The Debrief

For years, a coveted pair of Air Jordans could send sneaker fans into a frenzy. But when Nike brought back the black-and-blue Air Jordan 1 Royal this month, the response was muted — days after release, the shoe was still available in several sizes, with some pairs reselling below retail.

BoF correspondent Mike Sykes, who has been reporting on Nike’s search for its next big hit, joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young on The Debrief to break down what the tepid reception reveals about the wider company, and whether chief executive Elliott Hill’s pivot toward sport — in women’s basketball, running and recovery — can translate into lasting growth.

Key Insights:

• The muted reception to the Air Jordan 1 Royal exposes a deeper problem than one slow-selling shoe. “There is a very obvious downswing that has happened with… the most popular Jordan silhouettes, these retro Jordans that usually work,” Sykes says. “They don’t really know what it is that people want from them right now. The classic retro styles that worked five years ago, ten years ago just don’t work right now.”

• Nike is pulling back on Jordan drops to restore exclusivity, but Sykes doesn’t think supply discipline alone fixes the brand. “Scarcity is not the magic pill that will solve all the problems that Jordan Brand has,” he says. Virgil Abloh’s “The Ten” is held up as proof of what real cultural impact looks like — and how hard it is to manufacture on demand: “Nike could use another version of The Ten right now, but you can’t just pull The Ten out of thin air. That’s something that happens over time.”

• CEO Elliott Hill’s bet on women’s basketball and running is showing early signs of life. “With Nike basketball on the women’s side specifically, I think there is a lot of energy right now,” Sykes says of signature shoes for A’ja Wilson, Caitlin Clark and Sabrina Ionescu. Running, meanwhile, is up double digits — though far from uncontested: “I would categorise this as one of the bright spots, but there is a lot of competition in the marketplace.”

• Products like the Nike Mind 001 clog and Hyperice gear target the booming wellness category, even if the price tags give Sykes pause. “Would you buy a $250 pair of slides? Probably not,” he says. “But I think that every little bit counts for the space that the brand is in right now.”

• Asked for the one signal that would show Nike is turning a corner, Sykes points to resale. “The aftermarket shows me how much people actually covet these shoes,” he says. “And I don’t really see people valuing the brand a lot as it is right now.”

Additional Resources:

• Has Nike Done Lasting Damage to Jordan Brand? | BoF
• Nike Kicks the Can Down the Road Again | BoF
• The Debrief | Is Nike Finally Winning With Women? | BoF

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Fashion has long been obsessed with youth, treating young shoppers as both trendsetters and the engine of growth. Yet brands including Evereve, Ulla Johnson, Frances Valentine and Poppy & Peonies are finding opportunities in catering to women in their 40s, 50s and beyond, a demographic with significant spending power and brand loyalty that rarely features prominently in fashion campaigns.

On this week's episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and US editor Diana Pearl examine why brands are still afraid to make the older shopper the face of a campaign, what “multi-generational selling” actually requires, and how founders, sales associates and even a customer’s own social circle can become a brand’s most powerful marketing tool.

Key Insights:

• Young consumers may drive fashion’s cultural conversation, but older shoppers wield significant purchasing power. As Pearl puts it: “What [youth] don’t often have is the spending power... there’s so much discussion about how boomers are the wealthiest generation.”

• Brands will chase an older customer’s wallet but hesitate to put her face on a billboard. Pearl traces this to “a lot of ingrained misogyny in not just fashion, but in our society,” where women over 40 are seen as less interesting to market to — even though, she argues, “when [we] see older women who are chic, who are beautiful, stylish, who are successful, there’s an aspirational element to that.”

• The brands succeeding aren’t just targeting a specific age cohort— they’re building for mothers, daughters and grandmothers at once. “If you can sell to the mother, the daughter, the grandmother... that just gives you access to such a wide swath of consumers,” Pearl says, dubbing it a brand’s “superpower” because it builds “long-term loyalty and deep connection with the brand.”

• Long before the creator economy, community tastemakers shaped what women bought — they just weren’t on Instagram. “There’s always been that girl... who always had the best product recommendations, always knew of the hot new cool brands,” says Pearl. Those women, she says, were the nano-influencers of their time — holding “an immense amount of sway over their friends and their communities.”

• Many of the brands successfully courting older shoppers are founder-led, with personal connections playing a central role in building customer loyalty. For brands looking to replicate those relationships at scale, store associates can play a critical role. Pearl’s advice: “really educating... store teams, particularly store managers, and empowering them to empower their associates, to build those relationships.”

