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The Business of Fashion has gained a global following as an essential daily resource for fashion creatives, executives and entrepreneurs in over 200 countries. It is frequently described as “indispensable,” “required reading” and “an addiction.”
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- 1055 - Decoding Paris Haute Couture: Wonder, Restraint and the Call of the Void
I missed couture season for the first time in years, but that made it even more valuable for me to catch up with Tim Blanks on everything that happened this week in Paris amidst a record breaking heatwave.
At Chanel, Mathieu Blazy built his sophomore couture collection around a fairy tale he found in Gabrielle Chanel's own library.. Dior's Jonathan Anderson tore down the walls of the usual tent in the gardens of Musée Rodin, staging an open-air show inspired by the sculptor Linda Benglis. And Michael Stewart, an independent London designer debuted his very first couture offering, working obsessively to achieve his vision of craft through his signature beading technique.
This week on The BoF Podcast, Tim Blanks joins BoF founder Imran from Paris to break down the Haute Couture season that was.
Key Insights:
The Race for Over-embellishment: The couture season exposed a risk of historic houses over-indexing on extreme metrics such as hours of labour or bead counts to project status over pure visual beauty. As Amed observes: "It's almost like in some cases, there's a race to create the most elaborate, the most extreme ... so that people can trot out these statistics and say, this took 17,000 hours or this took you know this many beads or whatever... People are just taking it to an extreme that strips the beauty away.”
Chanel’s Fairytale Narrative and the Fluidity of the Body:Under Matthieu Blazy, Chanel rejected restrictive construction, deploying generous silhouettes, inspired by a book of fairytales, found in Gabrielle Chanel’s library. Highlighting his creative decision, Blanks notes: "Matthieu was thinking about fairy tales... He called it ‘Gabi and the Beanstalk.’ And then so the whole show. Meshed all these fairy tale elements, very integrated them really fully... just the story, like this is what Matthieu was talking about, the narratives that fashion can expand on."
Dior’s Experimental, Open-Air Laboratory: Jonathan Anderson treated his sophomore couture collection for Dior as an evolving work-in-progress, literally taking down the physical walls of the venue to let the elements in. "He took down the walls of the tent and in the garden of the Musée Rodin where Dior always shows,” Blanks says. “The experimental quality of his work was very much on display in the Dior collection, which is a fascinating thing to see."
Schiaparelli’s Subversion and the Call of the Void: Daniel Roseberry executed a calculated pivot away from the predictable, gold-plated hardware that has driven his recent commercial success, leaning instead into fetishistic latex and silicone. "This show, he was talking about the call of the void,” Blanks explains. “Plunging into the unknown. The abyss. Latex and silicone, which always reminds me of Vivienne Westwood when she had her sex shop in the 70s. .. It immediately said subversion in a context like couture."
The Rise of Independent Creators Outside Corporate Structures: Amidst a schedule dominated by megabrands, London-based independent designer Michael Stewart’s label Standing Ground demonstrated that couture's emotional resonance can still be achieved through pure artisanship. "Michael Stewart is David, and the fashion industry is Goliath,” Blanks says. “He just has this very pure idea which he realises in his tiny little studio in London ... Couture isn't just the huge spectacles and multi-million dollar extravaganzas ... you have to see obsession expressed in all these different ways in the face of the forces that are trying to extinguish wonder."Additional Resources:
Jonathan Anderson: The Ultimate Art World Fan Boy | BoFMatthieu Blazy Puts Enchantment to Work at Chanel | BoFHaute Couture’s Heroes in Training | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 10 Jul 2026 - 57min - 1054 - Luxury’s New Reality
As luxury shoppers push back against relentless price hikes and uninspiring boutique environments, BoF's Mimosa Spencer and Robert Williams break down why emotional connection has overtaken heritage as the primary driver of high-end shopping.
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Thu, 09 Jul 2026 - 31min - 1053 - Mona Kattan on Finding the Courage to Go It Alone
Mona Kattan has been collecting fragrances for most of her life. That obsession eventually became Kayali — a fragrance brand she built inside Huda Beauty, the global cosmetics company she co-founded with her sister Huda Kattan.
In 2020, something shifted. Mona entered therapy and uncovered a pattern that ran through her entire entrepreneurial journey: she had never built anything entirely on her own. She began to ask herself what it would mean to do something, fully, by herself.
“I am a very collaborative person, but I don’t want to sacrifice my vision,” she says. “Sometimes, in a partnership … having to move both feet in the same direction doesn’t really work if you’re not able to decide on your own. That’s where I realised that if I want Kayali to survive and thrive, I need to create my own path.”
That path was made possible through a complex corporate carve-out that separated Kayali from the Huda Beauty group and brought in General Atlantic in as Kayali's new backer.
Mona joined BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed on stage at The Business of Beauty Global Forum in Napa Valley, California, to pull back the curtain on that corporate split and dive deeper into the realities of building a brand within a multi-stakeholder ecosystem.
Key Insights:
The Operational Friction of Brand Incubation:While incubating Kayali within Huda Beauty provided crucial baseline resources, it created structural constraints. Kattan notes that operating within a shared family framework required sacrificing her distinct product and brand vision to ensure consensus across the broader group.
Structuring a Mutual Corporate Carve-Out:The operational split was catalysed by the need to solve for private equity backer TSG’s eventual fund exit. Mona engineered a simultaneous solution: carving out Kayali into an independent entity with new investment, while allowing her sister Huda to take the flagship cosmetic business private again.
Selecting Private Equity for Long-Term Value:As part of the carve-out, Mona secured backing from General Atlantic, intentionally prioritising non-monetary board dynamics over pure valuation maximisation. Key operational criteria included deal terms that preserved creative freedom, patient alignment on the long-term health of the brand, and seasoned founder-friendly board members.
The Discipline of Multi-Year Operational Planning:To counteract the short-term pressures of the beauty landscape, Mona emphasises the necessity of maintaining a rolling five-to-eight-year strategic timeline. This framework includes a definitive checkpoint scheduled for Q1 2028 to evaluate structural options between an initial public offering (IPO), a sale to a strategic conglomerate, or raising further capital.Additional Resources:
Controlling Your Destiny: How Mona Kattan Reclaimed Her Voice | BoF Mona Kattan Is Enjoying Her Freedom | BoF The Top Trends That Will Define Beauty in 2026 | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 03 Jul 2026 - 24min - 1052 - How Nike Built the Biggest World Cup Campaign Ever
The 2026 World Cup marked an unprecedented milestone for global football, expanding to 48 teams playing over 100 matches across the US, Canada and Mexico. In this special episode of The Debrief, Nike’s vice president of global brand management Helena Thornton joins BoFsenior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and sports and fashion correspondent Mike Syke to discuss the strategy behind the brand's World Cup campaign, the expansive relationship between football, culture and commerce and what the tournament means at a pivotal moment for Nike.
The episode examines how Nike approached the sport's biggest stage, from the creative thinking behind its 'Rip the Script' campaign — which brought together elite athletes, pop culture figures and cinematic storytelling — to the challenge of building campaigns that resonate in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. Thornton also reflects on how the World Cup fits into Nike's broader brand strategy as the company works to regain brand heat.
Key Insights:
Breaking beyond football fans requires becoming part of the broader cultural conversation.As brands compete for attention with creators, entertainment and other cultural forces, Nike designed its World Cup campaign to extend beyond the sport itself, bringing together elite footballers, athletes and cultural figures to appeal to both dedicated supporters and more casual fans. “Including the sort of that celebrity class alongside the elite footballers and the athletes, because I think that speaks to the more casual fan,” Thornton says.
Long-term community building matters more than tournament marketing alone. Thornton says major sporting events should serve as a catalyst for brand storytelling and momentum rather than the entirety of the brand’s strategy. You don't ever just want to be the shiny object that drops in for the weeks of the tournament and then you leave,” she says. “We really want to make sure that people have unbelievable access to the game... that moment actually really ignites this huge love of the game.” Grassroots investments, like Nike's ‘Toma’ platform, the street football movement, help build deeper consumer relationships than short-lived tournament campaigns.
Nike built its campaign around athlete instinct rather than a traditional sports marketing playbook. Rather than relying on rigid creative formulas, the brand grounded 'Rip the Script' in conversations with professional footballers, embracing emotion, authenticity and intuition as the foundation for the campaign. “We spoke to hundreds of footballers who kept telling us the same thing,” Thornton explains. “They were … just a bit sick of people telling [them] what to do... ‘we just wanna trust our gut.’”
Football creates moments of connection that few cultural platforms can match.The World Cup's global reach made it more than just a sporting event, creating a shared cultural moment at a time when people were looking for connection and optimism. “There's just a passion about the sport…there is just this larger unity right now that I'm seeing from people,” Thornton says. “I think the world just needed this thing to bring us all together and there is no other sport other than football really that truly, truly is the global game.”
Innovation remains central to Nike's broader turnaround strategy.While campaigns like 'Rip the Script' are among the brand's most visible expressions, Thornton says major sporting moments bring together teams across the company to think beyond marketing. “We sit down across all of the different departments at Nike and we talk about these big sports moments, ‘what do we wanna do to totally change the industry again? What is the athlete problem that we're solving for? What innovation can we push to allow an athlete to do something they never even believed that was possible?’”Additional Resources:
Nike and Adidas Are Taking the World Cup to the StreetThe Strategy Behind Nike’s Colossal World Cup Bet Nike’s World Cup Takeover Is Off to a Hot StartHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 01 Jul 2026 - 48min - 1051 - Oura CEO on the Future of Health Intelligence
The boundaries between technology, wellness and luxury are blurring. Wearable technology is no longer just about tracking steps; it has become a sophisticated tool for lifestyle optimisation, personal health intelligence and a subtle statement of identity. Now, there are more devices than ever to help us in this pursuit, and at the cutting edge is Oura.
Under the leadership of CEO Tom Hale, who joined the company in 2022, Oura has grown from $220 million in annual revenue to $1 billion last year, achieving an $11 billion valuation. Last month, Oura filed for an IPO that could be one of the most significant public market tests for consumer health technology so far.
“We are a health intelligence platform that will redefine the future of healthcare,” says Hale. “Everyone's already got a supercomputer … on their body. There should be a machine intelligence that is personalised and customised to that individual, and a large physiological model that is making predictions about health outcomes in the short term and the long term based on your ground truth of biometrics.”
Hale joined BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed on stage in Napa Valley, California, during The Business of Beauty Global Forum 2026 to unpack how the company plans to build a “large physiological model” to redefine the future of the global healthcare and wellness landscapes.
Key Insights:
The Drivers of the Inflexion Point: Oura has sold 5.5 million rings as of last year, with roughly half of those sales occurring in the last 12 months. Tom Hale attributes this growth acceleration to three strategic moves: shifting focus toward underserved use cases in women’s health (which flipped the customer base to mostly female), entering physical retail to bypass the slow shipping-based sizing process, and becoming the first wearable eligible for pre-tax employee funds via HSA/FSA accounts.
Hardware as an Onboarding Mechanism: Rather than viewing itself through the lens of jewelry or fashion, Oura defines its core commercial category as long-term behavior modification. Within this model, the physical ring functions primarily as the hardware mechanism that drives value and engagement for its subscription service.
Subscription Revenue Benchmarks: Operating on a value-to-price framework tied to a £6-a-month membership cost, Oura achieves an 80 percent retention rate at year one and an increased 85 percent retention rate at years two and three. Factual benchmarks reveal this trajectory outperforms major content subscription platforms like Netflix and Spotify at the same milestones.
Defending Market Share with IP and Clinical Credibility: To maintain its competitive advantage against new market entrants and lower-priced alternatives, Oura relies heavily on an intellectual property moat. Furthermore, the brand protects its premium position through scientific validation, noting that 11 percent of its current ring wearers are medical professionals.Additional Resources:
Building the World of Health Tech: Oura’s Tom Hale on its IPO and What’s Next Can Oura Become a Forever Company? | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 26 Jun 2026 - 29min - 1050 - Why Activewear Consumers Are Looking Beyond Lululemon
For more than a decade, activewear shoppers largely looked to Lululemon and Nike. But as the post-pandemic boom cools and growth becomes harder to find, a new crop of brands is gaining traction.
Smaller labels like SetActive, 437 and Oner Active aren’t reinventing activewear. They’re winning customers through social media, creator-led marketing and a deep understanding of today’s fitness culture where consumers move fluidly through workouts like pilates, Hyrox and tennis on any given week.
In this episode of The Debrief Podcast, retail editor Cathaleen Chen joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to discuss why these newer brands are resonating, whether their momentum is sustainable, and what their success reveals about the challenges facing industry leaders Nike and Lululemon.
Key Insights:
The era of Lululemon as a status symbol may be ending. "Lululemon in the past two decades effectively cornered the market on activewear as a status symbol," Chen says. "I do think the era of Lululemon as a status symbol is ending ... if you're not going to be a status symbol, what will you be?"
Consumers are craving something new. The rise of brands like Set Active, 437 and Oner Active is being driven less by breakthrough product innovation than by a broader desire for novelty. "The answer that I got overwhelmingly from my reporting is that, honestly, we are just in this moment of desire for newness," Chen says. "People were like, ‘okay, I have Lululemon in my closet, what's next?’"
Founder-led social media is helping challengers compete. Rather than relying on big marketing budgets, many emerging brands are building audiences through creator-style content — from behind-the-scenes glimpses into product development to founders who function as influencers in their own right. "What they have done incredibly well is build organic followings on social media and be able to capitalise on certain TikTok trends," Chen says. “They have the benefits of … the founder coming in every day, trying on the products herself... it makes a big difference in being visible to the customer”.
Activewear is entering its own version of the indie beauty era. As consumers build wardrobes around multiple activities rather than a single sport, the category is becoming more fragmented and open to new players. "What's happening in activewear is very similar to what happened in beauty a few years ago," Chen says. "Where the category was dominated by a handful of brands … but we reached this inflection point where people want something that feels new."Additional Resources:
The TikTok-Savvy Activewear Brands Stealing Market Share| BoF Professional Why Every Fashion Brand Thinks It’s a Sportswear Label Now| BoF Professional The Reign of Leggings Is Over. What’s Next?| BoF ProfessionalHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 24 Jun 2026 - 24min - 1049 - How Books Became Fashion’s Latest Status Symbol
Fashion’s book obsession is no longer subtle. What started as the occasional literary reference has become a broader wave of book clubs, salon-style events, campaign imagery and products designed to signal that a brand — and its customer — has cultural depth. It’s all happening as reading rates are declining, but the image of the reader has never looked more fashionable.
This week on The Debrief, BoF reporters Haley Crawford and Shayeza Walid explain how books became fashion’s latest flex, and when the trend starts to look less like culture and more like marketing.
Key Insights:
Books have become fashion’s new status symbol: Literature has always inspired fashion, but both reporters argue the relationship has become far more explicit. “We felt like books were being productised by fashion itself,” says Walid. In a world saturated by digital content, books now function as markers of cultural literacy and intellectual identity. As Crawford puts it: “You actually have to take the time to read a book from cover to cover. Fewer people are doing that today, so it is more of a flex to have read the book and actually understand the reference.”
TikTok is fueling an analogue revival: Ironically, fashion’s literary turn is being accelerated by social media. Online subcommunities like BookTok have transformed reading into a visible identity and community marker for younger consumers. “Social media, the stores, the products you’re buying and this analogue signalling, are all coming together,” says Walid. “ I don’t think this is happening in a silo. I think it’s very interconnected to other forms of analogue connection that people are finding nowadays.”
Not every literary collaboration resonates equally:Both reporters argue that the strongest examples are those rooted in genuine engagement with literature rather than surface-level branding. Crawford points to Prada’s collaborations with authors and literary scholars as examples of brands building deeper cultural worlds. Walid highlights Chanel’s funding of a library at a Shanghai art museum. “It was actually creating or funding something which allowed people to engage with books and literature,” she says.
The trend risks losing its cultural power: Fashion using books as a cultural signal is likely to lose some potency if every brand adopts the same strategy. “The ones that have been doing it for quite some time will continue to do so. But those that have maybe slapped a book name on a T-shirt or created a book tote might see less success,” says Crawford. “The second consumers start noticing the corporatisation of this trend, it is going to start to become stale,” adds Walid.Additional Resources:
How Books Became Fashion’s Favourite Flex | BoFWhen Taste Is All Over TikTok | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 17 Jun 2026 - 25min - 1048 - Anoushka Shankar: Creativity Is an Act of Hope
Anoushka Shankar has spent three decades building one of the most distinctive bodies of work in contemporary music. She has taken the sitar — an instrument rooted in centuries of North Indian classical tradition — into completely new territory, blending the ancient Hindustani raga system with electronic, flamenco and Western orchestral influences.
At a time when we're bombarded — wars, looming AI risk, a constant churn of uncertainty — her music is a salve. It carries echoes of long road trips with my family, listening to her father, Ravi Shankar, play the sitar.
But this is not just nostalgia; Shankar’s music is rooted in her personal journey. At BoF VOICES 2025, she explained how she has written from joy, from pain, from outrage — and in each case, the impulse to release something into the world is inseparable from the belief that it will matter to someone. Every act of creation is an act of hope.
“I believe that any creative act is a hopeful act, because we wouldn't send anything out into the void if we didn't have a hope and belief that it was gonna reach other people,” says Shankar. “By nature, it is about hope.”
Shankar spoke about how she found her way back to music after prolonged creative numbness following the pandemic, and what the ancient discipline of improvisation has taught her about adapting to a world in constant upheaval.
Key Insights:
Creativity is an act of hope:Shankar argues that to make anything is to believe it will reach someone. For her, the impulse to create is inseparable from the belief that it will matter. “I've written from a place of joy, from a place of pain, and from outrage about global events, but each of those times there is some shred of hope that means it's gonna make some kind of a difference to bother putting something out into the world,” she says.
Small moments of presence can become a way through crisis:After the pandemic, Shankar entered a protracted period of creative silence, unable to write — caught, as she puts it, in “a period of very, very numb and debilitating pain.” The way back was not an act of will but a gradual process, beginning with a single moment in the garden with her children she kept returning to in the days that followed. "If I was truly present, not caught up in my head or in worries or thoughts, that I could really fully experience these moments of joy, even in the hardest of times, and they would give me the strength to move through."
Hope is a choice made before certainty arrives:As Shankar moved into the second chapter of the trilogy, she began to feel that moments of solace were not enough. Against the backdrop of global violence and grief, including the devastation in Palestine, she says she had little faith that the world would change. The album How Dark It Is Before Dawn became her attempt to make music for that space: “I had to trust that things do eventually change, even if I’m in that moment where I can’t see it. I had to choose hope. I have to choose to hope in the moment when I don’t know it’s going to work, or that anything is going to happen. It’s an act of faith.”
Tradition only lives when it is made current. In explaining Hindustani classical music, Shankar describes a form rooted in oral transmission, apprenticeship and improvisation, and links the discipline of improvisation to a broader way of navigating change. Having learned under her father from the age of seven, she sees the sitar tradition as both a weight of history and a space for freedom. “It is about … assimilating all this stuff that could be a weight – the history and how much there is to learn – but finding a way to have freedom within it,” she says. “It doesn’t really live unless it’s present as well. I have to make that tradition current and real to me in order for it to resonate with other people who are here with me today.”Additional Resources:
Anoushka Shankar: We Return to Light | BoF BoF VOICES 2025: Live Your Best LifeHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 12 Jun 2026 - 23min - 1047 - Fashion's Ozempic Reckoning
The rise of GLP–1 drugs, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, is forcing fashion and beauty companies to rethink everything from sizing and fit to product development. With one in eight Americans having tried a GLP–1 medication, brands are grappling with how to serve consumers whose bodies may be changing more rapidly than traditional product cycles were designed to accommodate.
In this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young sits down with BoF senior news and features editor Diana Pearl and The Business of Beauty news and features editor Brennan Kilbane to discuss how fashion and beauty brands are responding to the GLP-1 boom — and why the industry's apparent willingness to adapt to these consumers is raising difficult questions about its long history with size inclusivity.
Key Insights:
GLP-1s have turned into a fashion infrastructure problem:GLP-1 drugs are creating a new kind of consumer need — not just smaller sizes, but clothes and products that can accommodate rapid physical change. For fashion, this exposes the limits of systems built around relatively stable bodies, from fit models to inventory planning to alterations. As Pearl puts it, the industry may be talking more openly about fit, but real change will be slow because the underlying systems are deeply entrenched. “I don’t think it’s going to be a change that happens overnight or even in the next few months,” she says. “This is something that’s going to take years to fully address.”
The best brand responses meet customers where they are: Brands such as Soma offer one model for how to respond: create products for bodies in transition without framing that change as something to fix. Pearl says that approach works because it centres practical need rather than aspiration or shame. “It’s really just making it about: ‘okay, your life has changed, your body has changed, let’s meet you where you are,’” she says. Kilbane adds, “It's possible that we’re going to continue to see more people fluctuating in their weight and it’s quite forward-thinking for a fashion brand to accommodate that changing body.”
Beauty is already speaking more directly to the GLP-1 consumer: Beauty and wellness brands are moving faster than fashion in addressing the physical effects of rapid weight loss, from skin laxity to changes in facial volume. According to Kilbane, the category has to have a clearer product rationale for entering the conversation and respond to specific consumer concerns with products and treatments that feel practical. As Kilbane says, “I’ve talked to a lot of plastic surgeons and dermatologists and even some skincare executives. There are things that happen to your skin when you take these medicines,” he says. “I think especially beauty and wellness brands do need to talk to this customer differently, because they are going through a different transformation.”
Fashion’s unresolved relationship with thinness: The GLP-1 conversation has provoked scepticism as plus-size consumers have long argued that fashion sizing is broken, yet the industry appears more willing to change when bodies are getting smaller. For Kilbane, this criticism is fair: “It’s hard to not see any of this as the fashion industry’s excuse to champion thinness once again,” he says. Pearl adds that the debate cannot be separated from fashion’s deeper history of exclusion. “On the surface, it’s about sizing, but you can’t talk about what’s going on and not talk about fashion’s history of championing thinness,” she says.Additional Resources:
How Ozempic Is Forcing Fashion to Rethink FitNovo Nordisk Looks Beyond Weight Loss to Longevity and AestheticsAt Wellness Resorts, Ozempic Becomes Part of the MenuHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 10 Jun 2026 - 31min - 1046 - Conner Ives is Building a Business With Instinct
Born in the leafy enclave of Bedford, New York, designer Conner Ives, a self-professed “country mouse,” grew up in a household that taught him two things early: that quality is worth protecting, and ambition is worth following.
At 16, a connection through his mother's dental practice landed him an internship with Wes Gordon, and soon after he moved to London and set about becoming a designer.
In his first year on the BA at Central Saint Martins, a garment from a school project — a duchess satin duster coat adorned with swans — was requested and worn by model Adwoa Aboah to the 2017 Met Gala. The moment announced him to the industry before he graduated, but back at school, the reception was rather cool:
“I remember my tutorial after [the Met Gala], being sat down and told, ‘It’s nice that you can make dresses for people’ – reducing doing the Met Gala as a 20-year-old first-year BA student to that – ‘but school has to come first,’” Ives recounts.
Now, almost six years into building his label, the designer is navigating what it takes to turn creative instinct into a functioning business. His label began with one-of-a-kind reworked vintage pieces and deadstock materials — a proposition that gave the clothes their character, but was not always easy to translate into the wholesale system.
“We would do 1,500 T-shirt dresses and no two were the same. That was always the selling point of it, but that is a very difficult business pitch to get to a Net-a-Porter, let alone a Net-a-Porter buyer, or a Net-a-porter customer,” he says.
This week on The BoF Podcast, Conner Ives joins BoF CEO and founder Imran Amed to discuss what it means to build an independent fashion business without losing the instinct that made the work resonate in the first place.
Key Insights:
Ives’ brand is built on an American idea of high-low dressing: Ives describes his label as shaped by family memory, American fashion imagery and a belief in clothes that can carry time. His mother’s care for old Frye boots and his father’s instinct for wearing things until they wore out helped form a design language that values both glamour and durability. “Things of quality have no fear of time,” he says.
Central Saint Martins gave him confidence by forcing him to defend his taste. Ives arrived at CSM with a clear instinct for American glamour, spaghetti-strap dresses and debutante references – ideas that did not always fit the school’s preferred mythology. His “White Project” from his first year at the BA later became the basis for Adwoa Aboah’s 2017 Met Gala look, but the response from school was muted. “I think that struggle made me a better designer,” he says. “It made me also have to defend what I did so much more so.”
“Protect The Dolls” worked because it came from instinct, not marketing.“My whole aversion to fashion being involved in politics sometimes is that it oftentimes can feel quite self-serving,” he says. Made the night before his Autumn/Winter 2025 show, the T-shirt only clicked when Ives moved from affection to urgency. “My love for trans people was not what was being threatened here right now. Their safety was being threatened,” he says. The final phrase – “Protect The Dolls” – was printed on at-home transfer paper, ironed onto a T-shirt, and went on to sell over 600 units in a day.
Ives’ advice is to trust the instinct before you overthink it. Looking back, Ives says the clearest lesson was learning not to override his own internal signal. “If you are a creative person, you are probably also a reactionary person,” he says. “That reaction is coming from somewhere really pure and really whole – so listen to it.”Additional Resources:
Conner Ives | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry‘Protect the Dolls’ T-Shirt Becomes a Fashion Symbol for Trans Rights | BoF Unearthing the New at London Fashion Week | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 05 Jun 2026 - 54min - 1045 - Carlos Nazario: The Kid From Queens Who Changed Fashion Imagery
Carlos Nazario has helped redefine how fashion media expresses subculture in a luxury context, making history along the way as the first Black editor to style a cover for American Vogue.
But he grew up in Queens, New York, in a big Puerto Rican family with no connections to fashion. His grandmother Efna was his earliest influence — a woman who understood, intuitively, the power of how you present yourself to the world and shared a key lesson with him.
That lesson has guided his journey as he left for Paris as a teenager, came home, worked his way through internships at W magazine and Love in London, and spent seven years as first assistant to stylist Joe McKenna. When he went out on his own, he built a creative world that looked like the one he'd grown up in — and started making images that put it at the centre of fashion.
This week on the BoF Podcast, Imran Amed talks to Nazario about the nightlife scene that shaped his creative identity, what it cost to break into an industry that wasn't built for someone like him, and why the pictures that endure are the ones made with heart.
Key Insights:
The Insulated Class Barriers of Fashion Publishing: Historically, legacy publications relied heavily on unpaid labor that functioned as a class-based filter. "[It] inherently limits the pool of people who can actually apply for those jobs and sustain them,” Nazario said.
The Rigorous Technical Reality of Image-Making: Beyond perceived glamour, corporate styling is an intensive operation demanding physical labour, complex logistics and immense operational precision. People really underestimate the manual labour that's involved,” Nazario says. “You literally are schlepping a rail of clothes up a fucking mountain, or down a beach, or into a dynamic situation where it's 100 degrees or below zero."
The Editorial Investment vs. Commercial Reality: Breaking through as an independent creative frequently required substantial personal financial risk and sacrifice. Nazario recalls, "I was making no money. I was doing all these editorials for i-D and for Vogue and flying myself to London and flying myself to Paris... and I was going into severe debt to build a portfolio and to build a name."
The Evolution of Modern Media Relevance: The fashion consumers today demand accountability and cultural depth from the publications they follow, rejecting the superficial curation of the past. "We have information at our fingertips, we can see every collection online ... so a magazine can't just be about shopping anymore,” Nazario says. “It has to be about a point of view, it has to be about a narrative, it has to be about a conversation that you're having with the culture."Additional Resources:
Carlos Nazario | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry The BoF Podcast | Ib Kamara: ‘Europe Is Not the Centre of Everything. Where You Come From Matters.’The Loudest Met Gala Yet | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 29 May 2026 - 1h 19min - 1044 - Leena Nair and Matthieu Blazy on Creativity and the Power of the Human Hand
This week, Chanel reported its annual results for 2025. Revenue rose 2 percent to $19.3 billion, defying a luxury downturn.
But the number that caught the industry's attention wasn't the top line — it was the acceleration. In the second half, Chanel's sales grew by high single digits across every category and region, before designs by new artistic director Matthieu Blazy had arrived in stores. The excitement alone changed the trajectory.
The momentum has two sources. One is Blazy, whose runway debut last October sparked "Blazymania" — hour-long queues when his first collection landed this spring, instant sell-outs, and a level of excitement Chanel hasn't seen in years. The other is chief executive officer Leena Nair, who has invested heavily in Chanel's retail network, manufacturing and people, building the foundations that helped a creative spark catch fire.
All of which sent me back to BoF VOICES in November 2023, when Nair and Blazy appeared on our stage at Soho Farmhouse on successive days, in separate conversations. They weren't there together. Blazy was still leading Bottega Veneta, while Nair was two years into her tenure at Chanel. Listening back now, what strikes me is how clearly each articulated the values that would define their partnership.
Nair, an outsider from Unilever, spoke with me about what surprised her most about fashion: the human hand behind everything. The following day, Blazy, in conversation with Tim Blanks, described craft not as tradition, but as something more radical in his work at Bottega Veneta and Margiela.
Two leaders arrived at the same conviction: in an industry reshaped by technology and scale, the most valuable thing to protect is the human hand.
Key Insights:
Nair brought an outsider's clarity to what makes luxury different from mass-market business. Coming from Unilever, where everything is industrialised and scaled for "physical availability and mental availability everywhere," she describes Chanel's opposite logic: preciousness, scarcity, hand work and objects designed to last for generations. That shift from volume to value has shaped her leadership approach.For Nair, responsible leadership means rejecting the "superhero leader" model. She argues that today's complexity makes collective problem-solving essential. "I really feel the days of the superhero leader who has all the answers is way behind us," she says, describing a leadership style built on listening, vulnerability and prioritising people over top-down control.Blazy's creative philosophy centres on addition, not subtraction. Rather than editing collections down to repeated ideas, he describes his instinct to keep adding — 80 looks with 80 different stories, no colour card, characters arriving from different horizons. "I'm not very good at editing in general," he said. "I like to explore more and more and more." It is an approach that prizes abundance over repetition.Craft, for Blazy, is not nostalgia — it is a "timeless technology." He draws a distinction between surface embellishment and technique embedded in the material itself. "I'm not adding a paillette on a silk dress. I'm trying to have the paillettes immediately already made in the fabric," he explains. At Bottega Veneta, this produced the leather trompe l'oeil Oxford shirt and jeans that became some of recent fashion's most talked-about garments.Both leaders share a conviction that the human hand is fashion's most irreplaceable asset. Nair speaks about preserving human creation and relationships in an era of AI. Blazy describes each artisan's hand leaving a different mark — variation that is celebrated, not discarded. Together, their perspectives offer a counterpoint to an industry drawn to technology and automation.Additional Resources:
Leena Nair | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion IndustryChanel Returns to Growth as Blazymania Kicks In | BoFMatthieu Blazy | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion IndustryHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 22 May 2026 - 51min - 1043 - Inside The Swatch X Audemars Piguet Global Frenzy
In May, sleeping bags lined pavements and police barriers went up outside Swatch stores from Times Square to Dubai. The object of this global hysteria was not a piece of high-end mechanical art, but the "Royal Pop" – a $400 pocket watch collaboration between mass-market giant Swatch and watchmaker Audemars Piguet. Based on AP’s iconic Royal Oak, which typically starts at $20,000, the launch divided the insular watch enthusiast community while captivating Gen Z consumers and equity analysts alike.
In this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by retail editor Cathaleen Chen and luxury editor Mimosa Spencer to evaluate the highs and lows of the fallout of the viral launch, the operational chaos across retail and whether a plastic pendant can truly serve as a long-term customer recruitment tool.
