Usually fashion’s It bags come from top luxury brands like Dior, Prada or Gucci — but not this season.

Uniqlo’s sell-out $20 shoulder bag was named the hottest product in the three months January through March by fashion tech company and shopping app Lyst, which analyses web searches, product views and sales, and social media data to compile a ranking of the most buzzed about brands and products each quarter, dubbed ‘The Lyst Index.’

It comes after the bag went viral on TikTok, generating 59 million views on platform.

Prada Group topped the ranking of hottest brands, with its flagship label Prada and sister brand Miu Miu claiming first and second place.

Meanwhile, Kering brands Gucci and Balenciaga, which historically dominated the ranking’s top spots, plummeted down the list. Gucci slid seven places to ninth position, its lowest ranking since the Index began in 2017, while Balenciaga fell seven places to 18th position.

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LONDON - Amina Muaddi is laying the groundwork for her namesake brand’s next chapter.

On April 20, the label best known for its $1,000 martini-heeled slingbacks will unveil its first permanent retail destination, a 1,000-square-foot shop-in-shop at luxury department store Harrods in London, one of the label’s biggest markets. The move is designed to give the team a taste of what it’s like to operate physical retail, with a view to opening a freestanding store in the near future, founder and designer Muaddi said.

While the Paris-based brand’s Harrods partnership will continue to operate on a wholesale arrangement, Muaddi and her team have taken the lead on everything else, such as merchandising and store design — “all the things that we didn’t have to deal with before,” Muaddi said. She designed the staff uniforms herself and commissioned architect Harry Nuriev’s Crosby Studios agency to create the retail outfit.

“For us, it’s a way to flirt with retail,” she said. “This is the first thing for us that comes close to a brick-and-mortar store.”

For Muaddi, the move is only one part of a larger strategy to gear her five-year-old self-funded label up for its next stage of growth, harnessing the hype around her shoes into building a business with longevity. Over the past year, the company has firmed up relationships with suppliers to expand production capacity and grow its headcount, Muaddi said. The brand also recruited a retail director before launching its e-commerce website last month — its first foray into direct-to-consumer distribution.

“We’ve evolved, we’ve tried to transform a successful startup into a successful business,” said Muaddi. “That’s what we’re working on right now.”

Since launching her label in 2018, Muaddi prioritised brand positioning over pacey growth, limiting distribution in a bid not to oversaturate the market and keeping a tight rein on the size of her stockists’ buys. As popularity for her glitzy sandals soared, even throughout pandemic lockdowns, the fact that her products were often sold out or hard to track down only boosted their appeal among shoppers.

The buzz helped her to keep growing even as global sales of women’s designer footwear plunged 22 percent in 2020, according to data from market research firm Euromonitor.

“During a time where most people were wearing sneakers and comfort shoes, Amina continued to accelerate and grow,” said Helen David, chief merchant, luxury at shoe seller Kurt Geiger, which operates the footwear departments of a number of British department stores, including Harrods. “We continuously sold out, we couldn’t keep it in stock.”

Last year, brand sales reached about €55 million ($60.4 million), Muaddi said, up from €20 million ($22.0 million) in 2019. Yet balancing slow and steady growth with soaring demand has thrown up its own challenges.

“We were continuously selling out,” she said. “Even though it’s amazing and we’re very happy about it, when you go into stores, you will not see the brand.”

The Harrods corner will help give the brand a more consistent presence in London, which is one of its strongest markets, Muaddi said. It will also provide customers with a physical touchpoint to engage with the brand.

“I definitely want to be able to offer the customers [an] experience where they get to see our universe, not just our product,” said Muaddi. “Nowadays, that’s what matters in retail. With all the ways to shop that we have right now, when a customer comes to our stores because they want to have the experience of the brand.”

Muaddi is also working to reinforce the brand’s structure, deepening relationships with Italian suppliers to expand its production capacity and formalising the company internally with the creation new departments. The brand is expanding its staff, recently adding a retail director to spearhead the brand’s direct-to-consumer operations. On the creative side, Muaddi recruited dedicated designers for bags and jewellery, categories the brand launched in 2020 and is looking to develop further this year.

Maintaining momentum as an independent designer brand could be challenging amid a slowing market for luxury goods, as Western consumers are expected to pull back on discretionary spending this year in the face of rapid inflation.

But Muaddi sees a big opportunity to double down on the Middle East and expand into new markets like Asia. Next month, Muaddi will host an event in Seoul for press and clients in partnership with stockist Boon The Shop. Meanwhile, Muaddi’s first collection of day bags is set to launch this autumn. (The current range is focused on evening bags — dubbed “Aminis” due to their micro size.)

Buyers don’t expect demand for her shoes to slow down soon. At Harrods, Amina Muaddi is one of its five top-selling footwear labels, David said. Tiffany Hsu, vice president of womenswear and kidswear buying at Mytheresa, said many styles continue to sell out very quickly at the retailer, and efforts to diversify the brand’s range are gaining traction.

“It’s no longer just a party shoe brand, but much more about the overall aesthetic and with a wider audience appeal,” she said. “She knows her clientele really well.”

Demand at the top end of the watch market is booming — and Audemars Piguet, the Swiss watchmaker whose cult Royal Oak timepieces will set shoppers back between $50,000 and $100,000 for most popular styles, is making a killing.

Over the past five years, Audemars Piguet’s sales more than doubled, surpassing 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion) last year, the family-owned watchmaker told BoF.

