For centuries, Africa has been a source of inspiration and botanicals for the world’s biggest beauty companies. (Think of Byredo’s best-selling fragrance Bal d’Afrique, or Diptyque’s use of Madagascan vanilla in its scents.)

Now, the continent’s homegrown brands — including Senegalese perfume brand Réserve en Afrique, South African-born Niche Parfums and Nigeria’s Catherine Omai — are ready to step into the spotlight, using Africa’s rich reserves of ingredients to build brands with niche appeal at a premium price point.

“Africa has been key to the perfumery world for centuries. But there’s not many of us [perfumers],” said Réserve en Afrique co-founder Etienne Haddad. “We’re really trying to create something special that can resonate with consumers both on the continent and abroad.”

But while there’s no shortage of innovation, local players have yet to unlock the market’s full potential. Heavyweights such as Coty, Revlon and Puig dominate the market thanks to their extensive distribution channels, continental-wide marketing efforts and strong brand recognition. Other affluent domestic consumers prefer cult brands, creating a market for niche perfume stores dedicated to providing African consumers with access to global brands such as Le Labo and Maison Crivelli.

“In Africa, international brands are still seen as a status symbol and as an aspirational purchase,” said Rubab Abdoolla, a consultant at market research firm Euromonitor International.

African brands also face limited access to suppliers and manufacturers on the continent and a competitive retail environment, making growth and scale difficult. Plus, the region lacks a known scent profile in the way the Middle East is associated with the dark and woody oud, added Abdoolla.

Despite the headwinds, local players see real opportunity. The South African fragrance market is expected to grow 7.6 percent to reach $672 million, while the Kenyan, Angolan and Nigerian markets are all expected to grow this year, reaching a collective $183 million, per Euromonitor.

To cash in, African perfumers are building the region’s scent profile, leaning on botanicals from across the continent such as Egyptian jasmine, Nigerian ginger and black pepper from Côte d’Ivoire, while also crafting nimble retail and marketing strategies to reach the growing consumer group that wants to invest in high-end beauty products in Africa.

The Smell of Success

In Africa, smelling good (or “expensive”) is a subtle indicator of social status, said Thamani Thothe, founder of Botswana-based White Label Fragrances, which incorporates African ingredients like myrrh and marula oil.

“A lot of people here spend close to $200 on just [one] bottle of fragrance,” said Thothe, describing those purchases as a monthly re-up. “We’ve found success locally because we’ve tapped into that psyche,” she added, pointing to countries within southern Africa — including South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe — where the growing middle class are increasingly investing in luxury fragrances.

The dissemination of trends and taste through social media has also been “a game changer”, said South Africa-based Zesipho Mcwango, founder of the fragrance discovery Instagram account The Official Perfume Plug. “Before that, our proximity to luxury and niche brands was zero.”

Despite an increased appetite for luxury fragrances, getting products into consumers hands remains difficult from nation to nation. High shipping costs, custom charges and delays make continental trade near impossible — especially for emerging brands with limited cash flow.

“We should be able to trade amongst ourselves [African countries], but it’s expensive to ship from Botswana to Ghana or Botswana to Kenya; that’s been really challenging,” said Thothe. “If you’re selling a unit for $50, and shipping is $100, it doesn’t make sense.”

There are workarounds. Due to a limited number of physical fragrance stores in countries like Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Angola, Accra-based fine fragrance brand Scent of Africa and its founder Tanal Ghandour are betting on travel retail to help expand the brand’s footprint. Those who are catching flights in African countries could likely afford a Scent of Africa perfume (a 50ml fragrance costs $70), said Ghandour. To boot, “everything at the airport represents quality — especially in duty free next to all these international brands,” he said.

A travel retail presence also offers protection against brand dilution — contraband products are a significant challenge in the region, said Euromonitor’s Abdoolla, which she cites as a particular issue in markets such as Cameroon. For emerging brands, being stocked in trusted retail stores is key to boosting consumer confidence.

“Consumers… feel comfortable buying it [in travel retail] because they know they’re not buying a fake product,” said Ghandour.

