SS25; a fashion wholesale seasonal report by Emslie Creative

Clothing on show in the NYC Showroom — NYC Fashion showroom

The Emslie Creative fashion wholesale team hosted over 80 fashion buyers in London (with thanks to The Fashion Huddle family), Paris and New York (with thanks to our friends at Showroom 7) including Net a Porter, Harvey Nichols London, Selfridges, Galeries Lafayette Doha, and Anthropologie US.

Overall, we found that the general feedback for SS25 is that stores are focussed on buying existing brands, playing it safe but are 'window shopping'.

There was a bit of good news but more bad news for both UK retail sales and fashion this season. The latest BDO sales tracker showed that sales are continuing to rise, but by less than inflation, and that online sales were up strongly, but were mainly boosted by widespread discounting. The impact of this is largely due to the cost of living crisis and the political economy (both at home and worldwide). In the UK specifically, bigger brands are performing very well as customers want to shop for brands they know and trust.

The results reflect recent reports that retailers started their sales early and reduced prices in categories including fashion and homewares before the Christmas period.

Unfortunately, we have seen many great UK stores close including Fenwick Bond Street, Matches.com, Our Daily Edit in Brighton and Katie and Jo in London. Many retailers including Matches owed a lot of money to many brands who sold to the retailer with Net terms in place, this has had a negative impact on brands cash flow.

Overseas, experts say Mytheresa, Ssense and Moda Operandi have kept afloat in a challenged space by honing in on a particular consumer, curating their assortments and executing on retail basics. Still, the road ahead is tough, and the bigger they get, the harder it will be to sustain these strategies. (BoF)

I have found that the role of fashion wholesale is shifting since I started working as an agent nearly 10 years ago, as it’s primarily now a vehicle for brand discovery. Wholesale needs to be seen as part of a brand’s marketing strategy, while sales and performance are largely driven by a brand’s DTC operations. DTC is something I believe my brands should focus on and offer loyal customers special access to new seasons collections, inside knowledge on the brands ideas and plans and of course discounts; thus creating a unique following and customers who are consistently engaging with the brand.

Additionally to the traditional fashion wholesale offering, many stores are requesting Dropship terms now including Anthropologie, Sole Trader, and John Lewis for example. Although the risk remains with the brand, these stores have huge selling power and shouldn't be ignored. can be beneficial if we choose to work with them in this way to ultimately move to wholesale terms after two- three seasons of trading together.

There are many green shoots that we should focus on and remain positive! We have seen many brilliant stores in the past few months and territories including China, US and the ME are performing well.

In the UK there are specific department stores including Harvey Nichols and Selfridges as well as online platforms such as Next and third party stores including M&S as well as a small handful of core independents including Sass & Edge which are performing well. Our efforts will focus on these territories as well as speaking to my colleagues daily (via our very busy Whatsapp group) to understand who is performing well and who isn't/ not paying their bills.

How can Emslie Creative help you?

We can work on a strategy depending on which areas you wish to launch in.
Emslie Creative Fashion wholesale team can guide an advise as to which stores we feel are the best options for you.
E-comm strategy, is this something I can assist with?
DTC strategy, what is your plan?
BTC - Build on customer loyalty.
Increase online links with key sites (The Guardian, The Telegraph, Vogue, Conde Nast etc). Organic traffic to the site is incredibly beneficial.
Skimlinks - Have you signed up to their platform?
Substack - This is emerging as a standout tool for its expert insights and lack of algorithmic influence, as users sign up for the content they’re interested in/ written by the people they personally like. Would you be willing to create your own and build brand awareness?
Do you have any collaborations, newness for AW25?
WGSN colours for AW26/27 include lime and purple berry; will your collections reflect this trend?