Dilara Findikoglu
https://dilarafindikoglu.com/collections/fw25? page=2#0b787859f54b565dd0a22e9398aca3da
https://www.businessoffashion.com/people/dilara-findikoglu/ Dilara Findikoglu is the designer of her namesake fashion label, known for its bold, eclectic designs that fuse punk, goth and rock-and-roll iconography with a feminist, and Victorian themes. Findikoglu has been lauded for her provocative approach to the fashion business — both in terms of design and advocacy.
Born in Istanbul and based in London, Findikoglu's journey into fashion began at Central Saint Martins. Her rebellious spirit was evident from the start: after being rejected from participating in the school’s press show, she organised a guerilla show “Encore CSM” with other students. While at Central Saint Martins, she worked for Mary Katrantzou and Jeremy Scott. The designer interned at Maison Margiela under John Galliano. In 2016, she opened her namesake label focused on pieces incorporating feminist, religious and political themes and traditional Turkish techniques.
Her collections have received critical acclaim from publications including Vogue, Dazed, and i-D. She has dressed Bella Hadid, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Rihanna, Bjork, FKA twigs and Olivia Rodrigo. Margot Robbie wore her designs throughout her much-publicised Barbie press tour in 2023.
Findikoglu's impact on fashion goes beyond her brand. She has been a voice for young designers struggling in the industry, advocating for more sustainable practices and financial support after she spoke candidly to the New York Times about pulling out of London Fashion Week in 2023, in a bid to keep her brand financially stable.
She was nominated for the LVMH Prize for Young Designers in 2017.
https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/dilara-findikoglu-boux-avenue
Dilara Findikoglu has never been one to follow rules. When she didn’t make the cut for the Central Saint Martins graduate fashion show in 2015, she staged a guerrilla-style protest catwalk outside the campus. Fast forward to her first-ever London Fashion Week presentation in September 2017, and the designer sent out a witchy, bodice-ripping (quite literally) collection within the bowels of St Andrew’s Church in Holborn; cut to autumn/winter 2024, and Findikoglu provided models with fake tabloid newspapers emblazoned with the headline: “OMG Dilara Is Doing a Satanic Orgy at a London Church”, in reference to InfoWars’s Alex Jones’s spluttering outrage at the aforementioned show.
So you could say that Findikoglu might not be the obvious bedfellow for a commercially minded high street brand such as Boux Avenue – especially when you consider the “play it safe” positioning that has shaped the fashion industry in recent years. Nonetheless, the lingerie retailer has not only gotten into bed with the Turkish-born designer this season, but together they have masterminded a capsule collection of sultry, whip-cracking lingerie sets and separates that are sure to incite the sort of pearl-clutching response from right-wing podcast hosts that Findikoglu is so delighted by.
From befrilled milkmaid-style bodies and fetishistic mesh-panelled corsets, to lace-up girdles and ritualistic-red, curve-buttressing basques, the 10-piece collection, which is available in sizes 6 to 16 and selected bras up to a G-cup, is sure to sate the appetite of dedicated
Dilaraphiles, and also, perhaps, surprise Boux Avenue’s usual clientele, who may not be familiar with Findikoglu’s patriarchy-crushing aesthetics.
“I have been looking at my own collection of ’50s fetish magazines, John Willie illustrations and showgirls, which I reference in nearly every collection. I am just in love with how the concept of fetish was referenced constantly in the ’50s and ’60s. And, of course, in Victorian corsetry,” Findikoglu says of the inspiration for the collaboration. “With this collection I was focusing on mostly romantic and more girly details, which I normally use in a much more deconstructed way. This was an opportunity for me to use our details on a smaller scale. I see a lot more minimal direction in lingerie these days, so I wanted to bring the ruffles back.”
Indeed, many will consider this partnership an unexpected U-turn for the 14-year old British lingerie brand, which has become synonymous with a more classic approach to underwear design. Of course, there have been a number of socially-savvy start-ups cropping up in recent years that have made it their mission to deliver pretty, comfort-first underwear styles, but there are very few offerings – particularly on the high street – that have catered to those craving more directional, design-driven pieces.
In fact, not only do Findikoglu’s creations deserve to be seen in public – “I have a huge collection of Victorian lingerie and I always wear them with my daily looks. I’m hoping to see pieces from the collection worn this way,” Findikoglu remarks – but the collection campaign reads like a magazine editorial, which is no surprise considering it was creative directed by Dilara herself and shot by photographer Camille Vivier. It’s sexy, it’s subversive and, well, we want it all.
So let’s call this a moment of divine intervention for fashion execs world-over to realise that partnering with an emerging label is good for business, especially when it can help push you out the algorithm-induced stasis that befalls so many brands these days. And with the British fashion industry in need of more support than ever, it’s a smart move that will reap rewards for all involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1-8jyD8eXY
https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/fashion/khy-dilara-findikoglu
In fashion news that no one saw coming (but everyone’s now talking about), Kylie Jenner’s brand Khy has just unveiled a collaboration with London Fashion Week favourite Dilara Fındıkoğlu—and unsurprisingly, fashion fans are excited. So much so that Kylie’s Instagram reveal—because how else do you share major brand news in 2025?—racked up over one million likes in just a couple of days.
To mark the launch, a star-studded dinner was held at The Bird Streets Club in West Hollywood—newly added to our must-visit-one-day list—where famous faces including Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber, Amelia Gray and Kris Jenner all arrived dressed in pieces from the new drop.
Hailey Bieber opted for the long sleeve corset top and co-ordinating skirt; Kendall Jenner chose the long sleeve corset dress; and Kylie Jenner wore perhaps the most daring look of
the night: a red satin zipper bralet and corset skirt. Each piece toes the line between Dilara’s signature dark romanticism and Khy’s feminine feel.
“It’s truly been a dream to partner with Dilara on this Khy collection—someone whose designs I’ve respected and admired for years,” Kylie shares. Since first wearing Dilara Fındıkoğlu back in 2022—most memorably during Paris Fashion Week—Kylie has remained a loyal fan of the designer’s gothic-glam aesthetic.
“Together, we’ve developed a collection that feels feminine, sexy and romantic, all while staying true to Dilara’s unique and edgy aesthetic. Knowing her expertise with corsetry, we were excited to explore this silhouette for Khy in a new light. I can’t wait for everyone to see the long sleeve corset dress—it’s a statement piece that I think perfectly embodies our shared vision,” she added.
The collection will be available to shop in the UK from 5pm on 28 May, at Khy.com—and if early buzz is anything to go by, it won’t be around for long. Just take a look below at some of the pieces included (before shopping them the second they go live).
https://www.khy.com/pages/dilara?srsltid=AfmBOoruGxSrzhsEZbfkNYSpCr6Fb5fcjBr6xbIw5JWYHtwKiTdF70r
Introducing Khy x DILARA FINDIKOGLU, an era-defining collaboration. The latest collection embodies the iconic craftsmanship of Dilara and the quintessential femininity of Khy. Central to this collaboration is the shared value of dressing for the female gaze.
Dilara Findikoglu’s namesake label is renowned by celebrities and fashion icons alike for their meticulously crafted dresses and couture-inspired corsetry. A Dilara design is defined by a rich spectrum of reference material: the divine feminine, spools of Victorian lace, fantasy, fairy tales, and romance, all with a slight razor’s edge of rebellion.
