When Daniel Ervér was named chief executive of H&M Group in January, the appointment was widely received as a surprise, and not necessarily a good one. The company’s problems are well-documented at this point: H&M has struggled in a post-Shein world, occupying the rapidly shrinking middle between ultra-cheap online competitors and Zara’s “upscale” fast fashion.

Why, if the brand is so beset by problems it required the sudden ouster of its CEO, did it go with a relatively unknown insider? In interviews after his appointment, Ervér did little to clear up the confusion. He spoke to the need to “react quicker” to new trends, à la Shein, but also sell more high-priced items, like Zara.

Perhaps we’ll get some more concrete answers this week. H&M reports results for the three months ending Feb. 29 on Wednesday. Ervér isn’t wrong to take a few cues from rivals. Consumers clearly prefer Shein’s all the trends, all the time approach to H&M’s seasonal view on fashion. And while the chain has been closing stores to cut costs, its many brick-and-mortar locations remain a key advantage over the online-only competition. Zara-owner Inditex demonstrated as much earlier this month when it reported record sales of €35.9 billion ($39 billion) in 2023, up 10.4 percent. It also remains to be seen whether Ervér will have the same commitment to sustainability as his predecessor, Helena Helmersson, who aimed to pitch H&M as an unlikely (and often controversial) champion of green fashion. Pricey programmes to deliver on this ambition would be a tempting target for budget cuts.

That side of the business is probably safe though. For better or worse, Ervér, who has worked at H&M for nearly two decades, represents continuity, not change. Plus, fast fashion is currently villain No. 1 in European politics. France’s proposal to tax cheap clothes like cigarettes is the latest indication that rhetoric around the ecological costs of fast fashion is starting to have real teeth. Now is the time to burnish those sustainability credentials, not toss them.

Speaking of, the fate of Renewcell, a now-bankrupt H&M-backed fabric recycling start-up, will be decided this week. The company was seen as a pioneer in the field, and had scaled its production capacity, only to falter in face of uncertain demand. Bids are due on March 28.

The Week Ahead wants to hear from you! Send tips, suggestions, complaints and compliments to brian.baskin@businessoffashion.com.

NEW YORK — Hello from New York City where our team staged another successful BoF Professional Summit on Friday, this one examining how fast emerging technologies like generative AI, web3 and spatial computing are reshaping fashion. Gathering with our community at events like this is a key part of BoF’s mission to open, inform and connect the global fashion, luxury and beauty industries.

It’s been just over 11 years since we first began our journey as a business and this week brought important global recognition that I am delighted to share with you: The Business of Fashion was named one of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024″ by Fast Company.

This is an honour we first held in 2015, early on in our journey as a business, when BoF was pioneering what a global digital-first fashion media company could be. The fact that, 9 years later, BoF continues to be recognised for being one of the most innovative companies in the world, is a testament to the vision and hard work of our incredible team who have stayed true to our mission while experimenting with new technologies like artificial intelligence to further build a sustainable business in a challenging media environment.

The Fast Company article accompanying the accolade specifically highlights the innovative work being done by BoF Insights, our data and advisory think tank, which recently created The BoF Brand Magic Index, powered by Quilt.ai, which ranks luxury and fashion labels using AI-driven analysis of tens of thousands of social media posts.

“The ranking showed how artificial intelligence can help fashion brands measure value, not just reach, while demonstrating how a media brand can leverage AI to add reader value rather than erode trust with AI-written news articles,” wrote Fast Company’s Nicole Laporte. “Using an AI tool powered by Quilt.AI, the study analysed more than 70,000 social media posts over three months to see how closely a fashion brand’s identity mirrored its target audience.”

You can see this same commitment to innovation and excellence in our daily analysis, advice and insights from BoF Professional. Our luxury beat helmed by luxury editor Robert Williams had an especially busy week with the announcements that Dries Van Noten is stepping back from his namesake label, Pierpaolo Piccioli is leaving Valentino, Kering is expecting a 20 percent sales drop at Gucci in the first quarter and Hermès is facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly requiring shoppers to buy items from other product categories before they are allowed to buy a sought-after Birkin. And editor-at-large Tim Blanks examined the “triumph, tragedy and cancellation” of the late designer Claude Montana, who was buried at Père Lachaise in Paris on Friday morning.

