Fashion CEOs Explain Why This Downturn Is Different

Much has changed about the world since the last recession — meaning, fashion’s reaction will shift this time around, explains BoF’s workplace and talent correspondent Sheena Butler Young.  

Background:

Fashion is bracing itself for a 2023 filled with uncertainty. An impending recession hangs in the background of executives’ conversations about the year ahead. Leaders will have to strike a balance between safe-guarding their companies (which, may inevitably will include layoffs) while continuing to fuel growth and retaining crucial employees“There’s this mindshift shift that’s happened that people truly aren’t disposable … a lot of things that would have typically happened [during a recession] are now a last resort,” said BoF’s workplace and talent correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. 

Key Insights: 

• In the coming months, fashion executives will inevitably start pulling recession-reaction levers, including doing hiring pauses and layoffs, reorganising responsibilities across teams and reigning in focus on experimental spaces like the metaverse. 
• But, market conditions are different now compared to prior recessions, and the industry has changed drastically. 
• Because of the labour shortage, CEOs are first and foremost focused on keeping workers happy. 
• Teams that were once considered “nice-to-haves” and “first-to-gos” — including sustainability and diversity and inclusion — have become crucial to business function for fashion companies in the past few years. 

Additional resources:

• Advice From Fashion CEOs on Leading in a Recession
• Quiet Quitting, Labour Hoarding and Other Workplace Trends, Explained

Follow The Debrief wherever you listen to podcasts.

Join BoF Professional today with our exclusive podcast listener discount of 25% off an annual membership, follow the link here and enter the coupon code ‘debrief’ at checkout. 

Want more from The Business of Fashion? Subscribe to our daily newsletter here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.