Already accounting for 25 percent of the global population and over half of the global workforce — Gen-Z is the largest and the most online generation ever. In the US alone, Gen-Z consumers have an estimated purchasing power of $360 billion, according to BoF Insights. By 2025, according to research conducted by Deloitte, 75 percent of the global population and almost all smartphone users — and therefore almost all of Gen Z — will be frequent users of augmented reality.

As a foundational technology, creating access to new digital product lines, 3D fit solutions and immersive experiences, AR has the opportunity to transform customer interaction and experience. Indeed, even now, AR technology is fast becoming a ubiquitous feature of daily life, with social media acting as a frictionless forum for users to interact with AR seamlessly through filters and lenses, as well as physical and digital activations continuing to merge.

However, concurrent to this evolution is a challenging global financial outlook. The McKinsey Pulse Survey found that 37 percent of consumers plan to delay discretionary expenditure, shop from lower priced retailers or seek savvier retail experiences in 2023. Consumers have begun to reconcile fiscal caution with spending impulses by being highly selective about which brands and experiences to engage with.

As a result, retailers need to be laser focused on the path to purchase, balancing innovations that can surprise and delight customers by connecting them to new forms of creativity, while investing in the channels and functionality that drive the bottom line.

In addition to impacting acquisition and conversion rates, AR and fit guidance technology can positively impact returns rates. Returns represent a loss of $550 billion worldwide for retailers and have a huge environmental cost. According to studies carried out by Snap, 66 percent of e-tailers claim they’ve had fewer returns after implementing this technology.

Responding to this opportunity, in March, Snap launched Ares, a SaaS service providing Snap’s AR technology with the technology it gained from its acquisitions of Vertebrae, Fit Analytics, and Forma. Ares’ first solution, dubbed the Shopping Suite, includes 3D Viewer, AR Try-On, and Fit Finder, all of which can be embedded into retailers’ own apps and websites.

To discuss how AR can innovate the shopping experience most effectively today, Snap’s head of AR enterprise services Jill Popelka and global head of luxury Geoffrey Perez, alongside BoF’s Robin Mellery-Pratt, hosted a roundtable discussion at The Hoxton in Paris, welcoming executives from Louis Vuitton, Jacquemus, Acne Studios, Paco Rabanne, Christian Louboutin, Longchamp, Maje and Dentsu. Now, BoF shares key insights from the conversation, conducted under the Chatham House Rule.

Augmenting Physical Experiences

“We did mirrors with Nike in Williamsburg and what they did was a gamification of the whole AR experience. You were able to play basketball in the mirror and then at the end, you could get a QR code to get a 10 percent discount. You could have something to be part of the community, to engage, to share on social media.

“When you have a mirror in your store, you don’t need to have Snap, you just scan the QR code, upload the photo on your phone and then you get to share it. There is no link between the technology that we have here and if you’re a Snap user or not,” said a Snap representative.

“If you look at what Dior did in Mumbai — they added that layer of augmented reality to transform the Gateway of India with Snap. Of course, we’ve already proven to Dior that our technologies were super efficient — they have dozens of lenses that they’ve created with us in the past two years. They’ve seen amazing results in terms of engagement and conversions,” they continued.

In-store, you need to have that kind of enhanced experience. It cannot only be reserved for online. It’s about creating a parallel world and then having the ability to share something very fun.

However, another executive believes physical interaction is the core driver in increasing dwell time. “In-store activation has the main impact on dwell time. From what I’ve seen throughout my last 15 years in retail, the most powerful activations are the ones that are actually living.

“When we opened, we had [a branded food-focused physical activation] and people were more keen on getting popcorn and photos rather than the virtual try-on of product. People are coming in-store because they want to live real life, otherwise they buy online. You want to feel and touch things. It’s why I believe physical activations will always heighten the experience.”

“[Consumers] are seeking real experiences they can share with their community. We have seen that gaming can be a powerful avenue for this. So, in-store, you need to have that kind of enhanced experience. It cannot only be reserved for online. It’s about creating a parallel world and then having the ability to share something very fun,” shared another guest.

“That’s why you have to find the right angle and use of AR. If you want to use it for fit technology in-store, there’s little point because the consumer can try things on physically. However, if you are creating additional experiences, that’s where you’re adding value,” another attendee added.

Gamifying the Path to Purchase

“We believe that the minute you buy a product, you enter the brand and become part of the family. That’s why gamifying the experience of users is something we’re still investigating, in order to build that relationship. The sneaker business, for example, is something that brings back clients. We also know that linking to brand heritage plays a key role to building a long-lasting relationship. Virtual reality can really help in those instances — activating your clients in a different way,” one guest mentioned.

“We were working on a gamification project, but we didn’t want to launch a game just for the sake of it. That is not how we operate as a company. We require more time and are still working on it. Our focus for this is not really centred around our products, but more around the DNA of our brand and universe,” another guest shared.

Try-On Technology

“Virtual try-on works really well in beauty. Yet, for shoes, it’s more difficult. While it has clear success in the sneaker category, we also produce heels. For that type of shoe, it’s still quite challenging. Although we work with Snap and with all the best tech in the world, the technology cannot handle the elevation of the heel, let alone open toes etc. So, we haven’t implemented AR as much as we would have liked,” an attendee highlighted.

Adding onto this, another attendee mentioned: “We’ve found that the technology is not always mature. We have trialled it for many categories — sunglasses, earrings and sneakers. Every time, we’ve had to use different partners because there’s not a single one that’s able to mesh the technology for all those parts of the body. For makeup, there are really good companies but they’re not good in shoes, and vice versa, so it’s a challenge.”

“[In my previous role,] we launched with sneakers [... and] 1.5 million people have tried on our sneakers in augmented reality on Snap. Our success came from the balance of finding the perfect way to propose it to the customer, while remaining super focused on the DNA and feel of the brand,” said another guest.

Engagement and Community Building

“We organised a digital showroom during our press day and invited VIPs. That experience helped strengthen relationships, as clients were able to make a wish list then and there from the digitised product. It also enabled our clients to be connected with the brand and create a much more emotional experience,” an attendee added.

A Snap representative stated: “You can now use augmented reality with a forward facing camera, your phone, laptop — just about anything. The more organisations get their teams comfortable with creating 3D assets and using them in that forward facing view, the more they’ll be ready for things like smart glasses when they come along.”

Metrics for Success

“The issue is who is deciding to spend the money. If it’s the CTO, they know that time spent engaging is super valuable. If it’s the CFO or general manager, they want a return on investment very quickly, because [their] way of thinking is from a business perspective rather than from a technology or community standpoint.

“When you know retail and understand that building a relationship comes through spending time in the store, you then know how to translate it onto your website. [Through this,] you are able to sell and offer the user your brand experience, so it should be considered as part of the calculation,” one attendee expressed.

“It’s important to consider what the metrics for success are. We have tried products such as eyewear, scarves and bags to stage augmented reality and virtual designs in-store. But, across different platforms, it can be difficult to connect the dots. However, considering engagement and number of shares can be really useful,” another guest added. “For bosses, it’s difficult to switch from quantitative to qualitative KPIs in retail. It’s a key consideration, because we are ultimately selling an experience.”

How AR Positively Impacts Return Rates

In 2022, returns represent a loss for retailers of $550 billion. As much as between a quarter and a third of garments will never be sold and will be wasted. The industry remains steadfastly linear — billions of pieces of clothing are simply discarded when unsold or at the end of their useful lives, ending up in landfill or incinerators.

A Snap representative stated: “What we have found is that when you combine augmented reality and artificial intelligence, there’s actually a superpower to reduce returns and increase conversions. It’s combining those two technologies that can help create shopper confidence. We’ve taken fit and sizing technology, which we can do without a size chart, because the machine learning algorithms can actually take buyer data and solve it. What we believe is important is that [brands] start those processes internally and think outside of their perceived boundaries of technology.”

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Snap as part of a BoF partnership.

As consumers have increased their digital spend, their expectations of online services have also grown. Speed, transparency and convenience at every step of the shopping journey are now critical differentiating factors that sway consumers from one retailer to another.

