Trend Forecasting In Merchandising

I was walking through a market in South London over the weekend and stumbled across a stall full of vintage Burberry outerwear. I’d guess most of the stock was early to mid-1990’s before the first rebrand that saw them drop the ‘s’ off the name. Alongside a plethora of trenches, were gorgeous wool car coats in Harris tweed and alpaca for a snip of what they would cost new today. It got me thinking why luxury brand are still struggling to square the re-sale conundrum. Some say margins are too thin, inventory control is unpredictable and few brands want to house the pre-loved product on their own website, in case it cannibalises their new collections. Opening a separate URL leaves a brand open to significant costs trying to drive traffic to the site. Yet stats show that 47% of luxury consumers are now open to considering second-hand garments. Brands have to work this out. Ralph Lauren is capitalising on this and has quietly transformed nostalgia for vintage styles into a business unit primed for growth. RL has done this by reclaiming its own archive, sourcing pieces from online marketplaces, authenticating and reselling them under the Ralph Lauren Vintage label, hosted on their own US-only site. It is the attention to the merchandising that makes these products viable. Product is elevated into cohesive drops, like mini collections of one-off pieces, where provenance, scarcity, and storytelling reframe second-hand garments into collectible finds. These drops sell out fast, building brand heat, trust and at a price point way above the standard market rate. It is masterful brand curation. What Ralph Lauren prove is when brands control their pre-loved storytelling and merchandising, they can own the margin and turn circularity from a challenge into a competitive advantage. DHR Global #circularity #fashionresale

eBay launches a secondhand fashion collection at New York Fashion Week eBay introduced preloved clothing into high-profile by partnering with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and the British Fashion Council, eBay’s "Endless Runway" showcasing preloved items from luxury brands like Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood. This initiative aims to make secondhand fashion more mainstream, showing that preloved clothing can be just as aspirational as new designer items. The result so far? A 1,600% increase in searches for "pre-loved fashion" and a 7,000% surge in searches for "sustainable fashion". Why does this matter to fashion brands worldwide? The global secondhand market is expanding rapidly as consumers become more aware of the environmental impact of overconsumption, with platforms and brands alike working to integrate secondhand fashion into the mainstream. Events like Ebay's runway shows and partnerships such as The Or Foundation's billboard during New York Fashion Week highlight growing concerns about textile waste and promote a shift toward more sustainable consumption. Secondhand September, supported by brands like DVF (Diane von Furstenberg) and The North Face, encourages consumers to embrace pre-loved fashion in both physical and digital stores, aiming to reduce reliance on new material production. Pop culture plays a vital role in making secondhand fashion aspirational, as seen in Ebay's presentation of archival fashion during London Fashion Week, demonstrating how secondhand shopping can be both stylish and sustainable. Consumers, especially younger generations, are more conscious of the fashion industry's ecological footprint, and they increasingly prefer brands that align with their values. For fashion companies, integrating preloved offerings into their business models is not just a sustainable choice—it’s a smart business move that taps into a booming market, while contributing to the solution for fashion’s waste problem. The future of fashion is circular, and the secondhand movement is leading the way. #decarbonisation #fashion #co2emissions Visual: @impact

Heritage vs Relevance: How Long Can Legacy Alone Sell? Heritage has always been luxury’s most powerful asset. But in 2025, heritage alone is not enough. Deloitte reports that Gen Z now makes up 20% of luxury buyers, and 57% of them say brand values matter more than brand history. This new generation is not impressed by archives if the present feels disconnected from their reality. We’ve seen both sides of the story: • Louis Vuitton in Japan partnered with Yayoi Kusama to blend its heritage with cultural relevance. The result was more than a collection; it was an event that resonated globally, proving that history can be a foundation for reinvention. • Burberry, on the other hand, became trapped in its own success. The overexposure of its iconic check nearly suffocated the brand until bold leadership forced a reset. Heritage had become nostalgia, and nostalgia was weighing it down. I have witnessed this tension up close in the GCC. Clients here respect heritage but expect relevance. They want to see maisons adapt to cultural cues, seasonal storytelling, and even local collaborations. When a brand refuses to evolve, it risks becoming a museum piece rather than a living experience. Heritage is powerful. But without relevance, it becomes a liability. The real question is: Which brand today is using its past to shape the future, and which are still living in it? #LuxuryStrategy #Heritage #LuxuryInsights #GlobalLuxury #RetailExcellence #GCCLuxury #CustomerExperience #BrandLeadership

