Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Discover the most relevant industry news and insights for fashion creatives, updated each month to enable you to excel in job interviews, promotion conversations or impress in the workplace by increasing your market awareness and emulating market leaders.
BoF Careers distils business intelligence from across the breadth of our content — editorial briefings, newsletters, case studies, podcasts and events — to deliver key takeaways and learnings tailored to your job function, listed alongside a selection of the most exciting live jobs advertised by BoF Careers partners.
Key articles and need-to-know insights for creatives in fashion today:
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1. The Logic Behind All Those Charli XCX Campaigns
Nearly five months after the height of “Brat” summer, Charli XCX’s selling power has hardly waned. The singer has recently appeared in Converse’s holiday campaign, became the face of Valentino Beauty and Acne Studios, starred in a campaign and concerts for H&M and was featured in holiday ads for Shop with Google alongside fellow performer Troye Sivan. Brands just can’t seem to get enough of her. [...] In August, social media content featuring the star hit nearly 820 million impressions, according to creator marketing platform CreatorIQ.
But unlike the usual summer trends that fade the moment the weather changes, Charli XCX and “Brat” have outlasted the season. Experts say she’s tapped into a deeper cultural vein and managed to engender a devout loyalty among fans, cementing her recent appeal as more than a passing fad. (Her impressions remained above 620 million in October, CreatorIQ said.) The album and its updated version — “Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat,” which dropped on October 11 — arrived at just the right moment to align with a broader cultural shift that cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken calls “wellness fatigue.”
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2. Has Fashion’s Convergence With Sports Gone Too Far?
The past 18 months have seen an unprecedented convergence of the sports and fashion industries. LVMH is now a premium partner of the Olympic Games and Formula 1, Chanel is the title sponsor of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, and Premier League football teams have creative directors. But the novelty has worn off amid a never-ending stream of partnerships between fashion and beauty brands and athletes or sports organisations. It’s beginning to lead consumers to question the authenticity of these tie-ups, and even some of the movement’s early protagonists are lamenting the situation.
Ahead of the NBA season tip-off a few weeks ago, Kyle Kuzma told Vogue he was “retiring” from wearing his outlandish outfits in the pre-game tunnel walk, echoing many people’s views that what was once a space for players to organically express their creativity and fashion sense has become yet another commercialised aspect of sports content. In September, A$AP Rocky bemoaned the swathe of “unnecessary, redundant collaborations” between streetwear, sports and fashion players in recent times in an interview with Highsnobiety about a new collaboration of his own with Puma.
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3. With ‘Wicked,’ Fashion Tests the Limits of the ‘Barbie’ Model
“Wicked” is proving popular for fashion. Fashion and beauty brands including Gap, Rebecca Minkoff, Roots, Ulta Beauty, R.e.m. Beauty, Crocs and H&M have all rolled out “Wicked”-themed collections or collaborations. They’re tapping the film’s starpower: Designer Naeem Khan presented a “Wicked”-inspired runway for Spring/Summer 2025, a look from which “Wicked” actor Cynthia Erivo later wore to the Academy Museum Gala in 2024, while Gap and Zac Posen brought the star, clad in a hooded gown, as a guest to the CFDA awards.
Call it the “Barbie” effect. Last year, parent company Mattel inked a huge number of fashion collaborations in anticipation of the film’s release. “Barbie was a shocker for all of us. It was so much bigger than what we could have anticipated,” said Amanda Amar, VP of global brand strategy of accessories maker Aldo, which put out a line of “Wicked”-inspired jewelled heels and purses after its hit Barbie collaboration last year. “That helped us understand the phenomenon of pop culture moments and the press, excitement and conversation they stimulate.”
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4. Increasing Brand Presence and Impact on TikTok
With a global community exceeding 1 billion individuals, TikTok is a critical channel for fashion and beauty brands to reach new and established audiences, and tap into the ever-evolving zeitgeist, which today is shaped by the entertainment platform’s idiosyncratic content trends and forms of creative expression, along with the new form of influence its creators typify.
