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Every episode
The Business of Fashion Podcast
30 episodes
Kelly Wearstler on What Waiting Tables Taught Her About Design
Aug 14, 2026 · 57 min
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 gatherings, and put price tags on them. She grew up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, raised by what she calls fiercely independent women who took her to thrift stores, flea markets and auctions. She got her first job at 13. She studied graphic design in Boston, apprenticed in New York with Milton Glaser, the designer behind the I…
What the Best Fashion Stores Get Right
Aug 12, 2026 · 32 min
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…
Chris Green on Why The Best Fashion Stores Don’t Chase Scale
Aug 7, 2026 · 49 min
Independent multi-brand retailers have long been among fashion's most influential tastemakers, introducing emerging designers, shaping customer discovery and building communities around a distinct point of view. Yet many have struggled in recent years as e-commerce, rising costs and industry consolidation have reshaped the retail landscape. Despite those challenges, a new generation of boutiques is proving that physical retail can still thrive by offering something digital platforms cannot: thou…
The Fashion and Beauty Companies Everyone Wants to Work For
Aug 5, 2026 · 34 min
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 recognition to examine what workers value — and where companies’ reputations do not always sync up with employee experience. In this episode of The Debrief senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks with junior commercial writer Eoghan O’Donnell and commercial features editor Dan Hastings about the companies that topped th…
The Patient Work of Turning Around Dior
Jul 31, 2026 · 57 min
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 the shops. He was, by his own account, still working it out — joking that every fitting felt like doing a PhD, learning an institution with its own rules, its own hierarchy, its own way of making. Jonathan’s first products landed in Dior stores on January 2nd. Six months later, this week's LVMH half-year results…
Why Everyone's Reading Clothing Labels Again
Jul 29, 2026 · 30 min
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 put on their skin — searches for "natural fibre" are up over 100 percent in five years, and searches for "what is viscose?" have climbed roughly 5,000 percent in the US over the same period. Gap found out just how fast that shift can turn into backlash when its nostalgic Zac Posen knit drop — 80 percent polyeste…
Avery Trufelman: “Everything Has Fashion. Fashion is Just Taste Over Time. ”
Jul 24, 2026 · 42 min
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,” takes a different approach. Trufelman zooms in on her subjects to uncover the histories, systems and human stories woven into the clothes we wear. “It’s crops, it’s the earth, it’s handwork, it’s culture, it’s society,” Trufelman says. “You tug on a thread and you get everything.” In this conversation from our archive, Trufelman…
Is Fashion School Still Worth It?
Jul 22, 2026 · 32 min
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 graduates are entering a more competitive industry grappling with slower growth across the board, where AI is changing how work gets done and employers are reassessing the skills they need. AI is transforming how entry-level work gets done, while students are asking harder questions about the return on investment of a fashion degree.…
Paloma Elsesser on Purpose, Representation and the New Rituals of Body Care
Jul 17, 2026 · 22 min
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 reality. Few people have experienced that gap – and pushed back against it – more visibly than Paloma Elsesser. She’s walked the biggest runways, landed the biggest covers and used her platform to challenge the industry’s standards around bodies, beauty and who gets to be seen. Now, she’s taking that authority somewhere new: build…
The Anti-Unicorn Playbook That Beat Fashion's DTC Boom
Jul 15, 2026 · 27 min
In 2016, the global retail landscape was dominated by successful direct-to-consumer (DTC) disruptors like Everlane, Glossier, Allbirds and Outdoor Voices. Backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, they prioritised rapid sales growth and hyper-aggressive social media customer acquisition over immediate profitability. In this episode, senior news and features editor Diana Pearl joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to explore why the once-dominant DTC formu…
Decoding Paris Haute Couture: Wonder, Restraint and the Call of the Void
Jul 10, 2026 · 57 min
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 amidst a record breaking heatwave. At Chanel, Mathieu Blazy built his sophomore couture collection around a fairy tale he found in Gabrielle Chanel's own library.. Dior's Jonathan Anderson tore down the walls of the usual tent in the gardens of Musée Rodin, staging an open-air show inspired by the sculptor Linda Benglis.…
Luxury’s New Reality
Jul 9, 2026 · 32 min
