The Business of Fashion Podcast

What began as scrappy self-publishing has become a finely tuned industry machine. Influencing is now big business. Four of the industry’s most influential creators came together at BoF VOICES 2025 to take a hard look at what influencing has become — and where it should go in the future. Susanna Lau opens the conversation by ditching the earnest tropes and asking a harder question: how can creators keep their integrity as agencies, briefs and budgets multiply?Bryan Yambao reflects on the pre-iPhone “wild west” — scanning magazines, posting affiliate links from his bedroom in Manila, and the shock of realising that the people he wrote about were suddenly reading him.Camille Charrière charts the shift from “do your thing” freedom to 30-page briefs and layered gatekeepers, arguing that creators must push back to preserve the audience trust that made them valuable in the first place.And through the lens of satire, Gstaad Guy challenges brands to confront what their communities are already saying — before they say it out loud.Together, they interrogate luxury’s malaise — and the need to recalibrate the industry around craft, community and credibility.Key Insights: Even with industry recognition, Yambao still feels like an outsider and uses that distance to stay candid. “I still feel like I’m an outsider,” he says, recalling the early days: “There was no roadmap. All I knew was that I had a voice.” The monetisation that followed, from early affiliate cheques to today’s industrialised commerce media, only reinforced his responsibility. “Since I kind of have a seat [at] the table, I want to say things with meaning and hold people to a higher standard,” he says.Charrière argues creators aren’t brand billboards — they’re people with convictions, and audience trust depends on that. After a year of speaking out, she recalls a major house “got me on a call with seven lawyers saying that now in my contract it was going to be written that I had to be neutral politically because I’d gone to a protest.” She continues, “I said, absolutely not.I’m not a brand. I’m an ambassador for you, but we are people, we are not brands … my online self is an extension of my offline self.”Gstaad Guy argues that credibility now depends on pre-empting audience scepticism. “Consumers are getting smarter, products are getting dumber,” he says. The remedy is to meet somewhere in between and let creators use their own language to test narratives honestly: “Have someone like [me] say something first so you can tell the story … the language of comedy and satire allows for that to be more digestible,” he says.Additional Resources:Susanna Lau, Bryan Yambao, Camille Charrière and Gstaad Guy: Twenty Years of the Influencer Economy in Fashion | BoF Gstaad Guy | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Camille Charrière | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Bryan Grey Yambao | BoF 500 | The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BoF and McKinsey’s annual State of Fashion report finds the industry entering 2026 with caution: 46 percent of executives expect conditions to worsen, citing geopolitics, macro volatility and the risk of shoppers pulling back. Yet there is also a pulse of optimism around AI-driven efficiency, luxury’s creative recalibration and fresh consumer interest in categories from smart glasses to fine jewellery.Tariffs remain the dominant near-term swing factor. Brands mitigated pain in 2025 by pulling forward inventory, but as that cushion runs out, the full impact shows up in 2026 in costs and pricing. More broadly, luxury’s era of price-led growth has run its course; as BoF correspondent Marc Bain puts it, if you ask customers to pay more, you have to “actually offer the value for the price.”Key Insights:The mood has shifted from “uncertain” in 2025 to “challenging” in 2026. Companies feel better equipped but are bracing for a tougher year. “Uncertainty was ‘we don’t know what’s going to happen’. The challenge is, we know what is going to happen and it’s going to be tough,” says Bain.Tariffs will continue to bite in 2026, and price hikes will be part of the playbook. Brands used a mix of mitigation tactics in 2025, but many still expect to pass on costs. “The strategy that the highest number of executives said was their way of mitigating the tariff impact was raising prices,” Bain notes. “To some degree, there's just no way around that. You can do it strategically, but at some point you're probably going to have to raise prices.”Jewellery is the consumer bright spot for the year ahead, as the category has steadily outperformed thanks to steadier, more gradual price rises, exciting design and a strong perception of value retention. “It’s hard luxury… you can wear it