The future of fashion is global; A conversation with Divya Mathur of REVOLVE

Divya Mathur, Chief Marketing Officer and fashion director for the online retail force that is REVOLVE, spends a lot of time listening. Since beginning her ecommerce ascendancy at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City in 2008, she’s been successfully shifting customer acquisition strategies for internationally important retailers.

This fashion season Mathur has been on a bit of a global tour, following fashion weeks as they make their wave from one continent to the next, but she kindly made some time to talk to me about the trends she sees coming to the business end of apparel.

Change is absolutely coming, but it does not have to be terrifying, in fact, Mathur believes it is refreshing and that the things possible right now means that there are a nearly endless number of opportunities. Her position is as logical as it is pragmatic, after all, ‘change’ is not going to be terminal for a business as intrinsically linked to the human experience as apparel. After all, the changes inherent in the world that will be may lead to a better world of fashion.

Redefining Curation with 2030 in Mind

REVOLVE’s website makes it very clear that, as a brand, they believe in curating rather than selling. The specific word choice pinged my antennae, it’s the sort of detail that never happens by accident. So, while I was preparing for this conversation I made a note to ask about a decision that felt so much like a commitment.

“I often feel that the misconception about curation is that it means limited choice and fewer products,” Divya Mathur told me. “I think about curation means knowing what your consumer values and then seeking that out. One of my biggest points is emerging brands, having a differentiated product assortment, because if something is available everywhere, you’re simply competing on price and shipping efficiency, right? Those are the differentiators, and they are hard to compete on, especially when you’re trying to build a business and build consumer loyalty. I really think success is about knowing what motivates the consumer to purchase, so I’m constantly thinking about and traveling the world to seek out the brands that deliver on that.”

To serve that need, to provide options to multiple generational client bases with distinct subsets, Mathur’s years of experience have taught her that a balance needs to exist between consistent quality and a diverse range of offerings. She knows that the most important thing she can do is provide options that will appeal to the many different customers that keep coming back to REVOLVE to replicate an exceptional experience.

“Being able to carry such a differentiated assortment is what I believe creates brand loyalty,” the executive explained, “and also that sense of discovery we hear about so often. If something is available everywhere, then it is unique to no one. And thanks to social media, and what I call the curse of the algorithm, everything can be a trend instantaneously, that is the world that we’re living in, where the only thing that becomes differentiating about a person is their style, their ability to discover and wear something that no one else is.”

The Educational Component 

Looking at the ever-evolving business of fashion as the second half of 2026 looms near, I wanted to know how and where Mathur was shifting REVOLVE’s model, what she was hearing from her customers and how that information was shaping her strategy. I asked what ideas and practices she thought were so important for the future that she was investing her attention in them right now.

“I think that, as a merchant, it’s not enough to just pick clothes anymore,” Mathur told me. “That’s not doing the full job. Of course you have to have the right product and the right brands, but here’s the big shift; you also have to be an educator. You have to teach your customer where they will be wearing a piece and how to style it. That’s exactly why I do this series for REVOLVE called ‘Add to Cart’. It’s a YouTube series where I talk about exactly that, where I tap into what I know my customer is shopping for right now. We’re doing our next one later in March in L.A. and we’re talking about spring dresses. We know sales of spring dresses peaks in early March.”

If you’re thinking this is a series where the CMO and Fashion Director is simply talking about her favorite dresses for Spring, Lovely Reader, please know that Mathur is working light years ahead of that idea.

“It’s about the best spring dresses and here’s where you’re going to wear them,” Mathur told me. “This one is great for this. This one is better suited for that. Here’s how you’re going to style them in different ways. You’re not just buying a dress to wear once and never again. So, here’s how you swap your shoes or change your jewelry. If you add a blazer, you take this into a totally different end use; I think that that’s the future of merchandising. This idea that just putting clothes up there and expecting people to read a blurb about it and then convert is lazy. And, because there’s so much out there with artificial intelligence and curation and avatars, if you want to compete, then you’ve also got to put in the work, which is teaching why the product’s special, why it’s unique, and how someone is going to wear it in real life.”

