The Business of Fashion Podcast

At every juncture of her extraordinary professional journey, Leena Nair has authored a series of 'firsts’. Growing up in her home country of India, she was part of the first cohort of female students at her school, at Unilever she was the first woman to lead global human resources, responsible for 150,000 employees and in January 2022 she became Chanel’s first-ever global CEO of Indian-origin — making her the only woman of colour leading a major global luxury brand.

Nair is leaning on the lessons from her people-centric career to lead Chanel into the future as the post-pandemic luxury boom comes to an end. “I really believe if you look after people, their growth and development, their dreams and aspirations, they will look after the business. They will help you with ideas and really care about the institution they're a part of,” says Nair.

Nair sat down for her first public talk with BoF founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed at BoF VOICES 2023 to share her vision for Chanel, philosophies on leadership and advice for women who feel like outsiders.

Key Insights:

• Growing up in her home country of India, Nair frequently battled gendered stereotypes. “After a point I had to stop listening. ...Gender roles were so strong. ...One of the most [common] comments I would get is, ‘You're so talented. You should have been a boy,’” she recalls.
• Acknowledging that she is a fashion-industry outsider, Nair is conscious of fostering a supportive and inclusive work environment. “Lift as you climb. ... I feel the responsibility of making it easier for those who come after me,” she explains.
• Nair intentionally welcomes insights from diverse perspectives. “I really feel the days of the superhero leader with all the answers is way behind us. ... How can one individual have the answers?” she asks. “Collective problem solving, collective creation, collective ideation ... is really important to me.”
• Sharing her vision for Chanel, Nair outlined her three pillars for the brand’s future. “One is to have a positive impact in the world. ... The second is, in the world of AI, to be relentless in protecting human creation, human creators, human relationships. And third, to always be part of what's next, to shape what's coming.”
• Nair’s advice to young women finding their voice in whichever industry they are drawn to is straightforward: “Be unafraid to try and express your ambition and what you want to do. ... Be intentional to say I want this, because if you can't express ambition in those words to yourself, to your CEO, to your mentor, to someone who supports you, how can it ever be translated into reality?”

Additional Resources:

• Chanel’s Three Pillars for the Future
• What Fashion Can Learn From Chanel’s New Global CEO
• Chanel to Double Capital Investments, Bolster ‘Ultimate Luxury Experience’ as Sales Surge

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We often think of hype as the antithesis of timelessness, especially in fashion. Chunky dad sneakers and sweatshirts emblazoned with logos, versus little black dresses and classic tailoring. But how can one brand straddle both?

At BoF VOICES 2021, CEO of Balenciaga Cédric Charbit, discusses the brand's business vision, and how a soon-to-be 103 year old luxury house continues to shape the discourse.

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From the legendary Hermès Birkin to recent sensations like Alaïa’s Teckel, luxury handbags have long held a distinctive power within the fashion world. Blending brand heritage, practicality, and emotional resonance, handbags often become a signature item for brands to capture consumer attention and drive commercial success. But the ongoing challenge for luxury brands is maintaining innovation, managing consumer desire, and navigating a landscape rife with copycats and shifting trends.

On this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks with luxury correspondent Simone Stern Carbone about the power of an iconic handbag and the delicate balance brands must achieve to keep them relevant.

Key Insights:

• Bags often become the most recognisable symbols of luxury brands, significantly contributing to their financial performance. For instance, Alaïa’s Teckel bag – a playful, wiener dog-shaped design – helped offset the weaker performance of parent company Richemont’s other fashion labels. “That one bag was able to do so much, not just for the brand but for the larger company that the brand sits under,” says Stern Carbone. “That just says so much about the impact that a single wiener dog-shaped bag can potentially have.”
• Handbags are particularly attractive as entry-level luxury items because they are recognisable status symbols. “Consumers might not recognise jeans from Bottega, but they will recognise whether a bag is Louis Vuitton,” explains Stern Carbone. “Bags are something that people will purchase time and time again; they will use them daily. And if done right, it really becomes the totemic product for a brand.”
• Successful handbag designs can become immediate targets for imitation due to limited legal protections and the ease of replicating shapes and materials. “Once the bag gets copied, it's already over,” notes Stern Carbone, underscoring the need for continuous innovation or artificial scarcity, as mastered by Hermès with its Birkin and Kelly bags.
• Brands must innovate thoughtfully, staying true to their heritage and core identity rather than pursuing novelty for novelty’s sake. “Empower your creative design teams and give new voices a chance,” advises Stern Carbone. “The beautiful thing is there's variety for everybody. Brands just need to authentically strike the cord with their loyal consumer base... and handbags are a way to do it.”

