Selling Authenticity

Hardly any other area of the fashion system is currently undergoing such profound change as distribution. Global markets, digital tools, new consumer demands, and fragmented retail structures are putting agencies and brands alike to the test. Between showrooms and the metaverse, between personal relationships and data-driven forecasts, the question arises: What will the model of the future look like?

Text: Janaina Engelmann-Brothánek. Images: Agencies

In the past, sales was a clearly defined system—a collection, a showroom, an order round. There was the calendar, the season, the fixed procedures; representatives were intermediaries between the brand and retailers, translating the collection, so to speak. Orders were written on paper, discussions were held over espresso, trade fairs were mandatory events—places of exchange, encounter, and quiet competition.

What remains of this today? The term "sales" is as difficult to define as it is to grasp, fluctuating between digital, nomadic, spontaneous, and grounded, binding, and human. Some do business on Instagram, others in pop-up showrooms, some still at trade fairs, during fashion weeks, or in a Zoom session between London and Tokyo. The structures have dissolved, but at its core, what it has always been about remains: trust and relationships.

Six cities, five visions, and one common denominator: the passion to rethink sales, to go their own way, and thus to survive in today's fragmented world. Some see sales as a process of accompaniment, as a school of perception. Others focus on movement, on temporary spaces where flexibility is more important than ownership. Still others shift encounters to the digital realm and create closeness through dialogue instead of distance. Stability is not reflected in stagnation, but in the reliability of a presence that allows for change. Empathy is increasingly becoming the decisive factor – the experience itself is becoming the value. Where fashion is not only presented, but shared and felt, a new understanding of relationships is emerging: sales as a curated experience that reconciles emotion and economy.

Distribution as a school, Yoshi Yakushiji, Star Gold, Kyoto, and Tokyo

"I'm not really an agent," Yoshi Yakushiji says quietly, "today I'm a teacher, a bridge builder." His agency, Star Gold in Kyoto, is not a traditional sales agency, but rather a school where brands learn to think globally without losing themselves. Since 2012, Yakushiji has been accompanying small Japanese labels out into the world. Not as a salesman, but as a mentor. "I see every brand as a student," he explains. "I teach them how to communicate, how to understand, how to build trust. And at some point, they have to graduate, and then I let them go." This idea runs like a proverbial thread through everything Yoshi Yakushiji does. Brands stay with him for five, sometimes ten years. "Some do a bachelor's degree, others a doctorate," he says with a smile. During this time, they learn to find their core. "Many Japanese labels show too much. I help them focus on what makes them special." Yakushiji deliberately works slowly. He starts with small steps: five iconic products, 15 stores per region. No hype, no expansion at any cost. "If you want trust, you need time," he says. While many agencies rely on automation, data, and direct sales, he remains convinced that sales is a human business. "An agent is like a translator," he explains. "They have to speak two languages—that of the market and that of the brand." He literally learned this skill. In the early 2000s, he worked in Hong Kong, selling Japanese denim brands to Western customers and observing how two worlds misunderstood each other. His mission became to connect them. Today, he looks after around 18 brands – many of which have long since "graduated," becoming independent and internationally successful. "That's the best moment," he says. "When they can continue without me." But Yoshi Yakushiji is thinking ahead. He is currently working on a newspaper, a physical medium that conveys his philosophy. He calls the concept "offline to online." Feel first, then click. "I want people to feel again before they decide—the heart still beats offline." He believes in the personal, in conversation, in trust. Maybe that's why he loves The Union in Berlin: "The Union is what trade shows should be again," he says: "Small, real, familiar. A community and no fireworks, no show." He was there from the beginning when The Union restarted after the pandemic. "I was so happy to meet so many old friends," he says. "People I've known for ten, 15 years. It felt like family." Maybe that's Yakushiji's quiet revolution: he doesn't sell products, he teaches relationships. He believes in communication as currency, trust as strategy, patience as a driver of growth. "I accompany brands until they're ready," he says. "Then I let them go. That's how sales should work."

Satellite Showroom, Kristen Abel, 4st Agency, London

Kristen Abel works in a completely different way, yet with the same consistency. The young entrepreneur and founder of 4st Agency does not believe in fixed addresses; she believes in movement. "I want to go where the energy is," she says. "Everything else is stagnation." With her agency in London, she has developed a model that is as flexible as the industry in which she works—a so-called satellite showroom principle that focuses on presence rather than ownership and enables lower fixed costs and greater mobility. "I rent space when I need it—for a few weeks in Paris, London, or New York. That's all I need."

