Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos at Dior’s Haute Couture Spring 2026 show.Photo: Swan Gallet/WWD via Getty Images
These are the stories making headlines in fashion on Thursday.Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos are encroaching on fashionLauren Sanchez Bezos and Jeff Bezos attended Paris Couture Week, marking their new roles as fashion insiders. Bezos posed with Dior’s Jonathan Anderson and CEO Delphine Arnault, while Law Roach is seemingly styling Sanchez Bezos. The couple previously teetered on fashion’s outer edges, but now they’ve reached a new pinnacle of fashion access, CNN’s Rachel Tashjian notes. “Their appearances closer and closer to fashion’s power brokers have caught many by surprise, particularly as sentiment towards the world’s rich and powerful is sour at best,” she writes. “[…] Does this mark the change of fashion’s old rules? The industry went far in the past decade to embrace liberal values: body positivity, inclusivity, diversity.” {CNN}The New York Times’ Vanessa Friedman reviews the couture collectionsSchiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry set out to transform his anger with today’s current events into a joyful couture collection, resulting in feathered jackets and horns jutting out from the breasts of a skirt suit. Viktor & Rolf delivered performance art by transforming a model into a butterfly and lifting her in the air, while Valentino had guests face windows through which they could see models entering and exiting. Couture has now increasingly become entertainment: “Sometimes everyone just needs something jaw-dropping and completely improbable to look at,” The New York Times’ Vanessa Friedman writes. “Whether you can buy it or not, or wear it or not, is immaterial; just seeing it restores faith in possibility.” {The New York Times/paywalled}How to win back ChinaAfter nearly three years of volatility, China’s luxury market is showing early signs of stabilization. But, in 2026, winning China will require a fundamentally different playbook. China is no longer an incremental market, it is now a zero-sum market, where one brand’s gain is another’s loss. Luxury brands must extract growth from a shrinking, increasingly rational elite. Plus, the definition of “younger consumers” is expanding and household decision-making is also becoming central. {Vogue Business/paywalled}H&M Group profits rise in Q4For the fourth quarter ended Nov. 30, 2025, H&M reported sales in local currencies increased by 2%. Net sales amounted to SEK 59.2 billion ($6.7 billion). For the full year, net sales increased by 2%. The H&M Group’s net sales for the full year amounted to SEK 228.29 billion ($25.9 billion). The group’s sales in the period Dec. 1, 2025 through Jan. 31, 2026 are expected to decrease by 2% in local currencies compared with the same period the previous year. {H&M Group}Allbirds to close remaining U.S. storesAllbirds announced that it will shutter all of its remaining standalone stores in the U.S. by the end of February. The footwear maker will continue to operate two outlet locations. Allbirds will focus on driving sales from its e-commerce store, wholesale partnerships and its international retail presence through distribution deals in regions like Canada, Japan and South Korea. {Business of Fashion/paywalled}Fashionista’s audience includes 1 million site visitors, 110,000 newsletter subscribers and 4.74 million social media followers. Want to know how to reach them? Learn more.
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