The Business of Fashion Podcast

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.

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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.

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The Transforming Luxury Podcast launches on 13th September. Subscribe now to never miss an episode.

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For comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail: [email protected].

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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