Key Insights:
The Strategy of Alternative Formats: By designing the collection as pocket and pendant watches rather than traditional wristwatches, Audemars Piguet aimed to protect the brand equity of its foundational core product while still opening the brand to a younger, accessory-loving Gen Z demographic.An Unequal Value Exchange: While Audemars Piguet is treating the collaboration as an insulated, almost philanthropic “special project,” Swatch Group stands to gain significantly more commercial momentum. Despite some short-term negative sentiment driven by watch purists, the partnership represents a major cultural breakthrough for Swatch as it attempts to reverse recent financial stagnation.The Accessibility Offense: The intense backlash from traditional watch collectors exposes a deeper tension within the luxury value proposition. For an industry built on status signaling and rigid gatekeeping, the mass participation of everyday consumers is often viewed by insiders not as democratization, but as a dilution of exclusivity in luxury watchmaking.The PR Stunt Demerit: While market traffic and mainstream cultural buzz reached unprecedented stratospheres, the operational execution – which resulted in store closures and aggressive crowds – inflicted real in-person emotional damage. For legacy luxury institutions, headlines detailing retail chaos and police barricades run directly counter to the controlled, pristine environment that high-net-worth clients expect.Entering the Cultural Conversation: The collaboration underscores a broader challenge facing the luxury sector: building cultural relevance and household-name recognition among younger consumers who may currently be priced out of $25,000 mechanical timepieces, while planting the seed for future customer loyalty.Additional Resources:
How Swatch and Audemars Piguet Defied Collaboration Fatigue| BoF Professional Pete Nordstrom on the Enduring Power of Retail’s ‘Best Mousetrap’ | The BoF Podcast Can Department Stores Save Themselves? | The DebriefHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 20 May 2026 - 21min - 1042 - What's Really Happening in Luxury Right Now
For the global luxury industry, the last two years have been defined by a prolonged period of meagre growth, macro-uncertainty, and a slow recovery in the critical Chinese market. But as we move further into 2026, the strategic imperative has shifted. It is no longer enough to simply wait for the cycle to turn; leadership now requires navigating a rapidly-changing environment where geopolitical volatility and technological disruption have become the baseline.
In this episode of The BoF Podcast, Jonathan Wingfield, editor-in-chief of System Magazine joins Imran Amed and Luca Solca, managing director and global head of luxury goods at Bernstein, for their regular seasonal conversation on the state of the industry. They analyse this new industry paradigm through two distinct lenses: the clinical, data-driven reality of the equity markets, and the visceral, creative pulse of culture. They examining the collapse of the old narrative within luxury, why brand heat has become a lazy currency, and why the real threat of AI isn't the technology itself, but the professionals who master it first.
Key Insights:
The luxury recovery of early 2026 has been derailed by yet another geopolitical shock. The first months of the year saw cautious improvement, but the Third Gulf War stopped it cold — LVMH reported Q1 revenues down six percent, with the conflict costing a full percentage point of organic growth. As Amed notes, these disruptions used to come once a decade. Now they arrive in rapid succession, making "grand narratives" about industry trajectory almost meaningless.AI is quietly transforming fashion's cost base. Brands are using AI to generate ecommerce imagery at a fraction of historical costs, but almost no company will confirm its savings on the record. Gucci faced backlash for AI imagery ahead of Demna's debut; Prada took a different approach, using AI as a creative augmentation tool. Solca broadens the frame, arguing that AI's impact on white-collar work will mirror globalisation's impact on blue-collar labour.The attention economy has become dangerous for luxury brands. Both Amed and Solca warn that the industry's addiction to metrics like earned media value conflates noise with commercial traction. The Louis Vuitton ship-shaped pop-up in Shanghai worked because it drove real footfall and purchases; most earned media value is just visibility that never converts.The designer resets at Chanel and Dior are generating early positive signals, but Gucci's transformation remains a work in progress. Matthieu Blazy's first Chanel products triggered a genuine retail frenzy, amplified by a shrewd rollout timed to fashion week. Bernstein's traffic data showed Chanel and Dior far ahead of competitors in Chinese mall visits. But Amed left Demna's Gucci debut "feeling more confused," questioning whether the return to overt sexiness is a fashion agenda the industry will follow.The independent designer economy is in structural crisis, but alternative models are emerging. The collapse of multibrand retail and the capital required to compete with mega-brands have made launching an independent label harder than ever. Amed's advice is blunt: spend five to seven years inside established houses first.Prada's acquisition of Versace represents one of luxury's biggest untapped opportunities — and biggest risks. The market punished Prada's share price, citing a poor M&A track record. But Amed sees an opening: with no dominant "sexy" brand in luxury right now, Versace is "one of the most underleveraged names in the entire industry" — if Pieter Mulier can reinterpret that identity compellingly.Additional Resources:
Dispatches From Shanghai: Inside China’s New Luxury Landscape | BoFThe State of Fashion 2026: When the Rules Change | BoFFewer, Bigger, Better: How Luxury Brands Are Optimising Their Stores | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 15 May 2026 - 1h 15min - 1041 - Why Are So Many Brands Faking Scandals?
The beauty industry is currently contending with marketing saturation, compounded by an overcrowded content ecosystem in which traditional metrics like follower counts and comments are often distorted by bots. To combat this, brands are turning to "rage bait"— content designed to trigger shock, anger or confusion and meant to drive shares and saves, which are now seen as more authentic indicators of engagement. From Lancôme’s "misdirected" PR mailers to ColourPop’s fake apology squares, the strategy bets that a negative or confused reaction is more valuable than no reaction at all in a world where attention is the ultimate currency.
In this episode, BoF’s Sheena Butler-Young talks to Business of Beauty Executive Editor Priya Rao, and Senior Editorial Associate Rachael Griffiths about whether these high-risk stunts build genuine brand equity or simply erode long-term consumer trust.
Key Insights:
The Engagement-Sales Gap: While rage bait excels at awareness and can grab people’s attention, there is no direct, proven line to immediate sales. Success is currently measured through the "halo effect" on other posts and metrics like shares and saves rather than conversion.
The "Boy Who Cried Wolf" Risk: Brands face a significant limitation in that this strategy is often a one-time lever. If a brand issues a fake apology for marketing, it risks losing all credibility when a genuine corporate blunder occurs.
Suitability by Segment: Chaotic creator" style may work best for indie or playful brands like ColourPop and Dieux. Heritage or luxury brands — particularly those focused on medical-grade efficacy or high price points — risk alienating customers who expect a serious relationship with the brand.
The Confusion Trap: Stunts that cross the line from cheeky to genuine misinformation, such as Schick’s ambiguous partnership with Nick Jonas, can leave consumers feeling annoyed and disappointed rather than entertained.Additional Resources:
Why Are So Many Beauty Brands Faking Scandals? | BoFPlaybook | Beauty Retail in the Age of Connected Commerce | BoFHow to ‘Un-Cancel’ a Beauty Product | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 13 May 2026 - 20min - 1040 - Inside Saks Global's Four-Month Bankruptcy Sprint
Earlier today, BoF published an exclusive in-depth interview with Saks Global CEO Geoffroy Van Raemdonck, examining the company’s strategy as it expects to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy next month.
For over a century, Saks Fifth Avenue represented a manifestation of American aspiration—a luxury icon whose flagship on New York’s Fifth Avenue served as a vital crossroads for the global fashion industry. But even the most storied institutions are not infallible. On January 13th, the newly formed Saks Global — parent company of Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman — filed for court-supervised restructuring.
Saks Global’s crisis was largely self-inflicted. The acquisition of Neiman Marcus, coupled with slow payments to vendors resulted in a deepening inventory crisis. As debt obligations mounted and cash reserves dwindled, Saks fell further behind on vendor payments, prompting suppliers to freeze shipments. Without new merchandise to sell, revenue plummeted, trapping the retailer in a terminal liquidity crunch. It was caught up in a downward spiral that left its industry reputation in tatters.
Now, just four months into Chapter 11, the company’s new CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck is leading a turnaround effort to salvage its reputation and restore trust with its customers and the wider industry.
In this special episode of The BoF Podcast, BoF’s retail editor Cathaleen Chen and Imran Amed sit down with van Raemdonck to unpack his plans for a big turnaround.
Key Insights:
The Four-Month Sprint: Since filing for a court-supervised restructuring on January 13th, the company has prioritised velocity to get products back on its shelves. Van Raemdonck notes that speed was essential to stabilising the business: "We moved fast because we focused on liquidity and trust ... we secured $1.7 billion in new liquidity and implemented a critical vendor programme to ensure our brand partners were paid."Ending the Real Estate "Straddle": The restructuring allowed the business to separate its high-performing retail operations from non-core ventures, such as in real estate. “We were paying $55 million of rent every year for Lord and Taylor stores that were closed and had no hope to reopen because that business was liquidated. So you carry costs that really have no impact and value to the customer,” van Raemdonck says, effectively ending the “straddle” of a retail business combined with a real estate business.The Case for Three Banners: Van Reaemdonck says Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman will remain distinct, as data suggests they serve unique customer profiles. “In markets like Beverly Hills, the overlap between our banners is only 11 to 15 percent,” he notes. US Market Resilience: While the global luxury market faces headwinds, internal metrics show that the top-tier American consumer remains a reliable growth engine. van Raemdonck says: "The US market is strong and resilient. I think the the high-end luxury customers are very much influenced by their wealth and the stock market much more than by the GDP and the employment level. 76 percent of our customers tell us they feel optimistic about their personal finances."Additional Resources:
Unpacking Saks Global’s Post-Bankruptcy Plan | BoFBondholders Approve Saks Global’s Five-Year Business Plan | BoFSaks Global Files for Bankruptcy After Monthslong Hunt for Cash | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Tue, 12 May 2026 - 1h 04min - 1039 - A Tribute to the Enduring Legacy of Mrs. B
In fashion, the word "legend" is often used as a convenient shorthand for longevity. But Joan Burstein — affectionately known in the fashion world as Mrs. B — was a legend in the truest sense of the word. When she opened Browns on South Molton Street in 1970, she didn't just open a boutique; she established a portal for the radical avant-garde fashion designers that would fundamentally shift our industry’s tectonic plates.
Mrs. B also possessed a legendary eye for talent. She was the one who plucked John Galliano’s graduate collection out of obscurity, provided the first British home for Rei Kawakubo’s Comme Des Garçons and Giorgio Armani, while also giving American designers like Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan an entry portal to the European market.
Following the recent passing of Joan Burstein at the age of 100, we find ourselves at a moment of profound reflection for the industry and Mrs. B’s immense legacy.
Joining Imran Amed this week to reflect on this special history is Mandi Lennard, who worked closely with Mrs. B as a buyer during the 1980s and 90s, London fashion’s most fertile era. As the founder of her own creative consultancy — Mandi’s Basement — Mandi has spent decades at the heart of London’s fashion scene, applying the sharp, instinctive eye she honed under Mrs. B’s mentorship.
But first, we asked some of the people who witnessed Joan Burstein’s magic firsthand to share their favourite memories with us.
Key Insights:
The Instinctive Edit: Mrs. B prioritised staying power over viral trends, operating on a philosophy of patient observation. Her strategy involved "watching" a designer for several seasons to ensure their signature was robust enough to survive the commercial pressures of the global value chain. As Lennard notes, Mrs. B was looking for longevity: "She’d watch someone for three seasons, to see if they’ve got staying power ... She wasn’t looking for what was ‘in.’ She was looking for what was ‘next.’"
The Boutique as a Cultural Bridge: Browns acted as a critical laboratory where American commercialism met European avant garde. By placing Ralph Lauren alongside Comme des Garçons, Mrs. B forced a cross-cultural dialogue that redefined modern luxury retail. "She brought the Americans to Europe. Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan ... But then you’d have the radical disruptors like Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garçons.” reflects Lennard. “It was a portal. She brought the world to London."
Counter-Cyclical Loyalty: Mrs. B was known to place orders for designers having a "difficult" season. She viewed the retailer-designer relationship as a long-term investment in talent rather than a quarterly metric. "If a designer had a bad season, she wouldn’t drop them. She’d actually buy more.” Lennard recalls. “She’d say, ‘They need us now more than ever.’ It was about the relationship, not just the sell-through."
Radical Hospitality: The Browns experience was defined by a service model where staff acted as curators, guiding customers through a challenging and highly aspirational environment. This high-touch approach created a unique retail atmosphere that felt like a sanctuary for the fashion-obsessed. "It was very old school in the sense of the service,” explains Lennard. “You were treated with as much respect if you were buying a pair of Katherine Hamnett jeans as if you were buying the whole shop. It was about making people feel part of that world.”Additional Resources:
Joan Burstein, Retail Pioneer, Dies at 100 | BoF Joan Burstein, Queen B | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 08 May 2026 - 41min - 1038 - Why People Hate AI
Since the earliest days of tools like ChatGPT and Claude, industry conversations have been marked by a tension between excitement around speed and efficiency alongside deep-seated fears of job loss, creative dilution and concerns about its environmental footprint. What once played out in theory is now unfolding in practice – as a broader rejection of what AI represents — particularly as more consumers view AI-generated content as a cost-cutting measure that erodes fashion’s human touch,
In this episode, The Debrief host Sheena Butler-Young discusses with BoF correspondents Marc Bain and Haley Crawford why the backlash is intensifying and how consumer sentiment against brands using AI-generated imagery is forcing a reckoning. They explore whether fashion can actually embrace these tools without losing the care and time that confers luxury status.
Key Insights:
Consumers are moving past passive skepticism around AI and increasingly displaying a more visceral negative reaction to AI visuals.In an industry built on originality and attribution, AI is often perceived as shortcutting the creative process — or worse, borrowing from artists without credit. For many, it raises uncomfortable questions about what constitutes real creative ownership.At the same time, there is growing concern that AI could erode both the craft and the pipeline behind fashion creativity, threatening entry-level roles and the time, care and human touch that underpin luxury’s value.Additional Resources:
Why People Hate AIThe Fashion Marketer’s Guide to AIWhy Revolve Can’t Stop Talking About AIHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 06 May 2026 - 30min - 1037 - Inside Dries Van Noten’s Venice Manifesto
For four decades, Dries Van Noten defined a singular path in global fashion with a universe rooted in intellectual rigour, exquisite craftsmanship and independence. When he stepped back from his eponymous brand last year, it wasn't a retreat into a quiet retirement. Instead, Van Noten has embarked on a profound transition—moving from the relentless, dictated rhythm of fashion to a new life as a custodian of culture in Venice.
Van Noten has established a new foundation at the Palazzo Pisani Moretta, a space dedicated to the beauty of craftsmanship and the belief that in a world marked by global uncertainty, the act of making something beautiful is the ultimate form of protest.
“I think everybody knows that it’s ugly times,” says Van Noten. “When we say ‘protest,’ you protest against something—so I think it’s quite clear when we say ‘the only true protest is beauty’ that people know what we mean.”
In this special episode of The BoF Podcast, our editor-at-large Tim Blanks speaks to Dries Van Noten about this remarkable transition to becoming a custodian of beauty.
Key Insights:
The Post-Runway Pivot: Reclaiming the Creative Rhythm:Van Noten discusses the liberation of moving away from the "dictated rhythm" of the global fashion calendar. “We didn't retire to have an easy life and just relax," Van Noten states. “Fashion dictates the rhythm. Here, nobody dictates us with what I'm doing now. It’s a different life, a different rhythm, but still busy.” For Van Noten, this transition is not a withdrawal, but a strategic refocusing on projects that prioritise human intuition over commercial pressure.
The Palazzo as a Living Lab: Custodianship of History:His Venice headquarters, the 15th-century Palazzo Pisani Moretta, serves as a living laboratory where the focus shifts from product to process. Van Noten views his role not as an owner, but as a temporary guardian of the space's cultural and physical history. “I really feel that we are custodians now of something which is so special... It’s a palazzo built to impress, but there is also a very strong human factor in it.” he notes.
Beauty as Engagement: The Radical Act of Aesthetics:In a world marked by macro-uncertainty and conflict, Van Noten posits that creating beauty is a provocative, active form of protest rather than a passive escape. He argues that aesthetics can be a healing, grounding force in an increasingly "ugly" global landscape. “In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty,” says Van Noten. “For me, it's impossible just to sit there and to complain… I always look to the future, and I think [for] the future you have to protest, you have to have hope. Protest for me also gives hope.”
Rejecting fashion hierarchies:A core pillar of the new foundation is the rejection of traditional fashion hierarchies. Dries places the work of avant-garde masters like Rei Kawakubo on the same plane as local artisans and emerging designers from conflict zones, centering the "soul" of the object over its brand equity. ‘I meet such different people... Last week I was still standing here with a person in Venice who makes books, a bookbinder... I think he's 87. I had tears in my eyes. He was so happy and so proud to show me the book covers that he made.’ Van Noten expressesAdditional Resources:
The BoF 500: Dries Van Noten | BoFDries Van Noten and Julian Klausner: How to Make a Designer Transition Work |BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thu, 30 Apr 2026 - 44min - 1036 - Why Some Retailers are Ignoring the Internet
For years, the fashion industry operated under the assumption that digital scale was the right path. However, the "growth-at-all-costs" model is currently fracturing as luxury giants grapple with soaring customer acquisition costs and a logistical crisis fueled by high return rates. In response, a quiet counter-culture is emerging, with stores like Ven. Space and Dot Reeder thriving by intentionally limiting their digital footprints.
In this episode, executive editor Brian Baskin and senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young discuss with BoF correspondent Austin Kim how these analogue retailers are using hyper-local intimacy and intelligent curation to build a more resilient business model that values brand equity over infinite reach.
Key Insights:
The Rejection of Digital Friction: Store owners like Chris Green of Ven. Space are intentionally limiting their digital footprints to avoid the "grind" of high customer acquisition costs. Austin Kim notes that for these owners, "these small businesses are people doing what they love and what they don't love is e-commerce and they have no interest in it".
The "Sit and Fit" Financial Advantage: Analyst Simeon Siegel posits that the in-store customer is the superior economic unit because they absorb the costs of fulfillment. As Kim explains, "In the store, the customer takes the pair of jeans off the rack, walks it over to the cash register, and then takes it home to themselves," whereas online, a brand must pay for picking, packaging, and the high probability of returns.
Product Curation as a Moat: Success for these boutiques relies on a "mythic" assortment of brands that creates a level of trust an algorithm cannot replicate. Kim highlights that the draw is the owner's perspective: "Chris Green is almost like a Mr. Rogers if he wore Dries van Noten ... that perspective is exactly what I think customers connect with".
Analogue Marketing and the "Third Space": To cut through digital exhaustion, retailers like Outline are pivoting to high-quality print catalogs. Co-founder Margaret Austin describes e-commerce as "unsexy," preferring a strategy where receiving something at your door acts as "an amazing strategy" to cut through the noise of social media.
The Scalability Paradox: The "secret sauce" of these stores is often the owner-operator’s deep local roots, which is difficult for corporate entities to mimic. Kim warns that "you lose the soul of a business really quickly as you scale, especially on e-commerce," because you begin buying for an international audience rather than maintaining a specific, connected perspective.Additional Resources:
Meet the Retailers Succeeding by Ignoring the Internet | BoFThe State of Fashion 2026: When the Rules Change | BoFThe BoF Podcast | Pete Nordstrom on the Enduring Power of Retail’s ‘Best Mousetrap’Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 - 25min - 1035 - Britt Moran on Why Atmosphere Is a Real Luxury Product
For the global luxury industry, Salone del Mobile in Milan has become a moment where brands look beyond the runway to expand into the broader "lifestyle" economy. At the centre of this intersection is Dimore Studio, co-founded by Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci — a studio that has defined the aesthetic language for luxury hospitality, retail and private residential projects worldwide.
Moran is originally from a small town in North Carolina. He moved to Italy over 30 years ago, initially intending to take a gap year before applying to medical school. He never went back. Together with Salci — his former romantic partner and now business partner of over 25 years — he has built Dimore into a multi-faceted brand spanning interior design, two furniture collections, a textile line, and a newly opened gallery in a former bank in central Milan.
As luxury conglomerates increasingly pursue the "home" and hospitality categories to drive long-term growth, Moran offers an insider's perspective on why credibility in this space can't be bought — it has to be built.
“I think you just have to completely trust your instinct, nurture the passion, do it only for the passion not thinking that you're going to become incredibly wealthy doing it,” says Moran.“Emiliano always tells me, we're not doing this for the money. We're only doing it because it's something that we love.”This week on The BoF Podcast, Britt Moran joins Imran Amed in Milan to discuss the business of building an "atmosphere," his unlikely path from the American South to the centre of Italian design, and why fashion's rush into the home category requires more than just marketing.
Key Insights:
Atmosphere is the product, not furniture.Moran frames Dimore's core offering not as chairs or tables but as the complete sensory experience of a space — scent, music, lighting, feeling. This is what clients are paying for and what sets Dimore apart from conventional design studios. As he puts it, the studio began with the idea of "setting up atmospheres," and the furniture collections emerged later, almost as by-products of the environments they were creating for clients.
Italy's manufacturing ecosystem remains a competitive advantage.Moran highlights the strategic importance of proximity to Brianza, the furniture manufacturing district outside Milan where major producers like Cassina and Poltrona Frau work alongside independent artisans. Having done projects in the US, France and the Middle East, Moran is categorical that the quality-to-price ratio in Italy has no equivalent elsewhere — a claim with real implications for any brand considering where to source its home and lifestyle products.
Most fashion brands are getting the design crossover wrong.While fashion houses are flooding Salone del Mobile with installations and activations, Moran draws a sharp line between those using Design Week as a marketing platform and those — like Loro Piana — that are leveraging genuine material expertise to create credible home products. The distinction matters: consumers and the design community can tell the difference between a brand that understands three-dimensional design and one that's dressing up a booth.
The Dimore partnership works because of creative tension.Moran describes himself as "much more classic, much more conventional, maybe much more traditional" while Salci is "very forward thinking" with an "urban edge." This creative polarity — not shared taste — is what gives Dimore its distinctive aesthetic. The fact that they began as romantic partners and successfully transitioned into a purely business relationship adds an unusual dimension to a studio that has now endured for over two decades.Additional Resources:
Britt Moran | BoF 500 ProfileWhy Salone Del Mobile is Irresistible for Luxury Brands | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 24 Apr 2026 - 43min - 1034 - Why Luxury Still Can’t Find Its Way Out of the Slump
Luxury entered 2026 with hopes that new creative directors and signs of stabilisation would finally help the sector turn a corner. Instead, the latest round of earnings has raised bigger questions about what growth now looks like for the industry. While brands including Dior, Gucci and Chanel are generating renewed interest, that excitement has not yet translated into a meaningful sales rebound.
From the slowing Chinese market to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, luxury conglomerates are facing a complex web of challenges that creative hype alone cannot solve.
On the episode, BoF luxury editors Mimosa Spencer and Robert Williams explain why China remains such a critical missing piece, why Louis Vuitton is under closer scrutiny than usual, and why jewellery continues to outperform the rest of luxury.
Key Insights:
One of the clearest messages from this earnings season is that new designers can lift mood and momentum internally, but that alone is not enough to restart the industry. Williams says the latest results confirmed that the impact of all these creative resets is “pretty limited, especially in isolation”. As he puts it, “the result of that is more like treading water or stabilising versus actually reigniting growth.” Spencer adds that the disappointment was sharper because there had been so much excitement around these debuts that “a lot of investors were expecting some earlier results.”
Both Spencer and Williams point to China as the market hanging over the entire sector. Even where sentiment improved at the end of last year, investors were still looking for signs that Chinese demand might return in a meaningful way. Spencer says the bigger issue now is not just timing but structure: “The question is whether the kind of growth we saw in the past will actually come back.” She adds: “It seems like it takes a lot more work for a luxury brand to actually get good results in China.”
LVMH still wants the market to see Dior as the manageable turnaround story, but Williams suggests the real anxiety now sits around Louis Vuitton. The brand has held up better than many peers, but investors are increasingly asking where its next phase of growth will come from. Williams points out that the bigger concern is not short-term performance, but what comes next. “No one can really see where the growth is going to come from,” he says. “Is this still a growth industry? What will the industry look like and how will it operate if it's not growing anymore?” If the industry’s strongest player cannot clearly define its next phase of growth, it raises deeper questions about the trajectory of luxury as a whole.
Despite the broader slowdown across luxury, Spencer argues that jewellery’s outperformance is not just about demand for hard luxury, but about how consumers now judge value. Handbag prices have climbed so sharply that jewellery, by comparison, can feel like a more rational indulgence. “Jewellery prices haven’t gone up in the same way that handbag prices have gone up,” she says. At the same time, jewellery still carries a perception of durability and investment value, whether or not that always holds in practice.
Luxury brands may be making more progress with their established high-spending clients than with the broader aspirational base they once relied on for volume. Williams notes that some houses are succeeding in pulling core customers back into stores, even if that is not yet translating into a wider recovery. At Chanel, for example, he points to renewed momentum among “well-to-do women with big executive jobs in their late 30s, 40s, and 50s,” while Louis Vuitton’s monogram anniversary campaign has helped refocus attention on its most iconic products.Additional Resources:
The Luxury Rebound Gets a Reality Check | BoF Kering’s Strategy Reveal, Examined | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 - 36min - 1033 - What Luxury's Winners Are Getting Right
The global fashion industry is a $2.5 trillion economic engine, and yet in the corridors of Washington and high finance, it's often treated as a sideshow. This week I was in DC at Semafor World Economy, listening to conversations about AI and genomics and energy — and arguing that fashion is actually one of the best barometers we have for where the global consumer is heading.
Because the luxury landscape is being reshaped in real time. This week LVMH reported that its fashion and leather goods division contracted by 2 percent in the first quarter. Kering's group revenues were also flat, with Gucci down 8 percent. Meanwhile Ralph Lauren has raised its guidance three times in the past year, with revenue up 12 percent in the most recent quarter. And Zegna's flagship brand grew more than 7 percent in the fourth quarter.
So what are these winners doing differently? In this episode I sit down with three leaders who, from very different starting points, offer a remarkably consistent answer — one that has little to do with logos, scarcity or hype, and everything to do with substance, inclusion and a clear sense of what customers are willing to pay for.
First, Ermenegildo Zegna, group executive chairman of the Zegna Group, on why he chose this moment to step back as chief executive and hand the reins to his sons. We talk about vertical integration as a hedge against inflation and the formula he’s giving the next generation to run by.
Ermenegildo Zegna: "Think slow but act fast. These to me are the most important criteria for being successful."
Then, I’m joined by Patrice Louvet, president and chief executive of Ralph Lauren, and Noah Horowitz, chief executive of Art Basel — two leaders whose businesses keep growing while the rest of the market softens. We unpack why Patrice thinks the industry is working from a “lazy definition” of luxury, and ask why — in a world of frictionless, AI-powered shopping — the most valuable thing a brand can offer is a reason to show up in person.
Patrice Louvet: "We're not in the apparel business. We're in the dreams business."
Three leaders. Three businesses. One consistent answer about what luxury looks like now.
Key Insights:
The Next-Gen Handover: Ermenegildo Zegna stepped back from the CEO role at age 70, appointing his sons to lead the Zegna Group. He emphasises that in times of change, leaders must "think slow but act fast" and remain true to core values.
Vertical Integration as Resilience: A key differentiator for Zegna is its "sheep to shop" model. By owning 60 percent of its supply chain, the group maintains quality control and a compelling value perception that justifies its luxury pricing in an inflationary market.
The Experience Economy: Both Ralph Lauren and Art Basel are leaning into "experientialisation". Patrice Louvet argues Ralph Lauren is in the "dreams business," comparing Ralph Lauren's creative process to a movie director rather than a traditional designer.
Inclusive vs. Exclusive Luxury: Ralph Lauren differentiates itself through "inclusive luxury," welcoming customers into stores styled as "homes" and offering products ranging from $12 socks to $320,000 watches. This contrasts with retail peers who use security guards and create long queues.
Art as a Human Market: Noah Horowitz notes a "flight to safety" in the art world, where collectors are moving away from speculative contemporary trends toward well-priced masterworks and global discovery. He defines the market as "confidence-driven," relying on community and connectivity.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 17 Apr 2026 - 36min - 1032 - Nike’s Reality Check
When Elliot Hill returned to Nike as chief executive in October 2024, he was tasked with reversing one of the most significant slumps in the company’s history.
The business had lost momentum with both investors and consumers and his strategy has focused on restoring wholesale relationships, rebuilding key categories like running and trying to stabilise the brand’s broader narrative.
But Nike’s latest earnings and weak outlook have intensified doubts about whether the recovery is moving quickly enough. In a fragmented marketplace where heat has moved toward niche competitors and rejuvenated legacy rivals, Nike is struggling to convince a skeptical public and an impatient Wall Street that its next chapter has truly begun.
On the episode, Sykes joins hosts Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin to unpack why Nike’s comeback still feels unfinished, what the brand is getting right, and what it would take for the market to believe again.
Key Insights:
Sykes argues that the sharp reaction to Nike’s latest earnings was less about one bad quarter than a broader loss of patience. Hill has spent more than a year telling investors that the comeback is taking shape, but the numbers still do not show enough momentum to support that story. “Investors are just sort of running thin on patience with Elliott Hill,” Sykes says. That problem is compounded by Nike’s own guidance. As Sykes puts it, “you can’t really get ringing endorsements from people” when the company is already warning that the next quarter will still be down.
The sportswear landscape of 2026 is fundamentally different from the one Nike dominated a decade ago. Whilst Nike is still a big player in sportswear, its dominance does not necessarily mean the same thing it once did. With the market fragmented, heat is now distributed across brands like Hoka, New Balance and Adidas, and attention moves quickly between rivals. “Nike is still bigger than every other sportswear brand out there right now,” he says. “But when Nike is at its best, it is not participating in the conversation, it is controlling the conversation.” The issue is not that Nike has become irrelevant. It is that the market no longer seems to operate in a way that allows one brand to command the same singular hold it once did. Nike now requires a more versatile approach to global regions like China and sub-brands like Converse, which currently act as a drag on overall productivity.
Sykes is clear that Nike is not doing everything wrong. He points to genuine progress in North America, improved wholesale relationships and real traction in running. But those wins have not yet added up to the kind of breakthrough moment that changes the narrative. Nike is trying new products and categories, yet none of them has become the catalyst investors and consumers are looking for. “There are things there that I would say are definitely more positive than I thought they would be,” Sykes says. But he also notes that “there just seems to be still a bit of disconnect between what the brand thinks about its product and what consumers think about its products.”
Sykes argues that the company has to rebuild the basics before it can deliver the kind of defining cultural or product hit that resets perception. “You have to hit the singles before you can hit a grand slam,” he says. That may be true operationally, but the problem is that Nike is a company judged not just on steady execution, but on its ability to create category-shaping moments. Until one of those arrives, the sense of drift is likely to continue.Additional Resources:
Can the World Cup Solve Nike’s Problems? | BoF The Public Isn’t Buying What Nike Is Selling. Can That Change?Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 15 Apr 2026 - 26min - 1031 - Ask Imran Anything: On Boring Fashion, the Meaning of Luxury and Building Outside the System
In this second Ask Me Anything episode, Imran Amed responds to questions submitted by listeners around the world, offering a wide-ranging reflection on where fashion stands now — creatively, commercially and culturally.
The conversation moves from personal encounters with figures such as designer Yohji Yamamoto and Gentle Monster founder Hankook Kim to broader questions about whether the industry has lost its sense of excitement, what luxury means today and how emerging brands can still find a path to market.
“Sometimes big-brand fashion can feel a bit boring and corporatised and cookie-cutter. But there are so many independent, young, exciting brands out there doing really, really interesting things,” says Amed. “I’m starting to feel excited about fashion again.”
Later in the episode, the discussion turns to AI, fashion education and entrepreneurship. Amed makes the case for engaging early with new technologies rather than resisting them, calls on educators to stay connected to the realities of the industry, and reflects on the early failure that ultimately led him to build BoF.
