The Row and COS are doing a real world reenactment of Challengers... I bet you'll never guess who Zendaya is ;)
and more findings from Lyst's Q4 2025 index
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(Some) of what we’re discussing behind the paywall: 1)Did the [redacted] SS26 show make hot rich wives buy (more) [redacted] for their hot rich husbands?; 2)Heritage-pilled brands are trending during a tr#mp presidency… what could go wrong?; 3)How this quarter proves that the algo is driving even (!!!) more consumption than perhaps, ever before; 4)And ofc… The Row vs Cos vs [redacted]….
I’m rinse and repeating Q3’s intro (ha!) because it’s still the right way to frame this convo: my background is in strategy, where I spent years advising up to a FAANG CEO on multibillion dollar growth. Which is perhaps important context to engender ur trust ahead of this analysis, but not rlly why we’re here: The Q4 LYST Index dropped yesterday, which for those unaware, is a VERY BIG DEAL.
I’ll also CONTINUE to say, time and time again, that The Lyst Index = fashion’s equivalent to The DOW. Why? They have the biggest public facing dataset in fashion (over 160M users) with an incredibly robust methodology.
It’s SO important to track and understand the contextual, macro framing of these shifts (and emergent patterns) because it informs SOOOO MUCH about consumption at large — sentiment, pricing demand (luxury vs affordables), resonant trends, and more.
Lyst was kind enough to give me a VIP Preview, so I’ve had a week to chew on these insights. Also, just so we’re all on the same page — a lot of lyst analyses that I see are.. not analyses. They are regurgitations of either what the Lyst team gives as “important insights to know” (extracted from the dataset that’s publicly viewable) or effectively re-stating the big moves (Saint Laurent holds at #1!; Prada is back in the top 5!).
That’s cool, but not why we’re here. There are plenty of sources you can turn to for a digestible line or two on what’s happening on the surface (which is still important media to consume!)… this is more about digging deeper to map micro-macro consumer dynamics (patterns) that reflect the why… we’re expanding, we’re looking around corners, and we’re distilling what matters in a consumable lens. Therefore, I’m going to act like I’m sending this up to my old CEOs (written in.. the TM version lol). Let’s rip;