The Debrief

For a long time, upcycling sat on the fringes of the fashion industry, a tactic used primarily by small independent designers, niche sustainability labels and in one-off capsule collections. That's changing. At Paris Couture Week this spring, Swiss designer Kevin Germanier closed the season with a collection made entirely from excess inventory across seven LVMH-owned brands. Coach is turning used denim into new bags, and Uniqlo is remaking unsellable and used garments under its RE label.In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks to senior editorial associate Shayeza Walid to explore why upcycling brands are increasingly marketing upcycling through creativity and individuality rather than sustainability alone, and what's really driving the shift from new EU regulations to a changing consumer mindset.Key Insights:Selling Creativity, Not Just Conscience: Walid points to a fundamental shift in how upcycling is marketed. It's no longer framed primarily as an environmental fix, but as a source of design distinction and story. "It felt like the term was becoming ubiquitous across marketing," she says, noting that upcycling has moved from something "relegated to a certain type of consumer or a certain type of brand" to being claimed by some of the industry's biggest names.Regulation Is Quietly Doing the Heavy Lifting: Walid connects the timing of the boom to the EU's ban on the destruction of unsold goods, which came into force in July. She notes that Kevin Germanier's LVMH-backed couture collection was deliberately built from unsold stock, not deadstock fabric — a distinction he emphasised on stage. "It also means that they'll have to figure out sustainable and approved ways for using their excess stock, and upcycling is one of the methods for that."Deadstock vs. Textile Waste — Not the Same Debate: Walid unpacks a live tension among practitioners: using deadstock fabric is being challenged by some critics as not addressing overproduction, since it still puts commercial value on excess production. "With deadstock, it's the same as using new fabric in the sense that they're rolls of fabric... that's not necessarily what upcycling is about," while brands like E.L.V. Denim work directly with used, discarded garments instead.The Infrastructure Is Finally Catching Up: Sorting, collecting and sourcing — the industry's biggest upcycling bottleneck — is improving. Walid cites organisations like Fashion for Good working on AI-assisted sorting, and platforms such as Nona Source and The Materialist connecting brands to deadstock fabric. "There's a greater design interest in it now more than there's ever been," she says of the shift she's tracked through conversations with suppliers.The Consumer Wants Range, Not a Label: Walid argues the audience for upcycled product has broadened well beyond the sustainability shopper. "You could have an upcycled Miu Miu product today, and maybe that says that you like high fashion... but also you think it's cool that your product is from an upcycled material," she says, describing a consumer who wants variety in their closet rather than to be defined by one aesthetic or ethic.Scale Remains the Unsolved Problem: Despite the momentum, there are limits. Sizing and colour inconsistency frustrate wholesale buyers, the process is inherently slower than working with virgin material, and export bans on used textiles in countries like Bangladesh complicate sourcing. She also flags that upcyclers in the Global South — in markets like Kantamanto in Ghana — have done this sort of work for generations but remain largely excluded from the value chain brands are now building.Additional Resources:Why So Many Fashion Brands Are Upcycling | BoFWhy Fashion’s Economics Work Against Sustainable Brands | BoFCan the EU Ban on Destroying Unsold Goods Actually Work? | BoF

For years, follower count was the clearest shorthand for a creator's value — more followers meant more reach, more brand deals, more money. But social media doesn't work that way anymore. TikTok's For You page, Instagram's suggested posts and other algorithmically curated feeds mean creators can reach huge audiences without those people ever following them. At the same time, affiliate marketing platforms like LTK and ShopMy are giving brands a much clearer picture of who actually drives sales, with smaller creators often outperforming bigger names. In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young talks to BoF US Editor Diana Pearl about how brands and creators are rethinking the value of an audience, and where creator value is headed next.Key Insights:A huge following no longer guarantees cultural weight. Pearl points to the gap between raw numbers and actual impact: "You look at someone like Dixie D'Amelio, who has almost 54 million followers on TikTok... but I would not say [she is] as culturally relevant as someone like Alex Earle, who has not even 9 million followers on TikTok."New platforms have made it possible to see