Additional Resources:

• Fashion’s Next Growth Opportunity Isn’t Gen Z | BoF
• Fashion Wakes Up to the ‘Silver Generation’ Opportunity | BoF
• Why Brands Cast Older Celebrities to Court Younger Consumers | BoF

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A $15,000 mechanical bird named Molly has become an unlikely flashpoint for retail. After pop star Kelly Clarkson accused Brooklyn boutique Art of Play of treating her “like Julia Roberts’ character” in Pretty Woman, the dispute ignited a much bigger debate about customer service, training and who bears the brunt of bad retail experiences.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by Jessica Kwon, who recently examined why poor customer service remains so pervasive across retail, and retail editor Cathaleen Chen, who spearheaded BoF’s coverage of the world’s best independent stores. Together, they explore why retailers struggle to get service right — and what it takes to deliver a better shopping experience.

Key Insights:

• Kwon connects the Clarkson incident to a longer pattern of retail profiling. “There’s a reason there’s this dedicated phrase, ‘shopping while Black’, that points to this phenomenon of Black customers being disproportionately scrutinized and surveilled,” she says, noting Oprah, Cardi B and Savannah James have all described similar treatment.
• Chen is skeptical of the theory that cold treatment drives luxury sales. “I personally find that very hard to believe,” she says, arguing the opposite is now true: “I don’t think that a true luxury shopping environment should make anyone feel intimidated or condescended upon.”
• For Chen, salaried-plus-commission models — like those at Elyse Walker — build loyalty because staff see a path up. “The CEO of Aritzia – she started at that company as a sales associate,” she says, tying good service to employees who “feel like they have a stake in the store.”
• Chen points to average tenures of five to six months as the real culprit behind inconsistent service. “It’s really not enough time... to soak up the culture of the brand and feel like you are a part of this environment,” she says.
• Kwon links pandemic-era social isolation to a generational shift in what good service looks like. “A lot of young people want to be left alone,” she says, adding that attentive service can now read as “a little obsequious.”

Additional Resources:

• Why Is It Still So Painful to Shop in Stores? | BoF
• The Best Fashion Stores in the World | BoF
• How to Build the Retail Customer Service Dream Team | BoF

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Fashion's biggest wave of creative-director musical chairs is now a year or so in, and the early read is starting to emerge. Over a dozen major houses have brought in new leadership, and while the broader luxury market is still sluggish, the areas designers can actually move — product, image, storytelling — are showing real signs of life. On a global scale, Chanel is seeing an immediate commercial payoff under Matthieu Blazy, Gucci looks to be stabilising under Demna, and at Dior, Jonathan Anderson's vision is starting to take shape.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by BoF's Chief Luxury Correspondent Robert Williams, who has spent the last few weeks on the ground in Milan and Paris covering the shows. Williams runs through the designer reboots at Chanel, Gucci, Dior, Celine, Loewe, Givenchy, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent — and separates the resets that are paying off from the ones still searching for a formula.

Key Insights:

• Williams calls Chanel's revamp under Matthieu Blazy the standout of the cycle, with sales up around 16 percent in the first half of the year. "It's very easy to understand, to digest. It's very visually him, it's very Chanel," he says. The house’s next challenge, Williams says, is balancing the consistency Blazy has established with newness and innovation: :"There needs to be some kind of a formula... at the same time, they need to always make sure they're investing in having new ideas."

• After a polarizing debut in February, Demna's September show for Gucci clicked. "He was able to bring what he's really good at, which is documenting the way people dress in real life," Williams says, though he's candid that the product left a bit more to be desired: "I'm not sure that the product has caught up with the vision... the collection still has a little bit of a ways to go."

• At Dior, Jonathan Anderson has sharpened the brand's image quickly, but the clothes are proving trickier to land. Where previous collections felt overcomplicated to some, he sees progress this season: "It felt more cohesive to me and it felt refreshingly just pretty."

• At Celine, Michael Rider has taken a more evolutionary approach to the house after Hedi Slimane. Williams says Rider has brought “something looser, more playful … a bit more of a focus on design.” Loewe’s JackMcCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, meanwhile, also resisted a wholesale reinvention after Jonathan Anderson: “They've managed to keep the brand pillars going, but rather than the focus being so much about innovation and intellect, they've moved it to the body, to the senses,” Williams says.

• At Balenciaga, as reports mount that Pierpaolo Piccioli could already be on the way out, Williams argues the house got its strategy inverted: "They kept a lot of the merchandising plan, but they changed the message, the values."

• At Saint Laurent, with Anthony Vaccarello reportedly exiting after nearly a decade of laser-focused vision, Williams calls it one of the most compelling stories to watch: As luxury fashion became obsessed with relatability and lifestyle, “Vaccarello was running in the opposite direction" The opportunity, and the risk, lies in broadening that identity: "How to build on that without upsetting the apple cart is going to be really risky but also hugely interesting to watch."

Additional Resources:

• Fashion’s Designer Reset (Kind of) Worked | BoF
• Luxury’s Mid-Year Review | BoF
• Has Demna Solved Gucci’s Identity Crisis? | BoF

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In 2024, Milan prosecutors uncovered sweatshop-like conditions within the Italian supply chains of major luxury brands, revealing that workers faced degrading living conditions, low pay, and 15-hour workdays. Nearly two years later, despite brands strengthening internal controls, increasing audits, and restricting subcontracting, labour groups report little fundamental change on the ground.