Take the classic corset for example: the rigidity of its tailoring is reimagined as a suit of armor. With a wink and a smile towards convention and norms, Dilara brings a bold, defiant attitude to the latest Khy collaboration, resulting in a prêt-à-porter collection that subverts (and exceeds) expectations.
https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/13477/yorgos-lanthimoss-photographs-ofdilara-findikoglus-sensual-swimwear-line
“I’m not really sure if anyone has made fully corseted swimwear before,” says Dilara Findikoglu. The London-based designer is calling from Istanbul where she has been based for the past few months. Now, she is preparing to launch her first line of swimwear and has been in and out of the factory all day getting everything finished up with her team. “Our designs were a bit complicated and our factories were quite stumped by them at first,” she
continues. “As a maximalist designer, who works with really intricate patterns, designing swimwear has been an entirely new challenge for me.”
The new collection certainly bears all the hallmarks of the Dilara Findikoglu brand: gothic boning in bustier-style one-pieces that cinch in the waist and hoik up the chest; bonnets tied around the neck with a ribbon; and stockings held up by a network of crisscrossing strings that nod to the 18th-century erotic novella. (Fittingly, the campaign was shot by The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos on a windswept beach in Kent, which Findikoglu explains she had to watch over remotely on Zoom from Turkey). Of course, the collection also appeals to Findikoglu’s punk sensibilities, with fishnet detailing in hues of deep scarlet and one-shoulder swimsuits which have been made in a shade of azure blue that invokes the 1980s. She also nods to another of her inspirations, belly dancing, with a chains spelling out the designer’s name in block capitals attached to be bikini bottoms – a detail that can also be seen in her last runway presentation, which took place just before the first UK lockdown in February 2020.
The designer first conceived of the idea of a swimwear line after what she describes as the ’weight’ of the past year and a half of global lockdowns. “I wanted to create something lighter, to make people feel lighter,” she says. “Everyone was waiting for the summer and so was I, of course. I was also thinking about that feeling of swimming; of entering the water and becoming purified and all the bad energy being cleansed away.” Such were the designer’s escapist fantasies that as part of the launch, she has even dreamed up a silvery digital vista, named Saint Dilara Beach Club, which is described on her Instagram account as a place where ’the days are so long that you can live in an endless summer breeze and where the nights are only for joyful dreams.’ “If I am going to send my women in my swimwear anywhere, it’s going to be somewhere as amazing as that,” she says.
The beach club experience also includes an NFT auction where digital artworks can be purchased as souvenirs to remember your adventure, even after summer has been and gone. “This project has been a new way of making my ideas come to life,” she says. “Just as we all had our routines broken, my creative routine was also broken; so it has allowed me to experiment and discover new ways to express myself.” With plans to return to the runway once she is able, and to work on an inclusive range of lingerie, the Dilara Findikoglu fantasy continues.
https://fashionista.com/2025/12/dilara-findikoglu-ex-employees-interns-toxic-workplaceculture-exploitation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggx4sBK63lY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwJUo6JZAuo
https://www.aol.com/articles/internet-best-content-now-margot-232500724.html
January 28, 2026 — 'Wuthering Heights' Global Junket Photocall in Beverly Hills
It’s all in the details: the corset top with a ruffled back, the lace-up sleeves, the barely-there skirt, the intricately crafted bra—and not to mention, the allover snakeskin! With so many elements at play, everything comes together seamlessly, like a perfectly solved puzzle. Margot’s striking three-piece is by Dilara Findikoglu, styled with coordinating Manolo Blahnik pumps and sparkling Jessica McCormack jewelry.
February 4, 2026 — BBC Radios in London promoting 'Wuthering Heights'
Here’s proof that Margot can turn a traditionally formal theme into a laid-back, elevated moment. The floral corset top and belted denim are Dilara Findikoglu, paired with the brand’s first-ever Hysteria bag. She finished the look with Paris Texas pumps and jewelry by Jessica McCormack.
February 5, 2026 — 'Wuthering Heights' UK Premiere
Ah, yes. The look that Jacob Elordi shielded from the rain in what was a soon-to-be iconic moment—and honestly, can you blame him? Margot’s transparent custom Dilara Findikoglu dress—with braided details from real hair woven into the design—nearly broke the internet. She accessorized it beautifully with a replica of "The Bracelet of Charlotte", created in collaboration with Wyedean and the Brontë Parsonage Museum, custom earrings by Jessica McCormack, vintage Boucheron brooches, and custom Manolo Blahnik shoes.
Zimmermann
https://www.zimmermann.com/uk/z-moments
https://www.zimmermann.com/uk/collections-archive Sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann founded their namesake label in 1991. They fast won a loyal following - smart, sartorially savvy women with an eye for quality fabrics and clever cutting. ZIMMERMANN began literally and creatively in Sydney, with Nicky focusing designing dresses and selling them at Paddington markets. Through the week Nicky would design and create garments from her parent’s garage in preparation for the weekend market. The markets were an opportunity for Nicky to refine her aesthetic and to see first-hand how women responded to fashion. “While working the markets, I had two pages of editorial in Australian Vogue. That was a significant moment because I suddenly started to receive orders from boutiques around Australia and I could feel some real momentum. Soon after I opened a small boutique in Darlinghurst.”
In 1991, Nicky’s sister Simone joined the growing ZIMMERMANN business. Nicky’s relationship with Simone has been the cornerstone to ZIMMERMANN’S longevity and success. “I could never have achieved what we have without Simone. While the business has evolved and fashion has changed, Simone has been a voice of reason and a constant.”
Early in its evolution, ZIMMERMANN took the bold step of fusing fashion with swimwear and presented it to the world. It soon found it’s footing with the worlds fashion leaders. ZIMMERMANN’S bold original prints, beautifully made one-pieces and sculptural bikinis created a new point of reference in flattering, sexy and stylish swimwear.
Of course, the ZIMMERMANN Swim and Resort collections have come to represent so much more than the original swimsuit - they have developed into the third wardrobe of the globally mobile ZIMMERMANN woman.
Label extensions have seen the launch of ZIMMERMANN Swim, Separates, Kids, Footwear and Accessories. They maintain showrooms in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Milan, Sydney and Shanghai.In Australia, ZIMMERMANN maintains a collection of standalone boutiques across the country, creating seductive and dynamic retail destinations that reflect the brand’s modern and optimistic aesthetic. ZIMMERMANN also operates its successful online boutique at zimmermann.com.
Demand from its growing international clients has seen the opening of ZIMMERMANN boutiques in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and China. In 2011, ZIMMERMANN opened its first US boutiques on Robertson Boulevard, Beverly Hills California. The brand now has nineteen boutiques in the US including Soho, Meatpacking District, Madison Avenue, East Hampton, Southampton, Americana Manhasset, Woodbury Common in New York State, Bal Harbor Miami, Miami Design District, Tampa, Naples and Palm Beach in Florida, Dallas and Houston in Texas, Wynn Plaza in Las Vegas and Melrose Place, Pacific Palisades, South Coast Plaza and San Francisco in California. In Europe and the United Kingdom, ZIMMERMANN launched its first boutiques in Mayfair, London and has since expanded into Europe, opening in Paris, Cannes and St Tropez in France, Milan, Rome, Florence, Forte Dei Marmi, Capri and Serravalle in Italy and recently expanded into Spain with boutiques openings in Madrid and Puerto Banus. ZIMMERMANN’s most recent expansion has been into China, opening a boutique in Shanghai.
