It’s been a difficult year for luxury fashion sales.
Tough economic trends haven’t helped, but the core issues run deeper. As Yohji Yamamoto told Imran Amed, “the major companies of fashion, they’re like kids playing soccer, just running after the ball. They’re not thinking about their customers.”
The industry is betting big on creative revamps to re-energise shoppers, but fashion’s malaise is multi-faceted and designers alone can’t fix this. That’s why BoF’s coverage went both deep and wide, examining everything from a marketing machine that makes brands feel more ubiquitous and interchangeable to trust issues linked to Italian sweatshops.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. A new CEO at Kering has given investors fresh confidence in one of fashion’s biggest groups; players like Hermès, Brunello Cucinelli and Prada continued to outperform; and there are signs that conditions may be improving in the critical China market.
Catch up on BoF’s in-depth analysis of luxury’s challenging 2025 and stay tuned for more intelligence and insight from the front lines of fashion next year.
Top Stories
1. Yohji Yamamoto: ‘The Fashion Business Is Disappearing.’ The 82-year-old punk poet anti-hero of fashion has grown a brand that now generates more than $200 million a year, but there is plenty he is angry about as he prepares his label for the future.
2. How ‘Dopamine Culture’ Rewired Fashion. The rise of social media algorithms that endlessly select and serve up digital content — whatever triggers a dopamine buzz in our brains — has rewired the luxury fashion industry. Is feeding the feed good for business?
3. The Great Fashion Reset | How to Fix Luxury’s Trust Issues. A series of scandals linking brands including Dior, Armani, Valentino and Loro Piana to sweatshops in Italy have helped fuel doubts about what customers are paying for and whether they can trust luxury brands anymore.
4. Are Luxury Megabrands Broken? Simultaneous crises at LVMH, Kering and Chanel suggest all is not well with the luxury megabrand model, but many of the headwinds they face may reverse in the coming years, writes Luca Solca.
5. Why Kering Picked a Fashion Outsider to Be Its Next CEO. The Gucci and Saint Laurent owner is splitting its chairman and CEO roles, bringing in Luca de Meo, a turnaround expert who has revived multiple automotive brands, to support the Pinault family.
6. Prada’s Versace Acquisition Closes, Now the Real Work Begins. The group’s effort to revive the fortunes of the iconic label founded by Gianni Versace will require both patience and pain. ‘The next 12 months will be rough.’
7. Why Luxury Needs to Rethink How It Speaks to Gen Z. Many high-end brands are struggling to connect with young consumers, who are either bored by dated marketing, turned off by high prices or both. Time is running out, as Gen Z is poised to dominate luxury spending by 2030.
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