It can be lonely on the cusp.

If you’re an older Gen Z, for example, maybe there’s a pair of skinny jeans that still look so cute on you, or you still part your hair on the side rather than the middle, despite your fellow Zoomers berating millennials for these supposed aesthetic aberrations.

So it should come as no surprise that some older Gen Zs and younger millennials who don’t feel at home in either group have coalesced under a new banner: zillennials. (Portmanteaus to the rescue!)

Millennials are generally defined as being born between 1981 and 1996 and Gen Z between 1997 and 2012. Zillennials tend to identify as roughly the middle of that timeline. Deborah Carr, a sociology professor at Boston University, told CNN they were born from roughly 1992 to 2002, making them about 22 to 32 today, though there is no academic consensus about the timeline.

Born Zillennial, a private Facebook group that began in 2020, has more than 209,000 members. You might be a zillennial, the group’s about page suggests, if you remember “accidentally clicking the Internet on your flip phone and trying to close it before it starts charging you for surfing the web,” if you prized “the bright orange rugrats VCR tape,” or if you “nearly broke your ankles with a Razer scooter.”

In 2020, the year he graduated from college, the group’s founder, Matt Duffy, said in an introductory video that he launched the group because he “felt lost between two rigidly defined generations.” Thanks to the popularity of the group, Duffy continued, “I feel seen because you guys feel seen right now.”

Now brands increasingly are seeing zillennials, too, and assessing what makes them tick…and what makes them shop.

Keep reading here.—AAN

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They say two heads are better than one. Four heads are even better. It’s an idiom Gap Inc. seems to be taking quite seriously. The retailer’s Pace program has partnered with Care International, Better Work, and BSR’s HERproject to create an initiative called Rise: Reimagining Industry to Support Equality.

The initiative’s focus is furthering equality for women garment workers. For context, women comprise 60% of the global garment factory workforce, per the International Labour Organization. With the partnership, Gap aims to scale the existing efforts of its 15-year-old Pace program, which has helped a million women and girls with everything from finding jobs to financial literacy, women’s health, water, sanitation, and hygiene. The program will also address gender-based violence.

“Knowing that we have women throughout the supply chain around the world who have generally been subjected to gender-based violence, inequalities, all the different factors of workplace barriers and limitations on what they’ve been able to do…we looked and said, based on women being the core of our business, we felt an obligation to do more,” Mark Breitbard, president and CEO of Gap Brand, told WWD about starting Pace.

Why now? Rise’s efforts to support women in the garment-making industry come at a time of continued concern about working conditions in factories around the world, where women often are not only paid extremely low wages but also face gender-based exploitation and violence.

Keep reading here.—JS

“If you feel like the Mattel marketing team has been working overtime, you’re not alone. Everywhere you look, it seems like there’s an ‘[insert brand name here] x Barbie’ collection,” writes Marketing Brew’s Katie Hicks:

Based on our research, if you wanted to make your life everything Barbie, all the time ahead of the film’s release, you probably could: Mattel inked more than 100 brand partnerships ahead of its premiere.

Read the whole story here on Marketing Brew.

Today’s top retail reads.

Not so fast: Next-gen materials like mushroom leather may be facing challenges with scaling as one promising startup struggles to raise funds. (Business of Fashion)

A nut’s job: Dissecting the US consumer’s ever-lasting fascination with peanut butter, the country’s favorite snack. (CNBC)

Bold ambitions: How Overstock plans on transforming its reputation as a closeout marketplace through its revamp of Bed Bath and Beyond. (Modern Retail)

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Three of the stories below are real...and one is most definitely not. Can you spot the fake?

1. Burger King Vietnam will pay for your entire trip to Hanoi, including flights and hotels, if you can finish every dish from their local menu in one sitting.
2. Starbucks is offering an espresso martini class where students can learn how to create a signature Starbucks Reserve Espresso Martini from a “Starbucks expert mixologist.”
3. An agile thief cut a hole through the ceiling of an LA wine shop, used a rope to lower himself, and then made off with $600,000 in vintage and rare wines.
4. You may be entitled to at least $5.50 if you ever bought a root beer from A&W.

Keep reading for the answer.