The Business of Fashion Podcast

Has Fashion Had Enough of AI?

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. F

W. David Marx: Fashion Is Bigger Than Ever — but Worse at Rewarding Invention

In the summer of 2007, BoF founder Imran Amed landed in Tokyo for the first time. A young American writer named W. David Marx took him on a menswear tour of the city's ba

Who’s Winning and Losing in Beauty’s First Half

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-

Inside James Whitner's Purpose-First Retail Playbook

Earlier this month, A Ma Maniére — one part of James Whitner's The Whitaker Group — was named one of BoF's Best Fashion Stores in the World, our definitive global list of

Why Upcycling Is Suddenly Everywhere in Fashion

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

Nick Knight Is Building His Own AI

I've been interviewing Nick Knight for more than 15 years. This is our fourth in-depth, sit-down interview. At this stage, it's become something closer to a running conve

The Influencer Follower-Count Era Is Ending

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

Kelly Wearstler on What Waiting Tables Taught Her About Design

When the designer Kelly Wearstler was five or six years old, she made little drawings and small sculptures out of cans and cartons, laid them out on the table at family g

What the Best Fashion Stores Get Right

For much of the last decade, fashion brands and retailers were fixated on making shopping as seamless as possible — endless product online, algorithmic recommendations, n

Chris Green on Why The Best Fashion Stores Don’t Chase Scale

Independent multi-brand retailers have long been among fashion's most influential tastemakers, introducing emerging designers, shaping customer discovery and building com

The Fashion and Beauty Companies Everyone Wants to Work For

What makes a fashion or beauty company a truly desirable place to work? BoF’s second annual ranking of the industry’s most sought-after employers looks beyond brand recog

The Patient Work of Turning Around Dior

When I sat down with Jonathan Anderson in his Dior atelier last December, he hadn’t shown a single couture look yet and nothing he'd designed  for the house had reached t

Why Everyone's Reading Clothing Labels Again

Fabric content used to be a niche sustainability conversation. Now it's a mainstream health one, driven by the same scrutiny shoppers already apply to what they eat and p

Avery Trufelman: “Everything Has Fashion. Fashion is Just Taste Over Time. ”

As fashion is increasingly consumed through a stream of images, products and fleeting trends, Avery Trufelman, host of the award-winning podcast “Articles of Interest,” t

Is Fashion School Still Worth It?

For decades, institutions like Central Saint Martins, Parsons and Institut Français de la Mode have launched some of fashion's most successful careers. But, today's gradu

Paloma Elsesser on Purpose, Representation and the New Rituals of Body Care

Diversity and body positivity have been important themes shaping the fashion conversation over the past decade. Yet a gap remains between the industry’s ideals and its re

The Anti-Unicorn Playbook That Beat Fashion's DTC Boom

In 2016, the global retail landscape was dominated by successful direct-to-consumer (DTC) disruptors like Everlane, Glossier, Allbirds and Outdoor Voices. Backed by hundr

Decoding Paris Haute Couture: Wonder, Restraint and the Call of the Void

I missed couture season for the first time in years, but that made it even more valuable for me to catch up with Tim Blanks on everything that happened this week in Paris

Luxury’s New Reality

As luxury shoppers push back against relentless price hikes and uninspiring boutique environments, BoF's Mimosa Spencer and Robert Williams break down why emotional conne

Mona Kattan on Finding the Courage to Go It Alone

Mona Kattan has been collecting fragrances for most of her life. That obsession eventually became Kayali — a fragrance brand she built inside Huda Beauty, the global cosm