From Versace changing hands to billion-dollar beauty megadeals and an AI boom reshaping everything from design to discovery, the investment and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) landscape found a steadier rhythm in 2025. The deals that closed made clear that only the strongest operators and the boldest ideas are attracting capital.
At the start of the year, experts predicted fashion and beauty dealmaking to roar back after a muted 2024. Instead, the year opened with hesitation. “Macroeconomic shifts — largely related to tariffs and consumer spending uncertainty — led to a lot of processes to pause or even fully stop,” says Marissa Lepor, managing director at M&A firm The Sage Group. But the slowdown created a sorting mechanism. “It was not only a test of brand, but a test of team. The businesses that were able to navigate headwinds swiftly were still able to get deals done. There’s very little interest in mediocre investment opportunities.” When money is flowing more liberally, investors are more likely to place a riskier bet — companies that are less profitable, but have high-growth potential.
The shakeout in 2025 means that those who were able to thrive under pressure this year are even more attractive. In 2026, experts predict an uptick in M&A activity, especially as tariff noise settles and the luxury market improves.
“The stronger the luxury market demand, the more there is interest from investors. As the market turns positive, you see more financial sponsors that are keen to back the sector,” says Mario Ortelli, founder and managing partner at M&A boutique advisory Ortelli Co.
Here are the year’s takeaways from M&A across fashion, beauty, retail and tech.
Fashion
The most prominent luxury M&A deal this year was by far Prada Group’s acquisition of Versace, which closed on December 2. “It’s been exciting to see that a historical brand like Versace has found its home in the Prada Group. There are clear synergies on the platform, logistics, retail, marketing side, and it does not overlap with the current portfolio of Prada,” says Ortelli. “I expect that a team of people already identified by Prada will enter in the merchandising division, will reinforce the marketing, the style and the retail, and I believe that Prada has already put in line the key elements that they want to introduce to the new organization.”
In 2026, all eyes will be on Armani. The late Giorgio Armani’s will states that within 18 months of his passing, a 15% stake should be sold to either LVMH, L’Oréal Group or EssilorLuxottica, with 30% to 54.9% to be sold to the same buyer three to five years later, or for the company to seek an IPO. Right now, Armani’s business is propped up by beauty and eyewear licenses. “The question is if L’Oréal or EssilorLuxottica would be willing to buy the whole company and also manage the fashion part, which requires capital and dedication,” Ortelli points out. The solution could be a similar set-up to Estée Lauder Companies’s (ELC) acquisition of Tom Ford: as part of the deal, Zegna Group secured a long-term license for the fashion and accessories business, and Marcolin the eyewear license.
Outside of luxury, one of the biggest deals this year was Guess’s partnership with Authentic Brands Group (ABG) to take the label private in August. Under the terms of the deal — which is expected to close in early 2026 — ABG will acquire a 51% stake, worth around $1.4 billion in cash. “ABG has historically focused more on IP deals, but this one was very unique,” says Lepor, who worked on the deal. “You can only do those kinds of deals when the brand is exceptionally strong with multigenerational appeal.” It was the second largest apparel deal this year, behind American Apparel owner Gildan’s $2.2 billion acquisition of US clothing company Hanesbrands, known for its basics.
There were a handful of smaller but no less exciting deals, too. Adanola’s minority investment in August and Skims’s $225 million raise demonstrated the appeal for elevated everyday basics. Dôen’s series A raise and Staud’s minority stake from a consortium of family offices in June highlighted the strong demand for accessible, wearable luxury among investors. Chalhoub Group’s strategic investment in Willy Chavarria, Jacquemus’s strategic minority investment from L’Oréal Group, and Golden Goose’s minority funding from Blue Pool Capital signaled that brands combining strong fashion appeal with solid business acumen continue to see success.
“For fashion brands, the bar is very high for what investors are excited to invest in. They’re looking for fashion brands that are growing, highly profitable and have a sense of predictability season-to-season, versus always relying on newness,” says Lepor, who was involved in the Staud deal. “The fashion brands that are most compelling are often a one-stop shop for customers; they’re more solution-oriented, focused on wardrobe-building and known for a particular aesthetic that people come back to.”
Beauty
The most notable beauty deal of 2025 was Elf’s $1 billion acquisition of Hailey Bieber’s Rhode. “It was surprising, because Rhode doesn’t follow the typical profile of a strategic acquisition: the company has a limited set of SKUs, it’s sold 100% direct-to-consumer [DTC] and is reliant on an influencer founder,” says Lepor. “But there are significant upsides: the opportunity to launch retail and take the brand international — and the limited SKU portfolio is actually helpful here because the brand has more efficient working capital dynamics.”
Elsewhere, Kering sold its beauty division to L’Oréal. It was an early signal from new CEO Luca de Meo that the struggling luxury group will be focusing on its core business. “The option is to divest from non-core, non-strategic businesses or assets, or you have to raise money. So Kering started by selling some real estate and then they made this change of strategy with the beauty division,” explains Ortelli. There’s speculation that Kering will look to streamline its portfolio further. The brands rumored to be sold are McQueen and Brioni, alongside other real estate assets.
