What Fashion’s Creative Talent Needs to Know Today

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

BoF Careers distils 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.

Key articles and need-to-know insights for creatives in fashion today:

1. Can ‘Emily in Paris’ Catapult Vestiaire Collective Into the American Mainstream?

Under showrunner Darren Star and costume designer Marylin Fitoussi, a number of luxury labels have made it into the Netflix series, “Emily in Paris”, including Chopard, Ami Paris and LVMH-owned Rimowa. Site traffic to Rimowa’s website surged following its feature in season two, Emelie De Vitis, Rimowa’s senior vice president of product and marketing, told Rolling Stone in 2022. It’s no wonder then that when Netflix approached Vestiaire Collective with a storyline and an offer for a paid product placement last year, the resale platform jumped at the opportunity.

The “Emily in Paris” cameo is part of Vestiaire Collective’s wider strategy to grow its US business, which makes up for 20 percent of its sales. The new season drops at a time when consumers are pulling back from spending, particularly in the luxury sector. This poses an opportunity for resale sites like Vestiaire Collective to convey value to price-conscious shoppers as well as people looking to monetise their closets, said Samina Virk, Vestiaire Collective’s chief executive of its North American arm.

Related Jobs:

Art Director, Burberry — London, United Kingdom

Junior Copywriter, Skims — Los Angeles, United States

Senior Content Associate, Chalhoub Group — Dubai, United Arab Emirates

2. How the Streetwear Customer Is Evolving

Despite the narrative to the contrary, streetwear isn’t dead and young consumers are not casting aside their sneaker rotation for a wardrobe full of loafers. While the market for brands like Supreme, Off-White and Palace has cooled, it’s still moving. What’s changed is the streetwear shopper is no longer a monolithic, head-to-toe brand loyalist. Instead, retailers and other experts say the young consumers who might have only bought graphic T-shirts and hoodies a few years ago are embracing a diverse wardrobe that mixes streetwear, heritage brands and traditional menswear or luxury.

“There’s a venn diagram between the customers for Wales Bonner-Adidas, Supreme and Bottega [Veneta],” said Jian DeLeon, Nordstrom’s men’s fashion director who was formerly the editorial director of the youth culture magazine Highsnobiety. “They might aspire to buy one special piece from Bottega but are going to wear it with Carhartt pants and a graphic T-shirt from Pleasures or Supreme.”

Related Jobs:

Graphic Designer, Métier — London, United Kingdom

Graphic/Print Designer, Vetements — Zurich, Switzerland

Colour & Concept Manager, Coach — New York, United States

3. Why Fashion’s New Leading Man Looks So Familiar

After two decades as a journeyman actor, Glen Powell has gone on a leading man run rarely seen in today’s entertainment-sphere. After starring in the rom-com hit “Anyone But You,” action flick “Hitman” and now “Twisters”, he’s frequently discussed on social media and in the press in the same breath as Gosling, Cruise, Clooney, Pitt, Smith and other four-quadrant stars.

Fashion loves a new face. What makes Powell’s rapid ascent so interesting is that he isn’t, particularly: with his hair, jawline and traditional wardrobe, the actor represents a clean break from risk-takers like Jacob Elordi, Timothée Chalamet, Donald Glover, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler, who have dominated red carpet coverage and menswear blogs over much of the last decade. “It’s really hard to penetrate the culture across various segments of society these days,” said Doug Shabelman, chief executive of Burns Entertainment, which matches talent with brands. “You could see [Powell] doing an ad for pretty much everybody.”

Related Jobs:

Content Editor, De Mellier — London, United Kingdom

Post-Production Specialist, Tiffany & Co. — New York, United States

Showroom Coordinator, Cabine Creative — Los Angeles, United States

4. H&M’s Big Bet on Fashion’s Elusive Middle

It’s become a truism in fashion that the middle-market brand — somewhere between Shein at the low end and Hermès at the top — is going extinct. H&M Group chief executive Daniel Ervér would beg to differ. Six months after assuming the top job at the Swedish fast-fashion giant, where he has worked for nearly 20 years, the company is putting the finishing touches on a strategy meant to pull it out of a half-decade funk. At the heart of his plan is a full-court effort to convince shoppers that H&M’s clothing is worth paying for at any price, whether it’s a $15 knit top or a $200 suede skirt.

The retailer has refreshed its design criteria, Ervér said, granting its product team full creative control over its assortment, starting with a fall collection that includes leather pieces, long feminine dresses and a a faux fur long coat — “something for everyone to love,” the brand said. To better showcase those clothes, the retailer plans to complete renovations on 250 of its 4,000-some stores this year. A series of pop-ups in major cities and a website redesign are also in the works.

