The Defining Fashion Stories of 2023

LONDON — Are you able to imagine it? We’re only one week from the tip of 2023. How are you feeling on the finish of this loopy yr?

On the one hand, I discover myself feeling weighed down by the unending sense of uncertainty and instability that appears to have vogue and the broader world in a state of perma-crisis. As we entered the post-Covid period, I hoped for much less uncertainty and a extra regular path forward, nevertheless it was to not be. At each flip, 2023 has turned up extra surprises and unpredictability.

However that is additionally when BoF thrives. I’m delighted to share that we’ve got handed the symbolic and necessary milestone of 100,000 paid BoF Skilled members. That makes BoF by far the biggest neighborhood of vogue professionals on this planet, with members in additional than 125 nations.

Our workforce is extraordinarily grateful on your assist. We are able to’t create our evaluation and recommendation with out it. So in case you are not but a member, click here to hitch and skim all of our high tales of the yr. You need to use the particular low cost code imran2023 till Dec. 31 to get 25 % off your first full yr of our all-access BoF Skilled membership.

I’ll now be taking a break till mid-January, so in my final weekly letter of the yr, I wish to replicate on the largest vogue tales of 2023 and the way our wonderful workforce of professional correspondents and editors coated them — in addition to what these core themes portend for the yr forward.

1. The Decline of Luxurious E-Commerce

We’ve been reporting on the decline of on-line luxurious since the beginning of the year, however every little thing actually came to a head in the last few weeks. Farfetch, Matches and Yoox-Web-a-Porter are all in disaster mode, revealing critical cracks within the European luxurious e-commerce mannequin. A part of these firms’ woes is all the way down to the inflated valuations attributed by buyers who didn’t know learn how to handle them. However there’s additionally added competitors now that luxurious manufacturers are lastly taking e-commerce severely themselves. After the pandemic gave them no alternative however to pivot to digital, they’re now shifting additional away from the net wholesale mannequin to a direct-to-consumer mannequin.

What to observe for in 2024:

• Bother continues to be brewing at Farfetch, the place mass-market South Korean e-commerce big Coupang’s potential to restructure the enterprise stays in query. Will they have the ability to divest New Guards Group, Stadium Items and Violet Gray? How will they make the core market mannequin work within the face of shifting distribution methods on the manufacturers they serve? And the way will they assuage high expertise and workers who really feel short-changed by the Coupang buyout, which has rendered their shares nugatory?
• YNAP’s future can also be hanging within the stability. Now that the corporate is not going to be offered to Farfetch, some analysts are suggesting that Richmont ought to simply reduce its losses and shut Web-a-Porter, Yoox and The Outnet down. This might be an enormous blow to the posh e-commerce sector, as Web-a-Porter and Yoox have been its pioneers.
• Matches has gone via 4 CEOs within the final 5 years, together with former Asos chief and present Matches head Nick Beighton, who will keep on following this week’s firesale to Frasers Group for $63 million. The acquisition value might have been very enticing — just some years in the past, Apax had valued the enterprise at north of $1 billion — however Frasers Group CEO Michael Murray will nonetheless must work exhausting to eke out value synergies and work out how the Matches model will sit alongside its present chain of luxurious multi-brand shops Flannels and compete in a commoditised luxurious e-commerce market closely reliant on promotions and discounting.

2. The Pitfalls and Potential of Generative AI

No new expertise has captured the curiosity of the style trade over the previous yr fairly like generative synthetic intelligence. And for good cause. Not like the overestimated Metaverse, Gen-AI’s potential has wide-ranging implications for all components of the style worth chain — as excellently illustrated in expertise correspondent Marc Bain’s wonderful in-depth case research, The Complete Playbook for Generative AI in Fashion. To develop a deeper understanding of what this implies for vogue and past, ensure to take a look at the session on Technology & Innovation from BoF VOICES 2023, which targeted on understanding, exploring and debating the potential of generative AI. It consists of talks from LVMH, WPP, star inside designer Kelly Wearstler and BoF Insights on actual purposes for vogue and creativity. Certainly, 73 % of vogue executives surveyed for The State of Fashion 2024 stated generative AI might be a precedence for his or her companies subsequent yr.

What to observe for in 2024:

• As a number of of our audio system at BoF VOICES 2023 identified, whereas we must always concentrate on the potential dangers that include AI, we shouldn’t be afraid of the change it’ll deliver. We’re more likely to discover firms shifting from hype and early experimentation to studying and sensible software, together with in artistic processes, the place AI will improve and increase creativity, somewhat than exchange human designers and artisans.
• That stated, the largest brief time period alternatives in AI might be in addressing low-value repetitive duties and in optimising mission-critical processes, like merchandising, planning and supply-chain administration.

