🎧 Make Moves: Nike x Spotify Reframe What Counts as Sport

Nike has teamed up with Spotify for Make Moves, a new global campaign designed to tackle one of the biggest challenges in youth sport: teenage girls dropping out. The campaign invites girls to move to one song a day - a low-barrier ritual backed by playlists co-curated across Seoul, London and Barcelona, alongside Nike athletes, artists and creators.

Why does it matter? Because 85% of teenage girls globally aren’t moving enough (Nike data), and dropout rates in sport peak at this age. The campaign reframes sport away from elite performance and towards joy, culture and accessibility.

📊 Supporting Stats

85% of teenage girls worldwide don’t get enough physical activity (Nike, 2025).
By age 14, girls drop out of sport at twice the rate of boys (Women’s Sports Foundation).
Globally, 1 in 3 teenage girls cites lack of confidence as a key barrier to physical activity (UNESCO).

These numbers underline the stakes: without intervention, entire generations risk disengaging from movement at the very point it should be empowering.

🧠 Decision: Did It Work?

From a brand perspective, this is a strong move. Nike has long led in women’s sport campaigns (from Dream Crazier to Play New), but this time the strategy isn’t about elite inspiration - it’s about everyday entry points.

By leveraging Spotify, Nike meets girls on cultural turf they already inhabit. Music is universal, personal, and emotional - it removes the intimidation of “sport” and reframes it as “movement”. The playlist mechanic is clever: low pressure, repeatable, and fun.

Creatively, it positions Nike as not just a sportswear brand, but a facilitator of confidence, play and community. Commercially, it keeps Nike in the daily lives of Gen Z and Gen Alpha in a way that feels authentic rather than forced.

📌 Key Takeouts

What happened: Nike and Spotify launched Make Moves to tackle the teenage girl dropout crisis in sport.
What worked: A culturally fluent entry point (music + playlists), global co-creation with girls, and a focus on micro-rituals rather than elite performance.
What it signals: Sport brands are moving towards lowering barriers to entry, using culture (music, digital, creators) as the hook rather than competition.
For marketers: Rituals matter. Small, daily cultural behaviours can shift perception more effectively than lofty “just do it” slogans.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next

This feels like the start of a bigger pivot in youth sport marketing. Expect to see more brands use micro-moments and rituals as vehicles for participation. The question will be whether campaigns like Make Moves remain surface-level playlist drops or evolve into deeper ecosystems of support for girls - from school programmes to digital communities.

For now, Nike has created a smart, culturally resonant way to remind teenage girls: movement doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to start.

🔥 Leveling the Pitch: WSL Introduces Minimum Salaries

For too long, many women’s footballers in England’s second tier have balanced training with side jobs - teaching, physiotherapy, retail shifts - just to make ends meet. That changes this season. The Women’s Super League (WSL) and WSL2 will, for the first time, introduce a minimum salary. It’s a milestone that moves the game closer to full professional status, with the aim of ensuring players can focus solely on football.

📊 Supporting Stats

The NWSL’s minimum salary in 2025 sits at €48,500 (£36,170) - a benchmark for professional women’s leagues.
Women’s football revenues are growing fast: Deloitte reports global revenues hit €1.8bn in 2023/24, with the WSL one of the top contributors.
Yet, salaries in England’s second tier lagged far behind, forcing many players to work part-time jobs.

🧠 Decision: Does It Work?
Yes - this is a crucial, overdue step. It professionalises the pathway, attracts higher-quality talent, and signals to investors that the WSL pyramid is maturing. Strategically, it also protects clubs: the new wage framework allows spending of up to 80% of revenue (with capped owner contributions), balancing ambition with sustainability.

But there are caveats. Unlike the NWSL, the WSL hasn’t revealed exact figures, creating ambiguity. And with clubs still financially fragile, there’s a fine line between progress and overreach. The real test will be whether this floor drives long-term competitiveness without pushing clubs into unsustainable spending.

📌 Key Takeouts

What happened: Minimum salaries introduced across WSL and WSL2 for the 2025/26 season.
What worked: Players no longer forced into part-time jobs, improving performance, wellbeing, and professionalism.
Risks: Lack of transparency on figures and continued fragility in women’s football economics.
Strategic signal: Women’s football is moving from “growth at any cost” to structured sustainability.
For brands: Expect stronger athlete stories and increased commercial appeal as players become full-time professionals.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
This move raises the floor for professionalism in the women’s game. Expect greater competition for talent between England and leagues like the NWSL, and more brands entering the space as confidence in stability grows. If executed well, the next wave is inevitable: stronger club academies, improved player wellbeing support, and sharper commercial storytelling around athletes who no longer have to split shifts between the classroom and the pitch.

The WSL isn’t just levelling the playing field - it’s signalling that women’s football is ready for its next era of professional growth.

🔥 Vogue’s Power Shift: Chloe Malle Steps Into Anna Wintour’s Shadow

For the first time in nearly four decades, American Vogue has a new editor at the helm. Chloe Malle, 39, steps into the role of “head of editorial content” - not editor-in-chief - succeeding Anna Wintour in title but not in stature. Wintour remains Condé Nast’s chief content officer, overseeing 28 global editions and retaining her office down the hall. The appointment isn’t a clean break; it’s a generational pivot within one of fashion media’s most powerful institutions.

📊 Supporting Stats

Print decline: U.S. magazine ad revenue fell 17% in 2024 (Statista).
Digital consumption: 63% of fashion consumers discover new brands via online platforms rather than print (McKinsey State of Fashion, 2024).
Audience expectations: 74% of Gen Z prefer media brands that prioritise authenticity and niche perspectives over mass appeal (WARC, 2025).

🧠 Decision: Does It Work?
Strategically, Malle’s vision signals a smart recalibration. Her pitch to Condé Nast - fewer but higher-quality, collectible print editions paired with a tighter, more irreverent digital footprint - plays directly into how cultural capital now circulates. Rather than chase SEO traffic, she wants Vogue to reclaim authority by leaning into depth and wit. Commercially, this reduces wasteful output and builds scarcity value in print - turning issues into cultural artefacts. Culturally, Malle’s charisma and social fluency could help Vogue feel less aloof in a time when fashion media is being forced to show its humanity.