This week, BoF’s Sarah Kent and Sheena Butler-Young explore whether the luxury sector's response has addressed the root causes of this exploitation, or merely added layers of compliance to the same flawed business model.

Key Insights:

• Luxury’s supply chain problems are structural, not isolated. The 2024 investigations exposed more than a handful of bad factories. Kent says exploitative suppliers had become an “open secret” within parts of Italy’s manufacturing ecosystem, enabled by a fragmented supply chain and commercial pressure for low prices, speed and flexibility. “Everyone knows, no one tells because it is convenient to have them exist,” says Kent. “At its heart, when you really press people, they say it’s because of the price brands are willing to pay for products and the speed and flexibility at which they want them produced.”

• Brands have tightened oversight but audits are creating new pressure on suppliers. Luxury companies have increased inspections, consolidated suppliers and restricted subcontracting. But because each brand often uses a different audit system, manufacturers can face overlapping checks and conflicting requirements at a time when margins are already under pressure. “It’s a time cost, a financial cost, and a big burden to have this quite diversified system of audits that’s hitting suppliers at the moment,” Kent says.

• Despite tighter controls, there is little evidence that conditions have meaningfully improved for workers. According to Kent, labour groups report little change on the ground, while the luxury slowdown and falling orders are adding more pressure to manufacturers. “ From what I understand from labour groups, there is not a sense that a huge amount has changed on the ground, and I think that's partly because it's quite a complex situation that isn't only linked to luxury supply chains,” Kent says. Without changes to commercial practices that shape working conditions, improvements could remain limited.

• Compliance alone cannot fix the economics that helped create the problem. For years, luxury positioned craftsmanship, quality and responsible production as part of what justified premium prices. The investigations exposed significant blind spots in that narrative, particularly where brands knew which factories were producing their goods but focused on product quality rather than labour conditions. “It is very interesting to me that for luxury in particular, which has long spoken about issues of labour abuse or environmental degradation as being a fast fashion issue, to have such apparent blind spots when it comes to its own supply chain,” Kent says.

• Industry-wide solutions remain limited by fragmented standards and voluntary participation. Efforts such as the Milan Protocol aim to create common standards and a database of vetted suppliers. But participation remains voluntary and limited geographically, while brands have struggled to align around a single auditing framework. Kent questions: “If everyone’s not on it, and everyone’s not using it, and they don’t have to be on it and they don’t have to use it, how useful is it?”

Additional Resources:

• Has Fashion Fixed Its Italian Supply Chain Problems? | BoF
• Inside Luxury’s Italian Sweatshops Problem | BoF
• Is Luxury Finally Set for a Sustainability Reckoning? | BoF

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Fashion brands have long used cafes, restaurants and hospitality to sell a broader lifestyle. Increasingly, they’re looking to a less obvious partner: the gourmet grocery store. From branded smoothies and limited-edition tote bags to run clubs, labels are tapping destinations such as Erewhon, Happier Grocery and Meadow Lane to reach consumers in the course of their everyday routines. The draw is clear: these spaces sit at the intersection of food, wellness and community, while offering a highly-sensory environment for brand storytelling. But as more labels pile in, the challenge is making sure these collaborations amount to more than an expensive Instagram moment.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by BoF marketing correspondent Haley Crawford to discuss why fashion is moving into the grocery aisle and what brands need to do to get it right.

Key Insights:

• Tie-ups between gourmet grocers and beauty predate today's boom. Erewhon laid the groundwork with early influencer- and celebrity-driven partnerships — including Hailey Bieber's strawberry glazed smoothie in 2022 — while British handbag label Anya Hindmarch has made custom grocery totes for Waitrose and Daylesford for years. Now, Crawford says, "gourmet grocery has just grown so much that there's a much larger sandbox for brands to play in."
• Crawford is skeptical that grocers are fertile ground for genuinely new fashion products. The more successful tie-ups — like On's long-term Erewhon partnership, which paired a running shoe capsule with a run club and a co-branded recovery juice — use the grocer to market products the brand already has. "This is where brands might have more success than trying to force a raffia skirt that has nothing to do with the brand or the grocer," she says. "It really has to lend itself well to the universe of the grocery store."
• For most brands, Crawford says the value of these collabs is primarily top-of-funnel – offering marketers a path to connect with customers who may not be ready for a major fashion purchase If they're not ready to shell out $500 for a handbag, they can definitely afford a $15 smoothie," she explains. "That can be something of a revenue driver, but it more so gets them into the funnel and drives that loyalty and brand awareness."
• In many cases, brands are borrowing "wellness halo" from these stores, Crawford says. But she warns the format risks becoming generic as more brands pile in: "We've seen it with every brand launching their own café... brands need to be wary of that as they tread into the space so it doesn't just become another hot new trend that they're jumping on."
• The strongest partnerships hinge on genuine identity overlap and understanding a grocer's specific capabilities — whether that's Meadow Lane's ability to whip up custom menu items like a trout dip for Dairy Boy, or Happier Grocery's built-in cafe setup, which let fashion brand Nanushka import its own cafe concept to New York. Prada Beauty took a different route entirely, partnering with local design agencies to stage market takeovers in cities like Milan for its Prada Spring Market. . Crawford's takeaway: brands should ask "what can these grocers offer to me?" before chasing the trend.