While it’s still smaller than industry leader Rolex, Audemars Piguet has overtaken Patek Philippe to become the world’s second-largest independent watch brand, and successfully cemented itself as one of the industry’s most coveted labels, favoured by rappers, rockstars and horologists alike. As sales of luxury timepieces rose 4 percent to $55 billion last year, Boston Consulting Group estimates, Audemars Piguet grew by at least 25 percent, according to BoF analysis.

Even as second-hand prices for many watches have cooled from record highs during the pandemic, buyers continue to pay high premiums on retail prices for Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak, which can be difficult to track down on the primary market due to limited quantities and surging demand.

“Audemars Piguet is probably the singular most in-demand brand in the world from a product perspective. It might even be more desirable than Rolex right now,” said Ben Clymer, founder of Hodinkee, the influential watch media and retailer.

Audemars Piguet — or “AP” as its colloquially known among followers — isn’t simply riding the wave of post-pandemic demand. While the value of the market is at a record high, the volume of new watches being exported from Switzerland has roughly halved since 2000 amid the rise of smart watches. The company is pulling ahead in a sector that has become more polarised and premiumised, with growth driven by just a handful of top-end brands.

From Discount To In-Demand

Many credit the work of outgoing CEO François-Henry Bennahmias, the brand’s chief executive since 2012, for transforming the brand’s fortunes and catapulting it to the “champions league” of the watch world, as Swiss watch analyst Oliver Müller puts it. Bennahmias is set to step down at the end of this year to pursue other opportunities.

When Bennahmias took the top job, Audemars Piguet watches were languishing in stores, with about 30 percent of the brand’s global inventory more than three years old, he told BoF.

Clymer remembers when Royal Oaks traded at considerable discounts. “I have distinct memories of being offered Royal Oaks at 40 percent off — 50 percent off at times — at retail. They were just looking to move inventory,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine now.”

Bennahmias, who began his career as a pro golfer before leaving sports behind for the luxury industry, overhauled the Swiss watchmaker’s business model and brand. He eschewed its longstanding wholesale model in favour of direct-to-consumer distribution and fostering close relationships with clients, while an early embrace of street culture and collaborations helped the brand get a head start on rivals as the audience for luxury timepieces became younger and more diverse. By bolstering Audemars Piguet’s offer of ultra-high-end models and limited editions, Bennahmias burnished the brand’s image, excited the market and boosted revenues to boot.

“The vision was to focus on making everything better, instead of more: so better product, better quality, better distribution, better connection with people,” Bennahmias said.

Shift to Direct-to-Consumer

The focus on selling directly to the consumer has helped Audemars Piguet grow its revenues rapidly without drastically ramping up production, as the brand captures hefty retailer markups on each sale and has a tighter grip on its inventory management. Production at Audemars Piguet remains well below competitors: in 2021, it sold 45,000 watches, compared with 68,000 at Patek Philippe, 600,000 at Cartier, and over 1 million at Rolex, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.

The DTC model remains a rarity in the high-end watch world: In 2021, Rolex, Patek Philippe and Swatch-owned Omega all relied on wholesale for over 70 percent of sales, Morgan Stanely estimates show, while Audemars Piguet drove over 70 percent of revenue from its own stores. Only Richard Mille, which sells just 5,000 watches a year exclusively in its own stores, has a tighter control of its distribution among the industry’s big players.

Drastically shrinking Audemars Piguet’s wholesale exposure also meant Bennahmias’ could focus on maintaining fewer, but better, retail locations. Now the brand has just 99 points of sale globally, compared with with 470 a decade ago.

Bennahmias’ approach to retail has been to focus investments on well-trained staff and high-touch services, rather than vying with luxury conglomerates like LVMH for high-visibility retail spaces. In 2019, the brand debuted its “AP House” concept: private boutique spaces that look and feel more like five-star apartments than retail stores. The inaugural location, above a Church’s store on London’s Bond Street, has no store frontage at street level. Its main room is outfitted with a bar, a grand piano, and even a pool table, inviting clients to have a relaxed, intimate experience.

“At our price point, the exposure and space we need to host people the right way,” Bennahmias said. “We’re only selling 50,000 watches. I want to get to know the 50,000 people who are buying every year.”

The set-up has worked wonders, with clients spending three to four times as much as they would in a traditional store. In four years, the brand has opened 15 AP Houses, including in New York, Shanghai, Tokyo and Zurich. “In our future, maybe 50 percent of our locations will be houses, and 50 percent will be [traditional] retail,” Bennahmias mused.

Audemars Piguet is set to launch a pre-owned watch programme in-house within the next year. While second-hand watches are a complex business for brands — and not easy to make profitable — the move will add an additional layer of control over its brand image and relationships with consumers.

Culturally Relevant Collabs

Bennahmias’ own passion for sports and music has heavily influenced Audemars Piguet’s move to embrace and cultivate its role in popular culture in a way that few other watch brands have done. In 2005, when Bennahmias was AP’s North America chief, he spearheaded a tie-up with Jay Z, releasing a limited-edition Offshore watch with the rapper at a time when collaborations with hip-hop stars were unheard of in the luxury industry. Since then, the brand has regularly rolled out limited-edition product collaborations with athletes and artists ranging from Lionel Messi and Sachin Tendulkar, to LeBron James and Quincy Jones.

AP’s more inclusive approach to building relevance in sports, music and street culture paid dividends as millennials came of age and the worlds of luxury fashion and streetwear collided: the brand has come out ahead of rivals when it comes to attracting a younger and more diverse customer base.