The challenge? Wintour’s presence still looms. With Anna “down the hall,” Vogue risks a perception of half-measures rather than reinvention. For Malle to succeed, she’ll need to prove this isn’t just “Anna lite” - but something definitively hers.

📌 Key Takeouts

What happened: Chloe Malle appointed as Vogue’s new editorial lead, succeeding Anna Wintour (though Wintour retains Condé Nast power).
What worked: A bold thesis of fewer, thematic collectible print issues and sharper digital storytelling - aligning with shifts in media consumption.
Cultural signal: Authority in fashion media is shifting from scale and gloss to scarcity, depth, and sharper POVs.
For brands: This is another sign that prestige platforms are moving away from volume metrics toward curatorial power.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
If Malle delivers on her promise, Vogue could pivot from a mass-market fashion bible to a high-culture collectible brand - more Monocle than Cosmo. Expect rivals (Harper’s Bazaar, The Cut) to also double down on high-value print or niche content strategies, especially as digital ad revenues flatten. The bigger question: can Vogue sustain its cultural dominance without Wintour as the singular figurehead? Audiences - and advertisers - will decide whether this is a rebirth or a holding pattern.

🔥 Queen B Delivers Denim Gold: Inside Levi’s $65M Beyoncé Boost

When Beyoncé and Levi’s linked up in 2024, it wasn’t just a celebrity endorsement - it was a cultural lightning strike. The campaign generated over 4.3 billion impressions and drove more than $65 million in estimated earned media value. For Levi’s, a heritage brand fighting to stay relevant against fast-fashion giants and streetwear labels, this wasn’t just a pop-culture cameo - it was a commercial catalyst.

📊 Supporting Stats

The campaign delivered 4.3B+ impressions (source: campaign reporting).
$65M+ in earned media value, placing it among the most impactful fashion partnerships of the year.
Levi’s closed Q4 2024 with a 12% net revenue increase and a 44% surge in net income, hitting $183M.
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album rollout, with heavy denim iconography, boosted cultural synergy - Spotify reported a 156% increase in searches for “cowboy core” playlists during launch week (Spotify data).

🧠 Decision: Did It Work?
Yes - strategically and spectacularly. Levi’s leveraged Beyoncé’s global influence not just as a celebrity face but as a cultural architect. She brought credibility to denim’s place in music, Americana, and fashion at a moment when Western aesthetics were resurging. The numbers show clear commercial uplift, but the bigger win was cultural: Levi’s became a part of a conversation it might otherwise have missed.

📌 Key Takeouts

What happened: Beyoncé fronted Levi’s campaign in sync with her Cowboy Carter era.
What worked: Perfect cultural timing - denim aligned with the cowboy-core resurgence. Huge media value, proven revenue and profit lift.
What didn’t: High reliance on a single star; the halo effect may fade if not followed up with broader storytelling.
Signals: Pop stars remain unmatched brand growth engines when the partnership is authentic. But there’s rising audience scepticism around one-off mega-deals.
For marketers: Star power is still viable, but it must intersect with a real cultural trend and deliver business results, not just hype.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
Expect more legacy brands to seek cultural “resets” through A-list alignments - but with sharper attention to timing and authenticity. Levi’s will need to extend this momentum into community-driven or subcultural activations to avoid over-reliance on Beyoncé’s orbit. Meanwhile, other denim brands will look to ride the cowboy-core wave - though saturation risk is high. The playbook has been updated: it’s not about celebrity alone, it’s about celebrity plus cultural timing, delivered with scale.

♻️ Merch Without Waste: Billie Eilish’s Boldest Statement Yet

Billie Eilish has built her brand on more than music - she’s consistently positioned herself at the intersection of cultural influence and environmental responsibility. Her latest move, in partnership with Universal Music Group’s Bravado division, takes direct aim at one of the industry’s biggest blind spots: mountains of unsold band merch.

When Eilish and her mother Maggie Baird discovered nearly 400,000 forgotten tour tees languishing in a Nashville warehouse, they pushed Bravado to rethink the system. Instead of letting them rot or ship off to landfills, the tees have been given a second life through an international recycling pipeline.

This isn’t just about merch; it’s about testing whether music’s biggest names can shift the norms of fashion and touring economies.

📊 Supporting Stats

400,000 tees stockpiled in storage, some for years.
Recycling process in Morocco via Hallotex is producing 280,000 new shirts made from 100% recycled cotton.
The initiative conserves an estimated 4.2 million litres of water, thanks to the reduced impact of recycled textiles.
Textile waste remains one of fashion’s biggest problems: the world produces 92 million tonnes of textile waste per year (Ellen MacArthur Foundation).

🧠 Decision: Did It Work?

Commercially, this doesn’t solve merch’s overproduction problem overnight, but it positions Billie Eilish as a leader in cultural accountability. Her fans - often environmentally conscious Gen Z and Gen Alpha - will see the alignment between values and action.

Culturally, it elevates the conversation around merch beyond nostalgia or hype drops. Eilish is reframing band tees - one of the most iconic symbols of fandom - as a site of innovation rather than waste.

Creatively, the project may not have the same fashion clout as a luxury collaboration, but it lands harder strategically. It signals that artists can play an active role in reshaping the supply chains behind their brands, not just the aesthetics.

📌 Key Takeouts

What happened: Billie Eilish and Bravado are recycling 400,000 deadstock tees into 280,000 new shirts.
What worked: Strong alignment between artist values and fan expectations; measurable sustainability impact.
What didn’t: Reliance on overseas processing could undermine the eco narrative - audiences may ask why this isn’t happening domestically.
Signal: Music merch is overdue for reinvention, with circular models offering cultural credibility and commercial upside.
For brand marketers: Purpose-led initiatives hit hardest when they feel artist-driven, not corporate-staged.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next

This project could act as a blueprint. If North American facilities are developed, it could localise recycling and turn deadstock into a circular merch economy. The risk? Oversaturation of “sustainable” claims without structural change.

For now, Eilish sets the bar: the future of merch isn’t about the next limited-edition drop, but whether the industry can turn excess into equity.

On The Record Linkedin Newsletter: 1st September

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🔥 Apple’s Playlist Power Move

Apple Music has just dropped a feature that fans have begged for since the dawn of the streaming wars: playlist portability. Users in the US, UK, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, and Mexico can now transfer playlists directly from rivals like Spotify. On the surface, it’s a simple quality-of-life update - but culturally, the timing is loaded. Apple is making this move as Spotify faces a very public artist exodus, triggered not by streaming economics this time, but by ethics. Indie heavyweights like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, King Gizzard, Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof have all walked away, citing Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s ties to Helsing, an AI-driven defence company.

