The Business of Fashion Podcast

Vestiaire Collective is one of the leaders in the fast-growing fashion resale segment. Earlier this year, in its latest round of funding, the luxury resale platform achieved a valuation of $1.7 billion. Max Bittner, Vestiaire Collective’s CEO, attributes this success to a number of factors, including ease of transactions, pandemic-driven closet clean-outs and shifting consumer values. But he also acknowledges the challenges that lie ahead as Vestiaire Collective scales, particularly when it comes to verifying the authenticity of products in the face of ever-more sophisticated counterfeits. Bittner’s insights are featured in the fifth episode of The BoF Show, now streaming on Bloomberg Quicktake. Here, we share the full interview with Bittner, exclusively on The BoF Podcast. Watch the fifth episode of The BoF Show, “Resale: Inside the $130 Billion Secondhand Fashion Market” Explore the new report from BoF Insights, “The Future of Fashion Resale” here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The CEO of the online peer-to-peer marketplace believes the platform’s ability to connect people sets it apart from typical fashion e-commerce. In June 2021, online marketplace Etsy announced plans to acquire Depop for $1.6 billion. The move was yet another sign of growing interest in the burgeoning fashion resale market, which according to BoF Insights, is now worth $130 billion globally. CEO Maria Raga describes Depop as “combining elements from Instagram and eBay”. The platform is skewed towards lower-priced product exchange between younger traders, almost all of them 26 and under. Raga believes that it’s Depop’s community aspect — facilitating not just online transactions, but also person to person interactions — that attracts these all-important Gen-Z shoppers. Raga’s insights are featured in the fifth episode of The BoF Show, now streaming on Bloomberg Quicktake. Watch the fifth episode of The BoF Show here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marjorie Hernandez and Karinna Nobbs are the co-founders of The Dematerialised — a Web 3.0 marketplace for authenticated virtual goods, which they describe as “the digital department store of your dreams.” They’re part of a new wave of pioneering entrepreneurs challenging the luxury status quo and creating a new reality for fashion. In the fourth episode of The BoF Show, now streaming on Bloomberg Quicktake, they share their thoughts on gaming culture and the metaverse — and explain why they believe virtual fashion will revolutionise the industry as we know it. Here, we share the full interview, exclusively on The BoF Podcast. Watch the fourth episode of The BoF Show, “Dematerialisation: Why the Metaverse Is Fashion’s Next Goldmine” Explore the new report from BoF Insights, “The Opportunities in Digital Fashion and Avatars” here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ledger’s Chief Experience Officer explains how — and when — fashion should tap into the NFT gold rush, as featured in the fourth episode of The BoF Show, now streaming on Bloomberg Quicktake. Ian Rogers moved to Paris from Silicon Valley in 2015 when he was appointed Chief Digital Officer of LVMH, acting as a digital whisperer to C-suite luxury executives. Today, as Chief Experience Officer of Ledger — a security system that provides protection for digital currencies — he is uniquely positioned to speak to the opportunities being created as crypto technologies, gaming and fashion converge. His insights are featured in the fourth episode of The BoF Show, now streaming on Bloomberg Quicktake. Here, we share the full interview with Rogers, exclusively on The BoF Podcast. Explore the new report from BoF Insights, “The Opportunities in Digital Fashion and Avatars” here. Watch episode 4, 'Why the Metaverse Is Fashion's Next Goldmine' here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sinéad Burke refuses to be excluded, despite fashion’s poor record on welcoming people with disabilities. In a wide-ranging interview, featured in the third episode of The BoF Show, Sinéad reminisces on her fashion journey — from calling out the industry for entrenched behaviours, at BoF VOICES in 2017; to advising luxury brands as Founder & CEO of consultancy “Tilt the Lens”. Here, we share the full interview exclusively on The BoF Podcast. Watch the third episode of The BoF Show, “Belonging: The Business Case for Diversity in Fashion” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2020, Samira Nasr became Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar, the first-ever woman of colour to hold the position in the magazine’s 154 year history. The appointment, whilst joyful, also prompted tough reflection about racism and responsibility. How can a business based on exclusivity throw its doors open to all? Nasr’s insights on what real inclusion looks like in fashion — and her hopes for the industry as it emerges from the pandemic — are featured in the third episode of The BoF Show, now streaming on Bloomberg QuickTake. Here, we share the full interview with Nasr exclusively on The BoF Podcast. Watch the episode three of The BoF Show, “Belonging: The Business Case for Diversity” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We’ve been expecting you…” In Paris, everything is prepared for the return of big-spending tourists. Stores are open, mirrors shined, brand leaders bullish that the global capital city of luxury remains irresistible. But when BoF founder and CEO, Imran Amed connects to Angelica Cheung in Beijing, she sounds a caution. For 16 years, Angelica was Vogue China’s Editor-in-Chief. Today, she’s a venture partner at investment leader, Sequoia Capital China. She tells Imran that Chinese customers used to travel to Paris for choice — which they can now find at home; for price — yet prices are now balanced around the world; for “Made in France” — yet they’re increasingly proud of “Made in China”. Her insights on what it’s going to take to lure the Chinese back to the City of Light are featured in the second episode of The BoF Show, now streaming on Bloomberg QuickTake. Here, we share the full interview with Cheung exclusively on The BoF Podcast. Watch the second episode of The BoF Show, “Re-Invention: How Fashion’s Megabrands Will Adapt to Post-Pandemic Customer Behaviour” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the Transforming Luxury podcast series, as we discussed market dynamics, product strategies, customer experiences, emerging technologies, new retail channels and our imminent entry into the metaverse, the pressing need and increasing demand for systemic change to create a more sustainable industry was a consistent theme. In this final episode of Transforming Luxury, a special six-episode series presented by Klarna, we confront the distinct uncertainty and disruption facing the luxury industry and us all, as a result of the climate crisis. In 2020, BoF reported that the fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions range from an estimated 4 percent to 10 percent of the global total. Without significant intervention, the industry will not align with global goals to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Failure to do so is predicted to have catastrophic consequences for civilisation, outlined in the UN’s IPCC report 2021. However, if bold enough leadership is willing to reimagine how the industry operates, equipped with the deep pockets of market leaders and further enforcing the existing, rigorous quality controls already in place, luxury would be " uniquely positioned to transform itself,” as stated by SVP of supply chain innovation at the Savory Institute, Megan Meiklejohn. To hear more about the role sustainability must play throughout the luxury goods industry, BoF gathered four global authorities to discuss how luxury can become more responsible with host Robin Mellery-Pratt. Follow the series to ensure you never miss an episode and discover actionable insights into the opportunities and challenges a redefined industry will bring and how luxury’s transformation will impact your business. Sign up for BoF’s Daily Digest newsletter. For comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail: [email protected]. For all sponsorship enquiries, it’s: [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For fashion aficionados of a certain age, the name “Thierry Mugler” throbs with memories of showgirl spectacles cast with extraordinary beauties and weirdos, garbed in looks of an other-worldly glamour. Such was their alien dazzle that there are times in this more prosaic era when I wonder if they ever really happened. Fortunately, there is now ample proof of their existence at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where Thierry Mugler: Couturissime is on display until April next year. It’s been on a world tour since it first opened in Montreal in 2019, but its homecoming was significant enough that Mugler sat down to talk about it, and everything else, for The BoF Podcast. And, being one of those fashion aficionados of a certain age, I was slightly awestruck.Mugler turned his back on fashion at the millennium, reclaiming his first name Manfred and devoting himself to costume design for the likes of Cirque du Soleil. He dressed Beyoncé's 2009 world tour. But the only fashion outfit he has designed in the past two decades was the “wet look” dress Kim Kardashian wore to the Met Gala in 2019. It apparently took eight months to make. Mugler had never seen her TV show, but when she walked into the room — not a word to anyone else, never a smile or a handshake — he said, “It was love at first sight.” He saw her body as that of “the original female, an antique goddess.”It’s clear what kind of woman has always attracted and inspired Mugler. In his fashion heyday, it was Iman and Jerry Hall who embodied his very particular aesthetic. “Fashion needs a great animal to wear it,” he told me. He photographed his clothes on those women, draped over the Art Deco eagles on the Chrysler Building in New York, posed against massive Saharan sand dunes and Arctic icebergs. They were dressed like superheroines but Mugler made them small against the monumental backdrops. “It looks like they’ve been dropped from another planet,” he says now. “That was the idea.”He claimed he wanted to help people find something strong in themselves that they could bring into their real lives. That’s why he loved photographing the acrobats and circus people he worked with after his fashion life. And, talking to Mugler, I sensed that struck a chord for him too. Metamorphosis was always a theme. The natural world was an obsession. “When you look up close, the gorgeous creatures on our planet are so out of this world.” In his couture, he never used fur, or rare feathers, or exotic skins. “I don’t want to torture animals for that,” Mugler said.That sensibility made him an outlier in fashion at the time. He was often criticised. Now, it simply looks like his radicalism was ahead of its time. Mugler embraced queer culture, showed men and women in exactly the same clothes, was open to experiment of all kinds. His queer peer Jean Paul Gaultier offered a similarly idiosyncratic humanist vision, couched in the most extreme style fashion could offer. Look back at their work now and I defy you to deny their status as totems of a golden age in fashion.Obviously, Manfred and I had a very busy podcast. Reeling out of the exhibition, head spinning with extreme visions of accomplishment (memorably celebrated in a bizarre, funny Iman-Bowie video), I had questions. Hopefully, you’ll find the answers when you listen. But one thing that stood out was Mugler’s obsession with technique. He tracked it back to his early days, when his ambition was to be a ballet dancer. “I learned at the barre how you can do nothing without technique,” he said. And his greatest points of pride related to that: personally, the body he has built for himself; professionally, his perfume Angel, a battle he waged for years with fragrance industry orthodoxy. It’s still a global top-five seller. There is supreme vindication in that, as there is in Couturissimeand clothes which will boggle minds for centuries to come. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The metaverse — a term originally coined by the author Neal Stephenson in his sci-fi novel ‘Snow Crash’ — is now widely used to describe how our physical realities will be augmented and overlaid by ambient and accessible digital experiences and services. Luxury’s entrance into the metaverse was expedited by many brands’ leverage of new technologies to speak to consumers when lockdowns removed physical interactions in bricks-and-mortar stores and in-person events. But the impact of virtual and augmented reality on consumer behaviour preceded 2020: Forbes reported in 2019 that 40 percent of consumers were willing to spend more on a product they can experience through augmented reality technology first. From stores that guide you from the street to luxury items designed exclusively for the smart glasses that every major tech platform is working on, the future of luxury is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed. Follow the series to ensure you never miss an episode and discover actionable insights into the opportunities and challenges a redefined industry will bring and how luxury’s transformation will impact your business. Sign up for BoF’s Daily Digest newsletter. For comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail: [email protected]. For all sponsorship enquiries, it’s: [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After the conclusion of Paris Fashion Week — the first in-person version of the event since the pandemic took hold in early 2020 — BoF’s editor at large Tim Blanks sat down with BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed to discuss his reflections on fashion’s return to the runway. Designers appeared to come out of lockdown with renewed energy, breathing new life and ideas into their collections. Highlights included Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe collection, Extinction Rebellion’s talked-about moment during Louis Vuitton and the week’s finale, a tribute to the late Alber Elbaz. Still, Blanks said that he doesn’t believe fashion has seen the full effects of the pandemic just yet. “I think in a sense everything changed and we haven’t processed it yet,” he said. “It’s going to take a long time.” On the latest episode of The BoF Podcast, Amed and Blanks explore what fashion learned from its break. Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe show leaned on the surreal to expand upon the designer’s previous pandemic-era collections and experimented with new themes. It also marked a departure from previous runway show set ups; this year’s show was staged in a bare-bones space that highlighted Anderson’s sculptural silhouettes. “Of all the designers that we’ve followed so closely, his response to the pandemic was perhaps the most creative,” said Blanks. “I think it was maybe his best show for Loewe.” The Simpsons’ surprise appearance at Balenciaga also provided some levity to the week, with an abbreviated episode of the hit cartoon featuring characters walking in a Balenciaga show. Demna Gvasalia also explored themes of distance with a screening replacing a traditional runway show. Even without the Simpsons’ star power, Demna showed a collection that excited buyers and critics alike, particularly in bags and accessories. Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion brought about what was perhaps the most talked-about moment of fashion week. During Louis Vuitton’s runway show, an activist stormed the runway carrying a banner that read “Overconsumption = Extinction”, prompting a discussion on if the industry has changed at all during the pandemic. “Maybe the system hasn’t changed, but the people who work in the system have been changed, and that’s maybe going to change the way the industry interacts,” said Amed. Related Articles: In Paris, Back to Normal or Not? Demna Gvasalia: ‘Couture Is The Most Sustainable Way of Consuming’ Fashion’s Favourite-Ever Collaboration: Balenciaga and ‘The Simpsons’ Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, the channels that consumers can now use to connect with brands to elicit a range of interactions have multiplied, dramatically. With major new platforms emerging all over the world, the retail networks utilised by luxury brands are evolving at an unprecedented pace to include a huge number of customer touch points — each a distinct opportunity for growth but requiring an idiosyncratic strategy for success. Due to mobile-commerce and social-commerce, when, how and why a consumer transacts with a brand has been reimagined entirely. The linear paths to purchase with which we are so familiar are being replaced by new conduits that combine digital content with customer-centric retail strategies to make transacting as engaging, enjoyable and instantaneous as possible. There is one region responsible for the lion’s share of retail innovation: China. The engine of the luxury industry’s growth for decades is now the epicentre of the most significant retail innovation in the market. From buy now, to swipe up, unboxing to bounce houses, KOLs, KOCs, shoppable video, live streaming, digital clienteling, resale sites, marketplaces, macro and micro influencers — luxury’s retail channels have been reimagined at scale. Now, that innovation is beginning to shape global retail strategy. Follow the series to ensure you never miss an episode and discover actionable insights into the opportunities and challenges a redefined industry will bring and how luxury’s transformation will impact your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The revival of Balenciaga’s long-dormant couture collection was the most anticipated event of the July 2021 haute couture season, and the first since the house’s namesake, Cristóbal Balenciaga, shuttered his salon in 1968. BoF’s founder and CEO Imran Amed was granted exclusive pre-show access and sat down with Gvasalia for a wide-ranging interview which is featured in the first episode of The BoF Show, now streaming on Bloomberg QuickTake. Here, we share the full interview with Gvasalia exclusively on The BoF Podcast. Watch the first episode of The BoF Show, “Disruption: Is Luxury Fashion ready to Change?” Related Articles: Disruption: Is Luxury Fashion Ready To Change? The Fate of the Physical Runway Show Chanel’s Last Virtual Fashion Show? Why Big Brands Are Skipping Fashion Week Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In recent decades, the race to attract and retain customers saw dizzying amounts of money spent on clienteling — the industry term for building a 1 on 1 relationship with customers. Today, for major players of scale with the resources to invest in it, successfully digitising personalised in store service, which generates much high conversion rates through recommendations and experience, is being looked to as a key driver of future competitive advantage. Indeed, the luxury service revolution is now rooted in creating a single customer view, enabling businesses to guide an individual consumer to the products and services it offers that match their specific needs. An opportunity that stems from significant shifts in generational attitudes towards data sharing and its use. Follow the series to ensure you never miss an episode and discover actionable insights into the opportunities and challenges a redefined industry will bring and how luxury’s transformation will impact your business. Sign up for BoF’s Daily Digest newsletter. For comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail: [email protected]. For all sponsorship enquiries, it’s: [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In recent decades, the race to attract and retain customers saw dizzying amounts of money spent on clienteling — the industry term for building a 1 on 1 relationship with customers. Today, for major players of scale with the resources to invest in it, successfully digitising personalised in store service, which generates much high conversion rates through recommendations and experience, is being looked to as a key driver of future competitive advantage. Indeed, the luxury service revolution is now rooted in creating a single customer view, enabling businesses to guide an individual consumer to the products and services it offers that match their specific needs. An opportunity that stems from significant shifts in generational attitudes towards data sharing and its use. To discover what this means for the future of the luxury goods industry, BoF spoke with three global authorities to share their insights. Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the CEO and co-founder of Klarna. In 15 years, Siemiatkowski has grown Klarna into one of Europe’s largest financial institutions, which provides alternative payment services to over 90 million shoppers, partnering with over 250,000 retailers globally and its own direct-to-consumer shopping app. “The whole purpose of digitalisation is utilising data to create value. It’s the information that allows us to create richer experiences. If you sit down and have a [...] conversation with a consumer and you say, ‘yes, you are in control of what data is being shared and you have full transparency, and if you then would be willing to share some specific aspects of your data in order to get a better experience, a better price, a better whatever it might be,’ then the answer is always going to be yes.” Holli Rogers is chair of renowned concept store Browns and chief brand officer of its parent company, Farfetch. Rogers quadrupled Browns’ business while CEO between 2015 and 2021. Previously, Rogers held roles at Chanel and Neiman Marcus before joining Net-a-Porter as a founding member in 2002. “In the past as everything has been separate and disparate in terms of the different technologies. When you speak to different businesses everyone talks about, ‘yeah, I’ve got a client telling app. We use WhatsApp.’ But actually if you break it down, none of them are connected one to the other. So you don’t get a single customer view. It’s this idea of how do you pull all of these pieces together in one space, collecting all of these hundreds of data points that allow you to give the customer what they want when they want.” Melissa Morris is the founder and designer of Métier, an independent leather maison best known for its logo-free handbags, travel bags and accessories. Prior to launching Métier in 2017, Morris studied sculpture and business at Emory University before working for Armani, Helmut Lang and Belstaff. “The bespoke aspect of our business is such a great way for us to deepen our relationships with our clients and also get a really clear understanding of what’s missing in the assortment and gives me a clear direction on what to make next. What I’ve found is when I’ve gotten one bespoke request, what’s good for one is good for everyone. So a lot of our bespoke requests that I’ve been brought into the line have turned out to be big successes.” Follow the series to ensure you never miss an episode and discover actionable insights into the opportunities and challenges a redefined industry will bring and how luxury’s transformation will impact your business. Sign up for BoF’s Daily Digest newsletter. For comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail: [email protected]. For all sponsorship enquiries, it’s: [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fashion system has been broken for some time, said trend forecaster Li Edelkoort at VOICES 2016. But, it can still regain its cultural cachet, and fix its exploitative practices. When trend forecaster Li Edelkoort first published a manifesto called “Anti-Fashion” in 2015, people across the fashion industry told her that her critique had finally put how they felt into words. “Fashion is old-fashioned,” said Edelkoort. But she believes the system can evolve to fit today’s reality and regain the cultural value it has lost over the years. On the latest episode of The BoF Podcast, we revisit Edelkoort’s talk on the BoF VOICES stage in 2016. Her prescient ideas have only become more urgent and applicable in 2021 as the world emerges from a pandemic that forced the industry to further reevaluate its systems, values and place in society. Fashion’s tendency towards individualism, which sees the industry place near-exclusive focus on the creator, doesn’t fit with today’s society, which is “hungry for consensus and altruism,” said Edelkoort. The problem stems in part from fashion schools, which, for the most part, have not updated their curriculum to reflect the current issues plaguing the industry. The race to the bottom regarding prices is destroying fashion’s cultural value as well as harming garment workers. “How can a product that needs to be sewn, grown, harvested, combed, spun, knitted, cut and stitched, finished, printed, labeled, packaged and transported cost a couple of euros? It’s impossible,” said Edelkoort. As a