Fashion deals surge as brand managers replace private equity, jewellery reshapes luxury's winners
A new dealmaking report and mounting industry data point to two parallel shifts in luxury: brand-management firms are stepping into M&A as private equity retreats, and jewellery is emerging as the key differentiator between winning and losing luxury groups.
Fashion dealmaking is accelerating, with Capstone's latest report citing more than 75 deals already tracked for 2026 and pointing to a notable shift in who is doing the buying. Brand-management companies, rather than traditional private equity firms, are increasingly stepping in as acquirers, a change that reflects both the difficulty PE firms have had generating returns from fashion assets and the operational focus that brand managers can bring to distressed or underperforming labels. The shift suggests the buyer pool for troubled or mid-size fashion brands is evolving away from financial engineering and towards operators who intend to run the businesses directly.
Separately, a growing body of commentary and investor sentiment is converging on jewellery as the factor increasingly separating luxury's winners from its laggards. With fashion sales weak across much of the sector and Middle East-linked spending disrupted by regional conflict, investors are focusing on which groups have strong enough jewellery businesses to offset that weakness. This is consistent with the LVMH results showing jewellery outperforming fashion, and with wider sector data showing hard luxury holding up better than ready-to-wear and accessories through the current downturn.
Together, these trends point to a maturing correction in luxury. Weaker or smaller fashion houses face a buyer landscape dominated by operational specialists rather than financial sponsors, while at group level, diversification into jewellery and hard luxury is becoming a more reliable buffer against fashion's cyclicality than brand prestige alone. Watch for further consolidation among mid-tier fashion labels, and for whether other groups follow LVMH in leaning more heavily on jewellery to steady overall results.
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