The Fashion & Luxury industry often faces the challenge of blending the past with the present. In particular, luxury brands such as Gucci have a unique brand identity or DNA that is enriched by a deep heritage, this often leaves them stuck between yesterday and today. I believe that technology can help fashion and luxury companies bridge the gap between the past, present, and future.

My goal in the previous blog articles was to take a nuanced and realistic view of the opportunities that major technologies such as Blockchain, AI, IoT, AR and 3D printing can provide to the Fashion & Luxury industry. As exciting as the technologies might be, it should not be forgotten that most of them are still in their infancy. I see huge potential for technology to create a more fashionable, customized, transparent, better aligned, and sustainable fashion ecosystem that prevents us from continuing along the current treadmill of misalignment and ambiguity. However, those benefits could only materialize once some of the major concerns surrounding the technologies have been addressed. Concerns such as privacy risks, high energy consumption, complex policy questions, general technology scepticism and potential organizational inertia in the change process.

Some of the problems are so complex that, I believe, they will only be solved when all stakeholders in the fashion ecosystem collaborate and try to find joint solutions. The message and tone at the top should also be clear: There should be room for experimentation with new technologies where failures are not penalized but rather seen as a necessary prerequisite for organization-wide learning. I am convinced that both measures will pave the way for a digital transformation in the Fashion & Luxury industry in the years to come.