Making Sense of Fashion’s Brutal Job Market

0:07Hello and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion, where each week we delve into our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. And I'm executive editor Brian Baskin. So usually this is where I give a little spiel about what we're talking about and introduce our guest. But today we're actually talking about one of your articles, Sheena. Actually, we're talking about two of them. One is about the fall of remote work. So across fashion, remote first is apparently out. companies that settled on three days in the office are now testing four, and some are pushing to the more consequential five days, like pre-COVID times.

0:48And I'm sure our listeners are just thrilled to hear that. Well, it gets better. That's if you can get a job. You have the option to go in the office or be remote. So the labor market is very challenging right now. And so the second article looks at how tough it is to get a job, but there are solutions. And also with us today to talk about some of those solutions is Sophie Soar from BOF Careers. She's going to tell us about what she's been hearing from the fashion and beauty companies that she works with and give some tips for how people can get their foot in the door in the industry in these challenging times.

1:21Sophie, welcome to The Debrief. Thank you, Brian. Thanks, Sheena, for having me. All right. So Sophie, we'll get to you in a second. But Sheena, why don't you tell us first this return to the office? I feel like we'd been hearing about it ever since the lockdowns lifted. But there was this long, longer than many people expected period when remote work seemed like maybe it was going to take hold. And it seems like your story just dashed the last vestige of hope we had about that. Yeah. Well, that was not the intention. I feel like I've been saying that for about every day since the story came out, that it was not intended to dash all hopes around remote work.

1:56I would step back a little bit because I think the return to being in the office more has been happening for probably two or three years. And people sometimes forget that the reason that fashion and many other industries embraced remote work was by force, right? We had a global health crisis and everybody had to go remote. And what a lot of companies and talent discovered was that they could be just as, in some cases, more productive if they were working from home. But that was when we defined productivity by, we probably still do, but productivity is defined as output. So, you know, me as a reporter at BOF, if my output is one story for 40 hours a week, working from home, maybe I do two, which is not true.

2:38That is not correct. But it is actually, it's based on how much you deliver in a certain amount of hours. I think what companies and talent discovered in the course of those years is that productivity should also include collaboration, morale, people being together, FaceTime with leaders. And so I think that was where you start to see the trickle of we need to be hybrid. We need to have not just people putting out a lot of whatever it is they produce, but being together as a team so that they can grow and we can have culture. We were also in an employee's market during the pandemic. As Brian, you probably remember, I was writing all those stories about quiet quitting and the great resignation and people were making these requests for a lot of flexibility.

3:21I want to work from my beach home in the summer and maybe do this other thing in the winter. And, you know, there was a lot of leverage on the employee side in 2025 and now into 2026. It's looking more like an employer's market. The economy is seeing a lot of pressure and fashion companies have been doing layoffs and AI is taking some jobs. And so I think what we're seeing is the product of maybe a lot of leaders having leverage to push to more days in the office and do some of these mandates. Yeah, we'll get to the tough job market in a minute. But what I find interesting is that the leaders themselves are so gung ho about this.

3:58I mean, they're, you know, again, there really did seem like a moment when even the CEOs were saying, hey, remote work has some advantages. I don't mind doing it. It's good for morale. That balances out some of the productivity issues. But tell us about the retail software company Seventh Online. You spoke to their CEO and they've quite forcefully swung back from a pretty lenient work from home policy to having everyone in pretty much all the time. And there were some real specific reasons for that. So they might take issue with us calling it a forceful return, but it is a retail software company that works with brands like Patagonia or like all the PVH brands, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, et cetera, on their software.

4:38And so what Max Ma said when I had a conversation with him, the CEO, was that he noticed that in the three years that they were mostly remote, which was the, you know, 2020, 2021, when we were talking about masks and vaccines and all that stuff. So lockdowns are still sort of happening. They tracked their the mistakes they were making with their software and nearly every mistake they made with their software over those three years were due to, in his opinion, through the data, people working from from home. In what sense? I mean, how did the fact that they were at home and not in the office lead to these mistakes?

5:12Well, it's a very specific thing, and I'm glad you asked it because they're making software. And so the way he describes it is you're generally successful as a software provider if most of the time your software works as intended. Right. So like if you have an iPhone and when you use it every day, it's doing everything right. There are cases maybe like five percent of the time where a software glitches in a way that's not intended. Those issues, when they came up, he felt like almost every time it was due to someone making a mistake on Zoom or on Slack and not being in person to recognize or prevent those glitches.