ZIMMERMANN has been the recipient of multiple fashion awards including AFI Best Swimwear Designer, Prix de Marie Claire Best Fashion Brand and Best Swimwear Brand and Prix de Marie Claire Best Australian Designer, to name a few. In 2014, ZIMMERMANN was the recipient of the Australian Fashion Laureate award. Nicky has been a member of the Australian Fashion Week Advisory Board and was previously the fashion mentor for the Qantas Spirit of Australia Youth Awards. Nicky was a founding board member of the Australian Fashion Chamber
https://www.youtube.com/@ZIMMERMANN/videos
https://fashionjournal.com.au/fashion/zimmerman-cultural-appropriation/ https://www.businessoffashion.com/briefings/luxury/what-advent-and-zimmermann-got-rightwith-1-billion-deal/
All year fashion’s M&A market had been at a near standstill as investors became choosier about their targets — and how much they would pay for them — against a backdrop of rising
interest rates and worries over a consumer slowdown.
Last month, Kering said it would acquire 30 percent of Italian couture house Valentino for €1.7 billion ($1.9 billion), as part of a broader partnership with Qatari investment fund Mayhoola. But M&A in accessible luxury had been particularly stagnant.
That all changed this week, with the announcement of two major deals.
The larger of the two was Coach owner Tapestry’s mega-merger with Capri, parent company of Michael Kors, Versace and Jimmy Choo. But two days earlier, another deal was announced: Australian fashion label Zimmermann, owned by its founding family and Italybased Style Capital, sold a majority stake to private equity giant Advent International in a transaction valuing the company at a reported $1.15 billion.
For some fashion observers, the Zimmermann sale was a surprise. A number of attractive targets in accessible luxury have been on the market for some time, including Isabel Marant and Ganni. None has been able to find a buyer. So why was Zimmermann able to sell at a valuation north of $1 billion when others are still waiting for the right price?
Recent market conditions have made the situation harder for brands aiming to sell. With credit tightening, investors have become more hesitant. Meanwhile, spending among aspirational shoppers in the US has dried up, creating a tough environment for labels with high exposure to the market. It’s enough to make many potential buyers think twice.
In this context, getting alignment between the price a seller wants and what a buyer is willing to pay — more art than science, even in the best of times — can prove difficult. Investors have become less forgiving in their search for the right mix of brand DNA, profits and growth potential, while brands can be reluctant to lower their price expectations.
Zimmermann, founded by sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann in 1991, was able to overcome these obstacles because the brand had a number of factors working in its favour which helped convince Advent it was worth snapping up. For one, despite the volatility of the past few years, the business has grown consistently and profitably, reportedly surpassing $260 million in annual revenue with a more than 30 percent profit margin.
“You see the light when it’s dark,” said Roberta Benaglia, chief executive of Style Capital, which retained a minority stake in the business, noting that the brand has kept sales rising and profit margins high even amid the slowdowns in the US and elsewhere.
Zimmermann also has a clear and easily recognisable brand signature and a product offering that’s alluring but modest enough to translate globally. It’s also well-suited to the post-pandemic moment. Its floral dresses are resort-ready at a time when many women are thrilled to travel again, though the label has also harnessed “resort” as a lifestyle beyond travel and is well-positioned to capitalise on the return of weddings.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that its products are priced to offer good value for money, and its directly operated “retail machine” (in addition to top stockists, the brand has 58 of its own boutiques) is “managed in an impeccable way,” as Benaglia put it. Also key: the Zimmermann sisters, and their proven management and creative teams, will remain in place after the sale, ensuring continuity as the brand aims to accelerate growth.
Zimmermann believes it has plenty of room for expansion in regions such as Europe, where it could stand to double its distribution, as well as the Middle East and China, where it has been well-received but has only two stores. E-commerce is another growth vector.
Investors often look for brands with a long-term vision that have reached an inflexion point and need a partner to help them reach the next level. Clearly, Advent believes it has found just such a brand in Zimmermann.
https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/zimmermann-cruise-2026-celebration-chateau-marmont
https://www.zimmermann.com/uk/emissions-performance-fy2025-insights
https://www.zimmermann.com/uk/2024-diversity-update
https://www.zimmermann.com/uk/environmental-protection
https://www.zimmermann.com/uk/craftsmanship-durability
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/work/a45376683/nicky-simone-zimmermann-fashionbrand-interview/
Perhaps Nicky and Simone Zimmermann were always destined to become entrepreneurs. The two Australian sisters, who grew up in a suburb of southern Sydney, were born to parents who ran their own shop (spray-painting and smash repairs); their mother, Joan, would sew the children’s clothes from scratch. Nicky inherited her love of dressmaking and, from her early twenties, began selling homemade garments at local markets. “It was all extremely basic – I’d make them in my parents’ garage at home and drive to the market to set up racks,” she recalls. “At that stage, it wasn’t anything as sophisticated as starting a brand – I just wanted to sell a few things so that I could afford to buy more fabric and maybe go out on a Saturday.”
Casual though her intentions may have been, the markets turned out to be the ideal training ground for a novice business owner. “You learn pretty quickly that you’re doing well, because if you’re selling, you’re annoying everyone around you!” says Nicky with a chuckle. “It’s a very competitive environment, which teaches you a lot.” She struck lucky when a friend who was working as a styling assistant at a glossy magazine wore one of her shirt designs to work; the title’s fashion director spotted the piece and wanted to shoot it, which created sufficient buzz to generate a first batch of wholesale customers.
It was around this time, in the early 1990s, that Simone – who had previously been working in computer marketing – decided to come on board with Nicky, taking on much of the operational burden and strategising about questions such as how to price garments for the wholesale market. “We did a lot on instinct, with a bit of trial and error and the pragmatism to organise things in a way that meant we could carry on doing what we wanted to do,” she explains. What had started as a “germ of an idea” became the foundations for a fully fledged fashion business.
Zimmermann’s aesthetic has always focused on quality and artisanal craft. “I’ve loved sewing by hand since I was a kid, so that’s part of the essence of the brand,” says Nicky. “A lot of the designs are based in colour and texture.” A turning point in terms of the business’ success came when the sisters decided to launch swimwear, about five years into their entrepreneurial journey, having recognised that it would connect authentically with their Australian roots. They conceived the range as separate from their clothing designs (it remains, today, distinct from the ready-to-wear collections) yet sharing many of the same visual elements, such as punchy prints or frilly details. “I don’t think we realised at the time how unique our approach actually was,” admits Nicky of the launch, which was positively received by international buyers and gave the brand a strong USP.
The sisters concentrated early on getting the retail experience right, making sure that every store opening accurately reflected their vision for the brand. “I guess that followed on from working at the markets – how my designs sit together on a rack has always mattered to me, so I’m forever moving things around until I’m happy,” says Nicky. The pair work closely with architects and interior designers to create a suitably welcoming yet sophisticated ambience for customers, giving careful consideration to details such as the choice of art and furniture.
The brand’s growth within Australia was fairly steady and organic, as was the global expansion of the wholesale business. From 2013, however, things accelerated as the Zimmermanns ventured beyond their home continent to launch stores in America, then the UK and Europe (Mayfair and St Tropez were early flagship locations). Today, to manage their ongoing success, Simone says that balance is key for the duo. “We try to keep a regular percentage of growth across our various channels – retail is really important to us, but our e-commerce and wholesale businesses are also strong,” she notes. As part of its European strategy, Zimmermann now shows at Paris Fashion Week; the brand’s latest presentation, for spring 2024, featured prints inspired by botanical art and abstract landscapes, feminine dresses and beautifully sculptural shapes.
