25% year-on-year in the last reported quarter. Store traffic further slowed this year, Bellettini, then Kering's deputy CEO, said in July. Gucci's new fashion show-to-store move is unusual in the business and has only been used occasionally, mostly by smaller labels including Jacquemus and Burberry. But Gucci's instant commercial test makes sense, said Laure Anne Chansel, who teaches fashion marketing at the EIML business school in Paris. "What is the story the brand has told lately? There isn't much." Gucci needs to bank on the window of newfound attention after a period of flux following the previous designer's departure in February, Chansel said, referring to Sabato de Sarno.  LUXURY LABELS FIGHT TO WOO BACK SHOPPERS On Paris's Avenue Montaigne, one of three boutiques selling the collection in Europe, sales assistants last week said they had not seen such interest in months.  "I ended up being there longer than I thought,” said Gayle Deifel, a tourist from California, adding that she was surprised to discover Demna's new collection, including fur coats, a gold dress and new editions of Bamboo and Jackie handbags, already in the store. She bought a pair of leather boots. The new collection, which will be rolled out more broadly in January, also hints at the brand's commercial approach as it seeks to attract younger and less wealthy shoppers who turned away from luxury spending due to economic uncertainty. The luxury industry, which is in a downturn, needs to win back these customers who were put off when companies aggressively raised prices to focus on the super-wealthy. Gucci's new styles seen so far could widen the label's appeal, said luxury consultant LinLi Teh, a former buyer for London department store Liberty. “I think he's hitting the angles of all the Gucci customers over the past decades,” she said, referring to Demna, who comes from Georgia.  In the Paris store, the brand displayed a downsized and less expensive version of its classic Jackie bag near the checkout. At just under 2,000 euros ($2,347.00), the price is well below 3,200 euros for other Gucci styles. NEW DESIGNERS SEEK TO GRAB THE SPOTLIGHT Demna has taken the reins at Gucci amid an industry-wide reshuffle, with new designers also at Chanel, Dior and Loewe — all seeking to make their mark. Gucci's deep-pocketed rivals are staging elaborate events and campaigns, with LVMH recently creating a Louis Vuitton boutique shaped like an ocean liner in downtown Shanghai. Heavily-indebted Kering, meanwhile, is under pressure to balance marketing investments with a cost-cutting drive.  In China, Demna's Milan fashion week debut was broadcast at a VIP event with local celebrities in Beijing. This spurred a brief spike in online attention that faded within two days, said Alexis Bonhomme, who runs the luxury consulting firm Trinity Asia.  "The campaign has increased the talkability, but conversion into sales remains to be demonstrated," he said.  ($1 = 0.8522 euros) (Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Mimosa Spencer, editing by Lisa Jucca and Jane Merriman)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Leika Kihara TOKYO (Reuters) -The Bank of Japan on Monday maintained its economic assessments for eight of its regions saying their economies were recovering moderately or picking up, and cut the assessment for one area. Some regions cited companies in their area as saying they might need to curb wage increases if U.S. tariffs severely impact their profits, the BOJ said in a summary of reports made by its regional branch managers. But other regions saw companies projecting the need to keep raising wages because of labour shortages, increases in minimum wages and recent hikes in food costs, the summary said. Many companies planned to continue increasing capital expenditures to streamline operations and meet rising information technology-related demand, though some planned to put off or review their spending plans on uncertainty over the impact of U.S. tariffs, it said. (Reporting by Leika KiharaEditing by Chang-Ran Kim and Christian Schmollinger)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Gregor Stuart Hunter SINGAPORE (Reuters) -The yen tumbled the most against the U.S. dollar in five months on Monday after Sanae Takaichi won the LDP leadership election at the weekend, setting the country on course for more expansionary fiscal policy and complicating the task facing the Bank of Japan. The yen sank 1.9% to 150.35 yen on the dollar, its biggest one-day slide since May 12, wiping out the gains it made in the past two months. Against the euro, the Japanese currency fell 1.7% to 176.19 yen, its weakest since the creation of the European single currency. "The coming days will be important to gauge her policies and from other potential members in her likely cabinet," Paul Mackel, global head of FX research at HSBC, wrote in a research note. "While we see room for the JPY to recover, there are limits given the domestic policy uncertainty." A former economic security and internal affairs minister with an expansionary fiscal agenda for the world's fourth-largest economy, Takaichi's victory puts her on course to become the country's first female prime minister. Her expansionist economic policy has reduced bets that the central bank will hike interest rates this month. Takaichi's win "will likely lead to some weakness in the yen," said Mahjabeen Zaman, head of FX Research at ANZ in Sydney. "There's a lot of political and fiscal uncertainty in the near term and maybe the BOJ may be cautious, despite the data supporting a little bit more of a hawkish stance," she said on a podcast. Long-dated Japanese government bonds sold off, with the 40-year JGB yield jumping 15.2 basis points to 3.538%. The yen swaps market on Monday now indicates a 41% likelihood of a rate hike by December, down from 68% on Friday. "We're in the eye of the storm," said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group in Melbourne, as traders seek clues on how aggressively Takaichi will seek to ease fiscal policy. "If markets get a whiff that she's going to do Abenomics-lite, it could keep bond buyers out of the market," he said. "She does need to tread a careful path if she goes down that road. She'll be very cognizant of the UK's example." With many markets in Asia closed for holidays and liquidity thin in the region, the dollar index was last flat at 98.083, stabilising after recent losses. The dollar has weakened steadily against its major peers this year as traders attempt to gauge the economic impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's policies and attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve. "We continue to think that the yen is cheap relative to U.S. dollar and expect the