Last month when Coachella tickets went on sale and did not immediately sell out, it touched off a bit of soul searching. The two-weekend music festival had, bit by bit and then all at once, built its identity as the influencer event of the year.

Those tickets did eventually sell, but there was still a lingering fear among the selfie set: if 150,000 people showed up in the California desert and their TikToks didn’t go viral, did Coachella really happen?

It’s a pressing question for fashion and beauty brands, too. Coachella has played host to some of the industry’s most over-the-top marketing activations over the years, and turned niche labels into Instagram sensations. Countless brands release “festival edits,” with a mix of new items and Coachella-friendly selections from their inventory (this year, prairie dresses and jorts are proving popular, while more dressed up styles, such as sequined dresses, are on the way out, according to retail analytics firm Edited). Festival sponsors make over gas stations, build party houses from scratch and host elaborate, all-day events with their own slates of musical artists. The Revolve Festival, hosted by the influencer-friendly online apparel brand since 2015, is a veritable institution at this point; the brand’s sales now top $1 billion.

This year, Revolve Festival is down to one day, from two (the status of the region’s gas stations remains unknown at press time). It’s contributing to a general sense that Coachella is less essential than it used to be. Music lovers, influencers and brands now have their pick of all-day concerts. Of retailers tracked by Edited, just one, Wolf & Badger, has released a Coachella edit, with others opting for a generic “festival edit,” albeit often with desert themes. Tecovas, a western wear brand that can thank Coachella in part for the surging popularity of its cowboy boots among non-cowboys, has no official presence at the festival, opting to sponsor the country-themed Stagecoach at the same venue later this month.

Coachella is also feeling the effects of changes in the marketing world, particularly in how influencers build and monetise their brands. Take Aimee Song, a Revolve Festival regular, whose Song of Style collection has been sold by the company since 2019. She is independently launching a new luxury knitwear line, Amiya, and says she wants the clothes to be the main attraction, rather than her Instagram feed. Coachella doesn’t feel like the right place to market $1,000 sweaters.

That’s not to say the festival is a flop. Plenty of fashion and fashion-adjacent brands will be on site, with Paper and Nylon magazines and True Religion hosting events, among others. Levi’s still sponsors the Neon Carnival dance party, and Nike will be pushing its newly released Air Max Dns.

And if you still question whether Coachella still has a unique ability to draw attention, check out the frenzy over reports that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce were making the trek to see Friday’s headliner, Lana Del Rey. The couple definitely weren’t in the audience for the singer’s stops in Huntsville, Alabama or Burgettstown, Pennsylvania.

“I am a Coachella guy,” Kelce told People.

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Italy’s Ermenegildo Zegna posted a 19.3 percent increase in full-year organic revenue on Friday and proposed a 20 percent hike in its annual dividend, helped by robust demand for its luxury products.

The family-owned fashion group, which controls menswear brand Zegna, as well as the US labels Thom Browne and Tom Ford Fashion, saw a 24 percent increase in Greater China revenue during the period.

“We are on track with the integration of the Tom Ford Fashion business, which is enriching our unique proposition in luxury glamour” Chairman and CEO Ermenegildo Zegna said.

The company’s full-year revenue reached 1.9 billion euros ($2.06 billion) in 2023 and it has proposed a dividend of 0.12 euros ($0.1300) per share.

Zegna, which debuted on Wall Street in late 2021, said its EBIT reached 220 million euros in 2023, compared to 157.7 million euros in the prior year.

By Gursimran Kaur; Editing by Ravi Prakash Kumar

Learn more:

Ermenegildo Zegna Sidesteps Luxury’s US Slowdown

Sales in America were boosted by the company’s acquisition of the Tom Ford fashion business, as well as double digit growth at Zegna and Thom Browne.

An Italian court on Friday placed under judicial administration a company owned by Italian fashion group Armani, accused of indirectly subcontracting its production to Chinese companies that exploited workers.

The court in Milan ordered a one-year receivership for Giorgio Armani Operations, described as an industrial company of the Armani Group, according to the ruling seen by Reuters.

It said Giorgio Armani Operations had entrusted the production of its bags to two firms that subcontracted the work to four Chinese companies which paid their workers €2 to €3 ($3.25) per hour.

Armani Group said in a statement it had “always had control and prevention measures in place to minimise abuses in the supply chain,” adding it would work with the authorities to clarify its position.

The Milan public prosecutors’ office has for years been investigating the outsourcing of production by large groups in the fashion and other industries to subcontractors who allegedly exploit workers.