📊 Supporting Stats

Spotify still dominates global streaming with a 31.7% market share (MIDiA, 2025), but Apple Music has been quietly growing, sitting at 17.2% and strengthening its position in high-value Western markets.
Playlist culture is a driver of stickiness: according to Luminate, 54% of US listeners say their playlists shape their discovery habits. Until now, friction in moving between platforms kept people locked into Spotify.
Artist-led discontent isn’t niche: a 2024 survey by the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers found 82% of independent musicians believe Spotify underpays artists, a perception Apple can exploit.

🧠 Decision: Does It Work?
Yes - strategically, Apple’s move is sharp. Playlist portability lowers the psychological switching cost for listeners who may be fed up with Spotify but anchored by years of curated music. By rolling this out during Spotify’s ethical crisis, Apple positions itself as the natural refuge. However, there’s nuance: Apple hasn’t solved the underlying royalty issues either. The brand is benefiting more from timing and optics than from moral high ground.

📌 Key Takeouts

What happened: Apple Music launched playlist transfer functionality, coinciding with artist departures from Spotify over CEO Daniel Ek’s defence-tech investments.
What worked: Reduced friction for user migration, timely cultural positioning, strengthened perception as the “artist-friendly” alternative.
What didn’t: Apple still faces scrutiny on royalties - this isn’t a true ethical solution, more of a competitive convenience play.
Signals: Streaming competition is shifting from catalogue size to user experience and cultural values. Ethical alignment is now part of platform choice.
Brand takeaway: Reducing switching friction at the right cultural moment is a brand power move - especially when your rival is in reputational freefall.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
If Apple sees a bump in conversions, expect more aggressive moves - maybe exclusive artist partnerships framed around “values” rather than just money. Spotify, meanwhile, risks a wider backlash if more artists join the protest. The portability play could spark a wave of “platform hopping” among listeners, much like gaming once shifted when cross-platform saved games became possible. For brands, the lesson is clear: cultural alignment is no longer optional - it’s a competitive differentiator.

🧥 Travis Kelce x American Eagle: A Celebrity Fashion Launch Under a Cultural Microscope

The AE x TK collaboration wasn’t designed as a brand reset. But following the backlash to Sydney Sweeney’s “Great Jeans” campaign, that’s exactly how it’s being received. American Eagle is benefiting from a well-timed rollout that spotlights inclusivity, authenticity, and sportswear culture - everything the previous campaign was criticised for lacking.

And Travis Kelce? He’s in the middle of it all. Not just launching a fashion line, but navigating a personal brand shift accelerated by his engagement to Taylor Swift. The result is a high-exposure campaign where none of the players can afford a misstep.

🔢 Supporting Stats

90+ products in the AE x TK line, with prices from $14.95 to $179.95.
The campaign includes athletes from NBA, NCAA, gymnastics, and tennis, such as Suni Lee, Azzi Fudd, and Kiyan Anthony.
Kelce’s engagement to Swift was announced one day before the campaign drop, sending both into trending territory.
The rollout follows a turbulent summer for AE: despite viral reach, the Sweeney campaign sparked significant criticism over its tone and casting.
AE reported a $68M Q1 operating loss, intensifying pressure on campaign performance ahead of back-to-school season.

✅ Why It Works — Even If It Was Pre-Planned

1. Reframing Through Contrast
Compared to the Sweeney campaign, AE x TK feels grounded, inclusive, and style-focused. That contrast shifts narrative attention - not because it was meant to, but because cultural memory is short and optics matter.

2. Cultural Capital Without Controversy
Kelce brings visibility, humour, and crossover appeal - but avoids the politically fraught territory Sweeney’s campaign stumbled into. His style is personal, but not polarising.

3. A Campaign Built for Fan Economies
By aligning with fantasy sports, podcasts, and Gen Z/Alpha athletes, AE isn’t just selling clothes - it’s selling access. It’s fashion meets fandom.

⚠️ What’s at Stake for Kelce

1. Risk of Becoming Overexposed
With Swift, endorsements, podcasts, TV appearances, and now a fashion line, Kelce is scaling fast. The risk? Brand dilution. When everything is a moment, nothing feels meaningful.

2. The "Plus One" Trap
Kelce’s star power is peaking - but is it his, or is it a by-product of “Traylor”? If too much of his brand rides on Swift’s audience, he could lose traction when attention shifts.

3. Audience Mismatch?
American Eagle still skews Gen Z. Kelce, while beloved in NFL circles, sits older. The challenge is making him feel aspirational to a younger, more style-native consumer.

🧠 Key Takeouts

This is a recalibration. The campaign wasn’t built as a fix, but the timing lets AE reposition organically without backtracking.
Kelce’s personal brand is entering lifestyle territory - but it needs guardrails. Overextension without clear identity could erode authenticity.
For American Eagle, pre-planned doesn’t mean accidental. The contrast between campaigns gives the brand a second chance at cultural alignment - even if it’s unspoken.
The pressure is now post-launch. If AE x TK doesn’t perform - commercially or creatively - it will raise bigger questions about AE’s ability to read the cultural moment.

🔥 Rihanna’s Fenty Partners with the WNBA’s New York Liberty

Rihanna’s Fenty has made its first official move into sports sponsorship - and it’s not with the NBA or NFL, but with the WNBA’s New York Liberty. This deal is more than a brand alignment; it’s a cultural statement. Beauty brands aren’t just following athletes into sport - they’re redefining what it means to be an athlete, a style leader, and a cultural figure.

📊 Supporting Stats

WNBA regular season viewership up 170% year-on-year (2023–2024), the league’s best in 24 years.
1.6m viewers tuned into the 2024 Finals - the most-watched in 25 years, up 115% on the previous year.
League attendance hit its highest in 22 years. (Sources: NBC News, WNBA)

🧠 The Brand Opportunity
This works on multiple levels. Fenty has built its reputation on breaking beauty boundaries and democratising representation - values that align perfectly with the WNBA’s surge in visibility and cultural relevance. Unlike traditional sponsorships, this partnership isn’t just logo placement. The “Gloss Bomb Cam,” exclusive Liberty-branded lip gloss, and beauty-led fan experiences make the activation feel alive, participatory, and in sync with the audience.