Luxury brands love to talk about heritage. About timeless icons, legacy collections, savoir-faire. But when it comes to product strategy, that heritage is more museum than movement. What if it didn’t have to be? What if resale wasn’t just a logistics function, a circularity checkbox, or a clean-up operation? What if resale was… a creative department? Let me explain. Every day, resale platforms process thousands of listings. The same models surface again and again, not because they’re on-trend, but because they never stopped being desirable. Some were discontinued years ago. Some never reissued. But they’re still circulating. Still hunted. Still loved. That’s not inventory. That’s cultural data. And no one in the luxury industry is using it. Meanwhile, resale platforms are. Rebag tracks “Clair Scores.” The RealReal reports on most-searched vintage styles. Vestiaire Collective can tell you how fast a Prada Re-Nylon sells in Tokyo vs. Paris. These aren’t anecdotes. They’re signals. Now imagine if that intelligence lived inside the maison. A bag that’s passed through three hands in a decade and still sells near retail isn’t just a product. It’s a legacy SKU. A creative brief. Why isn’t that informing the next drop? Fashion has tested the idea but half-heartedly. Louis Vuitton x Murakami was reissued early 2025 for the 20th anniversary of the original collaboration — because demand on resale never died. Prada’s Re-Edition 2000 and 2005 bags were pulled directly from resale heat and relaunched for Gen Z. Fendi’s Baguette? Resale kept it alive long before Carrie Bradshaw wore it again. But these are exceptions. Not a system. Most creative teams still build collections off moodboards and trend decks — while a living archive of real-world desirability is circulating online. You don’t need a forecasting agency to know what works. You just need to watch what people refuse to let go of. Here’s the move: Build a resale observatory inside the creative studio. Designers and merchandisers should track what resurfaces, what spikes, what sells fast. Use resale to inform reissues and drops. Don’t just copy. Curate. Give it context. Give it storytelling. Treat re-editions as strategy, not stunts. If a product has proven desirability, it deserves a comeback, not just an IG carousel. Because here’s the truth: Resale is brand memory in motion. And right now, platforms own that memory. They know what your client still wants — better than you do. Design doesn’t have to start from scratch. It can start from history. But only if you treat resale as truth — not noise. And yes, show the photos. The Prada Re-Editions. The Baguette revival. The Murakami comeback. Not just for style. For proof.

Why resale is becoming a governance issue for luxury brands Luxury brands often speak about durability, timelessness, and long-term value. But those promises are not tested only through campaigns, boutiques, or new launches. They are also tested in the secondary market, where products continue to circulate, retain value, or lose it in full view of consumers. Resale is therefore no longer peripheral. It is becoming a visible measure of desirability, trust, and brand strength over time. What is striking is that luxury brands have not approached it in the same way. In watches, several maisons have integrated pre-owned into their strategy and turned it into a controlled extension of the brand. In fashion, by contrast, resale has often remained external, treated as a parallel market rather than as a strategic lever. Yet a well-managed secondary market does not weaken exclusivity. It can reinforce it. When brands control authentication, servicing, warranties, and distribution, resale helps preserve quality standards while extending the life, visibility, and legitimacy of the product. It also turns the archive into an active asset rather than a passive historical reference. The issue becomes even more strategic in markets where pre-owned luxury is growing quickly and where trust is central to consumer adoption. China is a particularly important case. As younger consumers become more comfortable entering luxury through resale, the platforms that authenticate, present, and explain products are shaping the relationship with the brand. If brands remain absent from that process, they lose more than a transaction. They lose data, pricing influence, authority over authentication, and the ability to define what the first brand encounter means. In such cases, resale becomes a question of control as much as a question of opportunity. This is also why resale can no longer be viewed simply as a way to recover value from past products. It is increasingly a governance issue: who controls brand value after the first sale, who defines legitimacy in the secondary market, and who captures the client relationship attached to it. The brands that invest in certification, trade-in models, and archive-based storytelling will be better positioned to protect long-term desirability. Those that wait may find that a growing share of their brand equity is being created and monetized elsewhere. I advise luxury brands and premium companies on the strategic choices that shape long-term value: positioning, distribution control, client development, and the governance of desirability across channels and markets. When resale begins to influence pricing power, perception, and customer ownership, it belongs on the executive agenda. #Luxury #LuxuryStrategy #BrandStrategy #LuxuryMarketing #Resale

