Achim Berg is placing on his pondering cap.
The veteran guide, who was a senior companion at McKinsey & Co., has launched FashionSights, an unbiased company suppose tank.
“The style and luxurious trade faces unprecedented challenges, from stagnating high traces in Western markets to rising prices throughout all the worth chain, driving vital polarization in efficiency,” Berg stated. “Compounding these pressures, exterior disruptions — starting from geopolitical conflicts and provide chain instability to evolving regulatory landscapes — proceed to emerge at an growing tempo.
“On this complicated panorama, senior decision-makers want clear insights, in-depth analytics, thought management {and professional} recommendation to navigate uncertainty and drive success,” he stated.
The suppose tank is constructed round 4 pillars.
- Thought management that includes “distinctive views fueled by knowledge and experience throughout a wide range of codecs to have interaction and inform a broad viewers.” Among the many tasks within the works is a guide, “The Way forward for Style,” that shall be drawn from interviews with greater than 50 trade leaders.
- Advisory providers to senior decision-makers, founders, entrepreneurs and different stakeholders.
- Investments in each post-seed start-ups in addition to scale-ups on the intersection of style and expertise.
- Neighborhood: Berg desires to make use of FashionSights to convey collectively the style and luxurious group “to foster connections and collaboration.”
All collectively, the aim is to assist form the style trade’s future, partially by understanding its previous.
“The insights engine begins with a deep evaluation of the mega developments and disruptions which have formed the style trade over the previous a long time,” Berg stated. “However we transcend surface-level observations, uncovering the underlying financial, trade and shopper drivers that have really influenced its evolution. This deep historic understanding — hindsight — varieties the inspiration of our perspective on the way forward for style. Somewhat than merely extrapolating previous developments, we leverage a nuanced understanding of present and rising drivers, together with the probably reactions of market gamers, to develop true foresight.”
Berg has lengthy been a eager observer of the trade, having spent 24 years at McKinsey, the place he helped begin the group’s attire, style and luxurious apply.
Late final 12 months, after leaving the McKinsey, he wrote a report analyzing Forbes’ wealthy lists for the previous 24 years. His analysis confirmed that the web price of style billionaires grew from a 4 p.c share in 2000 to 10 p.c in 2024, contemplating the general wealth of the highest 200.
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton‘s Bernard Arnault and Inditex founder Amancio Ortega had been each part of that improve.
“The dynamics among the many richest are an impressively exact allegory for the polarization the style trade has been going by way of for years,” Berg wrote. “Luxurious and worth gamers are dominating by way of numbers of billionaires and the web price they’re producing, whereas the premium and midmarket section is squeezed.”
Clearly, Berg has lots extra to present the trade.