To understand how brands can elevate their presence and impact on TikTok, Farah Maloof, head of fashion and luxury partnerships at TikTok, and Jordan Mitchell, the co-founder and co-CEO of Good Culture Inc., a cultural marketing agency that works with brands like Marc Jacobs, Good American, Barbour, Speedo, Alo Yoga and Creed, shared their insights with BoF’s Sophie Soar, author of the white paper: Commercialising the Zeitgeist: Crafting a Successful TikTok Strategy.
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5. How to Sell Jewellery Like Fine Art
As industry players continue to grapple with the meaning of luxury — looking for a way forward amid saturation and homogeneity on a global scale — niche jewellery designers and iconic dealers banded together in Monaco to offer avant-garde alternatives, vintage treasures and a cultural point-of-view. At a four-day jewellery showcase entitled Joya, whose inaugural edition ended Sunday, a curated group of just 10 exhibitors aimed to connect directly with clients from the wealthy principality.
Engineered to pique the interest of the Monegasque local elite and international jewellery aficionados alike, Joya is the brainchild of Vanessa Margowski and Delphine Pastor-Reiss, who previously hosted art and collectible design exhibitions in the city-state under the banner of their art gallery 11 Columbia from 2003 to 2018. Adding to their client list and experience as gallerists, the pair have family ties that run deep in Monaco — positioning them up for success in a mission to gather top-end collectors and educate them away from repetitive, commercial jewels. “We wanted to show jewellery with a story, pieces that have historical and cultural significance — where the creativity of the pieces is a testament to artistry,” said Margowski.
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6. How the Rest of America Fell in Love With Californian Style
A wave of Golden State brands are selling Americans on an updated version of California style that’s both low-lift and luxurious, simple but still detail-oriented. Each of these brands offers their own unique take on the look: Jenni Kayne is known for its relaxed sweaters and trousers and Doên for its floral, lacy pieces in wearable silhouettes, while there’s also the worn-in t-shirts from Buck Mason, The Great’s printed fleeces and vintage-inspired sweats or even Alo Yoga’s west coast take on athleisure.
What they have in common is a sense of effortlessness. “When you see somebody in a true California look, it feels very easy,” said Sara Walker, a Los Angeles-based content creator. “They’re comfortable and happy running around town.” Those in the business of selling it to the masses believe there’s endless potential. All have opened stores outside their home state: Jenni Kayne crossed $100 million in annual sales in 2021; Doên estimates it will do the same next year. Doên’s collaboration with Gap this summer was an instant hit, with multiple products selling out in just a few hours.
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7. Kiko Kostadinov Opens First US Store in Los Angeles
For his brand’s first US flagship, set to open in Los Angeles on November 22, Kiko Kostadinov wasn’t thinking about which other fashion labels he wanted to be next to. Instead, the 1,500-square-foot space — the brand’s second permanent store worldwide, following one opened in Tokyo’s Harajuku in March — will be in the Melrose Hill gallery district, a location meant to position it near blue-chip art galleries such as David Zwirner and emerging restaurants that are part of a culinary boom in the neighbourhood.
The store will be designed by the American artist Ryan Trecartin, who also did the Japanese outpost, with customers being invited to visit and shop as it is being built. The interior will feature bleacher seating and details that evoke suburban Americana, such as pool equipment, lawn chairs, king-sized beds and charcoal roofing shingles. “We’re hoping that people will come specifically to us to see the space, or because there’s similar, like-minded people and galleries that might be in the area,” said Kostadinov.
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8. Fixing Luxury’s Value for Money Problem
Luxury brands would like shoppers to think they are purveyors of uniquely crafted masterpieces. They are not. While employing a number of powerful strategies to maintain the perception of exclusivity, major luxury companies sell millions of units each year. In a volume business, production costs matter: one euro more or less can have a material impact on profit. So much so that luxury brands have gone to great lengths to minimise production costs, leveraging layers of subcontractors, while risking diminished quality and links to sweatshop labour.
At the same time, price tags have soared. For more than 50 years, prices for luxury goods rose by roughly 5 to 7 percent per annum, or about double the broader consumer price index, supported by the growing income and wealth inequality that began in the 1980s. Then came Covid-19. In the last three years, price inflation tracked way ahead of its long-term average, well into the double digits per year. [...] As consumers sober up from post-pandemic exuberance, luxury faces a growing value for money problem.
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