The brand’s collaborations proved a winning strategy, serving to animate their flagship product in new ways while engaging a variety of different communities. Even more off-beat tie-ups continue to drive hype as appetite for unique pieces soars among luxury consumers. Take last year’s collaboration with Marvel on a Royal Oak Concept inspired by the Black Panther movie: a one-off special edition fetched $5.2 million at a charity auction during the collaboration launch event.

“Francois saw the potential in what popular culture could mean to high-end watchmaking really, really early — and he embraced it in a way that nobody did back then, and very few even do today,” Clymer said.

Looking to the future

A successor has yet to be named to follow up Bennahmias’ transformative tenure when the executive exits later this year.

“The challenge for [the next CEO] is quite high,” said Oliver Müller, industry analyst and founder of consulting firm LuxeConsult. “His or her mission will be to stabilize growth, and get into a mode where they will still grow but probably in a less spectacular way.”

Analysts say there’s plenty of room for the brand to keep growing without diluting its appeal. While the flagship Royal Oak drives over 90 percent of revenues for the brand according to LuxeConsult estimates, demand for the watch isn’t set to die down anytime soon, as production remains limited and new buyers compete with AP die-hards, who sometimes collect multiple editions of the classic model.

But Bennahmias’s impending exit and recent changes to the company’s board have set off speculation about a potential sale of the brand. Italian luxury executive Alessandro Bogliolo was named chairman of the board last November after Jasmine Audemars, great-granddaughter of the brand’s co-founder Jules-Louis Audemars, retired. As pointed out by respected industry blog Miss Tweed, Bogliolo’s specialty is not luxury watchmaking, and he has a reputation for selling luxury businesses at a high price: Bogliolo was behind the blockbuster sale of Tiffany & Co. to LVMH in 2020.

LVMH would be a credible suitor: AP’s estimated 15 billion swiss franc valuation ($16.1 billion) would make an acquisition one of luxury’s biggest ever deals — and price out most other prospective purchasers.

However, as the brand flourishes as an independent company, there’s little pressure to force family shareholders to cash out. “Thanks to Mr Bennahmias and his teams, the networth of the brand is about 10 times what it was when he came in,” said Müller. “If I’m a shareholder at Audemars Piguet, why would I sell if the brand pays me a very good dividend every year?”

The company said in a statement it was drawn to Bogliolo’s “sound understanding of family-run businesses” and his experience developing luxury brands at an international level.

Bennahmias denied there were any intentions to sell the company after his departure.

“We are extremely firm on the message that we’ve been delivering for ever, saying that we are very proud of our independence, and we’ll keep working that way,” he said.

LONDON — British beauty lovers queued for hours on Wednesday to experience something that would be utterly mundane in almost any other major city: set foot inside a Sephora.

The store, housed in Westfield, a giant shopping centre in West London’s Shepherd’s Bush neighbourhood, is the LVMH-owned beauty company’s first UK location since pulling out of the country almost two decades ago. The retailer has been hyping its return for months, and had launched digital sales there in October.

While waiting to enter the store, visitors were kept entertained with performances from pop band The Sugababes and a Sephora squad of professional dancers. Brand reps handed out coffees and on-brand black and white lollipops during the lengthy wait. Once inside, they were treated to makeovers, facials and blowouts, while browsing Sephora’s “Hot on Social Media” assortments and its well-known “The Next Big Thing” edit. It was the first time British shoppers were able to shop from Sephora exclusive lines like Gwen Stefani’s GXVE, One/Size by Patrick Starrr and Skinfix in person in the UK.

Much is riding on the store opening: after a bumpy online launch six months ago, Sephora needs to work to reignite buzz and create excitement around its brand, especially in such a dense and competitive market. Read on for The Business of Beauty’s cheat sheet for everything you need to know.

Why did Sephora launch in the UK?

Simply put, the UK beauty sector is a $13 billion opportunity for Sephora, according to research firm Euromonitor International — and one of the last major markets where it wasn’t already operating.

It’s not the first time the retailer has tried to crack the UK, however. Sephora first arrived in 2000 with a handful of stores in mostly suburban mall locations, such as Bluewater in Kent and Brent Cross in Hendon, North London. It exited just four years later.

This time around, Sephora has taken a digital-first approach. It acquired Feelunique, a British online retailer, in 2021. A rebranded website relaunched in October, alongside the announcement of new brick-and-mortar Sephora stores.

What’s at stake?

A lot rides on Sephora nailing the in-store experience.

The digital launch suffered a number of teething pains. When Sephora celebrated its re-entry to the UK, it did so with a large-scale pop-up event in Marylebone the week of its launch. There, members of the public could come and discover the many brands Sephora stocked online. But technical glitches and inventory issues plagued Sephora’s UK website; frustrated users complained of blurry images, dead links and stock shortages.

“It was more of a polite hum, rather than a buzz, when they launched,” said Jo Jones, PR and brand strategy expert. “I was expecting it to be bigger and bolder.”

The absence of stores was also a contributing factor. With the acquisition of Feelunique, the retailer instantly had access to millions of British beauty consumers and their data, including purchasing habits — that gave Sephora a head start on its retail rollout. But Sephora is ultimately a store-led brand, known for its high-touch, experiential environment. Many British beauty shoppers were already familiar with the retailer’s stores after encountering them while on holiday in the US or France, said Wizz Selvey, founder of brand and retail strategy firm Wizz & Co.

