The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
The pandemic was a near-death experience for Rent the Runway, the business that introduced and popularised renting fashion on a wide scale in the US. As consumers stopped heading to offices and events, chief executive Jennifer Hyman was left wondering: “Will my business still be relevant after Covid?” The executive had to make difficult decisions, fast, laying off and furloughing staff and cutting spending.
“As a leader, that was for sure the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do,” Hyman told BoF’s Lauren Sherman at VOICES.
Now, the company is betting on a post-pandemic shift in consumer values that couples a desire for more sustainable and smarter consumption a “hedonistic” environment of “worldwide euphoria,” Hyman said. “I think it is going to be the return of showing off,” she said.
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Designer Carly Mark sparked conversation about what it takes to make it as an emerging designer in New York when she announced she was shutting her ready-to-wear line and moving to London. On Thursday she held her last sample sale.
To stabilise their businesses brands are honing in on what their particular consumer wants to buy, introducing new categories and starting conversations.
That’s the promise of Zellerfeld, a 3D-printing partner to Louis Vuitton and Moncler that’s becoming a platform for emerging designers to easily make and sell footwear of their own.
With a new heavyweight backer in Italian firm Style Capital — which helped Zimmermann secure a billion dollar valuation — the French contemporary womenswear brand has ambitions to go global. But it sits in a competitive and hard-to-crack category.