Key Insights:
The creative energy in fashion is returning, driven by a wave of new creative director appointments.After a period where the industry felt productised and corporatised, recent moves — Mathieu Blazy at Chanel, Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Meryl Rogge at Marni, Duran Lantink at Jean-Paul Gaultier — have injected a sense of excitement Imran says he hasn’t felt in years. The lesson: pay attention to independent and emerging brands too, where some of the most thoughtful work is happening away from the spotlight.
The old gatekeeper model for launching a fashion brand is over.When Amed wrote his “Business of Fashion Basics” series in 2007, the only path to market for young designers ran through department store buyers, glossy magazine editors, publicists and showrooms. Today, brands can reach customers directly through social media and content — though some may still benefit from selective engagement with the traditional system.
BoF’s global editorial perspective has been present from day one, but global coverage requires active effort.Rather than seeing international storytelling as a matter of geographic inclusion, Amed frames it as a responsibility to understand how different markets connect through shared challenges. “The struggles a designer in Brazil is facing are often similar to the struggles, questions and challenges a designer in Dubai is facing,” he says. “You only really realise that when you start going around the world and people are asking you the same questions.”
On AI, the biggest risk is inaction.Drawing a parallel to his first experience with email and the internet in 1994, Amed argues that AI represents the same kind of transformational shift — and that professionals who reflexively reject it will fall behind, just as those who dismissed bloggers and influencers did a decade ago.
When the world feels uncertain, focus on what you can control.Amed’s advice to designers and business leaders navigating geopolitical instability: you can’t control tariffs, wars or macro uncertainty. You can control the quality of your work, the environment you create for your teams, and your cost base. Beauty and creativity, he argues, are a uniting force — and sometimes the best response to turbulence.
The failure that led to BoF: focus on the problem, not the solution.Before launching BoF, Amed tried to build a fashion incubator modelled on Silicon Valley. After eight months, he couldn’t sign a single designer. But because he’d identified the right problem — bridging the gap between creativity and business — the failure pointed him toward a different solution. “If your first solution doesn’t work, try another solution, keep iterating,” he says. “I did.”Additional Resources:
The Emerging Designers Pushing Fashion Forward | BoFThe Great Fashion Reset | Is Fashion Failing Emerging Designers? | BoF Why Revolve Can’t Stop Talking About AI | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 10 Apr 2026 - 51min - 1030 - Can H&M Prove Sustainability is a Growth Engine?
In March, H&M released financial results alongside its annual sustainability report, presenting two seemingly contrasting narratives. The company reported a 34.6 percent reduction in emissions from 2019 levels and also noted that 91 percent of its materials are now sustainably sourced. However, this environmental progress occurred alongside a 1 percent dip in sales, raising questions about the commercial viability of its green strategy.
While many industry peers are backing away from environmental messaging to focus on the bottom line, H&M is arguing that sustainability is not in tension with profit, but is rather a "core driver of future growth".
On The Debrief, we examine whether this decoupling of growth from environmental impact can truly resonate with consumers, or if it remains a purely internal metric.
Key Insights:
As a fast fashion brand, H&M understands that sustainability alone is not going to win back shoppers. Instead, Walid says the company is trying to translate its recent efforts into something more tangible at the point of purchase. The pitch is not that consumers care about emissions reporting in itself, but that sustainability can function as a marker of quality. As Leyla Ertur, H&M’s Head of Sustainability, told Walid during their conversation, “Our customers don’t care about our Scope 3 emissions going down. What they care about is what they’re buying.”
Walid suggests that one of H&M’s biggest challenges is the disconnect between how the company sees itself and how customers perceive it. “When we say H&M, I think people are thinking of H&M, the brand … But when H&M talks about itself, they’re talking [about] the whole conglomerate,” she says, pointing to brands like COS and Weekday, which occupy a more elevated position. While those labels may successfully compete with higher-end high street players, that distinction is largely invisible to consumers, who still associate H&M with “fast fashion … something cheap for an occasion.” As a result, while the group may understand how to build more premium propositions across its portfolio, Walid argues that the core H&M brand itself has not yet meaningfully shifted perception.
For all the company’s investments and emissions reductions, the core contradiction remains that H&M is still producing and selling huge volumes of clothing. Waleed is explicit about that limitation: “They’re not addressing the overconsumption and overproduction problem in fashion.” At the same time, she notes that H&M is one of the few large players still investing at scale in decarbonisation, water reduction and supply chain upgrades.
H&M is investing across sustainability, brand elevation and new channels like resale, but Waleed cautions that it is still too early to judge whether these efforts are working. “They use all these different levers that don’t come into one … There needs to be a way to bring that together,” she says. Initiatives like fashion week shows, collaborations and younger-facing campaigns are designed to re-engage consumers, but “I don’t think people have caught traction … just yet.” For now, the strategy remains a long-term bet rather than a proven turnaround.Additional Resources:
Exclusive: H&M Says Sustainability Is Good for Business. Can It Get Shoppers to Care?BoF Analysis: The Rise of Ultra-Fast Fashion PlayersThe Game of ‘Selling’ SustainabilityHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 08 Apr 2026 - 27min - 1029 - Faye McLeod on Luxury World-Building, One Window at a Time
Faye McLeod has built a body of work that sits at the intersection of retail, image-making and brand building. During her 16-year tenure at Louis Vuitton, she created some of the luxury industry’s most visible physical expressions – from windows and façades to fashion show sets. In that time, she helped define how the house translated its image from the runway and the archive into public-facing experiences around the world.
“I love the fact that the windows are a democratic space. You’re talking to the people on pavements – people can love it or not, and that’s okay,” she says. “You can’t retouch or hide anything. You’ve just got to be authentically you. And I think that’s what I’m really good at – being just me.”
Now in a new phase of her career, McLeod is building her studio, Closer, bringing her special mix of emotion, world-building and collaboration to other brands and clients.
On this week’s episode of BoF Podcast, McLeod joins BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed to discuss her path into window design, the emotional logic behind her creative process, and why she decided this was the right moment to strike out on her own.
Key Insights:
Windows are where luxury meets the street.McLeod describes window design not as a decorative retail function but as one of fashion’s most public-facing forms of communication — a place where a brand has to earn attention in real time. What draws her to the medium is precisely that lack of control. “I love the fact that the windows are a democratic space,” she says. “You’re talking to the people on pavements.”
Her instinct for contained spaces comes from somewhere deeper than design training.McLeod links her creative process to a traumatic childhood accident. At the age of five, she fell down a deep hole in the desert in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates and spent hours trapped in what she describes as a concrete box, using imagination and inner resolve to survive. She now sees that experience as formative. “I had to go inside myself to survive. I had to use my imagination,” she says. “I’m good at designing in a contained space.”
The audience feedback completes the work. McLeod returns to the idea that creative concepts only fully come alive when people respond in ways you could not have planned. “What I love about what we do is watching the crowd sing back,” she says. “It’s something you cannot control with creative. You just put it out into the universe and see what happens.” In Chengdu, people queued with scissors to cut off pieces of the tail and take them home as souvenirs.
Her work is built collectively, not individually. Despite the scale and visibility of the projects she discusses, McLeod is emphatic that none of them are authored alone. “It’s not just about one person, it’s about everybody,” she says. “It’s an orchestra and you just find your place.”
Her philosophy is simple: pour love into the work. Looking back on her career, she says what she wishes she had known earlier was not a strategic lesson but an emotional one: to trust herself more, let anxiety matter less and commit fully to what she was making. “I wish I knew you just had to pour love into everything you do,” she says. “I just get a big jar of love and I pour it right on top of everything.”Additional Resources:
Faye McLeod | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry
Role Call | Faye McLeod, Visual Image Director | BoF
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 03 Apr 2026 - 52min - 1028 - The Retailer That’s Obsessed With AI
For years, Revolve was fashion retail’s byword for influencer marketing, particularly around its over-the-top Coachella event. But as the Instagram aesthetic matures and the cost of human-led marketing rises, the company is pivoting. The new mandate? To become as much an AI powerhouse as it is a party-hosting fashion giant.
In a recent conversation with Retail Editor Cathaleen Chen, Revolve founders Michael Mente and Mike Karanikolas argued that AI isn't just a buzzword for the board; it’s the engine that will sustain their multi-billion dollar dominance.
Chen joined The Debrief to talk about how Revolve is pushing the limits of how AI can be used in retail, and whether its strategy is working.
Key Insights:
Revolve was founded by software engineers who viewed fashion as an e-commerce "white space,” setting it apart from rivals that invested in new technologies only after establishing themselves in the marketplace. "While Revolve looks like a Shopbop or a Net-a-Porter... Revolve is actually built like a data science company." said retail editor Cathaleen Chen.Revolve differentiates itself by building its own tools where possible, rather than buying off-the-shelf software, including the product search on its website. Using AI, Revolve has moved beyond literal keyword matching to a system that understands the vibe or occasion a customer is shopping for. By analyzing image attributes, the site can surface the perfect "party dress" even if that specific tag doesn't exist, explains Chen. "What their AI tool is able to do is pull up anything that is sequined... or textured... it is anticipating the desire."Revolve fosters a "bottom-up" environment where every employee is encouraged to experiment with AI. They aren't just looking for "moonshots"; they value any application that moves the needle even slightly. "Eeven if something improves efficiency or output by just 1%, that's considered a success,” said Chen.Additional Resources:
Why Revolve Can’t Stop Talking About AI | BoF
Why Fashion Doesn’t Talk About How It Uses AI | BoF
Why Revolve Is Embracing Brick-and-Mortar| BoF
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 01 Apr 2026 - 22min - 1027 - Is Your $3,000 Handbag Worth It? Tanner Leatherstein Has the Answer.
Volkan Yilmaz — known to his millions of followers as Tanner Leatherstein — grew up in his family's tannery in Turkey, learning to convert raw animal hides into finished leather from the age of eleven.
That foundation took him through an improbable journey: a failed business venture in Turkmenistan, a green card lottery win, years driving trucks and cabs across New Jersey and Chicago, an MBA, a brief stint in management consulting he couldn't stand, an Etsy shop he built from scratch — and eventually, almost by accident, a viral video that changed everything.
He started cutting luxury bags open. Applying acetone to test the finish. Burning the leather to verify tanning claims. Scratching the hardware to see what's underneath. And asking, what are you really paying for?
“At upwards of $500, they’re not selling you a leather bag, they’re selling you a signal of status loaded on, hopefully, a good leather bag,” he says. “If I’m a customer of this brand paying $3,000, I know I’m buying a status signal, but at least I deserve the best quality of materials and craftsmanship.”
Leatherstein joined BoF founder Imran Amed at our London offices to discuss what he's found inside some of the world's most famous handbags, what it tells us about the relationship between price and quality in luxury, and what he believes comes next for an industry under growing pressure from consumers who are no longer willing to take marketing at face value.
The tannery is where his authority comes from. Yilmaz grew up in his father's Turkish tannery, learning to select raw skins and work through the chemistry of tanning from the age of eleven. That early immersion — sensory, unglamorous, technical — is what allows him to read a bag's construction in ways most consumers cannot. "I was so fascinated how this smelly dirty bloody trash turns into a luxury fabric at the end of that process," he recalls. "Like alchemy."
The path to the camera was as unlikely as the path to leather. Before building a following of millions, Yilmaz had to overcome a conviction that he was ill-suited for on-screen performance. The shift came while filming a charitable appeal — nervous, voice shaking, but he got through it. "I realised this is just a decision I made and I could change it," he says. The inner voice that tells us what we can't do, he argues, is often just a choice we forgot we made.
His methodology is deceptively simple. Every review follows the same sequence: an acetone test to strip the finish and reveal the base material underneath, a hardware scratch test, a flame test to verify tanning claims, and a cost-of-goods estimate to calculate the retail multiplier. "The finish is the makeup on the bag," he explains. "I'm trying to see how much makeup is on it." At the luxury tier, he says a multiplier of fifteen to twenty times is not atypical.
Status signalling is real — but it comes with obligations. Yilmaz doesn't dismiss luxury pricing as a con. If status is what the customer is paying for, that's a legitimate transaction. But it's not a blank cheque. "If I'm a customer paying $3,000, I know I'm buying a status signal — but at least I deserve the best quality of materials and craftsmanship," he says. "What surprised me in these dissections is that sometimes I couldn't even find that."
Luxury isn't ending, but it needs to become something else. Challenger brands have proven that very good leather goods are achievable at the $500–600 price point, and Yilmaz believes that will pull consumers away from the traditional luxury tier. The brands that survive will be those that find a new reason to be desired — beyond logo recognition and price inflation alone. "I don't think it's the end of luxury," he says. "It's just an evolution."Additional Resources:
From Critic to Craftsman: Tanner Leatherstein’s Next Chapter | BoF Volkan Yilmaz | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion IndustryHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 27 Mar 2026 - 47min - 1026 - What European Luxury Can Learn From American Fashion
For years, European luxury brands set the pace in fashion, while American labels were often dismissed as overly commercial and too broadly distributed to compete at the highest end of the market.
But that balance is shifting. As many European luxury houses struggle with slowing demand, price resistance and creative inconsistency, a group of American brands is seeing renewed momentum.
On the episode, Diana Pearl joins Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin to unpack what those brands are getting right, and why their recent success may offer a useful playbook for the rest of the industry.
Key Insights:
Pearl argues that part of the shift comes down to timing. American brands like Coach, Ralph Lauren and Tory Burch went through their overexposure phase years ago and were forced to correct course, while European luxury brands are only now grappling with the consequences of aggressive growth. “European brands maybe got a little cocky,” she says. “They raised prices too much and maybe let the creative slide a little. I think as those businesses have grown, it just became more about sales and less about focusing on the core of the business.” By contrast, American brands “really had to recalibrate, pull back, think about who is our core customer and laser in on that message.”Pearl presents Coach as the clearest example of how this American reset has worked. Instead of chasing quick expansion, the brand spent years refining its identity, sharpening its offer and building around a defined consumer. “They want to be that first luxury bag purchase that someone makes when they’re in high school, when they get their first job and save up to buy a nice bag,” she says. That focus shapes everything from product to casting to marketing tone. Just as importantly, Coach stopped cycling through products too quickly. Rather than dropping a hit bag and moving on, “when they see these silhouettes start to pop off, they find ways to iterate them,” Pearl says, pointing to the Tabby and the Brooklyn as examples.
Pearl says European luxury’s current problems are not just about price, but about value and treatment. Consumers have become more sensitive to whether products feel worth the money and whether the shopping experience feels inviting. “People don’t want to spend their money at a place where they feel like they’re being mistreated,” she says, referring to growing frustration with intimidating store environments, long queues and rigid service hierarchies. She also argues that “cachet can only get you so far,” especially when shoppers no longer feel that the biggest European brands are producing the most desirable or practical items.
Another theme in Pearl’s reporting is consistency. Several American brands now doing well are still shaped by founder-led or founder-adjacent creative visions, and she suggests that stability matters. “Even if consumers don’t necessarily know that creative directors are changing, they see it in how a brand feels inconsistent from season to season,” she says. With Tory Burch, Ralph Lauren and Khaite, the creative point of view feels legible and sustained. That makes it easier to build a coherent world around the brand and evolve it gradually, rather than asking consumers to reset every few years with a new designer era.Additional Resources:
What European Luxury Can Learn From American Fashion | BoF The Great Fashion Reset | How to Fix Luxury’s Trust Issues | BoF The Great Fashion Reset: Can Designer Debuts Revive Luxury? | The Debrief | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 25 Mar 2026 - 24min - 1025 - Bella Freud on Fashion and the Art of Getting People to Open Up
Bella Freud's path into fashion was shaped less by legacy and more by instinct. Despite her family name, she describes an upbringing without privilege or pressure — drawing inspiration from the creative people around her.
After studying fashion in Rome, Freud launched her own brand in 1990, starting with knitwear and tailoring. Japan became an early and important market, helping establish her business. Over time, she built a small, agile label while navigating the realities of cash flow, wholesale pressures and a constantly shifting industry.
But it's her more recent creative chapter that has captured a whole new audience. Fashion Neurosis — her podcast, now in its third season — invites guests from fashion, art, film and literature to literally lie on a couch and talk about how clothes have shaped their lives. Rick Owens, Kate Moss, Zadie Smith, David Cronenberg. Each episode has the quality of something intimate and slightly cinematic — less interview, more confession.
Freud says she didn't anticipate how much the format would change her too. "When someone's lying down, their thought process changes. You start to think from your heart more than your mind." And that exchange, she says, is the whole point. "I don't just want to get things out of people — I want to exchange. It's a conversation and it's quite exciting to find oneself saying things that you weren't necessarily expecting to. It feels emotional and I like that."
Whether through clothing or conversation, Freud's work has always centred on the same idea: creating something that resonates emotionally and gives people a sense of connection.
Key Insights:
Freud's understanding of fashion as a form of power was shaped by her time at Seditionaries, Vivienne Westwood's London boutique. She describes Westwood's designs not as crude punk provocation but as garments of precision and technical beauty: "like rebel uniforms," she says, but "really, really well made… like couture." What stayed with her was not the shock value but the effect on the wearer — the way those clothes gave you "an aura of kind of unfathomability" and, ultimately, "a kind of dignity." It was her first lesson in what fashion could actually do.
For Freud, clothing and language have always been versions of the same instinct. As a child, she recalls feeling "so much impotence and rage" — and realising that if you chose words carefully, "you could have an effect." That same drive found expression first in her slogan knitwear — "Ginsberg is God," "Je t'aime Jane" — and later in Fashion Neurosis itself.
Freud has built her label without the backing of a major group, navigating cash flow pressures, wholesale shifts and at least one near-collapse. Her recovery came not through a strategic pivot but through a small, almost accidental creative act — 50 "Ginsberg is God" sweaters made for a film with John Malkovich, one of which Kate Moss wore, and which quietly restarted everything. Japan was her first real market; M&S, decades later, her biggest platform yet. What connects those moments is a consistent instinct: to do things at her own pace, on her own terms, and to treat the business as an extension of the work rather than separate from it.
Freud says that Fashion Neurosis has taught her "to be visible in a way that I didn't dare before." The format — the couch, the overhead camera, the absence of direct eye contact — creates a setting that is at once private and revealing, and changes how guests think and respond. "When someone's lying down, their thought process changes. You start to think from your heart more than your mind." That revelation has been as much personal as professional. Breaking with the convention of the detached host, Freud puts herself on the line alongside her guests. "I don't just want to get things out of people," she says. "I want to exchange."Additional Resources:
Bella Freud | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion IndustryHow Bella Freud Is Sustaining Success in Her Second ActHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 20 Mar 2026 - 52min - 1024 - Why Fragrance Is Fashion’s Newest Digital Frontier
Fragrance is booming, but the way consumers discover and buy scent is changing fast. While scent has traditionally relied on in-person testing, more than half of fragrance purchases in the US now take place online. As department stores decline, brands are leveraging new technologies and creative storytelling to reframe perfume less as a single signature scent and more as an accessory, a collectible and part of a wider personal style.
On the episode of The Debrief, BoF beauty correspondents Daniela Morosini and Rachael Griffiths unpack how short-form video, AI tools, layering trends and packaging are reshaping the category.
Key Insights:
Morosini argues that fragrance’s online shift reflects both the broader movement of beauty sales online and the weakening dominance of department stores, which historically anchored prestige fragrance. What has changed more recently is that digital content has become better at translating scent into something consumers feel they can understand. “Fragrance has historically been a difficult category to sell because so much of the marketing around it… how do you explain to somebody at home what a fragrance really smells like?” she says. Short-form video, she adds, has helped “bridge that gap” by making it easier for people to imagine “if I buy this perfume, I’m going to feel like X or Y.”
Griffiths explains that terms like “fragrance wardrobe” and “layering” are not just consumer buzzwords – they signal a real shift in how brands are selling scent. Rather than persuading shoppers to commit to one signature fragrance, brands are encouraging them to build collections, combine scents and buy multiple formats. “A fragrance wardrobe is effectively your fragrance collection,” she says, but the word wardrobe is important because it “hints at that fashion-to-fragrance relationship.” She adds that layering has become a community-building tool because “there’s nothing more niche than when you layer certain things in a way that nobody else has” and create “your own signature scent.”
As fragrance becomes more visual and more digitally merchandised, bottle design and format matter even more. Griffiths says packaging remains central because it helps fragrance function like an accessory, whether that is a solid scent compact pulled from a handbag or a bottle photographed for a shelfie. “The packaging is really important,” she says, especially when consumers want products that “look nice for you to slink out of your bag.” Morosini makes a related point: design can also tell consumers how a scent is meant to make them feel. She recalls how Paco Rabanne’s One Million was intentionally packaged like a gold bar to communicate aspiration, wealth and fantasy before anyone had even smelled it.Additional Resources:
Prestige Fragrance’s Online Shopping Problem | BoF How to Sell Fragrance Like a Fashion Accessory | BoF Why Fragrance Is the Latest Red Carpet Accessory | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 18 Mar 2026 - 23min - 1023 - The Designers and Brands That Defined the Season
After a season shaped less by shock debuts and more by second and third chapters, Tim Blanks and Imran Amed take stock of the fashion month that was.
“This season was kind of one note for me,” says Blanks. “It reminded me that in that golden age … of the ’90s, you would go to a day that was just bang, bang, bang. That’s what I still crave — that sense of surprise and that sense of designers working at a peak.”
If last season was driven by anticipation, this one was more revealing; in addition to witnessing how their creative ideas are evolving, new designers’ visions are now landing in stores, meeting customers and beginning to show whether they can convert attention into traction.
Key Insights:
For both Blanks and Amed, Chanel is the season’s most convincing success story – not just on the runway, but in the store. Amed describes seeing customers respond viscerally to Matthieu Blazy’s first ready-to-wear in person, noting that “the way customers were engaging with that product — the shoes, the bags — I hadn’t seen anything like that since Alessandro Michele at Gucci.” Blanks argues that the collection’s appeal lies in the intelligence of its details — not in obvious Instagram gestures, but in private pleasures built into the clothes. He points to a tweed jacket lined with a scarf print drawn from a caricature of Chanel herself and says, “That lining would be your secret.” For him, this is precisely why the work resonates: “He says we don’t make fashion for Instagram… and I think that kind of thing will elicit an incredible response from people.”
Gucci prompts the most debate because the stakes are so high. Amed frames Demna’s task as structurally different from what he previously achieved at Balenciaga. However, Blanks is more interested in the atmosphere and coded intention of the show, even if he remains unsettled by it. “I think that in his mind he was making a show about Italian fashion,” he says, adding that “it came across better in pictures than it actually did while we were watching it.” Still, he stops short of dismissal: “There is so much in fashion that I can look at and say, well, it’s not for me, but I appreciate that it’s for someone.”
Just months into the role, both Amed and Blanks see clear signs of Anderson’s authorship beginning to take shape inside the house of Dior. Blanks points to details like the lily pad shoes, which echo the surrealist footwear from Anderson’s past work, noting that “he already has signatures at Dior.” More broadly, Blanks describes the approach as “a magpie sensibility applied to the monolith of a brand.” Amed agrees that the pace of change is striking, saying “the amount that he’s already brought to that brand in such a short period of time is pretty extraordinary,” even if the process remains experimental. “Not everything is successful,” he adds, “but that’s the way he progresses… he’s refining, he’s a refiner.”Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 13 Mar 2026 - 54min - 1022 - How Oil Shock Fears Are Rippling Through Fashion
As conflict between the US, Israel and Iran escalates, the threat to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has pushed energy prices sharply higher. That matters to fashion far beyond the pump: oil and natural gas helps power factories, move goods and produce synthetic fabrics used across the industry.
Shayeza Walid and Cathaleen Chen join hosts Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin to explain how the immediate pressure of spiralling oil prices is showing up differently across the supply chain and consumer markets, and why even a short-lived shock can deepen existing strains on manufacturers, retailers and shoppers.
Key Insights:
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has immediate and severe consequences for Asian manufacturing hubs, which rely on the Gulf for approximately 60 per cent of their crude oil. Walid notes that for many producers, “it’s a supply issue and a logistics issue before it’s a cost issue right now.” She continues: “Every single person is dealing with the fact that oil and gas supplies are not coming through to their countries.” In that sense, the first pressure point is not simply higher prices, but whether manufacturers can secure the energy needed to keep production moving at all. Beyond the physical scarcity of fuel, the lack of insurance for shipping companies has created a logistical bottleneck that prevents essential energy supplies from reaching factories in China, India, and Bangladesh.
As polyester and other man-made fibres are intrinsically tied to oil, manufacturers focused on synthetics are feeling the pressure quickly. Walid says the impact is already visible in India and China, where producers are seeing both reduced supply and rising prices. “Man-made fibre prices were already going up,” she says. In some Indian manufacturing clusters, she adds, “those areas could very well be crippled if the crisis continues because they only use that type of fabric.”
Chen argues that the more immediate consumer effect is not necessarily higher apparel prices, but weaker confidence. She points out that many retailers are still working through existing inventory, so any inflationary effect on clothing would likely come later. “The more immediate effect on the consumer economy is simply psychological,” she says. Even before prices move materially, “consumer anxiety around inflation, even if inflation isn’t here yet, that’s going to affect how much they’re willing, how much they’re happy to spend on things like a pair of jeans.”
Both reporters suggest fashion is more used to volatility than it was before the pandemic, but this kind of disruption still reveals how exposed supply chains remain. Chen says many companies have become “very nimble in the situation of crisis”, while Walid points to the need for more durable supplier relationships and stronger local support. “It’s increasingly important to consider local dynamics for their suppliers and where their clothes are being manufactured,” she says.Additional Resources:
Oil Shock: What Fashion Needs to Know | BoF War in the Gulf Tests Resilience of a Rare Bright Patch for Luxury | BoF When War and Luxury Collide | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 11 Mar 2026 - 25min - 1021 - Pete Nordstrom on the Enduring Power of Retail’s ‘Best Mousetrap’
This year marks the 125th anniversary of Nordstrom — a company that began as a small shoe store in Seattle founded by a Swedish immigrant and has grown into a $16 billion retail juggernaut.
At a moment when the American department store sector is under enormous pressure — with bankruptcies, consolidation and changing consumer behaviour reshaping the landscape — Nordstrom has taken a different path.
Last year, the Nordstrom family partnered with Mexican retailer Liverpool to take the company private, a move Pete Nordstrom says allows the business to move faster and focus on the long term.
Pete began working in the Nordstrom stockroom at age 12 and has held roles across merchandising, buying and store management before becoming co-president alongside his brother Erik. Pete remains sanguine about Nordstrom and the future of department stores:
“It's the best mousetrap. We've got the ability to have a curated breadth of offer. We have an online ecosystem that's integrated with the store, an off-price division with a practical exhaust for things that we don't sell at full price, and then there's scale. If you're big enough, you can be the first call for those brands,” he says. “We can create enough scale and leverage to make your digital business profitable. That's how I would pitch our thing: we think we offer a good solution for a modern customer and how they shop.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, Pete Nordstrom joins BoF founder Imran Amed to discuss the company’s 125-year history, why he believes the department store model still works and how taking the company private is shaping Nordstrom’s next chapter.
Key Insights:
Nordstrom describes the business as “a company with heritage” rather than a “heritage company,” prioritising modern relevance over tradition. The move from shoes into apparel in the 1960s and the national expansion in the 1970s established a blueprint for organic growth, always anchored in service and a focus on the customer.
Taking the company private was a move to secure long-term stability and efficient decision-making. Nordstrom notes that public markets often undervalue department stores due to the sector's lack of a “growth arc” compared to tech-driven industries. By partnering with Liverpool, the family retains 51 percent control, allowing them to lead without the “cumbersome processes” of public market expectations. He maintains that the business is improving not because of the “trappings” of being private, but because the structure allows the team to “lean in with more energy and focus around customers”.
Despite the negative narrative surrounding American retail, Nordstrom highlights the necessity of an integrated “Omni view,” where physical stores and digital platforms share a single inventory. Curation remains vital to compete with independent boutiques, balancing relevance with inspiration, or the discovery of new brands. “We have the ability to have a curated breadth of offer,” he says, adding that the most successful modern closets mix high-fashion houses like Chanel with performance brands like On Running and Nike.
Nordstrom emphasises that successful retail leadership is built on a foundation of tangible, varied experiences rather than academic credentials alone, arguing that there is no shortcut to developing the necessary judgment for the industry. “You’re valuable to a company because you’ve done things that have worked and things that haven’t worked,” he notes, advising the next generation to focus on building a broad professional perspective over immediate gratification.Additional Resources:
Pete Nordstrom | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Can Department Stores Save Themselves? | The Debrief American Department Stores Have a Beauty ProblemHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 06 Mar 2026 - 53min - 1020 - How Fashion Picks Its Hip Hop Style Icons
Hip-hop has served as a primary pipeline for fashion’s entry into pop culture for decades, transitioning from organic street-level references to high-stakes global partnerships. Brands have historically leaned on a select group of superstar "style icons" to drive visibility, with A$AP Rocky emerging as the definitive case study for this crossover. However, as Gen Z consumer habits shift and the traditional music-to-market pipeline evolves, the industry faces questions about its over-reliance on a few familiar names.
Takanashi joins hosts Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin to discuss the tension between the safety of established stars and the cultural necessity of finding fresh voices.
Key Insights:
Takanashi positions A$AP Rocky as the case study of hip-hop’s interaction with fashion, whose organic love for runway brands transformed him into a definitive bridge between hip-hop and luxury. He recalls how Rocky name-checked designers in his breakout moment, and how that shifted what young fans even understood as fashion. “On this breakout single ‘Peso’, [Rocky] said that he was into Rick Owens and Raf Simmons,” Takanashi says. “He came out the gate as this rapper who really declared that he was into high fashion.” This authenticity created a bridge that allowed luxury brands to feel comfortable moving beyond traditional streetwear.
However, fashion houses frequently default to known quantities like Pharrell, Travis Scott, or A$AP Rocky because their long resumes provide predictable results for risk-averse marketers. This creates a feedback loop where the same faces appear across multiple, sometimes competing, brand categories. “A marketer can just point to several examples they’ve done in the past and they could see the result of it,” Takanashi explains. The industry’s tendency to "glom onto certain familiar names" risks diluting the unique identity of the brands themselves.
On the other hand, niche fan bases offer a more potent alternative to mainstream superstars. Some of the most successful recent collaborations have bypassed the Billboard charts in favour of artists with highly engaged, specific communities, such as Action Bronson with New Balance. Takanashi highlights that there is “a lot of strength in just kind of collaborating with artists that aren’t necessarily like charting super high.” Smaller artists with highly engaged and loyal fans can move the needle more effectively than a mass-market star who may feel interchangeable.
While brands are happy to dress rising talent for red carpets or front-row appearances, the leap to a global campaign remains a "slow burn." Takanashi points out that many decision-makers lack a deep investment in the culture, leading them to extract value rather than nurture new talent. “Fashion is a business that extracts culture, but doesn’t necessarily give back to it as much as we’d like,” he says. Without more diverse perspectives in positions of leadership, the industry struggles to identify which younger artists possess genuine, long-term cultural resonance.Additional Resources:
How Fashion Picks Its Hip-Hop Style Icons Breaking Down Chanel’s A$AP Rocky Partnership What’s Next for Hip-Hop and FashionHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 04 Mar 2026 - 22min - 1019 - Andrew Mukamal and the Rise of Method Dressing
Over the past two years, press tours for films like Barbie and Wuthering Heights have become strategic fashion narratives — moments that extend a film’s story far beyond the screen.
At the centre of that shift is Andrew Mukamal, the stylist for Margot Robbie who has become synonymous with what’s become known as “method dressing” … aligning a film’s character, fashion history and brand partnerships into a cohesive red carpet story.
