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In 2016, the global retail landscape was dominated by successful direct-to-consumer (DTC) disruptors like Everlane, Glossier, Allbirds and Outdoor Voices. Backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, they prioritised rapid sales growth and hyper-aggressive social media customer acquisition over immediate profitability.
In this episode, senior news and features editor Diana Pearl joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to explore why the once-dominant DTC formula ultimately unravelled — and how a quieter, lesser-scrutinised class of brands, such as Doên, Hill House and Staud, built more durable businesses by taking a different path.
Key Insights:
A faltering DTC playbook faltered : IIn 2016, fashion's direct-to-consumer boom was fuelled by venture capital. Well-funded startups spent heavily on creative agencies, polished brand identities and social media advertising in pursuit of rapid growth, while largely rejecting wholesale. But as customer acquisition costs climbed and digital marketing became less effective, many brands discovered that bypassing traditional retail wasn't the sustainable advantage it once seemed.
Brand before scale: Having a strong aesthetic is key to the equation. . “Being very defined with your aesthetic and your point of view, you can then take that and apply it to a bunch of different categories,” says Pearl Direct consumer selling can be a good way to control brand identity but wholesale remains a critical avenue for brand awareness and discovery. 'It’s not that direct- to-consumers can't work, you just need to build up that brand identity,” says Pearl. “I think a lot of these big 2016 names went wrong by raising so much money without [the brand identity].”
The value of being small and growing slow Limited capital forced many of these brands to stay disciplined with inventory, giving them time to understand what customers actually wanted before making bigger bets. While frequent sell-outs weren't ideal, they were often less damaging than excess inventory that required markdowns and eroded profitability. The result was a stronger feedback loop between brands and their customers and quicker pivots.“When products sell out, you get to see what your customers are really resonating with versus if you're just advertising on social media in order to grow sales,” says Pearl. Community over customer acquisition : Rather than relying on expensive paid marketing, many of these brands built loyal followings through authentic relationships with creators and customers. Early influencer partnerships grew alongside the brands themselves, creating trust and awareness that proved more durable than simply buying reach through social media advertising. “Additional Resources:
For These Brands, Resisting the DTC Playbook Paid Off Glossier’s New Strategy: Fewer Stores, Fewer Products The ‘Nap Dress’ Propelled Hill House to $110 Million. What’s Next?Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Luxury's post-pandemic boom is over. Growth has slowed, shoppers are pushing back on years of price increases and many brands are struggling to convince customers they're still worth the premium. Drawing on BoF's 2026 State of Luxury report — which includes a survey of more than 2,000 affluent consumers in the US and China, alongside interviews with industry leaders — BoF editors Mimosa Spencer and Robert Williams explore what's driving luxury's reset and what it means for brands.
They unpack why heritage, craftsmanship and logo power are no longer enough to justify premium prices on their own, and why emotional connection, creativity and exceptional retail experiences have become increasingly important to today's luxury shopper. They also discuss what brands need to do to rebuild excitement, restore value and win customers back.
Key Insights:
Emotional Matters More Than Heritage: Craftsmanship, heritage, and logo power are still important, but they are increasingly seen as table stakes rather than the ultimate selling point. After years of price increases, luxury shoppers are looking for brands that spark excitement, feel culturally relevant, or offer a more meaningful emotional connection. As Spencer explains, this shift is deeply tied to a broader consumer weariness: "Luxury fatigue has been a real problem. Shoppers are tired of price hikes. They're tired of things costing more when... the product hasn't actually changed." Luxury Shouldn’t Feel Like a Chore: Luxury brands once built exclusivity through long queues, appointment-only access, and other barriers to entry. Today, shoppers expect premium service to feel effortless, requiring brands to balance accessibility for aspirational consumers with absolute privacy for Very Important Clients (VICs). The traditional mechanics of high-end retail are fast becoming liabilities; as Spencer observes, "Once you've peaked somebody's interest, you've gotten your audience, you want to be able to serve them right away. Don't make them go through hoops. Don't let them wait in line. None of that is appealing anymore."Different Meanings in Different Markets: While emotional connection remains key across both major economic engines, how that plays out is heavily influenced by geography. In China, luxury consumption is closely tied to external self-expression and social recognition—even through understated "quiet luxury". In the US, shoppers are more likely to prioritise personal taste, self-reward, and alignment with a brand's values. Explaining this cultural divergence, Williams notes that "historically there is a stereotype that conspicuous consumption and very obvious signifiers of luxury are what are gonna perform much better in a country like China, [but] you have a really strong success for certain brands there that have a much more discreet or understated approach."Navigating the Spectator Divide: Luxury brands are increasingly catering to two distinct groups: transactional store clients who buy products, and digital audiences who engage with brands strictly through fashion content. The challenge is turning online attention into meaningful retail engagement without losing either audience. This structural shift requires brands to balance commercial conversions against the growing weight of pure spectatorship. As Williams notes, "There is a real issue in fashion right now with spectatorship and the idea that lots of people are just as happy to consume images of fashion than to actually go buy it. We're compulsive consumers of imagery in our culture today."Additional Resources:
The State of Fashion: Face-to-Face with Luxury Clients | BoF
Chanel’s Bruno Pavlovsky on Reengineering an Iconic Brand | BoF
Haute Couture and High Jewellery Take the Paris Stage | BoF
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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 Street The 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.
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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 Why Every Fashion Brand Thinks It’s a Sportswear Label Now The Reign of Leggings Is Over. What’s Next?Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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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.
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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 Fit Novo Nordisk Looks Beyond Weight Loss to Longevity and Aesthetics At Wellness Resorts, Ozempic Becomes Part of the MenuHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Debrief podcast is taking a short break and will be back in 2 weeks.
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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.
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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.
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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 AI The Fashion Marketer’s Guide to AI Why Revolve Can’t Stop Talking About AIHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 | BoFWhy Fashion Doesn’t Talk About How It Uses AI | BoFWhy Revolve Is Embracing Brick-and-Mortar | BoFHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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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.
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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.
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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 spiraling oil prices is showing up differently across the supply chain and in 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.
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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.
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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.
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