In August, Zimmermann announced that the private-equity institution Advent International was to acquire a majority stake in the business, enabling it to accelerate growth in newer luxury markets such as Asia and the Middle East. Nonetheless, Nicky and Simone are clear that they will remain hands-on in driving the strategy, and that the company will always have family at its heart. “We’ve often heard people say to us, I could never work with my sister,” says Nicky. “But for us, it’s never been a problem – only a benefit. We get to travel with each other, and my husband [Chris Oliver, Zimmermann’s CEO] comes too, so our children are really involved and come to the shows when they can. It’s the most amount of fun you can imagine.”
The brand’s future, says Simone, will rely on the sisters’ ability to balance a willingness to consult and collaborate with the single-mindedness that has always been at the heart of their entrepreneurial outlook. “You can always learn from other people, so you have to stay openminded and never assume there isn’t an alternative way of doing things,” she says. “It’s about considering all the suggestions while staying true to your own path.” If their past track record is anything to go by, that path can only lead to further success.
https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/fashion/article/zimmermann-interview-australia-billionfashion-brand-0x9vc38b0?
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https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/fashion/nicky-zimmermann-spring-summer-2024
I first bought a piece of clothing from Zimmermann in 2006 during a trip to Sydney. It was a sleeveless silk dress with a muted leopard print that I wore over a black slip, paired with gladiator sandals and a metal disc belt. Even back then, the brand had a relaxed yet polished sense of cool, and when you put on something from Zimmermann - you felt cool.
Fast forward nearly 20 years, and the Australian label has evolved from an independent resort-wear brand to one of the world’s most powerful luxury ready-to-wear labels. With over 58 stores in the world and stocked in the world’s most prestigious department stores, you’d assume that founders Nicky and Simone had achieved it all. But in 2023 they also became Australia’s first billion-dollar fashion label after private equity firm Advent International bought a majority stake in the business.
Zimmermann has long been the go-to for beautiful occasion wear and feminine yet polished beachwear. However, in recent seasons, the brand has expanded its offerings, excelling in everything from statement outerwear to impeccable tailoring and footwear. The brand's signature aesthetic combines delicate details such as broderie anglaise trims, lace, and corsetry - with joyful yet subtly muted colour palettes.
For Spring/Summer 2025 the brand tapped into it’s customer’s love of never ending summers and 1970’s surf culture by projecting clips from the movie ‘Morning Of The Earth’ onto the vast wall of the venue, inside Paris’ Palais De Tokyo. Having followed the brand for the past 20 years, it is no exaggeration when I say this was quite possibly my favourite collection yet. Featuring cascading ruffles in weightless silks, plunge-neck swimsuits in rust and low-slung hipster maxi skirts in iridescent fabrics - I left the show wanting to be that woman - and if I couldn't have her lifestyle, I could at least dress like her.
Recently, the brand announced plans to expand with the opening of 7 new standalone boutiques in the US alone - a market that makes up over 35% of Zimmermann’s sales, as well as its entry into the accessories market by launching shoes and bags - a category where it has already started to see growth. As someone who by default follows closely the luxury fashion market, and is fascinated by female founded businesses that make it big in an increasingly challenging retail landscape, Zimmermann's success is unrivalled.
This month, following the brand’s Spring/Summer 2025 catwalk show, I had the pleasure of grabbing five minutes with designer Nicky Zimmermann to ask her exactly how she does it…
Zimmermann has been on an incredible trajectory of growth over the years. What’s your secret, and why do you think customers keep coming back?
I think it comes down to the fact that we still love what we do. I work with an amazing design team, and we have fun. When we’re designing collections, we truly enjoy the process, and I think that comes through in the final pieces. Our customers resonate with that - they appreciate the detail, the fun, the volume, and the movement. I believe that's what keeps them coming back. And despite having done this for nearly 30 years, I’m still learning every day.
Zimmermann has maintained such a clear brand identity. How do you block out all the noise? Have you ever felt pressured to follow trends?
This might help explain it - I don’t even have my own Instagram account. It’s not something that interests me. Plus, being in Australia, we’re somewhat isolated. We go into the studio and focus on what we’re doing. We don’t look left or right -we just do what we love and have fun with it.
I was going to ask if there’s a new category you’d want to explore, but I noticed that bags are a key focus for Spring/Summer 2025...
Yes, it’s all part of the brand’s natural progression. We’ve always sold a lot of clothes, so the opportunity to do accessories was there waiting for us. In the past, customers would buy a dress and then also purchase shoes from us. Now, they can complete the look with a matching bag.
You’ve dressed so many incredible women over the years - is there anyone you’d still love to see wearing Zimmermann?
Honestly, the most flattering thing for me is seeing someone on the street wearing Zimmermann and styling it in their own unique way. They’ve gone into the store and chosen something that resonates with them, and that’s the best feeling.
https://www.vogue.com/article/sizing-up-zimmermanns-next-act
https://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/news/how-zimmermann-became-australias-fashionunicorn/news-story/ffa9bcfa7abb2063351d381341238422
If you were to think of one brand to perfectly encapsulate how the world views Australian fashion—breezily elegant, a touch of the flouncy and never too far from a body of water—it would be Zimmermann.
And judging by the deal just inked between American private equity investor Advent International to buy a majority stake in the business, to the reported tune of $1.75 billion, Zimmermann has sold Australian fashion to the world. The deal would make the brand into an official 'unicorn,' a privately-held brand with a value of over 1 billion.
Under the terms of the deal founders Nicky and Simone Zimmermann, alongside chief executive Chris Olliver, will stay with the brand to drive its future growth both in Australia and overseas.
Nicky Zimmermann, chief creative officer and co-founder, said in a statement, “We are really excited to partner with the teams at Advent and Style Capital as we continue on our journey to build a unique global luxury brand from Australia. There are so many exciting opportunities for Zimmermann ahead and Simone and I feel extremely fortunate to be going on this journey with our team, one that started nearly 30 years ago at Paddington Markets in Sydney. For us, the opportunity to work alongside so many talented and passionate people each day is a privilege and there is so much we want to achieve together. We look forward to working collaboratively with our new partners to achieve our shared ambitions for the brand, with our loyal clients at the centre of that vision.”
Since launching 32 years ago, Zimmermann now has 58 stores around the world. This includes 22 stores in Australia, two in China and 22 boutiques across America. There are also stores in key Zimmermann locales dotted around Europe (think St Tropez and anywhere else you’d love to wear a tiered floral maxi-dress with an Aperol Spritz in hand).
As noted in The Australian, this expansion also includes Zimmermann’s new Paris head office. The sisters also made their debut on The List – Australia’s Richest 250 this year, published in The Australian this year.
In September this year the brand will return to the Paris Fashion Week schedule, following its debut in 2022—a switch from ten years of showing at New York Fashion Week. This too a sign of the brand’s global dominance.
Perhaps the real signifier of its success is that Zimmerman has always stayed true to its origins, continuing to evolve its aesthetic of elevated femininity and an embrace of frills, florals and embellishments.