3. Streetwear Fatigue Absolutely Takes Maintain

Again in 2019, earlier than Covid hit our shores and the pandemic modified every little thing, Virgil Abloh instructed Dazed that the tip of streetwear was close to. He might have been a couple of years early, however the proof is in that the sneakers, sweatshirts and hype-driven collaborations that dominated vogue for a few years are properly and actually behind us. Supreme, the bellwether for this area now owned by VF Corp, appears to have hit a ceiling. Its income dropped to $523.1 million within the yr ending in March, down 7 % from the yr earlier than. Likewise, New Guards Group, which operates stalwart streetwear manufacturers like Off-White and Palm Angels noticed a 40 percent decline within the second quarter.

What to observe for in 2024:

• In fact, that doesn’t imply we received’t nonetheless be shopping for and sporting these sorts of garments, simply that the stranglehold that streetwear has had on the trade is completed. Incumbents like Nike and Adidas might be challenged by newcomers and niche brands. Begin-ups from rising vogue markets, including the African continent are additionally rising.
• Manufacturers like Alexander McQueen, Lanvin and Balenciaga, which have constructed a good portion of their companies round sneakers, will urgently must shift their merchandising methods, whereas sports-focused gamers will more and more focus on performance apparel.

4. Overproduction and Overconsumption in Focus

For a number of years, our chief sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent has been making a case for the function regulators can play in getting the style trade to wash up its act. And it’s not exhausting to see why. The trade continues to produce way too many products at ever cheaper costs. And as clothes turns into much less priceless and extra disposable, extra of it’s ending up as waste — dumped in countries like Ghana the place it contributes to overflowing landfills. However this isn’t only a quick vogue drawback. The luxurious trade’s post-pandemic surge implies that high-end manufacturers are additionally producing tens of millions extra merchandise, rising their carbon footprints simply once we should be lowering impression. Resale, circularity and new materials improvements are all necessary potential options, however they received’t resolve the important thing underlying drawback: we’re making and consuming an excessive amount of stuff. To deal with this, there must be a elementary shift that reduces volumes, particularly by avoiding the incentive to overproduce baked into fashion’s business model.

What to observe for in 2024:

• An onslaught of new regulation is expected in the coming years. Policymakers in Europe and the US are taking goal on the trade. Not will vogue firms be left to manage themselves; the sluggish tempo of change has proven that this doesn’t work.
• Style firms might want to handle the important thing sustainability conundrum — learn how to cut back their environmental impression (led by the amount of merchandise they produce), whereas rising income and revenue. Decreasing Scope 3 emissions which characterize 90 % or extra of a typical vogue firm’s carbon footprint will essentially be a giant focus for vogue leaders in 2024.
• Whereas firms have a job to play in lowering quantity, the opposite lever is what more and more conscious clients can do to eat much less. Subsequent yr, anticipate actions to buy fewer or no clothes to achieve wider adoption.

5. The Return and Rise of Model Advertising and marketing

After years of investing in performance-based digital advertising, this yr noticed advertising leaders realise they should spend money on their manufacturers. This will appear apparent for an trade that works so exhausting to construct and defend its manufacturers, however over the previous few years a few of this brand-marketing muscle has atrophied, as entrepreneurs leaned closely into efficiency advertising. At BoF, our workforce labored exhausting this yr to go deep on this subject, publishing an excellent case study on Model Advertising and marketing by editor Diana Pearl, introducing our personal method to measure and monitor model well being, The BoF Brand Magic Index, and studying from two brand-led magnificence entrepreneurs about why brand marketing still matters. We additionally examined the rise of latest model advertising methods, from collaborating with top athletes to experimenting with CGI-powered surrealist marketing and leveraging the globalisation of well-liked tradition by appointing ambassadors from markets like Korea and Thailand.

What to observe for in 2024:

• We anticipate this renewed concentrate on model advertising to proceed subsequent yr: 72 % of respondents to our govt survey for The State of Fashion 2024 plan to spend extra on this space within the subsequent yr.

This Weekend on The BoF Podcast

The writer has shared a Podcast.You will have to just accept and consent to the usage of cookies and comparable applied sciences by our third-party companions (together with: YouTube, Instagram or Twitter), with the intention to view embedded content material on this article and others you could go to in future.Settle for

This yr, Barbie-mania swept the globe. A key architect of that phenomenon was Richard Dickson, who served as president and chief working officer of Barbie’s mother or father firm, Mattel, for nearly a decade. At Mattel, Dickson revived Barbie, a reputation that had misplaced its cultural relevance, and introduced it firmly again into the Zeitgeist. Now, Dickson is taking his expertise for revitalising fading icons to Hole, the place he was appointed CEO in July 2023.

This week on The BoF Podcast, I’m happy to share this unique dialog with Richard on the ability of manufacturers and his imaginative and prescient for rebooting Hole from BoF VOICES 2023.

Have a secure and pleased vacation season. See you in 2024!

Imran Amed, Founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, The Enterprise of Style

To obtain this e-mail in your inbox every Saturday, sign up to The Daily Digest newsletter for agenda-setting intelligence, evaluation and recommendation that you simply received’t discover anyplace else.