I told Mathur that what she was saying really resonated with me, that it felt like she was looking for ways to add value to a customer’s experience. It made sense to me that she was looking for ways to add layers of intangible value to a garment or accessory, perhaps especially when the price point of an individual piece is on the luxury end of fashion’s market.

“I think that’s why we’re seeing a resurgence of in-person shopping,” she said. “People are tired of scrolling on websites and then getting a box full of stuff and returning 60% or 80% of it. I think that’s why people are going back into stores, because they want the ‘tell me how to wear it’ aspect. The efficiency and the ease of online shopping isn’t going to go anywhere, but I think it’s going to be all about adding in that layer of knowledge, that tactile education.”

Evolving with Customers

With so much proof that REVOLVE’s CMO and fashion director was actively working to shift her thought process in anticipation of coming market changes, I wanted to know how she felt this was going to affect our conceptual idea of the influencer. For basically all of the 2020s, though influence marketing’s roots absolutely began before that, the elusive-yet-ubiquitous ‘Influencer’ has been the focus of too many campaigns for anyone to count.

“I think that the influencer isn’t going anywhere,” Mathur told me. “But I think anybody can share their aesthetic with the world with very little effort. Anyone can build a platform, which is hugely democratizing in many ways. I think platforms like ShopMy are incredible, because they’re doing exactly that. They’re giving brands access to creators who organically resonate with what they are trying to do, and that’s creating real authenticity. Much more than a brand sending stuff to 10 influencers and hoping they wear it, hoping something comes of it. Brands are able to tap into the influencers who authentically connect with the type of customer they are trying to reach. And vice versa, if you’re a creator, it allows you to authentically find brands that resonate with who their audience is and what their platform is all about, rather than trying to go promote the same 10 brands as everybody else.”

I asked if she felt like there were lessons in this, along the lines of information collectable and indicators obvious that don’t seem to be getting as much attention as Mathur was giving them.

“I think what’s happening with the success of companies like ShopMy really shows us that customers value that layer of influence because they feel like it’s relatable,” she said. “It’s real people, whose style they trust, and they want to be able to shop it. And they bring in a layer of curation that a customer wants to know how to emulate and ShopMy makes it really easy to do that. I’m very bullish on platforms that allow brands to authentically connect with content creators, and the opposite, because I feel like it means the consumer benefits at the end of the day.”

The Future of Fashion

I’ve had this idea bouncing around my head, that much in the same way that social media turned out to have a very egalitarian impact on fashion, artificial intelligence is going to lower barriers to entry in ways we haven’t been able to see yet. Yes, there are some potential scary things coming, and yes, there are legitimate concerns related to the many detrimental ways AI could affect fashion and design more generally. But this writer believes that we cannot uninvent; AI is here and major moments of change offer as many potentials for opportunity as they do chances for catastrophe. With a literal expert on fashion innovation sitting across from me on Zoom, I had to ask her opinion about what positive ways she could see AI changing fashion as we know it.

“As somebody who’s been at the best retailers for the last 20 years, scaling brands that are now household names, I think about it as when I went to e-commerce back in 2008 at Saks,” Mathur told me. “The business was nascent. It was eight years in and the view was, is anybody really going to buy a $3,000 handbag online? Or, is this just like a marketing thing? And of course, we all know how that went. I feel the exact same way about AI right now and I think there are two camps in fashion. There are people who are staunchly digging their heels in and saying, taste is reserved for only a handful of people who believe that they are arbiters. And then there’s the rest of the industry, people who are like, we’ve seen it happen with social media and now AI is going to ramp that up even more, because taste has become egalitarian. It no longer is for a reserved subset of people who have decided that they individually get to decide what is tasteful. Taste now belongs to the people.”