Another option is to go global – particularly as interest in African-inspired fragrances grows. In Senegalese capital Dakar, Réserve en Afrique’s Kozhevnikov and Haddad believe the niche perfume market in Africa is small and nascent; there’s more opportunity outside its borders.

“For us the goal is to get out globally. We would definitely sell in different African countries where there is opportunity,” said Kozhevnikov, adding that the business currently sells direct-to-consumer in Europe and the US, as well as in select retailers in South Africa.

Hometown Glory

Historically, African perfume brands have not taken up much shelf space, both at home and abroad, which has hindered their growth, particularly when compared with larger brands. As Olaseinde Olusola, co-founder of Nigerian speciality boutique Seinde Signature, said: “People are not going to buy a niche perfume if they’ve never heard of it or if they’ve never experienced it.”

New retailers are surfacing to cater to the growing demand for luxury and niche perfume. International beauty brands are inking deals with well-established African retailers such as The Foschini Group, Lintons Beauty World and Edgars, meanwhile niche perfume brands are finding a new home in smaller dedicated retail stores.

Skins Cosmetics, the Dutch-owned luxury boutique specialising in niche and luxury perfume, is a market leader in South Africa, having opened its first store in 2017. Now, it has six, and its portfolio has jumped from 50 to 75 international brands including cult favourites like Byredo, Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Frederic Malle – as brick-and-mortar is still the preferred shopping method in the region, said Max Priebatsch, director of ASCO, Skins Cosmetics’s parent company.

The retailer’s pre-existing relationship with niche and luxury fragrance brands was key to kickstarting momentum and securing big brands, but some brands were hesitant to make the pivot into Africa. “When we first opened Skins, some brands didn’t join. They came in later after the concept was realised,” said Priebatsch.

Building a robust and competitive fragrance market requires the participation of international brands. “These brands enjoy being adjacent to each other,” said Priebatsch.

For example, in order to stock Creed, Skins Cosmetics had to have other luxury brands including Le Labo, Diptyque and Frederic Malle in its portfolio. “These brands tend to move together in terms of the retail environment.”

Educating consumers is also key. Seinde Signature is currently running a campaign around the idea of “niche perfume,” said co-founder Olaseinde Olusola, adding that the store is investing heavily in sampling, which is already proving successful.

As a small — but growing number — of perfume fans are waking up to the local fragrance scene, they’re also becoming more open to the idea of trying new African brands.

“A lot of Nigerians prefer something that is foreign,” said Olusola. “There’s a preconceived notion that the quality wouldn’t be good, but after experiencing African perfumes, they’ll change their minds.”

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Joseph Altuzarra is ushering in a new chapter for his business.

The designer’s 16-year-old namesake womenswear label announced on Tuesday that it had received a minority investment from P180, a new venture capital fund headed up by former Vince chief executive Brendan Hoffman and tech entrepreneur Christine Hunsicker. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As part of the deal with P180, Altuzarra will move its e-commerce operations, including inventory management and handling returns, to software platform CaaStle, where Hunsicker serves as chief executive, as well as adding on the ability to rent Altuzarra apparel, bags and more. The goal is for Altuzarra’s e-commerce business to drive profits for the overall brand.

Altuzarra — which last received outside funding from fashion conglomerate Kering for an undisclosed sum in 2013 — is among a growing number of luxury labels investing in their direct selling channels. But while some brands are reducing their reliance on wholesale, in handing its e-commerce operations to CaaStle, Altuzarra will be able to focus on growing its retail partnerships and further developing its assortment, said Shira Sue Carmi, Altuzarra’s chief executive.

“In a lot of ways, this feels like such a great partnership because it really allows us as a team to not have to worry about this part of the business as much,” Altuzarra said. “We’re able to really concentrate on other aspects of the business and for me, be able to concentrate more on design.”

P180 will also help Altuzarra grow its bottom line. The firm, which launched in May and has also invested in multi-brand retailer Elysewalker, is focussed on fashion brands and retailers as investment activity in the sector has softened amid a luxury slowdown. Hoffman argues that P180′s approach reduces risk by allowing portfolio companies to use CaaStle to improve inventory planning, helping them to chart a clear path to profitability.

