The Debrief

For many shoppers, fashion is now experienced primarily through a screen — discovered on social media, watched on runway livestreams and purchased from a product photo. Fashion critic Eugene Rabkin argues in his new book that this shift has left the industry prioritising a garment's image over the garment itself, hollowing out creativity and quality along the way. At the same time, as AI generated imagery floods the feed, a counter-movement is emerging: luxury brands are commissioning painters and illustrators, hosting phone-free dinners and building hands-on experiences designed to pull customers back into the physical world.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by Diana Pearl, BoF's US Editor, and Marc Bain, BoF's UK Editor and technology correspondent, to discuss whether this renewed emphasis on human creativity and craft is a meaningful response to fashion's image-first culture — or just the next trend cycle.

Key Insights:
As consumers increasingly interact with clothing through small screens rather than in person, Bain explains that subtler markers of quality have lost their power to communicate value. "As we interact more with clothing through imagery rather than the physical garments themselves, the logo becomes more important... Now the logo is just the easiest thing to identify. And that has become the most important thing on a garment."
Drawing on a concept borrowed from French theory, Bain says the gap between a product's online image and its physical reality has left some shoppers disillusioned — a dynamic he says extends well beyond fast fashion. "It doesn't just apply to Shein..Eugene Rabkin's argument is that it's come to apply to a whole lot of fashion, including luxury fashion... There's been this decline in quality over the years."
Bain says and Rabkin are careful not to cast technology as the villain, noting that AI's impact depends entirely on how brands choose to use it. " Technology is amoral. It's a tool..And it's really how it's used that is more important."
Pearl points to a wave of luxury brands hiring painters, illustrators and sculptors as a direct response to overly polished, perfected imagery that technology has made ubiquitous — a trend only accelerated by AI. e. "Being perfect and having just this picture-perfect imagery is no longer seen as aspirational. It's actually seen as, ‘slop’ … having that human-made art... is what feels now aspirational and special."
As brands pull back from influencer-driven content blitzes in favour of intimate, phone-free events, Pearl says the playbook for measuring success has changed. . "It's all representative of this bigger shift that we're seeing away from volume and just get as much content as possible... towards the depth of connection."

Additional Resources:
Is Fashion Stuck in Its Simulation Era? | BoF
As AI Floods the Feed, Fashion Marketers Tap Artists | BoF
Logging Off Is the New Luxury. How Can Brands Adapt? | BoF

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Beauty has long been one of the industry’s most reliable growth engines — fragrance boomed post-pandemic, prestige beauty held up better than other categories, and value-driven brands like e.l.f. proved that sharp pricing and marketing could keep consumers spending. But a slowdown that began last year and has only become more pronounced since has challenged that thinking.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by BoF senior beauty correspondent Daniela Morosini to unpack the first half's earnings across the beauty conglomerates — from Estée Lauder and Shiseido to L'Oréal, Beiersdorf and E.l.f. — and identify what’s still driving growth and what’s stalling, as well as what investors will be watching for next.

Key Insights:

Selective Spending, Not Shrinking Wallets: Consumers haven't stopped buying beauty — they've become pickier about where they spend and what they’re purchasing. "People are just getting a little bit more selective," said Morosini. Shopping itself is shifting, too: "Maybe it's not always Sephora and Ulta. Maybe it's TikTok Shop."

Skincare Results, Injectables and the Price-Value Equation: Affordable, results-driven skincare brands are outperforming, while medical aesthetics are surging in parallel. Morosini points specifically to "the derm-backed skincare brands or the dermatological brands, the more affordable ones like CeraVe and La Roche-Posay, alongside the growing pull of the lasers and the injectables."
Hair's Unexpected Boom: Hair has emerged as one of the biggest bright spots this earnings season, driven equally by innovation and a cultural shift around hair loss. Morosini notes, "hair loss has just become so much more of a hot topic and I think a lot of stigma has been removed," while also crediting brands like K18 and Olaplex that “have increased what we expect hair products to do for us."

Estée Lauder's Momentum Question: Lauder posted a 17 percent stock jump on its first results under new leadership, but Morosini cautions the win may be borrowed. "The question is how much has Estée Lauder improved its brand's desirability and how much has it benefited from a rising tide," she says, adding that stripped of Amazon Prime Day effects, US growth was closer to "about two percent."