exactly who is driving sales, not just who has the biggest audience. As Pearl explains, "ShopMy really changed that — they offer brands a lot more insight into which creators are actually driving sales, even if they're not running a paid partnership."TikTok's For You page and Instagram's suggested posts have done more than any other shift to break the link between followers and visibility. "Those are the two primary factors that have really diminished the importance of follower count," she says, "because you can have someone with 300 followers who goes viral."The single most important quality a creator can build today resists easy measurement. "Trust is the number one most important thing that an influencer or creator can curate today," Pearl says, "and that trust is not something that can necessarily be measured by metrics on a spreadsheet."Chasing every viral trend is a losing strategy — consistency is what builds a durable audience. "Playing the long game is really the best strategy," she says. "Staying true to who you are — that's how you build that community. That is how you built that trust in that community."Additional Resources:Why Follower Count Matters Less Than Ever | BoFNot All Creators Convert. Here's How to Find Those That Do. | BoFFrom Hype to Discipline: The New World of Influencer Marketing | Case Study | BoF

For much of the last decade, fashion brands and retailers were fixated on making shopping as seamless as possible — endless product online, algorithmic recommendations, next-day delivery. But after years of digital sameness, something more analogue is starting to feel exciting again. That shift sits at the heart of BoF's new retail package, The Best Fashion Stores in the World — an insider's guide to 65 independent retailers spanning from Brooklyn's Ven. Space to Dongliang in Shanghai, Alara in Lagos and Dover Street Market. BoF retail editor Cathaleen Chen joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to discuss why independent retailers are becoming more important to shoppers, brands and the wider fashion ecosystem, as well as why the ritual of engaging with fashion IRL is more important than ever.Key Insights: Chen says the list's three pillars — curation, experience and partnership — were designed to reflect more than consumer taste. Partnership, she explains, addresses "the support and the responsibilities that all retailers have to the fashion ecosystem," at a moment when department stores have earned a track record for not paying vendors and multi-brand retail has been reshaped by the collapse of players like Matches and the struggles of Net-a-Porter.With e-commerce solving for intent-driven shopping, Chen argues stores now win on discovery. As she puts it: "If you know exactly what you want, you shop online. If you don't know what you want, you shop in stores." She adds that the best shopkeepers add value "not just discovery for new brands" but new ways of styling — an eye that "allows designers to sort of view their collection in new eyes" in a way social feeds may fall short,  Per wholesale data from the platform Joor, independent retailers' share of transactions rose from 49 percent in 2020 to 62 percent in 2025 — meaning independents "now make up the majority of transactions in wholesale" on the platform, a significant insight even when accounting for the caveat that it reflects one marketplace.The list includes retailers in Ibiza, Hangzhou, Cairo, Cartagena and Kuwait City — a deliberate move beyond fashion's traditional capitals. Citing a conversation with Kallmeyer founder and chief executive Daniella Kallmeyer, Chen notes that regional boutiques may be " even more important than the larger international stores because they're able to penetrate these outer-tier markets," which represent white space for fashion, rather than lesser opportunity.The appeal of independent retail is fundamentally about a different mindset: casual discovery and "bopping around the neighbourhood," which Chen calls "the opposite of online shopping, where I know exactly what I want.”Asked to name the one quality that will define the best stores for the next decade, Chen didn't hesitate: "I think conviction is what makes these doors so special, and ultimately what makes them so successful today" — pointing to Ikram Goldman's boutique, Ikram, in Chicago, and her famously intimate client relationships as the clearest example.Additional Resources:Why Independent Retail Is More Important Than Ever | BoFThe Best Fashion Stores in the World | BoFThe Debrief | Why Some Retailers are Ignoring the Internet | BoF