Meanwhile, the resources that facilitate a seamless delivery service are tighter than ever: available warehouse space is scarce, especially in key distribution zones near ports and major cities. Carriers are stretched thin and pass along rising costs to brand clients in the form of surcharges and shipping delays. Customer and regulatory scrutiny over business practices is increasing and the impact of delivery is too significant to avoid further focus.

On the consumer side, bracketing — the practice of over-purchasing multiples of a certain item with the intent of returning the undesired excess — is becoming increasingly commonplace. According to a 2022 survey from Statista, some 63 percent of e-commerce consumers in the US bracket their online purchases, citing reasons like unclear sizing and fit as well as an inability to try on product in-store. A higher rate of bracketing means a higher rate of returns — in 2021, US shoppers sent back about $218 billion in merchandise they bought online, up from $100 billion in 2020, according to data from the National Retail Federation.

Advantageously, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions now represent a real opportunity to increase service standards and customer satisfaction while decreasing waste and emissions. Smart models can create smart insights, and today, depending on whether the focus is on speed, sustainability or cost, retailers and brands can model their end-to-end distribution networks. About 60 percent of retailers have said they are making changes to existing returns policies, with fewer promising free returns, according to a survey of retail executives by return management solutions company GoTRG.

What is more, advocates believe a seamless experience receiving and returning orders could garner lifelong loyalty among customers. Post-sale care is now one of the most effective levers in nurturing community and brand loyalty.

ShopRunner’s Brittanie Knezovich, Vanessa Rodriguez and Melissa Zinzi, alongside BoF’s Robin Mellery-Pratt, hosted a roundtable event at the Nine Orchard Hotel in New York, where a group of market leaders discussed how AI solutions could increase customer service levels, drive performance and accelerate the adoption of more responsible business practices.

Executives in attendance represented Fendi, Puma, Skims, Mytheresa, Mario Badescu Skin Care, Adore Me, LoveShackFancy and Diane von Furstenberg. Now, BoF shares anonymised key insights from the conversation, which was conducted under the Chatham House Rule.

Meet Consumer Expectations Through Tech Innovation

Brands have long recognised “The Amazon Effect”, whereby consumers’ expectations of immediate, gratis delivery schemes pose a serious challenge.

“We want to deliver [product] like food, [but] there is a reason why brands do not do it. It’s actually quite hard,” said one event attendee.

“Consumers now expect [delivery] in one or two days. [...] And we are getting close to serving the customer in an instant fashion, but we are [also] moving to a time where profitability matters. We heard an interesting titbit from a consumer the other day, [who said] ‘I did not order because I wanted to order 10 sizes and try them all’, and we were talking about having lost that customer. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, ‘do I want that customer?’ At the end of the day, we are looking to long-term value (LTV), we are looking to loyalty, we are looking to strong customers that drive your brand.”

Once [e-commerce] services and the adoption from our store associates started growing, clients were expecting the same level of service that they were having in store.

To focus on consumers who make the core of your business, it is imperative to cater to and personalise their service, which today is becoming increasingly attainable using AI.

“AI will help us tremendously in terms of zooming in on individual customers, and it will be a tremendous help in customer service, customer journey and experience — keeping a customer happy,” said one guest.

Interlink Shopping Channels to Reduce Returns

With the reopening of physical retail spaces and the plateauing of e-commerce, fashion companies are advised to use technology as a connector between channels to mitigate returns and amplify consumer experience.

One brand representative said: “We have been spending a lot of time on increasing services whereby someone can shop from a store’s assortment online. And one of the things that we realised once these services and the adoption from our store associates started growing is that those clients were expecting the same level of service that they were having in store. They did not want the four to five-day average shipping that an e-commerce client who does not have a relationship with an associate had. So we had to develop our operations [to include an] e-commerce fulfilment warehouse and shipping from store.”

A seamless omnichannel framework also affects customer LTV, as one attendee noted: “The moment we were able to decrease shipping time by 50 percent, we were able to decrease return rate by a significant amount, and the repurchase rate of clients goes up. These store loyal clients are then asking their associates, ‘Can you just send me links, I do not want to go back to the store.’ And that is when the LTV of the client goes up — when we marry the two channels.”

However, that strategy poses further logistical challenges.

“When the store has to manage 30-40 boxes a day, how do you do that?” questioned one guest. “It is getting to be ridiculous [...] For us, the most important thing is to meet our customers’ expectations. If we tell the customer [to expect delivery] in two days, let’s make sure we communicate and we deliver in two days.”

Use Deep Learning Models to Raise LTV

“The biggest cost, the biggest headache, and [what] returns challenging is reverse logistics,” said one event attendee. “When you tie up all the inventory, when you take [product] off the site, the cost of processing back [...] how do we deal with that? Do we charge for it? That is another question — is shipping important in the experience?

“We did some A/B testing about the checkout, your conversion rate is higher, but your LTV is absolutely not higher. So you may win today, but you are not winning in the long-term because it does not make a difference — it is about managing expectations.”

Managing said expectations becomes easier with AI-powered deep learning models, as trialled by one attendee: “We have implemented deep learning models to protect our delivery dates, beginning at the shop cart, and then it updates and changes as the shipping conditions change throughout the journey.”

The moment we were able to decrease shipping time by 50 percent, we were able to decrease return rate by a significant amount, and the repurchase rate of clients goes up.

The technology also helped mitigate returns, as the attendee said: “10 percent of your customer-base is responsible for 40 percent of your return. No one needs $400 of [product] at the same time, so we catch this kind of behaviour and deny these kinds of orders through our UX.”

Another guest noted that “the minute [you choose] to return a product, you are offered the opportunity to exchange. The moment you get your return label, you get the store credit back on your account, and you can place the order right away. You don’t need to wait to get the product back. [The idea of] an instant exchange is split across the board — I have spoken to retailers who are totally against it, and I have spoken to retailers who are so focused on creating another conversion, they want it in that same moment. It is an interesting conversation.”

Obtain and Analyse New Sources of Data

“One of our [main strategic focuses] is to really learn our consumer,” said one guest. “50 percent of our team in the US is personal shopping, but it is not just making recommendations like ‘Oh, you might like this dress’ — we physically are in the field.

“It is almost like a scrappy grassroots strategy where we try as hard as we can in concentrated regions from Connecticut to Arkansas to Park Slope to get to know our customers. And the more that we get to know them and they get to know us, we have been able to decrease our returns because the recommendations or the sizing that we are sending is more accurate.”

The resources that go into obtaining an intimate familiarity with your consumer base bring about ample amounts of data that can be used to manage consumers’ expectations and adapt accordingly.

“I see value in post-purchase relationships,” said one guest. “If I have the data and I understand that this person did this thing at this time, then I can anticipate those meetings as we go forward, and that is super valuable to me.

“Mass data and understanding how I can anticipate the needs of a larger community and say, ‘Okay, here are sports-attuned consumers, or here are more fashion sporty streetwear consumers,’ or whatever kind of groups that are crossing over with [our brand], that is interesting to me, and that could be tremendously valuable if we could crack into it, the conversation about AI [will move beyond] the knowledge of a good merchandiser. We could be more powerful in servicing consumers and their needs if we were collaborating and understanding what those needs were.”

This is a sponsored feature paid for by ShopRunner as part of a BoF partnership.

Technology will reach an inflection point in the fashion industry this year, as the development of artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates and the hype around web3 transitions to more realistic applications focused on utility, creativity and community. Concurrently, a global economic downturn is impacting growth opportunities and putting more pressure on businesses to ensure digital and physical retail ecosystems are optimised for success.

As a result, retailers need to be laser-focused on the path to purchase, balancing exploration of new tech-driven opportunities with investing in the channels, functionality and solutions that are driving results. Up to 73 percent of consumers plan to delay discretionary expenditure, trade down brands and seek savvier retail experiences, reconciling their fiscal caution with their spending impulses by being highly selective about which brands and experiences to engage with, according to BoF and McKinsey’s State of Fashion Report 2023.

“Start with consumer empathy — understand the individual experience, and then move as fast as technology will allow you,” said Maju Kuruvilla, chief executive at checkout technology company Bolt during the BoF Professional Technology Summit in New York. “The technology that is available today is amazing, whether AI or web3, there are many options to connect or activate consumers. Do not wait 12 to 18 months to implement change, because the world will be a very different place then.”