Additional Resources:

• How Hotels Became Fashion's Most In-Demand Partner | BoF
• Erewhon Is Coming to New York With a Smoothie Bar | BoF

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Behind every luxury handbag, bespoke suit and couture gown lies an intricate value chain powered by skilled artisans. But as master craftspeople retire without successors, fashion faces a growing shortage of skilled workers — US tailoring employment has fallen roughly 30 percent over the last decade. Nordstrom, North America's largest employer of tailors, is funding tailoring programmes at FIT and Seattle Central College with another planned at ASU FIDM. The effort is aimed at rebuilding that pipeline at a moment when skilled trades more broadly are enjoying renewed interest from young people questioning the value of a four-year degree.

In this episode, Sheena Butler-Young is joined by BoF Commercial Features Editor Dan Hastings to explore why fashion’s skilled-trades pipeline has thinned, what the industry is doing to rebuild it, and whether rising tuition costs and anxiety around AI have created a new opportunity to sell young people on these careers.

Key Insights:

• As Hastings sees it, today’s shortage reflects decades of consolidation and the shift of more luxury manufacturing outside traditional fashion capitals. In his view, the industry failed to invest enough in training the next generation of skilled craftspeople, leaving many expert artisans nearing retirement with too few successors in the pipeline. The industry, he says, "kept the offices in the West... but we didn't really train that next generation of handicraft people.”

• Fashion has long heralded the creative director while overlooking the production side. Hastings argues the industry " venerates the creative director" as its "rock stars," while the people making the clothes remain invisible — a visibility gap that can be compounded, particularly in more junior roles, by pay that doesn’t always reflect the skill required.

• Apprenticeship programmes tend to cluster around established luxury hubs, leaving many young people unaware these careers are even an option. Hastings argues that interest is there when people know where to look: “It all comes down to knowing that these programmes exist.” But information about apprenticeships, scholarships and bursaries doesn’t always reach prospective workers.

• Short courses can make trade careers look deceptively fast to enter, but true mastery takes decades. Hastings notes that at some fashion houses, reaching the highest levels can require decades of experience, warning that for a generation “raised on instant gratification,” the long runway between entering the trade and reaching real earning power can be a tough sell.

• While AI may automate some patternmaking functions, Hastings insists it can't touch the artistry of haute couture. He recalls the tradition of embroidering a strand of hair into a Chanel wedding gown for good luck — “that kind of magic doesn't really happen with AI” — arguing luxury houses will have no choice but to keep investing in training if they want to justify their prices on craftsmanship.

Additional Resources:

• Can AI Ignite a New Generation of Fashion Tradespeople? | BoF
• Fashion's Craftsmanship Challenge | BoF
• Facing a Shortage of Luxury Artisans, LVMH Seeks Apprentices in the US | BoF

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For many shoppers, fashion is now experienced primarily through a screen — discovered on social media, watched on runway livestreams and purchased from a product photo. Fashion critic Eugene Rabkin argues in his new book that this shift has left the industry prioritising a garment's image over the garment itself, hollowing out creativity and quality along the way. At the same time, as AI generated imagery floods the feed, a counter-movement is emerging: luxury brands are commissioning painters and illustrators, hosting phone-free dinners and building hands-on experiences designed to pull customers back into the physical world.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by Diana Pearl, BoF's US Editor, and Marc Bain, BoF's UK Editor and technology correspondent, to discuss whether this renewed emphasis on human creativity and craft is a meaningful response to fashion's image-first culture — or just the next trend cycle.

Key Insights:

• As consumers increasingly interact with clothing through small screens rather than in person, Bain explains that subtler markers of quality have lost their power to communicate value. "As we interact more with clothing through imagery rather than the physical garments themselves, the logo becomes more important... Now the logo is just the easiest thing to identify. And that has become the most important thing on a garment."
• Drawing on a concept borrowed from French theory, Bain says the gap between a product's online image and its physical reality has left some shoppers disillusioned — a dynamic he says extends well beyond fast fashion. "It doesn't just apply to Shein..Eugene Rabkin's argument is that it's come to apply to a whole lot of fashion, including luxury fashion... There's been this decline in quality over the years."
• Bain says and Rabkin are careful not to cast technology as the villain, noting that AI's impact depends entirely on how brands choose to use it. " Technology is amoral. It's a tool..And it's really how it's used that is more important."
• Pearl points to a wave of luxury brands hiring painters, illustrators and sculptors as a direct response to overly polished, perfected imagery that technology has made ubiquitous — a trend only accelerated by AI. e. "Being perfect and having just this picture-perfect imagery is no longer seen as aspirational. It's actually seen as, ‘slop’ … having that human-made art... is what feels now aspirational and special."
• As brands pull back from influencer-driven content blitzes in favour of intimate, phone-free events, Pearl says the playbook for measuring success has changed. . "It's all representative of this bigger shift that we're seeing away from volume and just get as much content as possible... towards the depth of connection."