“Method dressing, to me, is really just about putting a bit of extra thought and consideration into what you wear,” says Mukamal. “With modern marketing, the way people consume media and the evolution of the ‘super-press tour’, it’s now one of the options for how to approach this.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, Andrew Mukamal joins BoF founder and CEO Imran Ahmed to speak about the rise of the super press tour, the business dynamics between stylists, studios and fashion houses, and how method dressing has reshaped celebrity marketing.
Key Insights:
Mukamal’s entry into the industry is rooted in assisting and learning on set, from photo shoots to the unglamorous logistics of the fashion wardrobe, and he argues that an apprenticeship remains the clearest training ground. The work is emotional, interpersonal and fast-moving; assistants learn by seeing how decisions get made under pressure. “The only way to really learn how to deal with those things is to be part of a team where you’re seeing all of that happen,” he says. “You have to be very limber and flexible and ready for somebody to call you and say, ‘Maybe we need to pivot.’”
Mukamal defines method dressing as intentionality, not a gimmick. “Method dressing is just about putting a bit of extra thought and consideration into getting dressed – you’re not just grabbing something off a rack.” In his view, most actors are already doing it because red-carpet presentation is fundamentally different from everyday life; the difference is whether you use that gap to build a narrative. “They don’t walk around their normal lives looking anything like what you see them on these public carpets,” he says. Done well, he positions it as performance and persuasion — “a living, breathing billboard” that sustains attention between the trailer and the release, and gives audiences “a daily reminder” of the story they’re being invited into.
The Barbie tour was more than a marketing stunt.. Mukamal went back to the original mood boards of the Mattel designers to find the high-fashion references they used in the 1950s and 1960s. He explains, “Putting myself back in their heads and saying, ‘OK … What was the brand that they were inspired by for this Barbie?’ Now I need to go to that brand and [close] the loop. It was kind of just magic.”
After the global vibrancy of Barbie, Mukamal shifted into a dark, psychological aesthetic to match the tone of Wuthering Heights. He describes this evolution as a “complete gear shift,” returning to his “fashion goth” roots to build a narrative grounded in the 1847 novel’s intensity. By sourcing vintage Victorian accessories and collaborating with designer Dilara Findikoglu, he orchestrated a moment that merged archival history with a “tone of the coolness and, like, darkness” appropriate for the story.
Mukamal frames styling as an apprenticeship-based industry where you absorb judgement, communication and crisis management by watching someone else do it – and then debriefing afterwards. He says, “The only way to really learn how to deal with those things is to be part of a team where you’re seeing all of that happen.” He adds: “Stick around, because you didn’t learn everything in a year or two … I really am a tiny little tadpole in this pond, and I should keep learning while I can.”Additional Resources:
What Makes a Red Carpet Moment in 2024 | BoF Have We Hit Peak Red Carpet? | BoF Case Study | How to Create Cultural Moments on Any Budget | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 27 Feb 2026 - 1h 05min - 1018 - Tariffs Are Down, But Uncertainty Is Back
Nearly a year after President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs sent shockwaves through the fashion industry, the Supreme Court ruled he did not have authority to impose the sweeping levies. For an industry that imports billions of dollars in clothing, footwear and accessories into the US each year, the decision initially felt like relief. But that optimism narrowed almost immediately as new tariffs were introduced at 10 percent, with Trump indicating they could be raised to 15 percent over the weekend.
Key Insights:
While a drop to a 15 percent tariff technically represents a rate reduction, the sudden policy reversal has plunged the industry back into a state of operational paralysis. Executives are struggling to form long-term strategies when the foundational rules of global trade shift from week to week. “The problem isn’t even the difference in the rate of tariffs,” Chen explains. “It’s that the uncertainty makes decisions so much harder than if we knew exactly what that rate was going to be, even if it was higher than before.” This volatility forces companies to make reactive, shipment-by-shipment choices rather than fortifying their businesses for the future.
The sheer scale of the disruption means that import duties can no longer be managed as a siloed logistical issue. Navigating the changing rules requires constant, cross-departmental negotiation to align product adjustments with consumer messaging. As Bain notes, “In the past, with something like this you would talk to your supply chain manager and come up with a plan with them. Now, you get everyone in the C-suite together into a war room … it’s just constant negotiation within your company and with your consumers.”
Despite social media chatter suggesting that brands and consumers are owed money for the now-illegal tariffs, the reality of recouping those funds involves a looming legal nightmare. The government is expected to aggressively fight payback efforts by demanding extensive paperwork or proof that costs were not passed onto shoppers. “Refunds are a possibility, but it's not going to be a simple process,” Bain says. “It's not like returning your e-commerce order online where you fill out a form and you get a bunch of money back.”
Fashion has experienced significant sticker shock over the past few years, but brands that successfully raised prices without losing consumer demand are unlikely to surrender those gains now. If the cost of production decreases under the new tariff structure, powerful labels will likely absorb the difference to improve their margins. “I think it's a possibility that some brands and retailers will lower their prices, likely in the form of discounting, rather than lowering retail prices,” Chen says.Additional Resources:
The Supreme Court’s Tariff Ruling: What Fashion Needs to Know | BoF US Supreme Court Overturns Trump’s Emergency Tariffs | BoF Will Prices Come Down With Trump’s Tariffs? It’s Complicated | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Tue, 24 Feb 2026 - 18min - 1017 - London’s Premier Party Photographer on the Art of Working a Room
If you’ve been to a major party in London, Paris or Los Angeles, chances are that Dave Benett was there too. For nearly four decades, Benett has been a constant presence, documenting the evolution of celebrity, society and style in all the spaces and places where culture is happening.
From concerts with Madonna and Prince to after-parties with Princess Diana and the rise of fashion as a pillar of culture, Benett has seen it all and become an expert at the art of working a room.
“Journalists can miss something [and] be told about it. Photographers can’t,” he says. “Whatever you’re doing, you’ve got to make sure your eyes are everywhere.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, Benett joins Amed to talk about what it really takes to cover an event, how party photography has changed in the era of smartphones and Instagram, and why relationships — not just access — are everything.
Now he is launching the Dave Benett Agency — a boutique model designed to protect quality, mentor a new generation of photographers and adapt to an era where everyone has a camera, but very few know where to stand.
Key Insights:
Born in Mauritius in 1958, Bennett moved to the UK as a child and by his late-teens was honing his photography skills at the Daily Mirror and Thames TV, covering riots and crime before pivoting to the social scene. He witnessed the cultural shift where fashion merged with music and celebrity: “We started to see it when Kate Moss, Naomi [Campbell], Vivienne Westwood and the The Fashion Awards all started to happen.”
Bennett operates as what he calls a "society photographer," a role built on mutual respect and long-term relationships. He explains, "we were recording what society was doing. We photographed the royals but when they came into our world and that relationship really did make a difference.” This trust was exemplified by his interactions with Princess Diana at private events. “I would just photograph her arriving and meeting the host and then she could go off and chat to all her friends. She felt safe ... and it really paid off for us as the doors closed later on."
While the digital revolution has democratised image-taking, Dave argues that there is a distinct gap between a personal snapshot and a professional photograph. He acknowledges that "the power of the individual has increased massively," but maintains that the industry still relies on a specific editorial eye. "The good thing for me is that they still need what we do, because we're shooting for a client ... and there's a skill that comes with that — how you take a photo, what you're looking for in the photo. When you've got people with their own cameras, their own phones, taking their own pictures, they practically have only one use — for themselves."
Benett describes event photography as a tactical exercise, mapping arrivals, tracking key players and staying on his feet for hours. To capture the right moments, he explains: "You work out exactly where you need to be for the initial arrival or where they come, then you work the room as and when new people arrive. You can actually spend four hours just campaigning the room, just making sure you're in the right place at the right time."Additional Resources:
The Return of Old-School Celebrity Campaigns | BoFHow Celebrity Image-Makers Capitalise on the Red Carpet | BoF.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 20 Feb 2026 - 55min - 1016 - How Dior and Chanel Are Winning Back Aspirational Shoppers
After raising prices aggressively during the post-pandemic boom, luxury brands are now confronting slower growth and a shrinking aspirational customer base. According to Bernstein, average luxury price hikes reached 36 percent between 2020 and 2023, with Dior and Chanel raising prices by 51 percent and 59 percent, respectively. Now, as Bain estimates that more than 50 million aspirational shoppers have left the category, both houses are adjusting their pricing architecture and product mix in an attempt to rebuild volume without sacrificing exclusivity.
BoF reporter Joan Kennedy joins The Debrief to unpack how Dior and Chanel are recalibrating pricing and product strategy to win back aspirational shoppers.
Key Insights:
Dior and Chanel are among the brands that leaned hardest into post-pandemic price increases, prioritising margin expansion and high-net-worth clients. That strategy helped fuel growth at the time, but it has also intensified the industry’s current reckoning. “Pricing has really emerged as this key concern,” Kennedy says. “At Dior and Chanel, prices rose 51 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively.” Products that once served as entry points are increasingly out of reach for aspirational shoppers: “The Chanel medium flap has nearly doubled in price since 2019,” she says.
To pull aspirational shoppers back into stores, Dior and Chanel are rebuilding the lower end of their offer – from small leather goods and accessories to playful add-ons. As Kennedy puts it, “brands have been introducing these fun little whimsical items at the bottom, which have a good psychological effect on all shoppers.” And even when the ticket doesn’t shift, brands are trying to make the value proposition feel stronger through newness and storytelling: “maybe the price isn't changing, but it’s trying to hammer home that there's a little bit more value … and really ride the momentum brought by these new creative directors.”
Even if excitement around creative directors Jonathan Anderson and Matthieu Blazy reignites interest, the economic backdrop may limit how far that enthusiasm translates into sales. “It’s definitely a big open-ended question – how much of this is a problem with desire versus ability to purchase?” Kennedy says. “Maybe a lot of these shoppers do want these products and are really excited by them, but just don’t have the ability.” In that sense, the reset is only partially in luxury’s control. Products can restore aspiration, but macro conditions ultimately determine movement.Additional Resources:
How Dior and Chanel Are Tackling Fashion’s Pricing Problem | BoF The Great Fashion Reset | Can Designer Revamps Save Fashion? | BoF Ready for Relaunch? Jonathan Anderson’s Dior Challenge | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 18 Feb 2026 - 19min - 1015 - Ib Kamara: ‘Europe Is Not the Centre of Everything. Where You Come From Matters.’
From a childhood in Sierra Leone to navigating London as a teenage immigrant, Ib Kamara traces the cultural shocks that shaped his creative identity. He recounts hiding his artistic ambitions while studying science, breaking through with a Beyoncé commission in his early 20s, redefining Dazed as a global publication and ultimately stepping into the role of art and image director at Off-White after the death of Virgil Abloh.
BoF founder Imran Amed sat down with Ib Kamara in Abu Dhabi during the launch of T Magazine MENA. The conversation spans authorship, responsibility, design versus styling and why young creatives today must reject Eurocentric hierarchies and build with their peers.
Key Insights:
Kamara describes his move from Sierra Leone to London at 15 as both destabilising and transformative. Raised in a culture where authority was not questioned, he suddenly had to become outspoken and self-defined. That rupture, he says, forged his identity. “London was definitely a culture shock, but also the best shock that could have ever happened to me,” he reflects. “I think I needed that shock and that tension to be Ibrahim right now.”
Kamara’s entry into fashion wasn’t through formal design training but through images. Growing up in Sierra Leone, he consumed discarded European magazines, absorbing visual storytelling. “I loved images and I was fascinated by how people put things together,” he explains. “I understood images quicker than design because there was no sort of a design school or artistic design language. You take what you’re given.” That instinct for narrative over product shaped his early styling career and later informed his editorial leadership at Dazed.
Kamara approached Dazed as an editor with an immigrant’s vantage point and a global-first mandate, pushing the title beyond its London bias to reflect the way culture now moves online. “I realised London is so diverse and we all come from the most incredible places in the world. It will make sense for us to reflect that,” he says. In practice, that meant building an editorial agenda shaped by the same cross-border conversation happening among young audiences. “We’re at an age where the kids are all talking online, everyone is sharing and collaborating,” he continues. “So I set out to make a magazine that was global, has a sense of culture, has empathy and is brave enough to do stories that could potentially get me fired a couple of times … It’s a reflection of where I come from.”
Taking the creative helm at Off-White after Virgil Abloh’s passing was not a straightforward decision. Kamara speaks candidly about fear, self-doubt and the weight of legacy. “It was not the easiest decision for me to make because no one can really fulfil someone else’s shoes,” he says. “There’s only one Virgil.” Ultimately, he chose growth over comfort: “I don’t think you can live life like that. I think you have to take a chance.” In moving from stylist to designer, he also discovered a harder truth about authorship: “With design you can’t cheat. I think with styling you can cheat in a picture … but design is respect – it’s a craft.”
For young creatives navigating today’s instability, Kamara offers a clear directive to decentralise Europe and build locally with conviction. “Europe is not the centre of everything,” he says. “Where you come from matters. And taste is not subjective to one part of the world. It's a global taste.” His guidance is rooted in consistency and community: “Create with your people, bring your people up … There’s nothing more beautiful when you’re at a table and you’ve known these people for 20 years.” And above all, kindness: “Be kind as well. Be nice a little bit, if you can, please. We don’t need more monsters in the industry.”Additional Resources:
Ibrahim Kamara | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry How I Became… Senior Fashion Editor-at-Large of i-D Magazine | BoF Ib Kamara: Fashion’s Favourite Renaissance Man | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 13 Feb 2026 - 27min - 1014 - How Fashion Brands Are Winning the Winter Olympics
While the Olympics remain one of the world’s biggest sporting stages, they are also one of the most tightly controlled marketing environments. Rules limit how sponsors can interact with athletes and advertise during the Games. As a result, fashion and sportswear brands are finding alternative ways to capitalise on the moment, from outfitting national teams and launching capsule collections to sending squads of influencers to experience the Games.
BoF correspondents Haley Crawford and Mike Sykes join Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin on The Debrief to unpack how the winterwear boom is reshaping the Olympic marketing playbook.
Key Insights:
Musician Bad Bunny’s choice of Zara for his Super Bowl halftime show outfit crystallises a broader tension in fashion marketing: the balance between cultural relevance and commercial perception. Whilst Sykes acknowledged the pushback from critics who found the use of a fast-fashion Spanish brand on such a global platform surprising, he also notes the strategic logic. “This performance is supposed to be about inclusivity, and part of that is accessibility and affordable products. And plus, Zara is also a Spanish brand... It makes more sense considering the cultural magnitude of the performance,” Sykes says.
Crawford argues the Games are no longer just about logo placement on performance gear, but a broader spotlight on winter fashion as a growing category. “We've seen that consumers are interested, not only from a performance perspective, but also from a fashion-forward perspective, in having gear that's equally stylish as it is performance driven on the slopes,” she says. But Olympic marketing comes with strict limitations. As Crawford explains, official sponsors can use Olympic branding, but others must tread carefully. For non-sponsors like Canadian label Roots, that means linguistic gymnastics: using phrases like “rooting for Canada” without explicitly referencing the Games.
With broadcast advertising and official branding tightly controlled, being visibly present at the Games can be the most direct route to global reach. Sykes points to Adidas’ scale: “We’ve seen a bunch of brands like Adidas…that launched this 700-piece collection.” Even if it is not a traditional campaign, the visibility is enormous. “Just to have your logos on some of these athletes as they perform, while millions of people are watching across the globe, that is the sort of marquee way we’re seeing brands participate,” he says.
As leagues and federations try to expand their audiences, fashion-forward fan wear has become a strategic priority. Crawford says Off Season’s approach to Team USA illustrates the shift: rather than just jerseys, brands are creating “wearable jackets and sweaters and things that fans can actually wear in their day-to-day.” Sykes sees the trend as part of a wider evolution across sport. Off Season’s product “reminds me of what the Starter jackets used to be in the 90s,” he says, predicting that more brands will build momentum by “taking team logos and putting them on unique products that aren't just a jersey.”
While the Olympic window is tightly controlled, brands often see their biggest opportunities once the closing ceremony ends. Crawford points to the Paris Olympics breakout star Ilona Maher, who “popped off for creating all this viral behind-the-scenes content in the Olympic village,” then landed deals with Maybelline and Paula’s Choice. For fashion, Suni Lee is a recent template. After Paris, she started campaigns for LoveShackFancy and Victoria’s Secret Pink and attended the CFDA Awards with a designer partner. “She really built this whole other part of her public persona,” Crawford says – showing how medals and momentum can translate into longer-term brand equity.Additional Resources:
How the Winterwear Boom Reshaped Fashion’s Olympic Playbook | BoF Which Winter Olympians Will Score Beauty Deals? | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 11 Feb 2026 - 23min - 1013 - Ask Imran Anything: Luxury’s Flop Era, Global Market Dynamics, Fashion Careers and more
In this Ask Me Anything episode, Imran Amed answers questions submitted by listeners from around the world, spanning luxury’s current downturn, the collapse of major wholesale platforms, the realities facing emerging designers, and how global growth narratives in India and Africa are often misunderstood. The conversation later zooms out to hear Amed’s advice on education and training, fashion journalism, and the skills needed to build a lasting career in an industry undergoing structural change.
Key Insights:
Amed frames the current downturn in luxury as fundamentally different from previous crises, arguing that this moment is rooted in structural choices made by the industry itself. Years of overexpansion, inflated pricing and relentless product drops have weakened trust and eroded meaning, leaving consumers disengaged. “The moment we’re in now feels different to me, because what’s happening is coming from inside the industry,” he says, pointing to oversaturation and a breakdown in perceived value.
Despite the democratisation promised by direct-to-consumer channels, Amed believes this is one of the most difficult environments in decades for independent brands to gain traction. The collapse of key multi-brand platforms, combined with slow payment terms and intense competition, has made growth and cashflow management increasingly precarious. Yet, he sees opportunity for designers offering clarity and restraint where big brands have overreached. Smaller brands can compete by offering real value — “beautifully designed, high-quality products…that come from a sense of quality,” he explains, positioning scarcity and sensible pricing as advantages rather than constraints.
Amed cautions against simplistic narratives that frame India or Africa as the next, immediate growth engines for Western luxury. In India’s case, he argues that expectations often ignore deep-rooted cultural and economic realities. “India already has a luxury industry that goes back hundreds of years,” he says, pointing to longstanding traditions in jewellery, tailoring and textiles that continue to shape consumer behaviour today. Africa, meanwhile, represents enormous long-term potential, driven by demographics, creativity and cultural influence — but much of luxury’s engagement still happens outside the continent. “Africa has more than a billion people and the fastest-growing population in the world — there’s no doubt that’s a huge future opportunity,” he says.
Amed rejects the idea that there is a single route into fashion, but he is clear that success today demands a broader skill set than creativity alone. For designers, technical understanding and business literacy are increasingly essential if you want to build something sustainable. For journalists, Amed argues that a “point of view is the single most important thing in fashion journalism today.” He summarises: “ The one thing that’s true, whether you go to journalism school or not, is you just need to practice. If you’re a writer, you need to write every day. If you're a creator, you need to create every day. The more you write, the more you create, the more you’ll develop your own voice and the more you’ll feel confident in what you’re doing.”Additional Resources:
Why India Will Not Be The Next China for Luxury | The BoF Podcast The Emerging Designers Pushing Fashion Forward | BoFThe Great Fashion Reset: Can New Designers Still Build a Business? | The Debrief | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 06 Feb 2026 - 25min - 1012 - The New Rules for Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing in 2026 is a different beast. Once dominated by follower counts and splashy sponsored posts, the sector is now shaped by richer performance data, new monetisation models and growing consumer scepticism toward overt selling.
As BoF publishes a new case study on the creator economy, Pearl joins hosts Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin to unpack how creators and brands are adapting to a more disciplined, competitive and AI-saturated landscape.
Key Insights:
One of the most profound shifts in influencer marketing is how success is measured. Where follower size once acted as a blunt proxy for reach, brands now have access to granular data that shows who actually drives traffic and sales. Pointing to platforms like ShopMy and LTK that allow brands to see “exactly what creators were driving sales for them,” Pearl says that visibility has reshaped spending decisions. She explains: “Having more data has totally changed the game. It really is incredibly varied today and there is no one baseline KPI. It’s really just about what are your goals and who’s the best to help you achieve that.”
As consumers grow wary of constant selling, trust has emerged as the defining asset creators bring to brands. “Trust is the most important thing,” Pearl says. “If you don’t have your audience’s trust, nothing else matters.” What brands are really buying is not visibility, but a relationship. “What a creator really brings to the table is not necessarily the size of their following; it’s that relationship they have with their audience,” Pearl explains.
As the sector professionalises, creators are actively reducing their dependence on single revenue streams. Affiliate marketing, subscriptions and owned platforms are increasingly central to sustainable creator businesses. “Affiliate marketing really provides that base foundational income that you can rely upon,” Pearl says. Substack, meanwhile, offers something brands cannot. She explains: “It brings back some of that intimacy and community that they felt was missing in this TikTok/Instagram world.” This diversification also changes the power balance. “They don’t want to rely too much on one particular partnership,” Pearl says. The upshot is a creator economy that is less fragile – and less easily dictated by brand budgets.
Pearl argues the relationship between brands and creators is moving from transactional campaigns to longer-term collaboration. As creators become central to marketing in fashion and beauty, brands are changing how they work with them – and what they ask them to do. Brands can no longer dictate terms “like they used to,” Pearl says, because creators are now “recognised as being a really important part of the marketing puzzle.” That recognition is also changing what brands value: “You’re not just hiring this person for their following… you hire them because they’re a creator. They create great content. They know how to engage an audience.”Additional Resources:
From Hype to Discipline: The New World of Influencer Marketing | Case Study Why There Are So Many Influencer Collaborations Right Now | BoF How Creators Can Avoid Being Replaced by AI | BoF Examining 20 Years of Fashion’s Influencer Economy | The BoF PodcastHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 04 Feb 2026 - 24min - 1011 - The Couture Season That Cut Through
Editor-at-large, Tim Blanks and editor-in-chief, Imran Amed are back from the Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2026 shows where the biggest moments of the week lived up to all the anticipation.
Jonathan Anderson’s debut at Dior reframed couture as a six-month creative lab — a backbone that can feed the entire maison with technique, emotion and ideas. At Chanel, Matthieu Blazy stripped away the obvious codes to put construction, movement and the body first — the kind of couture you only fully understand up close. There was also Valentino’s “panorama” staging and Schiaparelli’s turbocharged push for spectacle — all playing out against a tougher luxury backdrop this year’
“Something that struck me about this season is the energy that everybody was evoking,” Blanks says. “The words people used to describe their feelings — it was Jonathan talking about having a lot of anger he needed to get out, or Mathieu talking about nature, or Alessandro talking about fantasy and fashion, and then Daniel Roseberry talking about turbocharging Schiaparelli.”
Key Insights:
Departing from the codes of previous designers, Blanks was struck by how much of Anderson’s own sensibility made it onto the Dior runway, from Magdalene Odundo’s vase forms to historic textiles and witty, collectible accessories. “I felt like there was real synthesis … I think he showed some of the most beautiful things he’s ever shown, and some of the most joyful clothes.” Within 90 minutes of the show, the full collection was installed at Villa Dior for clients to handle and order, underscoring Anderson’s structured, end-to-end planning. As Amed notes, “He’s operational … he thinks about the way it all works together. That’s quite rare in a designer.”
Mathieu Blazy pared Chanel back to construction and movement, dialling down overt couture signatures to foreground cut and daytime dressing. The result read as a wardrobe built on the body rather than surface effect, with exquisitely fine details – budgies perched on pocket anchors, bird-on-mushroom motifs, slingbacks with tiny avian heels – that reward close looking. The Grand Palais spectacle amplified the tension between intimacy and scale, but as Blanks notes, “it does underscore in a very graphic way that couture is the ultimate private pleasure.”
Alessandro Michele’s Specula Mundi for Valentino revived the 19th-century Kaiserpanorama to slow the audience’s gaze and amplify detail. Reading from Alessandro’s letter, Blanks highlights: “We continue to work within this space not to fill an absence, but to preserve it. Only by accepting such a void, with no intention to fill it, can Valentino’s legacy remain what it has always been.” Another line reads: “There is no fantasy without beauty, and there is no freedom without beauty and fantasy.”
A common thread this season is that designers are newly humbled by the expertise of the craft. “Everybody was talking about their ateliers, all these ready-to-wear designers being confronted with what a couture atelier is capable of,” Blanks says. After visiting Valentino, he notes: “There were five separate ateliers working on the clothes… I can’t thread a needle, but I got kind of palpitations walking through – it’s just so incredible, that kind of artistry.” Anderson himself calls Dior’s workrooms a “mini city” of ultra-specialists.Additional Resources:
Couture Has Entered a New Era. What Does It Mean? | BoF Blazy’s Chanel Couture Was a Slam Dunk! | BoF Exclusive: How Jonathan Anderson Is ‘Rebooting’ Couture at Dior | BoF The Beating Heart of Haute Couture | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 30 Jan 2026 - 55min - 1010 - Making Sense of Fashion’s Brutal Job Market
Across fashion, companies that once embraced remote or hybrid work are increasingly pushing employees back into the office, with some moving towards four or even five days a week. At the same time, competition for jobs, particularly at entry level, is intensifying amid layoffs, slower industry growth and the rise of AI.
On this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin are joined by BoF Careers’ Sophie Soar to unpack why the power balance has shifted back to employers, how different generations feel about being in the office, and what practical routes still exist for early-career talent trying to get a foot in the door.
Key Insights:
During COVID, companies found people could be “just as, and in some cases, more productive” at home – but that was when productivity meant output. Now, Butler-Young argues that employers are widening the definition: “Productivity should also include collaboration, morale, people being together… face time with leaders.” And with the labour market tightening following economic pressure, layoffs and AI taking some jobs, leaders have more leverage to enforce it. “In 2025 and now into 2026, it’s looking more like an employer’s market,” Butler-Young says.
While some executives argue that in-person work improves collaboration and reduces errors, Butler-Young warns that motivations are not always benign. She points to a growing sense that mandates can act as a quiet form of workforce reduction. “One way you can get people to effectively fire themselves is to make them come to the office,” she says, noting that some companies may prefer attrition to public layoffs. She also cautions against copy-and-paste policies. “If you’re seeing productivity high and morale high at one to two days a week, you need to ask yourself, what am I hoping to accomplish if I move it to four or five?”
Despite a difficult labour market, Soar stresses that fashion companies have not stopped hiring altogether. Instead, they are being more selective, particularly when it comes to junior roles that can be automated. "There definitely is a squeeze on the ones that are considered more rote work,” she says. “Those are the roles you could potentially automate or replace with AI.” However, some employers are still investing in early-career talent. “Those who are still hiring for entry-level roles recognise the benefit that that talent can bring,” Soar explains, pointing to diversity, long-term retention and fresh perspectives.Additional Resources:
Fashion Is Done With Remote Work | BoF How to Get Ahead in Fashion’s Stagnant Job Market | BoFHow Fashion Brands Are Making Remote Work Permanent | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 28 Jan 2026 - 22min - 1009 - How Jonathan Anderson is Refashioning the House of Dior
On Monday Jan. 26, Jonathan Anderson debuted his first couture collection for Christian Dior.
In December, BoF founder Imran Amed travelled to Paris to meet with Anderson to get a first look, and to take stock of his journey thus far.
Anderson is unveiling his first Dior couture collection while orchestrating a sprawling calendar across men’s, women’s and accessories. He explains how couture went from “irrelevant” in his mind to an emotional, craft-first engine for the house — and why he’s reshaping how Dior makes, shows and shares couture with clients and the public.
“Couture is an endangered craft," he says.
In this conversation, Anderson reflects on why couture exists, how endangered craft can be protected and the very human reality of leading a global fashion machine.
Key Insights:
Anderson admits that a year ago he never saw himself in couture. Now he describes fittings as an education within a living French institution. “I joke every time I’m in a fitting, I feel like I am doing a PhD in couture,” he says. Seeing the atelier at work reframed it entirely: “Couture is kind of like an endangered craft. What Dior is doing is protecting this as a national symbol of making,” says Anderson. “Once I got into that mind space, then I was able to work out, okay, well, what do I want from it? Or what is new for Dior in a landscape that’s had some of my heroes in it.”
Anderson is reframing couture as an experience to be studied, not just scrolled — extending the 15-minute show into a three-part journey. Act I: the runway. Act II: intimate cabinet presentations at Villa Dior, where clients handle every component with the atelier team on hand, followed by days of selling. Act III: a free public exhibition that places the new collection in dialogue with Christian Dior and artist Magdalene Ndondue — an invitation to witness technique, context and provenance up close. As he puts it: “A photograph will never tell you that a dress took 4,000 hours. ... I’m inviting people to see something physical, because it may change your mind — it might change your opinion of it.”
Before unveiling his first Dior women’s collection, Anderson invited John Galliano to privately view the work — a full-circle moment with a hero who helped define Dior in the public imagination. Galliano arrived with two bunches of wild cyclamen tied with black ribbon, a gesture that became talismanic for the Spring/Summer 2026 show’s pink-and-black mood and forest-floor set details. More than the symbolism, it was Galliano’s counsel that stuck: “The more that you love Dior, the brand, the more it will give you back,” recounts Anderson.
Anderson argues for real transparency around the people off-camera who turn an idea into a product and a show into a business. He highlights merchandisers, window teams, logistics, finance and operations — all of whom translate creative vision into reality. “It may not be creative, but they work in a creative business; they have to try to work out how to make a designer’s dream come true. If we want to pull the veil down, we have to do it in all categories. A fashion show is not just me; I am the conductor,” he says. “I have a responsibility to the hundreds, thousands of people who work here to make sure it works. It’s a balancing act.”
Anderson wants each show to have its own energy while still speaking a shared Dior language. “I will build a vibe or a kind of culture around a brand, but then… the energy of each show has to be a different energy.” He adds: “They all also have to be linked. There is a language that is built.” Working with Dior chief executive Delphine Arnault, Anderson is trying to “put down concrete blocks”. Some will “end up being sand and then you’ll have to rebuild it,” he says.Additional Resources:
Jonathan Anderson | BoF 500Clothes for Life or Clothes as Costume?Louis Vuitton, Dior and What Luxury Means TodayHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mon, 26 Jan 2026 - 56min - 1008 - Lessons on Purpose, Restraint and Responsibility
Speaking at the Institut Français de la Mode graduation ceremony in Paris, BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed reflected on his own personal journey that led him to create The Business of Fashion, starting with a chance encounter with a stranger in the New Delhi airport.
“That moment was the beginning of my search for purpose, to build a life and career with meaning in service of something greater than myself,” he says. “It was during that course that I realised I was living a life built to impress others, not to express myself or use my creative talents.”
Fashion is currently in a moment of reckoning: technology is reshaping behaviour, old rules are persisting as the world accelerates, and trust is shifting away from gatekeepers. Amed’s message to graduates: clarity of purpose.
Key Insights:
“There will be disruptions and external forces completely outside your control. But if you are clear about your purpose, that can guide you every day as the world changes around you — it becomes your North Star, the compass that helps you to find your way in a world of turmoil and change,” says Amed.
Graduating into a downturn once hindered Amed’s own fashion ambitions until the early days of the internet and social media opened an unexpected route.Amed used these new tools to join and shape the global fashion conversation. “By using a new technology, I was able to create something to read around the world, helping an entire industry navigate two decades of change,” Amed says. For today’s graduates, moments of flux are “the greatest moments of opportunity.”
According to Amed, there are currently three big problems in the fashion industry that graduates can make the biggest impact. The first is growth without meaning: “Growth has become a proxy for relevance, but the result wasn’t abundance – it was dilution,” Amed says. His prescription: “the most radical thing you can do in fashion is to practise restraint… create less, but better.” The second is values without systems: “The era of storytelling without systems is ending,” Amed says — supply chains should be designed to reduce waste, AI should be used for efficiency and workers’ rights should be foundational. The third, is authority without trust: power is migrating from headquarters to creators and communities. “Legitimacy is earned through trust and hard work,” Amed says, as consistency and context now confer authority.