Strategically, Fenty is betting on the rise of women’s sports as a lifestyle platform. Players like Isabelle Harrison and Angel Reese aren’t just athletes - they’re beauty icons, influencers, and style references. For Fenty, this is about meeting consumers in cultural spaces where identity and aspiration converge.

📌 Key Takeouts

Rihanna’s Fenty signed its first sports partnership with the New York Liberty.
Women’s basketball is at a historic high in audience growth and cultural impact.
The activation is experience-driven, from arena activations to player-led beauty storytelling.
Beauty brands (Glossier, CoverGirl, Sephora, Essie) are making the WNBA their sports entry point — skipping men’s leagues.
This signals a shift in sponsorship logic: women’s sports are no longer the “secondary” market but a prime stage for cultural innovation.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
Expect more crossover between beauty, fashion, and women’s sport, with players positioned as multidimensional influencers. Brands will compete for authentic alignment with athletes who embody more than performance - they embody style, beauty, activism and identity. The risk? Oversaturation. If every brand rushes in without thoughtful integration, fan trust could erode. But for now, Fenty has set a new gold standard: culturally relevant, commercially smart, and strategically timed.

💄 Bottom line: Fenty’s Liberty deal isn’t just sponsorship — it’s culture work.

👔 Austin Post: Can Post Malone Really Pull Off Paris?

Post Malone is stepping into fashion’s most scrutinised arena: the Paris runway. His debut label, Austin Post, will launch its “Season One” on September 1, right on the doorstep of Fashion Week. For a musician who built his career on blending contradictions - country grit and hip-hop swagger, vulnerability and bravado - this move signals an attempt to translate his eclectic persona into a wearable brand world. But does Post Malone have the cultural leverage and credibility to cut through in an increasingly crowded celebrity-to-fashion pipeline?

📊 Supporting Stats

The global luxury market is projected to reach $414 billion by 2028, with Gen Z accounting for 20% of luxury spend in 2025 (Bain & Company).
Celebrity-led labels are multiplying: Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty hit $4 billion valuation, while Kanye West’s Yeezy hit $1.5 billion at its peak before collapsing under reputational strain (Forbes).
Music x fashion remains lucrative - 61% of Gen Z say they discover new fashion trends through musicians, more than through influencers (YPulse, 2024).

🧠 The Brand Opportunity
Post Malone isn’t new to fashion - collaborations with Crocs sold out repeatedly, while his recent SKIMS campaign aligned him with the new wave of “masculine intimacy” marketing. But a standalone label in Paris signals ambition beyond capsule drops. The challenge? Translating his distinct aesthetic (cowboy hats, Realtree camo, battered Vans, and diamond grills) into a coherent, scalable brand that luxury buyers and streetwear kids can both take seriously.

Paris is a statement of intent: it places Austin Post in conversation with brands like Amiri and Rhude, who blend Americana grit with European tailoring. Yet Malone’s appeal has always been more anti-fashion - offbeat, unbothered, and unfiltered. The tension will be whether Austin Post leans into polish, or keeps the chaotic authenticity that made him a star.

📌 Key Takeouts

What happened: Post Malone will debut his first fashion line, Austin Post, with a Paris runway show on September 1.
What worked: Smart timing - launching just ahead of Fashion Week secures global attention and frames the brand in a luxury context. His past collaborations prove commercial appetite exists.
What’s risky: Paris raises expectations. Unlike Crocs collabs, this isn’t plug-and-play - he’ll be judged on design credibility and brand coherence. Celebrity lines face heavy scrutiny and high failure rates.
What it signals: Musicians are still banking on fashion as both a cultural amplifier and revenue stream, but the bar for “serious” brands is higher than ever. Austin Post must avoid the trap of being merch in disguise.
For brand marketers: The play here is authenticity. If Malone’s team positions Austin Post as an extension of his lifestyle and not just another celebrity logo, it could carve a distinct niche between luxury Americana and rugged streetwear.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
If Austin Post lands well, expect a wave of mid-tier musicians to attempt similar crossovers - not at Yeezy scale, but in tightly curated lifestyle capsules. If it stumbles, it will reinforce the idea that only a handful of celebrity-led brands (Fenty, Ivy Park) can truly sustain. Either way, Paris will be the litmus test: is this Post Malone’s Yeezy moment, or just a high-profile detour?

🔥 Abercrombie x NFL: Can Fashion Rebrand America’s Game?

The NFL just signed its first fashion partner, naming Abercrombie & Fitch the league’s official style collaborator. On paper, it’s a surprising move - a mall brand once synonymous with preppy teen cool now tasked with helping America’s biggest sport sharpen its fashion credentials. But in 2025, where tunnel-walk fits go viral and fan fashion is as important as game-day stats, the move feels less like nostalgia and more like strategy.

📊 Supporting Stats:

The NFL has a near-even gender split: women now account for 47% of the fan base (Nielsen, 2024).
Fashion is one of the fastest-growing touchpoints in sport. The global sports apparel market is projected to hit $358bn by 2030 (Statista, 2025), with lifestyle-driven products outpacing performance gear.
Social media is amplifying athlete fashion power: videos of NFL player arrivals rack up millions of TikTok views weekly, rivaling game highlights in reach.

🧠 The Brand Call: Does It Work?
Yes - strategically, this is a savvy move for both sides.

For Abercrombie, it’s a reinvention play. Once dismissed as outdated, the brand has quietly been building a comeback through cultural partnerships and repositioning around “adult cool.” Tying itself to the NFL - the country’s most-watched entertainment product - signals scale, relevance, and a shot at re-entering the mainstream style conversation.

For the NFL, this is about audience expansion. A league often accused of being slow to adapt is showing it gets where culture is heading: fandom isn’t just broadcast, it’s worn. Fashion is a way to reach younger and more diverse fans, particularly women, without changing the game itself.