This is all the more important as privacy regulations and technological changes reduce the effectiveness of paid digital marketing, despite the fact that costs have grown dramatically. In 2022, customer acquisition costs rose on average 70 percent on TikTok and 39 percent on Meta platforms, according to The State of Fashion 2023 report. In response, business leaders are expecting internal data collection strategies to pick up the slack and enable deep customer profiling and behaviour analysis.

Indeed, this is increasing the pressure on technology leaders to integrate new technologies like AI, experiment in emerging web3 channels and refine increasingly atomised retail ecosystems, by optimising the path to purchase as much as possible. Coresights Research in partnership with Bolt found that today, 76 percent of online shoppers abandon their carts at checkout — a poor ROI on increasingly expensive marketing and brand expenditure.

To discuss this inflection point in the industry, BoF and Bolt hosted an executive roundtable during the BoF Professional Summit in New York last week, welcoming executives from Ralph Lauren, Tapestry, Michael Kors, Nordstrom, Farfetch, Saks, Rag & Bone, Proenza Schouler and Urban Outfitters.

Here, BoF shares anonymised insights from attendees from the conversation, conducted under the Chatham House rule, on driving growth through technology in turbulent markets, the channels that matter most and why customer-centricity is more critical than ever.

Invest in Product to Drive Growth

Referring to the importance of technological investment in nurturing returning customers, one attendee said “You do not want to pay to have your consumer come back — they should want to come back, and that will only happen if you invest in better experiences than those at your competitors.”

If you can get a rapid iterative approach and feedback, that gets you to a place where you are interacting and adapting to the customers’ changes.

“Right now, the battle is in personalisation, including how well can you personalise the path to purchase, and make sure that you understand your customer and have the technology to do so. Beyond that, focus on the end-to-end journey, down to making payments, which at present is quite inefficient with fraud being an especially big deal,” they added.

Trial New Solutions Quickly

“Speed matters now more than ever,” one participant said of trialling and adopting innovation to the consumer journey. “It is harder now because [business functions are] busy with their own things, and [when approached with a new idea they might] say, ‘Don’t come back and talk to us until August of next year’ — that is a long time.”

They further added businesses must minimise “the latency between seeing a signal and [identifying] where we can win quickly.” Companies should look to experiment with different tools and refuse the temptation of assuming they themselves can predict the future or the needs of various cohorts of customers.

Analyse and Adapt Your Attribution Model

As one event attendee mentioned, successful attribution “is not about being right, [but] being less wrong,” meaning that your attribution model should be under constant evaluation, with ingrained agility.

“If you build [your attribution model] yourself, you drag all of that upfront work with you, [when] you need to be able to change it quickly every time the market changes. Ultimately, we have to think about the journey in the same way our customers think about the journey.”

Training executives to be customer-centric is a more important solve than the specifics of digital.

One example of an evolving attribution model came from “Amazon, [which] completed a long-term-value (LTV) study and found that a customer who checked out of the Amazon site with a bottle of wine had the highest LTV — you would never have guessed that, no human would have ever guessed that. If you are trying to be predictive yourself, you are doing it wrong — that capability builds over time. If you can get a rapid iterative approach and feedback, that gets you to a place where you are interacting and adapting to the customers’ changes.”

Avoid Generational Bucketing

One participant highlighted the importance of creating unique consumer journeys, as opposed to assuming consumers’ preferences based on generic data like age. “We are assuming that generations are all the same, saying ‘younger generations behave in X way’. We need to step out of assuming that everybody in a generation acts in a consistent way.”

They added: “We also have to recognise that the value exchanges [for personal data that customers are willing to enter into] are very personal and not a generational point, which adds a huge amount of complexity. There is no easy way of solving that problem, but the insight of starting with not just a customer-centric view, but an individual view of each customer, is critical to personalisation.”

“The way that younger consumers shop is constantly changing, it is not a binary. Executives need to think like the consumer, they need to put themselves in their shoes [to understand] how they shop. While I am sure everyone in retail is striving to reach the Gen-Z consumer, we are also striving to reach all the other consumers — Gen-Xs, Millennials [...] Training executives to be customer-centric is a more important solve than the specifics of digital.”

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Bolt as part of a BoF partnership.

Founded in 2006, Integra Fragrances has become a leading company in olfactory services for the fashion, luxury, design and hospitality industries, as well as banks, museums and airlines like Emirates. The company is today recognised for its excellence in designing scent identities for the world’s leading brands by leveraging the power of smell to create unique, branded experiences. Bulgari, Fendi, Ferragamo and MaxMara are just some of the prestigious brands that Integra Fragrances serves globally.

Headquartered in Italy’s Reggio Emilia, with offices in Milan, Hong Kong and Boston, the company specialises in creating bespoke fragrances that translate a brand’s DNA into sensorial experiences, which can be overlaid onto a myriad of customer journeys and experiences.

“Scent branding is about developing a signature scent that is associated with a brand, helping to create a stronger bond with consumers, thus becoming part of the company’s brand identity. It is more than just using a pleasant aroma in a specific space — it is about creating a full, immersive sensory experience,” says chief executive Lorenzo Cotti.

In 2020, Rutgers University proved that ambient scent improves recall and recognition of familiar and unfamiliar brands. People can remember a scent and its related memory with 65 percent accuracy after 12 months, while visual recall is only 50 percent accurate after just 4 months.

Decades of experience in the retail and HVAC design allows Integra Fragrances to perfume brand stores and events with over 5,000 remotely controlled devices installed worldwide. These devices are also capable of managing air quality and the role of olfactory technology will continue to grow as consumer concerns over airborne pathogens remain top of mind. Indeed, innovative new air quality controls combined with olfactory marketing systems are being adopted by market leaders.

Below, BoF sits down with Lorenzo Cotti to discover how olfactory strategies respond to growing consumer concern over air-quality while increasing brand equity and sales revenue.

What impact does in-store fragrance have on retail sales through consumer connection?

A pleasant smell is proven to increase the time we spend in an environment because it makes us feel good. A positive mood can increase by up to 40 percent due to smell. A scent can also recall images, emotions and memories more instantly and vividly than any other sense, making smell a powerful branding and communication tool for brands.

Scent branding is about developing a signature scent that is associated with a brand, helping to create a stronger bond with consumers and becoming part of the company’s brand identity.

Integra Fragrances analyses brands’ style, values, target consumers and locations, synthesised into a brief to be fashioned into a fragrance by our team of expert perfumers. It is more than just using a pleasant aroma in a specific space — it is about creating a full, immersive sensory experience.

What are the best practices when adopting a fragrance strategy for your business?

Really, the most effective approach is to embed scent in as many customer touchpoints as possible, building a multi-channel scent branding strategy at stores, events, installations, experiences, activations — everything. That’s where you see real results with improved customer recall and recognition, increasing brand affinity.

For example, Gucci Garden Archetypes first opened in Florence in 2021 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Gucci’s founding. Halfway along the path, curated by the creative studio Archivio Personale, visitors entered a perfumed floral paradise of Gucci Bloom — a hidden, imaginary garden that became a place of freedom. The room, scented by Integra Fragrances with the iconic notes of Gucci Bloom, paid tribute to the vision of inclusive femininity of the brand’s then creative director, Alessandro Michele.

The most effective approach is to embed scent in as many customer touchpoints as possible, building a multi-channel scent branding strategy at stores, events, installations, experiences, activations — everything.

Fendi offers another great example of enhancing the multi-sensorial experience of physical retail networks with a new boutique relaunch. At the end of 2022, Fendi reopened its renovated boutique in The Dubai Mall with a style reminiscent of the brand’s Roman headquarters, Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. It is built on two floors with three main rooms, each of them inspired by a gemstone. We created a scent designed exclusively for each room, which translates the stone concept into olfactory, and emotionally matches the design — lines, colours, lighting, music, patterns and materials — of each area.

Scent can play a powerful role in immersive experiences. Integra Fragrances helps brands tell more immersive and memorable stories, opening up a wide range of different opportunities for brands.

