A life-changing airport encounter

Speaking at the Institut Français de la Mode graduation ceremony in Paris, BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed reflected on his own personal  journey that led him to create The Business of Fashion, starting with a chance encounter with a stranger in the New Delhi airport.

“That moment was the beginning of my search for purpose, to build a life and career with meaning in service of something greater than myself,” he says. “It was during that course that I realised I was living a life built to impress others, not to express myself or use my creative talents.”

Fashion is currently in a moment of reckoning: technology is reshaping behaviour, old rules are persisting as the world accelerates, and trust is shifting away from gatekeepers. Amed’s message to graduates: clarity of purpose.

Key Insights: 

• “There will be disruptions and external forces completely outside your control. But if you are clear about your purpose, that can guide you every day as the world changes around you — it becomes your North Star, the compass that helps you to find your way in a world of turmoil and change,” says Amed.

• Graduating into a downturn once hindered Amed’s own fashion ambitions until the early days of the internet and social media opened an unexpected route.Amed used these new tools to join and shape the global fashion conversation. “By using a new technology, I was able to create something to read around the world, helping an entire industry navigate two decades of change,” Amed says. For today’s graduates, moments of flux are “the greatest moments of opportunity.”

• According to Amed, there are currently three big problems in the fashion industry that graduates can make the biggest impact. The first is growth without meaning: “Growth has become a proxy for relevance, but the result wasn’t abundance – it was dilution,” Amed says. His prescription: “the most radical thing you can do in fashion is to practise restraint… create less, but better.” 
• The second is values without systems: “The era of storytelling without systems is ending,” Amed says — supply chains should be designed to reduce waste, AI should be used for efficiency and workers’ rights should be foundational. 
• The third, is authority without trust: power is migrating from headquarters to creators and communities. “Legitimacy is earned through trust and hard work,” Amed says, as consistency and context now confer authority.

• “You just need to choose one problem and serve it really, really well,” he says. “The future of fashion won't be decided by those who speak the loudest, but by those who choose to act with care, and are guided by a sense of purpose. This isn't something you find once and keep forever. Purpose will evolve just as you evolve.”   

Additional Resources:

• The State of Fashion 2026: When the Rules Change | BoF
• The Emerging Designers Pushing Fashion Forward | BoF 
• How Fashion’s Rising Stars Are Surviving the Luxury Slump | BoF

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