There was a time when influence rhymed with inspiration. Today, with female influencers, it rhymes above all with manipulation, scandal and ethics on sale. For behind the perfectly filtered stories and sponsored selfies lies a world where morality seems to have long since taken a trip to the Gobi Desert.

In recent years, the varnish has begun to crack. A company has been singled out for promoting a brand of lingerie that was supposed to be charitable. The money was supposed to go to the Ligue contre le cancer? Surprise: the association denies it. Rather than take responsibility, the boss dismisses the matter with the elegance of a counterfeit seller: “it’s not me, it’s the other guy”. Which goes to show that when you’re selling your image, you forget to look at who you’re giving it to.

That same year, when a former reality TV contestant dared to mention scams in this adulterated ecosystem, a defamation suit was filed in the same way as a beauty filter is activated to save face. However, the testimonials are piling up, and they’re hurting. Notably that of a blogger relayed by Numerama, who reveals that young people, sometimes minors, are the preferred targets of these influencers. The scam is becoming a business model for sex-starved beasts.

Last year, the Chanel bulldozer, which had previously been running at full speed like a red carpet catwalk, suddenly stalled. Revenues were down for the first time since the covid, and profits plunged by 30%. The culprit? The Chinese purse, suddenly less enthusiastic about the idea of spending a minimum wage on a handbag.

The now British fashion house revealed that its 2024 turnover had fallen to 18.7 billion dollars, a slight drop of 4.3% (nothing dramatic, except when you’re used to being in orbit). Even the fashionistas of Tokyo and Seoul couldn’t compensate for the global economic storm.

Operating profit melted like mascara in the rain: 4.5 billion, compared to 6.4 last year. Yet Chanel is not skimping on spending, notably on revamping its boutiques and pampering its supply chain, probably with cashmere wolves.

On the style front, the tide has turned with the arrival of Matthieu Blazy as the new artistic director on 1 April. And no, it wasn’t a fish, but despite this chic reinforcement, the environment remains as fluid as a catwalk show on stilts.

In short, Chanel is tightening its belt (in golden tweed): hiring freeze! After recruiting 10,000 people over the last three years (including 1,900 in 2024, the vast majority between January and June), the company is planning to wisely remain at 38,400 employees this year. Even in the United States, where 70 jobs have been cut, representing 2.5% of the workforce – don’t panic, the handbags won’t sew themselves, but they will.

The highly respectable Pierpaolo Piccioli, who for twenty-five years was the emblematic figure of Valentino, where he shared the post of artistic director with Maria Grazia Chiuri from 2008 to 2016, and who is famous for having made the catwalks weep with his romantic dresses, has landed at Balenciaga (the man who, in my opinion, should have been taken by the lord at Dior). A look back at a historic fashion mistake, and an artist who will have to face Demna’s fashion and his gondola-sized trainers over an XXL hoodie in the style of a depressive parachute and a post-apocalyptic trench coat, a challenge he will easily be able to win.

The luxury sector is going through an unprecedented period of turbulence. Long a symbol of excellence, abundance and aspiration, it is now undergoing a tangible erosion, illustrated by the upheaval of historic department stores. In the United States, Saks Global has just announced the elimination of 500 to 600 brands from its portfolio – a strong gesture that reflects a brutal readjustment in the face of a reality that is less golden than it used to be.

Richard Baker, Executive Chairman of Saks Global, has publicly acknowledged that the current model has become unsustainable. With 2,660 suppliers, the machine had run out of steam, accumulating unprofitable or misaligned partnerships. This drastic rationalisation reflects a profound change: the end of an era of opulence without strategy, when the accumulation of brand names took precedence over the coherence of the offer.

The shift towards ‘controlled brands’ and more controlled joint ventures such as Authentic Luxury Group clearly demonstrates a desire to regain control in the face of a fragmented, uncertain market, saturated with products that no longer find takers. The ambition to reposition brands such as Barneys New York and Hervé Léger through hybrid concepts (retail, entertainment, hospitality) speaks volumes about the need to reinvent themselves, if they cannot continue to sell the pure dream.

British fashion house Burberry is responding to the current challenges with an ambitious new savings plan, which could lead to the loss of 20% of its workforce by 2027. The stated aim is to reduce sales to £3 billion, with the full support of creative director Daniel Lee.

Since his arrival in the summer of 2024, chief executive Josh Schulman has acted swiftly to stabilise the business, whose revenues fell by 17% in the 2025 financial year to £2.46 billion. In the twelve months to 29 March, like-for-like retail sales were down 12%, although there has been a gradual improvement.

This fall in revenues led to an operating loss of £3 million, compared with a profit of £418 million the previous year. However, the trend reversed in the second half of the year, with a profit of £67 million offsetting a loss of £41 million in the first six months.

Time stood still in Cannes when, during the spring bloom of 2003, a famous singer delicately let her purple silk stole fall down her forearms on the esplanade of the Palais des Congrès. The day after her ‘Golden Ambition’ tour. The ‘doctrine of the Diva’ has been repeated on numerous occasions since, notably the previous year, when a certain Bella, bust unveiled in a chiffon creation on the red carpet, caused a sensation. A way of honouring the female figure, or an offence against decency, depending on your point of view, but the Cannes Film Festival has just put an end to it.