Luxury fashion spent a decade chasing mass consumers. Last night, it put a dress behind museum glass and called it art. The 2026 Met Gala inaugurated permanent galleries for fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, pairing approximately 400 garments with works from across the museum's collection (The Met, February 2026). The argument encoded in that move has been made, with increasing frequency, across the world's most authoritative institutions. In the past eighteen months: the Louvre hosted its first-ever fashion exhibition, placing 65 couture pieces across 9,000 square meters of the Department of Decorative Arts (Musée du Louvre, 2025). The Pinacoteca di Brera, founded in 1809, opened its galleries to fashion for the first time in 200 years, presenting more than 100 archival Armani garments alongside Caravaggio, Raphael, and Bellini (The Art Newspaper, 2025). The V&A London is staging "Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art" through November 2026. The timing is not coincidental. The sector spent the past decade pursuing the opposite logic: expansion, democratization, mass aspirational marketing. It worked. And then it produced a structural problem. Research published in Psychology and Marketing in 2025 documents the cost: democratization operates as a negative network externality for traditional luxury consumers. When luxury becomes widely accessible, high-value consumers abandon it (Shukla et al., 2025). The corrective mechanism is the rarity principle: restrict access, and desire returns. Museums are the most culturally legible form of restriction available. A garment behind institutional glass, in a room with Caravaggio, is not for sale. It cannot be accessed through an entry-level product line or a brand collaboration. The museum positions fashion in exactly the register that mass-market growth dissolved: remote, rare, elevated beyond acquisition. The complication is that these exhibitions drew mass audiences. The Louvre show attracted over one million visitors. The rarity signal is being delivered inside one of the most visited buildings on earth. What the museum wave confirms is that the luxury sector is in active renegotiation with its own cultural position: who it is for, what it is worth, and what institutional register it belongs in. Redecorating accessibility and reconstituting distance produce the same exhibition. They do not produce the same brand. #metgala2026 #luxurystrategy #brandstrategy #luxuryfashion

Luxury is running out of time. By 2030, Gen-Z will hold the keys to its future, yet too many maisons still speak a language that echoes in empty halls. The old vocabulary—price hikes, celebrity endorsements, glossy campaigns—rings hollow to a generation raised on TikTok loops, vintage finds, and digital communities where meaning is co-created, not dictated. What is striking is not Gen-Z’s indifference to luxury, but their indifference to its performance. They still desire beauty, craft, and distinction—but they no longer accept them packaged in the rigid hierarchies of the past. For them, a Rolex on the wrist and a Rick Owens “Dunk” sneaker in the closet can coexist with thrifted vintage. Value is no longer measured in exclusivity, but in resonance. This generation, born into YouTube tutorials and livestreamed lives, expects brands to converse, not declaim. They want to laugh, remix, and participate. A luxury campaign that does not entertain is invisible; a store experience that feels impersonal is irrelevant. The age of aspiration has given way to the age of participation. Here, Virgil Abloh remains an inspiring guide. He saw earlier than most that creativity is remix, not rupture—that changing 3% of something familiar could make it radically new. He blurred the line between streetwear and couture, between fashion and music, between object and system. Above all, he democratized luxury by opening doors, mentoring, and treating design as a shared cultural act rather than a closed sanctuary. His language was not about distance, but about belonging—exactly the shift Gen-Z now demands. The paradox is clear: Gen-Z rejects price inflation unmoored from meaning, yet rewards transparency, storytelling, and cultural courage. They are digital natives but also nostalgic, reviving archives, curating vintage, weaving the past into their feeds. Luxury, if it wants to remain alive, must embrace this contradiction: heritage as open source, aura as dialogue. Not just about dressing celebrities, but about creating worlds where communities feel seen and heard. Not just about polished perfection, but about friction, imperfection, and intimacy. https://lnkd.in/eyfy-gf5

