I'd need to do some research to pull out some numbers to support my argument but based on my observations as someone who works with key players in the industry, I started really feeling the shift after Covid.
It's not just how well you perform, but how fast you're doing so. After all these years of being so dependent on China / Asia to justify great numbers in financial reports, suits started freaking out when they felt the wind was starting to shift.
All of a sudden, creative projects started being questioned if not cancelled, or they were requested to be "diluted a bit in order to not alienate the audience". I fell off my chair the day I heard that sentence. If you dilute creativity, then what will make you stand out and attract people to buy? So, we entered the era of bargaining with suits in order to release projects. "You can only do this if you also include (insert: the ugly tshirt, the lower tier sneakers, etc. i.e whatever had been cheap to produce and they could get high margin from). That example applied to a vast range of projects from runway shows to campaigns to pop ups etc.
Of course, it led to internal wars between creative and marketing departments. Between those who were adamant to push for a vision, and the others who thought that the safer the better to get those numbers up again. And nowadays, creatives lose the battle because at the end suits hold the reigns of their companies.
They started wanting more "docile" creatives that they would be able to keep under control more easily, trying to make it pass as "giving a chance to a new generation of talents". In reality, they wanted people they could make fit the mold they wanted for the business. To put it short: if I ask you to do a sneaker and put it in your campaign, you're not going to fight back.
Came along massive budget cuts for creative projects, where you get asked to "be inventive" to maintain your creativity level. In short, they're asking you to find a way to achieve your expectations because they won't add a penny to the project. A side note, but let's keep an eye on the whole AI thing because those suits are obsessed and they see what they could do with it. I had the CEO of a major brand showing me how he had been "playing around" and showed me examples of campaigns (!!!) they had done with AI during their weekend in St Bart... I won't be surprised if soon, they might want the collection to be done with AI... It'll start with a capsule, they'll leverage on it from a marketing point of view, and here open the gates of hell.
To put it short: we're in a time where suits lead, not creatives. Big demands, massive budgets, resulting in peak creativity: those times are over. Now "they" have full control. It always saddens me when I read "that's so boring", "they put the same look 4 times in the show", "again a studio shoot", "pushing again that ugly bag", "it looks like the version of X's shoe" and so on. Because I know the struggle behind it and nowadays it's incredibly difficult to push back. Most of the time, the CD had nothing to do with it, it was demanded to them.
I was hoping that with the numbers continuing to sink, they'd wake up and realise that luxury needs to be aspirational again, but it doesn't seem like we're getting there. It's going to be really interesting to look at numbers 2 years from now to see if the new era we're about to go through with all the new appointees starting in September will have been the right strategy or not.
In a moment when CEOs are obsessed with being the (insert nationality of your brand) version of Hermès (and now The Row also gets mentioned -- those two brands only being mentioned because they're the ones performing well) only because they think that copying someone will ensure a similar level of success, they should be smarter and try to think of what could make their brand stand out. Clearly considering current numbers, what they've decided so far hasn't proven to be the right way.
If it all crumbles, perhaps we'll see a new wave of CEOs that have creative backgrounds and it'll get exciting again? We shall see.
