This Week: Red Carpet Dressing; Saks Watch; Luxury Earnings

Welcome back and happy new year! So far 2026 is not playing around, with an action-packed second week of the year teed up. In this newsletter we’ll cover:

• The Golden Globes and the stakes for this year’s red carpets
• Saks’ bankruptcy preparations
• The start of luxury earnings season

Red Carpet Season Is Here

What’s happening: The Golden Globes airs on Sunday, part of a two-month gauntlet of award shows and parties that started with the Critics’ Choice Awards last week and ends with the Oscars in mid-March.

Putting on a show: If luxury brands have recently invested selectively in these affairs as they tightened their budgets, they’ll certainly be out in force this year. Quite a few brands will be using the red carpet to show off the collections that debuted last autumn, which are now starting to hit stores.

High-stakes celebrity dressing: Almost as important as the clothes is who’s wearing them. Newly installed designers can send a message about where they intend to steer their brands via their choice of celebrity muses. In some cases, that means bringing over some famous friends from their last gig, while others are starting fresh with much bigger celebrity dressing budgets to play with.

Much of the pre-Globes speculation has been around who will dress “Heated Rivalry” stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, who will be presenting in their first award show appearances. Few stars can match their obsessive fandoms right now: Page Six skipped past awards season entirely and devoted a lengthly column to speculating about who they might wear to the Met Gala in May.

Saks Bankruptcy Watch

What’s happening: Saks has been lining up financing to continue operating after filing for bankruptcy, which is expected to happen within days. On Friday, Bloomberg reported the retailer may file without financing in place.

Keeping the lights on: Securing financing avoids worst-case scenarios where the retailer would be forced to liquidate or immediately sell itself to pay creditors (though funds could also be arranged once the bankruptcy process has kicked off). It also would also create manoeuvring room to strike a deal for the ailing department store operator’s real estate – or the entire company – that allows Saks, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman to turn the page on a difficult chapter.

Business as usual: Many brands are continuing to ship merchandise to the retailer, gambling that the company is too big to fail, and that a post-bankruptcy Saks will be in a better position to pay its bills.

Luxury Earnings Season Begins

What’s happening: Brunello Cucinelli is the first luxury brand to release fourth-quarter results, on Jan. 12, followed by Richemont three days later.

Let the good times roll: These two companies are not representative of the sector as a whole, which is struggling to pull itself out of a slowdown. In December, Cucinelli raised its sales outlook for the full year to 12 percent growth. Richemont’s business is centred on hard luxury, and is benefitting from the jewellery boom.

Flies in the ointment: For Cucinelli, there are two wildcards: the brand relies more on department stores than many large luxury labels, and potentially has greater exposure to a Saks bankruptcy.

And there is also the question of whether it has fully shaken off allegation by a short seller that it violated Russian sanctions, and that it had engaged in discounting that run against its quiet luxury image. The company moved forward its third-quarter earnings to rebut the claims and reassure investors. However, the brand’s stock has recovered only half the losses it suffered after the short seller’s report.

The Week Ahead wants to hear from you! Send tips, suggestions, complaints and compliments to brian.baskin@businessoffashion.com.