I agreed very much with what I was hearing, and I could tell from the confidence rising in the executive’s voice that she absolutely believed in what she was saying.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus is often misquoted as saying that change is the only constant. The actual quote, πάντα ῥεῖ, is better translated as ‘everything flows,’ or ‘life is flux.’ While conversations about fashion and retail don’t often delve into philosophy, perhaps they should, because what he wrote very much applies to the conversation I had with Divya Mathur. Change is inevitable because nothing is static; nature just doesn’t work that way. It was invigorating to speak with a person in fashion who understood this was a reality about our universe and embraced it.

“As a fashion person, I think it’s exciting,” Mathur said. “It’s allowed me to shift my point of view. If the customer is going to be a part of the conversation, then I’m going to lean into the customer. The customer is the new influencer, the new driver of what is cool. So, I spend all my time thinking about what they are doing, where they spend their time. And there’s another shift that I’m seeing because of this massive AI tech driven world that we’re living in, people are spending more money on sports, wellness and travel. People want to do things. And when they are doing those things, they’re thinking about what they want to buy to wear for them, and that’s how I think about product and assortment. I’m super plugged in to where customers are spending their time and then teaching them how to dress for all the different things that they are doing. That’s the shift that AI has promoted, it’s no longer about buying something just because someone said it was cool.”

Were any specific factors that she saw bolstering the evolution guaranteed by developing technological advances?

“I think part of the challenge of the industry is that its talent has historically been located in the same geographic places for the last hundred years,” Mathur told me. “You know, New York, London, Milan, and Paris. And that is such a narrow view of the world. I mean, those are all amazing fashion capitals, don’t get me wrong, my point is that we don’t need to be limited to them. And that has been my exact focus, looking beyond the traditional fashion capitals, embracing the fact that if the customer is global, then as a retailer, it is my responsibility to also look at global design talent.”

Global Talent for the Discerning Customer

As she looked deeply into regional fashion around the world, her eyes watching for innovation and talent that wasn’t getting enough attention, the executive found herself coming back to one part of the world again and again.

“India, to me, is a hotbed market,” Mathur said. “And I say this for a couple of reasons. First of all, India has had a longstanding history for manufacturing. It has been a hub, not only for commercial brands, but the best luxury brands in the world have relied on Indian artisans for their beading, textiles and couture work, simply because they are the best at it. But I think what has really changed is that India’s design talent is transitioning from being in this back-end supplier mode to becoming part of the standalone brand world, and they’re owning their customer-facing brand equity. They are coming out on their own, and these are brands with a distinct, unique point of view. They are speaking to the customer directly and creating their own brand identities instead of simply supplying other brands who then go and create an identity around their product.”

I asked if there were any brands that might not yet be well known yet stateside, but might be soon.

“When I met Rahul Mishra and Falguni Shane Peacock,” Mathur told me, “these are household names in India. And Rahul shows on the Paris Couture calendar, he is also a globally recognized name. These are not ethnic Indian designers. These are global luxury brands who are simply waiting for a platform. That’s exactly why I made the decision to bring them to the U.S. market, because I know that the customer here is craving that level of craft and uniqueness. They want that sense of discovery, to walk into a room and say, ‘oh, this dress, it’s Falguni Shane Peacock. Do you know them?’ And then explain that story of its hand-beading, done by artisans in Delhi, that Falguni does all the clothing for Bollywood’s biggest stars as well as royals. And getting to connect with a brand that way is what’s driving customer purchase intent. I’m very bullish on India. I’ve tested several brands already on REVOLVE. Because another thing that’s happening right now is that customers are really open to trying new brands in a way that they weren’t before.”

In our conversation I learned that as recently as 10 years ago, it was Mathur’s experience that customers didn’t have the openness to emerging designer names that she’s seeing co consistently today. The trend right now, one which seems to be only just beginning, is what Divya described to me as almost anti-algorithm, and I asked her to explain to me exactly what she meant.