starting point, she suggested implementing legislation on minimum prices. The retail experience also needs to be reinvented to be more focused and better presented to consumers. Edelkoort points to Dover Street Market, whose curated approach sets it apart from traditional department stores. “Everything we do is from the 20th century. Even concept stores and online commerce were from the last moments of the 20th century,” said Edelkoort. Related Articles: Chasing the Holy Grail of Circularity Brands Face New Pressure on Labour Rights The Green Global Age of the Information Revolution Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Episode 2 of Transforming Luxury, BoF’s new podcast presented by Klarna, we investigate what will inform the luxury product mix of the future.Indeed, the definition of a luxury good has expanded dramatically in recent years to now include a host of disruptive new categories, from the luxury sneakerhead culture that dominated the past decade, to collectibles, curios, NFTs and even some mass produced products capturing attention in the luxury market.Evolving consumer sentiment is also increasingly influencing luxury’s manufacturing process. Today, customers demand brands and businesses authentically represent global cultures in a way that serves the communities themselves and not the industry’s shareholders. They also hold brands accountable for the impact of their supply chains and production processes. Yet, workers’ rights was among the worst-performing categories in BoF’s Sustainability Index.To discover what this means for the future of the luxury goods industry, BoF assembled four global authorities to share their insight.Aaron Levant is an entrepreneur working at the intersection of fashion, culture, events and media. Levant co-founded streetwear and music festival ComplexCon, and streetwear trade show Agenda Today, Levant is CEO of NTWRK, a mobile-first video shopping platform — backed by Drake and LeBron James — that hosts events and exclusive, limited-edition product drops available to purchase immediately within its app.“For the last hundred years, luxury was easily defined as European couture — fashion houses who own the luxury space — and now, seemingly newer brands not only create luxury in their own right, but then collaborate with true luxury brands. I think the definition around luxury is ever evolving as for who fits in that category.”Zerina Akers is an American fashion stylist and costume designer. She is the founder of the self-funded e-commerce site Black Owned Everything and has worked as Beyoncé Knowles Carter‘s stylist, as well as costume designing the 2020 visual album, Black Is King, for which she won an Emmy in 2021.“Generally, many of these companies have benefitted from rap culture and imagery that we’ve created for them. We’ve created so much marketing for these companies and I’m just hoping that there continues to be real, sustainable change for them in the way that they shine light on our community.”Bethany Williams is a UK-based menswear designer with a focus on affecting social change. She founded her namesake label in 2017, won the Queen Elizabeth II Award in 2019 and the British Fashion Council and British Vogue Designer Fashion Fund in 2021.“For me, luxury is about having a product that you don’t feel guilty owning. Luxury is about beautiful craftsmanship and the slowing down of the manufacturing process, working with artisans and supporting local community projects.”Fewocious is the youngest artist ever to be featured by Christie’s — and the first to crash its site. He is one of the most successful and visible members of a growing community of crypto artists finding success in the NFT market, launching a shoe collaboration with design studio RTFKT earlier this year, with more than 600 pairs selling out in seven minutes and netting around $3.1 million.“With the NFT space, art can move. You can interact with art. There’s programmable art, you can programme layers so that someone can change how your art looks [...]. There’s so much I probably don’t even know about yet, just because you can kind of do anything and figure out a way to attach an NFT to it, which I think is so rad and the future.”Follow the series to ensure you never miss an episode and discover actionable insights into the opportunities and challenges a redefined industry will bring and how luxury’s transformation will impact your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The world is in the middle of an information revolution, and it’s a situation, economist Carlota Perez says, we’ve been in before. Capitalism resets every few decades, and follows a familiar pattern: An investment frenzy boosts new technologies that change how people live and interact, but when that craze eventually collapses, it leaves behind social upheaval and resentment.To stop that cycle, this time, Perez says on the latest episode of The BoF Podcast, we need to deliberately disassemble society’s most harmful systems and ingrained beliefs so that every country and every person is included in the sustainable future of the earth.“We can shape the Information Revolution into a green golden age,” said Perez. She added that the fashion industry has a huge role to play, saying, “It’s up to you to reinvent what we understand by fashion… and it’s up to you to rethink, reinvent, redesign.”That reinvention and redesigning means interrogating what wealth, well-being, and pleasure are — and untethering those ideas from physical things. Perez joined Imran Amed last year at VOICES, BoF’s annual gathering for big thinkers, to discuss what needs to happen to harness the information revolution to become more sustainable and inclusive.Globalisation is happening, but it needs to be reworked to include all people and nations. Until now, globalisation has seen businesses chasing lower costs, and has been concentrated in Asia. “We need to discover what each area of the world, what each country can do, and re-invent, but with consensus — not just with government deciding but working together with business to re-conceptualise each bit of territory, each city,” says Perez.Both individual lifestyle changes as well as government action are required to create a greener, more sustainable future — which benefits businesses and the whole of society, not just the one percent. “We need to work together… Every golden age has been a win-win... with the government staging the game,” says Perez.The fashion industry needs to stop perpetuating a cycle of waste and instead focus on creating high-quality, long-lasting products that can be reused and redesigned. That requires completely rethinking the clothing industry — a daunting but feasible and necessary task. “If you put your brilliant heads to solving this problem and making money along the way, you will succeed,” concludes Perez. “But you’ve got to recognise the obstacles. If you deny it, you’re going to die, and you can’t die — we need you.”To learn more about BoF VOICES 2021, to be held from Dec 1-3, 2021, please click here.Related Articles: The Definitive Guide: How to Build a Sustainable Fashion Brand Fashion’s Greenwashing Problem Begins with Bad Data How to Avoid the Greenwashing TrapJoin BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Critic Robin Givhan, analyst Luca Solca, author Dana Thomas and Métier founder Melissa Morris discuss how luxury became a winners-take-all market and how growing consumer scrutiny is driving change. BoF is investigating how market disruption, new technology and increasing consumer scrutiny are driving transformative change in the $300 billion luxury goods market, in an exclusive new podcast series presented by Klarna. As the extraordinary events of 2020 — from the global pandemic, lockdowns and economic downturns to the accelerating climate crisis and social justice movements — impacted the luxury industry, scale-driven advantages widened the performance gap between the industry’s super winners and the rest of the market. In 2020, BoF reported that 75 percent of companies did not generate enough economic profit to cover the cost of their capital. Yet, the leading mega brands and conglomerates reported record sales. However, a growing dissonance is emerging between luxury’s traditional values of scarcity and exclusivity, and the emergence of a more inclusive, egalitarian and sustainable global consumer culture, making the luxury industry vulnerable to shifting consumer sentiment. Today, businesses must respond to growing consumer scrutiny around the sociological and ecological impact of how they operate and what they produce. Follow the series to ensure you never miss an episode and discover actionable insights into the opportunities and challenges a redefined industry will bring and how luxury’s transformation will impact your business. Sign up for BoF’s Daily Digest newsletter. For comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail: [email protected]. For all sponsorship enquiries, it’s: [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The modern, fast-paced fashion industry feeds a culture of waste that results in millions of tonnes of textiles burned or sent to landfill every year. Brands are acknowledging the problem, increasingly labelling products with buzzwords like “circular” and marketing bags made from recycled fishing nets or shoes crafted from plastic bottles. But the industry still needs to find scalable solutions to its waste problem. This week on The BoF Podcast, chief correspondent Lauren Sherman speaks with chief executive of the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA), Edwin Keh, about ways fashion can tackle the waste challenge. Recycling innovations that could turn old clothes back into new materials are on the horizon. But alongside investments to scale up new technologies, fashion must rethink its approach to design, Keh said. “We make stuff, we use it and we want it to go away, and we take new material and we repeat that process,” says Keh. “But not built into that process is circularity and the design intent for it to be recycled.” New recycling technologies must also have a compelling business case to be able to compete with established ways of doing business, says Keh. “If you solve the science problem and you don’t make the business case for it or you don’t create the logistics for it, then you have sort of like a half-baked solution that makes you feel good, works well in the lab, but doesn’t have a real-world application.” The fashion industry also needs to get smarter about data analytics to understand consumer trends and manage production accordingly, Keh says. “There’s a lot of opportunity to work on more intelligent ways to do analytics and… not to make [overproduction mistakes] in the first place,” he adds. Related Articles: The Waste Opportunity: How Fashion Could Turn Trash to Treasure Chasing The Holy Grail of Circular Fashion A More Circular Fashion Industry Will Require a Collective Effort Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a new series from The Business of Fashion, BoF speaks to 22 experts from the worlds of business, technology and science, creative leaders and renowned ecologists, to investigate the forces driving transformative change in the luxury goods market. The six-part series, created in partnership with Klarna, explores the future of the $300 billion industry, from new consumer behaviour to the next-gen technology and the urgent need to create a more sustainable industry. Subscribe now to never miss an episode. The Transforming Luxury Podcast launches on 13th September. Subscribe now to never miss an episode. Sign up for BoF’s Daily Digest newsletter. For comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail: [email protected]. For all sponsorship enquiries, it’s: [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