“It’s very much top of mind as a shopping experience,” she said. “Without a store, it was quite difficult for the customer to perceive what [the experience] was going to be like.”

Why Westfield?

The new store’s location is no Times Square or Champs-Élysées. If the retailer wanted to make a huge splash, a giant store in central London would be much more conspicuous. High traffic shopping destinations like Oxford Circus and Regent Street are a major draw for many global brand flagships like Coach and Calvin Klein, and a stone’s throw away from department stores like Liberty and Selfridges; Covent Garden, meanwhile, has developed a reputation as a beauty shopping hub, with brands from Chanel and Tom Ford to Deciem and Glossier opening standalone stores.

Instead Sephora appears to be approaching brick-and-mortar retail with caution. For its first store, Sephora has opted for a 6,000 square foot space in one of the largest shopping malls in Europe. While far from the hubbub of the city centre, Westfield still attracts thousands of shoppers daily.

“It felt right as a first step,” said Sarah Boyd, managing director of Sephora’s UK division. “We felt that this was a safe option for us to take to make sure that we were guaranteed success.”

The strategy is to use this new Westfield store as a test case to help shape its broader retail strategy in the UK going forward, said Boyd. The Sephora team hasn’t yet decided how many locations it plans to open, or where, she said, although a presence outside of London is on the agenda.

“This first store will be a really important data point for us to look at how we reimagine our future in the UK,” Boyd said. “It’ll be a very, very important barometer.”

What will it take for Sephora to succeed?

Sephora is starting from a strong position, thanks to its high brand awareness and reputation as a beauty authority.

Nevertheless, the British beauty market is fiercely competitive with a highly fragmented distribution network. British shoppers have a plethora of options: from drugstore brand Boots to specialty retailer Space NK and luxury department stores like Selfridges, Harrods, Liberty and Harvey Nichols. That’s on top of beauty e-tailers like Cult Beauty, known for its edit of in-demand indie brands, and Beautybay, which caters to a younger, social-media savvy audience. Look Fantastic, meanwhile, serves a wide clientele with its broad assortment at competitive prices.

However, the demise of British department stores chains like Debenhams and House of Fraser during the pandemic left an opening in the market, particularly in key regional cities like Manchester, Newcastle and Bristol. Sephora has an opportunity to fill that void in the market, especially as post-pandemic, shoppers are excited to go back to stores. After all, brick-and-mortar is what Sephora does best.

Sephora has to also work hard to keep feeding British beauty shoppers buzzy brands that can only be found in their stores and on their website. While the retailer has brought new brands to the UK — including Ilia Beauty, Makeup by Mario and Gwen Stefani’s brand GXVE, which have all been strategically positioned at the front of the new store — many other hot names it launched exclusively in the US already have UK distribution partners. Fenty Beauty, for example, is available at Boots and Harvey Nichols, while Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty is sold at Space NK.

In the meantime, Sephora is betting big on experiences to draw shoppers into the store. It has strategically placed its “Beauty Hub” — a makeover space offering facials, makeup tutorials and other consultations and services — right at the center of the Westfield shop. Elsewhere, visitors can get eyebrow treatments or have their hair styled, or even personalise bottles of perfume with special engraving.

“It’s about premium, experiential beauty,” Boyd said. “[We’ve created] a door that’s open for absolutely everybody to come in, and to play and experience, and figure out how they can reimagine beauty for themselves.”

LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholder’s documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence.

On Monday, Florence-based shoemaker Aquazzura is set to showcase its first collection of luxury bags.

At an event for buyers and press during Paris Fashion Week, Aquazzura will show off its first major push into the category: a logo-free selection of day-to-night cross-bodies and sparkly evening bags, mostly priced between €1,000 and €2,000 ($1,060 and $2,121).

That price point is still a luxury, but a notch more accessible than what’s on offer from many top-end players today.

“Because of all the price increases that everybody is doing, I think there’s a huge opportunity to be within that space, with a good design that feels fashion[able], but at the same time, is timeless,” founder Edgardo Osorio said.

Following a pre-launch on the brand’s website, the collection will now be rolled out in Aquazzurra’s stores and a small selection of retailers, including Net-a-Porter, Mytheresa, Browns and Level Shoes Dubai.

Osorio launched Aquazzura in 2012, quickly garnering a following for its killer high heels and sense of Italian glamour. The push into handbags follows an expansion into jewellery in 2021 and a homeware launch (dubbed Aquazzura Casa) in 2022. This year, in addition to a bag launch, the focus is on growing the brand’s retail footprint in key markets, including a new opening in a prime location on London’s prestigious Bond Street, and a revamp of its Paris flagship that will quadruple the existing space.

Last year, Aquazzura hit the €70 million revenue mark, the brand said, up 82 percent year-on-year and more than 40 percent above pre-pandemic levels. Osorio says his long-term goal is to grow Aquazzura from a shoe label into a lifestyle proposition selling customers “the new Italian Dolce Vita” across categories, surpassing €100 million in annual revenue by 2025.

Global sales of designer handbags and small leather goods are forecast to reach $100 billion by 2027, almost double that of 2019, according to market research firm Euromonitor International. However, designer footwear brands often struggle to establish a foothold in the category.

“If you sell couture pieces with price tags of several tens of thousands of [dollars], then a bag at $5,000 looks like a bargain. But if you sell shoes at $500, a handbag at $1,500 seems very expensive,” said Luca Solca, head of luxury goods research at Bernstein.

