Without good distribution, your brand has no future

The goal isn’t to be everywhere. The goal is to show up in the places that matter.

By Amy Francombe

We need new roadmaps in fashion. Leaving design school with an uber-creative graduate collection, some Instagram clout, and an i-D feature is of little use if there isn’t good business nous underpinning it. With this in mind, we’ve partnered with AZ Academy, a Milan-based fashion course born out of the late Alber Elbaz’s AZ Factory – his brand turned fashion incubator – and overseen by Richemont, Creative Academy and Accademia Costume & Moda (ACM), to democratise access to its valuable lessons on how creative people can build commercially-successful brands. Read the fourth edition here.

Design gets the glory, marketing gets the clicks, but distribution is what puts your product in people’s hands. It’s the invisible engine behind every sale, the bridge between your studio and someone’s closet in Seoul, Stockholm or Cincinnati. Whether it’s through a department store, a multi-brand boutique, a direct-to-consumer (DTC) website, a trunk show, or a highly curated Instagram drop, distribution is what turns creative vision into commercial reality. And in today’s fragmented retail landscape, mastering it is more complex (and more crucial) than ever.

“Ten years ago, it was the age of department stores,” says Laura Giulini, a Milan-based consultant with over three decades of experience in luxury fashion. If you were a young brand, you had to be in one. Barneys, Selfridges, Galeries Lafayette – these were the gatekeepers, the ones who could make or break you. Then came the great digital disruption. Platforms like Yoox, Net-a-Porter, Matches, MyTheresa, and SSENSE promised scale, reach and 24/7 availability. For a moment, it seemed like e-commerce might render everything else obsolete.

But the pendulum is swinging again. Many of those department stores are now shuttered or shadows of their former selves, while digital saturation has brought its own headaches: visibility, loyalty, differentiation. Giulini, who’s worked everywhere from Versace to Margiela, now helps emerging and established brands navigate this evolving landscape. Through her consultancy and her teaching at AZ Academy she demystifies the mechanics of distribution: what’s changed, what still works and how to build a strategy that’s both nimble and long-term.

The case for clarity

Before you start chasing stockists, building out e-commerce or booking a trade show booth, Giulini recommends stripping it down to three important questions: What is the brand about? Who is the customer? And how do they define success? “A lot of designers say they’re luxury or contemporary,” Giulini says, “but when we go through the pricing and the product, they’re sitting in between. They’re not priced for luxury, but they’re too niche (or too expensive) for the contemporary customer. So where do they really belong?”

This lack of alignment is more common than you'd think. And when your brand identity doesn’t match your market reality, you’re aiming at targets that don’t exist. That’s why Giulini approaches strategy like a diagnostic. “Let’s do a check,” she says. “Where do you position yourself? Who do you want to wear your clothes? And what kind of community do you want to build around your brand?”

Product type matters, too. Different categories naturally lean toward different channels. Jewellery, for example, thrives in physical settings. “It’s about the sparkle, the feel, the weight. People want to try it on. It’s tactile, sensory,” she says. But swimwear? Not so much. “Who wants to try on a bikini under fluorescent lights with a stranger knocking on the changing room door?” she laughs. “People would rather do that at home.”

It’s only once you have this clarity on price point, customer and brand universe that the channel conversation becomes meaningful. Physical retail, for instance, is best suited for brands that benefit from experience and storytelling. “A store gives you the opportunity to create atmosphere. It lets customers touch, feel and connect.” But physical stores come with real constraints: they’re expensive to run and only reach whoever walks through the door. A boutique in London or New York won’t help you reach someone in Tokyo.

Digital, by contrast, offers reach, scale and data. You can be live 24/7, speak to customers globally, segment behaviour, and iterate in real time. But with that freedom comes the risk of invisibility. “You’re one brand among thousands,” Giulini says. “Without a distinct visual identity or marketing push, you’ll just get lost in the noise.”

That’s why the dream for many is phygital: a hybrid model that combines the intimacy of physical retail with the scalability of e-commerce. In theory, it’s the best of both worlds – building emotional resonance in-store while converting and expanding online. You can capture Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data, implement loyalty programs and offer flexible fulfilment options. But in practice, it’s only effective when built on deep self-knowledge. “Integrating stock systems, training teams, maintaining consistency across channels – it’s not a light lift,” Giulini says. “You need operational maturity, and more importantly, strategic clarity.”

When brands do have that clarity, though, phygital opens the door to genuine innovation. Giulini points to a jewellery designer who aligned their collection launch with the Milan Art Fair, knowing their exact customer would be in town. Another student of hers used AI-based body scanning to offer remote couture fittings via video, shipping custom garments globally without ever meeting clients in person. “It’s a perfect example of how even tradition-bound formats can be reimagined,” she says. “But that kind of thinking only happens when you really understand your brand and your customer.”

It also might mean launching a microsite for a capsule collection, hosting a one-night installation during fashion week, or partnering with a retailer like MyTheresa for a focused, curated drop. “Prada and Miu Miu have done it,” she says. “They understand the value of controlling the message.”