5:47Interesting. Sophie, let's bring you in here. I mean, how typical is this experience, both in a company saying everyone needs to be back in the office five days a week and in the reasons for doing that? I think that's quite a balance at the moment, to be honest, in terms of those who are trying to get their employees back in the office and those who are not. And I think it kind of goes to Sheena's point earlier where it went from being like a requirement to then moving into the idea of presenting it as a benefit or a perk. And those who are still continuing to roll it out as a benefit or a perk as an employer and having a workforce that's adjusted to that, that they need to account for versus those who believe and are mandating that being back in the office is going to be much more effective for everybody involved.

6:34Yeah, it does seem like a mindset shift. I definitely heard after, Sheena, after your story ran of a couple of people said, oh, my CEO dropped this story on my desk and said, hey, what do you think of this? And these were companies where they were already back four days a week. And it just seems like there's no upside anymore for companies to let people work from home. And it's just a matter of whether they can get people to do it or not. I don't know if I agree. I think also, by the way, I'll say this for the third time maybe, but that was not the intended use of the article. It was not for CEOs to send it around their companies and say, here, look at this.

7:07You can come back five days a week. I think it does make you competitive if you have some form of flexibility in your work from home, like whatever your arrangements are with the office. What I think could be happening that is not positive is that companies are doing what you just described, which is like everyone else is bringing people back. So I should as well. So there was one recruiter, Damien Chiam, that I talked to for the article. He mentioned that if you're seeing productivity high, morale high at having your teams in one to two days a week or maybe three days a week, then you need to ask yourself, what am I hoping to accomplish if I move it to four, if I move it to five?

7:45And I don't know that companies have the answer beyond maybe, well, you know, the retailer across the street has everybody in five days a week. Or if we're being completely honest, there's things like, oh, I paid for this real estate, so you should all use it. And then the worst reason, I think, is in a challenging job market, a lot of companies don't know if they want to have the headline of a layoff, if they feel like they need to reduce teams. So a one way you can get people to effectively fire themselves is to make them come to the office. It's quite sinister. I think I think it's happening.

8:17No doubt. So I think it's happening. Sophie, is there anything you want to add there? I think it's a fair if harsh observation from Sheila there, but you will see people having to basically opt out of being able to work at their potentially their employer of choice if their lifestyle simply cannot accommodate for being back in the office. But I also think that the employer needs to really think about what their role was in facilitating that. If you think about during the lockdown and during the pandemic, employers were really able to widen their talent pool because they were hiring with a remote first mindset in mind.

8:56So if they're then revoking that and potentially losing members of their workforce as a result because the individuals at hand can't actually facilitate coming into the office because their commute is too long. They've got family members dependent on them, whatever it might be. It's something that they really have to have to consider. That's a really good point. Enough about the CEOs. Let's talk about what the employees want. Sheena, it seemed from your story like it wasn't as neat a divide as you'd expect. And it was actually Gen Z, younger employees, the most online people who were most interested in coming back to the office.

9:31Yeah, I mean, as the tale goes, Gen Z got the bad rep for being the quiet quitters, the ones that joined the workforce or most of them joined the workforce at the height of the pandemic. And maybe they wanted to be, I don't know, at home in their snuggies on their devices, making TikToks. But, you know, a lot of recruiters and experts say that it's them that want to be in the office. I mean, think about big cities like New York, where they have maybe small apartments and they came here to have these careers. They want to be in the office. They want to be, if it's fashion, they want to be at the shows.

10:02They want to be in the showrooms looking at product. They actually want that in person. It is the Gen X and above, they say, or elder millennials. Let me put myself in the equation. The millennials and above that are now parents, or maybe they're dealing with aging parents, or they have other caregiving responsibilities. They're also more senior in their careers. They're the ones that are advocating for less time in the office, or maybe they're not advocating outright, but they prefer to have more time at home. And that's challenging, obviously, because I think we, me, millennials, we were beneficiaries of that FaceTime.

10:37Like I remember, I don't know about you, Brian, but a couple of my first promotions were because I was in the office and I could like show what I could do. I could be a culture builder and all those things that make you an asset to a team. And I think Gen Z is recognizing that that's something they're missing out on without being there more often. Now, that's not to say all Gen Zs want to be in the office, but I think it's definitely a twist on what conventional wisdom was. I'd love to add as well, actually, like last year, BOF Careers surveyed over a thousand individuals across fashion and beauty from over 70 countries.