Still, Osorio sees potential for growth by targeting customers who are interested in alternatives to the now-ubiquitous bags from global luxury names, which have raised prices dramatically in recent years.

“We have a loyal customer base, we have a great network of boutiques in the main capitals around. It just seemed like the right time,” he said.

La DoubleJ, the Milan-based lifestyle brand best known for its exuberant, joyful prints and cheeky sense of humour, has named Maureen Chiquet its new chairwoman as it looks to ramp up global growth. Her appointment is effective immediately.

Chiquet is a seasoned executive and former global chief executive of Chanel, where she spent almost 10 years bolstering its reputation as one of luxury’s top couture houses before exiting in 2016. She’s also worked at beauty conglomerate L’Oréal and fashion group Gap Inc.

“She comes with all this incredible experience and has such an impeccable track record,” said brand co-founder JJ Martin, noting Chiquet initially contacted her through a headhunter friend. “I felt truly honoured that someone of her calibre would be interested in what we were doing.”

In the newly created role, Chiquet is tasked with helping scale the brand, working closely with co-founders Martin and Andrea Ciccoli to capitalise on current momentum and spearhead global growth. Category development, international expansion, new stores and optimisation of the brand’s marketing are all on the agenda. Chiquet’s experience will also be an asset to the brand’s organisational development as it looks to scale.

“I think what JJ and Andrea have done is nothing short of extraordinary. And while we may be small right now, I think we’re going to be a tremendously large success,” she said. “Meeting JJ and talking to her, and also just being surrounded by this world of DoubleJ and this brilliant colour — I like to think of it as chic eccentricity — made me say, ‘I want to be a part of this.’”

Los Angeles-born, Milan-based Martin — a former fashion journalist for publications like Harper’s Bazaar and The Wall Street Journal — first launched La DoubleJ as a content-driven website selling vintage clothes in 2015. Soon she pivoted to release her own line of colourful printed dresses adorned with vintage patterns and made from Italian silks.

Since then, the brand has expanded into a range of categories, including homeware, knitwear, outerwear and accessories, but its signature vibrant dresses remain the driver of the business, Ciccoli said. Today, it’s available at key luxury retailers like Matchesfashion, Le Bon Marché and Harrods. Recently, the brand opened its first flagship store, located in Milan’s Golden Triangle, and while Ciccoli declined to share figures for the business, he noted the brand had more than doubled its revenues over the past three years, posting growth throughout the pandemic period.

“What’s amazing is this brand has a cult following,” said Chiquet. “I think the potential is enormous. We are at the very, very beginning — not that many people know what DoubleJ is, but I can tell you, as soon as they see the homeware, the accessories, the dresses, the shirts, they want them.”

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Fast-fashion giant H&M has partnered with L’Oréal-owned Mugler and its creative director Casey Cadwallader for its latest designer collection, which will debut online and in selected stores this spring.

H&M is under pressure, as soaring costs hammered profits toward the end of last year. Shares fell after the retailer reported operating profit for the quarter ending November 2022 declined to 821 million SEK ($79.2 million), down from 6.26 billion SEK ($603.6 million) the previous year.

Now, the world’s second-largest fashion retailer is betting the Mugler collaboration will bring a boost. The label has enjoyed a renaissance under the creative direction of Cadwallader since 2017, attracting celebrity clients like Kylie Jenner, Dua Lipa and Cardi B for its body-hugging, spiral-cut dresses and nude-illusion looks.

H&M has been teaming up with luxury designers since 2004, leveraging limited-edition tie-ups with the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Comme des Garçons, Stella McCartney, Versace and Balmain to generate buzz and elevate its high street image. The Mugler collection sees the Swedish group pivoting back to a more established name after collaborating with niche labels in recent years, such as Toga, The Vampire’s Wife and model Liya Kebede’s label sustinable Lemlem.

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On Monday night, designer Daniel Lee is set to unveil his first collection for Burberry at a South London location, in what is sure to be the most closely watched event of this season’s London Fashion Week.

Much is riding on Lee’s debut: Back under the stewardship of two Brits — West Yorkshire-born Lee and new CEO Jonathan Akeroyd — change is afoot at Burberry, which is one of luxury’s last remaining independent brands as well as an anchor of Britain’s fashion ecosystem.

Leveraging Lee’s designs, Akeroyd has ambitions to grow Burberry into a megabrand with £5 billion ($6 billion) in annual sales, hitting the £4 billion mark within the next three to five years.

Read on for BoF’s cheat sheet on what you need to know ahead of Lee’s debut.

Why Did Burberry Change Designers?

Akeroyd, who joined the company last March, is tasked with fuelling top-line growth at Burberry, after a years-long effort to reboot the brand and take it further upmarket made progress but failed to translate into a surging sales.

Akeroyd arrived at the company five years into a turnaround plan laid out by his predecessor Marco Gobbetti. A key pillar of Gobbetti’s strategy was tapping star designer Riccardo Tisci to usher in a new creative era, after the appeal of its preppy aesthetic under longtime designer Christopher Bailey waned.

Tisci spearheaded a more modern, streetwear-driven image at the house, which succeeded in attracting a younger, more international customer base. But his creative vision for the brand didn’t resonate broadly enough to substantially reinvigorate growth. As the luxury market boomed following the pandemic, Burberry sales remained lackluster in comparison to many French and Italian peers. Revenues at the house reached £2.8 billion for the year ending March 2022, just a 4 percent increase on pre-pandemic levels.