What appears pragmatic at first glance is actually conviction. Abel belongs to a new generation of sales agents who are leaving old structures behind—not out of defiance, but out of conviction. For them, sales is not about managing square footage, but about creating connections. "The showroom is not a place, it's a moment," she says. "If you use it right, it creates resonance."

Kristen works with small, independent labels: "I see myself as a curator," she explains. "Everything that comes through me has to make sense." Last season, she looked after 13 collections, including Palmer//Harding, Mfpen, Akyn, Liberowe, Calcaterra, and Séfr – brands that straddle the line between avant-garde and everyday wear. Her approach is radically selective. "If you offer everything, you're nobody." She doesn't want breadth, she wants depth. For her, each brand is its own universe, which she builds with attention. "I learn their thinking, their language, their insecurities. Only then can I translate them." Translate – the word comes up often. Abel sees herself as a mediator, not a salesperson. "I sell twice," she says. "Myself to the brand and the brand to the market." What used to be the sales representative with his sample case is now her with her laptop and her attitude: attentive, analytical, quick. Despite all the digitalization, proximity remains the decisive factor for her. "I want to know who is sitting in front of me, not just what they are selling." Her appointments are not presentations, but conversations. "I ask my customers what they had for dinner," she says with a grin. "That often says more about their mood than any number." This casual intimacy is her capital. "People buy from people," she says. "That has never changed." Kristen senses that the industry is tired of excess. "We have too many brands, too many stores, too little meaning." She observes that buyers are becoming more cautious, more sensitive, but also hungry for authenticity. "In the past, a good collection was enough," she says. "Today, you need a story that carries weight." That's why she sees her work less as sales and more as storytelling. "When I present a label, I don't talk about what it produces, but why it exists."

Abel has broken away from fixed structures, and more and more are following her example. Her showrooms are set up where there is energy and disappear as soon as the season is over. The entrepreneur works with ease, agility, and independence. For her, sales is not a place, but a movement.

Presence as a principle, Norbert Klauser and Giorgio Occhipinti, Diekaufleute, Munich

This is precisely where Abel's world meets that of Norbert Klauser in Munich, whom many simply call the fashion dad. For four decades, he has shaped sales in German-speaking countries and trained generations of agents. One of them is Giorgio Occhipinti, who joined him in 2006 – young, curious, full of respect for the craft. Today, they run Diekaufleute together, an agency that stands for experience, continuity, and proximity. Their approach to travel differs from Kristen's. They are not looking for new places, but rather keeping connections alive. They are everywhere fashion happens – in Florence at the start of the season, in Milan during Fashion Week, in Paris, in Düsseldorf. "If you don't show up, you're out," says Klauser. "It's like a friendship. If you never get in touch, it goes quiet." While Kristen creates temporary spaces to make brands visible, Klauser and Occhipinti believe in presence as a constant. They travel to stay.
"I'm doing the same job as I did back then," says Klauser. "Only the tools are different."
And Giorgio adds: "The framework has changed, but the heart has remained the same." For them, sales is not a system that needs to be reinvented, but a craft that needs to be cultivated. "You can only sell if you understand the other person," says Occhipinti. "And to do that, you have to know them. Really know them." They know their customers' habits, the atmosphere of their stores, and the people behind them. This is not nostalgia, it is precision. "Fashion is people's business," says Norbert Klauser. "It always has been and always will be." For them, trade shows are not relics, but meeting places where the industry breathes. "In Florence, you meet people; in Milan, you see the direction; in Düsseldorf, you gather energy for the market," says Giorgio Occhipinti. This year, they will be back at the Kesselhaus – at the new Salon Düsseldorf format. For them, it's not an obligation, but a fixed date. "Trade fairs are like seasons," Klauser describes it. "If you skip them, you lose your sense of rhythm." Despite all their experience, they don't sound nostalgic, but curious. They know that many things have become faster, more complex, more fleeting. "The trade has partly forgotten how to buy for itself," says Klauser. "In the past, they were curators. Today, they get Excel spreadsheets." And Giorgio adds: "Our job is to promote this independence again. We advise, we accompany, we protect." Their showroom is not a shop window, but a resonance chamber. A place where selection begins, not ends. "We curate even before the customer arrives," says Klauser. "We know what suits them before they do." They travel to maintain proximity, to keep the conversation going. "It used to be, 'The sales rep is coming,'" says Klauser and laughs. "Today it's, 'Glad you're here.' The job has a different quality. It's not about selling everywhere. It's about being everywhere."