Over at The Business of Beauty, helmed by executive editor Priya Rao, we dissected the news that Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty has hired Goldman Sachs and Raymond James to explore exit options, including a potential IPO; examined the success of Sol de Janeiro beyond its best-selling Bum Bum Cream; and announced the launch of Sisley’s first new brand, Neuraé.

And that’s just luxury and beauty! In sustainability, chief sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent’s examined the significance of a new French bill that, if passed, would tax fast fashion like cigarettes and and on the retail beat Daniel-Yaw Miller’s explained what the return of founder Kevin Plank means for sportswear giant Under Armour. As Fast Company wrote, “BoF’s steady stream of industry news and information, has made its own brand indispensable to the 640 fashion and beauty companies that subscribe to BoF, along with more than 100,000 paying members in 2023.”

I’d like to congratulate our entire team for this significant recognition, and would like to thank you, our global community, for supporting our journalism. We cannot do the work we do without your continued support. If you’d like to join our membership community please subscribe here or contact us if you’d like to learn more about group or company-wide subscriptions to BoF.

This Weekend on The BoF Podcast

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As performance coach to England’s national football team, the Royal Ballet and many more winning teams, Owen Eastwood taps into his Māori heritage to help groups foster a sense of togetherness and drive performance.

I first learned of Owen’s work from Tim Brown, the co-founder and chief innovation officer of Allbirds, a company which has been on a rollercoaster of ups and downs since it went public in 2021.

This week on The BoF Podcast, Tim and Owen join us to examine Owen’s powerful approach to creating high performance teams.

Imran Amed, Founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, The Business of Fashion

P.S. Join us next week on 26 March at 16.00 BST / 11:00 EDT for a BoF Professional Masterclass that explores the topic of one of our latest Case Studies, “The Art and Science of Retail Store Success.”

Plus, here are my other top picks from our analysis on fashion, luxury and beauty:

1. Can Gucci’s Turnaround Plan Still Work? This week, Kering flagged sales were down 20 percent at its flagship brand, knocking confidence in the group’s turnaround strategy. ‘A more drastic solution is required,’ one analyst wrote.

2. Pierpaolo Piccioli Is Exiting Valentino. A new creative configuration will be announced soon, the Roman couture house said.

3. Dries Van Noten to Step Down. The Belgian designer will step down as creative director of his namesake fashion house following its June menswear show, he announced in a letter to fashion editors Tuesday.

4. Case Study | How to Turn Data Into Meaningful Customer Connections. Before fashion businesses can put artificial intelligence to work or target the right shoppers online, they need good data and a deep understanding of who their customers are and what they want. This case study offers a guide for brands that want to truly know their customer, allowing them to make smarter decisions that serve shoppers and drive results.

5. What Would Happen if Fashion Were Taxed Like Cigarettes? France is pressing ahead with a ‘game-changing’ bill that would impose a ‘sin tax’-style penalty on fast-fashion products as high as €10 per item by 2030.

To receive this email in your inbox each Saturday, sign up to The Daily Digest newsletter for agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice that you won’t find anywhere else.

On Tuesday, Kering warned investors its sales were down 10 percent this quarter, mostly due to a 20 percent drop at flagship label Gucci, which accounts for more than half of the French group’s revenues and about two-thirds of its operating profit.

In recent calls and presentations, Kering had prepared markets for another lacklustre year as it works to give its brands a more timeless, upmarket positioning.

But Gucci’s sales performance was far worse than expected: most analysts had forecast revenues would decline by around 4 percent this quarter, with the most pessimistic among them projecting a 10 percent drop. On Wednesday, Kering shares plunged 12 percent in Paris trading, wiping €6.3 billion off the company’s market value.

With sales in free fall, Gucci and Kering face mounting concern about whether the company can execute on a long-awaited turnaround at the Italian megabrand.

Last year, the group replaced both creative director Alessandro Michele and CEO Marco Bizzarri, who had piloted Gucci through a phase of explosive growth leveraging a radical, maximalist image overhaul and a commercial strategy that had leaned heavily into accessibly-priced luxuries like little camera bags, low-top logo sneakers, bucket hats, logo tees and collaborations with sportswear brands like The North Face and Adidas.

