Plastic flowers + more things

4 minutes estimated reading time

Hong Kong’s Industrial History : How Plastic Flowers Built A Global MetropolisIn the years after World War II, buying a bunch of plastic flowers was trendy, not tacky, and Li Ka-shing built their novelty into a business empire that now spans the globe – the Hong Kong manufacturing boom went on until the opening up of China. At this time Hong Kong was a more equitable society. The business entrepreneurs either pushed into China or deindustrialised and became Hong Kong property developers. As for plastic flowers, you often see them around you and don’t realise what they are. More on Hong Kong here

Pinwheels  for sale Hong Kong.

Airline vlogger faces backlash, including a death threat, for his negative review of Singapore Airlines – TODAYonline – Singapore gets its unofficial 50 cent army

The durable history of Casio’s durable G-Shock watchthe company gets asked all the time about how it might create a smartwatch that lives up to users’ rugged expectations for its storied brand, but that any such product would have to be a G-Shock first. “I believe you can rest assured that it will be uniquely G-Shock in its form factor, unlike anything we have seen before.” If Casio carries its tradition forward, you’ll be able to read all about it—right on the face of the watch itself

Inside the Feds’ Battle Against Huawei | WIRED – interesting that it misses out on past behaviours of concern such as the T-Mobile robot arm technology theft and the African Union system infiltration (paywall)

No Free Lunch, but almost: what DoorDash actually pays, after expense — #PayUp – uberization of workers in action

EU’s former ambassador to South Korea suspect in China spy probe | South China Morning Post – shit meet fan

Facebook does not understand the marketplace of ideas | Financial TimesThe first critical flaw in Mr Zuckerberg’s thinking is the idea that the marketplace for goods is efficient without regulation. Much of the thrust of economics over the past half century has been to understand what regulations are needed to ensure that markets work. We have tort laws that ensure accountability if someone is injured and we don’t allow companies to pollute willy-nilly. We have fraud and advertising laws to protect consumers against deceptions — recognising that such laws circumscribe what individuals may say and publish – well worth reading the rest of the article (paywall)

Fun With Charts: A decade of Apple growth – Six Colors – I wonder if these values were normalised to compare like with like?

Marine Commandant: ‘The Farther You Back Away From China, They Will Move Toward You’ « Breaking Defense – take the fight to them rather than the other way around

How Loro Piana serves ‘nomadic elite’ with €7,000 cashmere coats | Financial TimesA recent report from consultants Bain & Co argued that new growth in the luxury goods industry was going to be driven by brands that go beyond just offering shoppers a product and were able to also provide a mixture of new experiences and ideas, and even provoke emotions

LinkedIn – Louis Vuitton menswear fall/winter 2020 lifestream – its odd to see a YouTube style lifestream on LinkedIn. Engagement seems to be relatively low given Louis Vuitton’s million-plus followers

A new way to find clothes, shoes and more on Search – bringing back Froogle, I suspect this is to counteract Amazon in product search and advertising

Betfred owners make millions from company treating gambling addicts | The Guardian – now that’s vertical integration

New Tesla registrations in California nearly halve in fourth quarter: data – Reuters – which tells you something about the value proposition of Tesla

Jeff Staple On How Streetwear Set The Tone For Today’s Mainstream—And What To Expect Nextnow, a single post can disrupt everything. A single verse from the right musician can kill off an entire brand. So the velocity at which retailers must adapt had to catch up. They could no longer wait for the Vogue “September Issue” or New York Fashion Week to see what was hot. It was blatantly obvious down to the exact number of “likes.”

Chow Tai Fook, Sa Sa closures deepen Hong Kong retail crisis | Campaign Asia – this is about deflating an overinflated retail and real estate economy. Its popularity was from the prevalence of adulterated products in China and the lack of sales tax in Hong Kong. Chow Tai Fook failed to look at international expansion and has no one to blame but its board of directors