Because, in the end, distribution is about focus and building a bridge between your vision and the people who will champion it. And that bridge only holds if it’s grounded in truth – your values, your pricing, your identity, your definition of success. “Trying to be everywhere,” Giulini warns, “is the fastest way to go nowhere.”

Getting ready to go to market

Once you’ve picked your channel the next challenge is proving you’re ready for it. In wholesale, everything hinges on connecting with the right buyers, and that means putting your best foot forward. And buyers can tell, almost instantly, whether you’ve come prepared.

“Never soon enough,” Giulini says. “That’s the problem I see most often, brands scrambling too late, trying to look professional after the fact.” Giulini has seen too many designers arrive at market week without prices, photos, or even clarity on production. “Sometimes they don’t even know where the pieces are made,” she says. “Buyers notice. And once trust is broken, it’s hard to earn back.”

Professionalism starts with the basics: strong assets and clean documentation. Your collection should be photographed clearly – on-model and flat – and your pricing should reflect thoughtful cost analysis. Especially now, when tariffs and customs play a bigger role than ever, buyers want full transparency on production: where it’s made, what it’s made from and when it’s available to ship.

Then there’s the line sheet. It may not be glamorous, but it’s what buyers take back to their teams and often what they use to make their final decision. “Most orders aren’t placed in the showroom,” Giulini says. “They’re made afterwards, when the buyer sits down with your line sheet. If it’s messy, unclear, or missing details, that’s your second impression.” Each style should have a clear image, a short description, accurate pricing, available colourways, sizes, and fabric composition, plus delivery windows.

But even the most polished assets can’t make up for poor communication. Going to market means stepping into a business conversation, and that requires setting expectations. Giulini encourages brands to define their terms in advance: payment timelines, cancellation policies, shipping responsibilities, return conditions. “It’s like booking a hotel,” she says. “You want to know what happens if you cancel, and the hotel wants to know they’re protected if you don’t show up. The same principle applies here.”

And then comes the meeting: the showroom appointment in Paris, the suite in New York, the Zoom call with buyers in Tokyo. This is where storytelling matters, but not in the way some designers expect. “The worst pitch is someone pointing and naming products,” Giulini says. “‘This is a blue coat. This is a skirt.’ It’s painful. Buyers can see what the product looks like. They want to know why it exists.”

A good meeting is a dialogue, not a monologue. The most successful brands come with questions: What’s missing in the buyer’s assortment? What kind of client are they serving? What’s performed well for them – and what hasn’t? To illustrate, Giulini recalls a TED Talk about selling printers: the point wasn’t to list all the features of a printer, but to figure out what the customer actually needed in the first place, whether they even needed a printer at all or if what they really needed was a scanner. “It’s the same in fashion,” she says.

And long before the appointment, your digital presence is already doing the talking. “Instagram is the new business card. It’s the first place buyers look. They’re checking for consistency, a clear point of view and alignment between your product and how it’s presented.” This matters even more for emerging designers, who often need to work harder to prove they’re in it for the long haul. “I call it the dance,” she says. “They see you, they think about it, they wait to see the next season.” After all, buyers want to invest in something they know will exist for seasons to come.

The art of adjustment

The most resilient brands treat every season as a learning curve. “Look in the mirror and say, ‘I made 20 pieces and only sold three. Why?’” she says on the importance of post-market reflection. “Was it the price? The product? Did I target the wrong clients?” The ability to evaluate outcomes without ego is what allows brands to improve season after season.

However, that detachment can be difficult. “I was once reviewing markdowns and the designer said, ‘You can’t mark that down, it’s my favourite piece.’ But we hadn’t sold a single one. You have to let go of emotional attachment when it comes to stock."

This spirit of adjustment applies to every stage of distribution. Giulini encourages designers to follow their products out into the world to see how they’re positioned, displayed and perceived. “If a retailer tells you the blue top is selling well, go see it,” she says. “Touch it. Look at how it’s merchandised. Maybe you need more blue, or maybe it’s about the fabric or the silhouette. That kind of insight is right in front of you, but you have to look.”

The brands that grow steadily in today’s climate often share one thing in common: they approach distribution as an extension of their design thinking, as a living system that requires regular tuning. Strategy and storytelling are connected – where and how you sell helps shape how your brand is understood. “Flexibility is everything,” Giulini says. “You need to be honest about what’s working and ready to adapt when something’s not. Growth comes from listening to your buyers, your customers, your data and even your mistakes.”

There’s no universal path to success. Some brands flourish through a tight wholesale network, others through direct-to-consumer focus or creatively timed activations. The key is building an ecosystem that reflects your values, your capacity, and your customer’s reality. Whether you’re presenting a capsule during art week in Milan, running a pop-up in Lagos, or refining your e-commerce flow in Mexico, relevance will always outperform reach. The goal isn’t to be everywhere. The goal is to show up in the places that matter.