📌 Key Takeouts:

🏈 The Play: Abercrombie becomes the first official NFL fashion partner, launching athlete-styled campaigns, player-designed collections, and a “Style Concierge” service for pros.
👟 The Win: It taps into the cultural capital of NFL fashion moments - tunnel-walk fits, post-game looks - and brings fans into that world.
👩 The Audience: With nearly half the NFL fan base now female, fashion partnerships open new space for authentic engagement beyond jerseys.
⚖️ The Risk: Abercrombie’s brand baggage - the 2000s preppy era and its exclusivity stigma - could clash with the NFL’s push for inclusivity if not carefully handled.
🔑 The Signal: Sport is no longer just about performance - it’s lifestyle, identity, and cultural influence. The league is moving to position itself alongside fashion-first platforms, not just athletic brands.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next:
This won’t be a one-off. Expect more athlete-led collaborations and lifestyle drops that blur sportswear with streetwear. If Abercrombie lands it right, they could become the NFL’s version of Adidas x NBA - a long-term cultural pipeline. The bigger picture: sports leagues will continue recruiting fashion brands not just as licensees, but as co-authors of culture. The real test will be whether fans buy into Abercrombie as credible arbiters of NFL style, or whether the partnership feels too engineered.

🏉 Castore’s Fumble: England Women’s World Cup Shirt Shortage Hits at the Worst Time

The Women’s Rugby World Cup is breaking records - sell-out stadiums, millions watching, and England’s Red Roses leading the charge as hosts and favourites. But while the team is thriving on the pitch, fans looking to wear their pride have hit a wall. Technical kit partner Castore has admitted a supply chain failure means the official World Cup shirts are unavailable online. For a tournament of this magnitude, with women’s sport finally commanding centre stage, the miss couldn’t be more glaring.

📊 Supporting Stats

42,723 fans packed into Sunderland’s Stadium of Light for England’s opener against the U.S. - the largest ever Women’s Rugby World Cup crowd.
375,000+ tickets sold already, with the final at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium (82,000 capacity) confirmed as a sell-out.
The RFU’s kit deal with Castore is reportedly worth £5m+ per year, replacing Umbro in a multi-year partnership.
Women’s rugby momentum is surging: World Rugby expects record global viewership figures for this year’s tournament.

🧠 The Brand Opportunity

This should have been Castore’s golden moment - a global stage, a home nation favourite, and women’s rugby on the rise. Instead, the shirt shortage creates frustration for fans and risks brand credibility. Merchandise at live matches softens the blow, but the reality is many fans want online access, particularly casual supporters discovering the team during the tournament.

The optics are even harsher because Castore has faced previous high-profile product complaints (Aston Villa’s “wet-look” kit, peeling logos, quality concerns). In the sportswear arms race dominated by Nike, Adidas and Puma, challenger brands only get a handful of opportunities to prove they can play at scale. Failing at the biggest-ever Women’s Rugby World Cup damages both trust and visibility.

From a brand strategy perspective, this moment exposes a tension: challenger positioning brings cultural capital, but reliability and logistics remain non-negotiable in elite sport.

📌 Key Takeouts

🏟️ Historic stage: Record-breaking Women’s Rugby World Cup in England.
👕 Product fail: Fans unable to buy official Red Roses World Cup shirts online due to Castore supply issues.
💰 High stakes: Castore paying £5m+ annually to be RFU kit partner - this was the spotlight moment.
⚠️ Brand risk: Builds on a track record of quality complaints, damaging fan trust and perception.
📈 Bigger picture: Women’s rugby momentum is accelerating, but brands that fail operationally risk being locked out of future growth.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next

The RFU will be watching closely. If supply frustrations overshadow fan enthusiasm, the partnership could sour early - even with years left on the contract. Expect competitors to circle: Adidas and Nike have both made major pushes in women’s sport and would relish a chance to step into rugby. For Castore, the short-term job is crisis management and transparency. Longer term, the challenge is whether it can scale up and deliver at the level required for global tournaments.

In a moment when women’s sport is booming and fan engagement is peaking, this was a once-in-a-generation chance to cement brand equity. Instead, Castore risks being remembered for dropping the ball.

🖥️ America by Design: Can Joe Gebbia Rebrand Government?

In one of the more unexpected fusions of Silicon Valley and Washington, President Donald Trump has appointed Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia as the first-ever Chief Design Officer of the United States, leading a new National Design Studio (NDS). The move, part of Trump’s “America by Design” executive order signed on 21 August 2025, signals an ambition to overhaul how Americans experience government services - starting with the 26,000 federal websites most people dread using.

The headline promise? Make dealing with government feel more like browsing the Apple App Store than fighting through DMV paperwork.

📊 Supporting Stats & Context

The federal government currently operates 26,000+ websites across agencies - many outdated, inconsistent and inaccessible (Reuters, 2025).
A Forrester survey (2023) ranked the US government last out of 13 industries for customer experience, behind airlines and even health insurers.
By comparison, Airbnb - where Gebbia cut his teeth - manages 150m+ users globally and built one of the most design-forward consumer platforms of the 2010s.
The executive order sets a July 4, 2026 deadline for first results, tying into America’s 250th anniversary - a symbolic (and highly visible) milestone.

🧠 The Brand Opportunity

This isn’t just about clean fonts and slick UI. For Trump, it’s a brand play: reframing government as something modern, intuitive and - crucially - customer-centric. For Gebbia, it’s the ultimate design brief: reimagine the world’s biggest and least loved “brand” (the US government) in a way that restores trust and reduces friction.

Design has long been treated as window dressing in government. This role elevates it to strategy, placing experience design on par with economics and policy. It’s an acknowledgement that in the digital era, user experience is political capital.

⚠️ Challenges Ahead

Bureaucratic Resistance
Agencies are siloed, budgets are rigid, and design changes often get watered down by compliance and legacy systems. Convincing civil servants to prioritise UX over process will be a cultural battle.
Scale & Consistency
Unlike Airbnb’s single platform, federal websites are fragmented. Aligning 26,000 sites to a unified design language without stifling agency-specific needs is a herculean task.
Politics of Aesthetics
Design choices - colours, language, symbols - can quickly become partisan lightning rods. What looks “modern” to some may be framed as elitist, woke, or exclusionary by others.
Delivery Deadlines
The July 2026 deadline ties success to a spectacle. Fail to land a big, visible change by the Semiquincentennial, and the initiative risks being remembered as cosmetic PR.
Trust vs. Style
The real measure won’t be whether sites look better, but whether citizens feel they can trust and navigate them more easily. In other words: substance over gloss.