How can Integra technology respond to growing consumer concern over air quality?

We recently developed a new concept of indoor air quality and comfort, creating environmental well-being through cutting-edge technologies. Our Sens-O techno is completely remote-controlled and sensor-accessorised, detecting the air quality of an indoor space in real time by measuring parameters such as carbon dioxide, VOCs (or Volatile Organic Compounds), temperature and humidity. Monitoring and acting on those parameters, besides saving energy, allows brands to offer themselves and their customers a better environment to work and shop in.

One great example of our safety offering in practice was our work with Bulgari. Following the great success of the Milan edition, Refik Anadol and Bulgari reproduced the “Serpenti Metamorphosis” immersive exhibition in London at the Saatchi Gallery, and then in Madrid at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum.

The whole exhibition area — including air and surfaces — was scented and sanitised by Integra Fragrances, to guarantee the best possible indoor air quality. Serpenti Rainforest, a note created by Bulgari Parfums, by processing thousands of data through artificial intelligence, was diffused by Integra Fragrances inside the pavilion to make the visit even more unforgettable and a fully 360, immersive experience.

Our devices ensure a clean air flow, which is constantly analysed for quality and content in partnership with Honeywell, the leading company in microchannel sensor quality. Sensors show our customers the air quality indoors compared with air quality outdoors, and gives businesses the possibility to fix air quality targets to help improve the wellbeing and comfort inside their places of work, their sales areas, even the public spaces in which we all live. I believe that is the future.

How is Integra Fragrances engaging with more sustainable business practices?

As the fragrance industry moves towards more sustainable practices, we are seeking to expand and develop sustainable scent identities, using biotechnology and new extraction methods to reuse waste products.

One example was in 2020, when Benetton presented its “B-Green” project — a new environmentally friendly store format which was characterised by the use of innovative, recycled materials, with the transformation of the shop windows into digital displays and an increased focus on energy efficiency. Integra Fragrances developed a special scent identity called Visionary Spirit, which is environmentally conscious. It is vegan, created using natural ingredients from ethical and responsible sources, raw materials obtained by upcycling natural, biological waste, as well as essential oils extracted from plants with antimicrobial properties.

Integra Fragrances started its sustainable transformation journey in 2021, when we integrated CSR targets within our company objectives. Since then, we have become a “benefit company,” measuring our carbon footprint and using the Ecovadis assessment to improve our impact and to train our teams on the urgency of sustainability. We are also working towards a B-Corp certification.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Integra Fragrances as part of a BoF partnership.

A skills gap continues to grow for emerging talent looking to enter the fashion workplace today. Already a highly competitive job market, entry-level job specs often specify skills that far exceed entry-level experience or graduate training.

This skills gap looms larger still for emerging talent from typically underrepresented identities in the workplace, as detailed in the CFDA x PVH State of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Fashion 2021. Some 38 percent of Black survey respondents reported they were “not at all equipped” for their first job search versus 19 percent of white employees. What’s more, it found that 68 percent of Black employees reported greater inaccessibility to the fashion industry versus 37 percent of white employees.

To that extent, Gap Inc. — parent company to Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta — established the Design Apprenticeship Program to support upcoming design talent in the early stages of their professional journey. The programme is sponsored by their Create With Audacity movement — an internal initiative that seeks to support and unite Gap Inc.’s creative teams by providing them with the space, tools and resources required to unleash their creative potential.

By partnering with ICON360, the non-profit arm of Harlem’s Fashion Row that supports Black designers and fashion programmes at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), the Design Apprenticeship Program recruits apprentices from typically underrepresented backgrounds in fashion. The programme aims to strengthen educational opportunities and help make fashion, and Gap Inc., more accessible, as well as infuse new insights, diverse perspectives and ways of thinking into their creative teams.

Through the programme, apprentice designers are placed across nearly 20 design teams across the group’s brand roster. The apprentices spend a year learning from their team leaders and honing their skills while supporting critical design processes, receiving specialised training and development, and building lasting career connections.

Now, BoF sits with Banana Republic senior designer and a lead of the Design Apprenticeship Program, Momoko Sato, and current apprentices Nia Pennington, supporting Athleta, and Vante Thomas, supporting Gap Specialty, to learn more about development opportunities at Gap Inc.

Momoko Sato, senior designer at Banana Republic and Design Apprenticeship Program guide

How does the Design Apprenticeship Program nurture and support emerging talent?

MS: First and foremost, Create With Audacity challenges outdated hiring practices, with a lot of the talent now coming from pools we have built purposeful partnerships with, like HBCUs. It is an intentional way in which we are bringing in new people, new points of view, and industry disruptors.

This programme is highly integrated into that growth mindset, whereby apprentices learn to refine, adapt and build, as well as have frank discussions with leaders to make necessary structural changes. I believe it is a programme that will change the future of our company.

Secondly, there is the mentorship programme. Part of my role as a guide is to help Create With Audacity apprentices in essential skill building, such as how to behave in a corporate space, how to write emails — day-to-day, transferable skills that will lend themselves to their career forever.

Apprentices also receive on-the-job training. They are here with us, they shadow, they are pattern-making, draping, sketching. It is all integrated. Apprentices and mentors also go off-site to visit museums and get inspired. Gap Inc. is intentional and mindful about inspiring creative talent.

How ingrained are the apprentices in the creative process?

MS: An important thing for my team was making sure the design apprentice would be able to identify where we are in the development cycle, from prototypes to adoption. We hold ourselves accountable for the information we pass out through shadowing, and we encourage our apprentices to reach out and collaborate with peers.

I lean on my team as well as on cross-functional partners to help train the design apprentice. For example, our apprentice has one-to-one meetings every Friday to meet new people, and we hold her accountable for that. Gap Inc. is a huge company, so there is lot of opportunity to explore career directions and build networks across functions.

Apprentices learn to refine, adapt and build, as well as have frank discussions with leaders to make necessary structural changes. I believe it is a programme that will change the future of our company.

But learning is a two-way street. When they ask us questions, it is a chance for us to reflect on why we do certain things, whether it is for a specific reason or maybe we only do it that way because that is just what we have done historically. We get a moment to stop and say, “Maybe there is a better way to do things,” and that is really valuable.

What excites you about the future of working at Gap Inc.?

MS: We need new eyes with a global perspective to gain insight into what young people want today, and you cannot do that without young people. It is one thing for me to say ‘Create With Audacity,’ but it’s another thing to hire this cohort and change the culture from the inside. That is really exciting.

There is a big mystery around what fashion designers do. We do not sit around and doodle all day — we are strategic and pragmatic. We take abstract ideas and develop them into beautiful, tangible, functional product for our consumers to buy and use as a form of self-expression. It is an honour and a privilege to be a designer. And so being able to dive deep and teach what a designer does is a moment of pride for me.

Nia Pennington, design apprentice supporting performance and outerwear at Athleta

Why did you apply for the Design Apprenticeship Program?

NP: When I applied to the apprenticeship programme, I had just graduated from my master’s in Sports Product Design at the University of Oregon, and had no idea what the design role was about. I realised this opportunity would allow me to continue to learn and grow outside of my education, as well as get real-world experience.

How has the programme benefitted your professional development?

NP: Working with Athleta and the Gap Inc. brand enabled me to gain more confidence in myself and in the learnings I attained in university, as well as bettering my skills with certain softwares such as Adobe Illustrator.

It also taught me how to work cross-functionally, since I have been able to shadow different teams and people outside of my team to explore what I am interested in and see how they all come together.

What is the significance of the Design Apprenticeship Program to you?

NP: I have stepped into many rooms where people do not look like me and attended Predominantly White Institutions for my education. The impact this programme has had on me has been significant, especially as a woman of colour in an industry where we are very few and far between.

Being part of that young cohort of people who come from similar backgrounds allowed us to learn from each other and navigate this space together.

The programme put me in a space of young people of colour from different backgrounds, including HBCUs. We are now able to come together and form a community where we can figure out how we fit in and the ideas we want to bring to our teams. Being part of that young cohort of people who come from similar backgrounds allowed us to learn from each other and navigate this space together. It has been rewarding and comforting because representation matters, and I am honoured to work alongside them every day.