As luxury shoppers push back against relentless price hikes and uninspiring boutique environments, BoF's Mimosa Spencer and Robert Williams break down why emotional connection has overtaken heritage as the primary driver of high-end shopping. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mona Kattan on Finding the Courage to Go It Alone
Jul 3, 2026 · 25 min
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 cosmetics company she co-founded with her sister Huda Kattan. In 2020, something shifted. Mona entered therapy and uncovered a pattern that ran through her entire entrepreneurial journey: she had never built anything entirely on her own. She began to ask herself what it would mean to do something, fully, by herself. “I am a ve…
How Nike Built the Biggest World Cup Campaign Ever
Jul 1, 2026 · 49 min
The 2026 World Cup marked an unprecedented milestone for global football, expanding to 48 teams playing over 100 matches across the US, Canada and Mexico. In this special episode of The Debrief, Nike’s vice president of global brand management Helena Thornton joins BoFsenior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and sports and fashion correspondent Mike Syke to discuss the strategy behind the brand's World Cup campaign, the expansive relationship between football, culture and commerce and what the t…
Oura CEO on the Future of Health Intelligence
Jun 26, 2026 · 30 min
The boundaries between technology, wellness and luxury are blurring. Wearable technology is no longer just about tracking steps; it has become a sophisticated tool for lifestyle optimisation, personal health intelligence and a subtle statement of identity. Now, there are more devices than ever to help us in this pursuit, and at the cutting edge is Oura. Under the leadership of CEO Tom Hale, who joined the company in 2022, Oura has grown from $220 million in annual revenue to $1 billion last year…
Why Activewear Consumers Are Looking Beyond Lululemon
Jun 24, 2026 · 25 min
For more than a decade, activewear shoppers largely looked to Lululemon and Nike. But as the post-pandemic boom cools and growth becomes harder to find, a new crop of brands is gaining traction. Smaller labels like SetActive, 437 and Oner Active aren’t reinventing activewear. They’re winning customers through social media, creator-led marketing and a deep understanding of today’s fitness culture where consumers move fluidly through workouts like pilates, Hyrox and tennis…
How Books Became Fashion’s Latest Status Symbol
Jun 17, 2026 · 26 min
Fashion’s book obsession is no longer subtle. What started as the occasional literary reference has become a broader wave of book clubs, salon-style events, campaign imagery and products designed to signal that a brand — and its customer — has cultural depth. It’s all happening as reading rates are declining, but the image of the reader has never looked more fashionable. This week on The Debrief, BoF reporters Haley Crawford and Shayeza Walid explain how books became fashion’s latest flex…
Anoushka Shankar: Creativity Is an Act of Hope
Jun 12, 2026 · 24 min
Anoushka Shankar has spent three decades building one of the most distinctive bodies of work in contemporary music. She has taken the sitar — an instrument rooted in centuries of North Indian classical tradition — into completely new territory, blending the ancient Hindustani raga system with electronic, flamenco and Western orchestral influences. At a time when we're bombarded — wars, looming AI risk, a constant churn of uncertainty — her music is a salve. It carries echoes of long road trips w…
Fashion's Ozempic Reckoning
Jun 10, 2026 · 31 min
The rise of GLP–1 drugs, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, is forcing fashion and beauty companies to rethink everything from sizing and fit to product development. With one in eight Americans having tried a GLP–1 medication, brands are grappling with how to serve consumers whose bodies may be changing more rapidly than traditional product cycles were designed to accommodate. In this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young sits down with BoF senior news and features editor Dia…
Conner Ives is Building a Business With Instinct
Jun 5, 2026 · 54 min
Born in the leafy enclave of Bedford, New York, designer Conner Ives, a self-professed “country mouse,” grew up in a household that taught him two things early: that quality is worth protecting, and ambition is worth following. At 16, a connection through his mother's dental practice landed him an internship with Wes Gordon, and soon after he moved to London and set about becoming a designer. In his first year on the BA at Central Saint Martins, a garment from a school project — a duchess satin…
Carlos Nazario: The Kid From Queens Who Changed Fashion Imagery
May 29, 2026 · 1 hr 19 min
Carlos Nazario has helped redefine how fashion media expresses subculture in a luxury context, making history along the way as the first Black editor to style a cover for American Vogue. But he grew up in Queens, New York, in a big Puerto Rican family with no connections to fashion. His grandmother Efna was his earliest influence — a woman who understood, intuitively, the power of how you present yourself to the world and shared a key lesson with him. That lesson has guided his journey as…
