The Business of Fashion Podcas‪t‬ The Business of Fashion

Vestiaire Collective’s chief executive Max Bittner opens up about the resale platform’s big deal with the French luxury group.
 
This week, a new €178 million round of financing put Vestiaire Collective’s valuation above $1 billion and gave it a high-profile new partner in the form of Kering, one of the world’s leading luxury groups. Having acquired a 5 percent stake in the Paris-based resale company, Kering joined investors like Condé Nast, French private equity firm Eurazeo and tech-focused investment firm Tiger Global Management.
Though resale has become increasingly popular in recent years, thanks to the growth of platforms like Vestiaire Collective, luxury brands have been reticent to get involved. Kering’s investment marks a notable shift in attitude.
In the latest episode of the BoF Podcast, Vestiaire Collectives’s chief executive, Max Bittner, sits down with BoF’s founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed, to explain why Kering invested in the company and what that investment means for the company’s future, and why he believes the resale market is an exciting and fast-expanding sector.
”This is not a short term trend,” said Bittner. “This is something consumers are looking for. This is something especially young consumers are expecting from the brands they want to endorse. So, I think both us and the brands are realising consumers expect us.”
Related Articles:
Why Kering Invested in Vestiaire Collective
Should Luxury Build Resale Into Its Business Model?
The Resale Gold Rush Rolls On
 
To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link.
Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. 

The Farfetch founder and chief executive and Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans discuss the industry-changing deal designed to dominate luxury e-commerce.
 
Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans and Farfetch founder José Neves take BoF’s editor-in-chief Imran Amed behind-the-scenes of the industry-changing joint venture between Alibaba, Farfetch and Richemont at VOICES 2020, BoF’s annual gathering for big thinkers.
The biggest appeal for all three parties? A shared vision of the importance of technology and omnichannel retail.
”We think as tech businesses, we’re not retailers,” Neves said. “We’re at the service of the best brands, the best retailers and we’re here to enable the industry… and this is open to everyone.”
 
Related Articles:
What the Farfetch-Alibaba-Richemont Mega-Deal Means for Luxury E-Commerce
Duelling Visions for Online Luxury in Mytheresa and Farfetch’s Latest Results
Farfetch and Alibaba Open Up About Their Mega-Deal with Richemont
 
Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business.

This week on The BoF Podcast, editor-in-chief Imran Amed speaks with Saul Nash, Stephen Jones and Roksanda Ilinčić about how to tell compelling fashion stories amid the pandemic.
Another season of mostly virtual fashion weeks have helped fashion films to become an increasingly popular tool for designers to create an elaborate narrative out of their collections off the catwalk. These new, online-first presentations have forced designers to think creatively and push storytelling further in order to emotionally connect with audiences.
But as with any emerging phenomenon, there’s still much to learn. In the latest episode of the BoF Podcast, designers Saul Nash, Stephen Jones and Roksanda Ilinčić, and BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks, delve into the dynamics of digital comunication and how to stand out with a meaningful story.
To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link
Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. 
Related Articles:London’s Creativity Lights Up Dark TimesStephen Jones Says the Constant Quest for Perfection Often Kills SpontaneityRoksanda and Richard Quinn Bring Art to Their Fashion

The designer speaks with BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks about his latest collection, making change and the importance of elevating the next generation of fashion creatives.
 
When Virgil Abloh first broke into fashion he remembers feeling like a tourist. The designer began his career in architecture and says he struggled to find his place in an industry of insiders. But after three years at the helm of Louis Vuitton’s menswear division, the Off-White founder is now very much part of the establishment. In the latest episode of the BoF Podcast, Abloh speaks with BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks about his hopes of paving the way to a more democratic and inclusive industry for the younger generation and why he’s launched a TV station.
The designer is increasingly focused on lifting up the next generation of young designers, conscious of his responsibility to open up the industry. Last year, he raised $1 million to launch the “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund for Black students.
 
Related Articles:
Virgil Abloh: ‘You Have to Choose Your Message Wisely’
What’s Off-White Without Virgil?
Virgil Abloh: ‘I Am Not a Designer’
 
To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link.
Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business. 
 

