The Business of Fashion Podcast

Over the last two years, demand for luxury fashion has softened as aspirational shoppers have pulled back and consumer fatigue has crept in. Yet, Prada Group has continued to grow, by prioritising brand DNA, employing disciplined curation and creating strong connections to  contemporary culture.

“Prada is culture, culture is discussion, culture is opinions. The more you’re discussed, the more you’re able to be influence...

As COP30 gets underway in Belém, a port city on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest, the mood is sober. A decade after the Paris Agreement was adopted internationally to limit global warming, many of the world’s largest fashion companies have fallen short on emissions cuts — and some are moving in the wrong direction, emitting pollutants at an even higher rate than in previous years.

In this episode of The Debrief, senior corre...

Amber Valletta grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, spending time on her grandparents’ farm. Her childhood was defined by open fields, a freshwater creek and a simple rule from her mother: go outside and use your imagination.

At 15, a local modelling class set her on an unexpected path that would take her first to Milan, and then around the world. Within a few years, Amber became one of the defining faces of 1990s fashion — the Tom Ford ...

Colourful charms, Labubu-laden handbags and a ring on every finger – accessories sales are booming. A surge of necklace stacks, playful rings and quirky charms is being driven by Gen Z’s push for personal style, using add-ons to customise minimalist wardrobes on a budget. With apparel prices up, accessories act as “little luxuries” and entry points into brands. Retail is responding, with buyers widening small-leather-goods assortme...

Soon after sharing his graduate work from the London College of Fashion online, Hong Kong-born Robert Wun was approached by Joyce Boutique to buy his collection. Like many other independent designers, he found navigating the wholesale model challenging and during the pandemic he pivoted to serving clients with one-off, customised designs with couture level pricing. 

“I realised that, in order for me to have a strong wholesa...

In late August, the US doubled duties on Indian goods to 50 percent, in what President Donald Trump described as a punishment for India’s purchases of Russian oil. Brands reacted immediately, postponing or cancelling orders and leaving factories in hubs like Tiruppur and Bengaluru half-filled. With shifts cut and workers laid off, the shock ricocheted through India’s export economy, exposing how little protection garment worke...

Born in Dubai in 1978 when the city was still a modest trading port, Khalifa Bin Braik has witnessed the city’s rapid transformation  into a 21st-century global hub – and helped shape its retail landscape as CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Asset Management. 

Majid Al Futtaim is behind the $1.4 billion transformation of Dubai’s second largest mall, The Mall of the Emirates, adding 20,000 sqm of additional retail space and 100 n...

A new wave of AI shopping agents has emerged as Big Tech and start-ups alike vie for dominance of this new market. OpenAI, Google and Perplexity are experimenting with search-to-checkout, while fashion-specific entrants like Vêtir, Phia and Gensmo are learning users' tastes before recommending and purchasing across retailers. But before they get off the ground, trust, accuracy, privacy and simple usefulness remain open questions.

Irish designer Sinéad O’Dwyer grew up in a household of creative entrepreneurs. Her father was a silversmith and a sculptor, her mother was a music educator and her grandmother knit and sewed uniforms.  Until the age of fourteen, there were no screens in her home, not even a TV. Instead, she was encouraged to read, craft and spend time outdoors. 

After studying  in the Netherlands and a formative stint in the fash...

This fashion month, models walked the tightrope between fantasy and function. On the runway, spectacle was dialled up to 100: Alaïa’s armless “straitjacket” dress, Margiela’s metal mouthpieces, and Jean Paul Gaultier’s naked male body prints were among the pieces to spark a wider debate. 

Some critics have asked what feels like an obvious question: do designers actually understand — or even care — how women dress in their r...

Born and raised in Nairobi, Katungulu Mwendwa grew up cradled in the  warmth and unpredictability of the bustling Kenyan capital and the hands-on craft traditions learned from her family — basketry, pottery, leather and beadwork. A childhood fascination with cherished garments led her to pursue fashion studies in the UK, giving her both a technical grounding and a view of the global system.

Back home, she gave herself a dou...

Retailers are racing to repackage shops as “third places” — low-pressure spaces to linger between home and work — as post-pandemic footfall softens and social isolation rises. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s original idea centres on civic, low-barrier hubs like cafés and libraries rather than commercial destinations, yet brands are now adding seating, listening bars and in-store cafés to nudge dwell time, loyalty and favourable word of...

We’ve just returned from what was undoubtedly the biggest fashion month ever, a high-stakes season that saw new creative directors debut their visions for fresh creative leadership under the spotlight at Chanel, Dior, Jil Sander, Loewe, Jean Paul Gaultier — and many more.

So what to make of it all? Much of it was about expectations. For some designers like Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Pierpoalo Piccioli at Balenciaga, expectati...

From team-branded fashion shows to tunnel-walk capsules and luxury watch deals, sport and fashion are converging at speed. The NFL has rolled smaller licensing tie-ups into marquee partnerships, while the WNBA is emerging as a fertile ground for inventive brand-player collaborations. But alongside the growth is bloat: logo-slap collections, clearance-rack remnants and fuzzy KPIs.

Senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and ...

Raised in a family of antique jewellery specialists, Kiki McDonough launched her namesake jewellery brand in 1985 with accessible pricing and pieces women could wear anywhere. Her early crystal-and-bow designs ended up in the V&A, while her growing client list came to include members of the royal family, and her brand has helped normalise women buying jewellery for themselves. 

At first, “a man would come in and buy a p...

Brands like Bubble, Starface and Byoma rode TikTok-native aesthetics to win Gen-Z hearts and Sephora shelf space with plush mascots, playful stickers and sensorial jelly textures. Founders close in age to their audience moved fast, crowd-sourced ideas and mastered algorithms. Now the oldest Gen Z consumers are nearing 30 and looking for fewer gimmicks and more proof that formulas work.

In this episode, senior beauty corresponden...

Growing up in Ohio, Edward Buchanan always knew he would have a creative career.

That interest first led him to art school at CCAD in Cleveland and then to the Parsons School of Design in New York, where he juggled jobs in visual merchandising with school and the city’s inspiring, pulsating nightlife. 

He got his big break in fashion when he was hired as the first design director at Bottega Veneta, which was then a small...

Luxury is struggling to connect with Gen Z, a cohort raised on TikTok and YouTube who research before they buy, shop vintage and resale as a first stop, and question whether soaring prices match product quality. While Millennials fuelled the last luxury boom via streetwear crossovers and scarcity-led drops, today’s younger shoppers are more value-driven and sceptical of polished brand theatre. In-store, rigid service models feel al...

Belgian designer Glenn Martens grew up in Bruges, studied in Antwerp and cut his teeth in Paris, where lean years taught him every role from pattern cutting to PR. At Y/Project, he turned constraints into modular, shape-shifting design. At Diesel, he reset the brand around its founding spirit of joy, cheekiness and denim, replacing muddled codes with a clear manifesto and democratic shows that speak to a global community. Now balan...