The Debrief

• What Happens When Women Lead

  Collectively, Clare Waight Keller and Maria Cornejo have over two decades of experience in the fashion industry. Waight Keller’s impressive career includes roles at Givenchy, Chloé and Gucci — and today, she serves as creative director at Uniqlo. Cornejo’s New York–based label, founded nearly three decades ago, counts Michelle Obama and Christy Turlington Burns among its most devoted fans.From deeply entrenched gender biases to the fear of returning to work after giving birth, women face a number of systemic barriers to reaching senior leadership positions in the fashion industry, insiders say. Today, some women designers have found success launching their own labels — and when they do land leadership roles at major houses, often make it a priority to create opportunities for other women, which remain few and far between.At the VOICES 10th anniversary, Waight Keller and Cornejo speak with senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young about what it’s like to work in an industry where women are the muses and chief customers, but the top commercial and creative roles are dominated by men. Key Insights: Clare Waight Keller says that the inequalities between men and women in fashion are driven in part by the narrative that “men are often seen as the implementers of big change, and women of stability, and so with stability we’re often also cornered into a commercial sense of aesthetic.” Both Waight Keller and Cornejo push back against this notion, saying that women aren’t less creative but simply more considerate of how real women want to dress.Maria Cornejo feels that “there’s a big disconnect in fashion… from what's instagrammable and what is actual reality … all the women I know who have independent businesses… we’re making clothes that women wear.” Both designers say they have encountered inequities as women in fashion, prompting Waight Keller to intentionally assemble an all-women team at Uniqlo. “Women add so much richness into the conversation of clothing, we offer a completely different perspective which is equally powerful and equally relevant,” she says.Additional Resources:BoF VOICES 2025: Finding Connection in Turbulent TimesClare Waight Keller | BoF 500Maria Cornejo | BoF 500 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 5 Big Questions About Luxury

  Luxury’s most eventful year in some time is closing with a bang. From Prada’s Versace acquisition to Matthieu Blazy’s debut Chanel Métiers d’Art collection, seismic industry developments are landing on an almost daily basis.In this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin are joined by BoF’s Luxury editor Robert Williams, who unpacks all of the industry’s most pertinent news, including the strategic implications of A$AP Rocky’s partnership with Chanel, the rise of the beaten up handbag, and the future of luxury in 2026.Key Insights: The luxury market’s forecast is cautiously optimistic, relying heavily on Chinese consumers and designer-led resets to revive the industry. Brands also need to grapple with justifying value after aggressive price increases in recent years. “Pricing’s certainly going to be an issue and it’s going to be a big issue in the US, which is a really key market for maintaining the brand’s top line,” Williams said.With Prada’s acquisition of Versace closing this week, it remains unclear as to whether the brand will continue with Dario Vitale’s new approach to Versace, or steer towards a more classic, glossy aesthetic. “[Versace] has gone through a pretty radical shift over the past couple of months and whether or not [Prada’s] going to want to continue with that is the biggest most urgent decision, and for them to clarify that for the market,” Williams said.Luxury dining is becoming increasingly popular across the world, but can luxury chains like Langosteria remain cool as they expand? “Fashion once upon a time was all made by your local tailor, your local couturier, and once they decided they could scale taste, that was more desirable than just having something that was more small-scale … In food it seems like it’s kind of the opposite,” Williams said.Originally inspired by Jane Birkin and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, beaten up bags are everywhere in luxury fashion today. “There’s something about the fact that, no matter how much you wear out that bag and trash it, it’s still not going to break and fall apart. I think it just makes it a really cool style gesture. It shows you’re not someone who just bought into it yesterday,” Williams said.Additional Resources:Prada’s Versace Acquisition Closes, Now the Real Work BeginsHow Beat-Up Bags Became a Luxury Status SymbolBreaking Down Chanel’s A$AP Rocky Partnership Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Is This the Year Discount Mania Finally Ends?

  As the holiday shopping season approaches, consumer sentiment is slumping, yet spending is bifurcated – the top end keeps buying while the bottom 80 percent is more cautious. With Black Friday looming, brands are recalibrating promotions around value, desirability and hero products rather than blanket discounts. In luxury, upheaval at several department stores has created white space for rivals to woo high-spending clients through aggressive clienteling and tighter, faster vendor partnerships. In this episode of The Debrief, hosts Brian Baskin and Sheena Butler-Young speak with BoF reporters Cat Chen and Malique Morris about how brands are planning the season.Key Insights: Consumer spending hasn’t vanished, but it’s shifted toward shoppers who still feel flush. As Chen notes, “people are not really feeling rosy about the state of the economy, but the irony is that they’re still spending money.” Since Covid, “spending has been driven by the wealthier segment,” and it’s clear that “what consumers want is value… they want to get a good deal, but they don’t want to buy a cheap product.” For retailers, that means “more sophistication around price architecture” and using AI “to price products perfectly.”“Black Friday–Cyber Monday is not a fix for a mediocre year,” says Morris. Instead, winners are “prioritising desirability over discounts,” introducing “new products specifically for this time” and pushing “hero best-selling product.” The old playbook is out, and “slapping a 50% off everything discount on Instagram is not gonna cut it,” says Morris. In the “age of curation,” even deal-hunters expect editing, storytelling and reasons to stop scrolling.Morris argues that even in a discount-driven moment like Black Friday, shoppers still want offers to feel edited and intentional, and brands are responding with more curated tactics rather than blanket markdowns. “We’re in the age of curation and so even when people are expecting deals, they don’t want to feel like they’re just getting slopped,” says Morris. Tariffs and margin pressure mean many brands cannot afford a race to the bottom, pushing them to plan inventory more carefully, introduce new products specifically for this period and reserve discounts for hero items.Chen explains that this holiday season is especially high stakes for luxury multi-brand retailers because a few big players are stumbling – and everyone else is trying to capitalise. “Saks and SSENSE and Luisa Via Roma are three players that have faced pretty bad challenges this year,” she says. “They have opened up white space for their competitors on healthier financial footing to come in and basically eat their lunch and acquire their customers, acquire their sales.” The response is an aggressive push on clienteling and talent: retailers are not just targeting wealthy individuals, but also the salespeople and stylists who already manage those relationships.Additional Resources:Brands Try to Get the Tone Right for Holiday 2025 | BoF Inside Luxury Retailers’ Bare-Knuckle Fight to Win the Holidays | BoF Black Friday Beauty Goes Beyond the Discount | BoF Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Can Fashion Still Meet Its Climate Promises?