“A vital ingredient to brand elevation is a clearer, more original, and distinct brand narrative and identity,” Luca Solca wrote in a note to clients in 2021. “Burberry post-Bailey looks cooler, but appears to lack individual brand character.”

Now, Akeroyd is betting that Daniel Lee will bring a fresh energy to the label and reignite buzz.

Why Did Burberry Pick Daniel Lee?

During his stint as creative director of Kering-owned label Bottega Veneta, Lee succeeded in reinvigorating a heritage brand, fusing house codes with a modern sensibility that was both fashion-forward and commercial. Sales surged at the house during his tenure; the brand even grew throughout pandemic, despite the broader luxury market to contracting more than 20 percent in 2020.

Lee has a track-record designing hit leather goods, a space where Burberry remains underpenetrated. At Bottega Veneta, hot bags like his “Cassette” crossbody and “Jodie” croissant style were highly touchable, recognisable yet logo-free hits, while shoes like square-toed Lilo pumps were copied the world over.

Burberry is betting Lee’s knack for accessories will prove an asset, as mastering the category would reduce exposure to less-profitable ready-to-wear and fuel future growth. While the brand made progress bolstering its leather goods offering in recent years, with new styles like the Lola and the Olympia bag helping accessories drive about 37 percent of sales last year, it still trails sector leaders in the space. Meanwhile, its footwear business remains tiny; Akeroyd hopes to more than double it.

As the only British heritage megabrand, Burberry is uniquely positioned to leverage its national identity to stand out in a crowded market. Lee’s British perspective could be another strength. Hailing from West Yorkshire — where Burberry manufactures its famous heritage trench coats — it’s hoped the designer will be able to effectively propel this positioning forward in a natural and effective way.

With Lee, “it’s not just about the magic touch, if you like, but the understanding of what the brand DNA is,” Akeroyd told BoF last November. “When we say ‘dialling up on Britishness,’ it’s a completely different dial up from what it was...This will just feel much more relevant.”

What’s at Stake in Daniel Lee’s Creative Revamp?

Burberry is at a critical juncture for proving it can still thrive as an independent brand: Investors have been waiting for years for the company’s turnaround plans to bear fruit, and the pressure is on Akeroyd and Lee to deliver. Investors have already indicated high hopes for the duo, with Burberry shares rising over 40 percent over the past six months.

The company’s growth trajectory has lagged far behind sector leaders, with annual revenue in 2022 increasing just 2 percent on 2017, the year Gobbetti first outlined his strategy to reinvigorate the brand. Meanwhile, companies like LVMH, Hermès and Chanel have emerged from the pandemic even stronger, commanding more market share — and consumer attention — than ever before.

Burberry needs its new creative identity to land with consumers, not just to stem market share losses but to help the company weather a more challenging economic backdrop. The luxury industry’s growth is set to slow dramatically, from around 22 percent last year to between 3 and 8 percent in 2023, according to consultancy Bain & Co forecasts. The most desirable brands with a strong DNA and covetable products are the ones that will be best positioned to withstand economic turbulence.

Burberry’s products have become more expensive as the brand pushed upmarket in recent years, but the brand remains highly exposed to aspirational consumers. It’s hoped Lee can reinforce the brand’s appeal among higher-spending clients, leveraging his experiences at Bottega Veneta and Celine.

“Real luxury customers, they’re probably really only coming for trenches at the moment,” Akeroyd said. “There’s an opportunity to really build on that.”

A big win at Burberry would also help raise London Fashion Week’s profile and attract higher numbers of international press and buyers to the city’s event. That would provide a boost to a British fashion sector that’s been hampered by Brexit and overshadowed on the global stage by the continued rise of big French groups.

What to Expect From Daniel Lee’s First Collection?

Simply put: modern ready-to-wear rooted in Burberry’s core British DNA.

Two weeks ago, Lee unveiled his first campaign for Burberry. While he didn’t design the products featured — a mix of the house’s classic trench coats, plain roll-neck sweaters and pieces covered in Burberry’s signature check — the shoot gave onlookers a taste of the new Burberry being crafted. Lee appears to be renewing the house’s connection with modern Britain, leaning into the brand’s heritage and repurposing it for today’s consumer.

The brand revealed a new typeface, styling Burberry in slim, gently curved letters that contrasted starkly with the blocky, sans-serif logo rolled out under Gobbetti and Tisci. It also revived its historic equestrian knight logo, which fell out of use in recent years.

Still, Lee is known for his quiet brand of contemporary elegance, with products that look novel and project an elevated image without being rooted in traditional ideas of class. Even if initial teasers of Lee’s revamp showed a willingness to embrace the Burberry’s historic signatures, that will likely only be one part of the puzzle alongside newness and innovative design.

A revamp of the brand’s celebrity and influencer community could also be on display at the show. In his debut campaign, Lee hinted where things were headed by tapping a broad range of British talents including rappers Shygirl, John Glacier and Skepta, footballer Raheem Sterling and actress Vanessa Redgrave.

The former Matches chief commercial officer has joined the executive team at Farfetch as chief fashion and merchandising officer. She will also take the reins at Browns, becoming CEO of the Farfetch-owned, London-based luxury retailer.

