There are only a few truly mission critical components of the modern fashion industry — it takes a brand, a manufacturer to make the looks and a merchant to sell them. 

Twenty-five years ago, the big, vertically integrated retailers like Gap and Victoria’s Secret made their names by doing it all themselves, bypassing multibrand stores and controlling production.  

Now the pendulum has swung the other way as 2025 was the year that it became clear — beyond any doubt — that the brand management model would be a force in fashion for years or maybe decades to come.

The brand management crew — including leader Authentic Brands Group, WHP Global, Marquee Brands and Bluestar Alliance — have made their mark by focusing in, owning just the brand and working with broad networks of partners for everything else.

It’s an approach that only kept growing this year.

Authentic is the largest player by far, with brands that drive some $32 billion in retail sales annually. With its deal to buy control of the Guess brand, that’s slated to grow to $38 billion soon.

Jamie Salter, founder, chairman and chief executive officer, told WWD in October that he foresaw a compounded annual growth rate of 30 percent for the next five years, bringing the company close to $50 billion.   

But Salter’s shooting higher still, looking to edge out Disney as the king of the licensing hill and hit $100 billion.

That’s going to take a lot more dealmaking, but he said there are plenty of options around the world.  

“We don’t buy distressed brands,” he said. “We buy distressed companies. Big difference. The brands are not broken. The model is broken. Do they have too many retail stores? Do they have international distribution? How’s the e-commerce business? Do they have a proper wholesale strategy?”

As evidence, he pointed to Reebok, which Authentic bought in 2023 when it had $3.7 billion in sales. Salter said the brand would drive $6 billion in retail sales this year.

The secret? Letting “Reebok be Reebok,” and going big in sports, he said, something that was more difficult for former owner Adidas, which had its namesake brand to develop. 

That same calculus is happening everywhere now, with brand management companies taking established names and building them up with a new, more distributed business model. 

Marquee bought Laura Ashley and Stance. Bluestar picked up Dickies. And WHP acquired Vera Wang’s brand and brought the designer on board.

“We look for brands that are exactly like the brand that Vera Wang built,” said CEO Yehuda Shmidman, who started WHP six years ago and expects to top $8 billion in retail sales this year.

“We look for brands that have awareness…purchase intent to the desired audience. We look for brands that are already great brands, that are big brands that are established,” he said. 

Shmidman described brand management as the business model for a moment that’s filled with fears, worries over inflation, supply chains, tariffs and more.

“We actually are embracing all the craziness because of inequality of macro, volatility and uncertainty and this need to pivot,” he said. “From an investment standpoint, if you believe humans will shop in the future, you believe in fashion, if you believe that people want to look great…I think we all do fashion entertainment.”

As the brand management firms have grown, they’ve developed more scale, giving them not just the ability to buy more brands, but also the kind of media expertise to project those brands out in the world. 

Heath Golden, CEO of Marquee — which owns Martha Stewart, America’s Test Kitchen, Isotoner and more — said the firm’s fast, ad-supported TV channels have generated more than 1 billion minutes, or 1,901 years, of watch time in total.

And Golden, along with his competitors, is keenly aware of how the brands they buy show up or can show up on screen. 

While discussing Marquee’s deal to buy sock brand Stance, he touted “these cultural touch points — collaborations with the NBA, with Disney, with Star Wars, with Marvel and Hollywood and entertainment icons.” 

“It is not just about the socks,” he said. “It’s about the brand. There are Major League Baseball players standing at home plate in Stance socks at the World Series.”

Authentic’s Salter also called entertainment a “driving force” for the business and one that “keeps us young.” 

Reebok, for instance, signed a lifetime contract with NBA star Allen Iverson, who was known for wearing Reebok and Champion, another Authentic brand.

The recent three-part Amazon documentary about the former Philadelphia Sixer? Produced by Authentic Studios. 

Just where and how entertainment and brand management meet and how much money can be made there is a question that, it became clear in 2025, fashion is going to have to answer soon. 

Because the rest of industry is increasingly squaring off with the brand managers, who have bought their competitors, are taking floor space and are now positioned to flood some of the media landscape. 

Where it all goes is still anybody’s guess, but whatever happens, it’s going to be important to fashion.

And more players are bound to jump in. Some are even jumping back in.

Neil Cole, who many credit with starting the brand management model with his Iconix Brands Group, got out of the business a decade ago after he left the company under a cloud. But after an arduous and expensive legal battle, an appeals court vacated Cole’s conviction for securities fraud at Iconix, freeing him to fully reengage. 

“I have a lot of new, great ideas,” he said. “Really, I still believe in the brand management model, but believe that there’s a next step. There’s another way to do it. And I put together an innovative team and hopefully we’re going to announce it probably in the next month or two. There’s tremendous opportunity to do it in a new way.”