The moment finds you

Luxury rebounds, tech builds stores, fast fashion hires couture, and AI starts designing beauty while Kering pivots to jewelry.

Author

Olga Merzlyakova
March 23, 2026

Happy Monday,

Just a story I found entertaining this weekend. Paul Anthony Kelly — the actor playing JFK Jr. in Love Story — used to model for Kohl's. Fans dug up his old e-commerce photos, still sitting on the website. Polos, t-shirts, everything under $30. Now he's front row at Dior. Kohl's leaned in. Resurfaced the photos, captioned it "Have a feeling these styles are gonna get all the love." Apparently the pieces are selling. I love this kind of thing. Pop culture and relevance are random. You can't predict which forgotten shoot becomes a moment, which model ends up mattering. But being ready to move when the moment finds you — that might be the most underrated skill in this business right now.

Caught my eye

Ferrari’s new jacket merges leather and wool

Trends — what’s bubbling underneath the headlines

  • HSBC is bullish on luxury

    Buy ratings on seven of eight stocks — LVMH, Richemont, Burberry, Prada, Moncler, Hermès, Kering. Only Swatch left out.

    The thesis: luxury's slowdown was self-inflicted. Greedflation. Creative stagnation. Now HSBC sees that reversing. One catch: the report came out March 9, over a week into the Iran conflict. The Middle East had been a bright spot. HSBC acknowledged the uncertainty but stayed bullish anyway.

  • Tech companies opening physical stores?

    Meta just signed a 10-year lease on Fifth Avenue. A townhouse called Meta Lab — showroom, not store. I recently noticed Intel opened an “experience center” in Munich. Google has its store in London.

    Tech is going physical. Apple figured this out decades ago. Everyone else is finally catching up.

  • John Galliano is going to Zara

    One of fashion's greatest couturiers, now working with the world's largest fast-fashion retailer. He's not just designing new pieces — he's reinterpreting Zara's archives (even if Zara and archive in the same sentence sounds like an oxymoron).

    This is part of something bigger. We've seen it coming. Uniqlo collaborating with Jil Sander and Clare Waight Keller. H&M doing capsules with everyone from Margiela to Mugler.

    And here's what I keep thinking about: fast fashion used to borrow from luxury — copy the runway, get it to stores in weeks. Now it's hiring the people who made the runways. The talent is flowing downstream because that's where the scale is, that's where the reach is, and frankly, that's where the paychecks might be more reliable than the creative director carousel at heritage houses.

Business moves, big numbers & “wait, what?”

  • What if the next breakthrough skincare is designed by AI?

    L'Oréal and Nvidia are expanding their AI partnership. The focus: Simulate how ingredients interact, test thousands of combinations virtually, bring only the best into the lab. What used to take months now takes days.
    L'Oréal was early to AI skin diagnostics, early to virtual try-on, early to personalization. This is the next logical step — pushing AI upstream into the product itself, not just the marketing around it.

  • Kering is betting on jewelry. The group created a dedicated division, bundling Boucheron, Pomellato, and Qeelin under one roof.

    I posted a TikTok about this a month ago — Kering needs to up their jewelry game. Gucci is struggling. Fashion is volatile. But jewelry is resilient, high-margin, and growing. Richemont has been proving that for years.

    A dedicated division also signals something else: acquisitions could be coming. And I also made another TikTok about who they might buy.

Wish I were there - pop-ups,  collabs, etc.

Pencil in, book the ticket, or just follow on social media — choose your option and let’s discuss afterwards!

Thanks for reading! Have a great week.

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