American stylist and fashion designer Misa Hylton rose to prominence in the ‘90s for her work with hip-hop and R&B legends such as Lil’ Kim and Mary J. Blige. She played a major role in bridging fashion and hip-hop. But in the past, Hylton didn’t received due credit for her lasting impact on fashion trends — and even contributing to the financial success of select fashion companies — according to BoF columnist Jason Campbell. This week on The BoF Podcast, Campbell is joined by Hylton and Nick Nelson, an adjunct professor at The New School who teaches a course on fashion styling, to discuss Hylton’s life and work, as well as the enduring significance of hip-hop culture in fashion. Hylton’s family emphasised traditional academic subjects, like science and math, during her childhood. Style was a way for her to channel her more creative side; she changed up to five times a day based on her mood at the moment. “That was the first place that I got to work with image … the energy would change, and I’m like, ‘OK, time to change my clothes — wardrobe change,’” says Hylton. In styling, Hylton ditched the ball gowns to dress her clients in looks that were true to who they were, increasing representation for a group that had been left out of pop-culture conversations. “So many young girls related to it in the inner city and in the hoods. And it was really powerful because of that, because we were now able to see ourselves and see our style in the forefront on TV,” says Hylton. When the looks Hylton styled for the likes of Blige and Lil’ Kim gained popularity, brands quickly followed, replicating them for the mainstream and leaving Hylton, and the other originators out. “I was not ever asked until recently to come into any luxury fashion house and create, or any photo shoot that was in a high end fashion magazine,” she says. “I wasn’t invited to style it, but our style was being emulated.” Nelson adds that “to know the history was behind that ... is incredibly important for this new generation of creators.” Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A panel of experts discussed strategies for making physical retail a strong service touchpoint that builds brand loyalty. Shopping is evolving. Consumers now experience brands across channels: they may be introduced to a brand on social media, try on its products at a store, and then make a purchase online. Or, they may browse online and then pick-up an item in-person. For retailers, that means a sale can happen anywhere, at any time. This week on The BoF Podcast, our retail correspondent Cathaleen Chen is joined by Adam Levene, founder of digital customer service platform Hero; Elyse Walker, boutique and concept store owner; and Dan Schoening, Nordstrom’s vice president of business strategy and operations to discuss how retailers can service customers in a way that creates a seamless, individualised experience across retail channels. Beyond conversions, a strong digital strategy can serve as a way to get customers into a store and foster further engagement, according to Levene. “It’s all about giving that customer that comfort, and that desire and reason to actually head into store, having that confidence knowing the item will be there, it’s going to be in their size, and they can be greeted by the stylists they connected with online,” says Levene. Convenience can actually drive business efficiency. Nordstrom links inventory across all markets, so that “customers have access to all that product, way more choice, and way more control around how they get it,” says Schoening. Then, the company provides easy access points for pick-up and returns, which, in turn, allows Nordstrom to get merchandise back into its ecosystem to sell again. Building a lasting relationship with customers is essential to success. To do so, retailers should have store associates focus on building trust with kindness and authenticity. “If you pressure your sales team to hit certain numbers and it’s not authentic and it’s not organic, you might have a good day, but that hurts the long-term potential of your business,” says Walker. Related Articles: How to Build Customer Loyalty 5 Ways to Boost Customer Loyalty How to Build a One-on-One Relationship With Your Customer Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The designer speaks with Tim Blanks about his journey to find his birth parents and the power of breaking boundaries in fashion. Olivier Rousteing was named Balmain’s creative director ten years ago, when he was still only in his mid-twenties. But Rousteing — who was adopted as a child and grew up believing he was of mixed-race parentage — says he always felt like he was performing a role to fit in amongst the French fashion elite. Recently, he decided to try and find his birth parents to give him a greater understanding of his identity, and allowed a documentary crew to film the process. In the process, Rousteing discovered his Somalian and Ethiopian heritage. The resulting film, “Wonder Boy,” came out last year, and arrived on Netflix in June. The experience has made him want to be more open about his identity. “You knew the designer for many years and now you are going to know the human being behind that,” he says. This week on The BoF Podcast, BoF’s editor-at-large Tim Blanks speaks with Rousteing about connecting with his personal history, the power of community and why timelessness in fashion is vital today. Rousteing said he hopes his personal journey will help provide inspiration for young creatives from diverse backgrounds hoping to make it in fashion. “I think I am the new France,” says Rousteing. “I think this is the message that I am delivering to people… This is my mission to give some hope in breaking boundaries.” In his decade at the helm, Rousting has brought a new approach to Balmain’s customers, too. “What I wanted to do during this decade is to make sure that there was awareness of the brand,” said Rousteing. “So, my first step was to create a strong community of people listening to the name of Balmain.” The pandemic has made Rousteing rethink his approach to design. “I think what is trendy is not cool anymore,” said Rousteing. “You want to buy values and you want to buy timeless [products] and you want to feel that what you get is something that will stay in time.” Related Articles: Olivier Rousteing Brings His Maximalism to Couture at Balmain At Balmain, Does a New Logo Signal New Opportunity? Balmain’s High-Visibility Mega Mix Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fashion industry is one of the world’s worst polluters, and this week’s grim report from the UN’s IPCC made clear that change needs to come quickly. This week, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report from the world’s top climate scientists, warning that global temperatures will rise 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040 and underscoring that human influence is “unequivocally” responsible for global warming since the late 19th century. The fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to be between 4 and 10 percent of the global total. “In the last two years, many of the industry’s biggest brands have taken steps to address emissions within their own supply chains,” says BoF deputy editor Brian Baskin. “It can be hard to tell how effective the industry’s efforts have been and what else needs to be done to address climate change.” On this week’s BoF Podcast, Baskin is joined by Michael Sadowski, a sustainability advisor and former vice president of sustainability at Nike; Laila Petrie, chief executive of sustainability consultancy 2050, which works with the Fashion Pact; and Hannah Phang, head of marketing and advocacy at sustainability consultancy Futerra to unpack fashion’s role in slowing global warming. Real action on emissions will require collaboration across the industry and cooperation with investors, financial institutions and policymakers. “Fundamentally, this is a problem which no individual company can solve on its own,” says Petrie. “We have all sorts of intractable issues around infrastructure, around incentives, around policy and no one actor can really operate within that system without being affected by it.” The industry often offers carbon offsets as a climate change solution. But according to Sadowski, planting a tree or donating a dollar is not a path to achieving meaningful change. “The focus should be on reducing emissions. That’s what the science says, that’s what the NGOs work in the science-based target initiatives [say] — we must decarbonise all sectors, at a much more ambitious pace,” says Sadowski. A brand’s messaging about sustainability is important, too. Providing accessible information on progress — and missteps — goes a long way. Beyond just being honest, “the other thing that consumers are interested in is: how are you helping them be more sustainable? How are you helping them be more climate friendly?” says Phang. Related Articles: A Crash Course on The BoF Sustainability Index The Climate Fix: Addressing Fashion’s Emissions Problem The Sustainability Regulations That Could Reshape Fashion Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Retail futurist Doug Stephens is joined by a panel of experts to tackle the tricky business of collecting, understanding and using data to improve retail. In retail, data can be a powerful tool to help brands understand their customers and how they engage with products. But just as retail itself has changed dramatically over the past few years, so have a retailer’s most important metrics of success — it’s no longer just about sales. As highlighted in the BoF Professional Summit: What’s a Store For?, it’s not sufficient for retailers to solely measure variables related to purchase — such as sales per square foot, or average footfall. But while there is no shortage of data that retailers can capture (and hundreds of ways to do it), not all data is worth paying attention to. Knowing what data is worth paying attention to can be tricky. “Simply because you can measure something, doesn’t necessarily mean that you should or it doesn’t necessarily make it important,” said Doug Stephens, retail futurist and BoF columnist. This week on the BoF Podcast, Stephens is joined by Brittany Hicks and Jessica Couch of Fayetteville Road, a consulting firm which helps retailers understand niche markets and women of colour, as well as Alexei Agratchev, co-founder and chief executive of in-store analytics firm RetailNext to discuss how retailers should be using retail data. Retailers have access to an overwhelming amount of information: what percentage of passersby enter a store, how much time those visitors spend inside, what merchandise they interact with and how many times they return to the space, as well as demographic details like age and gender. “The most important thing that stores can do to be great is to constantly invest in tools and processes to listen and respond to their customers,” said Agratchev. Retailers need to be agile and translate the information they gather into actionable strategies for trying out new formats, layouts and sales associate engagement tactics. “It’s not not just a matter of implementing the technology to gather data but potentially using it as a means of experimentation and testing as well,” said Stephens. Couch says retailers also need to dig deeper to understand some of the more complicated attributes about their consumers, like where they come from, what communities they belong to, and what their sentiments are about the brand. “There is a disconnect,” said Couch. “A lot of brands don’t understand how people feel about their products or experience.” Related Articles: The BoF Professional Summit: What’s a Store For? What’s a Store For? Selfridges’ Andrew Keith on Post-Pandemic Retail Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marni’s creative director reflects on the changes that must endure post-pandemic and the importance of emotion. In retrospect, Francesco Risso’s January 2020 menswear show for Marni seems prophetic. The collection took inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” which tells a story of plague and societal excess. These themes continue to resonate with the designer after 16 months living with the pandemic. On this week’s episode of the BoF Podcast, Risso tells BoF’s editor-at-large Tim Blanks why fashion’s habits of over-production and lavish runways are now “redundant” and where he believes the industry should go from here. Risso has always looked back at brand archives for inspiration, but now he sees an opportunity to extend that habit to create more timeless designs. “Every season we take stuff from the old archives… and it’s become Marni’s prerogative, so every collection we have those heirlooms,” says Risso. “I’m very a big fan of trying to be responsible with design in that sense.” Risso reflects on the importance of simplicity. Refocusing on creating connections and celebrating the small things over the past year has been a key focus at Marni. “I think it really forced us to focus on the authenticity of our ideas and also to celebrate them at a certain point… we [celebrated] in a very light and primitive kind of way,” he says. Changes to runway shows during the pandemic must not be overturned, according to Risso, who calls for more permanent change to the industry’s schedule by reducing the number of collections in a year. “I would love that whatever we have learnt right now is not just thrown off,” says Risso. Related Articles: The End of the (Fashion) World as We Know It At Marni, Hybrids of the Past A New Urgency at Marni Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ssense’s Krishna Nikhil and 2PM’s Web Smith talk strategies for making physical retail exciting at The BoF Professional Summit: What’s a Store For? The role of physical retail has changed drastically over the past few years — particularly amid the pandemic — as customers turned to digital channels and brands sharpened their focus on e-commerce. But, physical stores remain an important touchpoint. During this month’s BoF Professional Summit “What’s a Store For?” Krishna Nikhil, chief merchandising officer & chief marketing officer of Ssense, and Web Smith, founder of 2PM, unpacked the different ways brands are transforming their stores to be more than just a place to conduct transactions. That means thinking about a physical retail space as a means to provide experiences and entertainment that are relevant to their audiences and continue to prioritise service.