What we learnt at Vogue Business Fashion Futures 2025

The fashion industry is being shaped by seismic shifts: artificial intelligence, new definitions of luxury and urgent calls for sustainability. At the Vogue Business Fashion Futures event in New York on 25 September, executives and innovators gathered to explore how creativity, commerce and culture are colliding with new technologies — and what it takes to build a fashion system that works better for everyone.

Through candid fireside chats and panel debates, speakers shared how they’re future-proofing businesses, investing in technologies and reimagining the consumer experience. Here are the key takeaways from the day’s speakers.

Fireside chat: How Coach is building a fashion brand for the future

Coach president of North America Leigh Manheim reflected on how a nearly 100-year-old brand has managed to remain relevant by initiating a comeback. “We knew that we needed to do something different in our business. We weren’t experiencing the growth that we wanted, so we really spent time learning about the customers,” she said.

The key is listening closely to customers and embracing a test-and-learn mentality. Avoiding “last year-itis” has meant rethinking product placement and customer experience. Coach, Manheim said, began selling full-price Tabby bags in outlet stores — a decision rooted in consumer research.

Hospitality is another pillar of the brand’s strategy. Coach has opened two coffee shops inside stores, with 20 more on the way. Positioned in outlet malls, the cafés are designed to foster community and appeal to Gen Z consumers, who view luxury less as a symbol of status and more as a space for authenticity and connection. Even small details matter: because some Gen Z shoppers dislike direct eye contact, store associates now use phones to display products while conversing, making interactions more comfortable.

Sustainability is also central to the brand’s evolution. Coachtopia, a sub-brand launched with Gen Z in mind, repurposes scraps from bestsellers like the Tabby and Brooklyn bags into new designs. Customers can bring Coachtopia items back to Coach stores in exchange for credit, where they are then remade into something new. Manheim said the long-term goal is for these learnings to inform the wider Coach business.

Looking ahead, she said, Coach’s goal is to double its business by 2030 to $10 billion. “A lot of it will be about keeping on the path we’re on. So staying really focused, staying true to our purpose and our values, and continuing to deliver products, experiences and engagement that really fit within our consumers lives.”

Coach is also looking to expand beyond its handbag core. Manheim identified footwear as a key growth category, offering lower entry prices and higher purchase frequency, as well as a way to reach more men. “You need to be where your customer is in a way that feels authentic,” she said.

Panel: The AI shopping revolution

AI’s rise in the mainstream has made it one of the biggest transformation stories of the year. While the excitement is palpable, so are the concerns. “If AI were a drinking game, none of us would be able to come to work the next day,” joked Barbara Piermont, chief growth officer at 3C Ventures, about the number of times the topic comes up. But, she cautioned that the technology is only as strong as the data it’s trained on. “If you put garbage in, you will get garbage out.”

Sarah Davis, founder and president of Fashionphile, described how AI is already reshaping the resale space. With 30,000 to 40,000 unique items in inventory, machine learning supports everything from pricing accuracy to visual recognition for Fashionphile, making it possible to scale with a lean team. AI even handles video and post editing, freeing up budget to reinvest in human clienteling. “HI — human intelligence — and AI together allows us to answer,” she said, stressing that people still want the option of speaking to a human.

Piermont believes that the future of shopping will be mostly changed by virtual try-ons and agentic AI, which can find and purchase products on the users’ behalf. Davis sees the future being shaped by digital twins, which let us see how pieces look on ourselves, rather than on a model. But, she said, AI is not there yet on authentication for resale. “I know we’re going to get there. It’s just that it’s going to take iteration, it’s going to take better control of data,” Davis said.

Panel: Defining the future of fashion

In this session, Google Cloud’s director of ISV partnerships Seth Siciliano and head of Shopify VIP Jessica Kohl spoke about the tools brands need today to make the most of this AI-fuelled fashion future, as well as the actions they should take to stay ahead. The first question: for luxury, is AI an opportunity or a threat?

“It’s absolutely an opportunity. AI is a tool kit that will empower you, your teams and your brands to leverage the craftsmanship and the precision of luxury, with the scale and the systematisation of AI powering that,” Kohl said. “I think there is a little bit of threat when we talk about ethical usage of AI and the wave that’s coming. Governance is a big challenge. I think you also have, especially with luxury, the challenges of fraud and making sure that you have the tooling and protection to protect you and your customers. But you have to be approaching it as if it’s an opportunity because it absolutely is — if it’s leveraged and built into your systems the right way.”