The fashion company Alviero Martini, which had its bags produced by external Chinese workshops, was recently placed under judicial supervision.

With its tradition of sophisticated craftsmanship, Italy is home to thousands of small manufacturers that cover 50-55 percent of the global production of luxury clothing and leather goods, consultancy Bain calculates, against 20-25 percent for the rest of Europe.

Learn more:

Luxury Brands Lag on Efforts to Reduce Forced Labour

Despite strides made to eliminate the use of forced labour in fashion’s supply chain, companies’ lack of transparency is causing them to fall behind, according to a new industry report.

Tom Ford has appointed Dexter King as senior vice president, global general manager, promoting him from his previous global marketing and strategy position. King has been with the business for nine years, and will continue to report to Guillaume Jesel, the brand’s chief executive and president.

In his new role, King will be tasked with driving the brand’s luxury positioning and expanding geographic growth. Tom Ford Beauty is of great importance to its parent, the Estée Lauder Companies – in 2022, it splurged $2.8 billion to acquire the entirety of the brand so it wouldn’t lose the rights to its lucrative beauty line.

Sales of its premium products have contributed to pockets of net sales growth for ELC against its difficult post-pandemic recovery; hero products like the Black Orchid and Lost Cherry perfumes and Shade and Illuminate contour palette are enduringly popular, while new launches like the Ultra-Shine Lip Color also generate buzz.

“Dexter’s appointment recognizes his tenured success on Tom Ford Beauty and I look forward to working with him on the future of luxury beauty,” said Jesel.

Learn more:

Estée Lauder Reveals Its Recovery Playbook

The beauty giant announced layoffs and plans to regain profitability, measures to restore faith in investors and customers alike.

It begins around the start of April each year: a tsunami of promotions for “sustainable” brands and products keen to leverage the marketing potential of Earth Day.

The April 22 event was conceived some 50 years ago as a way to draw attention to climate issues and galvanise environmental action, but these days it’s often treated more like a shopping holiday that lasts the whole month.

Except this year, something is different. Earth Day pitches are down year-on-year, based on an informal analysis of the volume of emails arriving in the inboxes of BoF’s editorial team. No doubt, April is still young, but the tone of the messaging has shifted as well. Fewer comms teams are circulating shopping recommendations — or at the very least, they’ve clocked not to bother sending them to us.

Instead of pushing upcycled, regeneratively farmed or other buzzword-enhanced capsule collections, companies are hosting educational talks, promoting takeback programmes and offering insights into their broader sustainability strategies.

Lululemon even managed to drop its first product made using a new polyester recycling technology earlier this week without referencing Earth Day at all.

So what’s changed?

Regulation, for one. Over the last two years there’s been a seismic shift in what advertising watchdogs in major markets like Europe and the UK will tolerate when it comes to sustainability marketing.

Labels once commonly used to market Earth Day collections, like “green,” “eco” and “responsible,” are now risky, if not verboten. British brands got a timely reminder of this last week, when Boohoo and Asos reached an agreement with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to change the way they market the environmental credentials of their clothes so that any potential benefits are more accurate and clear.

“The industry as a whole is so much more educated and people are also a little bit afraid of making a mistake and getting called out for stuff,” said Carrie Ellen Philips, co-founding partner at consulting and communications firm BPCM. “What we’re seeing here is that companies are realising that sustainability doesn’t equal one better product, it equals doing better all year.”

The strategic calculus for brands has shifted, too. Launching an upcycled capsule or organic line now ranks as an also-ran in an increasingly saturated market, rather than a distinguishing promotional moment. And for companies really working to improve their environmental footprint, any communication around Earth Day risks getting drowned out or associated with less meaningful actions.

“This is the Hallmark card holiday of sustainability,” said Erin Allweiss, co-founder of communications firm No.29, which represents brands whose businesses are impact-focused. “It’s gotten so loud around Earth Month that we recommend not doing things because it detracts from work going on year round and it gets lost.”

It’s hard to make a credible case to consumers that companies are operating more responsibly while using an event designed to raise awareness about the climate crisis as an excuse to shill more clothes, a key contributor to the problem.

“In this over-consuming, over-production era, if you meet Earth Day with just another product, you’re not getting the memo,” said Emma Beckett, managing director at Emma Beckett PR.

Increasingly, it seems brands have clocked this cognitive dissonance. And that opens up the opportunity to explore new ways to engage with Earth Day by trying to promote education and action, rather than products.