“It’s so important to think about how you create something that is meaningful for the customer,” says Nikhil. “For us, that really started with this idea of ‘how do we reinvent how commerce takes place in the store?’”Nikhil and Web Smith, founder of retail media company 2PM, join BoF’s founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed for a discussion about making stores a grounds for immersive experiences without diluting their purpose of obtaining customers.Ssense has streamlined the trying-and-buying process to be more efficient by introducing an appointment service so that customers can spend their time in-store engaging with the cultural programming and the “big moments” the retailer orchestrates — like Virgil Abloh’s 2018 “Cutting Room Floor” exhibition, which recreated his studio in the space. “What we are doing is giving both a great experience with product, but also giving time back to that customer… That time back, is about immersion in all the other experiences that we create in the store,” said Nikhil.Pointing to direct-to-consumer start-up Rowing Blazers, which used only about 30 to 40 percent of the space in its flagship for actual merchandise, Smith says product doesn’t need to dominate a store. “What are the associated things: the moments, the history, the accessories that you were merchandising with — the history of the industry itself?” he said. “What are those things that you would associate with the sale of those products?”As the line between media and commerce increasingly intersects, brands need to present a specific vision of their point of view to the audience they want to attract. “Products are almost commoditised at this point: anyone can make anything. What makes a product unique right now is the person that’s selling it and the audience that they’re selling it to,” said Smith.Related Articles: Tapping Into the Future of Physical Retail — Download the Case Study You Can’t Predict the Future of Retail, but You Can Prepare for It 10 Retail Archetypes for the Post-Pandemic Era Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BoF’s Tim Blanks speaks with one half of the renowned duo Mert and Marcus about finding new creative avenues. Renowned fashion photographer Mert Alas — one half of the renowned duo Mert and Marcus — has spent the last four years immersed in the world of gin. While pandemic pivots to new creative ventures have become commonplace, Alas was looking for a new creative outlet long before the current crisis. In crafting his new aromatic gin — named Seventy One after the number of nights it takes to rest the spirit in oak casks — he found many parallels with fashion’s creative challenges. Just like in fashion, gin making has suffered from a focus on speed over quality. True craft requires patience and time, Alas says. On this week’s BoF Podcast, Alas speaks with Tim Blanks about finding new creative avenues and resisting the pressure to produce more and more and more stuff. Alas approached his new gin like any other creative project as a “relentless journey for perfection.” He immersed himself in the process, learning about every step, from the drink’s perfume basis to how many days were required to settle the alcohol. “It became this like a domino effect of ideas and in reality, an experience,” he says. As Alas thought about how he wanted to position his new brand, he spent a lot of time reflecting on the “selfish” nature of the fashion industry. During lockdown, he wanted to create “some kind of an artistic give back,” using Instagram to connect with young creative followers and give them feedback. Creatives should hold on to the time they had during the pandemic to focus on their craft, Alas says. “I was very much on a go, go, go [mentality] for the past 30 years… What I realised [during] the pandemic was that we also never stopped... I was doing a lot of quantity, but now I realise I missed craft.” Related Articles: Christopher Kane’s Pandemic Pivot The Art of the Crisis Pivot – and the Brands Getting it Right How to Pivot Your Skill Set During Covid-19 Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew Keith, managing director of Selfridges, discusses the future of the British department store at The BoF Professional Summit: What’s a Store For?The purpose of the store has shifted dramatically in the past few years. But while other department stores struggle to keep up with these changes, Selfridges has established itself as an outlier by doubling down on its physical retail strategy, as highlighted in BoF’s newest Case Study, “Can Selfridges Future-Proof the Department Store?” The British chain has transformed its storefronts into experiential hubs, decked out with pop-ups, restaurants, art installations and even a skateboarding bowl, to try to get as many consumers as possible to spend as much time as possible within store walls.“What we’re creating within the Selfridges stores is a destination,” said Andrew Keith, managing director of Selfridges.”It’s about being able to create a space people want to go to for the day.”On this week’s BoF Podcast, Keith joins BoF’s Imran Amed at Selfridges’ Oxford Street flagship during The BoF Professional Summit “What’s a Store For?” The two chat about how the pandemic has affected the retailer’s face-to-face focus, how the company — rumoured to be in discussions about a £4 billion ($5.6 billion) sale to an unknown buyer — is shoring up its e-commerce channels and what he sees for the fused future of digital and physical retail.The pandemic decimated London tourism, which made Selfridges think more locally about its retail strategy, and in turn, built market share with domestic customers. From Birmingham to Manchester, Selfridges works with local creatives to make every store distinct in a way that engages with the particular place’s needs and aesthetics. “Each of these communities has its own diversity, it has its own entrepreneurial environment around it,” said Keith. “It’s important for us to be able to reflect that.”The retailer may be investing in digital, but it is maintaining its focus on the curated and experiential aspects of its offering across channels, because that’s what Keith says will set Selfridges apart from the seemingly endless e-commerce options. “Some of the pure-play retailers don’t have the same sort of richness that we can create with the fusion of physical and digital together,” said Keith.As Selfridges continues to evolve its retail model, it’s experimenting with circularity, recycling and repair through initiatives like “Project Earth,” where it set targets for materials and partnership shifts, and “Resellfridges,” its resale and rental service. In doing so, the retailer is making fundamental changes to the metrics it uses for success. “We’re not only changing the way people shop, we’re also changing the way we approach business,” says Keith, adding that the company’s focus will shift to more sustainable metrics like longevity of customer lifecycle, balancing margin opportunities, and changing the way it looks at acquisition. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When the Covid-19 crisis struck, Karen Walker — known for her offbeat designs that have been worn by the likes of Meghan Markle and Michelle Obama, and carried by retailers such as Barneys and Harvey Nichols — found that she was propelled to shift the way she thought about her business, her mission as a designer and her community. Walker’s home country, New Zealand, battled the Covid-19 pandemic with a swift hand — its citizens saw only five weeks of lockdowns before the virus disappeared from within its borders. Despite the relative brevity of the country’s lockdowns, business owners and brands were still faced with the same existential crises and questions as the rest of the world. Now that people within the country have returned to something close to normal life (just without tourists), Walker notes several shifts in attitude: people want to treat themselves, but they also want to support the nation and local businesses that supported them. More generally, consumers have come out of lockdown more interested in buying products aligned with what they stand for.On this week’s BoF Podcast, Walker joins Tim Blanks in a conversation about dealing with change, defining desire and life on the other side of the Covid crisis.When New Zealand’s prime minister announced the country would go into lockdown in March, Walker had just finalised the next year’s budget. Instead of being able to sit back and do business as usual, she was forced to rethink everything and ask existential questions about her business that would go on to have a lasting impact. “If this goes on for six months or a year, and I really have to fight for this, what am I fighting for? What will my audience miss? What’s at stake? Why should I go into battle for this?” she said.After going through what Walker calls nature’s “forced contemplation,” she stopped thinking of herself as primarily a designer, but rather, a retailer who serves the needs of her community. As part of that mindset shift, Walker abandoned the traditional fashion calendar, for one, because she realised it was more in her customer’s interest to do so. Even though she sees the change as good, it was still unsettling. “Change is uncomfortable, alright, even if you know you have to do it — it’s still an uncomfortable place.” Walker said.Walker has observed transformations in what consumers think about and look for when shopping. First, they want to know what retailers stand for and how it aligns with what they care about. Second, they want products that are both beautiful and functional. “They want it to be a good product, not necessarily a new product. That speaks to how it’s made, how it’s designed, how it functions, the cost of its making — the unseen costs on people and planet,” said Walker. “Those are very much in people’s minds, and that’s what motivates me too. I’m not interested in just making more and more stuff.”Related Articles: Stella McCartney on the Business of Sustainable Design The Year That Changed the World Vanessa Kingori on the Reinvention of British Vogue Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