“Because so many brands are so ubiquitous right now, I think people want a brand that everybody doesn’t already know,” Mathur explained. “A great example is the brand Deme by Gabriella. I met the designer, and when I saw her product I immediately knew it was going to resonate with a large audience base. She employs a beautiful draping technique, it looks great on anyone from any size, any age, and she intuitively understands color. When I saw her collection, she had no major distribution outside of her own direct-to-consumer. I was like, we’re going to do this, we’re going to build this business, and we’re going to put it on REVOLVE. And in less than a year, we’d built a multi-million dollar business. It’s all over, the it-girls on social media love it, Gigi Hadid was photographed wearing Deme. This is customers trying it, loving it, and being excited to wear something different than what other people don’t have, and it organically builds.”

Decoupling Price and Prestige

My regular readers will likely know that I have some lofty ideas about fashion and art. I very much believe that there is a utility in creating beautiful things, that they inspire us to dream larger, to want and expect more. Thinking about what I was hearing from Mathur made me want to know what she thought about the pragmatic value of aspiration, especially since in 2026 there are more brands competing for customers than have ever saturated a market.

“There’s this massive decoupling of the idea of luxury and price in the industry right now,” she told me. “For a long time the formula has been that designer goods were so beautiful and so special that they really warranted their price tag. You felt like you were buying into a dream, something that was exclusive and special. If you were aspirational and saved up for one purchase a year, it felt worth it. Or, you were a luxury customer and there were many purchases, you still derived that same fulfillment out of clothing. I think what’s changed is that luxury brands have driven up prices dramatically and they haven’t simultaneously increased value in craftsmanship or design.”

Consumers are smart, much more so than they are sometimes credited, and I could tell that part of the reason Divya was so good at her (many) job(s) is the fact that she assumes the people who buy from REVOLVE are highly intelligent. She knows that when someone sees a design they are interested in, notices that it’s very similar to many other designs, and then sees the luxury price point, then it becomes hard for them to get excited about making a purchase. So maybe they don’t buy, with so many options available it is probable that they probably keep looking.

“That’s exactly where we find ourselves,” Mathur agreed. “And today, the pieces that are not as expensive are of great quality. Why would someone pay so much more for something that just isn’t living up to what it used to? I think that’s what the industry is suffering through right now, this decoupling of price and prestige. Now consumers want really amazing products that are beautiful and differentiated. I don’t believe that just because it has a designer logo means that it is prestigious and exclusive.”

This was fascinating, and I wanted to know if she thought there were any other factors at play which were important for businesses to be thinking about as retail goes through this major metamorphosis.

“Another big driving factor of that is that ‘designer’ isn’t scarce anymore,” Mathur told me. “Between luxury brands opening up so many stores, retailers all doubling down on the same 50 heritage brands, then resale, rental, and superfakes. If you want a designer product, it’s not hard to get it. And if nothing is scarce, is it exclusive? That was the model of luxury. Right now, consumers don’t want to spend $7,000 on a bag that’s going to end up on The Real Real for a quarter of the price in two months. Instead, I’m looking for brands that are unique, truly differentiated and that have price value. I want to walk into the room and have somebody say, ‘oh, my God, cool dress. Who is that?’ Then I get to tell the story of this really cool designer. I want to be able to say that I’m the first one to discover this brand.”

Thinking about the world of fashion right now, considering lessons learned from the past, then distilling both those things to forecast the future of what we wear and how we shop; this is how Mathur has left her indelible mark on retail fashion. What she has achieved is not small, and as we get closer to the next decade her insights are going to be more important than ever. This is a generous lady, one willing to share her acumen and ideas, and she very much believes that success comes from paying attention to what people want instead of wasting time dictating what they should want.

“I think that’s what’s really changed is that people are being forced to listen,” Divya Mathur explained. “Brands are being forced to listen to the consumer and the brands that aren’t doing that are suffering, you can see that in their numbers. The brands that are, you see it in everything from their model casting, marketing and design to the types of products they are leaning into. It’s in the way that they’re starting to communicate with the customer, which is very different because they’re listening to what the customer wants. I think we’re going to more and more designers, from luxury to commercial, really thinking about how fashion exists. We’re going to see them create beauty and art, but in real life, not just in an untouchable fantasy of the runway.”