“You just need to choose one problem and serve it really, really well,” he says. “The future of fashion won't be decided by those who speak the loudest, but by those who choose to act with care, and are guided by a sense of purpose. This isn't something you find once and keep forever. Purpose will evolve just as you evolve.”Additional Resources:
The State of Fashion 2026: When the Rules Change | BoFThe Emerging Designers Pushing Fashion Forward | BoF How Fashion’s Rising Stars Are Surviving the Luxury Slump | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 23 Jan 2026 - 15min - 1007 - Have Sneakers Lost Their Cool?
Sneakers have driven growth for the sportswear industry for decades, in recent years accelerated by the pandemic and work-from-home culture. However, a recent Bank of America report sparked debate by suggesting the sneaker boom may be nearing an end, including a rare double downgrade of Adidas.
On The Debrief, sports correspondent Mike Sykes joins hosts Brian Baskin and Sheena Butler-Young to examine whether slowing growth marks a genuine reversal of casual dressing, or a return to more sustainable demand shaped by price sensitivity, comfort and experimentation rather than hype.
Key Insights:
The Bank of America report struck a nerve because it questioned a decades-long growth story about the sneaker industry. “This one was the first one in a while that seemed to spell a bit of doom and gloom for the industry,” Sykes says. “Everyone has been on pins and needles for the last couple of years as Nike has been in its downturn… and Bank of America is saying, yeah, it’s over.” The double downgrade of Adidas amplified that anxiety. “If Adidas is getting the double downgrade here, what does that mean for everyone else?” Sykes asks. The implication was not just brand-specific weakness, but the possibility that the sneaker cycle itself had run out of road.
However, slower growth does not necessarily mean sneakers are ‘over’. Instead, the data may reflect a market adjusting after years of abnormal acceleration. “Everyone else seems to feel like things are going at least okay,” Sykes says. “Maybe not perfect, but nothing is perfect in this economy right now.” He notes that among the analysts and industry figures he spoke to, there was little appetite for declaring the trend finished. “People are still into sneakers,” says Sykes.
Sneakers and sportswear have lasted because they are easy to understand, easy to buy and relatively affordable compared to many fashion categories. “Sneakers are generally just accessible for people. It’s an easy trend to follow,” Sykes says. “You can easily spot which ones are cool and it’s very easy to hop on the bandwagon.” That accessibility matters even more in a strained economy. As Sykes highlights, with consumers weighing “do I wanna buy this next outfit or do I want to buy groceries,” sportswear’s practicality continues to anchor demand.
For the sneaker cycle to truly turn, something has to replace it – either a new hit product within the category or a different footwear trend entirely. Right now, what is emerging is not a shift toward formality, but a widening of what casual footwear looks like, as displayed by the popularity of Nike’s ReactX Rejuven8 recovery clog. “Speaking to people who have wanted this shoe, it’s mostly about the comfort,” Sykes explains. “As far as ending the casualisation trend, this is not a shoe that would do that. This is a shoe that would entrench it.”Additional Resources:
Have Sneaker Sales Finally Peaked? | BoF The Sneakers That Mattered Most in 2025 | BoFSneaker Resale Isn’t the Business It Used To Be | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 21 Jan 2026 - 24min - 1006 - How Willa Bennett Is Reimagining Magazines for a Social-First Generation
Willa Bennett is the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen — two of the most influential legacy media brands now being reimagined for a social-first, creator-driven era.
Bennett grew up in Los Angeles, trained as a ballerina and studied journalism at Sarah Lawrence before building a standout career at Bustle Digital Group, GQ and Highsnobiety. Along the way, she’s helped redefine how youth culture is covered — not by chasing everything, but by sharpening point of view, taste and authority.
“This generation has access to everything,” says Bennett, “which is exactly why there’s a real hunger for curation, real taste and a voice you can trust.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, Imran Amed, founder and CEO of The Business of Fashion, sat down with Bennett to talk about what young audiences actually want from media today, why curation matters more than ever and how she’s refocusing Cosmopolitan and Seventeen — creatively, culturally and commercially — for the next generation.
Key Insights:
Bennett cold emailed her way into Seventeen, two weeks after graduating in 2013. Spotting social’s potential before it was prized, she asked: “Can I post the cover on Instagram?” and was told, “Yeah, sure – no one’s going to see it.” Later stints at Bustle and GQ sharpened her point of view, with a breakthrough at Highsnobiety. Putting Billie Eilish on her first cover of Highsnobiety “was so intuitive,” she says, and it was a signal she could match youth culture with editorial authority.
Bennett argues the job of legacy media is selection, not saturation. “This generation has access to so much online, but that also means that there is a real hunger for curation – and real curation, not performative curation,” she says, adding that Cosmopolitan’s remit is to be “a place that young people can trust when it comes to love and relationships.”
After an era of chasing scale, Bennett sees a return to meaningful, well-made stories: “We’re seeing real editorials again,” she says, while also noting Cosmopolitan’s social focus: “We’re up 500 percent year over year just in views on Instagram … That prioritisation of social media has been really important.”
Bennett’s advice to new journalists is to publish everywhere while honing a distinctive point of view. “Use all the platforms now … get your voice out and really cultivate it,” she says. “As we figure out what this new era is, I think it’ll be even more important to have a very distinct point of view.”Additional Resources:
Willa Bennett | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Inside Willa Bennett’s First Issue of ‘Cosmopolitan’ | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 16 Jan 2026 - 40min - 1005 - Saks’ Bankruptcy and the Future of Luxury Retail
Saks’ bankruptcy was widely expected, yet still felt like a shock to the fashion system.
The department store giant’s Chapter 11 filing outlines $1.75 billion in restructuring finance and $3.4 billion owed to as many as 25,000 creditors – including $136 million to Chanel alone. Who will get paid, and what Saks looks like at the other end of the bankruptcy process, is an open question.
Former Neiman Marcus chief Geoffroy van Raemdonck will lead the reset. As BoF’s retail editor Cat Chen puts it, Saks will need to “shrink in order to grow,” curb discounting, and rebuild trust through clienteling and service.
Key Insights:
Missed vendor payments undermined confidence in Saks Global soon after it acquired Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. “Even after Saks created these new payment terms, they weren’t able to stick to their instalments,” Chen says. Labels “stopped shipping to Saks entirely,” creating “a death spiral where Saks wasn’t getting good inventory, and this hurt their ability to attract customers,” and sales slid further.
When Saks Global acquired Neiman Marcus, both companies were extremely levered going in, with savings being swallowed by interest. The plan pitched $500 million in cost savings, but Saks Global took on more debt — $2.2 billion in bonds. As Chen explains, with margins in multi-brand retail already slim, “they were ill-fated because… a chunk of whatever sales or savings they were able to generate would be going toward interest payments.”
As Saks has 10,000 to 25,000 creditors, owed $3.4 billion, bankruptcy court will approve a list of critical vendors that are essential to Saks’s business. While conglomerates will cope, “it's really the smaller independent brands that might be owed less money, but the amount that they're owed are just so much more critical to their business operations. These are the players that are the most vulnerable right now,” Chen warns — and it’s not just brands. A model shared she’s “owed $46,000...and can’t pay rent now.”
Now, Saks must reset its business. Van Raemdonck “took Neiman Marcus in and out of bankruptcy,” yet Chen is blunt about the reality of the situation: “Saks Global will have to shrink in order to grow.” That means closing stores, stabilising cash flow and getting ruthless about discounting. From there, Chen says Saks has to compete on experience, delivering the best customer service and catering to their VICs.Additional Resources:
Saks Global Files for Bankruptcy After Monthslong Hunt for Cash | BoF Chanel, Gucci and Capri Holdings: The Brands Topping Saks’ Creditor List | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thu, 15 Jan 2026 - 22min - 1004 - Inside Beauty’s 2026 M&A Pipeline
2026 opens with real movement in beauty deals.
As first reported by The Business of Beauty, Estée Lauder is exploring a packaged sale of Too Faced, Smashbox and Dr. Jart to free up cash and refocus the portfolio.
Who’s next? Colour fatigue is depressing makeup valuations, while fragrance, bodycare and haircare are drawing the most credible buyer interest, particularly from beauty conglomerates.
Executive editor of The Business of Beauty, Priya Rao joins Brian Baskin and Sheena Butler-Young to unpack what this year of beauty deals has to offer.
Key Insights:
With Estée Lauder exploring a bundled sale of Too Faced, Smashbox and Dr. Jart, this portfolio reset signals a valuation reality check. The goal is to free up cash and refocus on culturally relevant, digital-native brands like The Ordinary and Le Labo. As Rao notes, “Deciem sells more skincare products than all of Estée Lauder’s other skincare brands combined,” and “Le Labo is also continuing to be on fire, even though Santal 33 has been around for 15 years.”
Colour fatigue is depressing valuations in makeup. Over the past few years, artistry and colour brands have gone to market to find a buyer, but quickly found a landscape already flooded with similar offerings. “There were so many colour brands on the market. People were waiting for the next great one, so they weren’t willing to make a bet on any of these brands until the full slate was out,” says Rao. The result was some colour brands being left in the market, on and off, for over a year. She explains: “It’s kind of like buying a house – why am I going to buy this house at a premium when I could be buying at a discount?”
Fragrance, meanwhile, remains a booming, high-margin lane. “All these other beauty businesses – hair care, body and fragrance – are more incremental to a strategic,” says Rao. While private equity is trying across the board, Rao advises that “if you want L’Oréal, LVMH or Estée Lauder, you have to be in categories that add incremental value, rather than ones they’re still trying to figure out.”
Haircare offers the clearest near-term upside for acquirers. “Amika has the number one or number two dry shampoo at Sephora,” and its move into Ulta taps “a huge haircare business because of their back bar program”, says Rao. In mass hair care, Not Your Mother’s, which has had its longevity questioned in the past, shows durability and runway. Focused on styling and texture, Rao notes that it “hasn’t even played with shampoo and conditioner yet – in mass hair care, that’s where you play to make the big bucks.”Additional Resources:
Exclusive: Estée Lauder Companies Has Put Three Brands Up for Sale | BoF Prestige Hair Care’s Shampoo Problem | BoF Why Fragrance Is the Latest Red Carpet Accessory | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 14 Jan 2026 - 20min - 1003 - Examining 20 Years of Fashion’s Influencer Economy
What began as scrappy self-publishing has become a finely tuned industry machine. Influencing is now big business. Four of the industry’s most influential creators came together at BoF VOICES 2025 to take a hard look at what influencing has become — and where it should go in the future.
Susanna Lau opens the conversation by ditching the earnest tropes and asking a harder question: how can creators keep their integrity as agencies, briefs and budgets multiply?
Bryan Yambao reflects on the pre-iPhone “wild west” — scanning magazines, posting affiliate links from his bedroom in Manila, and the shock of realising that the people he wrote about were suddenly reading him.
Camille Charrière charts the shift from “do your thing” freedom to 30-page briefs and layered gatekeepers, arguing that creators must push back to preserve the audience trust that made them valuable in the first place.
And through the lens of satire, Gstaad Guy challenges brands to confront what their communities are already saying — before they say it out loud.
Together, they interrogate luxury’s malaise — and the need to recalibrate the industry around craft, community and credibility.
Key Insights:
Even with industry recognition, Yambao still feels like an outsider and uses that distance to stay candid. “I still feel like I’m an outsider,” he says, recalling the early days: “There was no roadmap. All I knew was that I had a voice.” The monetisation that followed, from early affiliate cheques to today’s industrialised commerce media, only reinforced his responsibility. “Since I kind of have a seat [at] the table, I want to say things with meaning and hold people to a higher standard,” he says.
Charrière argues creators aren’t brand billboards — they’re people with convictions, and audience trust depends on that. After a year of speaking out, she recalls a major house “got me on a call with seven lawyers saying that now in my contract it was going to be written that I had to be neutral politically because I’d gone to a protest.” She continues, “I said, absolutely not.I’m not a brand. I’m an ambassador for you, but we are people, we are not brands … my online self is an extension of my offline self.”
Gstaad Guy argues that credibility now depends on pre-empting audience scepticism. “Consumers are getting smarter, products are getting dumber,” he says. The remedy is to meet somewhere in between and let creators use their own language to test narratives honestly: “Have someone like [me] say something first so you can tell the story … the language of comedy and satire allows for that to be more digestible,” he says.Additional Resources:
Susanna Lau, Bryan Yambao, Camille Charrière and Gstaad Guy: Twenty Years of the Influencer Economy in Fashion | BoF Gstaad Guy | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Camille Charrière | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Bryan Grey Yambao | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion IndustryHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 09 Jan 2026 - 28min - 1002 - The Themes That Will Define the 2026 Fashion Agenda
BoF and McKinsey’s annual State of Fashion report finds the industry entering 2026 with caution: 46 percent of executives expect conditions to worsen, citing geopolitics, macro volatility and the risk of shoppers pulling back. Yet there is also a pulse of optimism around AI-driven efficiency, luxury’s creative recalibration and fresh consumer interest in categories from smart glasses to fine jewellery.
Tariffs remain the dominant near-term swing factor. Brands mitigated pain in 2025 by pulling forward inventory, but as that cushion runs out, the full impact shows up in 2026 in costs and pricing. More broadly, luxury’s era of price-led growth has run its course; as BoF correspondent Marc Bain puts it, if you ask customers to pay more, you have to “actually offer the value for the price.”
Key Insights:
The mood has shifted from “uncertain” in 2025 to “challenging” in 2026. Companies feel better equipped but are bracing for a tougher year. “Uncertainty was ‘we don’t know what’s going to happen’. The challenge is, we know what is going to happen and it’s going to be tough,” says Bain.
Tariffs will continue to bite in 2026, and price hikes will be part of the playbook. Brands used a mix of mitigation tactics in 2025, but many still expect to pass on costs. “The strategy that the highest number of executives said was their way of mitigating the tariff impact was raising prices,” Bain notes. “To some degree, there's just no way around that. You can do it strategically, but at some point you're probably going to have to raise prices.”
Jewellery is the consumer bright spot for the year ahead, as the category has steadily outperformed thanks to steadier, more gradual price rises, exciting design and a strong perception of value retention. “It’s hard luxury… you can wear it a lot and it can still be in good shape,” Bain says, adding that more women self-purchasing are reinforcing demand, with maximal accessories over minimal wardrobes adding another tailwind. He adds, “It sounds almost silly in 2026, but a big shift has been that more women are actually buying jewellery for themselves.
According to Bain, 2026 is the year AI gets embedded into the fashion ecosystem. Expect a ‘two steps forward, one step back’ year where efficiency wins drive adoption even as mishaps make headlines. “Companies don’t feel like they can sit out AI,” Bain says. “It’s not like everyone by the end of next year is going to be using ChatGPT instead of Google, but the expectation is it'll be a significantly higher number than [2025]. And at a certain point, even if it's 5 percent of shoppers … it's still enough that you as a business have to start accounting for it.Additional Resources:
The 10 Themes That Will Define the Fashion Agenda in the Year Ahead | BoF The Perfect Package: What It Takes to Be a Fashion Leader in 2026 | BoFThe Top Trends That Will Define Beauty in 2026 | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 07 Jan 2026 - 25min - 1001 - DJ Black Coffee on Breaking Barriers and Building Global Credibility
A DJ from South Africa who survived a life-altering accident on the night of Nelson Mandela’s release, Black Coffee has gone on to headline the world’s biggest stages. At BoF VOICES 2025, he reflected on building global credibility — and on reshaping how the African continent is seen.
“If you Google a picture of Africa … it’s not going to be the most positive picture you see,” he says. “To be a DJ in South Africa, it’s one of the toughest things because almost every DJ is amazing. To be a DJ on the global level is way tougher because I come from a continent that was — or maybe still is — not seen as how it truly is.”
In conversation with BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed, Black Coffee talk about rejecting pigeonholes, earning trust on a global level, and opening doors for the next generation.
Key Insights:
To compete beyond South Africa, Black Coffee says he had to work on the music and the optics of Africa on the global stage. The solution was rigorous self-presentation: “Whilst I was growing as a brand, fashion played a very big role for me. I was very conscious of how I presented myself,” he says. “The bigger the brand, the more intentional I was. It took a lot of work.” That mix of sound, style and discipline underpinned his transition from local star to international headliner.
The night Nelson Mandela walked free changed his life forever. Struck in a crowd by a taxi and left with a nerve damage injury, he channelled his recovery into music and silence into resolve. “[Mandela’s] release from jail marked the beginning of a different journey for me, the first day of the beginning of Black Coffee,” he says. Speaking publicly about the accident only years later, he refused pity and insisted on being seen first as a musician with “passion and love for music.”
Black Coffee is blunt about structural bias. “At the Grammys, instead of giving Tyla a number-one pop award, they will create a new genre or category where it’s best African,” he says. Reflecting on his own experience at the BET Awards, he recounts: “We were all given our awards on Friday and we were not invited on the main show on Saturday.”
His advice to young creatives is simple and radical: “Just listen to your voice. That voice is the voice that will make you the greatest.” The mission is not only visibility but parity – moving African talent from a side-room to the main stage.Additional Resources:
BoF VOICES 2025: Creativity as a Vehicle for Connection Black Coffee| BoF 500Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 02 Jan 2026 - 26min - 1000 - Awar Odhiang on Joy, Inclusion and Her Viral Chanel Moment
Born to South Sudanese parents and raised in Canada after arriving as refugees in 2002, Awar Odhiang grew up far from fashion’s orbit. She was studying health sciences and planning a career in medicine, when she was scouted at her first job. Her career began locally in Calgary, then accelerated fast after she launched internationally in 2019 — with early runway breaks, a packed show schedule and global campaigns. Then came the moment that stopped the industry when she closed the most-watched debut of the season at Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel show in October.
“The moment that really allowed me to fill that space in that way was the freedom that I was given, truly,” she says. Backstage, Matthieu Blazy, Chanel’s new creative director encouraged her to own the moment. “I just felt so free, so confident, so beautiful. You can tell Matthieu loves women just by his designs.”
In this conversation from BoF VOICES 2025, I speak with Awar about the gap between being celebrated publicly and understood privately, why inclusion has to extend to behind the camera and the boundaries she is setting to protect her sense of joy in an industry that rarely slows down.
Key Insights:
Odhiang recounts meeting agent Kelly Streit whilst working her first job in retail and her scouting story captures a pivotal shift in self-belief. “That was a moment that now I can look back at and realise that he believed in me before I even believed in myself,” she says. From folding sweaters at Old Navy to international runways by 2019, she frames the leap as an intentional decision to embrace an unexpected opportunity.
As a high profile dark skinned model, her growing visibility hasn’t eliminated her feelings of isolation. “One of the darker sides of modelling I would say is really the [lack of] inclusion … the fact that we’re still talking about this today really shows how big of a problem that is.” She defines inclusivity as being allowed to be at ease rather than just token representation: “For me, inclusion is being able to be in a room and not have to translate yourself … where you’re not the only person who looks like you, where you’re not the only person who’s expected to speak on certain matters.”
Moreover, whilst diverse campaigns can signal progress, backstage the culture still lags behind. “Being welcomed publicly and being understood privately —. I think they’re two very different things,” Odhiang says. “A lot of it [is] performative … behind the scenes there’s no diversity. There’s nobody who’s really understanding you, your story, how you’ve been treated. So that’s really dismissed a lot.” Her call is for decision-room diversity, consistency rather than trends, and respect for lived experiences.
As attention intensifies, Odhiang is resolute about boundaries and community. “I would protect this joy, this joy in my heart, this joy of my soul, by continuing to set boundaries … by also keeping the company around me honest and close, and by also not allowing the pace of the industry to impact the pace of me as a human,” she says. For her, sustainability is emotional as much as professional — maintaining a human tempo amid fashion’s demands.Additional Resources:
Awar Odhiag | BoF 500Awar Odhiang: Choosing JoyHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 19 Dec 2025 - 26min - 999 - The Sneaker of the Year 2025
Choosing “sneaker of the year” has rarely been this contentious. In 2025 the debate has splintered opinion between incumbent players like Nike and contenders from Vans, Converse and New Balance as consumers test the field.
Whilst Nike’s shadow looms and expands with new silhouettes, real-world volume is being driven by ‘regular’ pairs like ASICS’ black-and-silver GEL-1130.
In this episode of The Debrief, BoF’s Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin sit down with Mike Sykes to unpack the data, the storytelling and what this year signals for 2026.
Key Insights:
In a widening market, this year’s debate has splintered opinions. Unlike typical years with “two to three shoes,” 2025 felt like “it’s five, it’s six, it’s seven, it’s eight,” says Sykes. He frames it as consumers testing “Nike versus the field,” with many deciding, “I’m actually gonna try the field for once,” which explains why we have seen credible contenders from Vans, Converse, New Balance and more.
At the same time, reports of Nike’s demise are overdone. “Nike has always – and, in my opinion, probably will always – be the industry standard. The company is just too big at this point; it makes too much money. Even when it fails, it’s still a notch above its competition,” says Sykes. The real question now is which Nike silhouettes win attention. A few years ago it was largely Jordan 1s, 3s and Dunks, however now styles like Infinite Archives 17, Awake’s Jordan 5, and Nigel Sylvester’s Jordan 4 are all taking space.
Hype is increasingly powered by storytelling that feels personal rather than driven by pure scarcity. Nigel Sylvester’s Jordan 4 showed how “over the top” yet authentic activations made fans attach to Nigel beyond the sneaker. “He’s riding his bike, kissing babies, shaking hands,” says Sykes. It’s “absolutely marketing” but designed to connect on emotion.
On sneaker resale marketplace StockX, beneath the headline-grabbing premiums, Asics is moving serious volume with everyday pairs. As Mike notes, “the black and silver Asics Gel-1130 is just a common shoe that you could probably just go to your Foot Locker and buy,” yet he sees “people just buying the shoe up.” Set against hype, the GEL-1130 shows how “regular everyday shoes that look cool” can dominate real-world sales even when they’re absent from sneaker-of-the-year shortlists.Additional Resources:
The Sneakers That Mattered Most in 2025The Kicks You Wear: The Collab of the Year With Bimma WilliamsThe Kicks You Wear: The Death of Sneakers Is OverstatedHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 17 Dec 2025 - 28min - 998 - Riz Ahmed on the Radical Power of Storytelling
To close the first session of this year’s BoF VOICES on The Wider World, we wanted a voice that could cut through the noise and offer a clear, powerful call to action for human unity at a time when everything feels like it's breaking down. Few artists are better positioned to do that than Riz Ahmed.
An Oscar and Emmy-winning actor, producer and musician, Riz has built a career at the intersection of culture, politics and humanity — from Sound of Metal to The Night Of, and through music and activism that challenge how stories are told, and who gets to tell them.
Drawing on his upcoming adaptation of Hamlet, set in contemporary London, he argues that one of the most famous speeches in history — “to be or not to be” — has been misunderstood, de-radicalised and stripped of its original power. For Riz, Hamlet is not about despair or inaction. It’s about resistance, moral reckoning, and the fear that stops us from standing up when injustice feels overwhelming.
This is a talk about grief, complicity and courage. About why stories endure. And about what it means to take responsibility — even when the cost feels high.
Key Insights:
Ahead of the theatrical release of the Ahmed-produced 2025 film “Hamlet” — its first cinematic adaptation starring a person of colour — the actor argues that the play’s famous soliloquy is not about suicide, but rather about summoning the courage to defy injustice. “‘To be or not to be’ is about resistance. The most famous lines ever written by a human being have been defanged, deradicalised. It’s about fighting back against oppression,” he says..
The monologue, he argues, illustrates the importance of storytelling during a time when dominant cultural narratives attempt to divide people and to emphasise the illusion of in-groups and out-groups. “In the same way that we need to rediscover the radical truth of this speech, I believe we need to rediscover the radical purpose and truth at the heart of storytelling,” he says. “Storytelling has been lost to content and distraction and entertainment, but at its heart when it works best, it is reminding us of a very profound and very radical spiritual truth, which is that we are one.”
Ahmed concludes that what people gain in achieving their purpose as storytellers — to believe in their shared humanity — is invaluable, despite the personal losses that may be incurred by doing so. “Honestly the things that we are afraid of, the things that we stand to lose were never really ours. We will lose them, but what we stand to gain when we step into our purpose is something so profound,” he says.“What does it mean to rediscover our radical purpose as storytellers, insisting on our oneness in a time when people might try and divide us?”Additional Resources:
The BoF Podcast: Riz Ahmed on a Watershed Moment for the Fashion IndustryBoF VOICES 2025: Finding Connection in Turbulent TimesHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 12 Dec 2025 - 16min - 997 - What Happens When Women Lead
Collectively, Clare Waight Keller and Maria Cornejo have over two decades of experience in the fashion industry. Waight Keller’s impressive career includes roles at Givenchy, Chloé and Gucci — and today, she serves as creative director at Uniqlo. Cornejo’s New York–based label, founded nearly three decades ago, counts Michelle Obama and Christy Turlington Burns among its most devoted fans.
From deeply entrenched gender biases to the fear of returning to work after giving birth, women face a number of systemic barriers to reaching senior leadership positions in the fashion industry, insiders say. Today, some women designers have found success launching their own labels — and when they do land leadership roles at major houses, often make it a priority to create opportunities for other women, which remain few and far between.
At the VOICES 10th anniversary, Waight Keller and Cornejo speak with senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young about what it’s like to work in an industry where women are the muses and chief customers, but the top commercial and creative roles are dominated by men.
Key Insights:
Clare Waight Keller says that the inequalities between men and women in fashion are driven in part by the narrative that “men are often seen as the implementers of big change, and women of stability, and so with stability we’re often also cornered into a commercial sense of aesthetic.” Both Waight Keller and Cornejo push back against this notion, saying that women aren’t less creative but simply more considerate of how real women want to dress.
Maria Cornejo feels that “there’s a big disconnect in fashion… from what's instagrammable and what is actual reality … all the women I know who have independent businesses… we’re making clothes that women wear.”
Both designers say they have encountered inequities as women in fashion, prompting Waight Keller to intentionally assemble an all-women team at Uniqlo. “Women add so much richness into the conversation of clothing, we offer a completely different perspective which is equally powerful and equally relevant,” she says.Additional Resources:
BoF VOICES 2025: Finding Connection in Turbulent TimesClare Waight Keller | BoF 500Maria Cornejo | BoF 500Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 10 Dec 2025 - 16min - 996 - Can Luxury Brands Rebuild Trust With Customers?
Instead of his usual place in the host’s seat, BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed appears this week as a guest in an interview with Jonathan Wingfield, editor-in-chief of System Magazine, alongside Luca Solca, senior analyst of global luxury goods at Bernstein — as featured in the second issue of System Collections.
Recorded in late October, their discussion maps a luxury market defined by expectation swings, tighter cost control and headline creative resets, with pricing and value now at the centre of the consumer equation. Amed and Solca examine how luxury groups are refocusing, why design-led and more accessibly priced players are gaining ground, and the conditions required for a genuine comeback at the top end.
“Everyone seems to be fascinated with the ultra-wealthy spending, exorbitant amounts of money, but they are not the majority of the market — they are a portion at most,” says Solca.
Amed agrees. “Nobody out there really thinks any of these prices are justified,” he says. “One of the big conundrums facing the industry is, how do they restructure that pricing pyramid? They can’t just reduce prices on the existing products that are in their core collection because that’s almost an admission of having broken that ceiling down.”
Key Insights:
After years of price hikes, the industry hasn’t just met its price ceiling — it “broke through that ceiling, smashed it to bits,” argues Amed. The core dilemma now is rebuilding the pricing pyramid without publicly walking back on prices. “I just think some of the executives in the industry are just completely out of touch with how the average customer feels. That’s not just aspirational middle-class customers, that’s also the ultra wealthy customers. Nobody out there really thinks any of these prices are justified,” says Amed.
Solca warns that chasing the top end customer cannot be the only approach for brands. “Everyone seems to be fascinated with the ultra-wealthy spending exorbitant amounts of money, but...they are not the majority of the market. They are a portion at the most,” says Solca.
However, price inflation at the very top has created space just below what’s considered traditional luxury for design-led brands with sharper value. “It’s opened up a really interesting opportunity for smaller brands that are highly creative,” Amed says. He points to labels “just below luxury and just above US contemporary,” where distinct product and accessible pricing meet demand for uniqueness.
For Amed and Solca, the formula for success is for brands to bridge their DNA with the cultural zeitgeist and deliver real value to customers. Chasing trends that deny what a house stands for won’t work, like “Gucci trying to look quiet is like a zebra camouflaging as a lion,” says Solca. Amed adds the customer value test in “the relationship between what a customer pays and the perceived value of what they get in return.” If brands fail that test, “they’ll be less and less a part of that overall mix of what customers spend their money on.”Additional Resources:
Jonathan Wingfield | BoF 500The Debrief | 5 Big Questions About LuxuryPrada’s Versace Acquisition Closes, Now the Real Work BeginsHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 05 Dec 2025 - 1h 05min - 995 - 5 Big Questions About Luxury
Luxury’s most eventful year in some time is closing with a bang. From Prada’s Versace acquisition to Matthieu Blazy’s debut Chanel Métiers d’Art collection, seismic industry developments are landing on an almost daily basis.
In this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin are joined by BoF’s Luxury editor Robert Williams, who unpacks all of the industry’s most pertinent news, including the strategic implications of A$AP Rocky’s partnership with Chanel, the rise of the beaten up handbag, and the future of luxury in 2026.
Key Insights:
The luxury market’s forecast is cautiously optimistic, relying heavily on Chinese consumers and designer-led resets to revive the industry. Brands also need to grapple with justifying value after aggressive price increases in recent years. “Pricing’s certainly going to be an issue and it’s going to be a big issue in the US, which is a really key market for maintaining the brand’s top line,” Williams said.
With Prada’s acquisition of Versace closing this week, it remains unclear as to whether the brand will continue with Dario Vitale’s new approach to Versace, or steer towards a more classic, glossy aesthetic. “[Versace] has gone through a pretty radical shift over the past couple of months and whether or not [Prada’s] going to want to continue with that is the biggest most urgent decision, and for them to clarify that for the market,” Williams said.
Luxury dining is becoming increasingly popular across the world, but can luxury chains like Langosteria remain cool as they expand? “Fashion once upon a time was all made by your local tailor, your local couturier, and once they decided they could scale taste, that was more desirable than just having something that was more small-scale … In food it seems like it’s kind of the opposite,” Williams said.
Originally inspired by Jane Birkin and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, beaten up bags are everywhere in luxury fashion today. “There’s something about the fact that, no matter how much you wear out that bag and trash it, it’s still not going to break and fall apart. I think it just makes it a really cool style gesture. It shows you’re not someone who just bought into it yesterday,” Williams said.Additional Resources:
Prada’s Versace Acquisition Closes, Now the Real Work BeginsHow Beat-Up Bags Became a Luxury Status SymbolBreaking Down Chanel’s A$AP Rocky PartnershipHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 03 Dec 2025 - 30min - 994 - An Act of Love: Securing Franca Sozzani’s Legacy
Francesco Carrozzini grew up inside the rarefied world of Vogue Italia — not just observing it, but living it. As the son of Franca Sozzani, the magazine’s legendary editor-in-chief, fashion wasn’t just part of his surroundings, it was a language he was exposed to everyday.
He became a photographer and filmmaker, but it was only later that he turned the camera towards the most personal and complicated subject in his life: his relationship with his mother. The documentary Franca: Chaos and Creation premiered in Venice just before her passing in 2016 following a battle with lung cancer.
“When I asked her to take a look at the first cut of the film, she said, ‘This is the most mediocre thing I've ever seen. Do yourself a favor and find a point of view.’ That opened my eyes on the importance of always trying to find a point of view,” Carrozzini recalls. “In a regular relationship between mother and son, that might have been excruciating. In ours, it wasn't, because we treated each other like friends.”