Additional Resources:

Is Fashion Stuck in Its Simulation Era? | BoF

As AI Floods the Feed, Fashion Marketers Tap Artists | BoF

Logging Off Is the New Luxury. How Can Brands Adapt? | BoF

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Beauty has long been one of the industry’s most reliable growth engines — fragrance boomed post-pandemic, prestige beauty held up better than other categories, and value-driven brands like e.l.f. proved that sharp pricing and marketing could keep consumers spending. But a slowdown that began last year and has only become more pronounced since has challenged that thinking.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by BoF senior beauty correspondent Daniela Morosini to unpack the first half's earnings across the beauty conglomerates — from Estée Lauder and Shiseido to L'Oréal, Beiersdorf and E.l.f. — and identify what’s still driving growth and what’s stalling, as well as what investors will be watching for next.

Key Insights:

• Selective Spending, Not Shrinking Wallets: Consumers haven't stopped buying beauty — they've become pickier about where they spend and what they’re purchasing. "People are just getting a little bit more selective," said Morosini. Shopping itself is shifting, too: "Maybe it's not always Sephora and Ulta. Maybe it's TikTok Shop."

• Skincare Results, Injectables and the Price-Value Equation: Affordable, results-driven skincare brands are outperforming, while medical aesthetics are surging in parallel. Morosini points specifically to "the derm-backed skincare brands or the dermatological brands, the more affordable ones like CeraVe and La Roche-Posay, alongside the growing pull of the lasers and the injectables."
• Hair's Unexpected Boom: Hair has emerged as one of the biggest bright spots this earnings season, driven equally by innovation and a cultural shift around hair loss. Morosini notes, "hair loss has just become so much more of a hot topic and I think a lot of stigma has been removed," while also crediting brands like K18 and Olaplex that “have increased what we expect hair products to do for us."

• Estée Lauder's Momentum Question: Lauder posted a 17 percent stock jump on its first results under new leadership, but Morosini cautions the win may be borrowed. "The question is how much has Estée Lauder improved its brand's desirability and how much has it benefited from a rising tide," she says, adding that stripped of Amazon Prime Day effects, US growth was closer to "about two percent."

• The Danger of the One-Hero Brand: From E.l.f.'s reliance on Rhode to Beiersdorf's dependence on Nivea, this earnings season exposed how a single hero product can mask underlying weakness. "When that's basically all concentrated around one brand, that makes investors a little bit nervous," Morosini says, noting the read-through for M&A: “At a certain point you have to buy the growth."

Additional Resources:

• Beauty Is Growing. Not Everyone’s Benefitting. | BoF
• Can Estée Lauder Turn a Moment Into Momentum? | BoF
• Beauty Is Betting on Fragrance. Why Isn’t Shiseido? | BoF

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For a long time, upcycling sat on the fringes of the fashion industry, a tactic used primarily by small independent designers, niche sustainability labels and in one-off capsule collections. That's changing. At Paris Couture Week this spring, Swiss designer Kevin Germanier closed the season with a collection made entirely from excess inventory across seven LVMH-owned brands. Coach is turning used denim into new bags, and Uniqlo is remaking unsellable and used garments under its RE label.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks to senior editorial associate Shayeza Walid to explore why upcycling brands are increasingly marketing upcycling through creativity and individuality rather than sustainability alone, and what's really driving the shift from new EU regulations to a changing consumer mindset.

Key Insights:

• Selling Creativity, Not Just Conscience: Walid points to a fundamental shift in how upcycling is marketed. It's no longer framed primarily as an environmental fix, but as a source of design distinction and story. "It felt like the term was becoming ubiquitous across marketing," she says, noting that upcycling has moved from something "relegated to a certain type of consumer or a certain type of brand" to being claimed by some of the industry's biggest names.
• Regulation Is Quietly Doing the Heavy Lifting: Walid connects the timing of the boom to the EU's ban on the destruction of unsold goods, which came into force in July. She notes that Kevin Germanier's LVMH-backed couture collection was deliberately built from unsold stock, not deadstock fabric — a distinction he emphasised on stage. "It also means that they'll have to figure out sustainable and approved ways for using their excess stock, and upcycling is one of the methods for that."
• Deadstock vs. Textile Waste — Not the Same Debate: Walid unpacks a live tension among practitioners: using deadstock fabric is being challenged by some critics as not addressing overproduction, since it still puts commercial value on excess production. "With deadstock, it's the same as using new fabric in the sense that they're rolls of fabric... that's not necessarily what upcycling is about," while brands like E.L.V. Denim work directly with used, discarded garments instead.
• The Infrastructure Is Finally Catching Up: Sorting, collecting and sourcing — the industry's biggest upcycling bottleneck — is improving. Walid cites organisations like Fashion for Good working on AI-assisted sorting, and platforms such as Nona Source and The Materialist connecting brands to deadstock fabric. "There's a greater design interest in it now more than there's ever been," she says of the shift she's tracked through conversations with suppliers.
• The Consumer Wants Range, Not a Label: Walid argues the audience for upcycled product has broadened well beyond the sustainability shopper. "You could have an upcycled Miu Miu product today, and maybe that says that you like high fashion... but also you think it's cool that your product is from an upcycled material," she says, describing a consumer who wants variety in their closet rather than to be defined by one aesthetic or ethic.
• Scale Remains the Unsolved Problem: Despite the momentum, there are limits. Sizing and colour inconsistency frustrate wholesale buyers, the process is inherently slower than working with virgin material, and export bans on used textiles in countries like Bangladesh complicate sourcing. She also flags that upcyclers in the Global South — in markets like Kantamanto in Ghana — have done this sort of work for generations but remain largely excluded from the value chain brands are now building.

• Additional Resources:
• Why So Many Fashion Brands Are Upcycling | BoF
• Why Fashion’s Economics Work Against Sustainable Brands | BoF
• Can the EU Ban on Destroying Unsold Goods Actually Work? | BoF

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For years, follower count was the clearest shorthand for a creator's value — more followers meant more reach, more brand deals, more money. But social media doesn't work that way anymore. TikTok's For You page, Instagram's suggested posts and other algorithmically curated feeds mean creators can reach huge audiences without those people ever following them. At the same time, affiliate marketing platforms like LTK and ShopMy are giving brands a much clearer picture of who actually drives sales, with smaller creators often outperforming bigger names.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young talks to BoF US Editor Diana Pearl about how brands and creators are rethinking the value of an audience, and where creator value is headed next.

Key Insights:

• A huge following no longer guarantees cultural weight. Pearl points to the gap between raw numbers and actual impact: "You look at someone like Dixie D'Amelio, who has almost 54 million followers on TikTok... but I would not say [she is] as culturally relevant as someone like Alex Earle, who has not even 9 million followers on TikTok."
• New platforms have made it possible to see exactly who is driving sales, not just who has the biggest audience. As Pearl explains, "ShopMy really changed that — they offer brands a lot more insight into which creators are actually driving sales, even if they're not running a paid partnership."
• TikTok's For You page and Instagram's suggested posts have done more than any other shift to break the link between followers and visibility. "Those are the two primary factors that have really diminished the importance of follower count," she says, "because you can have someone with 300 followers who goes viral."
• The single most important quality a creator can build today resists easy measurement. "Trust is the number one most important thing that an influencer or creator can curate today," Pearl says, "and that trust is not something that can necessarily be measured by metrics on a spreadsheet."
• Chasing every viral trend is a losing strategy — consistency is what builds a durable audience. "Playing the long game is really the best strategy," she says. "Staying true to who you are — that's how you build that community. That is how you built that trust in that community."

Additional Resources:

• Why Follower Count Matters Less Than Ever | BoF
• Not All Creators Convert. Here's How to Find Those That Do. | BoF
• From Hype to Discipline: The New World of Influencer Marketing | Case Study | BoF

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For much of the last decade, fashion brands and retailers were fixated on making shopping as seamless as possible — endless product online, algorithmic recommendations, next-day delivery. But after years of digital sameness, something more analogue is starting to feel exciting again. That shift sits at the heart of BoF's new retail package, The Best Fashion Stores in the World — an insider's guide to 65 independent retailers spanning from Brooklyn's Ven. Space to Dongliang in Shanghai, Alara in Lagos and Dover Street Market.

BoF retail editor Cathaleen Chen joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to discuss why independent retailers are becoming more important to shoppers, brands and the wider fashion ecosystem, as well as why the ritual of engaging with fashion IRL is more important than ever.

Key Insights:

• Chen says the list's three pillars — curation, experience and partnership — were designed to reflect more than consumer taste. Partnership, she explains, addresses "the support and the responsibilities that all retailers have to the fashion ecosystem," at a moment when department stores have earned a track record for not paying vendors and multi-brand retail has been reshaped by the collapse of players like Matches and the struggles of Net-a-Porter.