What advice would you give someone joining the programme?

NP: Do not be afraid, be authentically you and take the leap. You have so much opportunity to grow and build yourself within this programme, not only as a designer but as a person.

I have definitely grown as a designer, realised the designs that I want to make and communicate to the world, but I have also learnt a lot about myself in the process, about how I operate and what I want to learn. The programme gives me a lot of space to do that — you do not need to know everything, and you have so much opportunity to continue to learn.

Vante Thomas, design apprentice supporting denim and concept at Gap

Why did you apply to the Design Apprenticeship Program?

VT: I graduated last year and saw an opportunity through the Gap Inc. and ICON360 partnership. Through that funding, I discovered Gap Inc.’s diversity initiative and was encouraged to apply. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get into the industry and gain experience.

Working for a brand like Gap is great because of its global reach. You are not just thinking about a specific type of customer, but rather you have to generally think about everything, which is good in the realm of design because you can take an insight and put it into product elsewhere and have it resonate on a global scale — that is a great learning experience.

How has the programme helped with your professional development?

VT: Concept was a brand new role for me. It is the first stop in the design process — we trend forecast, look at the runways and form how we want our season to look and feel, the storytelling behind each season. We make sure we are looking at the global landscape, not only in trends but the economics. For instance, considering the buying power of consumers. Then the designers can map out how to execute what we present to them.

Since starting here, I have received amazing training and experience, but I’m also happy to bring value through my own perspective and taste, and be able to speak candidly in meetings.

I enjoyed my time doing it because I had not thought about fashion through this lens — how the world influences fashion.

How have you contributed to your team’s way of working?

VT: Since starting here, I have received amazing training and experience, but I am also happy to bring value through my own perspective and taste, and be able to speak candidly in meetings. If there is something we disagree on, a conversation is held.

I have been able to bring my own brand knowledge to meetings, as well as things I am into personally that I feel have some breadth in fashion that they may not have known about, which is fun and interesting for me as well because it is as if I am sharing a piece of myself with the team that is super receptive. I am able to have a voice and it is respected — and I believe that shows through the product.

What advice would you give someone joining the programme?

VT: Be present, be in the moment, never stop learning and believe in yourself. You have a voice and a perspective that no one else has, which makes you relatable to someone else. One of our company values is “speak with candour” — speak to what you believe in — and they give you the space to do that.

Creating with audacity means being yourself, unapologetically. Gap Inc. understands that they have amazing individuals on every level of the board, and they want those people to be audaciously themselves, and that is the beauty of it all.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Gap Inc. as part of a BoF partnership.

Shipping is a growing operational pain point for retailers, as consumer expectations for speedy, traceable — and free — deliveries pose significant challenges in terms of cost and logistics.

Particularly complex is the “last mile” — the final leg of an online order’s journey from the store or distribution centre to the customer’s home. It may sound simple, but it actually requires meticulous inventory management to track down products and an efficient and cost-effective way to deliver them to customers, all while providing customer service that is as easy and as frictionless as possible.

Founded in 2010, ShopRunner is a membership service that connects customers with retailers through the offer of free two-day shipping and returns. Retailers who are partnered with ShopRunner get access to the platform’s logistics network, consumer insights and software ecosystem.

Following its acquisition by Fedex in 2020, ShopRunner is now part of FedEx Dataworks, covering orders at more than 90 retailers including Neiman Marcus, Burberry and Farfetch. The deal makes possible FedEx Dataworks’ long-term strategy, as it intends to utilise ShopRunner’s effective feedback loops that will benefit from its own data, derived from the mobilisation of between 15 to 80 million packages per day around the world. The company will then supplement this with external weather and traffic data, applying predictive analytics to gain insight and optimise how goods progress throughout its physical network.

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to separate shopping and shipping when it comes to consumers’ brand experience,” said Sriram Krishnasamy, president and CEO of FedEx Dataworks. “The supply chain is now a boardroom conversation — it’s an incredibly important strategic differentiator.”

At VOICES 2022, BoF’s annual event where global changemakers gather to inspire innovation and reimagine the future of the fashion industry, Krishnasamy discussed how retailers can bring logistics in line with brand experience, as well as streamline these processes to operate more responsibly.

Now, BoF shares key insights from the event.

Managing Escalation in Consumer Expectations

SK: Consumer expectation today is to receive products as quickly as they possibly can, which places a lot of strain on the supply chain in addition to increased cost for brands. Having said that, it is an opportunity to optimise the supply chain, from procurement to manufacturing to storage to distribution to the last mile.

Leveraging FedEx’s insights and intelligence on supply chain distribution, brands can achieve a certain speed of delivery — whether that is same-day, next day or 2 to 3 days — while learning which is their optimal distribution system. We help brands meet consumer demand at the right cost while creating visibility around the impact of the choices they make.

The second aspect of it is environmental accountability. When we place an order and opt to receive it in two days, we lack clear information on carbon emissions and the impact of that order on the environment. At FedEx Dataworks, we built a sustainability insights engine that not only calculates the impact on the environment, but also indicates where brands can expose customers on their direct-to-consumer channel to the impact of their choices on speed of shipping. Today, that data is not immediate, so that is one of the capabilities we are building on the ShopRunner platform.

Digitising Backend Processes

SK: It is becoming increasingly difficult to separate shopping and shipping when it comes to consumers’ brand experience. The supply chain is now a boardroom conversation — it’s an incredibly important strategic differentiator. Brands invest years developing the best versions of their products, so they must consider the best way for that product to go from the manufacturer to the consumer.

Brands invest years developing the best versions of their products, so they must consider the best way for that product to go from the manufacturer to the consumer.

ShopRunner is a shopping platform serving millions of consumers, and our strategy in acquiring it was to make the pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase experience as seamless as we possibly can. We bring intelligence and insight that we have generated over 50 years of running one of the largest physical networks on the face of the planet for brands to connect with their consumers. We play a role all the way from generation to the post-purchase experience. That is the synergy between FedEx and ShopRunner.

One of the biggest reasons for the disruption during the pandemic was the lack of an overarching data ecosystem. If the data was in a collective ecosystem, matching supply with demand would have been far more possible.

Tapping Into a Responsible Shipping Network

SK: The way I see it, the future is more collaborative data ecosystems. Today, information is sitting in silos, locked within separate data systems of different players across fashion’s supply chain. We need a collaborative, joint data platform where there is a place for everyone to compete while optimising operations, delivering the best consumer experiences and making environmentally responsible choices.

Today, information is sitting in silos, locked within separate data systems of different players [...] the future is collaborative data ecosystems.

We evaluate how to make our network an extension of your products through data insights and the physical infrastructure, and we want to change the way consumers access their favourite brands through their direct-to-consumer channels — but in a responsible manner, with consideration for the environment and the planet.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by ShopRunner as part of a BoF partnership.

This year, Snap has partnered with BoF to platform three new members of the BoF 500 that represent innovation across business, creative and technology categories. Among the selected is Dr. D’Wayne Edwards, president and founder of the Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design.

After an expansive 30-year career as a footwear designer for staple brands such as Nike, Skechers and Jordan Brand, Edwards went on to become founder of the Pensole Footwear Design Academy in 2011 with the goal of training and inspiring the next generation of footwear designers.

The academy consists of a footwear studio where Pensole instructors teach footwear design, brand design, functional apparel and accessories, and colour material design. Innovation is a significant part of the academy’s approach, with Pensole offering hands-on experience in prototyping — teaching its students how to make shoes from scratch. Pensole also houses a personal design studio where they produce custom projects for various brands.

Following the foundation of the academy, Edwards went further still in establishing educational resources for the next generation. The Lewis College of Business was founded in 1928 by Violet T. Lewis in Indiana, relocating to Detroit in 1939. The college was the first-ever historically Black college and university (HBCU) to open in Detroit. The school remained in operation for nearly 75 years until it closed in 2013. Edwards reopened the college in March 2022 with a unique curriculum centred in design and business.

Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design is the first HBCU in the US to focus on design and has seen the likes of Nike invest $3 million as a three-year grant, as well as Designer Brands Inc., which invested $2 million.

