What Fashion PR & Communications Professionals Need to Know Today

Discover the most relevant industry news and insights for fashion PR & communications professionals, updated each month to enable you to excel in job interviews, promotion conversations or perform better in the workplace by increasing your market awareness and emulating market leaders.

BoF Careers distils business intelligence from across the breadth of our content — editorial briefings, newsletters, case studies, podcasts and events — to deliver key takeaways and learnings tailored to your job function, listed alongside a selection of the most exciting live jobs advertised by BoF Careers partners.

Key articles and need-to-know insights for PR & communications professionals today:

1. Why You Should Hire an Influencer With a Day Job

There’s increasing demand for a different type of influencer, who retain their 9-to-5 jobs, even when their follower counts indicate they could be earning a good living off social media alone. Examples include chef and entrepreneur Laila Gohar, who counts over 234,000 followers. These are not people who would list “influencer” as their occupation. And yet, because the content they create often feels less manufactured, they tend to be more engaged with their followers — a more powerful partner for brands looking to target very specific customer segments.

That expertise is particularly important in working with brands within their respective industry, said Alessandro Bogliari, chief executive of agency The Influencer Marketing Factory. For instance, Gohar’s recent collaboration with the homeware brand Hay — set to launch this fall — takes her talent for otherworldly tablescapes and commercialises it into a collection of accessible objects, like vases and aprons.

Related Jobs:

Social Media Executive, Christopher Kane — London, United Kingdom

Senior Influencer Marketing Director, Tommy Hilfiger — Amsterdam, Netherlands

Global Brand Partnerships Director, Coach — New York, United States

2. Telfar Bags, Vegan Leather and an Unexpected Lesson

Telfar’s signature “Shopping” tote has become an explosively successful symbol of the cultural shifts reshaping fashion. Gen-Z’s first It bag is accessibly priced, genderless and made of vegan leather. So when a vegan dancer and choreographer posted a video to Twitter, showing how the faux leather on his well-loved Telfar tote had worn away over four years of use, the internet had many opinions. For some, the video, which has so far clocked up 1.6 million views, was proof that leather alternatives are a poor substitute for the real thing.

Telfar, though, is clear about what it stands for and why it does what it does. Its use of faux leather is a choice driven by the material’s price and accessibility, according to the company’s website, in line with the brand’s ethos to design for a community long ignored by the fashion industry because of gender, race or socioeconomic background.

Related Jobs:

PR Manager, Omnes — London, United Kingdom

Head of Social Influencers, Tory Burch — New York, United States

Brand and Communications Manager, Charles & Keith — Singapore

3. Louis Vuitton’s Shifting Celebrity Strategy

Louis Vuitton’s red carpet strategy has driven fewer mentions on social media than its two biggest competitors. Since 2013, the brand has earned 86,500 mentions around the Academy Awards, compared to 168,000 for Chanel and 241,000 for Dior, according to tracking firm Brandwatch.

Louis Vuitton has a robust scouting system. This means it’s poised to jump on new talent quickly, placing plenty of bets on stars it believes are set to rise. (At the 2022 Met Gala, the brand dressed 11 people. At the 2022 Oscars, it dressed eight.) Big marketing budgets certainly help.

Related Jobs:

Social Media Manager, Stella McCartney — London, United Kingdom

PR Intern, Mytheresa — Munich, Germany

PR Manager, Hugo Boss — New York, United States

4. How Brands Should Navigate Fashion’s Greenwashing Crackdown

A broad-based crackdown on greenwashing is rapidly gaining momentum, bringing with it mounting risks of reputational damage, litigation and regulatory censure and fines. Brands should pay close attention as these cases are likely to redefine how the industry can market its sustainability efforts.

To meet toughening regulatory standards, brands need to move beyond buzzwords and do more to substantiate their sustainability claims with robust and transparent information. That’s likely to mean more legwork as certification schemes and datasets commonly used in the industry, like the Higg Index, themselves come under scrutiny.