In an update to its official dress code, the institution has added a clause on the subject. ‘For reasons of propriety, bodily exhibition is forbidden on the red carpet’, it reads, after specifying the colour of trousers allowed (ebony) and the length of dresses (long, unless it’s a little dark dress).

It’s where sacred leather sleeps on blessed shelves, and bags whisper for moccasins to meditate on. It’s on a cobbled street, of course, because tarmac is too vulgar for fashion mysticism, and with an air of mystery before a heavy wooden porte cochere that opens like a dramatic period film, here is the candlelit concept store lining the golden catacombs of style: the Palazzo Settimanni, the chic mausoleum of Gucci’s heritage.

Once a leather goods workshop, then a hype sanctuary under Tom Ford and an exhibition space (remember: the days when a belt could make a nun blush), the place has been resurrected by Alessandro Michele, that bohemian druid with long hair and multiple rings. He said he wanted to ‘bring the objects home’. Which, in his case, mostly meant saving vintage sequined dresses and moccasins from eternal oblivion in the warehouses of Milan.

Since he left the boat in 2022, perhaps tired of having brought back too many things or perhaps a victim of too much brocade, the torch has passed to Sabato De Sarno like a shooting star, and then recently to Demna, the man who transformed jogging into a philosophical manifesto, the Gandalf of post-apocalyptic silhouettes.

On the golden pavements of Rome, where the thread of history intertwines with that of precious fabrics, the House of Fendi celebrates its centenary like sewing a ball gown: with patience, audacity and memory.

Take a timeless palace – the Villa d’Este, an outdated pearl of globalised luxury, frozen in the cliché of Italian refinement. Add a few well-trimmed hydrangeas, golden light falling on the tranquil waters of Lake Como, and a handful of fashion journalists already fed up with corporate prose. Bring in the tutelary shadow of Visconti, summon the graceful ghost of Romy Schneider draped in Gabrielle-era Chanel, and inject a pinch of cinematic nostalgia. Shake it all up with a bit of pre-digested storytelling, and you get… the Chanel Croisière 2026 fashion show.

May is a month when many things blossom: cherry trees, pollen allergies, and Charlize Theron, 50 years of calibrated freshness, as the new incarnation of Dior high jewellery. Yes, you read that right. For the first time ever, the French fashion house has decided it’s time to slap a face as smooth as it is retouched on its cast-iron, multi-zero charms.

And who better than Charlize, Hollywood star recycled as luxury icon and mistress, to sell the dream mounted on rose gold and marquise-cut diamonds? Under the penetrating eye of photographer Mario Sorrenti, the former queen of Mad Max’s post-apocalyptic stunts struts her stuff in jewellery with a name so evocative you’d think you were reading a Michelin-starred menu: Milly Dentelle Couture Fleurie, an overpriced floral embroidery that looks like it’s been lifted from grandma’s lace tablecloth.

The quintessence of elegance… and a healthy bank account. For their next event, the “cruise” presentation (because a normal fashion show is so plebeian), the brand has set its sights on picturesque Lake Como. Charming, to be sure. But wait for the highlight: the accommodation option for the modest sum of 2,370 euros a night. Yes, you read that right. The price of a small electric city car for just one night. Imagine the breakfast included: unicorn tears and toast sprinkled with stardust.

Do you like coffee as well a vodka? Do you like spending $50 on something you’ll regret from the first sip. Congratulations, Belvedere has literally distilled your dreams or nightmares into a single bottle. “The Belvedere Dirty Brew. Because yes, why settle for drinking an espresso and a vodka separately when you can combine the two and make your taste buds and your banker weep?

Available at Selfridges, the London temple of people who find the word “sale” an insult, this sensory marvel is sold for the modest price of $50, or around 47 coffees to take away, or half an evening in a decent bar.

It’s an expensive-looking bottle, with a name vaguely reminiscent of a dodgy website, and inside it’s coffee and booze playing Battleship in your stomach. But be warned, this isn’t just any coffee. No. It’s craft coffee.

Because when you put the word “artisan” on anything, you can sell it for twice as much as the Arnault lord. At that price, you’d at least hope that the beans were ground by a Tibetan monk at the top of the Himalayas during a full moon. And for those who find the name a little… suggestive, “Dirty Brew”, that’s normal: Belvedere wanted a drink as “daring” as the price.

In 2024, Coty, the beauty giant and expert in bottling, luxury and ego, continued to bet on perfume as one would bet on a horse that has eaten Red Bull: with hope, confidence and a hint of panic. Fragrance is their engine for growth, their olfactory Elon Musk, their balance sheet booster.

In a burst of fragrant audacity, Coty has signed pacts (like arranged marriages between great families) with brands as prestigious as Swarovski (to sparkle like a disco ball), Marni (to smell like a contemporary art gallery) and Etro (which is never pronounced the same but always smells expensive). They’ve even enlisted Lena Gercke, a German presenter and model with a minimalist techno name, to launch “LaGer”, a line of mainstream fragrances. Yes, mainstream, like a lukewarm beer… but in a designer bottle. The name sounds like peach and vanilla.

Internally, Coty has also come up with a premium line called ‘Infiniment Coty Paris’ because nothing says “class” like a long name with ‘Paris’ in it. They’ve stuck their ‘Molecular Aura™’ technology on it, which is supposed to make the fragrance last 30 hours. Yes. Enough to survive a techno night, a morning after drinking, and a family brunch without re-parfuming. Bimbos, you’ve been warned, it’s going to smell strong in the Uber.