“We have never had anyone to follow, so we have always had to forge our own path, and that has been good for us,” Nicky Zimmermann told WISH magazine in a December 2020 interview commemorating the brand’s 30th anniversary.
https://www.vogue.com/article/the-most-saved-images-of-2025-on-vogue-runway? share=app
https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/patrick-schwarzenegger-and-abby-champion-wedding? share=app
Culture
https://www.lyst.com/the-lyst-index/q4-25/
The Lyst Index is a quarterly ranking of fashion’s hottest brands and products compiled by Lyst, the world's biggest and most intelligent fashion shopping platform. With 160m shoppers a year and the largest data set in fashion, Lyst is a unique source of global fashion intelligence. The formula behind The Lyst Index takes into account Lyst shoppers’ behavior, including searches on and off platform, product views and sales. To track brand and product heat, the formula also incorporates social media mentions, activity and engagement statistics worldwide, over a three month period.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrysamaha/2016/10/26/nicky-zimmermann-on-expandingthe-reach-of-her-resort-and-ready-to-wear-collections/
When it comes to the Australian fashion, few can rival the pedigree that Zimmermann has on the market. Since launching the brand 25 years ago in her hometown of Sydney, the brand’s designer and founder Nicky Zimmermann has built a business that proves how a globally commercially viable line doesn’t have to originate from the known fashion metropolises: New York, Paris and Milan. Not only is Zimmermann one of the most recognized names to come from the Land Down Under, it has grown to become one of the leaders in swimwear. It is Net-A-Porter’s top-selling line in this category and has been worn beachside by modern-day style icons, including Beyoncé, Kendall Jenner and Miranda Kerr.
Indeed, when one thinks of Zimmermann, a refined, fun-in-the-sun vibe automatically leaps to mind. Its use of effervescent colors, flirty silhouettes and eye-catching details are perfect for holidays spent overlooking an oceanfront view. And seeing how resort collections (hint: the lines made specifically for jet-setters vacationing during the winter months) have become the cash cow for most luxury labels, it is no wonder why Zimmermann has been so successful. To whit: it caters to a climate that has consumers spending their hard-earned dollar more readily.
That said, Zimmermann began as a ready-to-wear line, encompassing more than just swimwear and beach cover-ups. For one, its recent collection showcased a bevy of coats, long evening dresses, and knee-high boots. And over the past couple of seasons, it moved its runway presentation from sunny Sydney to New York Fashion Week—a shift that could
be perceived as its way of diverting from its resortwear reputation. Perceptively, this is not the case. The brand rolls out six deliveries for its resort line from September to November— along with eight shipments during spring. And judging by the breezy, yet chic quality that is part and parcel of its recent designs (even for the fall season), Zimmermann still fully encapsulates the Australian spirit, catapulting it to a global audience.
Here, Nicky Zimmermann chats about the significance of resort collections, and how she is looking to expand her brand’s reach and reputation.
How would you describe the Australian fashion industry?
The fashion industry in Australia has really evolved over the last decade or so. There has always been some unique talent here, but more recently, a lot of local designers are really finding their own niche and creating a distinct aesthetic that feels true to the Australian lifestyle.
How does Australian fashion differ from the rest of the world?
I think designers in Australia are really lucky—in some ways being so isolated makes it harder to be connected to what’s happening in fashion globally, but in other ways, that isolation has helped us, especially for Zimmermann, define the way we approach design and dressing. Our lifestyle and environment is unique, and I think it comes through in the things we create.
How does Zimmermann stand apart from other brands?
The one thing we’ve always focused on is forging our own path. We’ve always been very true to our aesthetic. We create collections that are fresh, feminine and optimistic, and we do that against the backdrop of our unique way of life in Sydney.
Who is the core Zimmermann customer, and how are you fulfilling her needs season after season?
The Zimmermann woman is feminine and likes to have fun with fashion. She loves to buy things that make her feel good and beautiful. She has an eye for something new and unexpected and forms an emotional connection with the things she wears.
Why do you think the resort market has become so prevalent in the fashion industry?
Resort has now come to mean so much more than a wardrobe for the elite traveler. I think women have come to embrace the wear-ability and longevity that resort garments can have in your wardrobe all year round—regardless of whether you live in Sydney, New York or London or wherever.
Why do you think the Zimmermann brand has become so synonymous with resortwear/swimwear?
It’s funny how sometimes people are surprised that we started as a ready-to-wear brand. Our swimwear is influenced by, and is an extension of, the creative ideas that are inspiring our ready-to-wear from season to season. Obviously coming from Australia, a swim and resort line has been a natural fit and has easily resonated with, and been understood by fashion conscious women around the world.
What steps are you taking to highlight your ready-to-wear collection more prominently?
We’re not really taking any more steps than we have in the past to feature ready-to-wear over swim. They’ve always sat harmoniously together, side-by-side to provide something different for our woman. But at the same time, we decided a number of years ago to show our ready-to-wear collection each season in New York, to make the city a sort of home away from home for us. As a designer from Australia, it’s unrealistic to think you can stay at home here, create collections and expect the world to come to you. So you need a base in a global fashion city and New York is that for us.
How do you feel about trends in fashion, and do you think it is important to follow them?
As a designer, it’s not something I ever consciously think about. The thing that has always been the most important to us is to stay true to our aesthetic, and not get distracted by how things may change from season to season.
How would describe the overall aesthetic of your ready-to-wear collections over the past few seasons?
Our ready-to-wear collections retain an aesthetic that is often occasion based; it’s feminine and playful, but with a firm focus on unique detail, color and print.
How are you looking to grow the company in the next five years?
We’ve always put our collections and creative process at the heart of everything we do, and have continued to pursue new opportunities and projects that feel natural and have excited us, and the people around us. We have a number of new Zimmermann stores that will open in both the US and Europe over the next period of time, and some creative projects with partners in both Australia and the United States. There’s so much happening for us at the moment and it’s a really exciting time.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/feb/13/charli-xcx-wuthering-heights-review-atonalamorous-anthems-that-more-than-stand-apart-from-the-film In the catalogues of rock and pop artists, film soundtracks usually seem like interstitial releases. For every career highlight Shaft or Superfly, there’s a plethora of soundtrack albums that carry the tang of the side-hustle. It was doubtless flattering to be asked in the first place – who doesn’t want to feel like a polymath? – but the results are doomed to languish in the footnotes, alongside the compilations of B-sides and outtakes, where only diehard fans spend extended amounts of time.
But the release of House, the first single taken from Charli xcx’s soundtrack to Wuthering Heights, strongly suggested that its author saw Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë as a chance for a reset. In 2024’s Brat, she made an album you could genuinely call era-defining without fear of embarrassment: if an album makes an impact on the US presidential campaign and its title ends up refashioned as an adjective in the Collins English Dictionary, then it’s definitely era-defining.
But Charli has spent the last year declaring said era over, which seems a very smart move indeed – better to release an era-defining album than a career-defining one – and clearly viewed the opportunity to work on a film set out on the wild and windy moors of 19th-century Yorkshire as an opportunity to really move on. As she wryly noted, Catherine and Heathcliff’s doomed romance plays out “without a cigarette or a pair of sunglasses in sight”.
Certainly, dark, small-g gothic and bearing the influence of Nine Inch Nails, House sounds almost nothing like the music on Brat. John Cale’s impact on the track seems to go far further than his spoken-word guest vocal: there are obvious echoes of the Velvet Underground in its droning strings and shards of feedback. The rest of the Wuthering Heights soundtrack isn’t as dramatic a departure – its Auto-Tuned vocals and plethora of smart pop melodies immediately mark it out as the work of Charli – but nor does House feel like a radical outlier on the album.