What makes a fashion or beauty company a truly desirable place to work? BoF’s second annual ranking of the industry’s most sought-after employers looks beyond brand recognition to examine what workers value — and where companies’ reputations do not always sync up with employee experience. In this episode of The Debrief senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks with junior commercial writer Eoghan O’Donnell and commercial features editor Dan Hastings about the companies that topped the list, the factors shaping employees’ choices and the challenges facing employers today. They also discuss career development, leadership, workplace stability and how artificial intelligence is changing fashion jobs.Key Insights: The conglomerate stability draw: Amid market volatility, candidates are gravitating toward European luxury conglomerates and beauty giants. Chanel, Hermès and Dior topped the fashion list, while L'Oréal Paris led beauty, ahead of Dior Beauty and Charlotte Tilbury. Their appeal lies partly in perceived stability and career longevity. Founder-led brands including Charlotte Tilbury, Rhode, Victoria Beckham Beauty, Fenty Beauty and Rare Beauty also made the beauty top 20, driven more by product and creative vision than corporate scale.Prestige recruits, it doesn't retain: Iconic brand names remain powerful recruitment tools, but employees consistently rank pay, career progression and company culture as their top three priorities — even as prestige tops their stated reason for choosing a dream employer. The disconnect is measurable: only 28 percent of current workers say their employer's external reputation strongly aligns with their day-to-day experience, and among those who perceive a gap, 80 percent plan to leave within 12 months. "Prestige attracts talent, but it's not necessarily what retains it," says O'Donnell. The ivory tower effect: Of all cohorts surveyed, C-suite and HR respondents were the least likely to say their employer's external image differed from internal reality — the group best placed to close that gap is often the most disconnected from it. A Glassdoor and Indeed review analysis (December 2024 onward) of the top 10 companies in both rankings surfaced consistent complaints about workload, benefits, and disconnects between store-level management and headquarters. "There is a [difference] between having a prestigious brand name and working for a brand that doesn't necessarily deliver a healthy workplace," says O'Donnell. "The generational AI divide: Sentiment on AI splits sharply by seniority, not by digital fluency. Workers over 40 are the most AI-optimistic cohort — not Gen Z, as employers might assume — while 39 percent of fashion workers and 35 percent of beauty workers say they want AI training they haven't received. A small but notable share admitted using AI at work without disclosing it to their employer.The "job lock" threat: Many employees are staying in roles for economic security, not satisfaction. "We know that some employees are staying in roles because of economic uncertainty rather than that sense of genuine satisfaction," says O'Donnell. Hastings sees the same pressure building from the other direction: "I don't think [Gen Z] are willing to sacrifice their [salary], paying the rent, and eating on the altar of working for a prestigious fashion or beauty company — and that will create a lot of friction within the industry."Women's health is the next battleground: In survey responses skewing majority-female, respondents voiced urgent, largely unmet demand for egg freezing, menstrual leave, and support through perimenopause and menopause — benefits nearly absent from current employer offerings in two female-dominated industries.Additional Resources:The Most Desirable Beauty Companies to Work for in 2026 | BoFThe Most Desirable Fashion Companies to Work for in 2026 | BoFThe Debrief | Making Sense of Fashion’s Brutal Job Market | BoF

Fabric content used to be a niche sustainability conversation. Now it's a mainstream health one, driven by the same scrutiny shoppers already apply to what they eat and put on their skin — searches for "natural fibre" are up over 100 percent  in five years, and searches for "what is viscose?" have climbed roughly 5,000 percent  in the US over the same period. Gap found out just how fast that shift can turn into backlash when its nostalgic Zac Posen knit drop — 80 percent  polyester, 20 percent elastane — drew comparisons to fast fashion within days of launch, despite carrying a premium, above-$100 price tag.In this episode of The Debrief, Sheena Butler-Young and Shayeza Walid unpack why natural fibres have become a health obsession rather than a values debate, why "natural" doesn't automatically mean sustainable, and whether polyester can ever really be dethroned.Key Insights: Health Is the New Driver: The conversation used to centre on durability and value; now it's about wellness. Walid explains that shoppers are "instead of just talking about durability and value... starting [to go]  more into this health conversation," adding that clothing has become "this final frontier" for the same scrutiny people already apply to food and skincare.Gap's Zac Posen Knit Became a Cautionary Tale: The backlash wasn't really about one sweater — it was about price and expectation. Walid notes the item retailed above $100, so "the disappointment was... doubled down on