a lot and it can still be in good shape,” Bain says, adding that more women self-purchasing are reinforcing demand, with maximal accessories over minimal wardrobes adding another tailwind. He adds, “It sounds almost silly in 2026, but a big shift has been that more women are actually buying jewellery for themselves.According to Bain, 2026 is the year AI gets embedded into the fashion ecosystem. Expect a ‘two steps forward, one step back’ year where efficiency wins drive adoption even as mishaps make headlines. “Companies don’t feel like they can sit out AI,” Bain says. “It’s not like everyone by the end of next year is going to be using ChatGPT instead of Google, but the expectation is it'll be a significantly higher number than [2025]. And at a certain point, even if it's 5 percent of shoppers … it's still enough that you as a business have to start accounting for it. Additional Resources:The 10 Themes That Will Define the Fashion Agenda in the Year Ahead | BoF The Perfect Package: What It Takes to Be a Fashion Leader in 2026 | BoFThe Top Trends That Will Define Beauty in 2026 | BoF Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A DJ from South Africa who survived a life-altering accident on the night of Nelson Mandela’s release, Black Coffee has gone on to headline the world’s biggest stages. At BoF VOICES 2025, he reflected on building global credibility — and on reshaping how the African continent is seen. “If you Google a picture of Africa … it’s not going to be the most positive picture you see,” he says. “To be a DJ in South Africa, it’s one of the toughest things because almost every DJ is amazing. To be a DJ on the global level is way tougher because I come from a continent that was — or maybe still is — not seen as how it truly is.” In conversation with BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed, Black Coffee talk about rejecting pigeonholes, earning trust on a global level, and opening doors for the next generation. Key Insights: To compete beyond South Africa, Black Coffee says he had to work on the music and the optics of Africa on the global stage. The solution was rigorous self-presentation: “Whilst I was growing as a brand, fashion played a very big role for me. I was very conscious of how I presented myself,” he says. “The bigger the brand, the more intentional I was. It took a lot of work.” That mix of sound, style and discipline underpinned his transition from local star to international headliner.The night Nelson Mandela walked free changed his life forever. Struck in a crowd by a taxi and left with a nerve damage injury, he channelled his recovery into music and silence into resolve. “[Mandela’s] release from jail marked the beginning of a different journey for me, the first day of the beginning of Black Coffee,” he says. Speaking publicly about the accident only years later, he refused pity and insisted on being seen first as a musician with “passion and love for music.”Black Coffee is blunt about structural bias. “At the Grammys, instead of giving Tyla a number-one pop award, they will create a new genre or category where it’s best African,” he says. Reflecting on his own experience at the BET Awards, he recounts: “We were all given our awards on Friday and we were not invited on the main show on Saturday.”His advice to young creatives is simple and radical: “Just listen to your voice. That voice is the voice that will make you the greatest.” The mission is not only visibility but parity – moving African talent from a side-room to the main stage.Additional Resources: BoF VOICES 2025: Creativity as a Vehicle for Connection Black Coffee| BoF 500 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born to South Sudanese parents and raised in Canada after arriving as refugees in 2002, Awar Odhiang grew up far from fashion’s orbit. She was studying health sciences and planning a career in medicine, when she was scouted at her first job. Her career began locally in Calgary, then accelerated fast after she launched internationally in 2019 — with early runway breaks, a packed show schedule and global campaigns. Then came the moment that stopped the industry when she closed the most-watched debut of the season at Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel show in October.