This week on The BoF Podcast, designer Jason Wu and BoF’s senior correspondent Chantal Fernandez examine the evolving purpose of runway shows and what New York Fashion Week might look like after the pandemic.
Fashion Week looks very different this season, with most designers choosing to present their collections through digital lookbooks and short films instead of traditional runway shows. But even after the pandemic subsides, New York Fashion Week isn’t likely to revert to its prior form. As BoF senior correspondent Chantal Fernandez reported in a BoF Professional article last week, the “unbundling” of New York Fashion Week has been happening for years.
”What worked 10, 15 years ago, doesn’t work today,” designer Jason Wu told BoF’s Imran Amed on this week’s podcast. “The backbone of American fashion has always been about diversifying and being less traditional in its approach in what luxury and what fashion looks like.”
”Fashion week has become something of a different creature, but that happened long before the pandemic,” he added. “I feel like it’s my job to keep part of it alive, even though it’s forever changing.”
 
External clip courtesy of Fashion By Look - Eleanor Lambert: Defining Decades of Fashion
To subscribe to The BoF Podcast, please follow this link.
 
Related Articles:
The Unbundling of New York Fashion Week
What Is New York Fashion Week Without Its Billion-Dollar Brands?
How Independent Fashion Brands Are Navigating the Crisis
 
Join BoF Professional for the analysis and advice you need. Get 30 days for just $1 or explore group subscriptions for your business.
 

BoF’s Imran Amed discusses transparency, cooperation and disruption with Dries Van Noten, Anya Hindmarch and Stefano Martinetto, leaders of two early pandemic initiatives — The Forum and Rewiring Fashion — to share thinking on the role of independent fashion brands and retailers amidst the biggest crisis in the history of the modern fashion industry.











The fashion industry has long been operating in a cyclically inefficient and anti-creative way. Issues like waste, early discounts, power imbalances and a suboptimal, wholesale-controlled calendar hurt brands at every level, as well as consumers.
But when the Covid-19 pandemic prompted lockdowns around the world in early 2020, the industry was put on pause. In response, two initiatives, Forum and the BoF-facilitated Rewiring Fashion, emerged to make this period one of retrospection and discussion in hopes of bringing about systematic change.
In the latest episode of Inside Fashion, which features a conversation from VOICES 2020, BoF’s Imran Amed sits down with Van Noten, as well as Anya Hindmarch and Stefano Martinetto, co-founder and chief executive of Tomorrow London to discuss the lessons the industry has learned during the pandemic and how that new perspective will shape its future.

Candour has never been one of the industry’s priorities or strengths, which has hampered progress in the past. Hindmarch emphasises that there is a power to coming together. “You solve problems by not just thinking about yourself but collaborating as an industry,” she said.


Thanks to the rise of e-commerce and the convenience economy, storytelling is more important than ever for luxury brands. “Just showing clothes and that’s it, forget it. That’s not going to work anymore… I think we have to offer different things,” said Van Noten. “We have to tell a story to show why the clothes are more expensive than high street labels, you have to give the whole package of support to people who come to the store.”


Wholesale retail is changing — hopefully, to allow more space for creativity and development of strong products. Hindmarch thinks that wholesalers still have an important, localised role that helps designers connect with their buyers in a personal way. Martinetto believes shifts are for the better. He said: “The notion that wholesale is dying is most appropriately defined as ‘bad wholesale is dying.’”

Related Articles:
Dries Van Noten’s ‘Forum’ and ‘Rewiring Fashion’ Join Forces to Rebuild the Fashion System
DTC vs Wholesale: Striking the Right Balance
The BoF Podcast: Dries Van Noten on Making Retail Meaningful in the Pandemic
 









To contact The Business of Fashion with comments, questions or speaker ideas please email podcast@businessoffashion.com.
 

Sign up for BoF’s Daily Digest newsletter.

 

Ready to become a BoF Professional? For a limited time, enjoy 25% discount on an annual membership, exclusively for podcast listeners. Simply, click here, select the Annual Package and use code PODCASTPRO at the checkout.

 

For all sponsorship enquiries, it’s: advertising@businessoffashion.com