After growth sputtered during the pandemic — with consumers flocking to blue-chip luxury brands seen as less likely to go out of style than fashion-driven Gucci — Kering has sought to push the brand in a more stable, upmarket direction.

The group has hired a behind-the-scenes designer from Valentino, Sabato de Sarno, whose first collections for Gucci have aimed to usher in a more dressed up, sexed up notion of glamour that’s in step with how many cool, young women want to dress today.

His early shows have provided a palette cleanser after Michele’s off-kilter aesthetic, which attracted super fans as well as plenty of detractors. But the jury is still out on whether De Sarno’s more subtle, sartorial approach will supply a brand story that’s strong enough to get customers excited about Gucci and into stores.

That the brand’s topline has gone deep in the red is hardly a promising sign. But operational hold-ups and waning interest in Gucci’s former aesthetic are also to blame: six months after his first show, De Sarno’s designs still make up less than 5 percent of the assortment in stores, and only two flagships have been converted to the brand’s new store concept.

Gucci is also trying to reboot itself in a deteriorating climate for high-end brands. US credit card spending on luxury goods declined 15 percent last month, following a 19 percent year-on-year drop in January, according to purchasing data from Citi.

The key Chinese luxury market also remains sluggish as the country navigates slower economic growth and depressed equity and real estate values. Kering’s revenue warning flagged poor performance in the Asia-Pacific region as a key challenge for Gucci.

“Kering’s news raises a lot of questions, mainly, have the Chinese fallen out of love with Gucci? Why, and is it fix-able?” Citi analyst Thomas Chauvet said. While plenty of brands are currently struggling with cooling luxury demand, the severity of Gucci’s slowdown suggests there are specific maladies at play. Indeed, the latest numbers show the rest of Kering’s portfolio is broadly flat, which is a bit better than markets expected, according to Chauvet.

Most analysts agree more time is needed before gauging the success of designer De Sarno and new CEO Jean-François Palus’ efforts. But less than a year into the new team’s tenure, some have begun calling for shakeups to the strategy and team.

“A more drastic solution is required,” RBC analyst Piral Dadhania said, suggesting that the company may need to take more aggressive steps to clear old product (Gucci stopped markdowns in stores in 2016).

A new CEO may also be needed: “Despite Kering’s insistence that Jean-François Palus is the right interim CEO for Gucci, the market does not agree,” Dadhania wrote.

As the longtime managing director of Kering, Palus has managed the group’s fashion holdings from a distance for years. But he is seen as having an insufficient track record in the hands-on business of operating a fashion brand.

Saint Laurent’s chief executive Francesca Bellettini is also helping to oversee the turnaround in her new role as the group’s deputy CEO, but it’s hardly guaranteed that her exacting approach to brand building and distribution can be extended across multiple brands.

For now, Gucci’s gone “out with the old,” but customers are still waiting for the new.

THE NEWS IN BRIEF

FASHION, BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY

Nordstrom’s founding family in a new bid to take the US retailer private. Nordstrom has asked investment banks Morgan Stanley and Centerview Partners to reach out to private equity firms and gauge their interest for a potential deal. Nordstrom shares rose 12 percent to $19.22 on the news on Tuesday, giving the company a market value of $3.2 billion.

Swiss watch exports slump on lower shipments to China and Hong Kong. Exports dropped 3.8 percent by value in February to 2.15 billion Swiss francs ($2.4 billion) from a year earlier. Shipments of watches priced at over 3,000 francs, which account for about 80 percent of export values, fell by 1.8 percent in February.

Temu-owner PDD jumps 15 percent after revenue beats estimates amid overseas push. The Chinese-owned e-commerce platform reported revenue of 88.9 billion yuan ($12.4 billion) in the December quarter. It was the company’s first triple-digit growth since the first quarter of 2021.

Next expects £1 billion profit from higher-spending shoppers. Shares of Next rose more than 4 percent to a record high in early trading in London. The stock is up 29 percent in the past year.

UK’s Ted Baker plans to call in administrators, owner ABG says. The intention to appoint administrators comes six weeks after No Ordinary Designer Label, which trades under Ted Baker’s brand, terminated its partnership with Dutch firm AARC on Jan. 29.