British Vogue’s editorial transformation over the past four years has been widely documented, but changes on the business side are equally noteworthy. Vanessa Kingori, British Vogue’s first female publisher (who works alongside editor-in-chief Edward Enninful), has taken more of a consultative role with advertising clients, focusing on the health of their brands, not just reach and impressions. Today, brands are more interested in how they can create human connections and innovate through Vogue’s channels, rather than just buying space on the printed page. On the latest edition of The BoF Podcast, Kingori talks with BoF’s Imran Amed about the publication’s new business strategy, and how it ties in with the magazine’s focus on diversity, inclusion and sustainability. Cover launches still matter, but Kingori and Enninful are focusing on reflecting the multifaceted lives of their readers. With that, has come a change in how the magazine highlights and thinks about women. “The big shift here is [Edward] is taking the magazine from being about these beautiful dresses, to being about the woman in the dress,” said Kingori. “She wants beautiful things, but she also has a lifestyle. She has a career. She has other aspirations, she wants to accessorise a dress.” Though everyone seems to be ringing the alarm bells, according to Kingori, print is not dead. “There is no digital marketing that you could do that would be more effective. Our print magazine is our biggest marketing tool, and our social media platforms are our biggest agents,” she said. The title hasn’t shied away from making brands feel uncomfortable by bringing up societal issues, and it’s actually been of commercial benefit to British Vogue. “The reality is, we have increased our sales revenue and our digital audience in every single way, in every single metric since we started. Audiences are ready for those difficult conversations,” said Kingori. Related Articles: Vanessa Kingori’s Commercial Reboot of British Vogue Meghan Markle’s Vogue: When Activism Is More Fashionable Than Fashion What Anna Wintour’s Big Promotion Means for Condé Nast Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Milan-based, American designer speaks with Tim Blanks about how he plans to introducing the cult brand’s enduring values to a new global audience. When Lawrence Steele was named creative director at Aspesi in November, it was a home-coming of sorts. The American designer consulted for the Milan-based label for 13 years before departing in March 2017 to join Marni as associate creative director. Now, he’s been tasked with introducing the cult label founded in 1969 by Alberto Aspesi to a new global audience, while remaining true to its distinctive identity and ethos which Steele says are suited for this moment of reflection and reset. On this week’s episode of The BoF Podcast, Lawrence Steele speaks with editor-at-large Tim Blanks as he debuts his first collection for Aspesi: Steele is looking to technology to help Aspesi get big international traction, while retaining its niche insider vibe. The brand debuted on WeChat and Weibo in April, and expects to launch on Tmall in September. “I think today with the world, how it’s opened up so vastly through technology, there’s something quaint about [Aspesi] being a small brand, but there’s something very exciting about taking the values of the brand out into the world.” When it comes to fashion, retaining an authentic brand identity can’t mean standing still; it’s a constant balance to honour traditions and remain relevant. “It’s very easy if you step back and you think about the long run to see what lasts and to gauge what’s happening,” said Steele. “But you have to have the culture of being able to look at it from above and not being caught up in the world of what fashion really is, which is change, because fashion by nature is change, it’s the fashion of the moment.” Steele sees the pandemic as an opportunity to reset the fashion industry and do away with wasteful season cycles and excessive production. “My hope is that what we draw from this is that we have found other creative ways of communicating, of reaching each other, of creating through the technology that was around us all along.” Related Articles: Lawrence Steele, Master of the Long Run In Milan, a Return to Tradition #BoFLIVE: Engaging the Gen-Z Shopper Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Valentino creative director and London menswear designer discuss their process reimagining the Roman brand’s signature rockstud. The Valentino rockstud has become a brand icon. To mark its tenth anniversary, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli teamed up with British menswear designer Craig Green to create a sneaker adorned with the Valentino symbol. It was a collaboration forged over Zoom during the pandemic, with Piccioli based in Rome and Green in East London. On this week’s episode of The BoF Podcast, editor-at-large Tim Blanks speaks with Piccioli and Green about creative collaboration and reimagining design icons. When collaborating, designers’ differences can often offer the best source of creative inspiration, says Green. “A collaboration works best when it’s from two separate worlds coming together and seeing what can be born out of that.” Shifting meaning while upholding tradition has been Piccioli’s mantra. The new sneaker aims to honour Valentino’s heritage and traditions, but also find the power in reinterpreting an established symbol. “I want to use the same objects, the same signs, but I want to give them a different meaning,” says Piccioli. Above all, collaboration is an education. “I think with every collaboration and with every person that you work with, especially working with someone like Pierpaolo, you learn a lot,” says Green. “You kind of inevitably change in the future what you plan to do.” Related Articles: Can Valentino Bring Radicalism to Its Romanticism? Valentino Delivered the Digital Experience the Industry Has Been Waiting For The BoF Podcast: Craig Green says, ‘Fashion Can Come From Anywhere’ Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jane Clay, strategic director at workplace design consultancy Gensler talks to BoF’s Imran Amed about how offices of the future will play a critical role in creating a sense of culture, community and belonging. Almost overnight, the pandemic fundamentally altered the way we work, forcing both employers and employees to embrace the idea of working from home. But now, as vaccination rates rise, offices re-open and employee expectations around flexible working models grow, business leaders everywhere are asking the same question: what’s the role of an office in a post-Covid world? This week on the BoF Podcast, Jane Clay, strategic director at workplace design consultancy Gensler, joins editor-in-chief Imran Amed to discuss why offices are more than just functional workplaces. Office spaces are crucial for young employees to benefit from mentoring and guidance through shadowing their more experienced colleagues. “If you have a lot of people in your organisation who are quite young and may need a lot of mentoring and a lot of looking after, in the sense of their growth and learning, then it might not be such a great idea to not have them around you [in an office],” said Clay. Clay recommends taking a more holistic view, establishing how shared spaces can creating a sense of culture, community and belonging. “Whether you are in fashion, whether you are in art and design, whether you are in fintech, and actually whether you are legal, I think no matter what arena of work you are in the office will be that totem for culture and connection.” As organisation leaders plan to redesign their office, Clay said sustainability must be factored into decision-making from the start. “There is something in the idea of how do we reposition real estate? Why build something new when you can reposition something old?” she said. “There is a relevance in the old that also has a great story when it comes to sustainability.” While Zoom calls have been democratising during the pandemic, the gradual return to the office in a hybrid working model is likely to create challenges. “While we have all been in our own little boxes [on Zoom calls], we have all had the same experience, but as soon as you start to have some in and some out [of offices] we have to be very mindful,” Clay said. “This means communications and behavioural protocols really have to be looked at.” Related Articles: How Fashion Brands Are Making Remote Work Permanent Camilla Lowther on Building a Career as a Fashion Creative Selling ‘Office’ Clothes to the Work-From-Home Woman Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The highly respected talent agent talks to BoF’s Tim Blanks about how young creatives can develop their careers and have meaningful impact. CLM is one of the most influential management agencies in the industry. But after 35 years representing the likes of Juergen Teller and Tim Walker, last year’s upheaval reminded Camilla Lowther of how she got started: working at a small agency and building new networks. This year, she launched Fire, a creative talent agency focused on the new generation of talent. This week on The BoF Podcast, Lowther and editor-at-large Tim Blanks discuss opportunities to learn from and with young generations and why being true to yourself is still fundamental to a successful career as a creative. “Believe in what you do. Don’t try and do what you think other people want you to do, because, you know, the truth is really important. Even if it takes longer to get there, if you really believe in it, then other people will believe in it,” says Lowther. Creativity is best served when you’re open to sharing and learning, whatever stage of your career you’re at. “I think the one thing that’s really important for all of us who’ve been in the business for possibly a long time is to impart our knowledge and our narrative to [young people],” says Lowther. “And then then it’s up to them to take what they want to and also to teach us something new.” Lowther reflects on how persistence is an important quality in anyone starting out in their career and how remaining true to your vision is critical. “Don’t try and do what you think other people want,” she says. “Even if it takes longer to get there, if you really believe in it, then other people will believe in it.” Related Articles: End of the Model Agency as We Know It? Can Hollywood Super Agency Finally Crack Fashion? Building Great Bowery, Fashion’s Super-Agency Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Creative director Angela Missoni reflects on life beyond Missoni as she steps down after 24 years in the role. Angela Missoni is stepping back from her role as creative director of Missoni. While she’ll stay on as president, the company will now be led by chief executive Livio Proli, who was appointed after the brand took on private equity funding from FSI Mid-Market Growth Equity Fund in 2018. This week on The BoF Podcast, Angela reflects on the family heritage and craftsmanship that still sit at the Italian luxury brand’s core in conversation with editor-at-large Tim Blanks. At its heart, Missoni has been a family business, drawing on the creative flare of three generations. “I think my parents invented a style,” said Missoni. “They invented a new language in fashion and then I think in the past 25 years I was able to expand the lexicon of this language.” The brand’s signature stripes are partly the result of technological limits when Missoni’s parents began creating knitwear; stripes were the only thing the machine they had could knit. “Missoni evolved through the evolution of technology, but the hand was always more relevant,” said Missoni. “People were asking my father if he designed on a computer. No, my father was designing on a little square of white paper.” The brand is well placed to move forward as Missoni steps back, the creative director said. “I will always give my support, [but] I’m confident in leaving the collections in the hands of my team… [Missoni is] perfectly fit to go forward in this moment.” Related Articles: Angela Missoni Exits Creative Director Role Missoni Sells Minority Stake to Private Equity Firm in €70 Million Deal 2020′s Top M&A Targets in Luxury The Missoni Matriarchs Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The market for digital collectibles is booming, but does it present a real opportunity for brands, or is it just a passing fad? When a shoe collaboration between design studio RTFKT and digital artist Fewocious netted around $3.1 million earlier this year, the fashion world sat up and paid attention. More than 600 pairs sold out in seven minutes. The shoes were issued as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, unique digital assets authenticated by a digital ledger known as a blockchain. With appetites for unique virtual assets surging, more fashion companies are looking at how they can tap the market; even Rimowa is launching NFTs. But is this a long-term opportunity or just a passing fad? In the latest episode of The BoF Podcast, deputy editor Brian Baskin speaks with Benoit Pagotto, co-founder of RTFKT, Karinna Nobbs, co-CEO of NFT marketplace The Dematerialised, Amber Slooten, co-founder and creative director of digital fashion house The Fabricant and editorial associate M.C. Nanda about ways fashion can tap into the NFT gold rush. Virtual fashion isn’t just about gaming anymore, and that could open up a whole new marketplace for digital skins and on-trend avatars. “Within this new NFT space, people are starting to see the value of digital items,” said Slooten.”You’re able to sort of create that