When War and Luxury Collide

TWIF: The Iran War, Pieter Mulier’s Alaïa Farewell

Who’s up and down in the business of fashion, luxury and beauty this week.

1. Sportswear brand On is forecasting sales growth of at least 23 percent in 2026, slightly lower than its 30 percent surge last year but still vastly outpacing sector leaders Nike and Adidas.

2. Dover Street Market’s beauty arm, Dover Street Parfums Market, partnered with indie skincare brand Monastery to stage a pop-up spa in Paris, signaling a greater push into beauty.

3. Haider Ackermann’s third outing for Tom Ford was charged with an erotic rigour that wowed industry insiders, his woman and man conceived as reformed survivors of a debauched past.

4. Kalshi has partnered with marketplace Bezel to allow users to trade on contracts tied to luxury watch prices, the latest in a string of prediction market launches for products like sneakers and Labubus.

5. Estée Lauder has acquired Forest Essentials, an Ayurvedic skincare line, marking the first purchase by the conglomerate led by chief executive Stéphane de La Faverie.

6.Pieter Mulier’s last show for Alaia brought guests to their feet. The designer leaves big shoes to fill and Alaia owner Richemont doesn’t appear close to naming a successor.

7. The Iran war has disrupted key retail hubs in Dubai and Doha, endangering the region’s small but vital luxury market.

8. After abruptly pulling out of January’s Couture Week, Giambattista Valli didn’t show again this Friday, citing a strategic review by parent company Artémis amid reports of financial struggles.

9. With a blend of opulence and restraint, Atlein founder Antonin Tron’s first show as creative director of Balmain mined fertile territory but the results were not ownable enough.

Catch up on all the news of the week in fashion, luxury and beauty here.

When War and Luxury Collide

Fashion has long had a complicated relationship with geopolitics, and this week offered a stark reminder that even the most rarefied corners of the luxury industry are not insulated from events beyond the runway.

The escalating US-Israel conflict with Iran has rippled through the Middle East, a region that for luxury brands has quietly become a reliable bright spot. Dubai, in particular, has long cultivated an image of stability and opulence: gleaming malls, five-star hotels and a steady stream of wealthy tourists moving through the world’s second-busiest airport.

Iranian missiles and drones targeting the Gulf in retaliation for strikes on Tehran have shaken that carefully constructed image. In Dubai, missile interceptions streaked across the sky and debris struck a luxury hotel. The images quickly travelled across social media feeds, trading floors and WhatsApp chats.

For an industry built on aspiration and confidence, those images matter.

Luxury consumption depends heavily on what analysts call the “feel-good factor”: consumer optimism, rising wealth and the sense that the future looks bright enough to justify spending thousands of dollars on a handbag or watch. War and uncertainty tend to have the opposite effect.

The Middle East represents less than 10 percent of global luxury sales, but its importance has grown as China continues to wrestle with the fallout from a real estate bust and US shoppers became more cautious. In recent years, the Middle East has helped cushion the blow from the industry’s post-pandemic slowdown. Dubai’s malls, among the world’s most luxurious retail environments, have become key hubs for global brands. That is what has made this week’s disruption especially uncomfortable.

Several brands temporarily closed stores across parts of the Gulf as the security situation evolved. Tourism stopped abruptly. Ramadan, traditionally one of the region’s busiest shopping seasons, suddenly became more subdued. Still, the impact has not been uniform.

On Thursday, Prada chief executive Andrea Guerra said on an annual results call with analysts that the conflict has had a more pronounced effect in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait than in the United Arab Emirates, where business has largely continued.

That nuance highlights the broader point that the Gulf is not a monolith. While the region is often discussed as a single luxury market, conditions can differ significantly from one country to another.

For now, many brands appear to be in wait-and-see mode. Dubai’s malls remain open. Governments in the UAE have moved quickly to reassure residents and visitors, with officials making highly public visits to malls to emphasise that daily life continues largely as normal.

But the bigger concern is not simply store closures or missed sales. Luxury’s global ecosystem is highly interconnected. If travel to the region slows, those purchases may shift elsewhere, but a prolonged conflict could drive oil prices beyond this week’s surge, pushing up inflation and weighing on consumer sentiment in key markets like Europe and the US.

In other words, for the luxury industry, the ripple effects could extend well beyond the Gulf.

It is worth pausing to acknowledge that while business leaders analyse geopolitical crises through the lens of revenue and operating profit, there is a war in progress and people are being killed. Families are being displaced and millions of people across the Middle East are living with the daily anxiety of missiles and drones overhead.

Against that reality, the closure of a luxury boutique or a slowdown in handbag sales understandably feels small. Still, fashion — like any global industry — does not operate outside global events. It moves with them, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes uncomfortably.

For luxury brands, the Gulf, and Dubai in particular, has long been viewed as a dependable luxury hub, even as tensions periodically flare elsewhere in the region. This week’s events are a reminder that the sense of insulation is fragile. If the conflict proves short-lived, the industry may absorb the shock with little lasting damage. If not, one of luxury’s most dependable growth markets could suddenly look far less certain.

By Eric Sylvers

Go Deeper:

War in the Gulf Tests Resilience of a Rare Bright Patch for Luxury

The escalating US-Israel conflict with Iran is rattling the aura of stability created by Dubai and the wider region, threatening one of the industry’s few bright spots.