Von der Goltz, who was previously chief commercial officer at Matches, joins the group months after it acquired a 47.5 percent stake in Yoox Net-a-Porter in a deal that paves the way for Farfetch to eventually take full control of the rival e-tailer. (Von der Goltz is intimately familiar with the Net-a-Porter business; between 2017 and 2021, before her tenure at Matches, she served as Net-a-Porter’s global buying director.)

Farfetch, whose revenues soared during the pandemic, is grappling with how to navigate the resurgence of physical retail, as consumers’ return to stores hampers growth at online players. In November, the platform reported its first year-on-year sales decline as a public company. A strong dollar also dampened results.

Alongside Von Der Goltz, Farfetch has drafted in Sindhura Sarikonda, who will serve as Americas president, and Stephanie Simon, who was named vice president of community and web3. Holli Rogers, Farfetch chief brand officer and former Browns CEO, will exit the business “to pursue other opportunities,” the company said in a statement. Chief growth officer Martin Avetisyan will also step down.

Learn more:

Richemont, Farfetch and YNAP: Understanding a Transformational E-Commerce Deal

The Swiss luxury group is spinning off Yoox Net-a-Porter in a joint venture with Farfetch. What does it mean for Richemont, Farfetch, YNAP and the luxury industry at large? BoF dissects the deal.

Before there was Melanin, Pattern or Mielle, there was Carol’s Daughter.

In 1993 when Lisa Price founded Carol’s Daughter, a line that sells body products and haircare for textured hair types, the Black consumer was often an afterthought in the wider beauty market. Today, discussion around natural curls, coils and kinks are a much larger part of the conversation. Brands like Bread Beauty Supply and Pattern are grabbing a greater share of the haircare market, and general market brands from Pantene to Living Proof have expanded their offerings for textured hair types.

“There’s so much more choice,” said Jessica Philips, vice president of merchandising at Ulta Beauty. “You have a lot more innovation and inclusivity in haircare, which is amazing … we’ve had a lot more Black founders enter the market.”

Carol’s Daughter hasn’t always benefitted from the changes it helped put in motion. It’s now an incumbent rather than an upstart — it celebrates 30 years in business next year, and has been owned by L’Oréal since 2014. The brand has at times found itself playing catchup to new rivals that connect with their customers through social media and cool, Gen-Z branding.

An updated marketing strategy and products meant to appeal to a new generation of consumers has helped (net sales have doubled in the last three years, with the Goddess Strength line, launched in 2020, the top seller, according to Anne Garrison, global marketing vice president at the brand). Now, after launching in the UK this month, it has plans to enter the rest of Europe next year. A second, Gen-Z focused line will soon launch in the US.

Keeping founder Price front and centre is integral to the strategy.

“I’ve always sold and made and promoted what I believed in, what I used in my own home,” Price said. “I think people see that. They see that you love what you do.”

From Kitchen to Corporate Deal

Price, who was working in TV production, began making products from natural ingredients out of her Brooklyn kitchen in 1993. After selling her creations at local flea markets, the business took off, landing in major retailers like Ulta Beauty and Target and attracting investment from celebrities like Jay-Z, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.

The brand’s momentum mirrored a broader shift among Black Americans in the 2000s, who, propelled by safety concerns around chemical products and visibility of textured hair in the media, were swapping chemical relaxers for products that let them wear their hair naturally. Between 2008 and 2018 sales, sales of chemical relaxers fell by 40 percent, according to market research firm Mintel. By 2014, Carol’s Daughter had hit $27 million in net sales, distributing its products through hundreds of retail doors across the US.

Then L’Oréal came calling.

In 2014, Price sold her company to the beauty giant for an undisclosed sum, continuing to be involved in the brand’s day-to-day operations. The exit was intended to provide the company with the infrastructure it needed to reach the next level of growth. But scaling the brand would prove harder than anticipated.

A Fiercely Competitive Set

The acquisition came just as a flurry of new brands targeting the same customers hit the market. In the 2010s, upstarts like Camille Rose, Mielle Organics and Bouclème launched into the textured haircare space, later joined by names like Bread Beauty Supply, Pattern and Melanin.

Many of these brands proved popular with younger consumers: Mielle and Melanin were founded by natural hair influencers who already had significant followings on social media, while others like Bread and Bouclème came to market with modern branding and Instagrammable packaging.

“All those brands were launching, and really targeting the Black consumer, but also communicating the same story that Lisa had — so then we had to work harder to break through,” said Garrison.

The rise of social media gave consumers a direct line to brands. As a result, community engagement quickly became an integral part in a crowded and fast-moving beauty market, said Nicole Crentsil, a Ghanaian-British entrepreneur and angel investor in textured hair care brand Afrocenchix.

“A lot of founders don’t necessarily always take into account consumer shifts, and how branding and community is so integral when it comes to building your business: not just how you speak to your community, but how your community speaks back to you,” she told BoF in a previous interview. “What are the interesting conversations that, when it comes to beauty and hair, your community is plugged into? You [as a brand] need to be plugged into them as well.”

Amid new competition and a fast-shifting beauty landscape, sales at Carol’s Daughter declined.

Carol’s Daughter was also grappling with another challenge: retaining the authenticity and DNA of a Black-founded brand for the Black community while under the large, corporate — and white-owned — L’Oréal umbrella.

Following the acquisition, Price received criticism from some social media users claiming that Carol’s Daughter was now operating as part of the corporate beauty structure that had historically ignored Black Americans. The backlash was particularly challenging for Price.