Since Franca’s passing, Carrozzini has been working to transform memory into meaning. He co-founded the Franca Fund for Preventive Genomics — an initiative advancing genomic screening to prevent the disease that took his mother’s life.
BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed met Carrozzini in Doha, Qatar, where last weekend he hosted the fund’s first-ever gala and they spoke about what it means to honour someone not by preserving their legacy, but by evolving it.
Key Insights:
Growing up inside Vogue Italia shaped Carrozzini's eye and his expectations of 'normal'. He recalls going to the offices, and making his own magazines. "This was a time before computers so they were cutting up pictures and there was spray glue. [...] That's how magazines were made. I would go and do the same,” he says. "That was my special big extended family, because my mother's job was her life."
Beyond the film itself, Carrozzini shared that it was the end-of-life collaboration that mattered the most. “The actual big stories were those last months of our relationship, finishing the film and then screening it in Venice,” he says. “All of a sudden the lights turn on and everyone's crying because some people know, some people don't, but we look at each other and we're like, ‘This is sort of like our last big moment together.’”
Carrozzini clearly distinguishes tribute from true legacy. “Memory and legacy often get confused. Just remembering someone feels like you're carrying their legacy, but it's not. I really wanted something meaningful, as an act of love, taking something personal and making it collective.” That impulse led Carrozzini to genomics research with Harvard geneticist Dr Robert Green, backing pioneering newborn-genome studies and accelerating grants.Additional Resources:
Fashion Trust Arabia Names Prize Winners in Qatar | BoF Franca Sozzani, 1950 - 2016 | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 28 Nov 2025 - 36min - 993 - Is This the Year Discount Mania Finally Ends?
As the holiday shopping season approaches, consumer sentiment is slumping, yet spending is bifurcated – the top end keeps buying while the bottom 80 percent is more cautious. With Black Friday looming, brands are recalibrating promotions around value, desirability and hero products rather than blanket discounts. In luxury, upheaval at several department stores has created white space for rivals to woo high-spending clients through aggressive clienteling and tighter, faster vendor partnerships.
In this episode of The Debrief, hosts Brian Baskin and Sheena Butler-Young speak with BoF reporters Cat Chen and Malique Morris about how brands are planning the season.
Key Insights:
Consumer spending hasn’t vanished, but it’s shifted toward shoppers who still feel flush. As Chen notes, “people are not really feeling rosy about the state of the economy, but the irony is that they’re still spending money.” Since Covid, “spending has been driven by the wealthier segment,” and it’s clear that “what consumers want is value… they want to get a good deal, but they don’t want to buy a cheap product.” For retailers, that means “more sophistication around price architecture” and using AI “to price products perfectly.”
“Black Friday–Cyber Monday is not a fix for a mediocre year,” says Morris. Instead, winners are “prioritising desirability over discounts,” introducing “new products specifically for this time” and pushing “hero best-selling product.” The old playbook is out, and “slapping a 50% off everything discount on Instagram is not gonna cut it,” says Morris. In the “age of curation,” even deal-hunters expect editing, storytelling and reasons to stop scrolling.
Morris argues that even in a discount-driven moment like Black Friday, shoppers still want offers to feel edited and intentional, and brands are responding with more curated tactics rather than blanket markdowns. “We’re in the age of curation and so even when people are expecting deals, they don’t want to feel like they’re just getting slopped,” says Morris. Tariffs and margin pressure mean many brands cannot afford a race to the bottom, pushing them to plan inventory more carefully, introduce new products specifically for this period and reserve discounts for hero items.
Chen explains that this holiday season is especially high stakes for luxury multi-brand retailers because a few big players are stumbling – and everyone else is trying to capitalise. “Saks and SSENSE and Luisa Via Roma are three players that have faced pretty bad challenges this year,” she says. “They have opened up white space for their competitors on healthier financial footing to come in and basically eat their lunch and acquire their customers, acquire their sales.” The response is an aggressive push on clienteling and talent: retailers are not just targeting wealthy individuals, but also the salespeople and stylists who already manage those relationships.Additional Resources:
Brands Try to Get the Tone Right for Holiday 2025 | BoF Inside Luxury Retailers’ Bare-Knuckle Fight to Win the Holidays | BoF Black Friday Beauty Goes Beyond the Discount | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 26 Nov 2025 - 27min - 992 - Prada Group CEO Andrea Guerra on Fixing the Luxury Business Model
Over the last two years, demand for luxury fashion has softened as aspirational shoppers have pulled back and consumer fatigue has crept in. Yet, Prada Group has continued to grow, by prioritising brand DNA, employing disciplined curation and creating strong connections to contemporary culture.
“Prada is culture, culture is discussion, culture is opinions. The more you’re discussed, the more you’re able to be influenced by other people's opinions. I think this is unbelievably fruitful,” says Guerra. “This is not a vertical thing; it's a total constant confrontation and change of opinions. This is how things are born in the Prada brand – and I love it.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, BoF founder Imran Amed quizzes Mr Guerra on the luxury business model from developing pricing strategies to the importance of creative tension and cultural relevance.
Key Insights:
To navigate a shaky market, brands need to simplify and go back to their DNA. “Brands have gone all over in the past 10 years. And I think that today it's a time that you simplify and you do your own thing,” says Guerra. “Your brand has a DNA, and that DNA cannot be killed in the long term …This is where people are recognising you, so you need to go back there. There are certain things we need to do better again, but better again means to go back some years. ”
On the industry’s post-pandemic price hikes, Guerra says “If I’m not able to sell you an emotion, then we discuss pricing. If we discuss pricing, then I’ve failed on the first part.” Some brands, he adds, have been spoilt by certain trends, like inflation. “At a certain stage for some brands it was easy just to increase prices,” he says. Now Guerra says, “we’re back to normal” — and the conversation should return to “creativity, innovation [and] our ability to tell people about emotions.”
The decision to acquire Versace was a strategic, long-term bet.. “Versace is a fantastic Italian, authentic, unique, credible brand which has a huge complementary role inside our group … hitting different aesthetics, different consumer bases,” yet sharing roots in culture. The mandate is steady, patient value-building. “There are no broken things. We have an opportunity, and the opportunity is long term. I’m not expecting any sort of tangible numeric result tomorrow morning. We have fixed certain milestones which are very important, but it will take time. And we have the patience.”
For Guerra, durable desirability is born from managed friction. “There is a history of relationship and tension between the DNA of a brand and a creative impulse, and this tension in the long term must be a positive equation,” he says. “When I talk about culture, we are doing culture ourselves … When you are buying a Prada product, you are buying an opinion, and I am happy that you’re buying an opinion.”Additional Resources:
BoF VOICES 2025: Untangling the Fashion Industry’s Future Prada’s Lorenzo Bertelli to Become Versace Executive Chairman | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 21 Nov 2025 - 25min - 991 - Can Fashion Still Meet Its Climate Promises?
As COP30 gets underway in Belém, a port city on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest, the mood is sober. A decade after the Paris Agreement was adopted internationally to limit global warming, many of the world’s largest fashion companies have fallen short on emissions cuts — and some are moving in the wrong direction, emitting pollutants at an even higher rate than in previous years.
In this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin are joined by BoF reporters, Sarah Kent and Shayeza Walid, to examine why progress has stalled, how fast-fashion growth is reshaping the landscape, and what practical steps — from decarbonising supply chains to adapting factories to extreme heat — are needed next.
Key Insights:
Kent says, “I would not say any brand has a credible pathway right now to meet their targets for 2030,” “Even companies that have shown that they’re able to reduce their emissions to date, driving down their carbon footprint over the next five years is going to be harder, more complex and more costly… and really no one company can do that alone.”
Kent highlights the industry’s deep structural bind: “The fundamental conflict at the heart of the fashion industry’s climate commitments is that you’ve got a business built on extracting stuff and producing stuff and selling stuff. The more stuff they sell, the better the business does, but the worse the environmental impact is,” “Profitability and sales growth are fundamentally at odds with the environmental commitments companies have made.”
Short-term thinking still in the boardroom locks in higher climate impacts, adaptation costs and supply-chain risk. As Kent puts it, “On climate, if you don’t act, you don’t have to make these big investments, and you can keep growing your business and things will trundle along for some time. But the longer you wait to act, the worse the climate impacts you’re going to have to deal with are going to be, and the higher the cost of mitigating them, adapting to them, and trying to continue this business in a climate-constrained world.”
Voluntary commitments aren’t enough at fast fashion’s scale. Walid points to Shein: “Shein’s case is very instructive. There’s limits to voluntary commitments, which is what the majority of these brands have made.” She continues, “When the business model is built on speed and volume… it just shows that voluntary commitments are maybe not enough for a fashion brand – especially a brand as big as Shein – to actually tangibly reduce its emissions when its entire business case doesn’t stand for that.”
Climate impacts are now serious human and corporate risks. “It’s not just a corporate issue anymore,” says Walid. “People who have the visuals recognise the reality of what’s happening in these factories and the people who are making clothes at the end of the day.” Kent adds: “People who are suffering from heat stress are not as productive… floods are disruptive to production, to logistics, to supply chains. Just because we have not yet seen a major disruption to the apparel supply chain from these climate crises yet is more luck than anything else.”Additional Resources:
Can Fashion Still Meet Its Climate Promises? | BoF The Frayed Edge: Is Fashion Quiet Quitting on Climate? | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 19 Nov 2025 - 30min - 990 - Amber Valletta: ‘Do What You Love. Serve a Higher Purpose.’
Amber Valletta grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, spending time on her grandparents’ farm. Her childhood was defined by open fields, a freshwater creek and a simple rule from her mother: go outside and use your imagination.
At 15, a local modelling class set her on an unexpected path that would take her first to Milan, and then around the world. Within a few years, Amber became one of the defining faces of 1990s fashion — the Tom Ford Gucci era, the great editorials and the campaigns that shaped a generation’s idea of beauty.
But by her mid-20s, success had taken its toll. Amber stepped away from modelling, got sober, became a mother, pursued acting and found purpose in environmental advocacy. Today, as a United Nations Environment Programme goodwill ambassador, she’s using her influence to push for real change on climate, biodiversity and pollution.
“I don’t make my life all about me,” she told me. “I make it about other people too — about connection and love. When you have that, life is so much more enjoyable.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, BoF founder Imran Amed sits down with Amber Valletta to trace her journey from Tulsa to the world’s fashion capitals, how sobriety transformed her life at 25 and why she believes fashion must finally take responsibility for its impact on the planet.
Key Insights:
Valletta’s childhood in nature forged a creative compass and the ability to adapt anywhere.That self-reliance became a career asset when she landed in Europe as a teenager: “I have this strange thing that I’ve always had — it’s like wherever you plant me, I grow. I’m like a weed or something, like an Oklahoma weed.” Those early years also taught her to observe and self-teach: “No one taught me. I just started figuring it out … you look, you watch, you listen.”
Opening Tom Ford’s Gucci Fall/Winter 1995 show gave Valletta a once-in-a-career jolt. “When I walked out on the runway, it was probably one of the few times I’ve had that adrenaline rush … that spotlight came on and boom,” Valletta recalls. The moment was so impactful because it diverged from what dominated the time: “Nothing looked like that … it was like a shot of adrenaline for everybody,” she says.
Valletta was recently named UN Environment Programme goodwill ambassador, where she is focused on climate change, biodiversity loss and on “fashion’s role as one of the biggest polluters.” The brief is practical: “We need to invest in innovation and investment in decarbonisation … We need all hands on deck. We need collaboration,” she says, warning, “If it doesn’t change, we’re going to implode on ourselves.”
Valletta’s guidance for a fulfilling life is simple: “Do what you love. Serve a higher purpose. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy where you’re at.” She couples that with practical habits for staying power. “I ask questions, I show up with a lot of gratitude … I try not to do too much so that when I show up to work, I’m fully present for everybody.”Additional Resources:
Amber Valletta | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Can Fashion Still Meet Its Climate Promises? | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 14 Nov 2025 - 42min - 989 - Why Is Everyone Obsessed With Accessories?
Colourful charms, Labubu-laden handbags and a ring on every finger – accessories sales are booming. A surge of necklace stacks, playful rings and quirky charms is being driven by Gen Z’s push for personal style, using add-ons to customise minimalist wardrobes on a budget. With apparel prices up, accessories act as “little luxuries” and entry points into brands. Retail is responding, with buyers widening small-leather-goods assortments and e-commerce shoots now styling bags with charms to encourage add-on purchases.
BoF reporter Diana Pearl joins The Debrief to unpack what’s fuelling the accessory pile-on, how labels are capitalising on it, and how far the trend can go before the cycle turns.
Key Insights:
According to Pearl, Gen Z is reaching for accessories as a way to personalise their minimalist wardrobes. “Gen Z, which is really looking to define their sense of personal style, is leaning on accessories to do so, especially because minimalism in clothing is still very popular… but they also wanna have a little more fun and accessories are a way to do that,” she says. Regarding the longevity of this trend, Pearl adds, “I think we'll see a consumer that is primed to think of accessories as a more important part of their wardrobe – not just like a finishing touch, but a core element of it.”
The Labubu craze captures the mood of the accessories trend – playful, collective and endlessly customisable. “There’s so many different Labubus. There’s a bit of that thrill of the hunt to try to find the right one. You can add it to an Hermès bag or a $100 leather tote from J. Crew,” says Pearl. For many shoppers, she says, “it really speaks to that desire for fun and adding a personal touch. People want things that make them feel good.”
While luxury houses profit from entry-level add-ons, Pearl sees independent makers riding the wave. “I think it probably is helping luxury brands but I think even more than that, it’s helping small brands that really can make these cute accessories that feel distinct and different from what everyone else has, because I think a huge part of this is that quest for personal style, wanting something unique,” says Pearl.
Pearl frames the moment as a behavioural shift rather than a transient trend. She argues, “trends go away, but they never fully go away. I think every trend leaves a lasting impact or impression on us. Maybe Labubus, toe rings, and bag charms won’t be quite as popular, but maybe they’ll evolve.” Crucially, “I think that this has unlocked something in people… it will have a lasting after effects of this trend, even if not everybody is wearing five necklaces at once in a year from now.”Additional Resources:
How Far Can Fashion’s Accessory Obsession Go? | BoF Why Jewellery Feels Like a Better Deal Than a Handbag | BoFLuxury’s Untapped Opportunity in Men’s Jewellery | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 12 Nov 2025 - 22min - 988 - Why Robert Wun Ditched the Wholesale Model for Bespoke Creations
Soon after sharing his graduate work from the London College of Fashion online, Hong Kong-born Robert Wun was approached by Joyce Boutique to buy his collection. Like many other independent designers, he found navigating the wholesale model challenging and during the pandemic he pivoted to serving clients with one-off, customised designs with couture level pricing.
“I realised that, in order for me to have a strong wholesale business model or grow a brand, this is not the time yet,” Wun says. “For me to sacrifice all these years – to leave my family, to come all the way to London, to chase my dream – everything I create needs to have a responsibility, not only for myself but also for the message that I’m trying to relay.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, BoF founder Imran Amed sit down with Robert Wun to discuss his path from Hong Kong to London to Paris Couture Week, and how he’s building a client-first business that protects his creativity while staying commercially viable.
Key Insights:
Hong Kong’s cultural imprint shaped Wun's eye from an early age. Growing up in a city he saw as a creative engine, Wun points to icons like Wong Kar-wai as inspiration, adding that “Hong Kong is almost a symbol of cultural leadership when it comes to Asia.” Wun recalls discovering how deeply global fashion intersected with the city, from Joyce Ma championing new designers to Jean Paul Gaultier creating stage pieces for musicians in Hong Kong. "You always had this idea that creativity was powerful ... but I think what changed was a shift in culture and economic power," he says.
When pandemic lockdowns halted the regular fashion calendar, it provided a reset for Wun. Being forced to release his Autumn/Winter 2021 collection with an iPhone shoot done in his studio kitchen, made him prioritise meaning and message. “Everything I create needs to have a responsibility, not only for myself, but also for the message that I’m trying to relay,” he says. That conviction pushed Wun to prioritise work that is no longer “to make money” but rather “to communicate and be honest.”
Wun has shifted from wholesale to bespoke orders and selective collaborations. “We are a team of almost twelve now. We’ve turned from not making any profit at all to actually starting to make profit since last year, and we’re almost doubling in terms of turnover by the end of this year,” he says. The core is a loyal private clientele, and demand is anchored in the US — particularly New York and Los Angeles millennials and Asian Americans — plus art collectors and couples seeking modern ceremony wear. “Our average for those couture orders ranges from £45,000 to £60,000,” Wun says, a mix that allows him to protect his creativity while running a commercially successful business.Additional Resources:
Robert Wun | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Robert Wun: From Dalston to Place Vendôme | BoFThe Emerging Designers Pushing Fashion Forward | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 07 Nov 2025 - 48min - 987 - The Human Cost of Trump's Tariffs
In late August, the US doubled duties on Indian goods to 50 percent, in what President Donald Trump described as a punishment for India’s purchases of Russian oil. Brands reacted immediately, postponing or cancelling orders and leaving factories in hubs like Tiruppur and Bengaluru half-filled. With shifts cut and workers laid off, the shock ricocheted through India’s export economy, exposing how little protection garment workers have while relief talks and trade diplomacy drag on.
Senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin are joined by BoF reporter Shayeza Walid to trace how trade policy in Washington quickly impacted the lives of India’s garment workers.
Key Insights:
The tariff that came into place at the end of August led some suppliers to feel “punished for something they didn’t have any hand in,” as Walid puts it. She adds: “That penalty was linked to India’s continued purchases of Russian crude oil,” and “it hit very fast because brands immediately reacted to it once the 50 percent came into place.”
The disruption hit export hubs first and hardest. With brands reluctant to absorb the shock, factories have been left to “bear the brunt,” passing the pressure onto the most vulnerable link in the system. The result is workers facing furloughs, layoffs and open-ended uncertainty. “These workers are largely migrant workers who… don't have the power to collectively bargain and kind of demand what they have the right to”, says Walid. As a result, migrant garment workers are bearing the brunt through layoffs, furloughs and lost income.
The response from Western brands has been silence and arm’s-length accountability, as most work through layers of sub-contractors in India. Walid says that, despite public rhetoric on labour rights, “in practice, there's not anything in place that would fix … these short-term contracts and brands not knowing where subcontracting factories are connecting with suppliers.” During Covid, watchdog pressure pushed some labels to repay cancelled orders, but “at this moment, that’s not something that we’re seeing,” Walid notes. In the meantime, a few large exporters are temporarily absorbing parts of the tariff to keep relationships alive – an approach suppliers themselves say is unsustainable – while smaller factories shut and workers absorb the shock.
Beyond geopolitics, commercial terms and supply-chain opacity push risk onto workers. “It’s really the purchasing practice and the way contracts work in the supply chain. In the exporting industry, that leaves workers in this really helpless condition,” says Walid. Complexity of the system also weakens accountability: “It’s really extraordinarily difficult to get data and direct kind of causality from a particular brand,” and in hubs like Tirupur, “subcontracting factories are essentially the main suppliers to these bigger factories because they just get such large volumes.”Additional Resources:
India’s Garment Workers Are Paying the Price for Trump’s Tariffs | BoF Trump’s 50% Tariff Sows Fear Inside Indian Apparel Hub | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 05 Nov 2025 - 25min - 986 - Khalifa Bin Braik on Dubai’s Transformation and the MENA Retail Playbook
Born in Dubai in 1978 when the city was still a modest trading port, Khalifa Bin Braik has witnessed the city’s rapid transformation into a 21st-century global hub – and helped shape its retail landscape as CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Asset Management.
Majid Al Futtaim is behind the $1.4 billion transformation of Dubai’s second largest mall, The Mall of the Emirates, adding 20,000 sqm of additional retail space and 100 new stores with an enhanced mix of dining, wellness and cultural concepts. This development is in addition to its newest flagship destination, Ghaf Woods Mall: a first-of-its-kind concept merging retail experiences with the natural environment.
Bin Braik reflects on Dubai’s’s post‑pandemic acceleration and the company’s move from bricks-and-mortar stores to immersive third places.
“In just over four decades, the economy has grown circa 22 times. But what's even more remarkable is the mindset that has fueled this growth,” says Bin Braik. “Dubai gives you the power to dream, plan, and execute flawlessly, all in one lifetime, really. It's a place that teaches you that nothing is too ambitious.”
In this conversation with BoF founder Imran Amed, Bin Braik unpacks Dubai’s evolution, the transformation of physical retail, and where growth in the MENA region is coming from next.
Key Insights:
Post-pandemic, Majid Al Futtaim has shifted retail from pure brick-and-mortar to a fully immersive, experiential destination creator. “Consumers today demand more experiential, more curated spaces, but most importantly, with an intent or a very deep meaning and purpose.” Their formula blends retail with dining, entertainment and, crucially, wellness: “[Our] DNA is curating an immersive lifestyle destination, blending retail with dining, wellness, … entertainment and, most importantly, community.”
According to Bin Braik, it’s a misconception that malls across the GCC region are homogeneous or that “only luxury” drives Dubai. “Each country has unique customer dynamics … demographics and cultural nuances,” and the “mid‑market and convenience‑driven segments are equally very, very important.” Physical retail “continues to thrive,” supported by strong tourism and integrated experiences.
Egypt is a key region for a next‑wave opportunity. “Today, Egypt’s luxury market is … half of its true potential.” Despite challenges with imports, tariffs and infrastructure, Bin Braik argues that growth can be unlocked through investment and modernisation, with stabilisation “[paving] the way for a more vibrant luxury ecosystem market.” He adds: “I think very soon we'll start seeing investments into the luxury space within the Egyptian market.”
To win in the MENA region, Bin Braik’s best advice for global brands is to “strongly lean on localisation and the right partnerships,” and not to underestimate cultural nuance. “Finding the right local partner with similar aspirations is key, but a partner that deeply understands the market and cultural heritage is so important.”This episode of The BoF Podcast is part of a paid partnership with Majid Al Futtaim.
Additional Resources:
How Dubai Is Defying the Luxury Downturn | BoFInside the Fashion Opportunity in Dubai | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 31 Oct 2025 - 30min - 985 - Would You Let AI Shop for You?
A new wave of AI shopping agents has emerged as Big Tech and start-ups alike vie for dominance of this new market. OpenAI, Google and Perplexity are experimenting with search-to-checkout, while fashion-specific entrants like Vêtir, Phia and Gensmo are learning users' tastes before recommending and purchasing across retailers. But before they get off the ground, trust, accuracy, privacy and simple usefulness remain open questions.
Senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin are joined by BoF reporter Malique Morris to map the agentic ecommerce landscape.
Key Insights:
AI shopping agents aim to move beyond static recommendations to truly act on a shopper’s behalf. As Morris explains, “traditional e-commerce has algorithms that recommend items based on what you’ve already browsed or purchased,” whereas “an AI shopping agent is supposed to learn the shopper and can act on their behalf,” handle “very specific prompts” and, ultimately, complete the transaction.
Agents are trying to replicate the best in-store experience for the ecommerce space. “They’re supposed to be about replicating the in-store salesperson, surfacing the right piece based on the conversation that you might have,” says Morris. As a result, “it’s not calling for brands to rethink how they’re designing their goods,” but more about tools that “help them sell them better and help them get into the hands of the people who are actually really going to want them.”
Early users are avid shoppers who love new technology. Morris doesn’t expect a sudden tipping point, but rather gradual mass adoption. “Agentic commerce is [already] here because the tools are being built and experimentation is happening,” he says. “People are going to be conditioned the same way that they were conditioned when Netflix rolled out their algorithms, the same way TikTok and Instagram have with ‘for you’ pages. It’s here, it’s happening and it’s only going to get more efficient.”
While the consumer should benefit from this new suite of AI shopping agents, Morris is blunt about power dynamics: “Outside of ‘the consumer is going to win,’ I think it’s going to be who has the resources to perfect this.” Consolidation is to be expected as many smaller platforms are “probably going to get consumed into an OpenAI or a Google or an Amazon. Those already huge [players] are probably going to be the ultimate winners.”Additional Resources:
What It Will Take for Consumers to Let AI Shop For Them | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 29 Oct 2025 - 32min - 984 - Sinéad O’Dwyer: ‘The Glorification of Vulnerability in Fashion Is Really Bizarre’
Irish designer Sinéad O’Dwyer grew up in a household of creative entrepreneurs. Her father was a silversmith and a sculptor, her mother was a music educator and her grandmother knit and sewed uniforms. Until the age of fourteen, there were no screens in her home, not even a TV. Instead, she was encouraged to read, craft and spend time outdoors.
After studying in the Netherlands and a formative stint in the fashion industry, she developed a critical stance on the industry’s narrow body ideals.
“I saw quite a lot of models who were visibly ill. This glorification of vulnerability was really bizarre. It felt really insane to me that on the runway they look so pulled together, but then actually behind the scenes, there are so many emotional struggles happening,” she recalls. “When you are wearing a garment, you are actually wearing an imprint of another person's body. ... I don't think people really understand that the fit model for a brand is so important.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, Imran Amed sat down with Sinead to discuss her practice which centres on diverse bodies and finding practical, sustainable routes to market through direct to consumer, bespoke clients, and carefully chosen retail partners.
Key Insights:
As a trainee, O’Dwyer saw the jarring gap between runway images and backstage reality: “I saw quite a lot of models who were visibly ill … this glorification of vulnerability was really bizarre,” she recalls. “It felt really insane to me that on the runway they look so pulled together … but then actually behind the scenes, there are so many emotional struggles happening.” At the RCA, with Zoë Broach’s ethos of fashion as critical practice, she reframed her work toward contribution and change, interrogating fashion’s harmful beauty ideals.
O’Dwyer’s MA research used live silicone casts of friends and family to visualise that “when you are wearing a garment, you are actually wearing an imprint of another person’s body.” She critiques reliance on a single fit model and historic blocks, instead creating new blocks “through my own gaze as a woman,” choosing what she finds beautiful and then cutting for that, before generalising across a collection.
According to O’Dwyer, luxury brands tend to produce many styles in smaller quantities with fewer sizes. O’Dwyer’s answer to this problem is a mixed‑model delivery: keep wholesale tight, invest margin in made‑to‑order “at the same price as the ready‑to‑wear,” and prioritise pop‑ups and try‑on moments. The aim is fewer but better retail partners and closer relationships. Crucially, the industry-wise fix requires intent: “People have to care. There has to be an investment in the whole industry. Initially you will lose a bit of money because you have to invest in that customer and say, ‘we actually want to cater for you, we respect you’.”Additional Resources:
The Emerging Designers Pushing Fashion Forward | BoF The Great Fashion Reset | Is Fashion Failing Emerging Designers? | BoFSinéad O’Dwyer | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion IndustryHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 24 Oct 2025 - 40min - 983 - Does Fashion Still Know What Women Want?
This fashion month, models walked the tightrope between fantasy and function. On the runway, spectacle was dialled up to 100: Alaïa’s armless “straitjacket” dress, Margiela’s metal mouthpieces, and Jean Paul Gaultier’s naked male body prints were among the pieces to spark a wider debate.
Some critics have asked what feels like an obvious question: do designers actually understand — or even care — how women dress in their real lives?
BoF’s Diana Pearl and Cat Chen join senior editor Sheena Butler-Young to examine why criticism is intensifying now, the role of authorship and how brands can balance showmanship with wearability.
Key Insights:
Designers face backlash when spectacle eclipses women’s realities. As Pearl observes, “designers weren’t really designing for actual women — or at worst, designing clothes that felt almost disrespectful.” To Pearl, many runway moments “felt either like it was erasing the woman or immobilising them… like fashion is a form of torture.” Even if looks are “dramatized for the runway,” she says, “there’s still a message being sent” that can be interpreted as designers not respecting women.
Chen doesn’t see this season as uniquely outrageous in a vacuum, but says context matters. She adds that criticism hits harder now amid other external circumstances, one of which is that many brands are struggling financially. “The fact that these designers had a commercial incentive to be more resonant with consumers and then created these collections that didn't hit at that level, I think that made these collections so much more perceptible to be criticised in this way,” says Chen.
Body diversity is the more urgent gap to fix. Pearl says the ultra-thin casting “adds insult to injury… a parade of models that are all extremely thin and… unattainable,” compounding the sense that runways aren’t made with real women in mind. Chen goes further: “the lack of body diversity on the runway is a huge problem,” noting data that shows representation “falling straight down from 2023 to 2025.”
Pearl notes perception shifts with who’s in charge: “Women aren’t represented at the top, so it makes us more primed to look at a mouthpiece and feel it’s sexist because it’s coming from a male designer.” Still, she points to shows that balance both: Chanel’s debut “felt very wearable” while staging delivered “otherworldly” theatre, and Khaite’s runways pair mood with pieces that, also, “feel very wearable.” Chen adds that smaller, women-led brands win by staying close to their customer: “It’s really not about spectacle, it’s about being in the same room as their customers.”Additional Resources:
Does Fashion Know What Women Want? | BoF Fashion’s Musical Chairs Ends — With Men in Almost Every Seat. | BoF The Emerging Designers Pushing Fashion Forward | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 22 Oct 2025 - 27min - 982 - Kenya’s Katungulu Mwendwa on Building a Made-in-Africa Brand
Born and raised in Nairobi, Katungulu Mwendwa grew up cradled in the warmth and unpredictability of the bustling Kenyan capital and the hands-on craft traditions learned from her family — basketry, pottery, leather and beadwork. A childhood fascination with cherished garments led her to pursue fashion studies in the UK, giving her both a technical grounding and a view of the global system.
Back home, she gave herself a double challenge: build a contemporary brand with deep cultural roots and make as much as possible on the African continent, working with local artisans and resource
“The global fashion world doesn't operate in isolation. You have Paris Fashion Week, you have New York — why can't Nairobi be one of those places?” asks Mwendwa. “I'm not trying to run for president, but I'm now a fashion designer. So how can I have an impact on my environment? How can I be the change I want to see?”
This week on the BoF Podcast, Imran Amed sits down with new BoF 500 member Katungulu Mwendwa to understand why making locally matters, how to design “everyday armour” people will keep for years, and what global buyers must change to unlock the potential of African fashion.
Key Insights:
For Mwendwa, producing locally isn’t a marketing line, it’s the whole point: to grow skills and value chains at home. That means insisting on using local resources, bringing artisans into contemporary products and accepting the grind of building capacity. “It was the most important thing … How can I be the change I want to see? I’m so adamant about working with local resources, because if we don’t, why would anything change?” she says.
The answer is to work with local resources and revive knowledge that’s slipping from view: “A lot of our history is not easy to access … Some practices are forgotten or not celebrated as much, and I use my work to reimagine or re-establish those traditional practices.”
Mwendwa designs garments meant to outlast trends. “I want to meet people [who] five years later, even ten years later, and hear they still have it in their closet and they’re hoping to pass it on because it’s so valuable, it’s well looked after,” she says. The goal is emotional durability: “This is a piece I’m going to treasure … I’ll wear [it] for special occasions, or because I just feel special today.”
Building a fashion brand from Nairobi and starting in an ecosystem with little ready-made support means learning by doing. “You literally do everything — I was the tailor, pattern cutter, sales and comms,” Mwendwa explains. She also tapped into incubators and grants, selling through Nairobi retailers, lodges and select international stockists, but her message to global buyers is pragmatic and pointed: “Change the way you work … There’s a consumer who wants what’s on the continent — they just don’t know it yet. We’re not talking big batches — stop with, ‘We need 250 pieces.’ Offer a unique capsule batch for a period of time and see what that does.”Additional Resources:
Katungulu Mwendwa | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry The Emerging Designers Pushing Fashion Forward | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 17 Oct 2025 - 39min - 981 - Can a Shop Truly Be a “Third Place”?