📌 Key Takeouts

What happened: Trump launched America by Design, appointing Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia as Chief Design Officer.
What worked well: Bold recognition that design is not cosmetic but central to how people experience government.
The risk: Bureaucracy, politics, and scale could dilute the vision, reducing it to branding rather than transformation.
What it signals: Experience design is being positioned as a lever of national strategy, not just commerce.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next

If Gebbia succeeds, expect a new era of civic UX, where applying for benefits, visas, or business permits could feel as intuitive as booking a flight. Other governments may follow, making design a frontier of national competitiveness.

But failure is equally instructive. If “America by Design” collapses under politics and bureaucracy, it will be a cautionary tale of how design-led thinking struggles outside corporate walls.

Either way, the experiment is historic: a Silicon Valley design mind taking on Washington’s hardest brief. If the US government can be rebranded through user experience, the ripple effect across policy, politics and commerce could be profound.

⚽🔥 The Unstoppable Rise of U.S. Women’s Soccer Fans – And What Brands Need to Know

🎬 The Moment

Women’s soccer in the U.S. isn’t just growing - it’s exploding. With the launch of the Gainbridge Super League in 2024 and the NWSL hitting record attendances, the sport now offers year-round opportunities for fans and brands alike. Between now and 2031, the U.S. will host four major global soccer events - two World Cups, the Olympics and the Paralympics - putting women’s soccer firmly on centre stage. Globally, the women’s game is on track to grow its fanbase by 40% by 2031, cementing its position as one of the world’s top five sports.

The cultural timing is perfect. Audiences are demanding more visibility, more coverage, and more investment. And the data shows that brands who meet them there are rewarded with some of the most loyal, engaged and purchase-ready consumers in sport.

📊 The Numbers That Matter

Conversion Power: More than 1 in 4 women’s soccer fans have made a purchase because of a brand’s sponsorship - 58% more likely than other women’s sports fans.
Demand for Investment: 60% of fans say brands still aren’t investing enough in women’s sports.
Trust Dividend: 78% of women’s soccer fans trust women athletes. They are 34% more likely than other women’s sports fans to say they trust athletes “a lot.”
Brand Halo: 64% of fans see sponsors as progressive and 65% feel proud to support them. Sponsorship isn’t just reach - it’s reputation.
Viewing Behaviour: Nearly two-thirds (63%) of U.S. soccer fans watch women’s soccer. A quarter watch only the women’s game.

🧠 The Brand Opportunity

The U.S. women’s soccer audience is a marketer’s dream: engaged, values-driven, and primed to act. What makes this audience unique is the combination of cultural momentum and commercial responsiveness. Sponsorship isn’t seen as opportunistic here - it’s seen as genuine support. And fans reward it with both loyalty and spending power.

The most effective activations?

Athlete product collaborations (the #1 driver of engagement, with nearly half of fans likely to act).
Cause-driven campaigns and community initiatives.
Social giveaways and fan-first activations.

In other words: don’t just slap a logo on a jersey. Build authentic collaborations that align with athlete voices and fan values.

📌 Key Takeouts

⚡ Women’s soccer is one of the fastest-growing sports markets, with a projected 40% global fanbase growth by 2031.
💸 Fans convert: 25%+ have already purchased based on sponsorships, far ahead of other sports audiences.
🙌 Trust is currency: Women’s soccer fans are the most trusting of women athletes, and that trust transfers directly to brands.
👕 Apparel leads in awareness, but Food & Beverage, Health & Beauty, Travel, Tech, and Finance are categories with big headroom for impact.
🎯 The audience is differentiated: 25% of U.S. soccer fans watch only the women’s game. Ignore it, and you miss a quarter of the market.

🔮 What’s Next

The playbook is clear: the next five years will see women’s soccer evolve from an undervalued asset to a mainstream commercial engine. The brands that win will be those who:

Activate year-round, across both the NWSL and Gainbridge Super League, not just during marquee events.
Lean into athlete-led product collabs that merge sport, lifestyle, and culture.
Expand beyond the “usual suspects” (apparel, beverage) into tech, finance, travel, and retail, where fans are signalling demand.
See women’s soccer not as a CSR box-tick, but as a core brand growth channel.

Women’s soccer fans aren’t asking brands to show up. They’re demanding it. The question for marketers is simple: will you lead in this space, or play catch-up when the rest of the industry finally wakes up?

🍾 Champagne Blues: What Falling Sales Reveal About Global Mood

For centuries, champagne has been shorthand for joy, status and collective highs. But the bubbles are losing their fizz. Latest shipment figures for 2024 show a sharp dip in sales, making the category a cultural bellwether for the world’s unsettled mood. In a market where popping corks signals optimism, the silence speaks volumes.

📊 Supporting Stats

271.4m bottles shipped in 2024 - down 9.2% on 2023.
French sales down 7.2% to 118.2m bottles, highlighting a domestic slump amid political and economic unrest.
Exports fell 10.8%, reaching 153.2m bottles, yet still accounting for 56.4% of total shipments — proof overseas markets continue to outpace home consumption.
(Source: Comité Champagne)

🧠 Decision: Did It Work?
From a brand perspective, the downturn isn’t a failure of product but of context. Champagne thrives on confidence - weddings, IPOs, luxury hospitality, fashion week afterparties. With inflation, global conflicts and an uneasy political climate, consumers are trading down or pausing celebrations altogether. In this light, champagne’s positioning as a premium ritual product makes it especially vulnerable to cultural mood swings.

Still, its leaders are playing a long game. By doubling down on sustainability and broadening appeal to new global audiences, the industry is resisting the urge to pivot cheaply. In luxury, restraint can be as important as reinvention.

📌 Key Takeouts

📉 Sales fell nearly 10% in 2024, signalling wider economic and cultural uncertainty.
🇫🇷 France, the heartland of champagne, posted a notable 7.2% decline - showing even domestic traditions are under pressure.
🌍 Exports remain majority share at 56.4%, underscoring champagne’s dependence on global markets.
💡 Leaders frame the downturn as cyclical, with an emphasis on resilience, sustainability and patient brand building.
🥂 For marketers, champagne is a reminder that luxury is as much about cultural confidence as disposable income.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
Expect two diverging paths. On one side, heritage champagne houses will protect scarcity and symbolism, investing in green credentials and elite positioning. On the other, challenger sparkling wines (Prosecco, English sparkling, even non-alcoholic “bubbles”) will capitalise on affordability and accessibility in a cautious climate. The risk for champagne isn’t irrelevance - it’s being sidelined as a rarefied ritual in a world increasingly fuelled by pragmatic indulgence.

