The party gets your attention. The buying system makes the money. Inside a fashion retailer that turned customer feedback into a $1.23 billion business.
The company behind familiar department-store names learned the price of borrowed fame. Now it is buying a bigger say in fashion’s future.
She helped Sofia Richie Grainge open the door to millions of viewers. At Infinity Creative Agency, Adee Drexler has built a career around knowing when a relationship is ready for its close-up.

From Poltava to The Lions, Julia Kisla Taylor has built a career connecting creative people to opportunity. Her work with models, Ukrainian designers and Indigenous women artisans asks who gets seen - and who gets a say.
After an $8.5 billion deal fell apart, the owner of Coach and Kate Spade had a smaller portfolio to work with. The interesting part is what happened inside it.
The store that taught America to shop is pruning its footprint and putting people back on the floor. Its turnaround asks a deceptively simple question: how much department store do customers actually want?
The Custom Shop Clothiers turns measurements into a repeatable wardrobe. Its long history reveals what a clothing business can lose, buy back, and carry forward.
An Oscar made Gwyneth Paltrow famous. A newsletter gave her a different kind of authorship. Eighteen years into goop, she is still testing how much of a life can become a business.
His father entered the hosiery business at 62. Edmond Harary joined him, and four decades later leads a company whose work stretches from socks to footwear, handbags and home.

He left finance for fashion, built Adika, and started again with Edikted. His next bet puts a generation raised on the scroll in front of an actual mirror.
A photograph of coffee and an outfit became a hashtag, then a café, then CNC Agency. Ryan Glick’s next job is learning how to let a company grow beyond the person who started it.
Jennifer Zuccarini built a fashion label around a mischievous proposition: the best thing under your clothes might deserve an audience. Keeping that proposition alive required some decidedly unromantic lessons in cash, fit and restraint.
A fictional reader helped Seventeen sell a real market. Eight decades later, the teen media brand offers a lesson in listening to the people you hope to influence.
A tape measure, a personal stylist and a remembered fit: Trumaker built its menswear service around the man who would rather be doing something else.
For a decade, the Atlanta rapper has made absence feel like promotion and his voice feel like a new instrument. Then Music arrived with 30 tracks and a chart record that made the quiet years look carefully scored.
A television in a Malibu beach house. A snowboard lesson at Sundance. Fingerprint Communications builds publicity around experiences people have a reason to talk about.
A handbag, a famous face, a carefully negotiated introduction. Inside the agency that connects fashion brands with the people who give them cultural meaning.
A poolside launch, a celebrity client list, and one disastrous email reveal the business behind BrandLink Communications: finding the people who make a brand worth talking about.
Adee Drexler built a business connecting fashion and beauty brands with the people who make them desirable. The interesting part is how much work happens before anyone takes a photograph.
The hairstylist, the makeup artist, the person responsible for those nails: A-Frame represents the creatives behind celebrity images, then helps turn their expertise into a business of its own.
A fragrance sample. A creator who actually likes it. A shop with someone managing the line. Son of Noise connects the glamorous promise of brand marketing to the work that makes it happen.
A fashion sample has a second life in requests, shipping labels, and overdue returns. TRAFFIK is organizing that life - and says its users pushed it toward fewer steps.
A 57-piece Aéropostale collection reveals the ambition behind this talent management firm: turn an audience’s taste into something that can live on a store shelf.
Ali Grant built an agency for brands that needed creators, then for creators who needed a business partner. Its evolution into The Digital Dept. shows how much work sits behind a seemingly effortless post.
A ski bag, a driving shoe, a motocross boot. The Los Angeles design studio works where brand promises have to survive contact with the things people actually use.
A screen printer, a box of tees, and a reason to show up. Christopher C. Lee’s Bay Area label reveals how clothing becomes a calling card for a creative community.
Jennifer Powell, Inc. helps creators turn an audience into a product business. With Sincerely Jules reaching more than 400 Macy’s stores, the agency’s bet on licensing has an address beyond the feed.
A singer, a lingerie label, a fashion magazine: the interesting work happens between them. Inside the Los Angeles agency that brings talent management, brand partnerships, and publicity into the same conversation.
A Beverly Hills agency built its business around celebrity access. Its party for Hollywood assistants offers a useful clue to how that access actually works.
Celebrity access is only the beginning. The agency behind campaigns for REVOLVE and other consumer brands connects the guest list, the product and the reason anyone should care.