As the National Retail Federation’s annual conference again took over New York’s Javits Center, BoF and Shopify joined forces to unite executives and tech leaders from across the fashion, beauty and luxury industries for an intimate dinner in the city.

Held on the rooftop of Nine Orchard, the event encouraged meaningful connection and discussion regarding the challenges and opportunities facing fashion and beauty in 2025.

To support this, BoF’s chief growth officer and head of BoF Insights, Rahul Malik, and BoF’s director of content strategy, Alice Gividen, shared key insights from BoF’s State of Fashion 2025 report with attendees, providing exclusive context and recommendations around the report’s major themes.

It’s a timely discussion. As we step into 2025, the industry can anticipate challenges at every turn. Consumers, scarred by the recent period of high inflation, are increasingly price sensitive. Indeed, for the first time since 2016 (excluding 2020), luxury value creation declined. However, opportunities to provide value for customers exist, with personalisation emerging as a critical growth lever.

“Delivering true personalisation, at scale, has been a goal for retailers for a long time, but over-reliance on low-quality, third-party data, misreading consumer behaviour shifts, and tech applications that don’t speak to each other have gotten in the way,” said Shopify’s field chief technology officer, lifestyle, Eduardo Frias. “Creating a fair value exchange between retailer and consumer unlocks the sharing of personal information and thus, access to first-party data — the key behind seamless, relevant personalisation.”

Indeed, Shopify — which holds more than ten percent of global e-commerce market share — works to facilitate a fully integrated retail system it calls unified commerce, that allows merchants to run their businesses from one place.

“We believe the greatest opportunity for retailers is to double-down on achieving a true unified commerce experience, one that gives a brand a full understanding of its customers,” he added. “Enabling connected, seamless, and personalised customer experiences, regardless of where they shop — be that online, in stores or on social — is what allows retailers to achieve true differentiation.”

Below, BoF shares reflections and insights from the executives that attended.

Rema Morgan Aluko, Senior Vice President of Technology, Savage x Fenty

‘Personalisation is important because one of our main tenets is inclusivity. Everybody should feel like they’re a part of the brand’

“In terms of experiences, people are looking for some sort of value — a lot of these things are commodities and you can find them anywhere. So, what is special about your brand and does that special sauce show up in store? Does it show up in e-commerce? Do we know who you are? Do we localise your experiences depending on where you are?

There are things that you may want or things that are custom or important to people who live in Detroit, versus people who live in Miami. So, how are we actually tuning into our customers’ needs and being there no matter where they are?

Personalisation is very important because one of our main tenets is inclusivity. It’s very important to make sure that everybody feels that they’re a part of the brand. And we need to make sure that we understand who they are — because they’re coming to us for a reason. They’re coming to us because they have some sort of affinity to our brand or to our founder, and they align with us. And so we should know a little bit about them too.”

Juliette Arnaud, Senior Director of Commerce Systems, Hermès

‘There are so many people preparing decks and preparing data and preparing reports. Those people could spend so much less time if people trusted in AI data’

“I am always looking to shave the bottom line and look at the most efficient way of doing things. I think people are starting to get less scared of AI, and I think we should trust AI more with data, with reporting, and that will save so much time.

There are so many people preparing decks and preparing data and preparing reports. Those people could spend so much less time if people trusted in AI data. There are ways of personalising your AI with generative AI that’s built into your system — which is smart. The more you talk to it, the more it talks back to you.

If we don’t get on the AI boat now, you’re going to be a late adopter and no one wants to be a late adopter. There are so many agencies that can help you with that, and the investment required is not that big, but the difference it can make is huge.”

Megan Colbenson, Vice President, Technology, Nordstrom

‘New features or new experiences cannot come at the expense of our long-term customers’ expectations’

“For our year ahead, we believe growth will come for exploring how we amplify how our employees show up and deliver best-in-class customers service — and using technology to help make that process even easier and amplify that human connection.

In 2025, omnichannel shopping is a significant focus for us. We are exploring RFID technology to build connected products and work on inventory integrity. Our priority is to focus on how we continue to make the store a part of that omnichannel customer journey in a really seamless way— all those operational unsexy logistics that go into like that really great customer experience.

In recent years, Nordstrom has been working to try and drive down their customer age — but we know that, in 2025, our older, core customers are super valuable thanks to their loyalty and discretionary income. From a tech perspective, we need to ensure that rolling out new features or new experiences doesn’t come at the expense of our long term customers’ expectations in both service and product mix.”

Regis Litre, Chief Information Officer, Rag & Bone

‘Shipping internationally, we can see where appetite exists for the brand and double down where the brand is strong and awareness is high’

“For more than 20 years, we’ve built Rag & Bone as a quintessential New York brand, prioritising our store network and operations in the US. But, our acquisition in 2024 by Guess Inc. and brand management firm WHP Global has given us cause to expand our operations this year in both Europe and Asia. It’s a fortunate position while the slowdown in China is impacting growth plans across the industry.

In identifying growth markets, we’ve been shipping internationally for a couple of years and can use that to see where appetite exists for the brand, and then double down on those spaces where the brand is strong and awareness is high.

One huge growth driver in 2024 was a hero product of ours — the Miramar jeans. These were launched post-pandemic, where we saw a real casualisation of dressing. Organic social content has driven brand awareness for us hugely, and the jeans have broadened our generational appeal, opening up Rag & Bone to both younger and older cohorts.”

Doug Jenson, Beauty Industry Executive

‘The next step is implementing the technology that allows you to do the segmentation and the customisation — personalisation at scale’

“Doubling down on retention and making sure that we have a good experience for the consumers is business critical, particularly as acquiring new customers is 7 to 9 times more expensive than retaining existing ones. This is unlikely to change in the near future so the focus for all brands should absolutely be on retention.

There is a science related to doing good retention marketing and it’s essentially understanding what the natural purchase journey is — it’s effectively a replenishment pathway.

We need to think about marketing that speaks to that lifecycle journey, rather than blasting them with emails of everything that you have to offer. We need to relish the fact that they bought that one product and educate them about the usage of that product and then cultivate a long-lasting relationship.

Most big companies have had to invest in consumer data platforms to harmonise the first party data that they have. The next step is getting the marketing automation technology that allows you to do the segmentation and the customisation — personalisation at scale. To do this, brands need to tear down the silos of brick-and-mortar versus online to become effective.”

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Shopify as part of a BoF partnership.