by the fact that this is supposed to be like a premium level of Gap." As she puts it, "people are [now] associating price with natural fiber."Natural Doesn't Automatically Mean Sustainable: Walid is blunt that the "natural equals good" framing oversimplifies things: "natural does mean that it might have a higher carbon footprint," she says, pointing to methane from grazing cattle for wool and the water intensity of cotton. Her summary: "anything that's derived from nature... naturally has a higher environmental footprint because it's from the earth."Different Generations, Same Shift: Motivations diverge by age, but the direction is the same. Gen Z shoppers are driven by "value signaling" around climate, Walid says, while older shoppers are asking "how can I live a healthier, better life?" Her takeaway: "you're seeing it across different age brackets, but the end result is this shift."Polyester Isn't Going Anywhere Soon: Despite the backlash, Walid says synthetics remain entrenched, especially in performance wear. "It's cheap... it is subsidized by... the oil lobby," she says, and its "malleable qualities are so unique to itself that it's very difficult to replace." Bio-based elastane is emerging, but only at pilot scale.Additional Resources:Why Consumers Are Ditching Polyester for Natural Fibres | BoFSustainable Fashion’s New Marketing Angle Is All About Wellness | BoFWool Workout Clothes? The Demand Is Growing | BoF 

For decades, institutions like Central Saint Martins, Parsons and Institut Français de la Mode have launched some of fashion's most successful careers. But, today's graduates are entering a more competitive industry grappling with slower growth across the board, where AI is changing how work gets done and employers are reassessing the skills they need. This week, BoF Careers features editor Dan Hastings joins Senior Correspondent Sheena Butler–Young to examine how fashion education is evolving alongside a rapidly changing industry — and whether those changes are enough to prepare students for today's job market.Key Insights:Fashion graduates are entering a far more competitive industry. With thousands of graduates competing for a limited number of entry-level roles, breaking into fashion is arguably becoming even more difficult than it was just a decade ago. According to UCAS data, the UK alone now offers over 200 bachelor's-level fashion courses, with cohorts running from single figures up to roughly 50 at institutions such as Central Saint Martins and the London College of Fashion. That points to close to 5,000 new fashion design graduates a year, entering a job market that, in Hastings's words, “is not ready for that number of young graduates” — and competing not only with each other but with the backlog of graduates from previous years who haven't yet found work.Financial barriers persist. Despite some progress, Hastings describes many fashion students continuing to work unpaid internships to gain much-needed experience while struggling to afford tuition, housing and other college expenses. It’s structure that, he says, often “excludes people from working-class backgrounds, even if now they have access to fashion degrees.” UK student loans widen access to the degree itself, but not to the unpaid work experience that increasingly follows it.Prestige still opens doors. Hastings says some of fashion's most prestigious schools continue to offer a route into the industry's most sought-after roles—but not because of the name on the diploma alone. Their value lies in the combination of rigorous creative training, selective programmes and sustained access to industry professionals. As examples, Hastings points to schools like La Cambre in Brussels, whose highly selective programmes and graduate shows, he says, continue to attract attention from leading luxury brands and recruiters. He also highlights institutions like IFM in Paris, where close industry ties and scholarship support help connect students with the wider fashion ecosystem. As Hastings puts it, "when you have a foot inside the door, you can really connect with really amazing people."Additional Resources:Paris' New Super-School Aims to Rival Central Saint Martins | BoF How Fashion Schools Court Industry Talent | BoFHow Fashion Schools Are Tackling AI’s Blind Spots | BoF 