Now, BoF sits down with Dr. D’Wayne Edwards to understand how he is innovating design education.

What compelled you to open the Pensole Footwear Design Academy?

There are two schools — the academy was first and then Lewis College was second. What guided me to open the academy was a few things: there were no schools globally that you could learn how to design sneakers; [and] there was also a lack of diversity in the footwear industry. So, it is really a combination of those two things that propelled me to look and say: “This needs to be addressed, let me see if there is an interest.”

We did our first session in 2010 and the reception was huge. Kids started following us online and there was one that actually blogged every day in the class. We started to have some of the top design schools globally reach out and say “can you come to teach it at our school?” It was something that the students wanted, but they didn’t know how to ask for it because they didn’t see it.

What inspired your acquisition of Lewis College, an HBCU historically focused on design?

It was a huge step to reopen the first historically Black college that has a focus on design. That has much more importance as it pertains to looking at diversity being important in the fashion industry as we move forward.

It now gives kids globally a place to aspire — to want to attend — and learn from the actual instructors who are also former designers themselves, who are also from diverse backgrounds. [It is about] being around people who have the same interest and like-minded focus that you can relate to, even in good relation and bad relation — we all have good days and those bad days where we need some consultation and some insights.

What defines footwear design today?

I’m old school, [so] for me, it is honouring the craft first and foremost. I think whatever profession you choose, you want to make sure you understand the history before you create, and so what we do is teach the true fundamentals of how to design first — really helping understand how to draw with your hands.

It now gives kids globally a place to aspire — to want to attend — and learn from the actual instructors who are also former designers themselves, who are also from diverse backgrounds.

When you pick a point of inspiration, you have to commit to that inspiration. When you pick a consumer, you have to become that consumer, just as an actor or an actress takes on a movie role. It is that level of authenticity to the craft that is critical because once you have that, then actually more ideas and more insights come to you. [Then] you can tap into it from that authentic lens of how you are going to redefine that craft and how you are going to redefine that product that you are working on.

How has technology bolstered innovation within design principles?

It is a delicate balance. Fundamentally, you need to understand how to do it with your hands and then let the digital tools elevate what you are able to create, instead of the reverse.

Sometimes with social media, kids want to design but they go straight to a computer and they make this pretty picture — but it is not a design. There is a difference. You can make a pretty picture, but can it actually be made into a real object? So, what we do is balance the idea of helping them understand how to actually design and make something, and then use technology to make it come to life and make it become easier to manufacture and move forward with instead of the reverse.

This is the weird thing about design — you can be inspired by anything. I did a project for [basketball player] Carmelo Anthony and one of the points of inspiration was pantyhose. When I pitched it to him at first, he was like, “Wait, what’s up with pantyhose? You’ve lost your mind this time.” [...] [But] if you ever watch a basketball game, you will see guys wearing sleeves, leggings and tights. I had this conversation with Melo 15 years ago, where he was the only one wearing the sleeves. It was to help his arm because he had some tendonitis, but what the compression does is actually contain the muscles and it helps increase blood flow.

Once we took that into digital form, we were able to digitise how tight we made the actual material, how loose you would make it and where we needed [it] to stretch. So, the technology allowed us to actually re-engineer things that we saw and experienced. But according to people’s size and width, we were able to re-engineer it so it actually fit them properly without cutting off their blood circulation.

What advice can you share with those seeking to follow in your footprints?

You are born with artistic talent and then, over time, you develop that talent — whether it goes into art or design. Respect it to the point where you are doing things as if this was the last time.

Hopefully sharing my path allows [the students] to create their own path, and then they then take ownership on themselves of mentoring the next generation as well.

Make sure that you approach every project that you do as your last project. So, you give 100 percent of what your abilities are so you are proud of what is released to the world. If you go into that mindset, then you put forth a maximum effort to make a beautiful result.

What does the BoF500 mean to you?

As a fan of the publication for quite some time, to be in a select group of people is amazing. But then also, for me, when I left the industry as a designer […] my goal was to make people forget that I ever designed sneakers, [even though] I had designed shoes for over three decades. […] That’s probably the part that I’m most proud of — being recognised for the impact I’m having on design, not necessarily the design work that I have done or that I am doing.

That part to me means the most, being recognised for shaping the next generation of designers, [because] I really do feel I was blessed with this gift and to give it to the next generation. Hopefully sharing my path allows them to create their own path and then they then take ownership on themselves of mentoring the next generation as well.

Being a part of the 500 — that is in that impact zone. That means an awful lot. I can’t put [it] into words because it’s a global recognition and that tells me these decades of me doing this was all worth it.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Snap as part of a BoF partnership.

The Finnish textile and lifestyle brand Marimekko was launched in 1951 by Armi Ratia and her husband Viljo with a radical premise for post-war Finland: bold prints and colours could be used to enrich the lives of the community and create joy in the everyday. Indeed, Armi Ratia believed that the Marimekko ethos could be universally applied to all creative mediums — it could have also been modern jazz or a flower shop, even building a printing facility large enough to construct Marimekko branded prefabricated homes, although an ambition that never came to fruition.

The textile company’s initial collection of refined yet humble dress silhouettes was designed to achieve two contrasting but complementary goals. First, to be practical enough to cater to the industriousness of its Finnish customers’ lives in the 50s, maintaining high enough quality that dresses could be passed down between generations. Second, to act as canvases on which artists could reflect the aesthetic awakening and newly emerging progressive societal movements of the 1950s through its now iconic prints.

With new designs created every year, the brand now has an archive of over 3,500 prints, which it is in the process of digitising and uploading to “Maripedia”, the Marimekko online print library. The company occasionally invites its community to vote on which archival print favourites should be reintroduced into its collections.

In 2021, the company’s net sales were €152 million and brand sales of the products worldwide amounted to €376 million. Globally, there are about 150 Marimekko stores, and its online store serves customers in 35 countries.

In order to scale the Marimekko business and continue to stimulate growth in international markets, Marimekko defined five strategic success factors it will focus on until 2027. These include: determined sustainability efforts, which it believes are tablestakes for long-term success; refining its creative vision to speak to a wider global audience; accelerating growth in Asia; developing end-to-end digitality and digital investments across channels; and critically maintaining its core cultural values.

Today, chief executive Tiina Alahuhta-Kasko and chief creative officer Rebekka Bay, although she prefers the title creative director, believe that in order to create a “flourishing future for a heritage brand, we need to go back to the roots of the DNA, understand them in-depth, and then have the courage to start boldly translating that into the future.”

As one of the ways to support this, the company founded Innovation Works, an in-house innovation hub charged with partnering with leading experts in material science, sustainable production, digital experiences and creativity, and a host of other future-facing capabilities that Marimekko believes will be relevant to the brand’s continuing metamorphosis to meet consumers where they are and serve them in a way that corresponds to their values.

As part of this optimisation for the future, Marimekko is more actively engaging with its role as a nordic and global opinion leader. At Helsinki’s annual Slush event, the world’s largest venture capital conference which attracts over 12,000 attendees and businesses like Google, Astra Zenixa, Shopify and Nokia, the brand hosted a panel discussion in partnership with BoF. Platforming renowned leaders from across the circular value chain, the panel represented Patagonia, Global Fashion Agenda, buzzy repair start-up Sojo, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Portugal’s respected Pedrosa factories, Swedish textile disruptor Renewcell, and Marimekko, to discuss how the industry can accelerate its circularity efforts before announcing the release of a pilot line of products partly using regenerated fibres from closed-loop production made in collaboration with Pedrosa’s manufacturing network.

Below, BoF meets chief executive Tiina Alahuhta-Kasko and chief creative officer Rebekka Bay to hear how the brand’s radically democratic values will continue to drive growth by creating joy.

How do the values of the Marimekko brand inform your strategy?

TA: We are a purpose-driven company. The way that our brand behaves, what we do, needs to be in line with our values. We have a democratic approach to design. We believe that good design is part of everyday life. Secondly, whatever the initiative is, we need to ensure that our core expertise combined with that of our partners creates real value for our end customer — and that joy needs to come through that.