Related Jobs:

PR Manager, Hayley Menzies — London, United Kingdom

Public Affairs Associate, Ralph Lauren — New York, United States

Communications Manager, Zoï Agency — Montreal, Canada

5. Here Come the ‘ZEOs’: Inside Edelman PR’s New Gen-Z Project with Harris Reed

Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm by revenue, is launching a new team and service called the “Gen Z Lab,” which will include a roster of 100 Gen-Z Edelman employees as well as external “on-call advisors” plus a data hub all meant to produce Gen Z-related insights. At the helm of the project will be designer Harris Reed, who Edelman named the lab’s “ZEO,” a play on the traditional CEO role, where he’ll guide the direction of the Gen Z Lab as a consultant. Amanda Edelman, the 27-year-old daughter of Edelman CEO Richard Edelman, will be the Gen Z Lab’s COO and associate director.

Trying to convince Gen-Z consumers that brands understand them has been a corporate aim for a few years now. Often, the big-name firms that guide them stumble, while smaller marketing firms and consultants, staffed and sometimes even owned by Gen-Z, are more adept in the space. The test for Edelman will be whether those on-call Gen-Z advisors, both within the firm and outside of it, will have real buy-in from the firm at large and its clients.

Related Jobs:

Press Assistant, Zoe Communications — London, United Kingdom

PR Co-Ordinator, Galvan — New York, United States

PR and Influencer Manager, Vestiaire Collective — Singapore

6. Armani’s Big Bet on Regé-Jean Page

Armani has tapped Regé-Jean Page, best known for his role as the Duke of Hastings in Netflix’s Bridgerton and a rumoured frontrunner to be the next James Bond, to be the face of its Armani Code cologne in June

As a rising star, Page is still something of a risk for Armani. [His upcoming film] Dungeons & Dragons might flop, and Tom Hardy or Idris Elba could pull off an upset and take the Bond role. But Armani has a big opportunity with Armani Code: a new scent to appeal to consumers with elevated olfactory tastes and a movie star on the rise. The allegiance with Page, which if he is in fact the next James Bond, could be just the thing the brand needs to bump Armani Code back into the top 10.

Related Jobs:

Beauty Project Manager, Burberry — London, United Kingdom

Press, Media and Influence Officer, Maje — Paris, France

Celebrity and VIP Manager, Mode World — New York, United States

7. The Great Fashion Show Boom

This year, luxury’s biggest brands came swinging out of lockdowns, with Dior staging a staggering eight runway shows since January 2022, up from seven during the same period in 2019. Chanel and Louis Vuitton have both turned out five this year. While top spenders are flown out and seated in the front row in the hopes that they’ll drop six figures on one collection, the content those very important customers and other attendees create reads as far more authentic than content conceived solely for the internet.

However, spectacular fashion shows typically cost millions of euros to produce, so the biggest brands have an advantage. It’s perhaps no surprise that Dior — which generated around $7 billion in sales in 2021, according to estimates, and is thought to be the fastest-growing megalabel over the past 12 months — has staged the most shows of any other during that same period.

Related Jobs:

Press Intern, Erdem — London, United Kingdom

Influencer Relations Manager, Tiffany & Co. — New York, United States

PR Manager, Zimmermann — Sydney, Australia

8. How to Let Shoppers Know Your Brand Is Worth the Money

Despite all the bad economic headlines, consumer spending remains strong in the US and some other major markets. But retailers are worried that their customers will soon start watching their wallets, particularly when it comes to non-essential fashion and beauty purchases.

To make the case effectively, labels must do more than introduce some new buzzwords to their ads. They will have to strengthen their brand’s narrative, make sure they are merchandising around truly timeless pieces rather than chasing trends, and get honest in their marketing.

Related Jobs:

Communications Executive, Emilia Wickstead — London, United Kingdom

Press Assistant, PVH — Paris, France

Account Manager, Karla Otto — Munich, Germany