Leena Nair and Matthieu Blazy on Creativity and the Power of the Human Hand
May 22, 2026 · 51 min
This week, Chanel reported its annual results for 2025. Revenue rose 2 percent to $19.3 billion, defying a luxury downturn. But the number that caught the industry's attention wasn't the top line — it was the acceleration. In the second half, Chanel's sales grew by high single digits across every category and region, before designs by new artistic director Matthieu Blazy had arrived in stores. The excitement alone changed the trajectory. The momentum has two sources. One is Blazy, whose ru…
Inside The Swatch X Audemars Piguet Global Frenzy
May 20, 2026 · 22 min
In May, sleeping bags lined pavements and police barriers went up outside Swatch stores from Times Square to Dubai. The object of this global hysteria was not a piece of high-end mechanical art, but the "Royal Pop" – a $400 pocket watch collaboration between mass-market giant Swatch and watchmaker Audemars Piguet. Based on AP’s iconic Royal Oak, which typically starts at $20,000, the launch divided the insular watch enthusiast community while captivating Gen Z consumers and equity analysts alike…
What's Really Happening in Luxury Right Now
May 15, 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
For the global luxury industry, the last two years have been defined by a prolonged period of meagre growth, macro-uncertainty, and a slow recovery in the critical Chinese market. But as we move further into 2026, the strategic imperative has shifted. It is no longer enough to simply wait for the cycle to turn; leadership now requires navigating a rapidly-changing environment where geopolitical volatility and technological disruption have become the baseline. In this episode of The BoF Podcast,…
Why Are So Many Brands Faking Scandals?
May 13, 2026 · 20 min
The beauty industry is currently contending with marketing saturation, compounded by an overcrowded content ecosystem in which traditional metrics like follower counts and comments are often distorted by bots. To combat this, brands are turning to "rage bait"— content designed to trigger shock, anger or confusion and meant to drive shares and saves, which are now seen as more authentic indicators of engagement. From Lancôme’s "misdirected" PR mailers to ColourPop’s fake apology squares, the stra…
Inside Saks Global's Four-Month Bankruptcy Sprint
May 12, 2026 · 1 hr 4 min
Earlier today, BoF published an exclusive in-depth interview with Saks Global CEO Geoffroy Van Raemdonck, examining the company’s strategy as it expects to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy next month. For over a century, Saks Fifth Avenue represented a manifestation of American aspiration—a luxury icon whose flagship on New York’s Fifth Avenue served as a vital crossroads for the global fashion industry. But even the most storied institutions are not infallible. On January…
A Tribute to the Enduring Legacy of Mrs. B
May 8, 2026 · 42 min
In fashion, the word "legend" is often used as a convenient shorthand for longevity. But Joan Burstein — affectionately known in the fashion world as Mrs. B — was a legend in the truest sense of the word. When she opened Browns on South Molton Street in 1970, she didn't just open a boutique; she established a portal for the radical avant-garde fashion designers that would fundamentally shift our industry’s tectonic plates. Mrs. B also possessed a legendary eye for talent. She was the one w…
Why People Hate AI
May 6, 2026 · 30 min
Since the earliest days of tools like ChatGPT and Claude, industry conversations have been marked by a tension between excitement around speed and efficiency alongside deep-seated fears of job loss, creative dilution and concerns about its environmental footprint. What once played out in theory is now unfolding in practice – as a broader rejection of what AI represents — particularly as more consumers view AI-generated content as a cost-cutting measure that erodes fashion’s human touch, In this…
Inside Dries Van Noten’s Venice Manifesto
Apr 30, 2026 · 45 min
For four decades, Dries Van Noten defined a singular path in global fashion with a universe rooted in intellectual rigour, exquisite craftsmanship and independence. When he stepped back from his eponymous brand last year, it wasn't a retreat into a quiet retirement. Instead, Van Noten has embarked on a profound transition—moving from the relentless, dictated rhythm of fashion to a new life as a custodian of culture in Venice. Van Noten has established a new foundation at the Palazzo Pisani…
Why Some Retailers are Ignoring the Internet
Apr 29, 2026 · 25 min
For years, the fashion industry operated under the assumption that digital scale was the right path. However, the "growth-at-all-costs" model is currently fracturing as luxury giants grapple with soaring customer acquisition costs and a logistical crisis fueled by high return rates. In response, a quiet counter-culture is emerging, with stores like Ven. Space and Dot Reeder thriving by intentionally limiting their digital footprints. In this episode, executive editor Brian Baskin and senio…
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