Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

Retail Brew

Jeena Sharma

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Hermès won its lawsuit against Mason Rothschild. Now what?

The case could help define what constitutes artistic expression in the metaverse, and we may not have heard the end of it yet.

Hermès won its lawsuit against Mason Rothschild. What happens now?

Katishi Maake

Harrods, Farfetch, and Saks Off Fifth detail plans at NRF

Harrods and Farfetch’s pre-pandemic partnership is paying dividends nearly four years later. 

Luxury players detail their plans through and beyond the pandemic at NRF

Las Vegas is becoming a luxury fashion hotspot

From Fendi to Diptyque, Sin City has attracted a number of luxury brands to the region over the past few years.

Why is Vegas becoming a luxury fashion hotspot?

A pyramid of stacked luxury handbags on a field of green

Luxury

They say that the customer’s always right, but for most luxury retailers today, the question is: Who is the customer?

With luxury in a slump, it’s become obvious that the ultra-high-net-worth clients are not enough for a brand to continue to stay profitable. In comes the aspirational consumer, who many retailers have been trying to court for years.

However, in their quest to stay both afloat and relevant, brands have forgotten that the aspirational consumer has limited resources and is “financially vulnerable” to economic uncertainties, Mrin Nayak, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group, told Retail Brew.

Citing a recent internal study, she explained that brands may have “over-democratized” and expanded their scale significantly over the past few years as they try to rope in new customers.

“What we’re really seeing is that the pullback in luxury is from this bottom- to middle-of-the-pyramid, aspirational luxury consumer versus the top of the pyramid…ultra-high-net-worth consumer and so brands that have a high share of aspirational luxury consumers are the brands that we’re seeing have the most underperformance,” she told Retail Brew. 

In other words, brands that are struggling have simply lost the heat with younger shoppers.

 is a prime example of a retailer that has seen several executive and creative shifts over the past few years and yet continues to decline, becoming the linchpin of underperformance for Kering.

In contrast, other heritage companies like 

 have consistently maintained consumer interest despite little to no marketing and its infamous and almost-impossible-to-purchase Birkin and Kelly handbags.

Nayak said there are a few things that determine brand relevance and heat, starting with heritage, which remains one of the most important aspects alongside a sense of exclusivity, which the likes of Hermès have a strong hold on.

“Having a clear strategy around exclusivity and what level of accessibility you do want to maintain for your consumers start to matter,” she said. “Of course, heritage and craftsmanship and maintaining the true luxury quality is almost like a table stake that doesn’t drive brand heat and cultural relevance…but that matters.”

And while both exclusiveness and heritage have their place in maintaining relevance, building an “emotional connection” with the consumer is also integral. This could be through a range of cultural platforms including art, fashion, music, design, tech, etc., that consumers engage with.

“Brands that have really managed to stay on top of cultural fluency in terms of where these consumers spend time, where they engage, what other brands do they shop that you could have partnerships with and how do you have a level of newness that is culturally relevant, but at the same time not over democratized?” Nayak said. “It’s that fine balance a lot of brands are starting to think through as they think about marketing strategies and product strategies.”

Leaning into contemporary culture is not only crucial in order to get back in touch with the aspirational consumer but also the wealthy, top-of-the-pyramid set of shoppers that is increasingly “expanding beyond just luxury products into a broader set of experiences across travel, design, art, wellness, longevity, and those categories are also benefiting from from the top-tier clients,” Nayak explained.

It’s also why so many retailers including Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Versace, and Armani among others have increasingly invested in opening up 

 tennis partnership with Four Seasons earlier this year.

Nayak said that this goes beyond just making revenue and is part of a strategy to “buzz engagement.”

“Some category extensions are revenue driving, but then a lot of the others are really to harness the community of customers they attract and think about ways to bring their consumers together into conversations and create an experience and a brand halo beyond just the product,” she said. “You’re starting to see some of that happen, and with the cafés…which extend brand loyalty beyond just a product to make it a little bit more of an experience.”

The ultimate lesson, however, is that luxury retailers that want to stay profitable and relevant will need to both figure out who their core consumer is and how to stay in touch with them.

“Where brands struggle is brands that have maybe moved too far away from their core consumer or move too far away from their core product lines that they’re known for,” Nayak said. “That’s where we see brands stuck in the middle, across the pyramid, which is not having either—not really being part of the cultural conversation, or having moved too far away from what their core consumer shopped them for.”