⚽🔥 Football as a Battleground: Farage’s Reform Shirt Isn’t Just a Stunt

Reform UK’s release of a branded football shirt, fronted by Nigel Farage, has drawn outrage across social feeds. For some, it’s a cheap gimmick. But dismissing it risks missing the real danger: this is a political provocation dressed in the world’s most popular sport. Football isn’t the backdrop here - it’s the weapon.

📊 Supporting Stats

Football remains the UK’s most-watched sport, with over 31 million people tuning into the 2022 World Cup final on the BBC and ITV combined (BARB).
Gen Z is both the most football-engaged generation and the most politically disillusioned: 49% of 18–24 year olds in Britain say they have little or no trust in politics (Ipsos, 2024).
The far right has long sought cultural entry points. In Germany, for instance, far-right groups have attempted to infiltrate fan scenes at more than 30 clubs since 2019 (Deutsche Welle).

🧠 Decision: Does It Work?
From a branding perspective, this “shirt drop” achieves its goal. It drags football into culture-war territory, ensuring maximum visibility and outrage amplification. Reform UK understands that fandom loyalty in football is tribal, emotional and community-led - and they are seeking to parasitically attach their politics to that energy. In culture terms, it’s cynical but effective: the image of Farage in football colours spreads further than any policy pamphlet ever could.

📌 Key Takeouts

⚽ The shirt isn’t merch - it’s a symbol designed to make nationalism feel playable, wearable, normal.
🪧 Farage’s past statements about “keeping politics out of football” expose the hypocrisy: politics is only unwelcome when it challenges the status quo.
🔄 Outrage is part of the tactic. By mocking the shirt as a joke, opponents still fuel its circulation.
👥 The real target is vulnerable young fans, pulled into a narrative where “outsiders” are blamed for national decline.
🚨 For brands in football - from Nike to Sky Sports - silence is complicity. Aligning with inclusivity and belonging isn’t a CSR play anymore, it’s brand survival.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
This won’t be the last attempt to politicise football through merch, stunts or culture-war gestures. As the men’s Euros and women’s game continue to surge in visibility, football will remain a key arena where identity, nationalism and inclusion clash. The risk for the industry is allowing the far right to set the terms of debate unopposed. Expect more shirt stunts, terrace messaging and online meme campaigns aimed at turning the pitch into a proxy battlefield for Britain’s future.

🔥 Netflix Land: From Streaming Wars to Theme Parks?

Netflix has disrupted Hollywood at every turn - from DVD mailer to global streaming giant. But if Disney still has one ace that no tech-first studio has matched, it’s parks. Themed experiences are where IP loyalty turns into multi-generational cash flow. Now, with Netflix experimenting through pop-ups (Stranger Things stores, Bridgerton balls) and immersive events (Squid Game: The Trials in London, Money Heist live shows in Brazil), the question is no longer “would they?” but “when?”

📊 Supporting Stats:

Disney’s parks brought in $32.5 billion in revenue in 2024 (Walt Disney Company annual report), showing the cultural and financial weight of physical experiences.
Experiential entertainment is booming: 67% of Gen Z and Millennials say they’d rather spend on experiences than products (Eventbrite).
Netflix’s own Squid Game immersive experience sold over 200,000 tickets in its first global run (Variety, 2024).

🧠 Decision: Could It Work (Hypothetically)?
From a brand-strategy perspective, yes - Netflix Land makes sense. It would deepen IP monetisation beyond screens and merch, locking in loyalty while creating new revenue streams. But the risk? Unlike Disney or Universal, Netflix lacks decades of physical-world operational expertise. Theme parks are not easily scalable tech. What Netflix has is data-led insight into fan demand - which could make experiences more culturally reactive and less tied to nostalgia. The park would have to feel dynamic, like a live-streamed algorithm in physical form.

📌 Key Takeouts:

🎢 What happened: Cultural conversation is buzzing around the idea of a Netflix theme park.
💸 What works: Netflix already has experiential proof points (Squid Game, Bridgerton). Parks are proven billion-dollar IP engines.
⚠️ What doesn’t: Building a physical empire is capital intensive; Netflix would face steep operational learning curves.
🌍 Signals: Audiences want immersion, not just screen time. Parks are becoming an extension of streaming battles.
📈 For brands: The future of fandom is multi-platform and multi-sensory — and entertainment IP is setting the blueprint.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next:
Expect Netflix to keep expanding through lower-lift, city-based experiences first - touring pop-ups, VR/AR crossovers, franchise-led immersive theatre. A full park feels like a decade-away play, but as Disney fumbles succession, Netflix has cultural momentum on its side. If they crack operational partnerships (think: Six Flags or Merlin Entertainments), “Netflix Land” could become a very real power move - less about castles, more about content that constantly updates, just like your homepage.

🔥 Spotify Adds DMs: Can the Streamer Win at Social Too?

Spotify just dropped a new feature called Messages - essentially in-app DMs for music, podcasts, and audiobooks. On paper, it’s simple: share a track with a friend, react with an emoji, keep the conversation going without leaving Spotify. But strategically, this is a big move. It edges Spotify further into “platform” territory, not just a listening app but a social space - a move that’s been both lucrative and risky for other platforms.

📊 Supporting Stats

Spotify users already share content millions of times per month through external apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok (Spotify newsroom, 2025).
According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family more than any other form of advertising (Nielsen, 2023). Spotify is essentially formalising this behaviour inside its own walls.
Social listening is a growth lever: TikTok’s music-first model turned it into the most downloaded app of 2024, and 75% of U.S. TikTok users say they discover new artists on the platform (MIDiA Research, 2024).

🧠 Decision: Does It Work?
This is a strategically smart move. Spotify isn’t trying to build a full social network - it’s creating a lightweight, high-intent communication channel tied directly to the act of discovery. The biggest win here is data ownership. Instead of losing the trail when a track gets shared to WhatsApp, Spotify can now see who shares what, who reacts, and how recommendations spread. That’s valuable intel for both creators and advertisers.

