What Fashion Retail Professionals Need to Know Today

Discover the most relevant industry news and insights for fashion professionals working in retail, updated each month to enable you to excel in job interviews, promotion conversations or perform better in the workplace by increasing your market awareness and emulating market leaders.

BoF Careers distills 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.

Explore global job opportunities in retail on BoF Careers today, from a store manager at Aesop in Cambridge (UK), a stock associate at Amiri in Miami, to a store manager at Carhartt WIP in Berlin, or an assistant store manager at Zimmermann in Abu Dhabi.

Key articles and need-to-know insights for retail professionals today:

1. Black Friday Sales: A Solid Holiday Kickoff, With Warning Signs for Retailers

Consumers showed up on Black Friday ready to shop, but it took deep discounts to get them to actually buy something. In-store and online sales rose 3 percent year over year on Black Friday, according to data from Mastercard. Over the weekend, consumers spent an estimated $22 billion online, up 8 percent from last year, according to Adobe Analytics, which expects Cyber Monday to bring in an additional $9 billion.

Several factors propelled purchasing. Because the holiday shopping window is shorter this year — there are 26 days between Black Friday and Christmas compared to 31 days in 2023 — brands began promoting their Black Friday deals as early as Oct. 1, but particularly within the week before Thanksgiving. Not only did it give consumers more time to shop, it also likely increased the urgency to buy before products sold out. The growing resistance to higher prices in fashion also served as a push for shoppers to buy while items were marked down.

2. Ralph Lauren: Selling a Dream at Every Price

Plenty of brands talk about world building, but few are as committed to the concept as Ralph Lauren, which recently recreated its Polo Bar restaurant at a Hamptons estate to wine and dine guests attending its latest fashion show. It was one of the showier bits of “Ralph’s world,” the all-encompassing concept that has served as the linchpin of a strategy to elevate the brand’s image, allowing it to expand into high-margin categories such as outerwear and handbags while still selling plenty of polo shirts. The goal is to make sure that, however customers come into Ralph’s world, they feel like they’re getting good value for their investment.

Consumers appear to be on board: Ralph Lauren’s stores are busy, even as the average price of the goods sold in them has risen over 70 percent since 2018. So are investors — the company’s stock hit an all-time high in October 2024. But the elevation project now faces its greatest test yet, as shoppers around the world demonstrate fatigue with spiralling prices and China’s sluggish economy clouds the outlook for a once-promising market. As it navigates the turbulence, Ralph Lauren is doubling down on its storytelling and leaning into the core products that have given the brand its longevity.

3. The Debrief | The Future of Resale

Resale is no longer confined to thrift stores or niche platforms; it has grown into a roughly $50 billion industry in the US alone, by some measures. Platforms like Poshmark, The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective have transformed the experience, making it more accessible and attractive to consumers at every price point. At the same time, brands are increasingly stepping into the space, with some launching their own programmes to resell returned or used merchandise, transforming what was once a reactive practice into a strategic business opportunity. And new start-ups hope to create a new secondhand market out of brands’ returned merchandise.

Retail editor Cathaleen Chen and e-commerce correspondent Malique Morris join senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and executive editor Brian Baskin to unpack the evolving resale landscape.

4. 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.

5. Sportswear Is Set for an Epic Showdown in 2025

In The State of Fashion 2025, BoF and McKinsey explain how the battle between challenger and incumbent sportswear brands will heat up in the year ahead, and how leaders in the industry should act to capture their share of market growth. This year, challenger sportswear players — such as Deckers (owner of Hoka) and Asics — are expected to create over 50 percent of the segment’s value, surpassing incumbent sportswear brands known as the “Big Four” (Nike, Adidas, Puma and Under Armour) in economic profit for the first time, according to the McKinsey Global Fashion Index.

In recent years, incumbents have been excessively reliant on incremental improvements to their performance technologies. These innovations are often less noticeable and garner less consumer attention. On the other hand, challenger brands have reimagined running footwear with visible innovations that deliver both performance and recognisable differentiation. Hoka’s oversized midsoles offer unique cushioning and are easily identifiable, while On’s CloudTec® soles use a distinct, pod-like design to provide runners with support.

6. Lord & Taylor Will Relaunch as an Online Off-Price Retailer

The nearly 200-year-old department store Lord & Taylor is coming back to life, albeit with an entirely different business model. Next year, the new owners of Lord & Taylor — an entity named Regal Brands Global — will unveil a website using the name of the storied retailer, and offer designer wares at discounted prices, BoF has learned. The inventory will be sourced from distributors. The e-commerce store will also offer Lord & Taylor-branded products, which will be manufactured by licensees and sold at other retailers as well.

“My idea is to put all these master manufacturers behind the brand to create many different products — womenswear, special occasion dresses, suiting, small leather goods, footwear, and many other categories,” said Sina Yenel, chief brand and strategy officer of Regal Brands Global. “We’re leaving the brick-and-mortar game to those big players who are already on the market,” Yenel added. Instead, he said he hopes that the Lord & Taylor brand can be sold at stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom.

7. Represent Sells Minority Stake to Private-Equity Firm True

British menswear brand Represent has sold a minority stake to London-based private-equity firm True, The Business of Fashion exclusively revealed in November. According to Represent chief executive Paul Spencer and co-founder Michael Heaton, True — which has invested in consumer brands from Boy Smells to Haeckels — was the right strategic partner to aid the label’s continued expansion. The brand plans to use the funds to grow its store count, invest in its operational capabilities and scale its North America business. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

“We think we’ve got a billion-dollar business on our hands,” Spencer said. “If we want to be that size, then we’ve got to scale on all fronts and have to onboard solid people with operational experience and technical knowledge to guide us as we grow.” The investment comes amid a period of considerable growth for Represent. With a boost from the opening of its first flagship stores this year — in West Hollywood, Los Angeles and then Manchester — the brand’s sales are expected to top £100 million ($125.3 million) in 2024, up from £80.8 million the year prior and £48.4 million in 2022.

8. 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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