“The moment that really allowed me to fill that space in that way was the freedom that I was given, truly,” she says. Backstage, Matthieu Blazy, Chanel’s new creative director encouraged her to own the moment. “I just felt so free, so confident, so beautiful. You can tell Matthieu loves women just by his designs.”In this conversation from BoF VOICES 2025, I speak with Awar about the gap between being celebrated publicly and understood privately, why inclusion has to extend to behind the camera and the boundaries she is setting to protect her sense of joy in an industry that rarely slows down.Key Insights:Odhiang recounts meeting agent Kelly Streit whilst working her first job in retail and her scouting story captures a pivotal shift in self-belief. “That was a moment that now I can look back at and realise that he believed in me before I even believed in myself,” she says. From folding sweaters at Old Navy to international runways by 2019, she frames the leap as an intentional decision to embrace an unexpected opportunity.As a high profile dark skinned model, her growing visibility hasn’t eliminated her feelings of isolation. “One of the darker sides of modelling I would say is really the [lack of] inclusion … the fact that we’re still talking about this today really shows how big of a problem that is.” She defines inclusivity as being allowed to be at ease rather than just token representation: “For me, inclusion is being able to be in a room and not have to translate yourself … where you’re not the only person who looks like you, where you’re not the only person who’s expected to speak on certain matters.”Moreover, whilst diverse campaigns can signal progress, backstage the culture still lags behind. “Being welcomed publicly and being understood privately —. I think they’re two very different things,” Odhiang says. “A lot of it [is] performative … behind the scenes there’s no diversity. There’s nobody who’s really understanding you, your story, how you’ve been treated. So that’s really dismissed a lot.” Her call is for decision-room diversity, consistency rather than trends, and respect for lived experiences.As attention intensifies, Odhiang is resolute about boundaries and community. “I would protect this joy, this joy in my heart, this joy of my soul, by continuing to set boundaries … by also keeping the company around me honest and close, and by also not allowing the pace of the industry to impact the pace of me as a human,” she says. For her, sustainability is emotional as much as professional — maintaining a human tempo amid fashion’s demands.Additional Resources:Awar Odhiag | BoF 500 Awar Odhiang: Choosing Joy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Choosing “sneaker of the year” has rarely been this contentious. In 2025 the debate has splintered opinion between incumbent players like Nike and contenders from Vans, Converse and New Balance as consumers test the field.Whilst Nike’s shadow looms and expands with new silhouettes, real-world volume is being driven by ‘regular’ pairs like ASICS’ black-and-silver GEL-1130.In this episode of The Debrief, BoF’s Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin sit down with Mike Sykes to unpack the data, the storytelling and what this year signals for 2026.Key Insights:In a widening market, this year’s debate has splintered opinions. Unlike typical years with “two to three shoes,” 2025 felt like “it’s five, it’s six, it’s seven, it’s eight,” says Sykes. He frames it as consumers testing “Nike versus the field,” with many deciding, “I’m actually gonna try the field for once,” which explains why we have seen credible contenders from Vans, Converse, New Balance and more.At the same time, reports of Nike’s demise are overdone. “Nike has always – and, in my opinion, probably will always – be the industry standard. The company is just too big at this point; it makes too much money. Even when it fails, it’s still a notch above its competition,” says Sykes. The real question now is which Nike silhouettes win attention. A few years ago it was largely Jordan 1s, 3s and Dunks, however now styles like Infinite Archives 17, Awake’s Jordan 5, and Nigel Sylvester’s Jordan 4 are all taking space.Hype is increasingly powered by storytelling that feels personal rather than driven by pure scarcity. Nigel Sylvester’s Jordan 4 showed how “over the top” yet authentic activations made fans attach to Nigel beyond the sneaker. “He’s riding his bike, kissing babies, shaking hands,” says Sykes. It’s “absolutely marketing” but designed to connect on emotion.On sneaker resale marketplace StockX, beneath the headline-grabbing premiums, Asics is moving serious volume with everyday pairs. As Mike notes, “the black and silver Asics Gel-1130 is just a common shoe that you could probably just go to your Foot Locker and buy,” yet he sees “people just buying the shoe up.” Set against hype, the GEL-1130 shows how “regular everyday shoes that look cool” can dominate real-world sales even when they’re absent from sneaker-of-the-year shortlists.Additional Resources:The Sneakers That Mattered Most in 2025The Kicks You Wear: The Collab of the Year With Bimma WilliamsThe Kicks You Wear: The Death of Sneakers Is Overstated Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.