The vision of our founder back in the 1950s was to make Marimekko a global phenomenon — people around the world share the same desire to find joy in the small and big things in everyday life. The mission of the brand has always been to empower people to be happy as they are, to bring joy to their everyday lives and challenge the conventional norms of the fashion industry with its proposition.

RB: I don’t think we are undergoing a significant cultural shift internally. This has been a continuing theme in the evolution of the brand. I think maybe the bigger shift is actually that we have gone back and asked ourselves if we launched today, how would we go about it? And that is exactly what we are doing. We are treating the brand as if we were launching today to reflect the shifts that were radical at the time when Marimekko was launched 70 years ago. It is more that we are starting to behave in accordance with our bold brand values again.

How have you navigated a challenging macroeconomic climate in recent years?

TA: Within the last 10-plus years, we started to take bigger steps into international markets. To capture the international growth opportunities, we identified a need to further sharpen and modernise our brand and collections, to strengthen our value proposition to customers around the world.

We need to go back to the roots of the DNA, understand them in-depth, and then have the courage to start boldly translating that into the future.

We realised that in order for us to create a flourishing future for our heritage brand, we need to go back to the roots of the DNA, understand them in-depth and then have the courage to start boldly translating that into the future. So that is a process that we started some years ago, with the collection modernisation, new segments, investments into digital, as well as increasing creativity in our physical retail experience.

Of course, the pandemic came. We managed it, luckily, very well. I think that our culture of internal entrepreneurship and agility paired with the growing interest in our brand supported us to mitigate those grey waters. Now, we are in an exciting phase in the sense that it is the moment when we are turning the page towards the future, to our next chapter.

You have created an innovation arm called Innovation Works to drive innovation via collaboration with partners. How big of a role will collaboration play in the future of the company as a result?

RB: We think of Innovation Works as a start-up within our organisation, because we need to behave and work on a different timeline from everyone else. What I love about start-ups is that you need to do everything. You sweep the floor, you think of big ideas, you pitch them yourself. You need to be able to do all of those things, which makes them agile. It makes them good at connecting across our organisation.

The brand was founded on artistic collaboration: you provide the art, our textiles provide the canvas. Today, we extend this to a new level of collaboration with our manufacturers, our suppliers, our material developers, digital creators, etc.

Ultimately, we identified that we need to innovate in technology, in materials and in business models to reach our long-term sustainability vision of our operations leaving no trace on the environment and overall to push the industry towards a more sustainable future. Those are now the three pillars of our innovation. In August this year, we also agreed on the ambition that we would become an opinion leader and explore what change we can make in this field by inspiring others. And, of course, by verbalising that ambition it started happening really fast. My reflection is: you need to identify your ambition because then you can move really fast towards it.

What operational evolution has that necessitated?

RB: We have previously worked in a traditional model where we design one season at a time and we bring it to market. Often, we work on four seasons at the same time. We realised that even though our intent was to bring real innovation and new materials to market or to help commercialise innovative materials, there was no way we could do that in that model. The model didn’t allow us to test, pilot or explore opportunities because it all needed to happen within the same timeline, which is why we saw the need to create Innovation Works.

I am quite comfortable with Marimekko extending to immaterial as well. We can create sensorial experiences, whether that is digital or in the physical world.

We needed to look at collaboration within our own organisation because we cannot have design in silo from production, or marketing, for example, creating and crafting messages in silo. We also need the teams to actually do the work in these functions, so we started to think much more about a task force, asking: “What does it take to actually create change?” And then we pulled individuals from different functions to collaborate and solve problems or projects, one project at a time.

You announced a new circular pilot in your manufacturing. How did that process come about?

RB: At this point, we sit at a pilot stage. What is amazing is that we have worked with Pedrosa and Rodriguez for many years — they are one of our biggest Jersey suppliers. At the same time, we were looking into future models. This is not just about replacing conventional materials — we literally need to come up with new production models — and Pedrosa were starting to collect waste of leftover material.

They had already started to collect our cut-off material and, early on in the process, they started to identify what the steps were that they needed to be circular. We could identify how to work with our own scrap or cut off waste, how to turn that into a proportion of new products. To ensure the quality and longevity of the pilot’s garments, a minimum of 20 percent of the material — depending on the product — will be regenerated cotton, and the rest will be virgin cotton. Of course, the intent is to continue to increase the share of recycled material.

TA: Through this pilot, we will be learning. It will allow us to explore ways to reduce the environmental impact of textile production. We will be able to have external experts produce a life cycle analysis of products using closed-loop fibres to support further development work.

Why is the metaverse important to a print and textiles brand?

TA: We are one of the first real lifestyle brands. Our founder used to say, when she founded the company, that Marimekko could have equally taken any other form of art. It could have even been a flower shop or modern jazz. Whatever we did, it needed to bring this joy and empowerment to people. Our unique identity revolving around the art of printmaking, which is world-renowned and recognisable, lends a lot of opportunities for exploring the different worlds where our brand values can come to life.

We need to be where our customers are. Our desire is to open up our design brand to speak to an even wider audience. We want to build our brand story together with our audience in a very inclusive manner. These sorts of explorations in new environments like the metaverse allow us to learn how to connect with the next generation, how to do storytelling, how to build the brand phenomenon in these new domains.

RB: 71 years ago, when Marimekko was founded, it was a radical business. I think back to this belief that Marimekko could be anything. So, of course our label can also be individual experiences. Our designs can also live outside of a physical product. I do have concerns about how we, in these new environments, protect the quality and integrity of our printmaking, which is as much about touch and tactility as the image. But I think we can protect the experience through the depth of our integrity in the experience. I am quite comfortable with Marimekko extending to immaterial as well. We can create sensorial experiences, whether that is digital or in the physical world, that are not all connected or related directly to physical products.

We firmly believe that the sustainability challenge cannot be solved from one aspect. We need to have multiple actions, explorations and innovations across the entire value chain.

The fact that we have a long history and heritage is a big asset for any brand. But the key question is how well we are able to build on that original treatise, but translate it in a way that resonates with the customers of tomorrow. Of course, the opportunities in today’s world with different areas of innovations allow us to build that brand phenomenon in a very optimistic, inclusive and democratic way.

How do you focus your efforts?

TA: We firmly believe that the sustainability challenge cannot be solved from one aspect. We need to have multiple actions, explorations and innovations across the entire value chain, and that is how we can build a more sustainable future for our industry. this is also key in building a flourishing future for our heritage brand. Our brand was founded on this idea of a creative community, as Rebekka said. This spirit of working together and enriching collaboration has always been ingrained in our culture.

It is this spirit of community and collaboration that we now strive to extend to a whole gamut of different partners in our value chain. This is quite unique in our industry to have an open approach to collaboration with partners. With this way of working, we want with our own little example to inspire the industry. We take the needed steps and investments to create a more sustainable future and do this together. We need each other.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Marimekko as part of a BoF partnership.

The fashion and retail industry has evolved its consumer journey in recent years, transforming the relationship with its customers into a fully integrated, personalised experience, informed by digitalisation and an ever-changing economic environment. The same evolution has been taking place concurrently within the workplace, with candidates and employees requiring a personalised experience and benefits package that caters to their needs.

From the pandemic and remote working boom to the increased focus on the climate crisis and vigour behind diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, “human resources” is a core function that has had to reorient to better predict, reflect and meet the needs of employees today. After all, in 2021, marketing consultancy firm Edelman found employees are now seen as the most important stakeholders to an employer’s long-term success, overtaking consumers for the first time.

Neiman Marcus Group (NMG), parent company to luxury retailers Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, is one such company evolving its approach to people services. With a 115-year legacy, NMG today seeks to revolutionise its operating model to reflect the changing expectations of today’s workforce, led by Eric Severson, chief people and belonging officer.

NMG’s People team has used advanced analytics to drive a renewed focus on four key pillars of the associate experience: total rewards, flexibility, career development, and environmental social governance (ESG). These focuses have a notable impact on recruitment and retention, with Bloomberg recently reporting that workers are now willing to trade 5 percent of their compensation for more flexibility.

The People team at NMG has also reframed many of the company’s benefit offerings, which includes enhanced, fully inclusive paid parental leave and paid family leave. The business’s remote working culture, known internally as the NMG Way of Working, or NMG WOW, also encourages associates to integrate life and work to accommodate their professional and personal commitments in a way that prioritises health and well-being.

