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The designer speaks with BoF’s founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed about building his own business, the power of aspiration and opening doors for people who want to break into fashion.
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French-Moroccan designer Charaf Tajer is the French-Moroccan designer behind Casablanca, a business that he started with only €3,000 to tap into the growing demand for women’s resortwear, and which is now doing more than €45 million in annual revenue.
But Charaf’s rise in the Parisian fashion scene is also exceptional because of who Charaf is and where he is from. As one of the few people of colour working at the very top level of French luxury fashion, he has learned that no matter how high his star rises, he still faces discrimination related to his identity as he travels in these elite spaces. This only makes him want to work harder to break down barriers and become a role model.
On the latest episode of the BoF Podcast, designer Tajer joins BoF’s Imran Amed on The BoF Podcast to talk about building his own business, the power of aspiration and opening doors for people who want to break into fashion.
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The designer speaks with BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks about his first collection after 2020 and why he feels a sense of optimism following the pandemic.
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At the start of 2021, Rick Owens wanted his next show to reflect the universal toll the pandemic had taken on the world. Held at Venice’s Tempio Votivo, a shrine to the fallen soldiers of the two world wars, Owens centred the show around the sombre themes of “anger and darkness.” Despite this ominous outlook, Owens told BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks in January 2021 that a pivot in political circumstances with the inauguration of Joe Biden gave him a sense of optimism.
On this week’s episode of the BoF Podcast, we revisit this thought provoking conversation with Owens about his Autumn/Winter 2021 collection, his reflections on lessons learned from the pandemic and his renewed hope for society.
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In a rare interview, the influential Japanese designer speaks with BoF’s Imran Amed about the philosophy that underpins his boundary-breaking career.
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After graduating from Keio University with a law degree, Yohji Yamamoto realised he wasn’t interested in the law.
“I didn’t want to join the ordinary society,” he says. “So I told my mother after graduation … ‘I want to help you.’”
She agreed to let him work at her dressmaking shop in Kabukicho, an entertainment district in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward, and learn from the sewing assistants if he enrolled at Bunka Fashion College, now famous for training designers such as Kenzo Takada, Junya Watanabe and Yamamoto himself.
After graduating, Yamamoto went on to set up a small ready-to-wear company that slowly acquired buyers in all of Japan’s major cities. This success eventually led him to Paris, where his signature tailoring and draping in oversized silhouettes created an aesthetic earthquake at Paris Fashion Week in 1981.
Since then, Yamamoto has developed a cult following of loyalists who swear by his avant-garde designs. “I’m not working in the mainstream,” he says. “I’m working in the side stream.”
This week on The BoF Podcast, we revisit Imran Amed’s rare interview with the legendary Japanese designer about his storied career — and the mindset designers need to succeed.
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After a pandemic pivot to e-commerce, many brands are back to working with third-party retailers, this time, with better terms.
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The wholesale model, while offering exposure and some upfront revenue, did not always have the best terms for vendors. Department store bankruptcies, pandemic-induced store closures and the boom in online shopping pushed brands further towards their direct-to-consumer and e-commerce businesses to drive revenue.
But that’s beginning to change. As shoppers return to stores, brands are seeing value in ramping up their partnerships with multi-brand retailers — this time on better terms. “What I'm hearing across the board from both brands and retailers is that this vendor-retailer relationship is more collaborative than ever,” said BoF retail correspondent Cathaleen Chen.
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Revisiting a conversation with BoF’s Imran Amed from 2019, the 23 grand slam winning tennis champion, who announced her retirement this week, talks about how the mental toughness she has built on the court has prepared her for life as an entrepreneur.
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This week, tennis superstar Serena Williams announced her imminent retirement as part of a cover story with American Vogue. Known in fashion circles for her on-court style, which included catsuits and denim skirts and a collaboration with late designer Virgil Abloh’s Off-White, Williams will have more time to focus on as her burgeoning business empire, including her fashion label S by Serena and a venture fund, Serena Ventures.
This week on The BoF Podcast, we revisit Williams’ 2019 conversation with BoF founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed about how the mental toughness she has built on the court has prepared her for life as an entrepreneur.
“It's really important for things not to come super easy for you, and to kind of accept that challenge, embrace it and then just roll with it,” said Williams.
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The multi-tasking actor, executive producer and beauty entrepreneur shares her personal journey with BoF’s Imran Amed and explains how she unlocked her full potential across a variety of pursuits.
