Welcome to the Scoop: a weekly email series in which I quiz fashion insiders on the stories of the week. This will be a way for the Vogue Business community to synthesize and reflect on the latest headlines and get a little inside scoop every Friday.
This week’s guest is the CEO of PR firm KCD, Rachna Shah. Having started her career at KCD as a junior publicist 29 years ago, she has seen firsthand the industry’s customer approach go full circle — from a localized approach to a global one and back again.
And if you attend fashion weeks, you’ve seen Rachna — clad in black, headset on, swiftly moving between backstage and the front row. Ahead of New York Fashion Week, which starts next Wednesday, I called her to get the scoop.
Hi Rachna, what’s the scoop?
We are working with the house of Alexander McQueen again in the US market. We have a long history with the house, since the days when it was integrated into the Gucci Group. We started working with Lee on all his Paris shows and through the transition with Sarah, which was such a personally meaningful time for the brand. So it’s wonderful to be working with the brand again on their next journey. The energy from the Grammys this past weekend, with Lady Gaga paying homage to Lee on stage and [indie pop band] The Marías wearing custom designs by Seán, was so incredible.
When did you guys stop working with Alexander McQueen?
We stopped in the transition from Sarah to Seán, which can happen when a brand is going through a reset. But we are very happy to be a part of the brand again.
Speaking of the US market, it seems to be such a focus for brands at the moment. Moncler just had its Grenoble show in Aspen, Chanel showed its pre-fall collection in New York... Why do you think that is?
The US has been a big focus for brands for quite some time now. Obviously Covid happened, and there have been shifts from a global perspective. But it’s a big country. The approach to it used to be very coastal — it was very much about New York, LA, and then maybe Miami. But brands started to understand the value of the customer in between. I think a lot of that has to do with e-commerce. Now they understood where their customers lived, where they vacationed... and then with Covid, groups of people moved out of the capitals because they could work remotely. As a market changes, it’s easy to hold back, but in reality, there’s still so much opportunity in the US.
With everything going on in the world right now and specifically in the US, it feels like the dissonance between the macro and the world of fashion is at an all-time high. Do you anticipate this NYFW to get particularly political?
It is devastating. And it is in these times that art, culture and storytelling become so important. It’s very personal to each designer how they make their point of view known in a dark time. I think we’re going to see across the season how the unrest is affecting that emotional output. But underneath it all, this is a business, and the economy of it needs to move forward. So it’s about how you do that while still holding space for what’s going on in this country.
Size inclusivity in menswear was already nearing non-existent. But somehow, for Fall/Winter 2026, it has declined again. At the same time, it feels like a broader abandonment of companies’ diversity commitments. What do you see as the reasons for such a drawback?
Ultimately, the lack of inclusivity and diversity stems from sales anxiety. They think this is their customer. This is what their customer looks like, and this is what they should see coming down the runway. I don’t think that is sustainable as a long-term strategy. Aren’t you missing a clientele who doesn’t see themselves in your product? Watching Bhavitha [Mandava] open the Chanel show in New York and then close it in Paris... as an Indian woman, my feed obviously was flooded with videos of her parents watching the show in India. And India is a huge marketplace, so making her story part of the brand’s story is brilliant. Because it helps customers see themselves in it.
Saks has confirmed that buyers at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman will attend fashion month. Of course, there is a new CEO, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, leading a restructure. Can Saks win back the industry’s confidence?
The team at Saks now is very experienced and connected directly to the brands, the leadership, the designers, etc. Unfortunately, it’s not a short-term fix, and the only way you can really show success is for them to take the time to rebuild confidence and show that what they’re doing is working. I’ve had the privilege of working with Geoffroy and this team when they were at Neiman. So personally, I don’t think anyone would take this on if they didn’t feel confident in their plan to move forward. My personal concern is that there’s a lot of reporting on large-scale losses. There is the effect on small brands, especially in the US, with the number of independent designers that we have. The risk is far greater because this can potentially wipe out an entire generation of designers. They are struggling. So I’m hoping that there is a plan.
You can catch up with last week’s Scoop with the Fashion Council Germany’s Scott Lipinski here.
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