• With e-commerce solving for intent-driven shopping, Chen argues stores now win on discovery. As she puts it: "If you know exactly what you want, you shop online. If you don't know what you want, you shop in stores." She adds that the best shopkeepers add value "not just discovery for new brands" but new ways of styling — an eye that "allows designers to sort of view their collection in new eyes" in a way social feeds may fall short,

• Per wholesale data from the platform Joor, independent retailers' share of transactions rose from 49 percent in 2020 to 62 percent in 2025 — meaning independents "now make up the majority of transactions in wholesale" on the platform, a significant insight even when accounting for the caveat that it reflects one marketplace.

• The list includes retailers in Ibiza, Hangzhou, Cairo, Cartagena and Kuwait City — a deliberate move beyond fashion's traditional capitals. Citing a conversation with Kallmeyer founder and chief executive Daniella Kallmeyer, Chen notes that regional boutiques may be " even more important than the larger international stores because they're able to penetrate these outer-tier markets," which represent white space for fashion, rather than lesser opportunity.

• The appeal of independent retail is fundamentally about a different mindset: casual discovery and "bopping around the neighbourhood," which Chen calls "the opposite of online shopping, where I know exactly what I want.”

• Asked to name the one quality that will define the best stores for the next decade, Chen didn't hesitate: "I think conviction is what makes these doors so special, and ultimately what makes them so successful today" — pointing to Ikram Goldman's boutique, Ikram, in Chicago, and her famously intimate client relationships as the clearest example.

Additional Resources:

• Why Independent Retail Is More Important Than Ever | BoF
• The Best Fashion Stores in the World | BoF
• The Debrief | Why Some Retailers are Ignoring the Internet | BoF

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What makes a fashion or beauty company a truly desirable place to work? BoF’s second annual ranking of the industry’s most sought-after employers looks beyond brand recognition to examine what workers value — and where companies’ reputations do not always sync up with employee experience.

In this episode of The Debrief senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks with junior commercial writer Eoghan O’Donnell and commercial features editor Dan Hastings about the companies that topped the list, the factors shaping employees’ choices and the challenges facing employers today. They also discuss career development, leadership, workplace stability and how artificial intelligence is changing fashion jobs.

Key Insights:

• The conglomerate stability draw: Amid market volatility, candidates are gravitating toward European luxury conglomerates and beauty giants. Chanel, Hermès and Dior topped the fashion list, while L'Oréal Paris led beauty, ahead of Dior Beauty and Charlotte Tilbury. Their appeal lies partly in perceived stability and career longevity. Founder-led brands including Charlotte Tilbury, Rhode, Victoria Beckham Beauty, Fenty Beauty and Rare Beauty also made the beauty top 20, driven more by product and creative vision than corporate scale.

• Prestige recruits, it doesn't retain: Iconic brand names remain powerful recruitment tools, but employees consistently rank pay, career progression and company culture as their top three priorities — even as prestige tops their stated reason for choosing a dream employer. The disconnect is measurable: only 28 percent of current workers say their employer's external reputation strongly aligns with their day-to-day experience, and among those who perceive a gap, 80 percent plan to leave within 12 months. "Prestige attracts talent, but it's not necessarily what retains it," says O'Donnell.

• The ivory tower effect: Of all cohorts surveyed, C-suite and HR respondents were the least likely to say their employer's external image differed from internal reality — the group best placed to close that gap is often the most disconnected from it. A Glassdoor and Indeed review analysis (December 2024 onward) of the top 10 companies in both rankings surfaced consistent complaints about workload, benefits, and disconnects between store-level management and headquarters. "There is a [difference] between having a prestigious brand name and working for a brand that doesn't necessarily deliver a healthy workplace," says O'Donnell. "

• The generational AI divide: Sentiment on AI splits sharply by seniority, not by digital fluency. Workers over 40 are the most AI-optimistic cohort — not Gen Z, as employers might assume — while 39 percent of fashion workers and 35 percent of beauty workers say they want AI training they haven't received. A small but notable share admitted using AI at work without disclosing it to their employer.

• The "job lock" threat: Many employees are staying in roles for economic security, not satisfaction. "We know that some employees are staying in roles because of economic uncertainty rather than that sense of genuine satisfaction," says O'Donnell. Hastings sees the same pressure building from the other direction: "I don't think [Gen Z] are willing to sacrifice their [salary], paying the rent, and eating on the altar of working for a prestigious fashion or beauty company — and that will create a lot of friction within the industry."

• Women's health is the next battleground: In survey responses skewing majority-female, respondents voiced urgent, largely unmet demand for egg freezing, menstrual leave, and support through perimenopause and menopause — benefits nearly absent from current employer offerings in two female-dominated industries.

