JB Insights

The State of Fashion:Luxury 2025

McKinsey & Company and BoF Insights report

Published

1 year ago

March 25, 2025

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Global fashion faces challenging landscape

The ninth annual State of Fashion report by McKinsey & Company and BoF Insights highlights the challenging landscape the global fashion industry faces in 2025. With economic uncertainty, changing consumer behaviors, and evolving market dynamics, the year is expected to be a critical juncture for many brands.

Overview

Economic Challenges: 80% of executives foresee no improvement in the industry, and only 18% rank sustainability as a top concern, down from 29% in 2024. Consumer confidence and spending remain major issues.

Key Drivers: Price sensitivity, the rise of dupes, climate change acceleration, and reshuffled global trade create a difficult environment.

Geographic Shifts: Growth engines in Asia, particularly India, Japan, and Korea, are becoming pivotal as China faces economic challenges.

Themes Driving the Agenda

Trade Reconfigured: Brands are diversifying sourcing to align with evolving trade policies and sustainability targets. Nearshoring and political alignment are critical considerations.

Asia’s Growth Engines: While China slows, India, Japan, and Korea are emerging as vital markets for growth.

Discovery Reinvented: AI-driven curation in e-commerce promises to help overwhelmed shoppers navigate abundant choices.

Silver Spenders: The growing over-50 demographic offers new opportunities for incremental growth, emphasizing the need for inter-generational appeal.

Value Shift: Resale, off-price, and dupe markets are flourishing as consumers seek better value amid persistent economic pressures.

The Human Side of Sales: Enhancing in-store experiences by empowering well-trained sales staff can drive demand for physical retail.

Marketplaces Disrupted: Online non-luxury marketplaces face existential challenges, struggling with declining demand and rising customer acquisition costs.

Sportswear Showdown: Challenger brands are rapidly gaining market share, driving competition in the dynamic sportswear segment.

Inventory Excellence: Advances in inventory management and agile supply chains are key to addressing margin pressures and meeting sustainability goals.

The Sustainability Collective: Collective action is essential to meet decarbonization goals despite consumer reluctance to pay premiums for sustainable products.

Looking Ahead

The industry’s outlook remains sluggish, with revenue growth stabilizing in low single digits. Luxury’s dominance in profit creation is challenged by non-luxury segments for the first time since 2010. Brands that act nimbly to address geographic shifts, demographic changes, and technological innovations will find opportunities amid the turbulence.

Growth in the jewellery sector will be fueled by rising demand from ultra-high spenders and continuous investment from luxury houses in technology and expertise.

The new playbook for 2025 emphasizes adaptability, localization, and sustainability, while redefining value and consumer engagement. The fashion sector must innovate, embrace technology, and prioritize long-term resilience to navigate this period of reckoning successfully.

Related Topics:2025 Global fashion jbinsights specialreport

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JB Insights

The Role Of Hallmarking and Transparency In Strengthening Consumer Confidence

By Suresh Krishnan, Vice President – Sales, PNG Jewellers

Published

8 hours ago

September 5, 2026

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In India, jewellery is equally an emotional purchase and a significant financial transaction. As consumers become more informed and digitally empowered, trust is increasingly becoming a decisive factor alongside design, price and brand reputation. Hallmarking has played an important role in creating that trust by giving consumers third-party assurance of precious-metal purity.

India’s hallmarking ecosystem has expanded significantly. BIS data shows that hallmarking registrations increased from 34,647 to 1,37,315 between April 2021 and March 2022 *1, while more than 8.72 crore gold and silver articles were hallmarked during that year. The introduction of the six-digit Hallmark Unique Identification (HUID) in 2021 has further strengthened traceability. Consumers can verify a gold article’s HUID through the BIS CARE app, adding an independent layer of assurance at the point of purchase.

For an organised retailer, this becomes particularly relevant as jewellery discovery increasingly moves online. A customer may discover a product on social media, compare it on an e-commerce platform and complete the transaction digitally. In such a journey, hallmarking helps bridge the trust gap created by the absence of physical touch and feel. When purity is independently verifiable, consumers can make online purchases with greater confidence.

The opportunity is also expanding beyond gold. BIS has brought both gold and silver under its hallmarking framework. In FY2024-25, more than 32 lakh silver jewellery articles*2 were hallmarked. The revised IS 2112:2025 introduced HUID-based hallmarking for silver on a voluntary basis from September 2025, creating greater traceability and consumer assurance in a category that is increasingly relevant to younger and value-conscious buyers.

This evolution matters commercially. KPMG’s India CX Report 2025*3 found that 27% of fine-jewellery customers are more confident in authenticity, quality and value when they trust a brand, while 9% said they would explore another brand if jewellery appeared overpriced for its quality. These findings underline why trust is not simply a compliance issue; it directly influences consideration and willingness to pay.

Contributing to the larger goal of organised and transparent trade, hallmarking has now been integrated as part of the broader customer experience across stores, CRM and e-commerce. As India’s jewellery market becomes increasingly omnichannel, the brands that communicate purity, pricing and policies clearly will be better positioned to convert digital discovery into purchase and, more importantly, build relationships that extend beyond a single transaction. The future of jewellery retail will therefore be defined not only by what consumers see, but by how confidently they can verify what they are buying and hallmarking takes care of that concern efficiently.