Its musical aesthetic – and indeed Cale’s influence – weaves around the other songs here. Ominous drones regularly undercut the songs, as on Wall of Sound or Eyes of the World, the latter a standout collaboration with American singer Sky Ferreira. Strings dominate the sound, creating a sense of friction with the synths and drum machines. They frequently sound jagged and disruptive – Dying for You marries the dynamics of a rave breakdown to occasionally atonal strings; even the Europoppy melody of My Reminder is suddenly dislocated by a discordant flurry. When they aren’t, as on the staccato Seeing Things, it
doesn’t feel too much of a stretch to suggest they carry a hint of Cale’s icy baroque pop masterpiece Paris 1919 about them. Elsewhere, on closer Funny Mouth, the kind of industrial metal drums found on House make a reappearance.
Atonal, disruptive, industrial: despite all this, Wuthering Heights isn’t an album likely to alienate Charli’s existing fanbase, who in fairness have already reacted to House’s aural challenges by streaming it 10m times and meme-ing the living daylights out of its horror movie-worthy chorus. The songwriting is uniformly fantastic – she clearly doesn’t view pushing at the boundaries of what she does as any reason to abandon her pop smarts – and furthermore, it works as an album completely independent from the film it’s intended to accompany.
There’s a narrative arc to the songs that doesn’t require a working knowledge of the Wuthering Heights plot: you could simply read them as documenting the rise, fall and emotional fallout from a faintly toxic-sounding, BDSM-y relationship – “push my face into the stone … put the rope between my teeth … please rub the salt in my wounds,” she sings on Out of Myself – that might just as easily be taking place in present-day Basingstoke as on the windswept hills of 19th-century West Riding.
One thing Wuthering Heights really has in common with Brat is a sense of bold selfassurance. You could, if you wished, describe its contents as experimental (they certainly are by today’s pop standards, which don’t tend to go so big on disruptive atonality or monologues by octogenarian art-rock legends) but there’s nothing tentative about them. Moreover, its confidence never feels misplaced. “My name’s on the cover, but is it a Charli xcx album?” wrote its author in a lengthy Substack post. “I don’t know, nor do I care to find out.” It definitely is: Wuthering Heights feels substantially more than a side-hustle, or a footnote.
https://thesoundofvinyl.com/products/wuthering-heights-black-green-marbled-vinyl-lp? srsltid=AfmBOoqxTQQFygcFlcolCFtk0We7AYnGy7l-vCoYvol0CsncQZokaGPN
https://www.marcjacobs.com/us-en/spring2026.html?srsltid=AfmBOorP3ch4KUoNiSMLKLUhLUtIRO55Bi5nmIBAbdVbdE1I_O077qB
"Memories, both bittersweet and beautiful are a faculty of purpose influencing current and future actions - who we are, what we create, what we leave behind and what we carry forward."
- Marc Jacobs
https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2026-ready-to-wear/marc-jacobs Marc Jacobs is a man reckoning with his past. His show notes said as much: “Memories, both bittersweet and beautiful, are a faculty of purpose, influencing current and future actions —who we are, what we create, what we leave behind, and what we carry forward.”
For the first time in two years we were back at the Park Avenue Armory, an on-again, offagain show venue of Jacobs’s. Tonight, the Brobdingnian folding table and chairs by the late artist Robert Therrien from that spring 2024 show were shrunken down to life size, and positioned at the far corner of the enormous space. Perched on the table was a small painting by Anna Weyant, commissioned just last week, of a daisy, its petals plucked and pinned like scientific specimens or keepsakes in a scrapbook. To see the painting required a walk across the Armory; from the distance of the single row of chairs where the audience sat, it was vanishingly small.
That seemed to be part of Jacobs’s point. The internet may run on nostalgia, but our memories, like our dreams, are our own, and for the most part they’re interesting to us alone. Still, they make up a life, and Jacobs appeared to be reconsidering his.
Bjork’s “Joga” on the soundtrack provided a clue. The song was released in 1997. It was the year Jacobs was named the first creative director of Louis Vuitton, and a pre-world wide web high point of his American sportswear era, when he sent out v-necks, and button-downs, and straight skirts; prim little suits; and shift dresses that a generation of fashion editors adopted as a kind of uniform. I can vouch for that: I was crashing Marc Jacobs shows in that era, and I aspired to be one of those Marc Jacobs customers.
The intervening decades have left their mark on Marc and on fashion, of course, even as we are in the midst of a ’90s revival, with the Ryan Murphy JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy Love Story premiering next week. These days, to look at the late ’90s collections of Jacobs (and his designer peers, Bessette Kennedy’s employer Calvin Klein, included), many people would call them plain. Here the proportions were tweaked: Waistbands were loose— enough to slip your hands in on a straight skirt, or to hoick up a mini high above the waist. Coats were worn front-to-back, a row of buttons marching up the spine, and the frogging on jackets and shirts glittered like it was made from AI. But even with all those weirdening adjustments, these were clothes of a different kind than we’ve grown accustomed to from Jacobs of late.
Following a Covid-time pause, Jacobs returned to the runway flaunting a taste for wild exaggeration, with silhouettes taken to the extreme in the manner of designer icons of his, like Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo. It was fashion as performance art, and it for made great pictures, but nobody was wearing these pieces to the office, or out on a first date. Tonight’s collection, though, it got the heart pumping. “What a great show! Clothes we can wear,” cheered Jacobs’s friend, the designer Anna Sui.
Michael Burke, the chairman and CEO of LVMH Americas, and Sidney Toledano, a senior advisor to Bernard Arnault, were both in the audience. LVMH is reportedly reinvesting in the Marc Jacobs brand after a sale to Authentic Brands Group failed to go through. There’s a generation that grew up on Jacobs that hasn’t spent time with him in half a decade, maybe more. I’d call this quite a well-timed stroll down memory lane.
https://fashionista.com/2026/02/marc-jacobs-fall-2026collection#gid=ci0311dfa4c00025c1&pid=marc-jacobs-runway-2026-look-1---alaina
https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2026-couture/alexis-mabille
All images were generated by Alexis Mabille using AI
Question: How long did it take you to realize that no part of these images is real?
Not the dresses; not the models; neither the audience in the shadows; nor the gleaming runway. The show we attended was real insofar as we arrived at the lobby of the Lido theater on the Champs-Elysées, sat on benches, faced a wall-to-wall screen and watched something that was strange and unnatural but also pioneering and audacious.
Today, Alexis Mabille went where no fashion week designer has gone before: both his collection and show video were entirely generated by artificial intelligence.
His hyper-realist experiment brought us straight to the heart of the uncanny valley. Was it preposterous for a couturier to attempt this during the haute couture week? Purists would say oui. These looks were designed as drawings, and although they involved toile prototypes and scans of fabrics and embroideries, they do not exist as completed physical creations. Conversely, haute couture is often compared to a laboratory, and Mabille worked with several platforms over some five months to ensure a coral caftan behaved like crepe or that a model’s wavy hair swished just so.
