Welcome to the Scoop: a weekly email series in which I quiz fashion insiders on the stories of the week. This will be a way for the Vogue Business community to synthesize and reflect on the latest headlines and get a little inside scoop every Friday.
This week’s guest is Josh Bredehoeft, who I met a couple of years ago as the brand marketing director at outerwear brand Rains. Raised in a small town in Minnesota, Josh moved to Denmark a little over a decade ago to pursue a career in fashion. It’s not the most well-trodden route, but it’s paid off.
Josh started working in Rains’s marketing department in 2018, just as the company was being built. Eight years, countless fashion shows, stores, and campaigns, and one HQ move later, it was time for a scoop.
Hi Josh! What’s the scoop?
I have a new job at Bestseller, which is Denmark’s largest fashion company. They own more than 20 high street brands, including Jack & Jones and Only, and hold stakes in Asos and Topshop. I will be head of creative at Only, which is basically the OG in-house brand.
It’s super exciting because it’s a big step for me. I had an amazing eight years with Rains. I started there when there were only three people in the marketing department, and I left as brand marketing director overseeing large, diverse teams. It was a really successful run. But I was also ready for something new, and the ambitions at Only really sucked me in.
What is the job?
Head of creative is a completely new role for the brand, which means there’s a big journey ahead. I’ll be working with the brand, marketing, and comms teams, but also very closely with the design team. I won’t have direct responsibility for the actual product, but I’ll be a part of the development. And then taking that, of course, into how we communicate with consumers and our wholesale partners once it gets into stores. Only has been going for 30 years, and in terms of product, they have a really clear understanding of who they are. The part we need to work out is how to express that internal knowledge outwardly.
And how did the job come about?
I don’t mean to be woo-woo, but it was one of those things where the universe opened up as soon as I made the decision to leave my former position. Søren Stig Hedensted, the brand director of Only, asked me for a coffee. I didn’t know what we were meeting about, but I was super interested because Only is very successful. It’s the brand with the highest contribution to Bestseller’s revenue. The first question he asked me was, “What makes a brand?”
What makes a brand?
I think it’s trust. It can look very different from brand to brand, but if you can get into the hearts and minds of consumers and have a semblance of accountability for what you provide and how you make people feel — I think that’s a brand.
There’s a big wave of creatives who previously worked for more high-end brands now moving to the high street. What do you think this says about the future of fashion?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this. To me, the gold star was always luxury. And then, when I decided to make the move from Rains, there were conversations with brands in Paris that, five or 10 years ago, would have been so interesting. But right now, with how the industry landscape changes, I feel some of the most exciting energy is coming from the high street. When we talk about the challenges of luxury right now, perhaps some of it has to do with a lack of proximity to the consumer. And at a house like Only, the teams understand their customer like no other.