Retailers are racing to repackage shops as “third places” — low-pressure spaces to linger between home and work — as post-pandemic footfall softens and social isolation rises. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s original idea centres on civic, low-barrier hubs like cafés and libraries rather than commercial destinations, yet brands are now adding seating, listening bars and in-store cafés to nudge dwell time, loyalty and favourable word of mouth. The best versions use subtle amenities that keep people comfortably in the space, but the sales impact is yet to be proven.
In this episode, BoF retail editor Cat Chen joins The Debrief to unpack why scale matters, how to measure success beyond sales, and where third-place experiments risk sliding from community into pure branding.
Key Insights:
In their efforts to create third places, retailers are utilising food and beverage as subtle amenities that keep people lingering: it’s ‘not about creating food and beverage as a destination, but about simply getting people to spend more time in the store,’” says Chen. Done well, that “authentically [creates] a community,” and “when you have this really positive experience in their ecosystem, you will feel very positively about the brand.” Still, she cautions: “The idea of a third place as a way to drive sales for retailers is an unproven theory.”
“Community building is authentic and not a branding exercise,” Chen says. The worst versions of third places feel “branded to death” and designed for photos more than social connection. “At the end of the day, it's not about the social experience of being there, it's about taking a photo of it and being able to consume this luxury brand. That's akin to the first step of being able to afford their $3,000 handbag.” It all goes back to commerce and “is very much the opposite of what Oldenburg meant.”
Practical amenities in stores build goodwill. Western outfitter Tecovas’ “radical hospitality” includes a lounge and a free bar inside its store, Sephora succeeds with a hands-off approach when customers are trying samples, and Apple allows patrons to charge their phone or use the bathroom — a small service that leaves a positive halo. As Chen puts it, food and beverage in a third place should be low commitment, cheap and have a low barrier to entry. “There have been a lot of thinkpieces about private members’ clubs popping up in New York and how this is tied to this desire for third places. Private member clubs are not third places, they are the antithesis of third places."Additional Resources:
Can a Store Ever Be a ‘Third Place?’ | BoF How Brands Make Community More Than a Buzzword | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 15 Oct 2025 - 26min - 980 - Tim Blanks and Imran Amed Reflect on the Biggest Fashion Month Ever
We’ve just returned from what was undoubtedly the biggest fashion month ever, a high-stakes season that saw new creative directors debut their visions for fresh creative leadership under the spotlight at Chanel, Dior, Jil Sander, Loewe, Jean Paul Gaultier — and many more.
So what to make of it all? Much of it was about expectations. For some designers like Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Pierpoalo Piccioli at Balenciaga, expectations were running high making it almost impossible to please the industry and online critics. Others like Dario Vitale at Versace and Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe had been written off by some observers even before they showed — leaving them the opportunity to surprise, delight and overdeliver. Only one show seems to have unanimously impressed all around: Matthieu Blazy’s big debut at Chanel, the last big show at Paris Fashion Week.
“It was the one show that incontrovertibly did what it had to do. Not just for the brand, but for the business, for the industry,” says Blanks. “And I think people could leave Paris on the second to last day on an upbeat note. Earlier in the week, some of the most anticipated shows, like Jonathan at Dior or Pierpaolo at Balenciaga had been incredibly polarizing, and I think there seems to be relatively universal agreement on Chanel.”
This week on the BoF podcast, Imran Amed sits down with Tim Blanks to unpack the highlights of Fashion Month, the designer versus house debate, and why time and empathy matter this season.
Key Insights:
According to Blanks, Blazy “managed to do a Chanel that reflected [Coco Chanel], but also reflected his feelings about what she had done with his vocabulary, which is very craft-oriented, very experimental.” Crucially, Blazy struck a balance “between what Chanel was and what Chanel needs to be,” he adds.
At Dior, Anderson opened with an audacious collaboration with filmmaker journalist Adam Curtis on a short film that blended fashion with slasher horror. “It was sort of an act of contextualisation for what he intends for the house,” says Blanks. Amed also welcomes Anderson’s measured exploration of the luxury house. “The Loewe that he built was built over time. It took 10 years. And so I think we should expect the same with him at Dior,” he says. “While maybe not everything in my view worked in that Dior show, I think that is the point because you learn from that.”
For Duran Lantink, compatibility at Jean Paul Gaultier was never the issue. “His attitude to everything is so similar to Gaultier’s attitude. The sort of provocation, the sex games,” says Blanks. Yet he was left wanting more. “I wanted so much more from that show. And in the end, I did not feel that there was enough Gaultier or enough Duran.”
Amid a debut-heavy season dominated by men, Sarah Burton’s second outing at Givenchy reads as a quiet counterpoint and a reminder of female authorship at the highest level. “She’s really got the imp of the perverse in her,” says Blanks, before praising a show that was “extremely elegant … I thought I could see women wanting those clothes. The way she elongated things was so flattering and simple.” He adds, “I really would love to see that collection take off.”Additional Resources:
The Top 10 Shows of the Season
Did Fashion’s Season of Change Actually Change Anything? Yes and No
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 10 Oct 2025 - 59min - 979 - Sports x Fashion: Who’s Really Winning?
From team-branded fashion shows to tunnel-walk capsules and luxury watch deals, sport and fashion are converging at speed. The NFL has rolled smaller licensing tie-ups into marquee partnerships, while the WNBA is emerging as a fertile ground for inventive brand-player collaborations. But alongside the growth is bloat: logo-slap collections, clearance-rack remnants and fuzzy KPIs.
Senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin are joined by BoF sports correspondent Mike Sykes to map the deals that resonate and the ones that miss — and how success of these partnerships are being measured beyond the momentary halo.
Key Insights:
The WNBA is a collaboration engine because players are the drivers, not passengers. “I think the WNBA right now is a breeding ground for some of these deals in part because the players are eager to find these other opportunities to spread their portfolio,” Sykes says. That unlocks new formats: partnerships “not just between teams and brands or the league and brands, but players themselves and the brands [that] manifest in really cool and unique ways.”
Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) has supercharged women’s sports, and fashion is part of the bargaining. Sheena points out the 2021 shift when “college athletes could not monetise their name, image, or likeness” and then stars like “Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark were becoming brands in their own right.” That changes how teams and leagues engage players: “fashion deals can be a bargaining chip on both sides of that equation.”
As sports and fashion collaborations become more ubiquitous, authentic propositions are needed to cut through the noise. As Butler-Young puts it, the best examples “take the collections seriously. They treat it like a real fashion product. ‘Anything will do’ – people see through that.” Sykes agrees: “To work with players, you have to work with teams that really want to do things the right way.” It has to make sense for the consumer, and when it doesn’t, the audience calls it out. “The Chelsea and OVO collection was kind of a logo-slap. Even the fans were like, ‘This isn’t it.’”
For some brands and athletes involved in these collaborations, partnerships are judged on reach and relevance rather than immediate revenue as the key marker of success. Sykes points to the NFL x Veronica Beard blazers: “There’s still some of that product left and it’s 75 to 80 per cent discounted … you have to look at that as a failure.” Yet the league “takes a holistic view,” he says: even if one capsule doesn’t sell through, lessons on “what you produce, how much, where you produce it, who your core audiences are” feed the next partnership.Additional Resources:
Sports and Fashion Are Tighter Than Ever. But Who’s Really Winning? Has Fashion’s Convergence With Sports Gone Too Far? How WNBA Players Are Using Merch to Underscore Their ValueHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 08 Oct 2025 - 25min - 978 - Kiki McDonough on Changing How Women Buy and Wear Jewellery
Raised in a family of antique jewellery specialists, Kiki McDonough launched her namesake jewellery brand in 1985 with accessible pricing and pieces women could wear anywhere. Her early crystal-and-bow designs ended up in the V&A, while her growing client list came to include members of the royal family, and her brand has helped normalise women buying jewellery for themselves.
At first, “a man would come in and buy a piece of jewellery for his wife,” she says. Soon the couple arrived together and she would choose. Today, the behaviour is normalised. “Now it’s just, ‘I need a pair of earrings for my daughter’s wedding’… I think it’s all changed.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, McDonough joins BoF’s founder and CEO Imran Amed, to reflect on her resilience through recessions and a pandemic, the enduring appeal of coloured gemstones, and why jewellery’s longevity and the everyday joy it can inspire.
Key Insights:
When McDonough launched in 1985 she set out a clear price ladder that brought fine jewellery into everyday life. “I thought the prices should be under £1,000 … £95 to £950 and that’s where I started.” Her first pencil sketch became a heart crystal design that a Birmingham maker took “a punt” on and they’re now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The moment matched a broader cultural shift. As she puts it, the 1980s had “an atmosphere … full of can-do” and women were “open to wearing something else.”
She helped move jewellery from being gifted to being self purchased, a shift accelerated by social change and London’s Big Bang. At first, “a man would come in and buy a piece of jewellery for his wife,” she says. Soon the couple arrived together and she would choose. Today, the behaviour is normalised. “Now it’s just, ‘I need a pair of earrings for my daughter’s wedding’… I think it’s all changed.”
McDonough says jewellery outperforms fashion because it carries both longevity and daily joy. Pieces become heirlooms that keep working across generations. “I’ve got lots of women now whose children are wearing the jewellery they bought from me 15 years ago,” she says.
Four decades in, resilience and pacing have been McDonough’s strengths. “I’ve [been through] two recessions, a pandemic and 10 prime ministers,” she says, crediting “resilience, a sense of humour and common sense.” She built slowly and on her own terms. “People used to say to me how many shops have you got and I’d say, ‘I’ve got one shop and two children.’”
The financial discipline needed for success, McDonough learned early. “Look after the pennies because the pounds look after themselves,” she says. Her advice to founders is to start carefully, test products, preserve cash and keep going. “It’s terribly important not to spend the money immediately … pace yourself,” because momentum that lasts beats scale for scale’s sake, she adds. Her last piece of wisdom? A good brand can outlive its founder. “I don’t believe that anyone is indispensable,” she says.Additional Resources:
How Statement Earrings Became Generation Selfie’s Favourite TrendQueen Elizabeth II’s Style LegacyHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 03 Oct 2025 - 29min - 977 - Can Gen-Z Beauty Brands Grow Up?
Brands like Bubble, Starface and Byoma rode TikTok-native aesthetics to win Gen-Z hearts and Sephora shelf space with plush mascots, playful stickers and sensorial jelly textures. Founders close in age to their audience moved fast, crowd-sourced ideas and mastered algorithms. Now the oldest Gen Z consumers are nearing 30 and looking for fewer gimmicks and more proof that formulas work.
In this episode, senior beauty correspondent Daniela Morosini unpacks what still resonates, where the “dopamine” look carries a credibility tax, and why channel strategy, product performance and smart casting matter more than ever.
Key Insights:
Gen Z brands broke through by moving at internet speed and co-creating with their audience. “These brands are all just so digitally native… and for a lot of them the founders were quite young themselves,” says Morosini. They were “small, scrappy businesses [with] shorter product launch cycles [and] really savvy marketing.” Crucially, they “did a lot of crowdsourcing, social listening, and were really plugged into internet forums,” so products felt made with, not just for, their audience.
The ‘fun’ factor worked best online as visuals drove discovery: “Goopy, gloopy, sticky things… look good in a video. You see someone put that on their face and then you want to try it.” At the same time, expectations have climbed as “people are really quick to reject a product if it doesn’t perform exactly the way they want.” And bright, playful packaging can backfire for results-seekers: “Colourful, bright things we associate with play, silliness, youth and frivolity… you might think, ‘this is not a serious product.’”
If stalwarts like Neutrogena and Clearasil have long dominated the teen aisle, why can’t today’s Gen-Z-first labels simply stay youth brands rather than trying to age up? As Morosini puts it, legacy names “have definitely ceded market share to some of these newer indies… these are brands you can find in every drugstore… [they’re] most teens’ or tweens’ introduction to the beauty category.” But “those brands are not cool,” and the Gen-Z pioneers “really want to be cool… and relevant,” not just “the thing that your mum might pick up… when you’re complaining about having a spot.” The challenge is clear: “it’s hard to be both legacy and cool.”
Some labels are widening reach by changing where and what they sell. “Byoma went into some more premium retail pretty quickly,” Morosini notes, adding that “retailers really function as a marketing engine.” Others are broadening beyond a single hero. Ultimately, Morisini says survival hinges on utility. “It will come down to the brands that truly have replenishable products differentiated enough, at the right price point, and genuinely offer unique enough results that people will continue to return to them once any maybe the noise around the texture or the packaging has died down.”Additional Resources:
Bubble Was Built on Gen Z. Now, It Must Grow Up. | BoF The Gen-Z Whisperer: How Julie Schott Made Acne a Laughing Matter | BoFHow to Keep the Gen-Z Fragrance Boom Going | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 01 Oct 2025 - 23min - 976 - Edward Buchanan on Being Written Out of Fashion History
Growing up in Ohio, Edward Buchanan always knew he would have a creative career.
That interest first led him to art school at CCAD in Cleveland and then to the Parsons School of Design in New York, where he juggled jobs in visual merchandising with school and the city’s inspiring, pulsating nightlife.
He got his big break in fashion when he was hired as the first design director at Bottega Veneta, which was then a small family-run business led by Vittorio and Lara Moltedo. He relocated to Italy in 1995 and has been building a professional career in fashion ever since, one of the few Black creatives in the Italian fashion system giving him a unique vantage point on the value of inclusivity.
In this episode of The BoF Podcast, BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed sits down with Edward to retrace the designer’s formative years, look back at his time at Bottega Veneta and quiz him on how young creatives and people of colour can succeed in fashion today.
Key Insights:
“When I was at Parsons, I excelled. I really loved being there and learning, the core. The pattern making, the cutting, the fabric … the technical aspects of design I was just obsessed with,” Buchanan says. Even his time at Bottega was a learning process, “I was really learning luxury goods while I was working at Bottega Veneta … I went in with taste and an idea of understanding what this brand is or potentially what this could be.”
After leaving Bottega Veneta, Buchanan wasn’t in contact with the brand for a long time; he felt his work went unrecognised. However, when he was included in the brand’s campaign to mark the 50th anniversary of the Intrecciato, a new relationship with the brand formed. “I thought that this is an honest way of saying you did that job, you were here, and we respect the work that you did.”
Despite strides made, Buchanan believes the fashion industry still has a way to go in regards to diversity, particularly in Italy. Buchanan says he will always advocate for people of colour, “I feel like if I'm not encouraged and charged to speak in first person about my experience and reach out my hand to the others that look like me or are like me … then there's no one else that's gonna do it.”
Buchanan encourages young creatives to not just study design, but the other aspects of fashion, too. “It’s necessary to be multifaceted as a creative and know the business … I always instill in my students [to] find the honesty in your design, find what is the thing that you really believe in.”Additional Resources:
Black, Creative and Collaborating Across Generations
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 26 Sep 2025 - 51min - 975 - Why Gen Z Isn’t Buying Luxury’s Story
Luxury is struggling to connect with Gen Z, a cohort raised on TikTok and YouTube who research before they buy, shop vintage and resale as a first stop, and question whether soaring prices match product quality. While Millennials fuelled the last luxury boom via streetwear crossovers and scarcity-led drops, today’s younger shoppers are more value-driven and sceptical of polished brand theatre. In-store, rigid service models feel alien to a generation used to conversational creators.
This episode of The Debrief explores what “worth it” means to Gen Z and how brands can earn it. Greater transparency on materials and craftsmanship, content that feels real rather than aspirational, and participation in the second-hand ecosystem will be critical to rebuilding trust and lifetime value with younger consumers.
Key Insights:
Gen Z are not tuning out of fashion, they’re interrogating it. As Takanashi puts it, “[Gen Z] are so savvy. They can just look up what the Louis Vuitton bag is made of and see it’s actually canvas… Should I really spend a thousand dollars on that? Is there an alternative?” The backlash is philosophical as well as financial. Kwon says there’s a pervasive idea that luxury conglomerates are just trying to squeeze as much profit as possible. “There is real ire and resentment among Gen Z around price hikes. I think we’re a generation that cares a lot about value for dollar,” she says. When the price, materials and narrative do not align, younger shoppers default to vintage, resale or opting out.
Price justification starts with transparency and proof. “Whether it's a thousand-dollar handbag or a $100 candle, you have to explain why luxury costs what it costs, that there’s this craftsmanship and heritage,” says Takanashi. But storytelling alone will not close the sale. “Even then, it’s just so hard to convince that customer that craftsmanship is worth the money. You also have to play into their cultural interests and what they’re passionate about.” That means moving beyond heritage talking points to show living communities, real processes and credible creatives who make the brand feel current.
Digitally native Gen Z want real content, not polished marketing campaigns. “Our generation grew up on YouTube, ‘how to build an outfit 101’ – that’s how we got our style advice, not from magazines,” says Kwon, which is why they still “look to influencers and social media for trend analysis.” The tone matters as much as the channel. Takanashi argues that content should “feel real, like an unboxing, not a glossy marketing campaign. … Something that just feels like anyone could make it.” The formats that win are lo-fi, conversational and useful, with creators who will praise and critique in the same breath.
Many first encounters with luxury now happen through second-hand, so brands need to embrace that ecosystem and give clear on-ramps back to full price. The product and the pitch must both feel meaningful. Kwon says Gen Z still wants “a very beautiful story” and to “feel like they’re a part of a movement.”Additional Resources:
Why Luxury Needs to Rethink How It Speaks to Gen Z | BoF The Great Fashion Reset | Can Designer Revamps Save Fashion? | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 24 Sep 2025 - 22min - 974 - Glenn Martens: ‘Social Media Has Turned Fashion into the Hunger Games’
Belgian designer Glenn Martens grew up in Bruges, studied in Antwerp and cut his teeth in Paris, where lean years taught him every role from pattern cutting to PR. At Y/Project, he turned constraints into modular, shape-shifting design. At Diesel, he reset the brand around its founding spirit of joy, cheekiness and denim, replacing muddled codes with a clear manifesto and democratic shows that speak to a global community. Now balancing Diesel with Maison Margiela, Martens argues that fashion should make people happy while resisting the dopamine churn of instant judgement.
“We are just consuming visuals and we don't really have the time to go deep into the clothes, the storytelling, the construction, where it comes from. It just needs to be like a hit. It gets a bit more superficial,” he shares with Imran Amed, BoF founder and CEO. “In 2025, a creative director has to be a socialite, has to be the king of social media and there's so many more things that all my colleagues and I have to do outside of that runway. The beauty of fashion is it's a process and it's a build-up and it’s not happening in one show – this is happening in three, four, five shows. So we need to respect that and celebrate that.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, Amed sits down with Martens to talk about learning every job in the studio, rebuilding Diesel around its founding values, as well as the pressure and possibility of this high-stakes season.
Key Insights:
Martens argues that the industry’s chase for quick hits has flattened nuance, yet he is determined to hold the line on depth and craft. “There is definitely a big part of me that loves to deep-dive into storytelling and construction, that likes to challenge construction and try to find new ways to create beauty and new ways to create clothes. I am very easily bored; I need to challenge myself. I love experimentation and that makes me happy.”
At Diesel, Martens began by reconnecting the house to its core DNA. “My biggest thing I did was resetting the whole thing and reminding everybody why Diesel was big in the first place. And I think that is something that is really important to never forget, that the success of a brand is the core reason why the brand is there and we should always connect to that and stay close to that.” He underscores the scale and breadth of the audience while keeping a unified voice. “We are so diverse in our markets, so we are basically talking to everybody. Every single person in the world could, in theory, be a Diesel person, but we do that with one message and with one collection.”
Martens is now continuing to turn the runway into a democratic platform that includes the wider community, not just the front row. “I think a fashion show for us is very important because it accelerates the awareness of the brand and the direction you want to go. [Diesel] is talking about democracy. It is at heart a lifestyle brand.” For Diesel’s Spring/Summer 2026 show next week, Martens is pushing shows into public space to meet people where they are. “The launch of that collection will be in the streets of Milan. It is going to be a three-and-a-half-hour egg hunt, showing the whole diversity of the town, and everybody can participate.”Additional Resources:
Glenn Martens | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Glenn Martens Has Come to Save Us | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 19 Sep 2025 - 54min - 973 - The Great Fashion Reset: Can New Designers Still Build a Business?
Department stores and major e-tailers once incubated new labels with consistent buys and patience; today those channels are shrinking or unstable. Social platforms still create viral moments, but conversion is patchy and fast-fashion copycats shorten the runway for hit products. Against that backdrop, some designers are rewiring distribution, tightening assortments and adding more accessible entry points, while cultivating closer, direct relationships with customers and specialty boutiques.
The stakes are high industry-wide: without a healthy pipeline of young labels, fashion’s creative engine risks stalling. On this episode of The Debrief, BoF correspondent Joan Kennedy joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to discuss how emerging designers are rebuilding their product pipeline around creativity to survive the great fashion reset.
Key Insights:
Multi-brand partners that once incubated emerging brands are now demanding instant results, just as e-commerce economics have worsened. As Kennedy puts it, “Wholesalers and retailers want to see performance from the get-go. There's more pressure to just be in a store, be slotted in, immediately perform. At the same time, we've seen e-commerce fall apart under the rising costs of everything.” The pressure is systemic: “These retailers are really under pressure. After a few decades of being willing to take more risks, investors haven't seen the return on that. So it's hard to blame anybody; it's just what fashion is going through right now.”
Visibility can soar while sales lag, creating a conversion gap designers must close with clearer paths to purchase. “Fashion has been this industry of smoke and mirrors, but in recent years that's been really exacerbated by the fashion hype machine,” Kennedy says. “It has led to this moment where designers have a lot of awareness on social media, not much of a business.” Many have “built these really big audiences online, [who] don't have ways to buy into the brand, or just don't buy the brand.”
Without dependable wholesale, labels are rebuilding their direct-to-consumer pipeline through smaller boutiques and sharper merchandising. “A trend I've noticed is that more brands are going back to the trunk shows and creating intimate moments with their shoppers,” Kennedy notes. “Specialty stores and independent boutiques have a very close relationship with their own shoppers, too. It's a little bit closer to demand and you can build a good relationship with the buyer there.” On product, brands like New York-based Area, known for its crystal-embellished clothing, are adding accessible entries: “They’re introducing this line of basics with little rhinestones on them. It’s just more fun dresses at a more accessible price point.”
As this fashion season unfolds, Kennedy points to creativity as the competitive edge. “The source of optimism is how evident the importance of creativity is to this industry and how key that is to fuelling sales and building good businesses,” she says. “You have to have a very specific product and focus your offering,” and remember that “if [consumers] are going to spend, they want to spend on something that means a lot to them and really stands out – something that is really unique.”Additional Resources:
The Great Fashion Reset | Is Fashion Failing Emerging Designers? | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 17 Sep 2025 - 21min - 972 - Edward Enninful on Moving From Editor to Entrepreneur
This week, former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, unveiled EE72, a media platform and consultancy which blends a print magazine, a “slow digital” publishing platform and creative agency which aims to tell stories across fashion and lifestyle through the lens of culture.
“EE72 for me is a combination of everything I've done in my career. It's really where I want to be now. I want to be free and be able to do whatever I want,” says Enninful. “I could have created something that was very avant-garde but I wanted something that anyone could pick up and feel welcomed. That was very important to me.”
Imran Amed, founder and CEO of The Business of Fashion, sat down with Enninful to discuss why he launched EE72, what it means to build a fashion media company at a time when both industries face existential challenges and how his newfound freedom informs his business strategy and creative decisions, from choosing a quarterly publishing cadence to selecting his first cover starJulia Roberts.
Key Insights:
EE72 is an opportunity for Enninftul to move away from the confines of Condé Nast. “I wanted it to be free and sort of be able to do whatever,” he says. That freedom extends to how he will publish: “I’ve not really listened to what was commercially viable. I always went with my instincts and somehow they paid off. … When we have something to say, we will say it. I call it ‘slow digital'. We’re going to learn, we’re not going to build something ginormous waiting for people to come.”
On his choice of Julia Roberts as the cover star of his first issue, Enninful says “Julia represents something that society really needs. She is one of the biggest movie stars in the world. She is outspoken, she's a real woman. For me, inclusivity was never just about race; for me it was [also] about age.Julia for me represents the invisible woman, women in their 50s who are being told day in and day out it's about youth. The first message that I wanted to put out there was that everybody's welcome regardless of age.”
Enninful is deliberately resisting an ad-driven kick-off for EE72. “I didn’t go around to any houses to ask for ads, because in my head it was clear what we needed to do, how we needed it to start. And of course, we’re going to grow and things are going to change,” he shares. “We’re going to be sitting here in a year’s time and you’re going to be saying, ‘why are there so many ads?’, but it’s the whole idea of growing organically.”
His advice for the next generation of editors is simple but pragmatic. “It’s easy for me to say follow your dreams, but practically, surround yourself with like-minded people. Surround yourself with people who can really help you when you’re down, because it’s going to be a tough journey,” he says. “It’s not easy. You don’t just get up and end up being a superstar. Learn from your mistakes. Try new things, because that’s the only way you’re going to learn. If you’re playing it safe your whole career, that’s a problem.”Additional Resources:
Edward Enninful | BoF 500Edward Enninful Launches Media and Entertainment CompanyEdward and Akua Enninful’s 72 Magazine To Star Julia Roberts on Debut CoverHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 12 Sep 2025 - 48min - 971 - The Great Fashion Reset: Can Designer Debuts Revive Luxury?
This fashion month arrives after years of post-pandemic boom giving way to a sharp slowdown in luxury demand. Weaker consumer confidence in China, pressure on aspirational shoppers and a wave of price hikes have left many brands struggling to keep momentum. To win back customers and justify higher prices, luxury houses are turning to new creative leadership. Runway debuts won’t provide complete solutions, but they will offer early signals of strategy, with some brands leaning into craftsmanship and heritage while others chase louder fashion moments.
Alongside executive editor Brian Baskin and senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young, luxury editor Robert Williams details why the real test will come in the weeks after the shows, when follow-through determines whether excitement lasts.
Key Insights:
Creative resets are a response to macro pressure and price inflation, not just consumer fatigue. “This isn't just about people being tired of the way fashion looks or the kind of designs a designer was showing us but maybe more about the wider context in which those designs exist,” says Williams. As prices climb, luxury houses need to add tangible value: “the prices for luxury brands have been hiked up so dramatically over the past few years, either the quality or technical craftsmanship … needs to be improved, or the creative.”
The role of the creative director is more constrained than ever before. As Williams explains, brands must excite new customers without alienating existing ones. “You can't necessarily count on the fact that if you lose an old client from the previous vision, you're going to be able to get two more because you've got something fresh and new.” Unlike in earlier eras, “brands that have tried to scrap their old business and just count on a new one coming in — they've been burned in recent years.”
Williams warns not to expect complete strategy blueprints on day one. “I don't think we're gonna get a fully realised vision for how any company plans to totally turn itself around. But there's certainly gonna be some hints,” he says. Some houses may skew to visible craftsmanship and codes, as Bottega Veneta has done under the new hand of Louise Trotter. Others must take a different route. “It will be quite interesting to see what Gucci and Dior do,” says Williams. “Celebrating heritage is not what anyone is looking for them to do in the current market.”
Some brands have had “one really hot day” but then consumers quickly lost interest, while others managed to “milk the content cycle for days and days and really make a big arrival,” says Williams. What matters next is sustaining attention: “Are they able to keep the excitement alive in the days and weeks following the runway show?”Additional Resources:
The Great Fashion Reset | Can Designer Revamps Save Fashion?Ready for Relaunch? Jonathan Anderson’s Dior ChallengeWhy Gucci Picked DemnaWhy Chanel Chose Matthieu BlazyHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 10 Sep 2025 - 34min - 970 - Special Episode: The Great Fashion Reset
After a post-pandemic high, the fashion industry is facing a hard crisis. Growth has cooled, prices have surged, quality is under scrutiny and aspirational shoppers feel shut out, all while macro uncertainty dents confidence.
The industry is focused on a slew of shows where new designers are set to debut their visions, but this will not be enough to break out its malaise. Over the summer, the BoF editorial team has been working hard on a series of articles breaking down the various challenges that are facing fashion, from macroeconomic challenges, to trust issues and yes, a creative slump.
This week on The BoF Podcast, BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed switches roles, inviting executive editor Brian Baskin to lead the conversation. Amed shares his views on one of the most consequential fashion seasons in years, with the luxury industry in a phase of deep reflection and potential transformation.
Key Insights:
Amed traces the industry’s current struggles to a mix of forces that have built up over several years. “You had external and internal factors in the industry that conspired to create what is now a perfect storm – where customers feel like they've been completely duped. The industry is operating in a way that seems stuck in a different era,” he says , describing the post-pandemic state of luxury with declining quality and rising prices. At the same time, he cautions against silver bullets: “I wouldn’t position this fashion week season as the season that's going to solve and change everything, because it's not. There's a lot more at work here.”
Brands must deliver top-tier quality while rebuilding accessible entry points, as relentless price hikes have made it nearly impossible for aspirational customers to buy in. “In a way, I think some brands have kind of poo-pooed the idea of that middle market customer,” says Amed. “There was a time when you could go into Bottega or Chanel and buy small leather goods at a price that was high, but not out of control. Now everyone's completely priced out.
To grow and still feel luxurious, brands must hard-wire quality and sustain a clear creative pulse. Using Vuitton as an example, Amed notes “even though they’re producing in huge volumes, the quality of what they execute is still impeccable. ... That is a requirement for any brand operating at that scale, at those price points.” But product alone isn’t enough: “What you can scale is a point of view. And it's the point of view at the very top that these designers are really responsible for. It's like you're creating an overall spirit and direction and energy.”
September’s slate of debuts could be an turning point for luxury fashion: “What I’m looking for is the energy. … You have three of the most creative designers in our industry – Matthieu Blazy, Demna and Jonathan Anderson – taking over three of the biggest, most important luxury houses in the world,” says Amed. “If that energy reflects the same kind of commitment, thoughtfulness, creativity, and taste that we've seen in those designers at their previous roles, then I think there is going to be a really meaningful inflection point this autumn.”Additional Resources:
The Great Fashion Reset | Editor’s Letterhe Great Fashion Reset | How to Fix Luxury’s Trust IssuesHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 05 Sep 2025 - 42min - 969 - What Went Wrong at Ssense
Ssense’s bankruptcy filing makes it the latest in a long line of online luxury retailers to find itself on the brink. In an internal memo, Ssense co-founder and CEO Rami Atallah blamed US tariffs for creating an “immediate liquidity crisis.” But as BoF correspondent Malique Morris details, the real damage pre-dated the latest trade shock: years of training a young audience to wait for markdowns, overexposure to the US market, and leadership inertia as luxury slowed industry-wide.
With hosts Brian Baskin and Sheena Butler-Young, Morris unpacks how Ssense won indie labels and cultural clout but dulled its edge as discounts became the default. They also explore whether Ssense can keep its cool factor while courting full-price shoppers, and which outcomes will best protect the fragile ecosystem of small brands that rely on the platform.
Key Insights:
Ssense’s strategy of serving younger, aspirational shoppers worked until markdowns became the main event, teaching customers to avoid full price and dulling the platform’s authority with brands. As Morris puts it, “Ssense has been really smart about targeting this younger, aspirational luxury consumer … but over time it turned into this cornerstone for luxury discounting online.” He continues: “It just became associated with being the sale place, which then curbs credibility with designers.” The business model that once drove growth ultimately undercut it.
Relying on a Canada-based warehouse feeding a majority-US customer base left Ssense acutely exposed to cross-border friction. Compounding the risk is the fact that it targets young, aspirational shoppers. “Those shoppers’ pockets aren’t bulletproof in an economic downturn,” explains Morris, so demand proved more fragile just as costs rose. Tariffs were the catalyst, not the cause, of pre-existing vulnerabilities.