Additional Resources:

• The Most Desirable Beauty Companies to Work for in 2026 | BoF
• The Most Desirable Fashion Companies to Work for in 2026 | BoF
• The Debrief | Making Sense of Fashion’s Brutal Job Market | BoF

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Fabric content used to be a niche sustainability conversation. Now it's a mainstream health one, driven by the same scrutiny shoppers already apply to what they eat and put on their skin — searches for "natural fibre" are up over 100 percent in five years, and searches for "what is viscose?" have climbed roughly 5,000 percent in the US over the same period. Gap found out just how fast that shift can turn into backlash when its nostalgic Zac Posen knit drop — 80 percent polyester, 20 percent elastane — drew comparisons to fast fashion within days of launch, despite carrying a premium, above-$100 price tag.

In this episode of The Debrief, Sheena Butler-Young and Shayeza Walid unpack why natural fibres have become a health obsession rather than a values debate, why "natural" doesn't automatically mean sustainable, and whether polyester can ever really be dethroned.

Key Insights:

• Health Is the New Driver: The conversation used to centre on durability and value; now it's about wellness. Walid explains that shoppers are "instead of just talking about durability and value... starting [to go] more into this health conversation," adding that clothing has become "this final frontier" for the same scrutiny people already apply to food and skincare.
• Gap's Zac Posen Knit Became a Cautionary Tale: The backlash wasn't really about one sweater — it was about price and expectation. Walid notes the item retailed above $100, so "the disappointment was... doubled down on by the fact that this is supposed to be like a premium level of Gap." As she puts it, "people are [now] associating price with natural fiber."
• Natural Doesn't Automatically Mean Sustainable: Walid is blunt that the "natural equals good" framing oversimplifies things: "natural does mean that it might have a higher carbon footprint," she says, pointing to methane from grazing cattle for wool and the water intensity of cotton. Her summary: "anything that's derived from nature... naturally has a higher environmental footprint because it's from the earth."
• Different Generations, Same Shift: Motivations diverge by age, but the direction is the same. Gen Z shoppers are driven by "value signaling" around climate, Walid says, while older shoppers are asking "how can I live a healthier, better life?" Her takeaway: "you're seeing it across different age brackets, but the end result is this shift."
• Polyester Isn't Going Anywhere Soon: Despite the backlash, Walid says synthetics remain entrenched, especially in performance wear. "It's cheap... it is subsidized by... the oil lobby," she says, and its "malleable qualities are so unique to itself that it's very difficult to replace." Bio-based elastane is emerging, but only at pilot scale.

Additional Resources:

• Why Consumers Are Ditching Polyester for Natural Fibres | BoF
• Sustainable Fashion’s New Marketing Angle Is All About Wellness | BoF
• Wool Workout Clothes? The Demand Is Growing | BoF

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For decades, institutions like Central Saint Martins, Parsons and Institut Français de la Mode have launched some of fashion's most successful careers. But, today's graduates are entering a more competitive industry grappling with slower growth across the board, where AI is changing how work gets done and employers are reassessing the skills they need.

This week, BoF Careers features editor Dan Hastings joins Senior Correspondent Sheena Butler–Young to examine how fashion education is evolving alongside a rapidly changing industry — and whether those changes are enough to prepare students for today's job market.

Key Insights:

• Fashion graduates are entering a far more competitive industry. With thousands of graduates competing for a limited number of entry-level roles, breaking into fashion is arguably becoming even more difficult than it was just a decade ago. According to UCAS data, the UK alone now offers over 200 bachelor's-level fashion courses, with cohorts running from single figures up to roughly 50 at institutions such as Central Saint Martins and the London College of Fashion. That points to close to 5,000 new fashion design graduates a year, entering a job market that, in Hastings's words, “is not ready for that number of young graduates” — and competing not only with each other but with the backlog of graduates from previous years who haven't yet found work.

• Financial barriers persist. Despite some progress, Hastings describes many fashion students continuing to work unpaid internships to gain much-needed experience while struggling to afford tuition, housing and other college expenses. It’s structure that, he says, often “excludes people from working-class backgrounds, even if now they have access to fashion degrees.” UK student loans widen access to the degree itself, but not to the unpaid work experience that increasingly follows it.

• Prestige still opens doors. Hastings says some of fashion's most prestigious schools continue to offer a route into the industry's most sought-after roles—but not because of the name on the diploma alone. Their value lies in the combination of rigorous creative training, selective programmes and sustained access to industry professionals. As examples, Hastings points to schools like La Cambre in Brussels, whose highly selective programmes and graduate shows, he says, continue to attract attention from leading luxury brands and recruiters. He also highlights institutions like IFM in Paris, where close industry ties and scholarship support help connect students with the wider fashion ecosystem. As Hastings puts it, "when you have a foot inside the door, you can really connect with really amazing people."

Additional Resources:

• Paris' New Super-School Aims to Rival Central Saint Martins | BoF
• How Fashion Schools Court Industry Talent | BoF
• How Fashion Schools Are Tackling AI’s Blind Spots | BoF

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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?

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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 Start

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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?

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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 | BoF
• When Taste Is All Over TikTok | BoF

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