The Danger of the One-Hero Brand: From E.l.f.'s reliance on Rhode to Beiersdorf's dependence on Nivea, this earnings season exposed how a single hero product can mask underlying weakness. "When that's basically all concentrated around one brand, that makes investors a little bit nervous," Morosini says, noting the read-through for M&A: “At a certain point you have to buy the growth."

Additional Resources:

Beauty Is Growing. Not Everyone’s Benefitting. | BoF
Can Estée Lauder Turn a Moment Into Momentum? | BoF
Beauty Is Betting on Fragrance. Why Isn’t Shiseido? | BoF
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For a long time, upcycling sat on the fringes of the fashion industry, a tactic used primarily by small independent designers, niche sustainability labels and in one-off capsule collections. That's changing. At Paris Couture Week this spring, Swiss designer Kevin Germanier closed the season with a collection made entirely from excess inventory across seven LVMH-owned brands. Coach is turning used denim into new bags, and Uniqlo is remaking unsellable and used garments under its RE label.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks to senior editorial associate Shayeza Walid to explore why upcycling brands are increasingly marketing upcycling through creativity and individuality rather than sustainability alone, and what's really driving the shift from new EU regulations to a changing consumer mindset.

Key Insights:

Selling Creativity, Not Just Conscience: Walid points to a fundamental shift in how upcycling is marketed. It's no longer framed primarily as an environmental fix, but as a source of design distinction and story. "It felt like the term was becoming ubiquitous across marketing," she says, noting that upcycling has moved from something "relegated to a certain type of consumer or a certain type of brand" to being claimed by some of the industry's biggest names.
Regulation Is Quietly Doing the Heavy Lifting: Walid connects the timing of the boom to the EU's ban on the destruction of unsold goods, which came into force in July. She notes that Kevin Germanier's LVMH-backed couture collection was deliberately built from unsold stock, not deadstock fabric — a distinction he emphasised on stage. "It also means that they'll have to figure out sustainable and approved ways for using their excess stock, and upcycling is one of the methods for that."
Deadstock vs. Textile Waste — Not the Same Debate: Walid unpacks a live tension among practitioners: using deadstock fabric is being challenged by some critics as not addressing overproduction, since it still puts commercial value on excess production. "With deadstock, it's the same as using new fabric in the sense that they're rolls of fabric... that's not necessarily what upcycling is about," while brands like E.L.V. Denim work directly with used, discarded garments instead.
The Infrastructure Is Finally Catching Up: Sorting, collecting and sourcing — the industry's biggest upcycling bottleneck — is improving. Walid cites organisations like Fashion for Good working on AI-assisted sorting, and platforms such as Nona Source and The Materialist connecting brands to deadstock fabric. "There's a greater design interest in it now more than there's ever been," she says of the shift she's tracked through conversations with suppliers.
The Consumer Wants Range, Not a Label: Walid argues the audience for upcycled product has broadened well beyond the sustainability shopper. "You could have an upcycled Miu Miu product today, and maybe that says that you like high fashion... but also you think it's cool that your product is from an upcycled material," she says, describing a consumer who wants variety in their closet rather than to be defined by one aesthetic or ethic.
Scale Remains the Unsolved Problem: Despite the momentum, there are limits. Sizing and colour inconsistency frustrate wholesale buyers, the process is inherently slower than working with virgin material, and export bans on used textiles in countries like Bangladesh complicate sourcing. She also flags that upcyclers in the Global South — in markets like Kantamanto in Ghana — have done this sort of work for generations but remain largely excluded from the value chain brands are now building.

Additional Resources:
Why So Many Fashion Brands Are Upcycling | BoF
Why Fashion’s Economics Work Against Sustainable Brands | BoF
Can the EU Ban on Destroying Unsold Goods Actually Work? | BoF

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For years, follower count was the clearest shorthand for a creator's value — more followers meant more reach, more brand deals, more money. But social media doesn't work that way anymore. TikTok's For You page, Instagram's suggested posts and other algorithmically curated feeds mean creators can reach huge audiences without those people ever following them. At the same time, affiliate marketing platforms like LTK and ShopMy are giving brands a much clearer picture of who actually drives sales, with smaller creators often outperforming bigger names.