Luxury retailers need to hold on to both heritage and cultural fluency to stay afloat

Mrin Nayak, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group, on how to maintain that brand heat. 

What sets a luxury brand apart today? The answer is possibly anything from the quality of the product to the marketing behind it. For Trey Taylor, the founder and nose behind 

, a NYC-based fragrance brand, it’s taste.

What started off as a personal project and a hobby is now a full-fledged perfume brand. Officially launched in February, Serviette, the French word for napkin, is Taylor’s attempt to explore “cultural sophistication.”

“I started Serviette because I felt that the current kind of cultural landscape was kind of lacking,” Taylor told Retail Brew. “A lot of people were getting recommendations via their TikTok algorithms for things like mob wife aesthetic or these kind of trappings of like hashtag culture, that, to me, just felt very uninspired. I wanted to encourage people to kind of break out of that and help them discover their own personal taste.”

The retailer currently sells four fragrances—Byronic Hero, Ruche, Sour Diesel, and Frisson D’Hiver—each priced at $175, as well as a $40 “discovery set” featuring a smaller vial of each scent . Each fragrance—concocted in Taylor’s apartment—mixes popular notes such as bergamot and vanilla with more unexpected ones, like diesel exhaust.

Taylor, a former film journalist who also works a day job as an executive at an advertising company in New York, is banking on his storytelling skills and eye for design to keep his venture going. In the past quarter, Taylor says Serviette made $20,000 in sales so far. Stockists include NYC-based niche perfume store Stele and Luxembourg-based shop The Pépins, but it’s seemingly only the beginning for a business with no outside investment yet.

Luckily, the global niche fragrance category is on the rise, valued at $2.397 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow to $2.75 billion in 2025, per 

Taylor hopes that he will make a profit in about a year.

Taylor said that while he has received private equity interest, he’s still trying to keep the brand independent as he continues to explore his voice and customer demographic in a saturated industry.

“It takes very specific and customized high-touch customer service,” Michael Prendergast, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal’s consumer and retail group, told Retail Brew. “Independents must set themselves apart from the bigger stores and brands to make their customers feel special.”

Another differentiator for Serviette has been its discerning 

. Taylor says all of its marketing has been organic with $0 advertising spend. Much of the brand’s Instagram and TikTok is filled with highly curated images and stylish “behind the brand” videos.

The brand has also been featured in several influencer videos alongside popular podcasts and Substacks, which have been instrumental in drumming up sales.

“I see a direct correlation between my marketing efforts and conversion, essentially,” Taylor said. “I really find it fascinating as a small brand, seeing exactly what works and what doesn’t.”

Still, while Taylor is certainly generating curiosity among customers, with the current state of the economy and incoming challenges such as tariffs, he is aware that scaling as an independent luxury business can only come with outside investment.

“Stockists that reach out to me, even independent ones I find, barely have the money to purchase the minimum order quantity of stock to have in their store, because everything is kind of month to month, or sale to sale, or whatever,” he said. “I do think that in terms of the landscape of beauty…all I see are niche fragrance brands kind of on this uptick versus the kind of maybe oversaturation of these mega beauty brands who have dominated this fragrance landscape for so long.”

How one indie luxury brand is making it in New York City

For Trey Taylor, the founder of fragrance brand, Serviette, it’s all about sharp storytelling.

From Lululemon tights to Hermès handbags, many TikTok users have been flooded over the past month with random videos of Chinese manufacturers offering popular luxury and fashion items at a fraction of the normal selling price. The idea being you buy “direct” from the source, hence bagging a bargain deal.

This spike comes in the wake of the Trump administration’s imposition of a 145% tariff on Chinese imports, significantly raising the cost of many goods, including luxury fashion. Targeted primarily at US consumers, such “deals” have been around for a while, but the recent surge in the videos likely stems from ongoing US-China trade tensions, and experts worry consumers are buying into it.

“As tariffs continue to be put onto items, the prices of luxury items, especially name brands, are going to make these items unaffordable to potential customers,” Vidyuth Srinivasan, co-founder and CEO of Entrupy, an AI-powered luxury authentication platform, told Retail Brew via email. “People are naturally going to start looking for cheaper alternatives, especially if they want the item. That’s where counterfeiters step in. Chinese factories are taking advantage of this opportunity by selling directly to US consumers, often on social media, skipping over traditional retailers and the tariffs altogether.”