11:09And there was one of the questions that we asked was how many days in the office would you want to be in an ideal world? And we saw the three days in the office, two days remote was the most popular across all the different ages that we were that we were surveying. and then after that there was a slight split generationally but it was there wasn't a huge amount in it to be totally honest with you and younger generations slightly skewed more towards then going to two days in the office and older generations slightly skewed towards four days in the office but that said I do think though as you've been saying Sheena that actually as more time passes I think there is this realization for sure in how much value there really is in that in-person FaceTime training experience that is really coming to the fore when we're seeing younger generations coming in and realizing just how valuable it is to be gaining that leadership, that mentorship, that one-on-one experience that frankly, a lot didn't have access to during the pandemic through their education or through their entry-level junior roles, which was so heavily disrupted by the pandemic.

12:24I think that's an excellent transition to our next topic, which is about the barriers some of those Gen Z members of the workforce are facing as they're trying to get their foot in the door in the fashion industry. Now, Sheena, I know this is your next story that you're working on. Tell us what you've been hearing. I mean, why did you decide to pick up this topic? Well, I think fashion, as we all know, and journalism too, is they've always been competitive, tough industries to break into, but there's new data or recent data over the past year that shows that competition in the labor market is even more intense than it's ever been.

12:59One data point that I'd like to call out, so unemployment among 23 to 27-year-olds climbed to roughly 4.6 % in 2025, and that is up from the low three percentage range in 2019, which also stayed low in 2020 with the pandemic. and underemployment is at its highest level in years. And so underemployment is those, those are people that are working in part-time jobs when they want to be full-time or working in sectors that they don't actually aspire to work in. And so that's at an all-time low. And at the same time, industries like fashion, like arts, things that are related like entertainment, those are also not projected to grow at, if they do grow two to 3 % over the next decade.

13:42So there is actual objective data showing that it's a tough labor market. And then I spoke to a few recent grads and a lot of them are citing, you know, AI taking on a lot of junior level work that they could have gotten. So someone I spoke to that has a degree in fashion design mentioned fashion design with an emphasis on marketing mentioned that she would have taken a copywriting role as her first job out of college. But those are few and far between if they exist at all. So there's actual objective data showing it. And then you talk to people anecdotally and they're describing an industry that I did not experience 10, 12 years ago.

14:21It definitely feels tougher. Yeah, I mean, actually, it sounds a bit like when I was starting out in the media and, you know, is that post.com bubble dates me a little bit. But, you know, post.com bubble, post 9-11, media recession that was happening. There were layoffs. It was a very stagnant industry. Hasn't gotten too much better since then. But, you know, it's just a fact when businesses aren't growing, they don't tend to do a lot of hiring. And it's the people with the shortest resumes and the least experience who might suffer the most from that. We'll be back with more of The Debrief right after this.

15:02Sophie, what have you been seeing? I mean, BOF has a jobs platform. There's companies advertising positions. I mean, does it feel to you like there's fewer of these entry-level jobs out there? I believe individuals are still hiring for, businesses are still hiring for entry-level jobs at the moment, But there definitely is a squeeze on the ones that are considered more rote work, I guess, so to speak, that, you know, you could automate for, you could potentially look at using AI software or whatever it might be to try and replace. But I would say it kind of splits across those who place the value in hiring in entry level talent and really nurturing that talent versus those who are looking for sort of a short term win and having a not hiring for junior roles and saving some money in that respect.

15:52And I think that's sort of what distinguishes those who are currently still hiring for entry level roles at the moment in a difficult jobs market because they recognize the benefit that that entry level talent can and will bring with them, which is to be more diverse across the demographics that they have within the business and the new talent that they can hopefully not just introduce to the business, but also retain in the business long term. To your point, Sophie, I think it was interesting because I did in my research look at the BOF careers platform and sort of some of the job openings. And there was proof that the job market is tough, but it's not frozen.

16:28So I saw that a lot of the jobs were in retail. So there's like 670 retail roles compared to 90 roles in like fashion and design. And what that told me is that I think recent grads, early career professionals have to be more thoughtful about making that bridge between what they find desirable and what's actually attainable. So a lot of students, I think they are doing that. They're starting to think about not detours, but other ways into that dream job. So if the goal is to be, you know, a women's wear designer or, you know, creative director, or even in a C-suite role at a big retail company, maybe the start isn't, you know, at the big internship at LVMH.