Related Jobs:

Head of Visual Merchandising, Carhartt WIP — Paris, France

Print & Shoot Production Director, Coach — New York, United States

Senior CAD Specialist, Ralph Lauren — Bangalore, India

5. The Same Tech Behind ChatGPT Is Being Used to Produce Novel Fragrances

Molecule 4471A smells like something you’d detect in a perfume: It has a citrusy tang of sugar and acid, but also notes that turn it from fruit towards flowers. It contains neither. Like other synthetic molecules created by Osmo, 4471A wasn’t derived from blooms blanketing a field in France but brewed in a lab — in this case, an office in New York packed with glass flasks, robotic machinery and jars of chemical compounds.

Osmo spun out from an AI research project at Google at the end of 2022. Founder and chief executive Alex Wiltschko had realised he could use a machine-learning technique called embedding, which underlies large language models like ChatGPT and Spotify’s personalisation algorithm, to effectively build a map of odour that allows the company to closely predict what a molecule will smell like from its structure. While the company can create never-before-smelled molecules, its business is in devising substitutes for ingredients that might be toxic or restricted. It could also help identify white spaces in the market and produce new scents to fill them.

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Senior Creative Lead, On — Zurich, Switzerland

Jewellery CAD Designer, Tiffany & Co. — New York, United States

Senior Visual Associate, Tory Burch — New York, United States

6. The Soho House of Nail Salons

Majesty’s Pleasure describes itself as “New York’s first social beauty club.” What looks like a dining room is actually 50 manicure-pedicure stations, served by a grand cocktail bar. The space, which occupies the second floor of a building just off Park Avenue South, is Majesty’s third location. And they’re in good company, as the neighbourhood has become something of a destination for beauty hot spots.

But as its name suggests, Majesty’s Pleasure wants to be a bit more decadent than its competitors. For one: It’s a social club, not strictly a member’s one, meaning that anyone can come in and pay for its services. About a quarter of clients opt to join the “Leisure Club”, a tiered subscription that grants them between one to unlimited manicures and pedicures per month. Despite the competition in the area, Majesty’s Pleasure believes it has created an entirely new hospitality business model. The initial reaction indicates they could be right.

Related Jobs:

Content Operations Manager, Stuart Weitzman — New York, United States

Senior Art Director, Kate Spade — New York, United States

Visual Merchandiser, Hugo Boss — Melbourne, Australia

7. Why Revolve Is Embracing Brick-and-Mortar

Retail trends are changing. Shoppers increasingly want to physically see and try on clothes, creating demand for old fashioned brick-and-mortar stores and forcing online brands to evolve or stagnate. In response, Revolve launched a limited-time pop-up store in ritzy Aspen, Colorado, in December. In June, the company opened its first permanent physical location at that exact spot. The question now is: Where does it go from here?

Revolve’s valuation peaked in late 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, but it has lost roughly 80 percent since then. But the the Aspen pop-up store experiment was a success, chief financial officer Jesse Timmerman said in an interview. Revolve chose the location because it fits with the retailer’s aspirational branding targeting 18- to 35-year-old women. The results exceeded expectations, making a permanent store logical, Timmerman said.

Related jobs:

Visual Merchandising Coordinator, AWWG — London, United Kingdom

Collaborations Specialist, Iris Van Herpen — Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Senior Visual Merchandising Manager, Moncler — New York, United States

8. Why ‘Bad’ Style Can Be Good Business

Throughout her career, Blake Lively has famously said she dresses herself without a stylist on call. That has long endeared fans to her wide-eyed, TV-princess persona and lent a sense of authenticity to her personal style. But her approach is increasingly out of step with her celebrity peers, who routinely tap image-makers to generate impeccable fashion moments for the red carpet and beyond. Think Zendaya dressed by Law Roach for the “Challengers” tour, or Kendall Jenner donning Bottega Veneta for a gas run.

Of course, Lively isn’t the only A-list celebrity scrutinised over her style. For years, fashion insiders have expressed puzzlement over Taylor Swift’s conspicuously average fashion sense. But the singer’s girl-next-door popstar appeal sells out stadium tours. And she has a strong track record as a fashion influencer to boot, inspiring legions of fans to buy Popflex skorts and Hill House Home skirts. In a sense, Lively is following that same playbook. Each “bad” outfit generates publicity, and builds her powerful personal brand, which in turn has given the actress a powerful platform to promote her new hair care label, Blake Brown.

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Stylist Coordinator, Bloomingdale’s — New York, United States

On-Figure Stylist, Gap — San Francisco, United States

In-Store Visual Merchandiser, Gucci — Sydney, Australia