More broadly, the beauty deals of 2025 can be split into two categories: brands that focus on science-led ingredients, biotech and longevity, versus internet-native brands with a strong Gen Z following. Examples of the former include doctor-led 111Skin’s minority investment from Kim Kardashian’s Skky Partners in January, L’Oréal’s acquisition of science-backed Medik8 in June, and skin longevity brand OneSkin’s August fundraise. On the flip side, L’Oréal’s acquisition of Color Wow in June and Mona Kattan’s buy-back of her fragrance brand Kayali in January, with the help of General Atlantic, demonstrate the power of social media in boosting desirability among investors.
Particularly as we move into 2026 and beyond, experts say the brands with the strongest investor interest will be those that blend both science and community. An example of this is Wonderskin, known for its viral peel-off lip stain technology, which raised $50 million in series A funding in May.
“The biggest hurdle for the science-backed, IP-focused brands is that a strategic’s R&D [research and development] team is testing them against brands they already have in their portfolio — testing if it’s the technologies in a product that make it perform or just the ingredients — and then they’ll decide if they’d have FOMO if a competitor bought it. The bar is a lot higher for innovation,” Lepor says. “If a brand can have both science and community, that’s the ideal. The product can be exceptional, but what investors are really buying into is a community, a new marketing strategy and a new demographic of customers that they weren’t already reaching.”
Retail
The luxury multi-brand e-commerce space has seen some challenges in recent years. In April, Mytheresa finalized the acquisition of Yoox Net-a-Porter (YNAP) Group (which, at the time, comprised Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter, Yoox and The Outnet), and rebranded to LuxExperience. Then, in October, LuxExperience sold The Outnet to The O Group in a deal worth $30 million.
“We absolutely believe that Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter and Yoox are not only very strong brands with a great customer franchise, but are very complementary to Mytheresa and not overlapping,” LuxExperience CEO Michael Kliger tells Vogue Business. “So while we have many operational challenges to fix the businesses and make them grow profitably again, the biggest challenge is indeed to create a group structure that allows the different brands to operate fully independently vis-à-vis the customers — this way preserving their brand identities. And this is exactly what we are doing.”
Meanwhile, beauty and pharmacy retail also saw their own structural reshaping. Ulta’s acquisition of Space NK in July marked a rare outbound move for the US beauty giant, giving it a premium foothold in the UK. At the same time, Walgreens Boots Alliance began disentangling its complex transplanting structure in August, paving the way for British retailer Boots to operate as a standalone entity. Together, these moves underscore how distribution power is being reconfigured as the retail landscape undergoes its own upheaval.
Finally, Frasers Group returned to the M&A landscape, with its acquisition of Miami-based multi-brand retailer The Webster in October. It’s a do-over for Frasers Group, which acquired luxury e-tailer Matches in December 2023 and sent it into administration just four months after. Amid a struggling retail landscape, Frasers Group and Mytheresa have proven that expansion and consolidation can come at the hands of strong-but-unlikely players. “We’ve got to capitalize on fragmentation in the industry, where there’s a lack of investment and high uncertainty among many other multi-brand retailers,” Frasers Group CEO Michael Murray told Vogue Business earlier this year.
Tech
Tech deals in 2025 were dominated by the AI boom that shows no signs of slowing, though investors increasingly acknowledge the possibility of a bubble forming in the wider market. As it relates to fashion, beauty and retail, however, AI is still relatively nascent, and investor appetite is sharp. Raspberry AI, which transforms garment sketches into photorealistic renderings that replicate real fit and drape, secured $24 million in series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz in January. Blng AI raised a $3 million seed round for its use of generative AI to minimize prototyping timelines across jewelry design. Personal shopping and styling have also drawn attention: Alta, an AI-driven styling and shopping assistant, closed an $11 million seed round as consumer-facing agents move into the spotlight.
Alongside the frontend frenzy, a quieter but potentially even more significant wave of capital has flowed into supply chain infrastructure. Resale platforms such as Archive and Reverse.Supply (following Trove’s earlier momentum), supply chain SaaS players like Fairly Made and Markmi, and textile recyclers including Circ and Eeden received investor attention as the industry continues to face regulatory and environmental pressure. While these companies may not command the headlines of an AI stylist or shopping agent, they sit at the core of how brands in fashion, luxury and beauty will use AI to improve their operations and meet compliance demands.
Commerce and marketplace platforms are also consolidating and growing at the same time. Japanese e-commerce giant Zozo acquired fashion search platform Lyst for $154 million, while creator-commerce platform ShopMy raised $77.5 million in January and later extended its series B funding by an additional $70 million, pushing its valuation to $1.5 billion. Live-shopping marketplace Whatnot had an even more aggressive year, raising $265 million in January and a further $225 million later in the year, more than doubling its valuation to $11.5 billion. The throughline is that AI-enabled shopping, community-driven commerce and new forms of product discovery are becoming key areas of interest among growth-stage investors.
Where is consumer tech headed next? One of the most symbolic deals was smart ring maker Oura’s $900 million series E fundraise in October, which brought the company’s valuation to $11 billion. Tech disruptor Nothing also reached a $1.3 billion valuation in September after a $200 million funding round led by early Facebook backer Tiger Global. As AI evolves from software into hardware, wearables are quickly becoming the next strategic frontier in the years to come.