“It was like creating a moodboard for each garment and feeding it all the way through so that, in the end, it obeys. And really, it’s about taking AI against the grain, and showing that the human element is absolutely essential behind it. You see beautiful images, you see the girls walking, and so on,” he said. “It’s about showing that, without us, without our ideas, without the hands of the technicians doing the calculations—sometimes going through a silhouette up to 300 times to arrive at the image, and then feeding the algorithms—nothing much happens. Or at least, nothing other than degenerative things.”
Mabille explained how the catalyst was wanting to help clients better visualize samples and silhouettes. He searched for engineers through 42, the computer science school founded by Xavier Niel, who then recommended AI specialists across Europe, including a production company called Gloria, capable of producing designs that his atelier would have made by hand.
Perhaps because AI feels anathema to the handwork of haute couture (a term which refers to the highest form of sewing), it was not spelled out explicitly in the show notes. Instead, Mabille said he chose to “engage with technological innovation” using “new tools [that] opened the way to unexplored creative territories.” Anthropomorphizing the complex coding, he said backstage, “It’s really like having someone on the team who’s a bit of a beginner, who’s done a long internship, and then becomes part of the team.”
What about the other teams—casting, hair and makeup artists, manicurists, dressers et all— no longer participating? Didn’t Mabille miss the energy, the backstage cheers at the end? “It’s different. I’m not sewing a hem at 3am. Even the atelier staff found it strange,” he said. Was it more cost effective, at least? “It’s not that economical,” he said. “It’s hours of highly skilled labor.”
The IRL mastery on display at other maisons this week is the best bulwark against more of this. Likewise that elusive frisson that occurs from a live moment. Here, the music selection included “Vous êtes parfait.e.s” (You are perfect) by Lucie Anthunes. Give me shoddy tailoring and waifs wobbling in heels any day over the slick perfection of this alternate world, its front row comprising a sea of unrecognizable faces.
The final bridal look was modeled by Mabille’s mother—well, a virtual, glowed-up version of her—in froths of frayed organza. Then Mabille walked out in the flesh, and the energy felt weird as people seemed to be processing what they had just witnessed. Whether his AI runway becomes a case study at fashion schools, sends a ripple across industry, or yields an uptick in his client orders, he got our attention by crossing the rubicon. For better or worse, he won’t be the last.
https://wwd.com/runway/spring-couture-2026/paris/alexis-mabille-collection/review/ Alexis Mabille caught guests at his show by surprise by presenting his spring collection without live models — or even physical clothes, for that matter.
Larger-than-life models appeared on wraparound screens at the Lido theater, their images running on a loop down the 110-foot space. It took some a moment to realize this was more than a pre-spectacle warm-up. In a first for a fashion house, the entire show was created through AI.
“I wanted to work with artificial intelligence in a different way. Usually, it’s used in a degenerative way, feeding it ideas and it creates for you,” he said ahead of the reveal. “Here, we did it different: it was like having an extra person in the team in the studio.”
Over the course of several months Mabille worked with French studio Glor’IA to create the silhouettes, which ranged from a red crepe frock coat with an embroidered shawl-collar, to a tracksuit-dress in blush pink with bejeweled drawstrings — right down to the sheen of micropearls embroidered on a collar.
Animating the lineup was a step he likened to new virtual walk-throughs created in interior design and architecture, the other facet of his career.
The result was surprisingly realistic, even in motion. Back at the studio, toiles for each silhouette have been developed ahead of client fittings, the designer said.
Opening the show was supermodel and longtime friend Diana Gartner, while the final exit was Mabille’s mother Mireille, given a thorough digital makeover.
The brand, which said last year it’s seeking investors, has been experimenting with various formats for its couture showcase over the years, from full-scale runway shows to portrait sessions with famous friends.
Mabille stressed that this wasn’t a cost-cutting measure. What was not spent on a cast of live models was used on the long-haul digital process, which required a team of up to 10, and a whole suite of tools. And the process wasn’t smooth sailing, given AI isn’t exactly a model coworker and needs to be trained repeatedly, he added.
While it left some discombobulated or downright skeptical, amid debate about the difference between watching couture online or considering it an intimate physical experience of clothing, Mabille offered a reminder that it is, above all, a place to experiment.
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules-stop-destruction-unsold-clothes-andshoes-2026-02-09_en
The European Commission today (Feb 9) adopted new measures under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) to prevent the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear.
The rules will help cut waste, reduce environmental damage and create a level playing field for companies embracing sustainable business models, allowing them to reap the benefits of a more circular economy.
Every year in Europe, an estimated 4-9% of unsold textiles are destroyed before ever being worn. This waste generates around 5.6 million tons of CO2 emissions – almost equal to Sweden’s total net emissions in 2021.
To help reduce this wasteful practice, the ESPR requires companies to disclose information on the unsold consumer products they discard as waste. It also introduces a ban on the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear.
The Delegated and Implementing Acts adopted today will support businesses in complying with these requirements by:
● Clarifying derogations: The Delegated Act outlines specific and justified circumstances under which the destruction will be permitted, for instance, due to safety reasons or product damage. National authorities will oversee compliance.
● Facilitating disclosure: The Implementing Act introduces a standardised format for businesses to disclose the volumes of unsold consumer goods they discard. This applies from February 2027, giving businesses sufficient time to adapt.
Instead of discarding stock, companies are encouraged to manage their stock more effectively, handle returns, and explore alternatives such as resale, remanufacturing, donations, or reuse.
The ban on destruction of unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear and the derogations will apply to large companies from 19 July 2026. Medium-sized companies are expected to follow in 2030. The rules on disclosure under the ESPR already apply to large companies and will also apply to medium-sized companies in 2030.
"The textile sector is leading the way in the transition to sustainability, but there are still challenges. The numbers on waste show the need to act. With these new measures, the textile sector will be empowered to move towards sustainable and circular practices, and we can boost our competitiveness and reduce our dependencies."
Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy
The destruction of unsold goods is a wasteful practice. In France alone, around €630 million worth of unsold products are destroyed each year. Online shopping also fuels the issue: in Germany, nearly 20 million returned items are discarded annually.
Textiles are a major part of the problem, and a key focus for action. To cut waste and reduce the sector’s environmental footprint, the European Commission is promoting more sustainable production while helping European companies stay competitive.
The ESPR is central to this effort. It will make products on the EU market more durable, reusable and recyclable, while boosting efficiency and circularity.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-180966547
The air is starting to bite, physical media is in, and everybody is playing chess. ‘No trends’ might have been the defining tone of the summer, but this winter, we’re all going analogue.
After years of keeping tabs of anything important on my calendar app or hundreds of out-ofcontext lists stuffed into my notes on my phone, I decided to buy myself a diary. I’ve been a lover of physical media (you just can’t beat the smell) for a while, but writing anything down was my limit... it’s just. too. slow. But this winter, something has shifted - and I’m not alone.
From TikTok feeds to the runway, nostalgia has become the hottest commodity aroundand everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie. Books are being fashioned as accessories, smoking is… cool again(?), and I’ve never seen so many hiking OOTDs (seriously - is everyone in the Dolomites right now?!). And as the internet loves to swing the pendulum to the extreme, people are even going as far as curating their own ‘analogue bags’, filled with portable activities such as painting materials, notebooks and puzzles, designed to curb our penchant for doomscrolling (but not before panning over them for a TikTok video).
The past has never been more fashionable - and it’s coming at us from all angles, including our guilty pleasures.
Smoking goes high fashion
As quickly as it boomed, vaping has fallen on its ar*e and has now been declared an ick. But it’s not that people are rejecting the idea of smoking altogether - in fact, quite the opposite.