Outdoor Voices’ former employees say bankruptcy is imminent. The move would be a culmination of a string of missteps for the beleaguered athletic apparel start-up. The company closed all of its 16 retail stores last week to focus solely on its e-commerce business and fired most of its corporate staff.

US lawmaker demands LVMH’s Loro Piana answer for “exploitation” in Peru. Congressman Robert Garcia sent a letter Friday to Loro Piana chairman Antoine Arnault and chief executive Damien Bertrand demanding the company provide written answers. Loro Piana noted it has worked to help preserve the vicuña population for three decades.

US retail sales to rise at a slower pace in 2024. US retail sales are expected to rise as much as 3.5 percent this year, a slower pace than 2023. The National Retail Federation has projected retail sales to rise between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent this year to between $5.23 trillion and $5.28 trillion.

Agnellis’ Exor teams up to invest in teen fashion brand Subdued. NUO, a partnership between Exor NV and World-Wide Investment Company Limited, purchased 30 percent of Osit Impresa SpA, which operates under the Subdued brand. The Agnellis control 50 percent of economic and voting rights at NUO through Exor.

EBay expands fashion consignment. Users can send in their luxury goods and Linda’s Stuff, a well-established shop on eBay, will process, photograph and list them on behalf of the seller. The consignment commission rate will be highly competitive: the minimum payout rate is 60 percent for sellers.

Gap and Palace to launch ‘90s-inspired collaboration. The 55-piece collection was inspired by ‘90s skateboarding style and includes varsity jackets, windbreakers and co-branded logo hoodies. The move comes a month after parent company Gap Inc. hired designer Zac Posen as “cultural curator and creative partner.”

THE BUSINESS OF BEAUTY

Selena Gomez weighs sale of cosmetics brand valued at $2 billion. Rare Beauty brought on the bankers to field interest from firms looking to invest in or acquire the company. Bankers have met with potential suitors, but Gomez has not.

CVC-backed perfume retailer Douglas raises $967 million IPO but tumbled in debut. The CVC Capital Partners-backed firm sold about 32.7 million new shares and raised about €850 million, while current stockholders sold around 1.5 million existing shares. The company’s shares hit a low of €23.20 a share, compared with the IPO price of €26.

Sephora to withdraw from Korea. The company said it would gradually terminate all its operations, including its app, online store and physical stores. Having launched in 2019, it currently has five stores in Korea, having shut down two stores in the last two years, per local press.

TikTok influencer Dr. Muneeb Shah launches skincare brand. The line, Remedy, is based on his Gen-Z and Millennial audience’s top skincare concerns. Remedy’s selling point is an emphasis on the “skinimalism” trend replacing multi-step routines.

PEOPLE

Pierpaolo Piccioli is exiting Valentino. Pierpaolo Piccoli is parting ways with Valentino after eight years as the Roman couture house’s sole creative director, according to a company statement which called the move a “joint decision.”

LVMH’s Stephande Bianchi promoted in top management reshuffle. LVMH’s group managing director Toni Belloni will step down with Stephane Bianchi succeeding him. Bianchi will chair the group’s executive committee, and alongside Bernard Arnault, will take up strategic and operational supervision of the group’s labels.

Dries Van Noten to step down. The designer will step down as creative director of his namesake fashion label following its June menswear show, he announced in a letter to fashion editors Tuesday.

Balmain CEO exits company. Jean-Jacques Guevel is stepping down “to pursue other interests” after four years leading the Parisian fashion house. A successor has not been named.

Jean Paul Gaultier taps Courrèges’ Nicolas Di Felice as guest couturier. The show slated for June will be Di Felice’s first couture outing. The designer previously worked behind-the-scenes under Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga and for Raf Simons at Dior.

Capri denies reports that Michael Kors is planning departure. According to a WWD report citing anonymous sources, top management at Michael Kors has been putting plans in place to prepare for the designer’s exit. “Michael Kors is and will remain the chief creative officer of his namesake company,” John Idol, chairman and chief executive of Capri Holdings, said in a statement.

MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY

TikTok draws fresh scrutiny from key US Senate Democrats. Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell said she’s considering holding a public hearing on TikTok and social media following a classified briefing. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and other national security officials have privately supported legislation that would force Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd. to divest itself of the popular video-sharing app.

Compiled by Yola Mzizi.

