BUSINESS OF LUXURY

Navigating the Intricacies and Triumphs of the Business of Luxury: Insightful Tales from the Industry's Pinnacle

Why Is Polo Getting Clicks?

Luxury and Wealth Surrounds You For decades, polo has occupied a strange place in the sporting world. Everyone knows what it is don’t they? Fast horses, flowing champagne, royalty, oversized hats, high heels in turf? But very few people have ever actually watched a match, let alone swung a mallet. It's been less of a sport and more of a symbol: a shorthand for old money, private jets, and the kind of people whose calendars include "Amalfi/Capri." Yet lately, something curious

Jun 293 min read

Luxury Flounders

Sometimes Worth Billions and Everyone Wants You Out When it all ends. There is perhaps no greater insult in business than creating a company, spending years building it into a global powerhouse, watching it become worth millions or billions, and then being politely informed by security that your key card to the elevator no longer works. Luxury, fashion, and premium lifestyle brands love founder stories. Investors love them too…until they don’t. The founder is portrayed as a v

Jun 283 min read

Vogue's Beige Era

Once Glamour and Glitz- Now Blah Vogue Magazine used to make readers dream off Paris, Milan, Ferrari’s and private villas. Couture gowns we all wanted, extraordinary jewelry, beautiful people and dare I say, privilege. Today, Vogue feels like it wants readers to dream of pottery and dry flowers in a milk jar. This seems to be the vision of its new director, Chloe Malle. Malle recently sat down for an NPR interview intended to introduce readers to her vision for the magazine's

Jun 232 min read

Is Victoria's Secret Sexy Again

SEX SELLS Victoria's Secret looked destined to join the retail graveyard alongside Abercrombie's shirtless greeters, Ed Hardy trucker hats, and whatever happened to Juicy Couture tracksuits. The brand that once ruled American malls with an iron push-up bra appeared hopelessly out of touch. Sales sagged and in the bra business, that’s a bad direction. Cultural relevance evaporated. Wall Street wondered whether Victoria's Secret had become little more than a nostalgic souvenir

Jun 73 min read

Luxury Pricing Has Left the Group Chat

Price Yikes! $3,000 Sport vests, $4,500 off the rack suits and denim over $4,000. WTF? Remember when luxury clothing prices made a sort of romantic sense? You bought a well-made cashmere sweater because it lasted 20 years. A beautiful Italian blazer because the shoulders looked like a Napalatano sculpture. A leather bag because someone in Tuscany cried while hand-stitching it to perfection. Those were the days… Now? Somewhere between the pandemic, Instagra

May 263 min read

Luxury is not about price

A Simple Note and Great Sunset Many times it's the little things that make it. Not the expense. Luxury has spent decades convincing people it lives behind velvet ropes, inside gated communities, or parked in climate-controlled garages. The word itself has become tangled up with private aviation, six-figure watches, impossible restaurant reservations, and handbags that are forgettable… but hard to get. Somewhere along the way, luxury stopped sounding aspirational a

May 153 min read

Preening The LVMH Gardens

LVMH continues to get its house in order amid lagging sales For two decades, LVMH operated like the Roman Empire wearing alligator slip-ons. If a billionaire in Dubai, Palm Beach, Shanghai, or Saint-Tropez wanted to signal wealth, odds are Bernard Arnault’s empire was there waiting with a monogram, a diamond, a bottle, or a leather shopping bag large enough to fit a small child. Problem solved. The Stable Now? The machine tightly controlled by the family Arnault, suddenly loo

May 114 min read

LUXURY RESET

The luxury industry has always liked to pretend it operates above gravity. For the better part of a decade, it almost did. Prices went up, demand followed, and the world’s largest luxury houses convinced themselves that aspiration had no ceiling. $800 bag charms, $10,000 cross-body bags, $1,500 sneakers and a "waitlist" to spend tens of thousands. That illusion is cracking. The first real story in luxury right now is the slowdown. Not a collapse, not a crisis, but a meaning

Apr 193 min read

The Secondhand Velvet Rope

Pre Owned or Gently Used is Very Acceptable Certified Pre Owned By Rolex There was a time when buying secondhand luxury was whispered about like a scandalous affair. One didn’t admit to it. One certainly didn’t build an entire personality, or business model around it. And yet here we are, in a world where pre-owned Hermès Birkin’s are traded with the intensity of commodities, and “vintage” has become the socially acceptable euphemism for “someone else got there first.” Eith