According to Newsweek, in the US, the term ‘smoking pose’ on Pinterest had risen by 70 percent year-on-year among those aged 18 to 24, a clear 180 on last year’s clean girl boom.
Ciggs have been swirling in celeb circles too; Sabrina Carpenter posed fag in hand for Interview magazine, meanwhile, Charli XCX was spotted enjoying a cheeky one as she celebrated her nuptials back in July. As far as the fashion crowd is concerned, they wouldn’t be seen dead puffing on a vape.
Big Fashion has cottoned on too - in September, Balenciaga launched its fine fragrance collection, boxed up in cig-like packaging, and Ukrainian designer Natasha Zinko brought out a ‘cigarette tiara’ as part of her intimate ‘hair of the dog’ collection at The Box Soho in September.
If vapes are everything the future and big tech represent, cigarettes have clawed their way back in to offer dollops of the classic nostalgia everyone is craving right now.
Everybody wants a chessboard
Analogue goes beyond a cheeky cig and yap in the smoking area, though, and one interesting phenomenon I picked up on while digging into this is the upswing of the chess club.
Once confined to so-quiet-you-can-hear-a-pin-drop town halls and the occasional pub sideroom, chess has spilled out into the mainstream and even soared to the heights of the luxury market. If you fancy getting your hands on a Tyler, The Creator X Louis Vuitton chess box, that’s a thing now.
With a surge in events blending bustling nightlife, music and chess, the once-uncool game has been given the IT-girl seal of approval, signalling a huge shift in what constitutes cultural and social capital. It goes back to the phenomenon of ‘if you know, you know’insider knowledge is the new social currency. In some sense, chess is now sitting side by side with the Tabi.
On the other hand, the chess boom once again plays into the concept of ‘cool girl hobbies’ and that insatiable appetite for community, which no doubt came tumbling from the aftershocks of pandemic living. But what sets chess apart from other board games is the level of dedication it requires from players - you actually have to learn how to play it, and a great deal of attention is needed to get good. In that way, it’s become the perfect antidote to algorithm restlessness.
But chess isn’t the only ‘cool girl hobby’ which has seen scores of new people show an interest - apparently, all the fashion buffs read now, too.
Chess on Friday, book club on Saturday?
Fashion puts its reading specs on: all the cool girls are literary buffs now
Reading culture has been rumbling under the surface of fashion circles for a while, but now it really feels like it’s having its moment. OOTDs aren’t complete without a snapshot of Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Miu Miu has a literary club, LOEWE hosts a poetry prize, and all the cool girls are flicking through Joan Didion’s repertoire. BookTok has been a thing for a while now, but there’s been a real boom in books being fashioned as accessories, too. Now, The Year of Magical Thinking is as much a part of your outfit as your Jimmy Fairlys or Paloma Wool cupro trousers.
Again, fashion’s relationship to literacy seems to go back to ‘if you know, you know’ marketing, but it also marks an interesting shift in a hobby once enjoyed curled up on the sofa, now being paraded as a public spectacle. Reading is a shortcut to taste - and now it’s being curated in the same way as our wardrobes. A moodboard in itself.
I’m sure no ‘analogue bag’ is complete without a copy of Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts or a Penguin Classics clothbound cover. People have done away with their Kindles, and books have become a symbol of one’s Pinterest board - the line between our style and what we’re reading is starting to tangle. It’s not enough just to read; people want to look like they read.
It’s why this uptick in hiking outfit inspo also seems to be emerging quietly onto our feedsit’s another expression of the same craving.
Romanticising the real
As someone admittedly with a finger on the pulse of Fashion TikTok, I’ve noticed a real rise in the number of hiking OOTDs, technical outdoor gear hauls and this kind of melding pot of Gorpcore 2.0. And when you think about it, that’s incredibly analogue.
The aesthetic of hiking clobber might not be new, but the way it’s being presented and curated for the online eye is. Gorpcore 2.0 has created a perfect overlap we didn’t have before - analogue accessories such as water bottles, compasses, carabiners, fold-out maps and canvas bags have collided with aesthetics. Even the colour palette feels intentionalmuted shades of khaki, grey, earthy tones scream de-digitised.
Seen as last summer was dubbed the ‘summer with no trends’, it’s clear the general culture is shifting to reject the idea of traditional newness and algorithm dressing in favour of the idea of durability and that feeling of being a bit ‘anti-fashion’. Function-forward dressing plays nicely into the hands of analogue values - and the backdrop matters, too. A hiking OOTD filmed in the middle of a National Park gives off an air of being unplugged and tuned in to the real world. It could also be why troves of people are splashing out on unpluggedstyle cabin breaks such as Unyoked (highly recommended) so they can literally touch grass.
Even spotting Gorpcore 2.0 in the city still broadcasts a similar message - sure, spotting an Arcteryx on the tram or Salomons clopping through the Northern Quarter isn’t exactly their natural habitat, but it’s still borrowing elements of this off-grid and ‘slow’ energy. Urban analogue cosplay, if you will.
‘If you know, you know’ meets AI anxiety
We’re in an age where AI is starting to feel inescapable, AI vs real images are harder than ever to decipher, and people feel forced into a corner to prove the value of human work. So, it’s no suprise we’re starting to desperately chase the idea of ‘real’. Horrifyingly, there are whispers of AI permeating the fashion industry too; AI stylists and digital shopping tools are on the rise, and last year, SheerLuxe hired its new fashion and lifestyle editor, ReemBot, which was ‘AI enhanced’ (it went down like a lead balloon).
There’s no doubt that this increasing AI anxiety and digital fatigue have become the breeding ground for the re-injection of ‘analogue’ values, hobbies, outfits… everything into popular culture. After all, fashion is one of the key windows into the zeitgeist. Analogue has become an ‘aesthetic’ in its own right.
It all sits hand-in-hand with the concept of ‘if you know, you know’ and the desire to signal insider knowledge to those around us. Showing we’re ‘in tune’ has never been cooler, and an increasing awareness around screen time, digital obsession and Big Tech is the cherry on top.
It might also be why you’re reading this now - Substack has become a go-to for those trying to get off the social media hamster wheel and away from traditional media forms, having rapidly evolved into a forum championing creative expression and a return to a bit of simplicity. It reminds me of the Tumblr days.
People might be more in love with the idea of analogue living rather than actually declaring our phones are officially uncool - that much is clear in the fact that I first spotted the trend on TikTok. But analogue winter, if anything else, definitely feels like a strong statement - the craving for ‘real’ will never go away, even if we’re still posting about it online.
https://www.vogue.com/article/boho-top-trend?share=app
Australia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/17/social-media-bans-kids/ https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/melbournes-history-and-heritage
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyp9d3ddqyo
https://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/news/afw-2025-vogue-size-inclusivity-report/imagegallery/bf69bb4aee772ba24f9a786694efc7c7?page=1 https://substack.com/home/post/p-177432849
https://fashionjournal.com.au/fashion/student-collections-review-mfw/ https://www.instagram.com/ausfashioncouncil/ https://www.instagram.com/melbfashionweek/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DG9VM8-z0KJ/?img_index=19 https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy7dOSWv0KP/?img_index=10 https://www.instagram.com/p/Cywjn78vgKG/?img_index=7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7hQVHm5lyU https://www.instagram.com/lci_melbourne/