Author: Brian Baskin
Welcome back to The Week Ahead, your guide to the coming week’s most important and interesting events. This week I’ll dive into expectations for Kering’s fourth-quarter earnings and what to expect at New York Fashion Week. There’s plenty else going on that I won’t get to in detail, including the Super Bowl on Sunday (read about fashion’s stepped up presence here and here), and Hermès results on Feb. 12. Kering’s Holding PatternCustomers and investors have only received glimpses of Gucci’s new direction under Demna. (Courtesy of Gucci) Kering reports fourth-quarter sales and second-half profits on Feb. 10. Analysts are predicting…
Around this time last year, The Business of Fashion published an article headlined “Fashion’s Biggest Super Bowl Ever.” It’s some smart analysis, I recommend you check it out. If anything it understated just how thoroughly the NFL, and the sports world generally, had embraced fashion, and vice versa.A year later, and fashion’s presence at the big game makes last year’s showing look quaint. Last year’s inaugural “GQ Bowl” included a runway show for Bode’s activewear line. This time GQ’s headliner is Thom Browne, and he’s showing his main line’s Autumn/Winter 2026 collection on Friday, instead of at New York Fashion…
Bernard Arnault doesn’t often speak publicly. But when he does, what he says can move markets. In 2024, for instance, luxury stocks soared after he said he was “very confident” about the year ahead. Of course, LVMH’s fashion and leather goods revenue declined that year for the first time since the pandemic, and anyone who bought the company’s stock after he spoke would have lost 20 percent on their investment by year’s end. Nobody can predict the future, not even the CEO of the world’s largest luxury conglomerate.Even so, it’s worth tuning in for Arnault’s annual press conference on Tuesday…
Welcome back to The Week Ahead, your guide to the coming week’s most important and interesting events. The word of the hour is patience. The fashion industry is waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on tariffs (seriously, what’s keeping them?) as well as anticipating the reveal of Saks’ restructuring plan. And while the men’s shows in Paris will give us another taste of Jonathan Anderson’s Dior, and a last look at Véronique Nichanian’s Hermès, it’ll be the womenswear collections in a few weeks that truly kick off the year in luxury. Tariffs on TrialWhat’s happening: The US Supreme Court’s…
Welcome back and happy new year! So far 2026 is not playing around, with an action-packed second week of the year teed up. In this newsletter we’ll cover:The Golden Globes and the stakes for this year’s red carpetsSaks’ bankruptcy preparationsThe start of luxury earnings seasonRed Carpet Season Is HereWhat’s happening: The Golden Globes airs on Sunday, part of a two-month gauntlet of award shows and parties that started with the Critics’ Choice Awards last week and ends with the Oscars in mid-March.Putting on a show: If luxury brands have recently invested selectively in these affairs as they tightened their budgets,…
Saks in CrisisWhat happened: Saks Global missed a $100 million interest payment due at the end of December, and is now in negotiations with creditors to provide $1 billion in financing to continue operating in bankruptcy. Longtime CEO Marc Metrick stepped down on Jan. 2. A long time coming: The fashion industry has feared this was coming almost from the moment Saks’ owner acquired Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman a year ago. The deal was premised on leveraging the combined companies’ scale to address the many problems facing American department stores. Instead, Saks Global spent most of 2025 negotiating and…
This is the last Week Ahead of 2025, and it’s always the hardest one to write. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is typically the deadest of dead zones for news, though you can usually count on someone trying to bury a scandal or two on Christmas Eve.There are a couple shoes that could still drop: The Supreme Court has a few more days to ruin President Donald Trump’s Christmas by releasing its tariff ruling. And the industry awaits confirmation of the identity of Versace’s next creative director, widely reported to be Alaïa designer Pieter Mulier.We’ll have plenty to…
What’s happening: Nike reports results for its second quarter on Thursday. Three months ago, the company reported its first year-on-year growth in five quarters, with sales inching up 1 percent. This time, analysts are predicting a similarly modest gain, with margins under pressure from tariffs and discounting.A muted reaction: Often, long-struggling brands see a bounce in their share price when they make good on promises to return to growth. Nike’s pop last quarter was small, and lasted less than a week.That mostly comes down to scepticism that Nike has truly turned a corner after a miserable couple of years that…
Welcome to The Week Ahead, your guide to the coming week’s most important and interesting events. Last week was a busy one, particularly for luxury fashion, between Chanel’s Métiers d’Art show and Prada’s acquisition of Versace, followed quickly by the departure of designer Dario Vitale from the latter. Read all about it in Robert Williams’ High Margin newsletter. At first glance, this week is shaping up to be a quieter one. The industry is starting to wind down for the holidays, but it’s too early for a pre-Christmas news dump. Though as any superstitious journalist will tell you, the previous…
Tariff Relief in SightWhat happened: At an early November hearing, a majority of the nine justices on the US Supreme Court appeared poised to severely curtail, if not entirely eliminate, most of the tariffs President Donald Trump has laid down since April. Free trade makes a comeback: This would be welcome news for brands that have struggled to adapt to this new era of constantly shifting trade policy. The lack of stability around tariff rates has made it difficult to predict manufacturing costs. The uncertainty and inflation they’ve caused have similarly wreaked havoc on consumer demand forecasting, to say nothing…