new, endless way of expressing yourself.” The fashion industry has yet to fully tap into the NFT opportunity, and doing so will mean becoming more open to collaborations. “Nobody [is] sharing anything with each other [in fashion] because they’re afraid it’s going to get stolen,” said Slooten. Proponents of NFTs say the recent boom is no flash in the pan, but a mark of a paradigm shift. “This is fundamentally going to change digital ownership, creative structures, the creative economy, how we view money even,” said Nobbs. “This is bigger than the Internet.” Related Articles: What the NFT Gold Rush Means for Fashion NFTs for Fashion: Fad or Opportunity? Gucci Is Selling $12 (Virtual) Sneakers Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The inspirational speaker and author speaks with Imran Amed about the opportunity for fashion businesses to reset and refocus after the pandemic is behind us. The upheavals of the last year laid bare long-standing problems with the way the fashion industry operates, but it’s also created opportunities for change and innovation. Business leaders should reflect, reset and rebuild with a focus on their core values and goals, inspirational speaker and author Simon Sinek tells BoF’s founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed, on this week’s episode of The BoF Podcast. Sinek has written multiple books on the importance of looking beyond “how” and “what” when making business decisions. “Having a sense of why is very grounding; it’s literally a foundation,” said Sinek. “Every single person has their own unique ‘why’… and the rest of our lives offers opportunities to make decisions to stay in balance with that purpose.” As businesses look to a post-pandemic future, they have an opportunity to use the challenges of the last year to reassess and refocus on the values they started with, which often fall by the wayside as businesses scale. “You know you can tell when an organisation loses its way because it becomes obsessed with output… and they lose [the] sense of their own values and if you’re an employee or customer you can feel it,” Sinek said. Leaders are not the only ones who can drive change. “There is no such thing as unicorns and rainbows everyday [at work,] sometimes it’s hard,” said Sinek. “[But] every single one of us has the capacity to be the leader we wish we had.” Related Articles: Coronavirus Concerns Hit Fashion’s Workplaces How to Create an Inclusive Workplace Industry Leaders Share Insight on Securing Employment in 2021 To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fashion brands are upping marketing rhetoric and imagery to include a wider range of body types, but many companies are still failing to serve the plus-size consumer. The market for plus-size fashion is worth nearly $30 billion in the US alone. But while brands are upping marketing rhetoric and imagery to include a wider range of body types, many companies are still failing to serve the plus-size consumer. In the latest episode of The BoF Podcast, chief correspondent Lauren Sherman speaks with Marie Denee, creator and editor-in-chief of The Curvy Fashionista, Alexandra Waldman, co-founder and creative director of Universal Standard and BoF’s senior editorial associate Alexandra Mondalek about the right way to do plus-size fashion. Plus-size customers want one thing: choice. But too often they’re left sifting through limited ranges that reflect a narrow view of how they should dress. “Give us the same assortment,” Denee said, adding that brands must unlearn tropes about what the industry can offer plus-size consumers. Lazy marketing that co-opts the language of body positivity without really serving plus-size shoppers is also a problem. “We have to learn to speak to a consumer that has been not just ignored, but belittled… it’s an emotional minefield,” said Waldman. “Body positivity is a personal journey.” Companies need to invest in plus-size ranges too, taking the time and spending the cash to perfect fit, style and branding. “You have got to be led by the change and not the money,” explains Waldman. Related Articles: What Fashion Can’t Seem to Get Right About the Plus-Size Market Unravelling the Plus-Size Problem How to Make Your Brand Size-Inclusive To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The designer’s teacher turned close collaborator and friend, reflects on how Elbaz communicated his fashion dreams to the world. Ever since the news of Alber Elbaz’s death broke last weekend, the fashion world has been in a collective state of mourning. Many have eulogised and memorialised the designer’s unique ability to make women feel empowered in the clothes designed. But few knew him better than Shelly Verthime, his close friend and collaborator, who first met him as his teacher at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Israel. This week on The BoF Podcast, editor-in-chief Imran Amed and editor-at-large Tim Blanks speak with Verthime and reflect on Elbaz’s influence, recounting the highs and lows of his career defining moments. From the beginning of his career, Verthime said Elbaz created a clear path for the steps he wished to take with the industry. “I knew that there was just something so special about him, it was so clear to me where he is going,” she said. “At the time I was his teacher but very, very soon he became my teacher, and then he became [the industry’s] teacher and mentor and friend.” Throughout his career, Elbaz exercised the power of communication as well as creativity. Elbaz was an “original creator, emotional creator but he was a fantastic communicator,” Verthime said. “He knew what works and what doesn’t work for him.” Elbaz was known for his efforts to empower women, dressing them suit to their needs and build their confidence. His close relationship to his mother facilitated his understanding of women as multifaceted. “What he wanted to do was that his clothes would enhance the personality, where you see the face… it was about the woman who would wear it,” said Verthime. “He wanted assertive women [and] he wanted women to love themselves.” Related Articles: Lessons for the Fashion Industry From Alber Elbaz’s Talk at VOICES 2018 Alber Elbaz on Making His Return to Fashion Inside Alber Elbaz’s Return to Fashion To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The late designer shared his musings, wisdom and advice for the fashion industry in a talk at BoF VOICES in 2018. Alber Elbaz, who died aged 59 of Covid-19 over the weekend, was a revered and beloved figure in the fashion industry. The designer, famed for revitalising the fortunes of Lanvin before a dispute with his owner led to his abrupt departure, had just returned to fashion after a five-year hiatus. He debuted his new venture, AZ Factory, during Paris Couture Week in January. The joint venture with Richemont was designed to reflect a better model for the fashion system, the pressures and strains of which Elbaz knew all too well. In a heartfelt, funny, thoughtful and poignant address at BoF VOICES in November 2018, Elbaz shared a mix of personal anecdotes, observations and lessons for the fashion industry: Fashion needs to pare back its unfettered production cycle to a level that’s manageable for young designers straining under the “speed of the system,” he said. Elbaz compared the industry’s constant demand for newness to an old recipe that uses too much fat: “Maybe [it’s time] to cut the butter out and make it healthier.” Creative instinct and improvisation are far more valuable than the tech tools that might be available to designers. “Life is full of codes, formulas, databases and algorithms,” said Elbaz. “Overuse of all of those can kill intuition and intuition is the essence of creation. This is the essence of life itself.” There’s more to fashion creation than just empty aspirational content. Long-time muse and client Meryl Streep “said that I never tried to transform her, but I helped her to be a better version of herself,” said Elbaz. “I believe that’s what fashion does best. It’s dreams, but it’s no longer just dreams. It’s also about solutions. It’s also about solving problems with a dream.” Above all, celebrate your audience. “For years, I felt I was hugging people with my clothes,” he said. “I thought that every dress I make would be hugging the woman who is wearing it. Years later, I received all these hugs back from you fashion people.” Related Articles: Inside Alber Elbaz’s Return to Fashion Inside the Mind of Alber Elbaz Alber Elbaz on Making His Return to Fashion To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fashion is a notoriously opaque industry. That’s a big problem when the industry is focusing on reducing its negative environmental and social impact. One of the biggest challenges facing the fashion industry in its efforts to become more responsible and sustainable is bad data. While companies are under increased pressure to provide more information about working conditions and greenhouse gas emissions, the data they share is limited and often of dubious quality. At the BoF Professional Summit: Closing Fashion’s Sustainability Gap, Linda E. Greer, a global fellow at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs and a member of BoF’s Sustainability Council, joined BoF London editor Sarah Kent for a discussion on how fashion’s bad data is affecting its sustainability efforts. Companies often lack oversight into their own supply chains, preventing labour conditions and environmental impact from being properly recorded or addressed. Full supply chain transparency is critical for companies to trace and collect data. This opacity also allows companies to avoid accountability for working conditions and the environmental footprint of their sprawling global supply chains. “There is a level at which the lack of transparency is working for these companies, because it allows them to perpetuate the status quo,” said Greer. Stricter regulation would force companies to do more, but in its absence Greer recommends companies start by looking at emissions from their manufacturing base. “If you’re not doing that, you’re just not in the game,” said Greer. Related Articles: Measuring Fashion’s Sustainability Gap Scaling Up or Selling Out: How Can Sustainable Labels Credibly Collaborate with Big Brands? Devising a New Social Contract for Fashion’s Garment Workers To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fashion has routinely failed the millions of people who make its clothes. What should the industry do to create systemic change? Over the past year, the pandemic has laid bare — and worsened — the stark inequality, financial insecurity and poor working conditions endemic to the global garment industry. This has been driven by years of voluntary self-regulation, outsourced labour, and the pursuit of maximum profits by brands and retailers. At the BoF Professional Summit: Closing Fashion’s Sustainability Gap, BoF London editor Sarah Kent was joined by Ayesha Barenblat, founder and chief executive of Remake; Ritu Sethi, founder-trustee, Craft Revival Trust and editor, Global InCH; and Anannya Bhattacharjee, international coordinator, Asia Floor Wage Alliance, to discuss how the global fashion industry is failing its garment makers, and what needs to change. Many of the challenges facing the garment industry today are systemic. “The business model, whether luxury or mass market, is set to exploit people,” said Barenblat, also noting that it is mostly women of colour “who make our clothes and bring our fashion to life.” Bhattacharjee said brands need to redress the “extreme imbalance of power” with their suppliers by paying the actual cost of production, producing goods in an environmentally sustainable way, and moving away from the industry’s reliance on overproduction and overconsumption. It is also crucial that brands make good on their commitments to support freedom of association in factories, she added. While the global fashion industry benefits from widespread deregulation, mounting consumer engagement is proving a powerful force for increased accountability. “Consumerism is changing, and I think for the first time we actually have the right period where we can change the discourse from the consumer’s point of view,” said Sethi. Indeed, said Bhattacharjee, “this is a time of opportunity and radical change.” Related Articles: Fashion’s Humanitarian Crisis Racism and Inequality Are Stitched Into the Garments We Wear Brands Say They Want to Keep Workers Safe. Not All Are Willing to Pay for It. To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The