Dear BoF Community,
I may have left Montréal more than 25 years ago to relocate to London — and never moved back — but I’m still a Canadian through and through. So watching what has been happening in Canada over the last couple of months has been distressing and inspiring in equal measure.
For those of you not keeping track, Canada has been one of the main targets of Trump’s tariff war. According to data from the US Trade Representative, trade between the US and Canada was $762.1 billion in 2024. That amounts to more than $2 billion every single day, making this one of the largest bilateral trading relationships between any two nations in the world.
This week, new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the country’s longstanding relationship with the United States, “based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over.”
Following Trump’s “America First Trade Policy” unveiled on Jan. 20, the two neighbouring countries — which have generally had constructive and positive relationships across a variety of Canadian governments and US administrations — have found themselves in an unprecedented confrontation. Canada has responded to the US tariffs with its own tariffs, and things seem to be getting worse, not better, despite efforts to de-escalate.
For many Canadians, the whole situation has been insulting, perplexing and frustrating in equal measure. Canada and the US have a shared history and the longest shared land border in the world. The supply chains in a number of industries, especially the automotive sector — which was confronted with a new set of US tariffs this week — are closely intertwined, with many goods crossing the border back-and-forth multiple times as they are produced.
In the fashion and retail industry, one of the casualties has been the venerable 355 year-old Hudson’s Bay Company, which began liquidating all but six of its 80 Hudson’s Bay, 13 Saks Off 5th and three Saks Fifth Avenue stores this week. The business was long struggling to compete with off-price and digital retailers, but cited Trump’s tariffs and the resulting economic uncertainty and collapse in consumer confidence as one factor that finally pushed the business over the edge.
In the US, Matt Priest of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America said he is “deeply concerned” about the escalating trade war, noting that footwear sales plunged by 26.2 percent for the week ending Feb. 22 versus the same retail week last year. Meanwhile, Steve Lamar, president of the American Apparel & Footwear Association noted that the uncertainty is threatening the jobs of more than 3.5 million people supported by the apparel industry.
From a Canadian perspective, all of this economic upheaval has been made worse because the trade war seems to have been specifically calculated by Trump to destabilise Canada’s economy so that it can become the “51st state” of the US, an outcome that Trump has referenced over and over again.
This is a preposterous notion, of course. At first, Canadians thought he was joking, as that language has sometimes been used by Americans who want to diminish Canada, which is and always will be a sovereign nation. But now, Canadians are taking Trump’s threats seriously, igniting a wave of patriotism I have not witnessed since the province of Québec voted by a small margin to remain part of Canada in a 1995 independence referendum.
At the time, I was still a student in Montréal. I will never forget watching ‘The Unity Rally,’ a huge march of more than 100,000 Canadians urging Quebeckers to vote ‘No’, from the Gap store on Sainte-Catherine Street, where I was working part-time. But even this does not compare to the unity Canadians are showing now, especially amongst 8.5 million Quebeckers who understand more than ever that their distinct culture, society and language would have little chance of surviving as part of the United States.
Now, the focus in Canada is on reducing inter-provincial trade barriers, labelling goods in grocery stores so shoppers can “buy Canadian” and readying the country for a long and hard economic crisis.
But of course, Canadians are not the only ones feeling the impact of the new US administration. Market turmoil and uncertainty has gripped economies around the world since the return of Trump, but it’s America and Americans who are most likely to bear the brunt of this nonsensical tariff war.
Stay tuned to BoF next week for an incisive analysis by Marc Bain in our latest Executive Memo on how your organisation should prepare for and navigate Trump’s tariffs. I had the pleasure of reviewing his memo earlier this week, and it is filled with critical insights. If you’re not an Executive Member, sign up today.
There’s lots more from this week’s analysis on BoF, including another story by Marc on H&M’s new AI model strategy which lit up our Instagram feed with more than 1,300 comments and 8,000 responses, and was picked up by media around the world, including the BBC in the UK, La Stampa in Italy and Teen Vogue in the USA.
Have a great weekend.
Imran Amed, Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Here are my other top picks from our analysis on fashion, luxury and beauty:
1. H&M Knows Its AI Models Will Be Controversial. The company expects public opinion to be divided on its plan to use “digital twins” of real models in AI-generated imagery. But the best way to protect models’ jobs and rights in the age of AI, it says, is to bring them into the process.
2. In an Angry Society, ‘Gentle Outrage’ Packs a Marketing Punch. The Ordinary’s latest campaign brought reasonably-priced eggs to two of its New York City locations. The response was polarising on social media, which in an online marketplace saturated with brands and advertising, is increasingly the point.
3. How Fashion’s Rising Stars Are Surviving the Luxury Slump. For breakout emerging designers, turning creative acclaim into commercial success in an unpredictable market is the next challenge.
4. What Colour Is Gen Alpha’s Millennial Pink? All Of Them. After seeing how beauty’s youngest customer has been drawn to Drunk Elephant’s bright, colourful packages, labels are pushing a string of vibrant launches to capture shoppers’ attention.
5. Why Are There So Many Luggage Brands? Tourists have their pick of suitcases at every price point, thanks to low barriers to entry and a travel boom that’s inflated the category’s sales year after year. But amid signs demand has peaked, it’ll take more than a Shopify storefront and slick branding to succeed.
This Weekend on The BoF Podcast
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Guy Berryman grew up with an engineer’s mind and a passion for making things. After studying mechanical engineering and architecture, he found global fame as the bassist of Coldplay. But his love for making things never went away. In 2020, he launched Applied Art Forms, a clothing label that draws inspiration from utilitarian design, military garments and mid-century modern aesthetics.
Now stocked in over 50 stores worldwide, including Dover Street Market, the brand is growing slowly but deliberately, with a creative process that he likens to making music.
“The way I make things is very much like [how] we make songs, which is you throw ideas down and then you listen to it, judge it and see what it is. It’s a very sculptural process, says Berryman. “I’m not just backing someone else’s brand. This is absolutely hands on, this is my baby.”
This week on the BoF Podcast, Berryman joins BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed to discuss the steep learning curve of building a fashion business, why quality and longevity matter more than hype, and how his creativity flows across creative disciplines.