In this episode, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young talks to BoF US Editor Diana Pearl about how brands and creators are rethinking the value of an audience, and where creator value is headed next.

Key Insights:

A huge following no longer guarantees cultural weight. Pearl points to the gap between raw numbers and actual impact: "You look at someone like Dixie D'Amelio, who has almost 54 million followers on TikTok... but I would not say [she is] as culturally relevant as someone like Alex Earle, who has not even 9 million followers on TikTok."
New platforms have made it possible to see exactly who is driving sales, not just who has the biggest audience. As Pearl explains, "ShopMy really changed that — they offer brands a lot more insight into which creators are actually driving sales, even if they're not running a paid partnership."
TikTok's For You page and Instagram's suggested posts have done more than any other shift to break the link between followers and visibility. "Those are the two primary factors that have really diminished the importance of follower count," she says, "because you can have someone with 300 followers who goes viral."
The single most important quality a creator can build today resists easy measurement. "Trust is the number one most important thing that an influencer or creator can curate today," Pearl says, "and that trust is not something that can necessarily be measured by metrics on a spreadsheet."
Chasing every viral trend is a losing strategy — consistency is what builds a durable audience. "Playing the long game is really the best strategy," she says. "Staying true to who you are — that's how you build that community. That is how you built that trust in that community."

Additional Resources:

Why Follower Count Matters Less Than Ever | BoF
Not All Creators Convert. Here's How to Find Those That Do. | BoF
From Hype to Discipline: The New World of Influencer Marketing | Case Study | BoF

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For much of the last decade, fashion brands and retailers were fixated on making shopping as seamless as possible — endless product online, algorithmic recommendations, next-day delivery. But after years of digital sameness, something more analogue is starting to feel exciting again. That shift sits at the heart of BoF's new retail package, The Best Fashion Stores in the World — an insider's guide to 65 independent retailers spanning from Brooklyn's Ven. Space to Dongliang in Shanghai, Alara in Lagos and Dover Street Market.

BoF retail editor Cathaleen Chen joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to discuss why independent retailers are becoming more important to shoppers, brands and the wider fashion ecosystem, as well as why the ritual of engaging with fashion IRL is more important than ever.

Key Insights:


Chen says the list's three pillars — curation, experience and partnership — were designed to reflect more than consumer taste. Partnership, she explains, addresses "the support and the responsibilities that all retailers have to the fashion ecosystem," at a moment when department stores have earned a track record for not paying vendors and multi-brand retail has been reshaped by the collapse of players like Matches and the struggles of Net-a-Porter.

With e-commerce solving for intent-driven shopping, Chen argues stores now win on discovery. As she puts it: "If you know exactly what you want, you shop online. If you don't know what you want, you shop in stores." She adds that the best shopkeepers add value "not just discovery for new brands" but new ways of styling — an eye that "allows designers to sort of view their collection in new eyes" in a way social feeds may fall short,

Per wholesale data from the platform Joor, independent retailers' share of transactions rose from 49 percent in 2020 to 62 percent in 2025 — meaning independents "now make up the majority of transactions in wholesale" on the platform, a significant insight even when accounting for the caveat that it reflects one marketplace.

The list includes retailers in Ibiza, Hangzhou, Cairo, Cartagena and Kuwait City — a deliberate move beyond fashion's traditional capitals. Citing a conversation with Kallmeyer founder and chief executive Daniella Kallmeyer, Chen notes that regional boutiques may be " even more important than the larger international stores because they're able to penetrate these outer-tier markets," which represent white space for fashion, rather than lesser opportunity.

The appeal of independent retail is fundamentally about a different mindset: casual discovery and "bopping around the neighbourhood," which Chen calls "the opposite of online shopping, where I know exactly what I want.”

Asked to name the one quality that will define the best stores for the next decade, Chen didn't hesitate: "I think conviction is what makes these doors so special, and ultimately what makes them so successful today" — pointing to Ikram Goldman's boutique, Ikram, in Chicago, and her famously intimate client relationships as the clearest example.

Additional Resources:

Why Independent Retail Is More Important Than Ever | BoF
The Best Fashion Stores in the World | BoF
The Debrief | Why Some Retailers are Ignoring the Internet | BoF

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