Apr 23 min read

The Tariff Exposé

+ or - ? F or an industry that prides itself on resilience, mystique, and the ability to charge whatever it pleases, luxury has recently been forced into an uncomfortable position. Tariffs didn’t destroy luxury, but it did cause brands to explain themselves. They exposed who actually deserves to be called “luxury” and who was simply riding the wave of aggressive pricing and clever marketing. Let’s start with the numbers. Global luxury sales declined roughly 2% in 2025 , ma

Mar 173 min read

Prada Bought Versace

NOW COMES THE HARD PART The Prada Business Model When the Prada Group dropped its 2025 numbers, the headline was respectable: revenue climbed 9 percent to $6.63 billion. Not bad in a luxury market that has recently been wobbling like a fashion editor in stilettos. But the real story buried in the earnings call wasn’t Prada’s numbers. It was Versace, the Italian house Prada quietly bought and now must fix. Because buying Versace is the easy part. Turning it back into a power

Mar 93 min read

Jewelry Gallop

Jewelry designers are jumping in the saddle Hermes Every twelve years the Chinese zodiac hands luxury brands a perfectly gift-wrapped marketing opportunity, so when the Year of the Horse galloped into 2026, jewelry designers jumped in the saddle and grabbed the reins. Horses already live comfortably inside the luxury imagination. They symbolize power, speed, elegance, and wealth, which are keywords to many luxury brands. The top category for this seems to be jewelry, or more

Mar 62 min read

Fashion Hot Mess

Creative Directors Take The Heat In 2026 Hot or Not Luxury fashion has officially entered its “try everything, fire everyone” era. Creative Directors are being hired, hyped, memed, blamed, and let go before their business cards even yellow. What used to be a creative marathon has become a three-season sprint down the gang plank. Growth has stalled . Aspirational shoppers, once known as the handbag foot soldiers, have been kneecapped by inflation, rent, and the realization

Mar 43 min read

Under the Influence

Do Fashion Influencers Help Sell Goods or Are They Just a Trend? Tastemakers or Cons There was a time that fashion houses relied on editors, buyers, and the occasional aloof socialite to whisper what was “in.” Now? A 24-year-old with a ring light and a discount code can move more product than a glossy September issue ever dreamed of…or can they? The influencer economy is now a multi-billion-dollar ecosystem that has convinced brands that relevance is only a Reel away. A singl

Feb 263 min read

Who's On The Lyst

Q4 Rankings The Lyst Index . The quarterly mood ring for what the world actually wants to wear issued its Q4 rankings and there are some surprises and disappointments all at the same time. Basic Is Sometimes The Best Saint Laurent reclaimed the crown it first nabbed back in Q3, proving that ‘basics will win every time. Fashion Director Anthony Vaccorello (named Met Ball Chair…that helps) kept things simple and leaned into loafers as their marquee product and it worked. I g

Feb 52 min read

The Sinking Saks

Saks May Have Sunk The Slow, ‘Spectacled’ Fade of Saks Global UPDATE 1/3/26- Saks Global CEO Mark Metrick has "stepped down" effective immediately...as in, "don't let the screen door hit you on your way out". Saks Fifth Avenue never had to explain itself. It was the luxury retailer. Period. The lighting was flattering, the buyers had taste, and the bills (most importantly) were paid. Today, Saks (now called Saks Global) feels less like a

Dec 31, 20254 min read

Gucci Freefall!

There was a time ( The Alessandro Michele Era) when Gucci was the crown jewel of Kering, the overachieving child everyone bragged about at corporate dinner parties. Today? Gucci feels less like a luxury maison and more like a case study in executive dysfunction. Between leadership meltdowns, collapsing sales, and internal competition cannibalizing whatever oxygen is left in the room, the brand is spiraling into an identity crisis. Starting with the boardroom’s favorite spo

Dec 7, 20252 min read

SKIMS:

HOW SPANDEX BECAME A FORTUNE Let’s be honest: when SKIMS launched, most of us rolled our eyes so hard we nearly sprained a socket. Another celebrity brand? Another Kardashian “this-changes-everything” announcement? Another beige bodysuit promising to solve world peace, cellulite, and the mystery of Kim Kardashian’s rear end. And yet, SKIMS didn’t just survive. It has conquered . It became the shapewear version of a tech unicorn. Kim Kardashian, mammoth cultural reach has rock

Nov 18, 20252 min read

Ralph Lauren Rides

The House That Taste Built: Ralph Lauren’s Rising Performance Ralph Lauren, America’s reigning monarch of tasteful preppy aspiration just served up a quarter that made Wall Street loosen its collar. The company reported a 14% year-over-year revenue jump (on a constant-currency basis), breezing past expectations like Ralphs favorite thourobred at the Derby. In a luxury landscape where so many “heritage” brands are tripping over their own logos, Ralph Lauren is doing the impro

Nov 8, 20252 min read