  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 correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin are joined by BoF reporters, Sarah Kent and Shayeza Walid, to examine why progress has stalled, how fast-fashion growth is reshaping the landscape, and what practical steps — from decarbonising supply chains to adapting factories to extreme heat — are needed next. Key Insights: Kent says, “I would not say any brand has a credible pathway right now to meet their targets for 2030,” “Even companies that have shown that they’re able to reduce their emissions to date, driving down their carbon footprint over the next five years is going to be harder, more complex and more costly… and really no one company can do that alone.”Kent highlights the industry’s deep structural bind: “The fundamental conflict at the heart of the fashion industry’s climate commitments is that you’ve got a business built on extracting stuff and producing stuff and selling stuff. The more stuff they sell, the better the business does, but the worse the environmental impact is,” “Profitability and sales growth are fundamentally at odds with the environmental commitments companies have made.”Short-term thinking still in the boardroom locks in higher climate impacts, adaptation costs and supply-chain risk. As Kent puts it, “On climate, if you don’t act, you don’t have to make these big investments, and you can keep growing your business and things will trundle along for some time. But the longer you wait to act, the worse the climate impacts you’re going to have to deal with are going to be, and the higher the cost of mitigating them, adapting to them, and trying to continue this business in a climate-constrained world.”Voluntary commitments aren’t enough at fast fashion’s scale. Walid points to Shein: “Shein’s case is very instructive. There’s limits to voluntary commitments, which is what the majority of these brands have made.” She continues, “When the business model is built on speed and volume… it just shows that voluntary commitments are maybe not enough for a fashion brand – especially a brand as big as Shein – to actually tangibly reduce its emissions when its entire business case doesn’t stand for that.”Climate impacts are now serious human and corporate risks. “It’s not just a corporate issue anymore,” says Walid. “People who have the visuals recognise the reality of what’s happening in these factories and the people who are making clothes at the end of the day.” Kent adds: “People who are suffering from heat stress are not as productive… floods are disruptive to production, to logistics, to supply chains. Just because we have not yet seen a major disruption to the apparel supply chain from these climate crises yet is more luck than anything else.”Additional Resources:Can Fashion Still Meet Its Climate Promises? | BoF The Frayed Edge: Is Fashion Quiet Quitting on Climate? | BoF Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Why Is Everyone Obsessed With Accessories?

  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 assortments and e-commerce shoots now styling bags with charms to encourage add-on purchases. BoF reporter Diana Pearl joins The Debrief to unpack what’s fuelling the accessory pile-on, how labels are capitalising on it, and how far the trend can go before the cycle turns. Key Insights: According to Pearl, Gen Z is reaching for accessories as a way to personalise their minimalist wardrobes. “Gen Z, which is really looking to define their sense of personal style, is leaning on accessories to do so, especially because minimalism in clothing is still very popular… but they also wanna have a little more fun and accessories are a way to do that,” she says. Regarding the longevity of this trend, Pearl adds, “I think we'll see a consumer that is primed to think of accessories as a more important part of their wardrobe – not just like a finishing touch, but a core element of it.”The Labubu craze captures the mood of the accessories trend – playful, collective and endlessly customisable. “There’s so many different Labubus. There’s a bit of that thrill of the hunt to try to find the right one. You can add it to an Hermès bag or a $100 leather tote from J. Crew,” says Pearl. For many shoppers, she says, “it really speaks to that desire for fun and adding a personal touch. People want things that make them feel good.”While luxury houses profit from entry-level add-ons, Pearl sees independent makers riding the wave. “I think it probably is helping luxury brands but I think even more than that, it’s helping small brands that really can make these cute accessories that feel distinct and different from what everyone else has, because I think a huge part of this is that quest for personal style, wanting something unique,” says Pearl. Pearl frames the moment as a behavioural shift rather than a transient trend. She argues, “trends go away, but they never fully go away. I think every trend leaves a lasting impact or impression on us. Maybe Labubus, toe rings, and bag charms won’t be quite as popular, but maybe they’ll evolve.” Crucially, “I think that this has unlocked something in people… it will have a lasting after effects of this trend, even if not everybody is wearing five necklaces at once in a year from now.”Additional Resources:How Far Can Fashion’s Accessory Obsession Go? | BoF Why Jewellery Feels Like a Better Deal Than a Handbag | BoFLuxury’s Untapped Opportunity in Men’s Jewellery | BoF Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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