Charles Harbison relaunched Harbison Studio in 2022, six years after putting the luxury fashion brand on pause. And it’s already clear that, this time around, he’s doing things differently.   “I’m building a brand with more authenticity,” Harbison said on the latest episode of the Glossy Podcast. “I've tried to do it before in the way that everyone said I should do it. And it just was not for me.” Harbison was thrust into helming a fashion brand in 2013, when he launched Harbison Studio after an unexpected chain of events while between jobs: To avoid holes in his portfolio, after working 7-8 years for brands including Michael Kors and Billy Reid, he created and photographed a small fashion collection. He showed those to two advisors, who showed them to Vogue editors, which led to placement in Vogue’s September issue and an order from Ikram, Chicago’s influential boutique.  “In some ways, the cart was before the horse,” Harbison said. “I hate to say that because, in my perfect world, talent, craft and a love of fashion is the horse. But in our world now, with fashion, money's always the horse. And that is what I quickly learned over those two years of making clothes that I love, but not really building a business.” Eventually, Harbison decided to step away from the brand, which had already gained fans including Michelle Obama and Beyoncé. But he’d always planned to return: “I moved to L.A. to regroup and center my wellness, but the thing that never left me was the fact that women love what I do. And there are so many people in the world who relate to it. [I knew that] one day, I’d come back and resume my conversation with them through clothes.”  Shortly after New York Fashion Week, in early October, Harbison met with Glossy to share how his return to fashion is playing out. Along with hinting at a new Bergdorf Goodman partnership, he promoted an active friends and family funding round. He plans to use the funds to expand his team and the brand’s product categories — it’s recently inched into jewelry and handbags, and shoes are next. 

Macy’s chief merchandising officer, Nata Dvir, is leading the company's private-brand evolution. The department store is rethinking its portfolio of private label brands across all product categories, including men’s, women’s, kids and home. That includes adding, refreshing and editing brands through a new customer-centric strategy. In August, Macy’s launched the private-label womenswear brand On 34th, which was informed by extensive research on its customer. The brand, which targets customers ages 30-50, centers on ready-to-wear items and accessories that were made to create thousands of outfit combinations.  “It was informed by over 100,000 online surveys that we did,” said Dvir. “We collected a lot of intelligence around what our customers were looking for. We also did 35 days of digital community engagement, where we viewed customer videos about what they're looking for, what's missing from their wardrobe and what role we could play. And we did hundreds of hours of in-store fittings and shop-alongs, which provided the kind of insight that you can only get when you're talking to somebody one-on-one.” The company has been rethinking its retailer-brand strategies as well. “The mix of private and market brands was something we spent a lot of time strategizing around, with a focus on the future portfolio of brands that is going to be relevant for our customers today and in the future,” said Dvir. “Private brands are an important part of our overall strategy because they allow us to have a tremendous amount of oversight over the brand, from a distribution and design perspective, as well as a quality and fit [perspective]. They also drive a lot of loyalty and repeat visits.” Macy's plans to release four additional private-label brands through 2025, each focused on a unique purpose and rooted in customer research, Dvir said.