“We needed to bring a different lens to the business in order to create that value,” Hoffman said. “We’ve been evaluating inventory wrong as an industry … so we feel like we’re bringing a different tool set technology, methodology that will turn these brands and retailers profitable.”

Beyond its investment from P180, Altuzarra is also looking to expand the brand’s visibility. Earlier this month, Joseph Altuzarra was named a designer-in-residence at Victoria’s Secret, where he will design four ready-to-wear collections for the brand. A few of those pieces are set to appear at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show on Tuesday in New York City.

“Victoria’s Secret is a huge machine with incredible marketing capabilities,” Altuzarra said. “That is great for Altuzarra because we’re still growing, and it’s important that we continue to reach new consumers.”

Angelo Baque says he never envisioned opening a store for his 12-year-old, New York-based streetwear label Awake because of how challenging it is to run a brick-and-mortar business in Manhattan.

But in June last year, Awake opened the doors to its first physical shop, on the hot retail strip of Orchard Street on New York’s Lower East Side. Baque said that, aside from once being personally told by the late Virgil Abloh to open a store, he was able to finance it with an investment from Lightwork and was attracted to the negotiable commercial rents in New York post-Covid. He also wanted a physical store to address how his brand and its customers were changing.

“The stuff that we were making at the time, cut-and-sew pieces, were more difficult to sell on a website. At that point, we became a more touchpoint brand, and I started noticing that Kith and Dover Street Market were selling our cut-and-sew pieces [in-store] better than us,” said Baque. “It was also becoming really difficult to show who we were on an Instagram account.”

Awake is part of a wave of menswear brands opening stores across downtown Manhattan at a moment when young consumers are eager for in-person shopping, social-media marketing feels stale and less effective and menswear and streetwear brands are trying to appeal to a changing customer looking for something new. Streetwear brands such as le Père and Fugazi also opened storefronts on Orchard Street within the past year. Stüssy is opening a new flagship on Prince Street and Stòffa opened its first flagship on Grand Street in May. Steven Alan, which closed all its U.S. retail stores in 2019, made a return to Manhattan retail with the opening of a Chelsea store in September. Other young labels, including Denim Tears and Vowels, have opened physical locations this year as well.

Between 2020 and 2023, New York City became a hotbed for first-time retailers, primarily apparel brands, which inked 74 deals during the period, according to the commercial real-estate services and investment company CBRE. While CBRE reports leasing in Manhattan has slowed this past quarter, with fewer vacancies available and post-pandemic rents rising, new-to-market brands are still signing the most deals. And for new menswear retail specifically, downtown New York remains foundational.

“There’s this history of menswear and apparel located in downtown destination environments where the male customer will come and shop,” said CBRE’s senior vice president Joe Hudson. “There’s a number of retailers that have [opened stores] recently that are new names to the neighbourhoods.”

It takes more than finding a space to be successful, however. Baque, a fixture of New York’s menswear ecosystem since his days working retail at Canal Jean Company and Nom de Guerre before serving as Supreme’s brand director for several years, said the time of just opening a store, releasing products and expecting people to show up are long gone.

“If you’re still operating like that, you’re not going to last long,” he said. “You have to constantly activate, communicate and offer a different experience for customers that want to come back.”

Why Menswear Brands Are Embracing New York Retail

Even streetwear brands born online, such as Fugazi, are opening stores to fuel growth beyond social marketing. Although Fugazi’s founder, Trevor Gorji, credits the past seven years of his “internet” brand’s rise to social platforms like Instagram and YouTube, he opened Fugazi’s Lower Manhattan flagship in April to “legitimise” his label. There’s a stigma against “Instagram brands,” he said, and he wanted to show his brand was “serious and real.”

For Vowels creative director Yuki Yagi, the new store, which opened near Manhattan’s Chinatown in May, was a way to infuse his “alternative-luxury” streetwear label — whose graphic t-shirts alone cost $135 — with a sense of prestige. The store doubles as an appointment-only research library filled with 2,000 archival books and magazines curated by Yagi. He compared it to the experience of being offered champagne at Hermès.