While the luxury counterfeit industry has been growing at an unprecedented rate over the past few years, with high-quality, often indistinguishable dupes, Srinivasan says the problem lies in the fact that consumers lured into these deals often don’t know they’re buying a knockoff.

“You may have seen the recent viral videos from Chinese sellers claiming their items are made in the same factories as big-name brands like Lululemon or Louis Vuitton,” he said. “It sounds convincing—but it’s not true. What they’re really selling are counterfeits disguised as ‘factory-direct’ deals to lure in buyers.”

And TikTok is not the only platform counterfeiters are using to peddle dupes. The process has gotten rather sophisticated.

“Social media, especially Reddit, is where these customers are going to find dupes,” Brian Ehrig, partner in the consumer practice of Kearney, explained in an email. “The journey starts there and then moves to messaging apps, most likely WhatsApp. From there, they are having one-on-one conversations with factory representatives where these buyers are sharing exactly what item they want made. It’s quite a personalized experience.”

Shay Luo, partner in the strategic operations practice of Kearney, further added if anything, the accessibility to these products on multiple social media channels has probably made the global counterfeit trade—

 at $449 billion in 2019—even more popular.

“The recent surge of this topic on social media can be attributed to a confluence of social (the rise of social media and influencer-driven buys), economic (inflationary market, low consumer buying confidence on high price tag products) and technological factors (live-stream shopping) that have created an environment conducive to the proliferation of fake products,” she said via email.

Clearly, it’s a problem. Add high tariffs and very convincing social media videos and you’ve got the perfect storm. Experts recommend that retailers continue to spread awareness along with investing in proper authentication processes and platforms. It may not solve the issue overnight but it definitely makes a dent in what’s looking to be a growing pain for both luxury and resale industries.

“For luxury brands, it chips away at exclusivity and weakens the brand’s perceived value,” Srinivasan said. “For resale platforms, it’s even harder—authenticity is their entire business model, and just a few fakes slipping through can damage trust. As more counterfeits flood the market, it becomes harder for everyone—buyers, sellers, and platforms—to know what’s real and feel confident in their purchases.”

Counterfeit designer bags on a blanket on the ground in a seaside setting. 

What do tariffs have to do with the luxury counterfeit trade?

Apparently a lot. 

Andrew Adam Newman

As part of its loyalty program, along with purchases, Australian surfwear brand Rip Curl 

 for every wave that loyalty club members catch. Antavo Loyalty Cloud, Rip Curl's partner in the effort, calls such a strategy “emotional loyalty,” in contrast to the “rational loyalty” of awarding points when customers spend money. Other non-transactional actions that brands increasingly are awarding loyalty points for are referring friends, subscribing to newsletters, and writing product reviews.

Do you think it’s a good strategy for brands to award loyalty points for actions besides purchases? 

, we told you that the rate of designer products that authenticators identified as fake rose to 8.8% in 2023, up from 7.2% the year before—a 20% increase, according to an AI authentication solutions company. So we asked if you ever intentionally or unintentionally purchased a product that was fake.

Nearly half (47.3%) of you told us you’ve intentionally purchased a product that was a fake, while 40% of you said that, as far as you know, you never have. Another 10.9% told us you accidentally purchased a designer product that you thought was authentic but turned out to be fake, while 1.8% didn’t know or weren’t sure.

Nearly half have purchased fake products intentionally: Hot Topic poll

Plus, do you think it’s a good strategy for brands to award loyalty points for actions besides purchases?

If you grew up in the ’90s, you know that 

While a big part of the experience included socializing and simply visiting your favorite stores, for a lot of consumers on a budget looking to snag a piece of luxury, outlet malls also offered a great deal.

“[Outlet stores] provide a platform to reach a broader audience without compromising the brand’s image in their main retail channels, which helps with market penetration and brand visibility,” Sam Vise, CEO at retail intelligence platform Optimum Retailing, told Retail Brew via email. “Additionally, outlet stores are an effective way to manage inventory by clearing out excess or past-season items, thus reducing markdowns in primary stores and supporting overall profitability.”