U.S. dollar to fall steadily over time as the Fed cuts rates and the BOJ hikes," said David Chao, global market strategist for Asia-Pacific at Invesco in Singapore. "This adjustment could take longer with the LDP election results and forthcoming policy shifts now more clear." Market activity signals that easing at the Fed's October meeting is a near-certainty, with Fed funds futures implying a 96.7% probability of a 25-basis-point rate cut, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool. Speculators are also pricing a 72% chance that the government shutdown lasts beyond October 15, according to contracts on the betting website Polymarket. The euro stood at $1.1723, down 0.2% so far in Asia, after French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Sunday named Roland Lescure, a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron, as finance minister in a new government that political rivals threatened to topple quickly if it failed to break with past Macron policies. The kiwi reversed earlier losses and was last trading flat at $0.5832, reversing a six-day winning streak ahead of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's meeting on Wednesday, where it is narrowly expected to cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 2.75%. The Australian dollar fetched $0.6603, up 0.1% in early trade. Sterling was changing hands at $1.3450, down 0.2% so far on the day. The offshore yuan traded at 7.1456 yuan per dollar, 0.1% weaker in early trade. (Reporting by Gregor Stuart Hunter; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Kim Coghill)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Tassilo Hummel and Mimosa Spencer PARIS (Reuters) -Gucci's "see now, buy now" approach for the first collection from new designer Demna, harnessing a buzz around the brand to draw shoppers back to its stores after years of lackluster sales, is showing some early success, data shows. Demna stole the show at Milan Fashion Week last month, dropping images of his first-ever Gucci collection on social media a day before the official debut in the style of a star-studded film premiere, an unusual move. The day after the celebrity-packed event, Gucci again broke with industry conventions, making the new products from the Milan show immediately available in ten flagship stores until October 12.  Big luxury houses usually stick to a rigid calendar of fashion shows months before clothes hit the shops. But Gucci's fast-track approach is showing some early improvements in store traffic in the United States, foot-traffic data compiled by Placer.ai and provided to Reuters by Colliers, shows. At the Rodeo Drive store in Los Angeles, one of the boutiques stocked with the new products, traffic rose steadily in each of the four days following the Milan show on September 23, with weekly store visits up 53% from the previous week, the data showed. At Gucci's Wooster Street store in New York weekly traffic was up 19%. Country-wide store visits in the U.S. reached their highest level in three weeks the weekend after the Demna launch, the data showed. Gucci-owner Kering and Gucci declined to comment when asked about shopper appetite for the Demna collection.     DEMNA'S NEW DESIGNS KEY TO REVITALISING GUCCI BRAND The success of the new collection from Demna, who only uses one name, would be a major step towards reviving the struggling Gucci brand, which makes up a majority of sales and profit at French conglomerate Kering. Kering CEO Luca de Meo and Gucci's boss Francesca Bellettini, both recent appointments, are under pressure to reverse Gucci's two-year sales decline. Gucci's revenue plummeted 25% year-on-year in the last reported quarter. Store traffic further slowed this year, Bellettini, then Kering's deputy CEO, said in July. Gucci's new fashion show-to-store move is unusual in the business and has only been used occasionally, mostly by smaller labels including Jacquemus and Burberry. But Gucci's instant commercial test makes sense, said Laure Anne Chansel, who teaches fashion marketing at the EIML business school in Paris. "What is the story the brand has told lately? There isn't much." Gucci needs to bank on the window of newfound attention after a period of flux following the previous designer's departure in February, Chansel said, referring to Sabato de Sarno.  LUXURY LABELS FIGHT TO WOO BACK SHOPPERS On Paris's Avenue Montaigne, one of three boutiques selling the collection in Europe, sales assistants last week said they had not seen such interest in months.  "I ended up being there longer than I thought,” said Gayle Deifel, a tourist from California, adding that she was surprised to discover Demna's new collection, including fur coats, a gold dress and new editions of Bamboo and Jackie handbags, already in the store. She bought a pair of leather boots. The new collection, which will be rolled out more broadly in January, also hints at the brand's commercial approach as it seeks to attract younger and less wealthy shoppers who turned away from luxury spending due to economic uncertainty. The luxury industry, which is in a downturn, needs to win back these customers who were put off when companies aggressively raised prices to focus on the super-wealthy. Gucci's new styles seen so far could widen the label's appeal, said luxury consultant LinLi Teh, a former buyer for London department store Liberty. “I think he's hitting the angles of all the Gucci customers over the past decades,” she said, referring to Demna, who comes from Georgia.  In the Paris store, the brand displayed a downsized and less expensive version of its classic Jackie bag near the checkout. At just under 2,000 euros ($2,347.00), the price is well below 3,200 euros for other Gucci styles. NEW DESIGNERS SEEK TO GRAB THE SPOTLIGHT Demna has taken the reins at Gucci amid an industry-wide reshuffle, with new designers also at Chanel, Dior and Loewe — all seeking to make their mark. Gucci's deep-pocketed rivals are staging elaborate events and campaigns, with LVMH recently creating a Louis Vuitton boutique shaped like an ocean liner in downtown Shanghai. Heavily-indebted Kering, meanwhile, is under pressure to balance marketing investments with a cost-cutting drive.  In China, Demna's Milan fashion week debut was broadcast at a VIP event with local celebrities in Beijing. This spurred a brief spike in online attention that faded within two days, said Alexis Bonhomme, who runs the luxury consulting firm Trinity Asia.  "The campaign has increased the talkability, but conversion into sales remains to be demonstrated," he said.  ($1 = 0.8522 euros) (Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Mimosa Spencer, editing by Lisa Jucca and Jane Merriman)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)