To justify the high commercial rents, however, brands often need to figure out how to distinguish themselves in a competitive market where another option for a shopper’s dollars is a short walk away.

Fugazi is attempting to open the next buzzy streetwear cafe with “Le Gaz,” following in the footsteps of retailers like Ralph Lauren, Dover Street Market and Aimé Leon Dore that have used cafés to turn their spaces into destinations for more than shopping. Awake’s store, meanwhile, doubles as an community space with free events.

When managed successfully, these stores can be lucrative. Hudson at CBRE pointed out that the financial returns from a physical store can be more favourable these days than relying entirely on expensive digital marketing and e-commerce, which is seeing an industry-wide slowdown. A strong retail presence can also create a feedback loop that drives shoppers back to a brand’s e-commerce business.

Awake’s physical space, for example, seems to be working for the brand. Baque said that while the global reach of wholesale accounts remain important for Awake’s business, its DTC sales in-store and through e-commerce are now its strongest revenue streams.

“Do you spend $250,000 on Instagram for a whole year of social [marketing] or do you want to put that towards a brick-and-mortar [store] and get some kind of return on investment,” said Yagi. “I think people just want to see something live and more real.”

The Challenges of Running a Store

Managing physical retail does come with adjustments, however, especially when it comes to keeping a space stocked with inventory. Opening Awake’s first store felt like a reset for the brand that took him back to “year one,” according to Baque. He hasn’t only invested heavily in store events to introduce a new generation of customers to Awake, but even re-evaluated the clothing his brand releases.

“I [previously] just designed what I like and didn’t really consider how it would merchandise on the floor,” he said. “Now, that has played a big part into how I design — how it lays out in the shop and how I want it to flow.”

Gorji has found designing and presenting new products in-store consistently more challenging than just dropping products online whenever they’re ready. The brand’s in-store cafe was also opened by three of his friends who are splitting the rent with Gorji.

Yagi has his own unique dynamics to deal with. He described Vowels as a start-up that’s accountable to investors. Last month, the brand tweaked its appointment-only approach by opening a section of the store to the public.

For Gorji, even with the challenges of running a physical space, the opportunity to open a New York store was one he couldn’t pass on.

“I couldn’t wait another year,” Gorji said. “Now was the time to secure something like this; otherwise we’ll regret it.”

Baque, a native New Yorker, is pleased with New York’s menswear retail boom, likening it to a surge in retail shops that took place in Los Angeles about a decade ago. The same is now happening in New York, in his view.

“I’m happy when I see other stores open up because it just adds more to the landscape,” he said.

PARIS – Dior’s canvas bowling bags were popular throughout the 1990s and 2000s; you can still find them in vintage shops and resale sites for a few hundred dollars. The brand is currently working to bring back the style, having featured an updated version of the bag — now called “Groove” — on its September runway.

The price? €2,900. Which is considered accessible for handbags at Dior these days, as the French couture brand has hiked up the cost of its flagship styles. A medium Lady Dior bag now retails for €5,900 ($6,500), 46 percent higher than in 2019.

Soaring prices for familiar designs combined with macroeconomic headwinds in key regions have put significant strain on the luxury sector in recent months. Dior-owner LVMH is no exception. The French luxury conglomerate’s third-quarter results, announced after market Tuesday, are expected to be grim.

After gradually cooling off from post-pandemic highs, the global luxury market has slipped into a proper downturn, which could be both longer and more severe than initially forecast. What began as consumer fatigue with heavily logoed products and slowing sales to less-wealthy “aspirational” clients has since spread across price points and aesthetics. Sector leader LVMH saw sales fall 1 percent in the first half; Gucci owner Kering reported a 20 percent drop.

Shares in luxury companies have rallied in recent weeks following positive macroeconomic cues: China announced a round of fiscal stimulus to revive its sluggish economy, while the US announced a round of interest-rate cuts.

But analysts have warned that the rally is built on shaky ground. Retailers continue to order with caution as the collections from last September’s fashion month head to showrooms. In a recent interview, Kering deputy CEO Francesca Bellettini described the industry’s current situation as a “crisis.”