Additional Resources:

• In a Market of Copycats, Handbag Innovators Stand Out | BoF
• Can Slouchy Work Bags and a Selfie Mirror Grow Delvaux? | BoF
• How Polène Is Growing French DTC Handbags Into an International Success | BoF
• On the Wings of Céline | BoF

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Gucci has long been the shining star of Kering’s luxury portfolio, but the brand's recent struggles have exposed weaknesses in the conglomerate’s position. Gucci’s sales plummeted 24 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024, dragging Kering’s overall performance down by 12 percent. The shock departure of Creative Director Sabato De Sarno after less than two years only deepens the group’s instability.

Luxury editor Robert Williams joins executive editor Brian Baskin and senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to discuss how Gucci’s downturn is affecting Kering’s broader portfolio, why its attempt at a creative reset didn’t resonate, and what’s next for the group as it searches for a new vision.

Key Insights:

• Gucci's downturn has been severe, with sales falling by almost a quarter in 2024. This dramatic slide highlights the challenge of reinvigorating the brand. “[Gucci] has had a few really big booms, but then also some pretty big busts afterward. That creates additional complications for the group and how much they're able to invest in acquiring new brands, in developing the brands they have. And honestly, to also just continue to exist,” says Williams.
• Gucci’s identity has become muddled as it leans too heavily on its heritage, potentially limiting its appeal. “Gucci can stand for a lot of things and I think that's where they got a bit confused. It's the biggest Italian luxury brand and maybe they started to think that it was more of a heritage house than it should be,” Williams explains.
• Williams outlines a protective strategy where the group is preemptively selling off valuable real estate. He cites the sale of luxury jewellery house Boucheron headquarters and flagship store on Place Vendôme, stating, "choosing to cash in on the fact that this building is worth a lot of money is a bit worrying that they feel the need to get that treasury right now."
• Gucci’s potential for a rapid rebound hinges on securing the right creative leadership to tell a compelling story of the brand and leveraging its extensive assets. “I think real potential for the rebound is there if they can get the right person in place just to tell a very convincing fashion story. It can go very high, very fast again,” Williams says. “They have a lot of real estate, they have a lot of stores in great locations and they have a whole supply chain behind them that's really like rooting for their comeback because it's the biggest client for so many suppliers in the Italian fashion system.”

Additional Resources:

• Can Kering Bounce Back From Its ‘Annus Horribilis’? | BoF
• The Problems with Gucci and Dior | BoF

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The creative technologist believes that experimenting with new AR technologies could radically reshape products, experiences and habits.

Background:

When it comes to testing new technologies, there is always an element of the unknown for brands. While tech investments may not immediately translate to a revenue bump, willingness to experiment could radically transform the fashion industry, according to Ommy Akhe, a creative technologist specialising in experimental software and augmented reality prototypes, who spoke at The BoF Professional Summit: New Frontiers in Fashion and Technology.

“Understanding your customers, the things they value, the challenges you can help them overcome and what gets them excited — it's essential to meet users where they are,” says Ahke. “The only constant is change. So why not join the journey and start enjoying the current future?”

• Consumers today are younger, spend more time online and are used to valuing arbitrary digital assets like follower counts and verified check marks. This means they are also more apt to spend money on digital items that hold value in the real world.
• The tools that will build the metaverse — including 5G, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, for example — are well established and consumers are used to interacting with them.
• Ahke’s digital skins projects overlay dynamic imagery on bags, clothes and shoes through a phone lens. Brands can implement this sort of technology to drive loyalty and give buyers more avenues for expression.

Additional Resources:

• How the Smart Money in Fashion Is Thinking About Web3. Investors with track records of predicting where fashion is headed have their own ideas of where the big opportunities lie in web3.
• Fashion’s Metaverse Reality Check. The marketing value of digital fashion and NFTs may now be clear, but fashion brands will need to separate hype from the concrete opportunities to generate sustainable revenue streams from the metaverse.
• The Debrief: Who Is Designing Fashion in the Metaverse? BoF’s Marc Bain chats with Lauren Sherman about the 3D creators, game designers and NFT experts bringing fashion into the virtual world

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