In 2016, the global retail landscape was dominated by successful direct-to-consumer (DTC) disruptors like Everlane, Glossier, Allbirds and Outdoor Voices. Backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, they prioritised rapid sales growth and hyper-aggressive social media customer acquisition over immediate profitability.In this episode, senior news and features editor Diana Pearl joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to explore why the once-dominant DTC formula ultimately unravelled — and how a quieter, lesser-scrutinised class of brands, such as Doên, Hill House and Staud, built more durable businesses by taking a different path.Key Insights: A faltering DTC playbook faltered : IIn 2016, fashion's direct-to-consumer boom was fuelled by venture capital. Well-funded startups spent heavily on creative agencies, polished brand identities and social media advertising in pursuit of rapid growth, while largely rejecting wholesale. But as customer acquisition costs climbed and digital marketing became less effective, many brands discovered that bypassing traditional retail wasn't the sustainable advantage it once seemed. Brand before scale: Having a strong aesthetic is key to the equation. . “Being very defined with your aesthetic and your point of view, you can then take that and apply it to a bunch of different categories,” says Pearl Direct consumer selling can be a good way to control brand identity but wholesale remains a critical avenue for brand awareness and discovery. 'It’s not that direct- to-consumers can't work, you just need to build up that brand identity,” says Pearl. “I think a lot of these big 2016 names went wrong by raising so much money without [the brand identity].”The value of being small and growing slow  Limited capital forced many of these brands to stay disciplined with inventory, giving them time to understand what customers actually wanted before making bigger bets. While frequent sell-outs weren't ideal, they were often less damaging than excess inventory that required markdowns and eroded profitability. The result was a stronger feedback loop between brands and their customers and quicker pivots.“When products sell out, you get to see what your customers are really resonating with versus if you're just advertising on social media in order to grow sales,” says Pearl. Community over customer acquisition : Rather than relying on expensive paid marketing, many of these brands built loyal followings through authentic relationships with creators and customers. Early influencer partnerships grew alongside the brands themselves, creating trust and awareness that proved more durable than simply buying reach through social media advertising. “Additional Resources:For These Brands, Resisting the DTC Playbook Paid Off Glossier’s New Strategy: Fewer Stores, Fewer Products The ‘Nap Dress’ Propelled Hill House to $110 Million. What’s Next?

Luxury's post-pandemic boom is over. Growth has slowed, shoppers are pushing back on years of price increases and many brands are struggling to convince customers they're still worth the premium. Drawing on BoF's 2026 State of Luxury report — which includes a survey of more than 2,000 affluent consumers in the US and China, alongside interviews with industry leaders — BoF editors Mimosa Spencer and Robert Williams explore what's driving luxury's reset and what it means for brands.They unpack why heritage, craftsmanship and logo power are no longer enough to justify premium prices on their own, and why emotional connection, creativity and exceptional retail experiences have become increasingly important to today's luxury shopper. They also discuss what brands need to do to rebuild excitement, restore value and win customers back.Key Insights:Emotional Matters More Than Heritage: Craftsmanship, heritage, and logo power are still important, but they are increasingly seen as table stakes rather than the ultimate selling point. After years of price increases, luxury shoppers are looking for brands that spark excitement, feel culturally relevant, or offer a more meaningful emotional connection. As Spencer explains, this shift is deeply tied to a broader consumer weariness: "Luxury fatigue has been a real problem. Shoppers are tired of price hikes. They're tired of things costing more when... the product hasn't actually changed." Luxury Shouldn’t Feel Like a Chore: Luxury brands once built exclusivity through long queues, appointment-only access, and other barriers to entry. Today, shoppers expect premium service to feel effortless, requiring brands to balance accessibility for aspirational consumers with absolute privacy for Very Important Clients (VICs). The traditional mechanics of high-end retail are fast becoming liabilities; as Spencer observes, "Once you've peaked somebody's interest, you've gotten your audience, you want to be able to serve them right away. Don't make them go through hoops. Don't let them wait in line. None of that is appealing anymore."Different Meanings in Different Markets: While emotional connection remains key across both major economic engines, how that plays out is heavily influenced by geography. In China, luxury consumption is closely tied to external self-expression and social recognition—even through understated "quiet luxury". In the US, shoppers are more likely to prioritise personal taste, self-reward, and alignment with a brand's values. Explaining this cultural divergence, Williams notes that "historically there is a stereotype that conspicuous consumption and very obvious signifiers of luxury are what are gonna perform much better in a country like China, [but] you have a really strong success for