At LVMH, chairman Bernard Arnault has shaken up leadership, announcing designer changes at Celine and Fendi, naming a new deputy CEO for Dior and new CEOs at Givenchy, Hublot and Tag Heuer. But how and when the luxury conglomerate will regain momentum remains an open question.

A recent note by UBS analyst Zuzanna Pusz forecast third-quarter sales down 1 percent at LVMH’s fashion and leather goods division, which houses key brands Louis Vuitton and Dior, saying there was “no recovery in sight” for the group. “The estimated benefit … from the July price increase at Louis Vuitton could be offset by the negative impact of the recent Dior controversy,” Pusz said, citing an Italian investigation into sweatshop labour in the brand’s supply chain.

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Economic Headwinds

Analysts point to slower growth, lingering inflation and low consumer confidence in key economies as the biggest drivers of the luxury downturn. Those factors have damaged both real purchasing power and the consumer “feel good” that’s critical to sales of luxury goods.

In China, high youth unemployment and depressed markets for real estate and equities have significantly dampened the country’s post-Covid recovery and weighed on consumer confidence. For many, a luxury purchase seems unwise now. “For the past six to nine months, consumers have not had the capacity to project a brighter future,” HSBC analyst Erwan Rambourg said.

Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s economy has fared better than China’s, but the market risks saturation. Koreans already spend more on luxury per capita than any other nationality.

Sales in Japan are up sharply this year as a weak yen has made shopping ultra-attractive for international buyers. But the foreign exchange impact means those sales are less profitable for European brands, and price increases to offset currency weakness risk excluding local buyers.

In the US, growth in wages, equities and real estate has outpaced most other mature economies since the pandemic. The job market remains at all-time highs, but many Americans have already spent the savings accumulated during Covid-19 lockdowns, as well as rapidly shifting their priorities back to other categories like travel, restaurants, health and wellness.

Europe continues to be impacted by lingering inflation and the geographic proximity to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. LVMH’s results will show to what extent the 2024 Olympic Games represented a further blow to sales by deterring luxury shoppers from visiting Paris this summer.

But luxury’s wounds are also self-inflicted.

‘Greedflation’

Steep price hikes since 2019 — both a response to rising costs and an opportunistic bid to pad margins — have worsened the blow for consumers who are already being pinched by inflation, leading many clients to disengage with luxury brands. Others have become more attentive to declining quality: reports of crooked stitching, cheaper hardware, and poor conditions in factories have all gone viral on social media, damaging brand perception.

Today’s luxury prices are on average 54 percent higher than before Covid, according to HSBC, with key styles soaring still higher: the price of Chanel’s 2.55 flap bag has increased by 91 percent; Louis Vuitton’s Speedy is up by 100 percent.

“Consumers are not naive … There’s an element of arrogance, so-called ‘greedflation.’” said Rambourg. And once luxury brands raise prices on iconic products, it’s tricky to backtrack.

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Creativity in Crisis

Of course, luxury is meant to be expensive: brands trade on a perception of exclusivity that is bolstered by high prices. But there’s a growing consensus in the industry that prices have gotten too far ahead — not just of quality, but of creativity and desirability. In many cases, the value proposition seems out of whack even for the wealthiest customers.

In recent seasons, safe designs have outperformed as customers leaned more than ever toward items they see as long-term investment pieces with an attractive price-per-wear. That’s partly why brands ranging from Gucci (under new designer Sabato de Sarno) to Chanel (under now-departed Virginie Viard) adopted an ultra-wearable, heritage-driven strategy.

Emphasising iconic carryovers and wearable merch is savvy business as brands seek to defend record sales and profits achieved during the pandemic. But the de-emphasizing of bold creative concepts that will keep customers excited about fashion has become the subject of growing concern.

“These are awkward times for our fashion-become-luxury industry. Most everything today seems stripped down to please and target the consumer rather than to better creativity [and] innovation,” art director Ezra Petronio wrote in a recent introduction to his magazine Self-Service.

Heritage-first strategies have the benefit of underscoring a brand’s enduring value for customers. But they have the downside of giving people fewer reasons to feel excited about your brand, to talk about it online or visit stores now rather than next season.