“Eventually we will get to a place where there is a Black-owned L’Oréal, or there is a Black-owned Unilever, so that when other businesses look for strategic partners to help them grow their business, they can go to businesses that look like them,” Price said. “But we’re not there yet.”

Rebooting Sales

In 2018, Carol’s Daughter began some “very intense strategic work” to optimise the business model and kickstart growth, Garrison said. This meant doubling down on product innovation, introducing new products like its water-to-foam Wash Day Delight shampoo, and its Goddess Strength line, which both hit the market in early 2020. (The Goddess Strength franchise is now the brand’s best seller and is growing double digits year-on-year, Garrison said.)

In addition, the brand rethought its marketing, honing in on Price as a founder and her continued stewardship of the brand. Operationally, it the company worked to be more agile, and maintained its digital direct-to-consumer business (a contrast to some other flagship L’Oréal brands like Maybelline, which typically sell online via third-party retailers).

“The ‘Big L’Oréal model is really a model that doesn’t work for Carol’s Daughter,” Garrison said. “We couldn’t really operate like other L’Oréal brands, we had to maintain our indie and entrepreneurial spirit, so we had to do things differently.”

That strategy shift resonated during the pandemic, as consumers had more time to experiment and were pushed to embrace their natural textures due to salon closures. For the past three years, Carol’s Daughter has been steadily growing, doubling net sales, said Garrison. (The company declined to share current revenue figures; L’Oréal does not break out sales for individual brands.)

The Next Chapter

Now, the brand hopes to double sales again over the next three years, said Garrison and Izar Hyacinthe, L’Oréal’s European business development director. But success will hinge on the ability to stay relevant, especially among the next generation of beauty consumers.

Investing more in creating content for Tiktok and Snapchat is part of the strategy. In a few weeks, the company will launch a new range targeting a younger audience, differentiating it from the main line by emphasising gender fluidity and hair experimentation, Garrison said.

The brand plans to replicate its recent US success in new markets. It landed in the UK this month via drugstore chain Superdrug, partnering with Black-owned, Paris and London-based creative agency Haiti 73 on the market launch. The brand is also in talks with Black beauty supply shops, said Hyacinthe.

Expansion across Europe is on the cards next year, starting with France, which has the largest Black population in the region. It won’t be an easy market to crack: the natural hair movement has spawned a proliferation of local brands, including Beauté Insolente, Mango Butterfull, and Secrets de Loly, which received investment from PE firm Quilvest Capital Partners earlier this year.

“We definitely know that the competition is hard, so we have to be unique,” Hyacinthe said. Critical to success will also be emphasising the brand’s “30 years of expertise,” Hyacinthe said.

It was an evening of celebrations and tributes at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Monday night, as the British Fashion Council’s annual fashion awards attracted a star-studded crowd of designers, models, actors and other industry insiders to celebrate the names that shaped the global fashion industry in 2022.

The ceremony, hosted by British-Jamaican actress Jodie Turner-Smith, honoured both industry stalwarts and newcomers, also paying tribute to those the industry lost this year — including André Leon Talley, Thierry Mugler, Hanae Mori, William Klein and Queen Elizabeth II.

Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli won the revered Designer of the Year award, while Bella Hadid took home Model of the Year and Grace Wales Bonner was honoured with the award for Independent British Brand.

British talent shone through in many other categories: Katie Grand was awarded the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator; Dazed Media co-founder Jefferson Hack took home the Special Recognition Award for Cultural Curation; Burberry was presented with the Fashion Award for Metaverse World and Gaming Experience.

Guests including actors Tilda Swinton and Florence Pugh, British rapper Stormzy and Olympian Tom Daley were among the attendees mingling over cocktails and bopping along to performances from Shygirl and Jesse Ware.

Halfway through the ceremony, the BFC paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II with a fashion show full of looks from British designers, ranging from young talents Nensi Dojaka and Harris Reed to established names including Erdem, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood; models paraded around the venue as a video montage of the late Queen played in the background.

Other awardees included Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard, who was presented with the Outstanding Achievement Award after transferring ownership of his company to ensure all profits are directed to fight climate change; and emerging designer S.S. Daley, who took home the BFC Foundation Award.

See the full list of winners below:

Designer of the Year: Pierpaolo Piccioli for Valentino

BFC Foundation Award: S.S.DALEY

Independent British Brand: Wales Bonner

Special Recognition Award for Cultural Curation : Jefferson Hack

Leaders of Change, Creativity: Alessandro Michele, Daniel Roseberry, Harris Reed, Ibrahim Kamara, Raf Simons

Leaders of Change, Environment: Bethany Williams, Connor Ives, Gabriela Hearst, Marine Serre, Priya Ahluwalia

Leaders of Change, People: Aurora James, Harry Lambert, Julie Pelipas, Sinéad Burke, Rafael Pavarotti

Model of the Year Award: Bella Hadid

Outstanding Achievement Award: Yvon Chouinard

Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator: Katie Grand

Fashion Award for Metaverse World and Gaming Experience: Burberry

The CEO and chairman of LVMH Fashion Group was elected to lead the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode’s haute couture body for a two-year term. He succeeds Ralph Toledano.

Couture houses Chanel, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaultier, Maison Marginal and Schiaparelli were also re-elected to the division’s committee.

Learn more:

Sidney Toledano Becomes Chairman of the Institut Français de la Mode

Sidney Toledano, chief executive of LVMH Fashion Group, has been appointed chairman of leading French fashion school Institut Français de la Mode (IFM).