Tesco wants you trying on clothes without getting changed. Lovely. Now show me who actually buys them. You're on Fashion Business Daily, where London Fashion Week just won the buyers and lost the buzz. Guess which one pays the designers. Plus, a Netflix show turned cheerleaders into a brand. But first, a supermarket fitting room with no fitting room. From Sarra Gray at GB News:
The supermarket giant is testing virtual try-on technology for the first time, where customers can see how roughly 1,500 F&F clothing pieces look on them using a digital screen. It comes as part of a new shopping experience for the retailer's fashion brand, with a revamped F&F service hub designed to help people find styles they love with a bit more confidence.
Best detail in the whole thing: Tesco put brand new changing rooms in at Sandhurst Extra, right next to the screen that's supposed to stop you getting changed. They're hedging their own bet. Or they know which one actually sells. One store, roughly 1,500 F&F pieces, and it 'could roll out if successful.' I want the number behind 'successful' before anyone calls this a rollout. Conversion at the screen, returns through that new hub, anything. Look, as these go, it's the most honest version I've seen. No luxury cosplay. Supermarket basics, menswear and womenswear, upload a selfie or pick a model in your size. But a screen in the aisle is the photogenic fight. Fit anxiety hits on your phone at eleven p.m., and that's where the return starts. Which puts it next to Lagardère testing try-on in airports with Perfect Corp. They've got captive dwell time at the gate, Tesco's got grocery footfall on a Saturday. Either way, the metric that settles it is return rate, in store versus online. Until Tesco reports it, what they've got is a nice screen with better lighting. Glossy writes:
Fashion and beauty companies are trying to turn that audience into customers. This week, Sally Beauty announced its first professional football partnership, becoming the official beauty retailer of the Dallas Cowboys and the DCCs. Abercrombie & Fitch, meanwhile, expanded its existing Cowboys and DCCs relationship to include more products, athlete styling and year-round activations.
Sally Beauty has never done a pro football deal. Its first one goes to the Cowboys and the cheerleaders, off the back of a Netflix doc. Tells you where the heat's coming from in 2026, and it's sure not a runway. Both deals are company-confirmed, so that part's solid. But 3.2 million views in six days is a global streaming number. Sally sells hair color and nail kits out of strip-mall stores, and I haven't seen anyone size how much of that audience actually walks into one. Okay, but look at Abercrombie. A branded closet in the locker room at The Star, refreshed monthly, and the squad actually wears it off the field. So it's on real people first, then it shows up on NFLShop and at AT&T Stadium through Fanatics. And that's the half I can actually measure. Fanatics and stadium sell-through is a real number, if Abercrombie ever breaks it out. Until then, the viewership chart's the only figure anybody's showing us. Zofia Zwieglinska, writing in Glossy:
The British Fashion Council said accredited buyer attendance increased 19% year over year, while international buyer attendance rose 41%. But it did not disclose the total number of buyers or whether their visits produced orders. “There is still a gap between the people who go into the runway rooms and how those collections are received afterward online,” said Zwieglinska.
Nineteen percent more accredited buyers, forty-one percent more international. And the BFC won't say how many bodies that is, or whether a single one of them wrote an order. More people in the room doesn't tell me the clothes were worth the flight. A percentage on an undisclosed base, with no order data attached. If you want hard numbers this week, look at Mulberry. Company-reported revenue up four percent to a hundred sixty-seven million dollars, and the pre-tax loss narrowed from thirty-two point two to eight point nine million pounds. That's Andrea Baldo's cleanup. Christopher Kane is the bet that ready-to-wear becomes a real second leg beyond handbags. Then let him design ready-to-wear! He put the Bayswater's squared fastening on basically everything. Zofia Zwieglinska said the motif isn't enough of a signature to stamp across a collection, and yeah. You hire Kane and hand him bag hardware? Or the house wants the bag everyone knows to sell the coats nobody's bought yet. Honestly, that's a defensible commercial call. Show me outerwear sell-through next spring. Until then, that forty-one percent is a guest list. If you're enjoying Fashion Business Daily, please subscribe or leave us a review wherever you're listening. Reviews help other people find the show, and we're grateful you're here.
Links to every story are in the show notes, so take a look at the pieces that caught your eye and dig a little deeper.
That's Fashion Business Daily for today. Until the next episode, this is a Lantern Podcast.