Even as conditions worsened, decision-making lagged. “I think internally what’s happening is that they’re not acting fast enough to respond,” Morris says, adding that industry-wide pressures “have fallen onto them in a particular way.” Slow moves on initiatives like personal shopping and incubation left Ssense leaning further into discounts, accelerating the slide towards creditor protection.
According to Morris, a reset doesn’t require abandoning the brand’s cultural core; it requires focusing it. “What’s working well in e-commerce is having a niche and being clear in how you’re going to serve the best customers within that cohort,” Morris argues. “In my mind, Ssense needs to refine its niche and make sure that it's attracting the consumers who will purchase without the need for always-on sales. … There are shoppers in that Gen Z group, many of whom are almost 30, who have the pockets and the temperament to be seduced by curation and not by the fact the next Essence sale is going to ‘hit different’.”Additional Resources:
Ssense to File for Bankruptcy Protection After Creditors Push for Sale | BoF Ssense: What Went Wrong | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 03 Sep 2025 - 26min - 968 - The Best of The BoF Podcast: Clare Waight Keller on Finding Opportunity in Discomfort
Clare Waight Keller’s career in fashion has been defined by her versatility as a designer and desire to step outside her comfort zone. She started out specialising in knitwear at the Royal College of Art before taking on a role in knitwear at Calvin Klein, before moving on to Ralph Lauren. She returned to Europe to work at Gucci under Tom Ford, and then stepped into creative director roles at Pringle, Chloé and Givenchy. Last week, it was announced that she was becoming the creative director of Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, which is targeted at the masses, not the classes.
Seeing new challenges as an opportunity to learn and grow, has led Clare to make many unexpected decisions from the start of her career.
“Those moments when you are pushed to your boundaries and don't quite know how to navigate… bring a great sense of drive for me. I love the idea of being uncomfortable with what I'm working on because it makes me learn quickly,” she said. “I enjoy the process of change, and I guess that's why I've worked in so many different places.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, BoF founder Imran Amed sits down with Clare to discuss her varied career path and her experience working in American, Italian, British, French and now Japanese fashion companies and how this has shaped her outlook on the industry.
Key Insights
Growing up in Birmingham, England, Waight Keller was captivated by the vibrant subcultures she encountered. That influence led her towards art school, and eventually, fashion. “I distinctly remember standing at a bus stop, going to college, with punks, skinheads or goths — people who really expressed themselves through fashion and took it to a real sense of identity,” she said. “They just seemed like the most interesting people. I wanted to be part of that.”
After working for predominantly male creative directors, Clare felt it was time to express her own perspective, leading her to the creative director position at Chloé in 2011. “There's such a sensibility that women have in fashion because you try it on yourself, you wear it, you feel it,” she said. “I'm putting together what I believe to be my point of view of fashion."
Waight Keller’s move to Uniqlo marked a shift from working in the world of luxury to mass fashion, which has required some adjustment. “Understanding the scale was just extraordinary. In luxury fashion, you work on a much smaller scale, even at big brands,” she said. However, with this came new opportunities. “With that scale comes incredible access to innovation, amazing fabric mills, and quality.”
Even as her career flourished, Waight Keller came to discover the inherent gender bias women face in the industry. “It's still fairly male-dominated in management and across the business side of fashion ... I had to make my family work around my career because even a season out in fashion can put you back a year, and people look at you differently.” With that, her advice to fellow female designers is not to “be afraid of a challenge and having to learn on the ground."Additional Resources
Do Mass Brands Need Creative Directors? | BoF The Logic Behind Givenchy's New Designer Appointment | BoFUniqlo Appoints Clare Waight Keller as Creative Director | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 29 Aug 2025 - 52min - 967 - The Best of The BoF Podcast: Avery Trufelman on the Meaning Behind the Clothes We Wear
On her award-winning podcast “Articles of Interest,” host and producer Avery Trufelman dives deep into the stories behind the clothes we wear. From the evolution of prep to the origins of wedding dresses, Avery guides her listeners through the multi-faceted layers behind the aesthetics of fashion.
“It's crops, it's the earth, it's handwork, it's culture, it's society. You tug on a thread and you get everything,” she said. “That's what I'm slowly realising [about fashion].”
This week on The BoF Podcast, BoF founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed sits down with Trufelman to discuss her path into podcasting, taking her lifelong passion for clothes and what they mean into an audio format, and what she’s learned about fashion along the way.
Key Insights:
A self-proclaimed “public radio nepo baby,” Trufelman has audio in her blood — her parents met working at New York Public Radio. But while she grew up with audio, she didn’t start experimenting with fashion until she was a teenager, expressing herself through quirky thrifted fashion ensembles, much to the confusion of her peers. “I knew in the back of my mind that it was too much, that I was sort of alienating people,” she says. “It just made me realise how powerful clothing was. That dressing in this wild way sort of set me apart.”
Trufelman initially came up with the idea for “Articles of Interest” while interning at the design and architecture podcast “99% Invisible.” Presenting a fashion podcast to an audience more focussed on architecture, Trufelman began to see the ways in which fashion touched every facet of life. “In the beginning, fashion was sort of a dirty word for me,” she says. “Now it's all about fashion because everything has fashion. Buildings have fashion, cars have fashion, colours have fashion. Fashion is just taste over time and the most easy way to measure that when you look at a picture of any era, it's the cars maybe, but mostly the clothes.”
Four seasons into “Articles of Interest,” Trufelman now finds herself with a rich archive to draw upon. “I don't ever kill stories. I love to reuse interviews that I collected years ago. I'm always cutting them up and revisiting them because I believe that knowledge isn't like one and done. It isn't a single use thing. I believe in making this a long sustainable living archive.”
Trufelman also sees the parallels between podcasts and fashion in the ways in which both allow us to engage with the world. “People are listening to your voice while they're walking down the street and they're like noticing what people are wearing or they're noticing what people are doing. It's not undivided attention. It is divided attention. It's beautiful.”Additional Resources:
The BoF 500: Avery TrufelmanRalph Lauren is Traveling Back in Time to Bring Back Preppy ChicHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 22 Aug 2025 - 41min - 966 - The Best of The BoF Podcast: Francesco Risso Says Fashion Should Slow Down to Find Its Magic Again
Born in Sardinia on a sailing boat to self-described “adventurous” parents, Francesco Risso grew up in an environment that fostered independence, spontaneity and a deep need to create. After formative years at Polimoda, FIT and Central Saint Martins — where he studied under the late Louise Wilson — he joined Prada, learning firsthand how to fuse conceptual exploration with a product that resonates in everyday life.
Now at Marni, Risso continues to embrace a method he likens to an artist’s studio, championing bold experimentation and surrounding himself with collaborators who push each other to new heights of creativity.
“Creativity is … in the way we give love to the things that we make and then we give to people. I feel I don’t see so much of that love around,” says Risso. “We have to inject into products a strong and beautiful sense of making. That requires craft, it requires skills, it requires a lot of fatigue, it requires discipline.”
Risso joins BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed to explore how his unconventional childhood shaped his creative approach, why discipline and craft remain vital to fashion, and how meaningful collaboration can expand the boundaries of what’s possible.
Key Insights:
Growing up in a busy, non-traditional household, Risso learned to express himself by altering and reconstructing clothing he found in family closets. “I started to develop this need to make with my hands as a means to communicate,” he says. “I would find something in my grandmother’s closet, start to disrupt it and collage it to something from my sister’s wardrobe and we have a new piece.” This early experimentation laid the groundwork for his vision of and approach to design.
From Louise Wilson at Central Saint Martins to Miuccia Prada, Risso has absorbed the value of rigorous research, conceptual thinking and extended ideation. “You have to rely on your own strengths and your own capability to go and study, to go and research, to go and find your things,” he says. “That is key to me, to become a designer with a voice.”
Whether partnering with artists through an informal “residency” or collaborating with brands like Hoka, Risso insists that a great tie-up is never about simply sticking art on a T-shirt or rushing a gimmick. “Processes are about learning from each other … and that generates a body of work that then becomes either art or clothes.” His focus on genuine exchange expands the creative horizon for both Marni and its collaborators.
Risso’s advice to emerging designers is to appreciate the fundamentals of making in favour of more superficial aspirations. “I dare young people to be more focused on engaging with the making, rather than just projecting in the future,” he says. “A strong sense of making requires craft, it requires skills, it requires a lot of fatigue, it requires discipline.” This hands-on grounding, in his view, is essential for developing a lasting, meaningful design practice.Additional Resources:
Francesco Risso | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Exclusive: Inside Hoka’s Fashion Ambitions | BoFBackstage Pass | Marni and the Thread of Beauty | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 15 Aug 2025 - 1h 00min - 965 - The Best of The BoF Podcast: James Whitner on Culture, Community and Building Brands with Purpose
James Whitner — founder of The Whitaker Group and the visionary behind retailers such as A Ma Maniére and Social Status — reveals how culture, purpose, and empathy drive his approach to business. Whitner witnessed firsthand how marginalised communities often face limited options, shaping his commitment to serving communities typically overlooked by the fashion industry.
“I think what helped me understand life is difficult, it's just seeing a difficult life, right? Watching people struggle and seeing that there is privilege in pain,” says Whitner, about growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “When I look at what we’re creating now, it has purpose and is about standing up Black culture at the centre,” Whitner adds. “Everything is about real experiences and connections to people.”
This week on the BoF Podcast, founder and CEO Imran Amed sits down with Whitner to explore his journey, learn about the driving force behind The Whitaker Group’s community-centric retail experiences, and understand why authenticity and cultural connection are non-negotiables in today’s fashion landscape.
Key Insights:
Intentionality and human connection are integral to James Whitner’s approach to retail spaces. Rather than focusing solely on product or profit, he strives to shape how people feel and engage with his brands. “We want to be really intentional about how we make humans feel, our connection to humanity, and how we can build a community,” he explains, emphasising that empathy and shared purpose can help to forge vibrant, long-lasting communities.
Whitner also contends that building authentic connections starts with recognising the integral role of culture and purpose. “We sit in brand experiences and purpose because you can't leave culture out. I think everything we do is centred in culture,” he says.
A key to Whitner’s success is resisting the temptation to be “for everybody.” Instead, he focuses on aligning with partners who share his vision for serving specific audiences with integrity. “If you want to work with brands who want to be for everybody, that means you’re for nobody,” he explains.
Whitner champions an unwavering optimism that stays intact even amid shifting political headwinds. “We have to wake up and work and we have to be optimistic about the things that we can accomplish. If not, we've already lost because an administration change doesn't mean that my feelings around the work we're doing has changed and it doesn't mean that we can't be as impactful as we've always been.”Additional Resources:
Streetwear Maven James Whitner Launches A Ma Maniére’s First In-House Line | BoFWhere Are Fashion’s Black CEOs? | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 08 Aug 2025 - 40min - 964 - How Basketball Sneakers Got Their Groove Back
Performance basketball shoes have long been embedded in fashion culture, from the iconic Air Jordans of the 1990s to the stylised sneakers worn in NBA tunnel walks. But over the last decade, interest in basketball shoes waned as sneakerheads turned to minimalist silhouettes, running shoes and fashion collabs.
Now, a new wave of signature athletes, innovative design from emerging and legacy brands and growing energy around the WNBA are bringing basketball sneakers back into the fashion spotlight.
In this episode of The Debrief, BoF correspondents Lei Takanashi and Mike Sykes join hosts Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin to unpack what's changed, what's still missing and what the future might hold.
Key Insights:
Basketball sneakers lost momentum with consumers when design became too functional and aesthetics too uniform. "All the styles just seemed kind of homogenous... There wasn't much difference there," said Sykes. "If you're not going to give us anything that looks different or anything that's unique, then people are going to go back and look into the past." This lack of innovation pushed sneakerheads toward nostalgic retro styles rather than new performance models.
New stars like Anthony Edwards and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are reigniting interest in signature sneakers, not just through performance but personal style and personality. "He's got the bravado. He's like everything that you want from a signature athlete," said Mike of Edwards. "A lot of these new players... they have this grip on the culture," added Lei, referring to how their on-screen charisma and tunnel fits are helping bring basketball sneakers back to relevance.
The women’s game has long been rich in style and creativity — a fact the market is only now starting to catch up to. "Just seeing the creativity and the colour that has always been around the women's game when it comes to the sneakers that they've worn," said Mike. "It just makes it all the more disappointing... if we saw what we see today maybe five or 10 years ago, then the market right now would be completely different."
In the past decade, attention shifted away from professional athletes and toward celebrity collaborators like Kanye West and Travis Scott. That dynamic is beginning to change. "From a brand perspective, the athletes just weren't the interesting players in the field," said Mike. "And so now I think the brands are circling back around and recentering athletes in a way that I think we haven't quite seen in a long time."Additional Resources:
The Fashion Revival of Basketball Sneakers | BoFHow Soccer Conquered the US Sneaker Market | BoF Sign up to Mike’s newsletter - Sports by Mike D. SykesHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 06 Aug 2025 - 24min - 963 - The Jobs Fashion and Beauty Talent Want in 2025
In the five years since the pandemic, fashion and beauty workplaces have undergone seismic change. Amid mounting economic uncertainty, geopolitical instability and the ongoing climate crisis, a workplace reckoning is underway. Employees are re-evaluating what truly matters at work and for many, that means reassessing everything from their employers’ values to compensation and flexibility.
According to BoF Careers’ 2025 global survey of over 1,000 professionals in 74 countries, only 15 percent of respondents said they were satisfied in their current roles. Meanwhile, 45 percent are actively looking for new jobs and workers today are prioritising fair pay, career progression, flexibility, value alignment and transparency over legacy prestige or perks.
On this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks with BoF’s commercial features director Sophie Soar to explore what talent really wants today and what employers need to do to attract and retain the best.
Key Insights:
Employees don’t just want transparency; they expect it as a foundation for trust and progression. From salaries to promotions, clarity enables professionals to visualise their future and stay engaged. “Transparency allows people to see their career trajectory at a business, as well as really visualising their future there and what it will look like,” said Soar. “Maybe they don’t find that motivating, but it can also set clear expectations and goals for them to work towards.”
Hybrid work remains popular, but it’s not just about flexibility. Without visible leadership, the in-office experience falls flat and fails to deliver meaningful career support or culture. “If you are just providing a space that has a few desks and Wi-Fi, that is not creating the right kind of environment, the right set-up for community, as well as a comprehensive and effective working culture,” said Soar. “If you want employees to be back in the office, then leaders need to be there as well. They need to lead by example.”
While high-profile brands still appeal to candidates, they’re no longer enough on their own. Employees are increasingly prioritising ethics, compensation, and leadership over legacy status. “When we were asking individuals as a part of the survey to share which companies they would most like to work for within the fashion and beauty industries, leaders were quite often called out by name,” said Soar. “Lina Nair at Chanel and Brunello Cuccinelli, they were called out individually as being very inspiring to individuals and a very motivating reason to want to work at a company.”
As jobseekers increasingly rely on tools like ChatGPT to craft their CVs and cover letters, authenticity and personalisation are becoming critical differentiators. Top employers aren’t looking for generic admiration; they want thoughtful, tailored applications that clearly map experience to the role. “You kind of need to emphasise past the point of saying, ‘I love your brand, and it would be great if I could work at your brand’ – that is really not going to resonate with individuals hiring,” said Soar. “I would highly recommend making sure that if you're using this technology, you try and think about how you can put yourself into it.”Additional Resources:
What Fashion and Beauty Professionals Want From EmployersHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 30 Jul 2025 - 28min - 962 - Why Duran Lantink Refuses to Follow Fashion’s Rules
From a very young age, Dutch designer Duran Lantink has been fascinated by the transformative power of fashion.
His journey began in his early teens, culminating in his first runway show at just 14 years old. That collection, made from repurposed Diesel jeans and his grandmother’s tablecloth, was picked up by a local multi-brand store. And the rest is history.
Today, Duran is known in the industry for his playful experimentation, innovative collections and provocative runway presentations.
"I'm all figuring it out now. For me, I am just doing it step by step,” he shared. “Later on I really fell in love with this sort of non-conformative thing and I feel that the House of Gautier is very much about freedom and about culture and about bringing artists in and all these things and I hope the freedom and the possibility to really bring that in and really bring back that vibe from the late 80s or the beginning of the 90s and that really excites me."
In Paris, for his first ever English-language podcast, BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed sat down with Lantink to talk to him about his personal fashion journey, understand the source of his creativity and how he’s thinking about stepping into the role of creative director at an iconic fashion brand.
Key Insights:
Duran Lantink’s passion for fashion manifested early, culminating in his first runway show at just 14. Using repurposed Diesel jeans and his grandmother’s tablecloth, Lantink created a collection unexpectedly picked up by a local multi-brand store. "I think till now that has been my most commercially successful experience," Lantink jokes. But the moment was pivotal, crystallising his future path: "It probably was one of those moments where I really knew what I wanted to do in life."
Lantink's creative ethos has always revolved around repurposing and transforming existing garments. This distinctive approach initially met resistance in traditional fashion schools. "I've always been obsessed with cutting up clothes, mixing clothes," he says. At times, educators dismissed him, suggesting he might be better suited as "a stylist or artist," but Lantink remained unwavering: "I didn't really care. I just wanted to do what works for me."
Lantink's visibility skyrocketed after designing Janelle Monáe’s viral "vagina pants," but his industry breakthrough came during the pandemic with a drone-based fashion show. "I was finally able to reach a bigger audience because nobody could go anywhere anyway." The inventive showcase attracted support from influential industry figures, propelling his reputation internationally.
Taking on the creative directorship at Jean Paul Gaultier signifies a new chapter for Lantink. The opportunity resonated deeply with his creative philosophy and personal history. "It went back to where I came from, this obsession with nightlife and people dressing up," he says. Embracing the legacy of freedom associated with Gaultier, Lantink expresses excitement for the creative potential: "The House of Gaultier is very much about freedom and culture. That really excites me."Additional Resources:
Duran Lantink | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion IndustryExclusive: Jean Paul Gaultier Names Duran Lantink Creative DirectorHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 25 Jul 2025 - 43min - 961 - High Luxury, Cheap Labour: Inside Loro Piana's Sweatshop Links
The luxury industry trades on a carefully constructed marketing image, deeply linked to artful claims of exclusivity, craftsmanship, and impeccable standards. But a slew of Milanese court cases linking some of luxury’s biggest names to sweatshops on the outskirts of the fashion capital have sent uncomfortable shockwaves through the sector. Last week, LVMH-owned cashmere brand Loro Piana became the latest company caught up in the scandal. According to prosecutors, inadequate supply chain controls meant thousands of the brand’s cashmere jackets were made under exploitative conditions in illegal workshops. The scandals raise critical questions about luxury’s supply-chain integrity at a time when trust in the sector’s value proposition is already eroding.
This week on the Debrief, chief sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent joins Sheena Butler-Young to unpack the investigation and what it means for brands and consumers.
Key Insights:
Prosecutors in Milan argue that luxury brands’ links to local sweatshops are a feature, not a bug in the system. Companies are negligent in how they monitor their supply chains and routinely turn a blind eye to red flags in order to maximise profits they say. "The crux of these cases is that big luxury brands are not really doing their homework," said Kent. Brands caught in the investigation say they have strong systems of controls in place and that they have cooperated with authorities to understand where things went wrong.
Loro Piana, a brand long considered the pinnacle of luxury craftsmanship, is the latest — and perhaps most surprising — name to be swept up in the investigation. Renowned for its control over production and its sourcing of rare materials like baby cashmere and vicuña, Loro Piana sits in one of the most exclusive tiers of fashion, alongside labels like Hermès.
Brands caught up in the scandal have been placed under court oversight to ensure they tighten up their supply-chain controls, but the broader systemic issues revealed by the Milanese investigations have no easy fix. "There are deep-seated economic challenges for an industry that is still largely very fragmented, made up of mom-and-pop shops competing on a global stage with countries that have much lower labour costs," said Kent. Manufacturers are under intense pressure on price, speed and flexibility, conditions that have helped give rise to “a cottage industry of cut-price suppliers that are not meeting Italy's own labour laws," she said.
In the past, luxury brands have proved remarkably resilient to such scandals."What feels different this time is there is more jeopardy than there has been historically,” said Kent Hefty price increases over the past few years coupled with online complaints about declining quality are already fuelling a noisy debate about whether luxury brands are really worth the money. The sector’s alleged sweatshop links are “feeding into a bigger conversation that's already happening in a dangerous way,” said Kent. “This is not just a one-off scandal affecting one brand that can fade into the background.”Additional Resources:
How Loro Piana Was Linked to Labour Exploitation | BoF If You Can’t Trust Loro Piana, Who Can You Trust? | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 23 Jul 2025 - 24min - 960 - Jacques Marie Mage and the Transformative Power of Sunglasses
Jérôme Mage is the founder and creative force behind Jacques Marie Mage, the luxury eyewear brand known for its distinctive silhouettes, limited production runs and deep-rooted storytelling. Originally from the Auvergne region in France, Mage relocated to Los Angeles in pursuit of creative freedom and with a deep passion for California's outdoor culture.
His brand comes from a personal mission to reimagine luxury through the lens of collectibility, history and craft, starting with an obsession about sunglasses from a young age.
“When I was 10 years old, my brother was 15, he came back with a pair of Vuarnet in my house. … I've never really seen my brother with glasses before and I was like wow looks so cool,” says Mage. I think for a lot of people it is transformative. … We live in a modern world that can be quite intrusive. All day people’s lives are on display and I think it's very nice to hide behind a pair of sunglasses.”
With each design, Mage channels his vast array of influences — from American mythologies to Napoleonic tailoring and iconic personalities — and transforms them into expressive objects with enduring emotional power.
Hot on the heels of the brand’s latest retail opening, BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed sat down with Mage at his new gallery on Rue de la Paix in Paris to explore how he built a cult luxury eyewear brand rooted in rarity, storytelling and craftsmanship – and why having an outsider’s perspective is en his greatest creative strength.
Key Insights:
"My story is one of collectibility. That’s why I think people collect those glasses," says mage. A lifelong collector of everything from vintage eyewear to Napoleonic uniforms, Mage believes the story behind an object is what gives it lasting value. "Each pair of glasses needs to be charged up, infused with a story: a story of the past, but told in a modern way for a new generation."
Mage is critical of the contemporary luxury industry's shift towards mass production, emphasising that true luxury must maintain an inherent rarity. “I really wanted to return to a sense of rarity because for me there's no luxury without rarity – it's impossible," he says. Mage believes the current model, predicated on constant growth, is unsustainable. To resist that pressure, he committed to a deliberately complex and limited production model: "I did everything limited edition because it was almost guaranteeing me that I wouldn't fall in that trap."
For Mage, embracing the role of the outsider enables deeper creativity and more meaningful work. "If you accept that role of outsider, then you're able to have a point of view or create something that is more tangible, more unique, and that has more value," he says. "Because obviously you look at things from a different point of view than others. And that's a true quality in being an outsider." His advice to anyone who feels they don’t fit in? "Don't be discouraged. If you stick long enough with it, it'll become a great asset in life."Additional Resources:
Jacques Marie Mage | Latest news, analysis and jobsHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 18 Jul 2025 - 51min - 959 - Fashion Braces for Impact as Trump Tariffs Returns
After turning to other matters for a few weeks, President Donald Trump has reignited his aggressive tariff strategy, threatening sweeping new duties on key fashion-producing nations starting Aug. 1, as well as a fresh set of new levies on the EU, Brazil, South Korea and other trade partners.
On this episode of The Debrief, correspondents Joan Kennedy and Marc Bain join hosts executive editor Brian Baskin and senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to unpack how brands are reacting, where prices are headed, and why diversification may no longer be the solution it once was.
Key Insights:
Apparel prices in the US are finally starting to reflect the cost of tariffs. "We got the first bit of evidence that tariffs are actually having an impact on prices," said Kennedy, pointing to new CPI data showing apparel prices up 0.4% in June. "They're starting to rise because we're seeing inventory start to trickle onto shelves that are affected by these new duties." Bain added that shoppers are particularly sensitive: "It’s about managing perceptions... It’s why you see these brands putting out Instagram posts about tariffs and why they’re raising prices."
Supply chain diversification isn't working like it used to. Brands once counted on shifting production as a way to dodge tariffs. But now, alternative hubs are also getting hit. "It is kind of like a game of whack-a-mole," said Kennedy. "One of the countries that was expected to benefit was Brazil... but we've seen a new 50% tariff threatened on Brazil." Bain noted that brands are now being advised to build in redundancy. "It’s not just about finding another source. It’s having some layer of redundancy built in."
In response to rising costs and consumer fatigue, brands are reducing product variety and pricing selectively. Levi's, for example, announced they’re going to discontinue certain less popular styles during the holiday shopping season. Bain explained the logic: "If you know these are more sure bets, you’re less likely to have to discount them later... so as you're trying to offset the cost going up from tariffs, you can try to reduce your costs in other places too." Kennedy added: "We've seen brands get smart about where exactly they make these price hikes... like upping the price on a more fashion item, but keeping prices on staples stable."Additional Resources:
What Trump’s Latest Tariff Threats Mean for Fashion | BoFHigher Clothing Prices Are Officially Here | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 16 Jul 2025 - 19min - 958 - In Paris, Hellos, Goodbyes and Waiting For Creative Change
The latest fashion season marked a period of significant transition with new creative leadership taking centre stage at some of luxury’s biggest houses. Highly anticipated debuts at Dior, Celine and Maison Margiela set the tone for a new direction, while designers like Rick Owens continued to redefine the emotional and aesthetic parameters of fashion. At Balenciaga, Demna bid farewell to his iconic aesthetic, setting the stage for his upcoming tenure at Gucci.
Against this backdrop, BoF’s editor-at-large Tim Blanks and editor-in-chief Imran Amed discuss the realities of a shifting luxury landscape and the growing tension around pricing, accessibility, and the future structure of the luxury market.
Key Insights:
Jonathan Anderson's debut at Dior represented the start of a carefully managed transformation. "Dior is like a performance for him; J.W. Anderson is the real Jonathan," says Blanks. "I felt he was on a mission to manage expectations. He was basically saying, give me time." The conceptual collection served as an opening statement rather than a full evolution.
Rick Owens remains a source of creative independence and authenticity. "There is no compromise in what Rick Owens does. He is a beacon of hope," said Blanks. Amed also highlights how Owens' shows now offer a safe space that celebrates difference: "He's been talking about how he wanted to create a place where people who don't subscribe to conventional notions of beauty can find a place where they can fit in. It's always so remarkable at his shows and presentations because you can really see that all come to life."
Demna’s final Balenciaga show symbolised a deliberate departure from his signature aesthetic. "He said goodbye to his Balenciaga," said Blanks. Amed observed, “At Balenciaga, Demna needed to put more of his own codes into it. At Gucci, he has so much to work with.” With this pivot, Demna closes one chapter while preparing to reinterpret another legacy house.
Amid a challenging economic environment, luxury brands are reconsidering their pricing strategies. “Luxury always worked in this pyramid where you had very high-end customer spending at the top. That pyramid structure has been kind of bloated in the middle now,” explained Imran. Brands are being forced to reevaluate what “entry-level” really means. “They're thinking about what they can put at the bottom… the entry-level price points."Additional Resources:
Paris Couture’s Life and Lifelessness | BoFCouture’s Age of Experience, Experience of Age | BoF
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 11 Jul 2025 - 43min - 957 - How Fashion Learned to Love The Real Housewives
In nearly two decades since the first “Real Housewives” franchise debuted, reality TV has moved from the fringes of entertainment to become a major cultural force. Today, “Housewives” stars are influencing fashion trends, driving sales, and making inroads into luxury circles that once ignored them. Brands previously wary of the stigma around reality TV are now leveraging the passionate and loyal fanbase of the franchise, positioning these women as both influencers and aspirational figures.
Senior news and features editor Diana Pearl joins The Debrief to explore this evolution, uncovering how and why fashion has finally learned to love “The Real Housewives.”
Key Insights:
Reality TV's path from lowbrow entertainment to cultural staple can partly be credited to the Kardashians, whose acceptance by fashion opened the door for shows like “Real Housewives”. “The Kardashians, for a long time, were not embraced by the fashion industry, and then in the 2010s that started to change,” says Pearl. Even when the fashion industry hesitated publicly, its insiders were already hooked privately. “People started watching the shows themselves… That guilty pleasure has just sort of come out of the shadows,” Pearl explains.
Fashion has become integral to the storytelling on “Real Housewives.” What started as subtle displays of wealth, such as Chanel bags or accessories, has evolved into head-to-toe designer ensembles and full-blown fashion storylines. “They’re all decked out in designer looks and it’s like the designers play a role in the show. There’s plot points around, ‘This dress costs this much money,’ or ‘Did you buy that diamond necklace?’” Pearl says. “People are more into the Housewives’ clothes now. It’s just become much more a part of the fabric of the show.”
The demographics of the “Housewives” audience significantly overlap with those targeted by fashion brands. The fanbase, consisting largely of women and gay men, is aspirational, engaged and passionate about style. “People of all stripes like reality TV. Lots of luxury customers watch reality TV,” says Pearl. “If you want to connect with consumers, you have to meet them where they are.”
Despite increased acceptance, luxury brands remain cautious about fully embracing “Housewives,” partly due to cultural and geographic divides. “The Real Housewives is a very American show. A lot of the luxury industry is in Europe,” Pearl notes. Yet, she adds, embracing these stars can pay off: “When we've seen brands embrace the Housewives, I think the fans reward them for that.”Additional Resources:
How Fashion Learned to Love The Real Housewives | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wed, 09 Jul 2025 - 21min - 956 - Rachel Scott on the Sensuality of Craft
Rachel Scott, founder of Diotima, has built a reputation for bringing a nuanced portrayal of Caribbean culture to the global fashion stage. Drawing on her Jamaican heritage and global experience, Scott seeks to foreground overlooked craft traditions and champion a narrative that moves beyond exoticised tropes.
“Craft doesn't have an aesthetic. Craft is technique and execution,” Scott says. “There are endless possibilities, and on a conceptual level, I think that craft is the most intimate form of fashion. Because it is made by hand, there is this energy exchange. So I kept thinking about intimacy, sensuality and desire.
This week on The BoF Podcast, Rachel Scott sits down with BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed to discuss how she is redefining craft and advocating for a more inclusive design industry.
Key Insights:
Scott credits her global outlook to extensive travels during her childhood. "When I was younger, [my mother] was adamant not to take us to Europe because that was easy. So she would take us to Asia… and South America. I already had this grounding of a global perspective," she explained. Her extensive travels through Asia and South America particularly influenced her to view fashion as a form of communication: "I started thinking about clothes as language, especially because I was seeing these different perspectives and these different approaches to dressing.”
Scott seeks to foreground informal, yet globally shared, knowledge of embroidery and craft techniques. "I remember seeing techniques in India that I had seen in Jamaica… there is this global knowledge, but only one place gets valued," she says. This recognition inspired her mission to challenge the traditional valuation of craftsmanship. "It's almost like an oral tradition that exists that I wanted to find a way to elevate and present to the world," she adds.
For Scott, craft is inherently sensual and intimate. "Because it is made by hand, there is this energy exchange," she says. This philosophy underpins her creative approach, focusing on tactile and emotional connections: "I would receive the production of the crochet… I would open the box and feel this energy. There is spirit and there is something imparted from the person making it to the person wearing it.”
Scott’s advice to aspiring fashion designers is to challenge traditional expectations and timelines. "Fashion is really crazy… someone really small is judged on the same level as someone from a conglomerate," she explained, encouraging designers to embrace their unique journeys. "You don't have to abide by these notions of when you should do something, how you should do it… wait until you're ready and find your way."Additional Resources:
How Fashion’s Rising Stars Are Surviving the Luxury Slump | BoFDiotima’s Rachel Scott, Willy Chavarria Take Home CFDA Fashion Awards | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 04 Jul 2025 - 35min
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