pioneering designer spoke to BoF’s Imran Amed about continuing to push the envelope for sustainable luxury at the BoF Professional Summit: Closing Fashion’s Sustainability Gap. British designer Stella McCartney has been an advocate and pioneer for sustainability long before it became an industry buzzword. But she is still developing new ways to work. More recently that’s included experiments with leather-like material made with mycelium — or mushroom root structures — and efforts to use cotton and wool sourced from regenerative farms, which restore the health and biodiversity of the land instead of purely extracting from it. ”It’s very simple but today it seems very radical, and really it could be the future of fashion,” she told BoF editor in chief Imran Amed in a keynote address at the BoF Professional Summit: Closing Fashion’s Sustainability Gap. McCartney also shared the compromises she has to make as a designer to work within the parameters of sustainable materials and low-waste production methods and what it will take for the wider industry to wake up to its imperative to change: Consumer pressure and better regulation will be key for the fashion industry to make changes that are urgently needed. “I don’t think we can rely on our industry to commit to this, as much as we can rely on tomorrow’s customers insisting that this is the only thing they’re going to invest in,” she said. “The only way truly to have significant change in the timeline that we have is for policies to be set into place, for there to be legislation.” When LVMH took a minority stake in her brand in 2019, McCartney took on a role advising the luxury conglomerate’s CEO Bernard Arnault on sustainability. “The reality with Monsieur Arnault is that he would never have invested in a brand like mine if he didn’t think that this was the future,” she said. “I think it gives off a huge message of positivity for the industry.” For the crop of young designers looking to work sustainably, McCartney has some sage advice: value collaboration and mutual learning over competition; “be a fighter” when it comes to securing better incentives for sustainable practices; and always look for new information on how to be better. “You never stop learning when you work sustainably,” she said. Related Articles: Why LVMH Struck a Deal with Stella McCartney Stella McCartney Announces UN Charter for Sustainable Fashion The BoF Podcast: Stella McCartney: ‘Everything Is at Stake’ To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A new generation of direct-to-consumer brands like Topicals and Parade are finding success with a powerful community-based approach to marketing. In a fashion and beauty market packed with look-alike labels, a new generation of digitally native direct-to-consumer brands are adopting a new playbook, pushing bolder messages and aesthetics starting with their key differentiator: community. Skincare brand Topicals and lingerie label Parade have turned celebrating their customers’ skin issues and body shapes that don’t conform to traditional ideals of beauty into a powerful and authentic marketing centrepiece. In this episode of the BoF Podcast, Topicals’ co-founders Olamide Olowe and Claudia Teng and Parade’s co-founder and chief executive Cami Téllez speak with BoF senior editorial associate Alexandra Mondalek on the power of community and the new direct-to-consumer model. The new generation of community-focused DTC brands are abandoning the increasingly standardised marketing playbook that has resulted in a proliferation of identical-looking “blands.” Instead, they’re finding new ways to identify with their customer base. “We now know that branding is about creatively finding where [the customer] is and centring around reintroducing the customer to self-expression,” Téllez explains. Consumers particularly respond to products that speak to their issues in a way that’s relatable and fun. Digitally native brands have often made the consumer experience “quite sterile and bland and their product experience was lacklustre,” says Topicals’ Olowe. Instead Topicals is “celebrating the fun of flare ups.” Authenticity is key to building community with the new generation of DTC brands utilising their founders’ stories to speak about their products as customers too. Topicals brings “a different perspective to the way that people experience the beauty community… [and] speaking authentically with our community in a different kind of way,” Teng says. Related Articles: The New 4 Ps of DTC Marketing How Not to Be a Boring Direct-to-Consumer Brand The New Rules of Going DTC To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As retail stores begin to re-open this summer after a year of lockdown, Doug Stephens shares strategies for post-pandemic success from his new book, Resurrecting Retail. Retail’s Darwinian shakeout over the last year has consolidated market power in the hands of dominant e-commerce players. But a brand, even if small, can still be mighty. The key is focus and finding a relevant niche, Doug Stephens said at VOICES 2020, previewing his new book, Resurrecting Retail, out on April 13.” In the post-pandemic retail era, purpose will be the new positioning,” Stephens said. “What will be your brand’s reason for existing?” he asked.Stephens outlines 10 reasons why retail should exist in 2021 and beyond, from product education to activism. “I see Covid-19 not as a mere accelerator, I see it as a threshold,” said Stephens. “As a unique wormhole in time where society as a whole is being pulled out of the industrial era and across the threshold of the digital age.” Though 2020 was challenging for a lot of retail companies, it has made the big ones like Amazon, Alibaba, JD.com and Walmart even stronger and better prepared to capture more of the global retail economy. Brands must think about purpose: what is the question your brand answers? Companies that succeed in the marketplace do this well. “When we buy Nike products, we’re buying a cultural point of view, and Nike answers a very specific consumer question. The question, of course, is ‘Who inspires me?’” Stephens said. In the post-pandemic world, the media will no longer be just the message. “Every form of media now, that the consumer has exposure to, is no longer simply a call out to go to the store,” Stephens said. “Every form of media must be the store.” Related Articles: Take a Look Inside The Post-Pandemic Store The New Rules of Brick-and-Mortar Retail Tapping Into the Future of Physical Retail To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rent the Runway chief executive Jennifer Hyman shares her strategy for making the fashion rental model work as retail, restaurants and workplaces slowly begin to re-open. To subscribe to the BoF Podcast, please follow this link. The pandemic was a near-death experience for Rent the Runway, the business that introduced and popularised renting fashion on a wide scale in the United States. As consumers stopped heading to offices and events, chief executive Jennifer Hyman was left wondering: “Will my business still be relevant after Covid?” The executive had to make difficult decisions, fast, laying off and furloughing staff and cutting spending.” As a leader, that was for sure the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do,” Hyman told BoF’s Lauren Sherman at VOICES 2020, describing it as “the second founding moment of the company.” Now, as retail, restaurants and workplaces slowly begin to re-open, the company is betting on a post-pandemic shift in consumer values that couples a desire for more sustainable consumption with a “hedonistic” environment of “worldwide euphoria,” Hyman said. Related Articles: The Return of Rental Inside the Closet of the Future The Pandemic Changed the Way People Live. How Can Fashion Adapt? To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BoF’s London editor Sarah Kent and editor-in-chief Imran Amed delve into The BoF Sustainability Index, measuring fashion’s progress towards avoiding catastrophic climate change and achieving broader social imperatives by 2030. Fashion’s negative impact on people and the planet is in focus like never before. Pressure to change is coming from investors, consumers, regulators and even inside big brands themselves. Companies are responding with high-profile commitments to do better. But are they actually making a difference? In the latest episode of the BoF Podcast, London editor Sarah Kent and editor-in-chief Imran Amed discuss The BoF Sustainability Index, an in-depth analysis of how 15 of fashion’s largest companies measure up on sustainability. The fashion industry has an important role to play in tackling global sustainability challenges, both because of its impact and its influence. “Fashion often flies under the radar,” explains Kent. “[But] it has power to really change people’s views and behaviours and drive a shift that other industries cannot so easily engage in.” Overall, BoF’s analysis found that the big companies’ commitments are outpacing action. “Some [companies] are leading the pack and some are just getting started, but overall things are not changing fast enough.” While the pandemic remains an immediate crisis for the industry, the climate crisis is increasingly in focus ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference due to take place in Glasgow later this year. “I think what is pretty well established now is the direction of travel that is needed,” says Kent. “What we need to start seeing is the strategies that are going to get us there. Where are the investments going to be made?” Related Articles: Sustainability: What Brands Are Prioritising in 2021 The Waste Opportunity: How Fashion Could Turn Trash to Treasure Fashion’s Long Road to Transparency To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Billions of people across the world call themselves gamers. And as gaming technology improves and increasingly acts as an extension of the real world, it’s becoming a prime market for fashion brands. BoF's Imran Amed talks to Herman Narula, co-founder and CEO of Improbable to learn more. Gaming is often synonymous with entertainment. But Herman Narula, co-founder and chief executive of Improbable, a London-based gaming company, says that’s a misconception — games dominate all kinds of culture. Footballers perform dances that happened first on Fortnight, and gamer verbiage like “level up” is now used in human resources initiatives. Now, Narula says, the multiplayer games people play have become part of their social lives. Gaming is no longer just entertainment, but a space for experiences and learning lessons. Further, with the growth of gaming, Narula predicts we will see the rise of the multiversal self: people will no longer have just one identity, but many distinct selves within the various game worlds they occupy. On the latest edition of the BoF podcast, BoF’s Imran Amed chats with Narula about how the notion multi-versal self is driving the rise of virtual fashion, and how brands can position themselves to thrive in the space. People who start playing games typically don’t ever stop — even as they shift life stages. “The primary reason people remain engaged and keep playing games, especially online and social games, boils down to three key motivations: a desire to be more competent at something, a need to relate to other people, and a desire to self-express,” Narula said. Games are no longer just something people do to pass the time, and that has consequences related to their real-world significance. “Games are something that the majority of gamers are seeking out doing, and avoiding other activities to go and do, and beginning to contest other forms of spending,” Narula said. “That means that they are where culture is going to be born.” The opportunity for fashion is real. “I think [gaming] will become not merely a place for brands to go, but a place in which brands will be born, a place in which first class cultural ideas will emerge and begin to populate other aspects of how our society works,” Narula said. But, he warned customers will be able to see through superficial engagement with gaming, so brands must find a way to authentically engage in order to not cheapen the experience of their brand in either realm — the real world or the gaming world. Related Articles: NFTs for Fashion: Fad or Opportunity? What the NFT Gold Rush Means for Fashion Gucci Is Selling $12 (Virtual) Sneakers To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link. Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.