J. Crew Group is expanding its casual sibling brand, Madewell, with four new stores that have already opened this year, including a location at Hudson Yards in New York City. Madewell is scheduled to open six more locations by next February, and one or more of the stores will highlight denim and menswear.

Texas-based gaming retailer GameStop has hired retail veteran George Sherman as its new CEO. Sherman's resume includes stints in leadership at Target, Home Depot and Advanced Auto Parts.

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange wore blue jeans and denim jackets to work Thursday to herald the return of Levi Strauss to the public markets. Shares opened at $17 on the first day of trading and rose 32%, driving the company's value to more than $8.5 billion by the end of the day.

L Brands, the parent of Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works, has brought in a search firm to identify potential candidates for three board seats, sources said. The move comes in advance of the company's annual meeting in May, amid a push by activist investor Barington Capital Group to add more diverse and independent directors.

Three Whole Foods Market locations in California will join the state's energy demand management project, relying on Axiom Exergy's Refrigeration Battery to manage power use. In taking part, the stores will be eligible for financial incentives for reducing their consumption at peak times.

Shanghai Fashion Week starts March 27, with 426 brands from 28 countries including the US, Denmark, Italy and the UK. Western fashion brands are in growing demand in China, but designers are on a learning curve when it comes to tailoring their marketing messages for a Chinese audience, ForwardPMX executive Hannes Ben said.

Barbara Martin Coppola has been leading IKEA's digital transformation since joining the retailer as chief digital officer nearly a year ago. Efforts so far have focused on creating new experiences that meld the physical and digital retail worlds, she said, and the next project will be an e-commerce app that incorporates augmented reality functions and personalizes the digital shopping experience.

Nars Cosmetics will feature iPads that let customers virtually try on products at all 110 of its US stores and department store makeup counters by the end of March. In a partnership with Perfect Corp., Nars has created an augmented reality tool that includes all 700 of the brand's beauty products.

BevMo!, a specialty beverage retailer with an online presence and locations in California, Arizona and Washington, wanted to improve its ability to communicate new initiatives, promotions and other information among its corporate office and 166 stores. In 2016, the company turned to Zipline's cloud-based retail communication and task management software system to filter messages and avoid overloading employees with irrelevant information. Read more from NRF's STORES magazine.

Nearly half of consumers have attended at least one "retailtainment" event, and two-thirds of millennial shoppers have done so. Source: NRF Consumer View Winter 2018/2019.

Retail technology executives from Google, Walmart and Uber will speak at NRFtech2019 in San Francisco May 19-21. Retailers will be able to discover and explore the latest retail technology while networking with industry peers during the two-and-a-half day event. Learn more and register before advanced rates end on April 12.

Dunkin' is joining with Saucony to release a doughnut-themed running shoe to commemorate the Boston Marathon. The sneakers, which are a play on the brand's tagline "America Runs on Dunkin'," retail for $120 and come in a shoebox shaped like a pack of Dunkin's Munchkins doughnut holes.