Watch the full interview, Building a Career in Fashion with Ssense’s Haein Dorin, on-demand on LinkedIn. Discover similar job opportunities across the globe on BoF Careers today.

Haein Dorin’s first foray into fashion was on the shopfloor at Abercrombie & Fitch as a teenager ahead of attending the University of Southern California. She went on to work in entertainment publicity, collecting internships and work placement roles at the likes of Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures and NBC Universal, before landing a temp job at publishing house Condé Nast.

It was here that Dorin turned a temporary position into her first full-time job, going from “picking up dry cleaning to pulling reporting for how corporate deals were being transacted.” She credits her “willingness to learn and roll up [her] sleeves” with impressing her seniors at Condé Nast, who offered her a job in corporate partnerships.

From there, Dorin went on to work at the likes of GQ as director of brand marketing before moving to Highsnobiety in 2019, where she rose up the ranks to become general manager of client services. In 2023, Dorin joined fashion e-commerce platform Ssense as global head of partnerships and community, where she oversees global brand partnerships within the creative, fashion and business communities.

Now, BoF shares key insights and advice from Haein Dorin’s interview on the BoF Careers series, Building a Career in Fashion.

What drew you to working in the fashion industry?

I have been working for as long as I can remember. I come from a financially challenged background and so I played a part in contributing financially for my family wherever I could [while] growing up. My first official job was in retail when I was 16 at Abercrombie & Fitch — it was an amazing job. I learned the fundamentals of retail and came to understand the stock room — starting off from the ground there.

I was so fascinated because, as you know, season after season, you’d be getting these products and seeing which products sold the fastest, the popularity that it gained and how that influenced culture. I think that’s definitely when I started to dream about working in this industry.

What role has further education played in advancing your career?

University was such an enriching and challenging time for me because I wasn’t quite sure of the career I wanted to go into. A lot of my classes were in observational studies — in the arts — I did international relations, art history, media studies. I fell in love with the world of media and entertainment during that time. That’s what I found the most interesting and it pushed my critical thinking.

I was attending a lot of career fairs, talking to a lot of my teachers. During that time, I landed my first internships, which were in publicity, which [happened] completely out of luck because I had applied to hundreds of internships seeing where I could gain the most experience.

Coming from an immigrant family, I was the first person to have corporate experience. It was an invaluable jumpstart to my career, learning the fundamentals, like how to write an email properly. I learnt how to structure storytelling pitches and create experiences for different audiences, for different films. That experience helped me build that skillset of corporate communications and how to position stories, which really prompted my interest in going into the media world.

How did you land your first full-time role in fashion?

I dabbled in a lot of different industries — PR, comms, media. I was an admin assistant temp before I was a finance temp at Riot Games. At my last temp role in events at Condé Nast, I was lucky enough [to meet] two amazing mentors who offered me a full-time job, which was how I broke into the fashion industry as a digital associate on the corporate partnerships team.

These women saw something in me that I didn’t. I went from picking up dry cleaning to pulling reporting for how these corporate deals were being transacted. And so, there were a lot of late nights, a lot of tears and overnighters at the office of me learning the skill set.

Across industries, a lot of the foundations of what you do day-to-day is very similar, whether you are writing to somebody about a pitch or an idea, or you are in meetings [...] communicating with the leadership team.

Your first job might not be exactly what you’re dreaming of or what you aspired to do, but the skill sets that I learned in terms of billing, reconciliation, learning how to read an analytics report and pull insights out of that — those are still skills that I [still] use today. No matter what the job is, it’s in front of you. Just try to learn it and become well-versed in it, because that is just another skill set that’s going to help you get your next job.

How did you hone your skill sets for the fashion workplace?

When I broke into fashion, I had a publicity, PR and communications background. At the time, fashion was all about digital marketing and a lot of that is based on storytelling. So, bringing that communications background was helpful because I was able to position a pitch email and [use] my skill set in terms of writing that email which could be translated into a business opportunity.

Across industries, a lot of the foundations of what you do day-to-day is very similar, whether you are writing to somebody about a pitch or an idea, or you are in meetings and you are effectively communicating upwards to your leadership team or your team. A lot of that is about how you are communicating in the workplace.