Now, BoF sits down with Severson and members of the people team — Jonathan Hall, director of belonging, and Maria Cabezas, market manager of the northeast — to better understand how the group embraces the future of work and utilises technology to drive its continual evolution as a people-first company.

Eric Severson, Chief People and Belonging Officer

How has NMG modernised its people strategy with the future in mind?

As millennials and Gen-Z make up more of the consumer base, it’s important to consider how these cohorts have experienced personalisation for much of their lives. Now, when they come to work, they expect that same level of personalisation.

As a result, we have explored the expression of customer value proposition in relation to employee value proposition. Essentially, the customer experience and employee experience are coming together more synchronously. A lot of the same tactics, processes and practices that have been used in marketing and consumer engagement are now used in associate engagement.

What key learnings have you found from this strategy so far?

At the end of 2019, we conducted a survey of our associates using two analytical tools that are typically used in marketing. We found four elements of our value proposition to be top priority for these employees — total rewards (benefits, recognition), career development, flexibility and ESG. People want fulfilment and a sense of purpose at work, but also to be able to support their families. Compensation, fairness, the ability to advance in your career, and an environment where there’s equity and flexibility to do your best work, is key.

Since January 2020, when we stepped back and assessed all of our policies against the four priorities identified by our associates, we have been strategically investing in those priorities. Since then, we have seen our time to hire rate improve as we have rolled out new programmes.

Similarly, we have seen a 34 percentage point increase in our employee net promoter score (eNPS) over that time period. We conducted a survey at the end of 2019, repeated it 18 months later, and we saw an increase in 14 out of 18 of the effectiveness scores of our value proposition, including all top four associate priorities.

Why is NMG committed to a remote-first workplace?

In our quarterly pulse surveys, we consistently include one open-ended item that asks our workforce, “what’s one thing about Neiman Marcus Group you would never want to change because it differentiates us?” And then, “What’s one thing you would change?” The number one response since we implemented this has always been to not change our NMG Way of Working.

Compensation, fairness, the ability to advance in your career, and an environment where there’s equity and flexibility to do your best work, is key.

So, we have also made significant investments in flexibility. For instance, we have implemented paid parental and paid family leave in the last few months, including 16 weeks of paid leave for all parents welcoming a new child (up to 24 weeks for birthing mothers). We also have two additional weeks of family leave, which our competitors don’t offer. We made that choice specifically because our workforce is 69 percent female.

What is the advantage of decentralising your workforce across locations?

It’s enabled us to get the best people possible because we are not constrained to Dallas or New York City, where our corporate workforce has traditionally been located. We now operate with a “hub” network model, whereby stores are hubs, as well as distribution centres. We have service centre hubs, corporate hubs and we even deem people’s houses, or their local Starbucks, to be hubs if that is where they are working from.

Despite opening up our talent market, we do have larger corporate hubs — for instance, Bangalore — where we have a higher concentration of associates who live in that market. One of these is Dallas. Our previous corporate office in Dallas was over 400,000 square feet. Because of the flexibility offered by NMG Way of Working, the new Dallas hub has been consolidated to 85,000, but it’s going to be state of the art; designed to enable incredible collaboration and with cutting edge technology investments (like collaboration software) that will benefit everyone in the hub network.

What is your next focus for the People team at NMG?

We are continuing to invest in key areas that deepen NMG’s differentiation and personalisation. Next month, we are launching a new associate recognition platform that’s personalised and digitally driven, meaning anyone can recognise or commend anyone, anywhere.

We are also working toward the launch of our inaugural People Report, which will aggregate our people investments, commitments and results in one place. We’ll be making several important disclosures on ESG and belonging, which includes our pay equity analysis.

Regarding career development, we are also launching a digital goal tracking platform, which will allow managers and employees to have regular conversations around priorities, provide feedback and development on a cadence that is personalised to them.

Jonathan Hall, Director of Belonging

What initiatives does NMG offer its employees to cultivate a culture of belonging?

In the spring of 2022, we rolled out our associate community networks (ACNs), what other companies may call employee resource groups. When you think about the overall makeup of our organisation, every single person has an element in which they can participate. And so, we launched with nine — API network, Black Network, Caregivers, Health and Wellbeing, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, People with Disabilities, Women’s, and Young Professionals.

In addition, McKinsey and Company develops our Black, Hispanic and Asian identifying leaders through their “Connected Leaders” programme, which enhances their leadership and general management skills.

This is one of many programmes we support that equips our racially diverse leaders with executive leadership development capabilities specific to challenges that they might face as a minority in the workplace, as those are very different lived experiences.

How are data and analytics integrated into your day-to-day working?

When you approach people problems or initiatives with data, you can find ways to inject evidence-based interrupters into the process. In the beginning of February, we said, “we know our workforce is majority female and outpaces the US population in racial and ethnic diversity. However, we have an opportunity to increase racial and ethnic diversity in leadership roles.” We saw that and did some benchmarking externally.

It’s important to think about where the best talent is going to be and anticipating their needs.

One of the best evidence-based tactics is to ensure that everyone has an equitable opportunity to interview in the process. We are rolling out our inclusive hiring best practices toolkit which creates an environment where everyone can be clear about the expectations, and we can interrupt implicit bias. It’s about increasing the likelihood that a diverse individual will have a fair opportunity to interview and demonstrate their capabilities to do the job.

How does NMG plan its belonging initiatives with the future in mind?

It’s important to think about where the best talent is going to be and anticipating their needs. At NMG, we recognise the importance of ensuring that the make-up of both the people making the decisions and those getting the work done is diverse.

In allowing individuals to work from wherever they are — and whenever they need. We can recruit the best in data technology, and foster innovative new fashion buyers and marketing executives, communications and senior leaders in the organisation, because they no longer have to think about uprooting their family to join this organisation.

We also invest thoughtfully in community initiatives through our Foundation by developing partnerships with groups like Fashion Scholarship Fund that empower the next generation. By creating a diverse talent pipeline and supporting the avenues of development that will help them be successful, we are formulating a future for our industry that is rooted in belonging.

Maria Cabezas, Market Manager of the Northeast

How have you experienced a sense of belonging during your time at NMG?

I’ve been at Neiman Marcus for 17 years, but in my current role since January of this year. I currently oversee five stores for Neiman Marcus in Boston, New York and New Jersey. We identify opportunities where we can impact the leaders in store and I work with partners to develop a plan on what needs to happen.

I feel that today, Neiman Marcus Group is fully accepting of all backgrounds and diverse experiences where, in the past, I feel like that was not a predominant focus. Today, we are so diverse. I’m a Spanish female — and so it’s comforting to feel that the company looks at your skillset rather than solely your background.

How has NMG modernised its people strategy with the future in mind?

As a company, I am proud that we are transitioning with the times, adapting where we need to — we make changes to stay on par with our associates’ evolving needs. We look to hire people from all different backgrounds and, in doing so, we have reduced our time to hire, achieved our highest-ever net promoter score, and are seeing strong retention rates across the business. And as our retention has gone up, it means our associates are staying longer and progressing within the business.

I think one of the drivers of this is the open channel of communication we seek between associates and leaders. For example, I visit stores about twice a month, during which time I try to speak to as many people as I can. On my most recent visit, an associate shared that she was unhappy with a particular process, and I directed her feedback to our next quarterly survey, because Eric listens to and reads them all, and that’s how we are able to decide as a team where we can make changes.

As our retention has gone up, our associates are staying longer and progressing within the business.

I believe our senior leaders in the people services team are listening and our employees can have confidence that if you share a concern with them, it will be heard and actioned.

What excites you about the future of working at NMG?

In the past, I believed my career options were more limited because of the nature of having our headquarters in the physical location of Dallas. While that is still the central base, NMG has opened up many new avenues of growth for its employees, especially people services, as it allows for our roles to be remote. The flexibility means that growth is not limited or restricted by physical location. It makes me want to grow and strive for more, and I believe it will inspire a lot of other associates to want to stay longer and progress within the business.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Neiman Marcus Group as part of a BoF partnership.