17:10Maybe it is on the sales floor. I had some students talk about, or recent grads talk about doing things like working in restaurants and hostesses jobs in cities like London or LA or New York, because that's where the scene is. And rather than maybe taking a standard retail job role, but something else that puts you around other collaborators or creatives, or maybe you meet like an executive from a brand in that space versus the more traditional paths. Most people are doing a combination of all of the above if they're going to be successful. Absolutely. And I think to be honest, like hospitality as well as thinking about, you know, retail shop floor experiences, that touch point with a end consumer and really understanding what that experience can be will, in my opinion, only ever stand you in good stead as a very early start in your career, if that is the way that you want to try and explore a route into fashion or beauty, for example.

18:07I think you make a really good point as well, Sheena, in that there is so much opportunity and being able to engage with a brand and being able to engage with all sorts of different elements that sit within the shop floor, including new technology and including then thinking about how it is you can leverage those skill sets for a career later on in potentially a different avenue if you don't want to continue working in retail. But again, I think thinking about the employer side of things, it's also about, and I think we're seeing more and more employers open up to this. One example sticking out in my mind right now is ESOP is really thinking about making that connection from retail through to HQ and being able to, Adam Lukoski from the National Retail Foundation said this previously to me, it's about basically fishing in your own pond in terms of talent pool and really thinking about how it is you can try and open up that avenue.

19:03And that will in turn make hopefully a retail role more enticing for that entry level job market that is still, as you say, not totally frozen, but potentially a little bit more stagnant in areas like internships in HQ roles. That's really encouraging because it did feel like there was a while where those entry level retail kind of roles were seen as dead ends and companies weren't promoting that, the stereotype of the person who starts out in the store and ends up as the CEO, that that dream was dead. But I've noticed that, Sheena, in like a through line in a lot of your stories that companies seem much more open than even a few years ago to looking at that as a talent pool and not just the cheap labor that makes the sales.

19:46Yeah, I think this is one of those things that might be also related to the increase in using AI and finding people that have a more human touch about them or that have engaged with human beings and maybe are getting out of the digital first of it all, I think that's driving, it's sort of what I've been calling what's old is new again. So I think retailers still have work to do to actually, to Sophie's point, build the pipeline from the store to the corporate, like, and not just theoretically, but actually make sure that they initiate or put their budgets into some of those programs that got people through Macy's and The Gap and, you know, in the 90s, like getting some of those back into operation or putting more investment in them.

20:28They think there's still work to be done there. But I've heard people talk about even just printing out their portfolios again in 2026 versus like sending people to your website or your Instagram. Like I think there is a real small but definitely apparent swing to some of those more traditional, conventional ways of doing things. And we're seeing it in the store, like retailers being willing to go to the store Aritzia CEO started out at Aritzia in 1989 and is now running the company. So we're definitely seeing that on that side. And I think also just in the hiring side, looking for things that are more human.

21:04Like, sure, you have a digital footprint. And sure, I can go to your Instagram. But isn't it nice when someone comes to the interview with the printed portfolio that someone described, a recruiter described, when it's left on my desk, I remember them versus having to go in my email and queuing up the website QR code or whatever it is. So little things that make that emphasize the human side of what you do well, I think, is helping people and maybe retailers and leaders are recognizing that more. One thing I would add to that, though, Sheena, is making sure you curate that portfolio where it just made me think of when I turned up to a job interview once with all of the newspapers that I had an article.

21:42I was taking a clipping from it. I bought the whole newspaper and there was a stack of them. If you bring it, bring it very well done and very edited. Scissors are your friends. I think that is the main advice to take away here. Be sustained. And on that note, Sophie, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure. And Sheena, thank you for playing hybrid guest and host. I know that can be difficult, but you did a wonderful job in both roles. Thank you, Ryan. I will do it again anytime. Please be sure to check out Sheena's article, Well, fashion is done with remote work over at businessoffashion.com.

22:20These and other stories are available to BOF professional subscribers only, and you can find the links in the episode notes. You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies and Eric Bria. I'm Sheena Butler-Young. I'm Brian Baskin. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks so much for joining us and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.