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It’s been a complicated year for luxury. The sector was already grappling with slowing growth but now American tariffs have disrupted global supply chains, driven prices upwards and dented consumer confidence. But there’s another, deeper long-term challenge that the industry needs to contend with: the perceived trivialisation of high-end fashion. Some brands have been able to overcome this value erosion by placing craftsmanship at their core, therefore connecting with customers in a deeper way. Mexican designer Carla Fernández (@carlafernandezmx) has long been at the forefront of ethical, craft-based fashion. Her eponymous brand collaborates closely with Indigenous artisans across Mexico, promoting traditional craftsmanship and advocating for policies like collective intellectual property rights. After experiencing first-hand how the fashion industry overlooks contributions from the Global South, Tunisian entrepreneur Kenza Fourati (@kenzafourati) co-founded OSAY The Label (@osaythelabel), a brand focused on elevating artisan footwear crafted in Tunisia and using sustainable materials and traditional techniques. This week on The BoF Podcast, in a riveting conversation from BoF CROSSROADS 2025, Carla and Kenza Fourati discuss the power of craft-based fashion, how to collaborate ethically with artisans and indigenous communities while redefining what true luxury means. 🎙️ Listen now #linkinbio #BoFPodcast

When Italian philosopher and essayist Andrea Colamedici released Ipnocrazia: Trump, Musk e La Nuova Architettura Della Realtà (Hypnocracy: Trump, Musk, and the New Architecture of Reality), he wanted to make a statement about the existence of truth in the digital age. The book, published in December, was described as “a crucial book for understanding how control is currently exercised not by repressing truth but by multiplying narratives, making it impossible to locate any fixed point,” according to a description by Tlon, a publishing house Colamedici cofounded. While the book attracted buzz in philosophy circles, Italian magazine L’Espresso revealed in April that the book’s purported author, Jianwei Xun, did not exist, after one of its editors tried and failed to interview him. Initially described as a Hong Kong-born philosopher based in Berlin, it turned out that Xun was actually a hybrid human-algorithmic creation. Colamedici, listed on the book as translator, used AI to generate concepts and then critique those concepts. “It’s not just a book, but a philosophical experiment, a performance. My aim was to raise awareness,” he tells WIRED. He says the point of the book was to help readers understand AI and invent a new concept for this era. However, the controversy surrounding the decision to use AI to author it, and initially withhold that information, has now become a major part of the discourse around it—and that’s what Colamedici wanted. “When readers discovered the truth about how the book was created, many were hurt. I deeply regret that, but it was necessary,” he says. Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story.

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