certain brands there that have a much more discreet or understated approach."Navigating the Spectator Divide: Luxury brands are increasingly catering to two distinct groups: transactional store clients who buy products, and digital audiences who engage with brands strictly through fashion content. The challenge is turning online attention into meaningful retail engagement without losing either audience. This structural shift requires brands to balance commercial conversions against the growing weight of pure spectatorship. As Williams notes, "There is a real issue in fashion right now with spectatorship and the idea that lots of people are just as happy to consume images of fashion than to actually go buy it. We're compulsive consumers of imagery in our culture today."Additional Resources:The State of Fashion: Face-to-Face with Luxury Clients | BoFChanel’s Bruno Pavlovsky on Reengineering an Iconic Brand | BoFHaute Couture and High Jewellery Take the Paris Stage | BoF

The 2026 World Cup marked an unprecedented milestone for global football, expanding to 48 teams playing over 100 matches across the US, Canada and Mexico. In this special episode of The Debrief, Nike’s vice president of global brand management Helena Thornton joins BoFsenior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and sports and fashion correspondent Mike Syke to discuss the strategy behind the brand's World Cup campaign, the expansive relationship between football, culture and commerce and what the tournament means at a pivotal moment for Nike.The episode examines how Nike approached the sport's biggest stage, from the creative thinking behind its 'Rip the Script' campaign — which brought together elite athletes, pop culture figures and cinematic storytelling — to the challenge of building campaigns that resonate in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. Thornton also reflects on how the World Cup fits into Nike's broader brand strategy as the company works to regain brand heat.Key Insights:Breaking beyond football fans requires becoming part of the broader cultural conversation. As brands compete for attention with creators, entertainment and other cultural forces, Nike designed its World Cup campaign to extend beyond the sport itself, bringing together elite footballers, athletes and cultural figures to appeal to both dedicated supporters and more casual fans. “Including the sort of that celebrity class alongside the elite footballers and the athletes, because I think that speaks to the more casual fan,” Thornton says.  Long-term community building matters more than tournament marketing alone. Thornton says major sporting events should serve as a catalyst for brand storytelling and momentum rather than the entirety of the brand’s strategy.  You don't ever just want to be the shiny object that drops in for the weeks of the tournament and then you leave,” she  says. “We really want to make sure that people have unbelievable access to the game... that moment actually really ignites this huge love of the game.”  Grassroots investments, like Nike's ‘Toma’ platform, the street football movement,  help build deeper consumer relationships than short-lived tournament campaigns.Nike built its campaign around athlete instinct rather than a traditional sports marketing playbook.  Rather than relying on rigid creative formulas, the brand grounded 'Rip the Script' in conversations with professional footballers, embracing emotion, authenticity and intuition as the foundation for the campaign. “We spoke to hundreds of footballers who kept telling us the same thing,” Thornton explains. “They were …  just a bit sick of people telling [them] what to do... ‘we just wanna trust our gut.’” Football creates moments of connection that few cultural platforms can match. The World Cup's global reach made it more than just a sporting event, creating a shared cultural moment at a time when people were looking for connection and optimism. “There's just a passion about the sport…there is just this larger unity right now that I'm seeing from people,” Thornton says. “I think the world just needed this thing to bring us all together and there is no other sport other than football really that truly, truly is the global game.”    Innovation remains central to Nike's broader turnaround strategy. While campaigns like 'Rip the Script' are among the brand's most visible expressions, Thornton says major sporting moments bring together teams across the company to think beyond marketing. “We sit down across all of the different departments at Nike and we talk about these big sports moments, ‘what do we wanna do to totally change the industry again? What is the athlete problem that we're solving for? What innovation can we push to allow an athlete to do something they never even believed that was possible?’”Additional Resources:Nike and Adidas Are Taking the World Cup to the Street The Strategy Behind Nike’s Colossal World Cup Bet  Nike’s World Cup Takeover Is Off to a Hot Start