“Luxury customers still remain enthusiastic and motivated to purchase luxury items, but more than ever, they need a compelling reason to invest. Brands that lean too heavily on their traditional staples are feeling the strain,” said Richard Johnson, MyTheresa’s chief commercial officer.

Looking Ahead

Breaking out of the current slump is sure to be a challenge. Marketing budgets are down almost across the board as brands adjust to the new demand environment, putting pressure on managers and creatives to perform miracles of fashion alchemy — creating greater demand with fewer resources.

The world’s largest consumer economies, China and the US, are in focus. On October 12, China announced a financial stimulus plan aimed at reviving the country’s economic growth. “It is possible that the government will want to support consumer morale ahead of the next Lunar New Year [in late January],” Bernstein analysts wrote. “However, from what we know about the broadly outlined stimulus, there don’t seem to be direct measures in place directed at consumers.”

Chinese consumers “have money in the coffers to spend. The stabilisation of real estate and equity markets could lift sentiment,” said Jelena Sokolova, analyst at Morningstar. But “so far, it’s more hope than anything else.”

Mid-September, the US announced its first interest rate cut in four years, reducing its key lending rate by 0.5 percentage points. The larger-than-expected cut was made to ensure the US stays “in a strong place,” according to Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve.

Overall, the outlook for the US economy seems cautiously optimistic. “The American consumer right now is the only one with a bit of signs of life. Of course it depends on the brand, but we expect that the US cluster will do better than other nationalities,” said Rambourg.

While sales to aspirational buyers remain depressed, pandemic-era bets on opening and expanding US boutiques in secondary cities could start to pay off as projects come to fruition. Well-off American consumers, many of whom do not live in big cities, could repatriate spending as plush physical shopping experiences open up closer to home, according to HSBC. Alternately, brands could find their cost base in the US overstretched if demand fails to pick back up.

The Next Big Thing?

This isn’t the first time the luxury industry has found itself in a panic over where things were headed, and in need of a big new idea. Couture gave way to ready-to-wear; ready-to-wear opened the door to diffusion lines and licences. Later came the revolutionary notion that designers could reanimate the “codes” of luxury houses to build global brands, notably put in place by Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel in the 80s. As department stores declined in the 2000s, the industry leaned more heavily on the profitable handbag category (sizeless, seasonless, expensive) in a bit to reduce its exposure to the volatile and less-profitable business of designer apparel.

More recently, following a slowdown in the mid-2010s, luxury opened itself to a new generation through casualisation and streetwear, offering entry-priced merch like hoodies, sneakers and sporty mini-bags. Those products not only reached younger and less well-off customers, they gave brands ways to be present in people’s lives away from galas and boardrooms.

Going forward, analysts believe the most successful brands are likely to be ones who “create new stepping stones” to get entry-level customers excited about spending again. Lowering prices or reinstating end-of-season sales is anathema to luxury players, but they are expected to discreetly offer new products that are smaller, simpler and less expensive while waiting for customers to grow into increased prices for their core items.

The problem is that T-shirts and keychains won’t feel like a revolution this time. In the meantime, brands are also working to reinforce their cultural clout, engaging more deeply with devotees of sports, art, music and more to keep animating their brands in the absence of a big new aesthetic idea.

Brands are also turning over their creative leadership at a clip: the coming seasons will show whether new designers at Chanel and Fendi (still to be named), Valentino (Alessandro Michele), Givenchy (Sarah Burton) and Tom Ford (Haider Ackermann) can reinvigorate demand.

It’s a cast of familiar characters, for the most part. Will one of them have the next big idea?

Disclosure: LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholders’ documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence.

Nails Inc, the British nail care company founded in 1999 by entrepreneur Thea Green has been acquired by private equity firm Pacific World Corporation, the company announced Monday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In addition to its range of premium nail care products, Nails Inc also has a sister brand called Holler & Glow which makes affordable bath and body products. The acquisition will see both brands refocus on the north American market, which represents 50 percent of combined revenues.

In a statement, Bart J. deBie, managing director at Prospect Capital, Pacific World Corporation’s parent company, said the business sees “incredible potential” in Nails Inc, praising its commitment to “fast and agile product innovation.”

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