Siciliano agreed that it’s a tool businesses will need to learn how to harness. “Every opportunity is a threat,” he said. “It’s really not a technology shift. It’s more a strategic imperative that businesses, to run and be more efficient, need to understand how to adopt these technologies.”

From here, brands should be thinking about three priorities when it comes to AI, said Kohl: clean data, empowered teams and comfort with experimentation. At Shopify, this has meant giving every employee access to professional-grade AI tools, while protecting sensitive information through internal systems. Leaders also required every role to demonstrate how it was using AI in order to secure additional resources, embedding experimentation into the company’s culture. The goal, they explained, is to reward curiosity and encourage pilots and pivots — to test, tinker and adapt without fear.

Siciliano added that while AI feels new to many, it has actually been around for decades. What’s changed is its accessibility and speed. The key, he said, is not to fear the technology but to embrace it, borrowing from Google’s unofficial mantra of “failing fast”. Slow, unnoticed failure, they warned, is far more dangerous than taking risks and learning quickly. Pushing boundaries often feels uncomfortable, but it’s a sign that meaningful change is underway.

Siciliano also underscored the importance of control. Rather than relying on consumer-facing tools that may compromise security, businesses should ground AI in their own corporate data. Governance, proper training and intentional use of company-specific information give AI strategies both power and sustainability. “Take control, but definitely don t be afraid to fail,” Siciliano said.

Panel: What does the future of sustainable shopping look like?

Sustainability editor Bella Webb hosted a panel about the future of sustainable shopping, which explored how fashion businesses can encourage more mindful consumption without compromising on community, discovery and innovation.

New York-based startup Phia has generated 500,000 downloads in its first five months since launch, by appealing to price sensitivity rather than relying on sustainability to motivate behavioural change. The browser extension takes the hard work out of scouring secondhand sites for cheaper options, using AI to sort through over 300 million products in seconds. Co-founder Sophia Kianni said focusing on intercepting existing purchase intent has been key to its success, which recently culminated in an $8 million seed funding round, including backing from angel investors Kris Jenner and Hailey Bieber. Jenner was among the first guests on Kianni and her co-founder Phoebe Gates’s podcast, The Burnouts, which Kianni said helped create a sense of community around Phia and led to organic customer acquisition. “People don’t want to buy from businesses, they want to buy from people,” Kianni said. “You have to put yourself out there as a founder.”

Like Phia, Eva Joan Repair is deriving economic value from products without new materials. The speed and convenience consumers have been taught to expect is out of reach for a time-intensive service like repair, so Eva Joan has had to find other ways to differentiate — reframing slow as luxurious. “Quick turnaround time was never going to be our winning metric,” said sustainability director Alexa Gordon, so the business has leant into personalisation instead, fostering customers’ sentimental attachment to their clothing and offering immersive experiences like custom repairs, educational workshops and weekend-long retreats with historian Ruby Redstone. “Our business is reliant on people wanting to buy less stuff and keeping what they have for years and years. I feel like there’s a real curiosity there.”

Likewise, womenswear brand Maria McManus has leant into community education to raise its profile and encourage more mindful shopping. This includes the designer delivering supply chain talks following New York Fashion Week presentations, hosting private shopping events in customers’ homes, and running product knowledge clinics with VIP sales associates at core wholesalers. “It’s really exciting that a customer can purchase a product and not even realise it’s more sustainable; there’s beauty in that,” said McManus. At the same time, the brand wants to raise awareness of innovative materials as it integrates them, be that regenerative cotton (which will feature in its upcoming denim collaboration with Agolde), or biodegradable nylon (used in its leggings). “There’s a lot of innovation, and it is going to happen with or without the will of politicians. It would’ve been amazing if we had policies to support us, but sustainability is going to happen either way.”

Fireside chat: Inside L’Oréal’s novel approach to changemaking

L’Oreal chief responsibility officer Ezgi Barcenas rounded out the event by sharing how she secured over €345 million in funding for supply chain decarbonisation, social impact and innovation, at a time when most companies are deprioritising sustainability.

From a €50 million debt endowment fund to help suppliers curb Scope 3 emissions to a €100 million innovation accelerator designed to pilot and scale sustainable solutions, the beauty giant is investing in its future business resilience through climate action. It’s all about “multi-solving”, Barcenas explained, making investments that deliver both economic growth and environmental impact.

“From our sourcing regions to our operations to our communities, we see the impact of climate change. But investing in nature takes time,” she said. “It requires patient capital, and it requires a long-term vision, a long-term commitment. There’s no silver bullet.”

Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.