The risk? Feature fatigue. Users are used to sharing on platforms where their friends already are. Spotify Messages needs to feel frictionless, not redundant. If it ends up as a ghost town (like Netflix’s short-lived social layer), it could dilute the product.

📌 Key Takeouts

🎵 What happened: Spotify launched Messages, an in-app DM feature for sharing music, podcasts, and audiobooks.
💬 What worked: It builds on existing user behaviour (sharing recommendations) and strengthens discovery while keeping users inside Spotify.
⚠️ What’s risky: Competing with entrenched social habits - most users already share through WhatsApp, TikTok, or Instagram.
📈 Strategic signal: Spotify wants to own more of the recommendation journey, capturing social data to fuel discovery and advertising.
🧑‍💼 For brand marketers: This creates a more measurable and direct channel for word-of-mouth influence — think micro-discovery loops inside Spotify, not just on TikTok.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
Expect Spotify to test group messaging and more social discovery tools (imagine mini group chats tied to Blends or live Jams). If adoption sticks, artists and advertisers could eventually sponsor or seed recommendations, making Messages a new touchpoint in the discovery funnel. But if users see it as redundant, we might see Spotify retreat quietly, keeping external social integrations as the real driver.

The next 6–12 months will reveal whether Spotify is edging towards TikTok-lite - or if its strength remains in being the soundtrack, not the conversation.

🔥 Prada x Red Bull Take Skysurfing to the Bay Bridge

Prada Linea Rossa and Red Bull just staged one of the most visually striking brand collaborations of the year. Skysurfing pioneer Sean MacCormac became the first person to ride down the cables of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, in a feat blending extreme sport, high fashion, and architectural spectacle. More than just a stunt, this partnership showcased how brands can create cultural theatre by fusing engineering precision, athlete ambition, and luxury fashion credibility.

📊 Supporting Stats

Red Bull’s branded content dominates digital engagement: its YouTube channel has over 15M subscribers, with extreme sports videos often topping 10M+ views each (Statista, 2025).
The global luxury sportswear market is projected to hit $137B by 2030 (Allied Market Research, 2025). Collaborations that marry performance innovation with cultural storytelling are key growth drivers.
Prada’s brand value climbed 14% year-on-year in 2024, fuelled by Linea Rossa’s push into sport-luxury crossovers (Brand Finance).

🧠 Decision: Did It Work?
Yes - strategically, culturally, and visually. For Prada, this was a masterstroke in reinforcing Linea Rossa as not just an offshoot but a high-performance, technically credible arm of the house. Aligning with Red Bull adds adrenaline and digital virality - extending Prada beyond fashion weeks into global feeds. For Red Bull, the link with Prada injects a layer of luxury and aesthetic sophistication into its extreme sports empire, broadening audience reach beyond core action-sport fans.

The risk? Extremity can sometimes overshadow the brand story - viewers might just see “crazy stunt” before noticing Prada’s tailoring or technical innovation. But here, Prada’s involvement wasn’t ornamental: it was embedded in the equipment design, athlete kit, and storytelling. That authenticity is what makes this a win.

📌 Key Takeouts

🚀 What happened: Sean MacCormac skysurfed the Bay Bridge cables with Prada Linea Rossa and Red Bull.
🎯 What worked: Seamless integration of Prada’s tech-fashion design into the actual performance. Red Bull’s content engine guarantees virality.
⚡ What didn’t: High-risk spectacle risks being a one-off “wow” moment rather than a sustained brand narrative.
🌍 Signals: Luxury is leaning harder into extreme sports and engineering feats - from Louis Vuitton’s America’s Cup to Moncler’s mountain expeditions.
💡 Brand takeaway: Spectacle works best when the brand is functionally essential, not just a logo.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
Expect more fashion houses to pursue “aesthetic-engineering” collabs - not just sponsoring athletes but co-designing the tech that makes extreme feats possible. The bigger opportunity lies in serial storytelling: can Prada and Red Bull make “Bridge Rider” the first in a series of cultural landmarks reimagined through sport and design? If so, they’ll have a blueprint for the next era of branded spectacle - part luxury, part adrenaline, part cinematic cultural theatre.

🔥 M&S Goes Preloved: Secondhand Meets the High Street Giant

Marks & Spencer is making a play for cultural and commercial relevance by stepping deeper into resale. Its new eBay store, launched under the “Another Life” scheme, takes the brand’s long-standing shwopping initiative into a platform that actually matches where resale culture lives. With Oxfam still in the loop and customers incentivised with £5 vouchers, the move signals how high street stalwarts are adapting to an economy where newness isn’t the only flex.

📊 Supporting Stats

M&S has already collected 36.5m secondhand garments since the launch of its recycling scheme.
Depop sales surged 35% YoY to $250m in Q2 2025, putting it on track for $1bn annually (Etsy).
Vinted reported a 41% rise in sales to €813m in 2024, with profits almost tripling (Vinted).
The UK throws away roughly 700,000 tonnes of clothes annually (UK govt).

🧠 Decision: Does It Work?
Strategically, yes - but with caveats. M&S aligning with eBay feels like the right cultural handshake: it takes the brand beyond charity bins and into a resale economy that Gen Z and Millennials actually engage with. The partnership also lets M&S test the waters before committing to resale in its own channels. However, the voucher mechanic risks being too transactional. Will consumers see it as authentic circularity or just a dressed-up voucher scheme? That’s where credibility is won or lost.

📌 Key Takeouts

👕 M&S opens a secondhand eBay store, powered by Reskinned and in partnership with Oxfam.
📦 Customers donating with at least one M&S item get a £5 voucher (online-only).
♻️ The initiative builds on M&S’s 36.5m garments collected since its original shwopping launch.
💻 M&S joins the resale economy alongside Depop, Vinted, H&M, and Zara.
⚠️ Strength: ties a heritage retailer to resale culture.
⚠️ Weak spot: risks looking like discount mechanics rather than a true sustainability play.

🔮 What We Can Expect Next
If the eBay partnership lands, expect M&S to migrate resale into its own platforms - perhaps even piloting in-store preloved concessions, echoing what H&M and Selfridges have already trialled. The resale market is expanding fast, but fatigue is real: consumers are becoming savvy about “greenwashing resale” where brands use circularity as a marketing veneer. For M&S, authenticity will come down to consistency — ensuring resale is not a side hustle but a real, embedded part of its fashion strategy.