But over the past few years, it almost seems outlet malls have been falling out of fashion with some consumers looking to e-commerce for discounted luxury items.

“The rise of e-commerce giants has significantly impacted the US outlet mall industry, leading to a slower recovery post-pandemic,” Nora Kleinewillinghoefer, partner in the consumer practice division of Kearney, told Retail Brew via email, adding that economic factors are also significant as inflation and reduced spending power have limited American shoppers’ visits to outlet malls.

But while inflation has certainly pushed consumers to cut back on discretionary spending, it has also in many ways revitalized the humble outlet mall. 

Placer.ai, which provides location-based analytics for retailers, notes that while there was indeed a drop in shopper interest right after the pandemic, footfall at outlet stores is steadily 

. “Visitation trends to luxury outlet malls remain down compared to pre-pandemic levels, but have seen steady improvement the past few years as consumers increasingly look for deals,” RJ Hottovy, Placer.ai’s head of analytical research, told Retail Brew via email.

Rising costs have further pushed cash-strapped consumers to look to off-price retailers and outlet stores. This trend has also further helped reshape the perception of outlet malls, once viewed by many shoppers as a place for off-season or out of fashion items.

“Over the past two years, there has been a sweeping destigmatization of shopping at discount and off-price malls amid the cost of living crisis,” Candice Medeiros, senior strategist at WGSN, told Retail Brew. “Value has become a top factor influencing consumer purchases, above quality, selection, convenience, and transparency.”

 from global market intelligence and research agency Mintel substantiates Medeiros’s perspective; 30% of luxury shoppers say they’ve bought luxury goods less often because of inflation. And a further 74% of consumers agreed that discounts and sales were imperative in order to get good deals.

“Luxury brands have often shied away from discounting strategies for fear of diluting brand reputation, but this fear is largely unfounded with consumers,” Brittany Steiger, principal analyst of retail and e-commerce at Mintel, told Retail Brew via email. “Discounting allows luxury [to] build brand affinity with the aspirational shopper.”

Medeiros agreed, adding that WGSN had been tracking the rise of off-price concepts and found that “consumers of all tax brackets share fiscal concerns regarding credit card debt and the ability to make large purchases…This has really forced brands to provide top-notch products at discounted prices.”

Many companies are already taking note, most recently LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton, which 

 Hammerson Plc’s $1.9 billion stake in outlet mall landlord Value Retail.

The deal, which encompasses nine luxury retail properties across Europe, is likely to generate 600 million pounds in cash proceeds for Hammerson.

“This is a sign that L Catterton recognizes the value of these kinds of shopping channels,” Vise said. “Value Retail’s properties have proven resilient in the rise of e-commerce, attracting millions of international shoppers seeking discounted luxury items and a high-quality shopping environment.”

And L Catterton is not alone. The CEO of Tanger Outlets, the shopping-mall chain with 39 locations in the US and Canada, has seen steady consumer interest in its properties and is positive about its future.

“Tanger has continued to see success with high-end retailers across our portfolio, prompting us to further invest in and expand these partnerships,” Stephen Yalof, president and CEO of Tanger Inc., told Retail Brew via email. “For the retailer, outlet centers provide an opportunity for luxury brands to engage with a new customer that isn’t shopping on Madison Avenue, and once that connection is made, those shoppers often move up through the brand ecosystem and make them customers for life.”

Outlet malls are still a thing, even for luxury retailers

Despite a modest drop in footfall, outlet malls may have a bright future ahead. 

Another day, another major executive change. This time it was at Tom Ford, where Creative Director Peter Hawkings 

 this week. Although Hawkings had only been creative director at the brand since 2023, he oversaw its menswear department for years. No successor has been announced yet, but it should happen in the “near future,” according to the company.

“I want to thank Peter for his collaboration since Tom Ford Fashion became part of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group,” Lelio Gavazza, CEO of Tom Ford Fashion, said 

. “Along with his team, Peter has contributed to this important initial phase of development.”

As designer Tom Ford’s successor, Hawkings came into the creative director job with a lot of expectations, and in his brief time at the label known for its sexy-meets-classic aesthetic, lived up to many of them. His take, however, was a bit more subdued than what Ford had been known for.