My current mentor, who was my manager, always said: “How can you show up today and tomorrow and be able to contribute and rally the teams and propose solutions to move it forward?” And it is exactly that mentality — how do you show up everyday with a blank slate and really try to dive in and problem solve?

How would you recommend building your network when starting out?

Today, more than ever, with platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, everyone is starting to tell their transparent stories. It’s amazing to be able to have direct communication with people in the industry. So many of my mentors and industry leaders now, I first became friends with on social media. We started following each other on social then we got to work on projects together. We would go to an event together and further deepen that relationship.

I would [suggest you] reach out to whoever you would love to learn from. Sometimes they might not respond, but I think that most of the time they will and they are always willing to help because everyone started their career in some capacity by receiving mentorship and growing their community.

It’s kind of like dating — there are going to be some people in the workplace that you meet [with whom] you immediately click and bond. And then there are some people in the workplace where you will grow to learn to respect each other because of the work that you do. For me — it was really a matter of relatability. I grew up an only child and so I was always seeking that bond of friendship and community.

How did you develop leadership skills to progress in your career?

My first promotion into a leadership position was at that first job [at Condé Nast] […] leading all the digital planning out of the West Coast. As a leader, you have to be outward facing internally, to build relationships with different departments. That way, you are able to get information [you need] ahead of time around what sponsorships are happening, which sets you and the team up for success in terms of knowing the work that needs to be done.

Your first job might not be exactly what you’re dreaming of or what you aspired to do, but the skill sets that I learned in my first job […] are still skills that I use today.

I was able to see that it’s actually not just about my job and my team — it’s about how I liaise with the other departments to be able to set my team up for success. So that type of role opened lots of other possibilities that led to me transitioning into a role at GQ.

As a leader, there’s nothing more important than understanding and hearing what has been going on. What has been working? What hasn’t been working? With your leadership methodologies, it is crucial to understand this from a human and empathetic point of view. Then, you can build and adjust or make small tweaks here and there, in order to make things more efficient or innovate some type of department capability.

But it all goes back to being observational and learning before having two feet on the ground and starting to run.

What does your job entail as global head of partnerships and community at Ssense?

I’ve been at Ssense for about four months now — and it’s a 20-year-old successful e-commerce and content, cultural hub. It’s […] learning about the audience and listening to what our community wants, building a partnership strategy around that. I’ve been working hand-in-hand with our insights and customer analytics team to figure out [what that looks like].

My job really is to observe, see what is doing well and what the community likes, and ask the questions: “What does the Ssense universe look like? Who are our shoppers and readers? What are they eating? How are they decorating their homes? What would they want to drive?” Building that community and the world around it.

It’s incredibly varied: I’m analysing customer data one day; another day I’m crafting an F1 programme with a partner; the next day, we are integrating a beauty brand into the editorial calendar. Everything is about taking what already exists and bringing brands into the magic that is already being done.

What do you value in a junior today?

I love people that are showing their willingness to learn new things every day, because that’s also my interest. After a decade of experience, I’m back in school, learning about business and marketing, and it’s nice because it’s almost like having a tutor for my workplace, which is super helpful.

What I love is if there is a skill set that you haven’t developed yet, but you’re willing to take those extra hours, [you can] take that extra online course to learn it. That always stands out to me because it shows me, if we have another business challenge that we face in another year, I know I’m building a team of individuals that want to come on board, who are open to learning skills that they don’t know yet in order to contribute and push the business goals further.

Pierpaolo Piccioli is parting ways with Valentino after eight years as the Roman couture house’s sole creative director, according to a company statement which called the move a “joint decision.”

A new creative configuration will be announced soon, the statement said.

“I am grateful to Pierpaolo for his role as creative director and for his vision, commitment and creativity that have brought the Maison Valentino to what it stands for today,” said Valentino chief executive Jacopo Venturini.

“We extend our deepest gratitude to Pierpaolo for writing an important chapter in the history of the Maison Valentino,” added Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Valentino chairman and chief executive of owner Qatari investment fund Mayhoola, which controls Valentino.

Last year, Kering acquired 30 percent of Valentino for €1.7 billion — implying a valuation north of €5 billion — as part of a broader partnership with Mayhoola. The agreement gave Kering the option to acquire 100 percent of Valentino “no later than 2028.

Stay tuned to BoF for updates on this developing story.