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Tracee Ellis Ross is best known for her roles in Girlfriends and Black-ish, but she is also the founder and CEO of Pattern which she launched in 2019 after more than a decade of development to address the gap in the market for products designed specifically for curly, coily, textured hair.
The Golden Globe-winning, Emmy-nominated Ross joins BoF’s Imran Amed on The BoF Podcast to talk about managing the little voice in her head, killing perfectionism and cultivating self-love and acceptance.
Finding purpose and unlocking potential starts by interrogating what you love, then finding ways to merge who you are with “what makes your heart sing,” said Ross.
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The creative technologist believes that experimenting with new AR technologies could radically reshape products, experiences and habits.
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When it comes to testing new technologies, there is always an element of the unknown for brands. While tech investments may not immediately translate to a revenue bump, willingness to experiment could radically transform the fashion industry, according to Ommy Akhe, a creative technologist specialising in experimental software and augmented reality prototypes, who spoke at The BoF Professional Summit: New Frontiers in Fashion and Technology.
“Understanding your customers, the things they value, the challenges you can help them overcome and what gets them excited — it's essential to meet users where they are,” says Ahke. “The only constant is change. So why not join the journey and start enjoying the current future?”
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BoF’s luxury editor Robert Williams offers insight into the surprising news that the mega-label plans to open stores dedicated to serving top customers.
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As traffic to stores soars, Chanel’s chief financial officer Philippe Blondiaux said the brand plans to open dedicated boutiques for top-spending clients starting in key Asian cities. It's a strategy that emphasises the importance of big-spenders to the in-demand French luxury brand’s future amid whispers of an impending recession — but one that risks alienating first time and occasional shoppers who are still dropping upwards of $10,000 for bags.
“Brands like Chanel, they’ve lived through lots of cycles of boom and bust in the economy… When there’s an economic crisis, they need to be ready to have a real focus on repeat business,” said BoF’s luxury editor Robert Williams.
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The founder and CEO of retail pop-up marketplace Appear Here shares his entrepreneurial journey and advice for young founders looking to break through.
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Ross Bailey’s love of entrepreneurship didn’t start in business school or a corporate job, but at the hair salon his parents owned in London.
“I watched my parents take this little shop and it became their livelihood,” he says to BoF’s founder and editor in chief, Imran Amed, describing himself as a “busybody” who rearranged furniture and conducted customer satisfaction surveys from a young age. “To me, entrepreneurship was a game. It was about ‘how do I get people involved and have a bit of fun?’”
That mindset eventually led him to found Appear Here, “the Airbnb of retail,” in 2014. “The story of the world … was that the high street is dead, nobody wants it. And we had a contrarian view on that. When you have small high street stores and streets, people want to be on them … our data has always backed it up.”
By 2019, Appear Here was a global business with 250,000 entrepreneurs signed up to the platform and 30,000 stores launched. The company has facilitated pop-ups for fashion giants like Louis Vuitton, Loewe and Supreme, a bookstore for Michelle Obama’s autobiography, as well as Harry’s House for pop superstar Harry Styles.
Then the pandemic hit. Appear Here went from having its best year ever and closing a funding round with a nine-figure valuation, to losing 95 percent of revenue with just months’ worth of cash left.
On this week’s episode of The BoF Podcast, Bailey shares his lessons and advice from the early days of founding a business and the role leaders play in leading employees and stakeholders through challenging times.
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How Temporary Pop-Ups Became a Permanent Strategy
What Happens When the E-Commerce Boom Ends
How to Open a Store in 2022 | BoF
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Ian Rogers moved from Silicon Valley to Paris in 2015 when he was appointed chief digital officer of LVMH. There, Rogers, a veteran of Apple Music and Beats, was tasked with building out the luxury conglomerate’s e-commerce and data strategy and serving as a digital whisperer to executives.
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Now, he’s chief experience officer of Ledger, a security system that provides protection for digital currencies. Given his experience at the cutting edge of both tech and fashion, he is uniquely positioned to speak to the opportunities being created as crypto technologies, gaming and fashion converge. In his mind, one day, virtual fashion will be ubiquitous.
His insights were originally featured in the fourth episode of The BoF Show, “Dematerialisation: Why the Metaverse Is Fashion’s Next Goldmine,” streaming on Bloomberg Quicktake.
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