“My vision of sexiness is going to be probably more subtle than Tom’s,” Hawkings 

But given his short stint in the role, it’s hard to tell whether his ideas resonated with consumers. It is certain that luxury is having a hard time, and even the biggest brands are struggling to figure out just how to keep consumers engaged and excited at a time when most shoppers are cutting back on discretionary spending.

It also means the pressure on the creative director at a luxury retailer is multifold, and executive shifts are rampant.

, where CEO Jonathan Akeroyd was abruptly replaced by Joshua Schulman, former CEO of Michael Kors, Coach, and Jimmy Choo. His departure, although sudden, was likely influenced by stagnating sales and a dropping share price over the past few months.

Peter Hawkings’s exit from Tom Ford

After just a year as creative director, Hawkings abruptly left his role.

Peter Hawkings’s exit from Tom Ford signals a challenging time for execs in luxury 

California isn’t the first place most people think of in terms of the finest wines in the world. That reputation is still held by the vineyards of France and Italy. There are, however, some brands that are trying to shift that long-held perception.

. Located in the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains in Sonoma County, vigneron Pierre Seillan who has been crafting the set of fine wines in the region since 1998 sells their product for anything between $500 to $725 a bottle 

. A family-run business, it is currently owned by Jackson Family Wines, with Seillan’s daughter Hélène recently stepping into the role of assistant winemaker.

“We’re very lucky at Vérité that we’ve had consistent family ownership and consistent winemaking for over 25 years now, and we own our own vineyards,” Trey Christy, brand manager at Jackson Family Wines, told Retail Brew, adding that Pierre, who hails from France, spent decades producing wine in Bordeaux (and still does), blending French winemaking techniques into Vérité.

“He’s not trying to make Bordeaux in California, but that experience in Bordeaux, that true drive for balance in the wine, the tension of acids and tannins and fruits and non fruit complexities, all of these things that make a wine balanced when it’s young, and therefore, allow it to age the way that Bordeaux famously will age for decades,” Christy said. “He takes all that, he brings all that to the new world with him.”

While the meticulously crafted wines offer more in terms of quality, they also come with a hefty price tag, especially from the vintage category. Although neighboring regions like Napa are now selling wines that cost over $100 

Christy, however, insists that Vérité is profitable at the moment. “We are owned by Jackson Family Wines, which allows us to own our own vineyards,” he said. “Vérité is very much revenue positive. We’re not a drain on Jackson family lines.”

Unlike some other wines in Jackson Family Wines’s portfolio, such as the more affordable Kendall Jackson wines, Vérité positions itself as a highly collectible, luxury wine targeting a different demographic.

“The people that are buying Vérité, people that are buying true luxury goods—whether that’s Cartier, whether that’s Patek Philippe, what have you—these are people that are somewhat insulated [from inflation], and they’re still living their lives, which is good to see,” he said.

Vérité also has a membership program that currently has ~1,700 active membership collectors who are notified about new vintage releases that are then automatically shipped to them.

“The collector of Vérité usually isn’t somebody who only collects California wines; you get some people that really gravitate to the big cult wines of Napa…But generally speaking, the Vérité collector buys the first growths of Bordeaux,” Christy said. “They have their cellars….They buy great champagne. They buy great burgundy, great wines from Piedmont, great wines from Tuscany, all over Italy. So it’s a much more worldly palate.”

Christy also explained how this network of collectors acquires Vérité wines.

“If you’re in Asia, or Australia, or even if you’re in the United States, and you’re buying Bordeaux, it was distributed by the negociants,” or wine merchants, he said. “We had this realization a little over 10 years ago that if we wanted to be in those collectors’ cellars, on their dining room table, next to the world’s great wines, we needed to be in that marketplace. So about a third is released to our direct consumer clients and collectors and about a third is released through what we call three-tier sales throughout the United States, and that’s how we wind up with Vérité on wine lists at some of the great restaurants throughout the country.” He added that 40% of Vérité productions are held back for “future releases” and “for posterity.”

But while Vérité has acquired a reputation among some collectors and continues to stay “revenue positive” per Christy, it still faces stiff competition from historic wineries in Europe. However, he said Vérité is not worried.

“The wine growers in France and Italy have had many hundreds of years of head start on us,” Christy said. “So we don’t hold that world bias against them. It’s been hard earned.”