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Time flies when you have fun….
That was the headline for my departure email when I ended my tenure at McKinsey at the end of February. And while this phrase referred to my 24 years as a consultant in the fashion and luxury industry, the sentiment also applies to the last eight months.
After taking a couple months to decompress, I started working on my next chapter: analyzing, contemplating and shaping the future of fashion.
I have welcomed to the endeavor as well. Larissa isfocused on building up the research function and supports a range of ouradvisory efforts. She also manages the team, which includes our workingstudent, Maja, and Annabelle who will join us beginning of next year. Susannensures that everything flows, from running the office and overseeing ourback-office functions to managing my calendar.
We’ve set up shop in a period building in Wiesbaden. And while it has takensome construction, and even deconstruction, to equip a 100-year-old building formodern-day operations, we feel very much at home.
And, despite my time decompressing and rebuilding, I’ve remained in the public conversation around fashion. It was great to be on stage at the GFA Summit in Copenhagen in May discussingthe rather stagnant state of sustainability in the fashion world with Emily Stochl, Remake; Jules Lennon, Ellen MacArthur Foundation; Amy Nelson-Bennet, Positive Luxury and Lucianne Tonti, The Guardian. I shared some insights on what’s holding back fashion’s progress insustainability and what regulation can do (or not) in my recent Op-Ed for the Business of Fashion.
I’ve also lent my thoughts to a number of articles: The challenges of revitalizing a heritage brand by Vanessa Friedman in the NYT, the future of luxury-commerce by Glossy’s Jill Manoff, the industry’s post pandemic hangover in the FAZ, and more. It was a great pleasure to contribute the foreword in “Giorgio Armani- L’uomo, il marchio, l’azienda” a new book celebrating the legacy of Giorgio Armani for his 90th birthday. An English edition is planned for 2025. For those of you who would like to dig into the articles, video and podcast we have produced and - of course - will produce in the near future - please find the Thought Leadership collection here. Lastly, I’d like to leave you with some reads and listens that have captured my attention recently. Enjoy!
1. The book “SellingSexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon” byLauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez examining the unprecedented rise and fallof one of the most innovative retail brands that today is desperately trying toseduce shoppers again.
2. The two industry reports released last week, “State of Fashion 2025” by my former McKinsey team and the Business of Fashion and “LuxuryConsensus 2025” by Altagamma and Bain, providing insightful outlooks into the year ahead.
3. The podcast “The Merchant Prince: The Man Behind The Gap, Old Navy, and J. Crew” featuring the retail legend Mickey Drexler, who revolutionized casual wear and took Gapfrom $400 million to $14 billion in revenue.