When Trade Deals Start Shaping Couture, What Does Luxury Become? Unpopular opinion: Luxury is no longer shaped only by creative directors and brand narratives. It’s increasingly shaped by trade, policy, and global power shifts. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been observing luxury from two very different vantage points. On one side were the SS26 couture shows. The craftsmanship, silhouettes, and quiet confidence of houses that know exactly who they are. On the other were conversations coming out of Davos and headlines around the India–EU Free Trade Agreement — supply chains, labour, technology, capital flows, geopolitical alliances. At first, these worlds felt far apart. One emotional and cultural, the other political and structural. But somewhere between watching couture and reading about trade architecture, something clicked. Luxury is no longer operating outside macro reality; it’s operating inside it. Look at Dior’s Spring–Summer 2026 couture. Botanical symbolism, archival references, sculptural handwork rooted in Dior’s own gardens. It felt grounding — anchoring value in history, craft, and cultural memory. Similarly, Chanel’s SS26 couture under Matthieu Blazy moved away from spectacle toward a more poetic, nature-driven language. These weren’t just aesthetic choices. They felt like responses to a world where supply chains are fragile, labour is political, and cultural clarity matters again. Craft didn’t feel decorative this season; it felt strategic. There was restraint too; fewer attempts to chase immediacy, more timeless construction. In a volatile global environment, permanence becomes a signal of strength. Now zoom out. When trade agreements reshape tariffs, luxury pricing shifts. When geopolitical alliances change, sourcing strategies change. When capital flows reorganise, store footprints follow. Luxury has always followed culture and capital. What’s new is that it now follows policy too. The India–EU FTA is a clear example. Not because it will make luxury cheaper, but because it alters the architecture within which luxury operates — how goods move, how value is justified, how markets are built over decades. And we’re entering a multi-polar luxury era. - Europe retains heritage authority - The US drives capital and scale - Asia shapes growth velocity - The Middle East defines experience-led luxury - India increasingly influences the future through its consumers, craft intelligence, and talent depth. Couture didn’t announce this shift explicitly. But it felt like designers already know the ground beneath luxury is changing. For brands, creative excellence alone will no longer be enough. For professionals, neither will storytelling alone. Economic literacy, cultural intelligence, and macro awareness will become essential. Do you think couture is already responding to global shifts instinctively? Or are we still treating creativity and geopolitics as separate worlds? #LuxuryStrategy #GlobalLuxury #BusinessOfLuxury #RichaReflects

A long running brand owner asked me to prove AI wouldn't make his brand "look like everyone else's." I proved it with his archive. His fear was legitimate: → generic prompts produce generic fashion → he'd seen the samey AI aesthetic flooding his feed So instead of a slide deck: a live demonstration with his own DNA. Day 1 — Sketch → hand-drew a visual vocabulary from 20 years of his archive → the house's curved seams, tonal palettes, restraint → not copying pieces. Extracting grammar. Day 2 — AI (explore) → my sketches became the reference set → every generation constrained by HIS brand language → outputs looked like his house on its most inventive day → nothing generic survived the constraint Day 3 — 3D (test) → built two outputs with fabric scans from his actual mill partners → fit-proven, physics-proven, cost-sane Day 4 — AI (visualize) → the proven designs rendered as campaign imagery, beside archive pieces → the lineage was visible. New, but native. → and unlike his competitors' AI campaigns, every garment in the frame was producible His question flipped: → before: "Will AI dilute us?" → after: "How fast can we train the team?" Generic in, generic out — that part of his fear was correct. Archive in, amplified identity out. AI doesn't erase brand DNA. Unbriefed AI does. #FashionTech #3DFashion #AIinFashion #DigitalFashion #FashionDesign #TextileDesign #FashionInnovation #AIDesign #CreativeStrategy #FutureOfFashion #FashionBusiness #BusinessStrategy #ClientWork #Consulting #DigitalTransformation #ROI #BrandDNA #LuxuryStrategy #AIAdoption #BrandIdentity #ArchiveDesign #ExecutiveBuyIn

Nostalgia is no longer looking backward. It’s becoming one of the clearest signals for what consumers want next. Seen across Maison & Objet and Vogue runway, florals are returning with a deeper, more emotional point of view. Not sweet. Not seasonal. Not decorative for the sake of decoration. This is nostalgia with mood. Dark botanicals. Vintage florals. Painterly surfaces. Archival textile references. Romantic color palettes with depth. What makes this shift interesting is how strongly it connects fashion and interiors. The same visual language showing up on the runway is also influencing wallpaper, upholstery, bedding, tabletop, gifting, and seasonal décor. Consumers are craving products that feel familiar, but not dated. They want heritage with tension. Romance with edge. Beauty with a little history behind it. For product teams, this is where nostalgia becomes useful. It gives collections a story. It gives prints emotional weight. It gives retail displays a reason to slow people down. The opportunity isn’t to recreate the past. It’s to translate memory into modern product. You can see more trend intelligence at thetrendvision.com