Sales in the chat window, Tina Ferragamo Loch, The VII Agency, Düsseldorf

Tina Ferragamo Loch would agree—except that for her, "being there" in the sense of presence happens digitally. The entrepreneur is moving sales online without dehumanizing it. Ferragamo Loch founded her agency, The VII Agency, in the middle of lockdown. "Objectively speaking, it was the worst possible time, and yet it was exactly the right time," she says and laughs. Her agency is a counterpoint to a system that has relied on routines for too long. No waiting behind open doors, no politely ticking off appointments, but movement, reaction, closeness. Instagram is her showroom, WhatsApp her consultation room. "Email is for what needs to be signed. Everything else happens directly via messages, photos, or voice messages." She often sits on the sofa in the evening when buyers send screenshots and they decide together. "This creates conversations, not transactions," she says. Her feed is not a shop window, but a space for dialogue. Especially on Sunday evenings, when calm descends elsewhere, her strongest moment begins: "That's when people have time. Instagram is my showroom, my order book, my direct line." Twice a year, this digital closeness becomes real at the order days in Düsseldorf. Then there's tasting, laughing, and filming. Young buyers engage their community in conversation: What do you think – blue or green? The end customer places their order too. "Brands love that," says Tina. "It's real. In the end, what counts is that movement is created." This movement continues in retail in small gestures, window displays, or personal moments. Every sales assistant in the store gets a fitting sample. "No attitude! Brands that understand that are a good fit for us." Authenticity has become Ferragamo Loch's most important currency: "I don't sugarcoat anything. If it's difficult, we talk about it. What do you need? Exchange? Push? Support?" For her, sales means relationship management and closeness. Large agencies have reach, small agencies have loyalty. She is convinced that agencies of the future must build relationships, be present, and remain personal. "You can't understand D-A-CH from Copenhagen. You have to be there, talk to people, know their stores." She is not a gatekeeper, but once again a translator—between market and brand, between digital and analog. Trust is based on photos, messages, and honest conversations. "Being available doesn't mean always being online," she says. "It means being there when it matters."

With feeling instead of KPIs, Sara Puggioni, Brandidos, Barcelona

What works for Tina Ferragamo Loch via DMs and stories is brought to life by Sara Puggioni through eye contact, gestures, and conversations. Both work with proximity—one digitally, the other analog. While in Düsseldorf the showroom has migrated to smartphones, in Barcelona it remains a place you enter, stay in, and where time passes. When Sara Puggioni came to Spain 20 years ago, the fashion market there was almost uncharted territory. In Italy, where she had started out in sales, everything had long since become ritualized: large showrooms, structured order rounds, lots of salespeople, but little contact. In Spain, she encountered the opposite: small boutiques, owner-operated stores, personal relationships, a world in which trust was the most important asset and remains so to this day. At Brandidos, the agency she built with her partner Denis, many things are the same as before – only more consciously. She drives herself across the country every week, from Barcelona to Madrid, Valencia, Seville, and Bilbao. Mostly by car: "We spend hours on the road," she says, "but that's the only way to really understand the market." The journey is part of the business. The back seat is filled with collections, samples, and notes. This leaves plenty of time for conversation. She arrives at our appointment straight from lunch with a client. For her, meetings like this are not a bonus, but the core of her work. "A good conversation replaces ten emails," she says. Her philosophy: sales happen when you are there. Sara doesn't describe herself as a salesperson, but as a companion. She calls it consulenza: consulting. Orders are created together, piece by piece. She knows every product, every fit, every retailer. She knows which cuts work in which locations, which fabrics are in demand in the south, which colors in the north. This closeness is not nostalgia, but methodology. She takes a pragmatic view of digitalization. For her, WhatsApp is a tool and not a sales channel. "Ordering via chat? No!" she says simply. "Fashion needs hands, eyes, and trust." She believes that sales need to become more physical again, not thinking in terms of numbers, but showing presence. Her showroom in Barcelona reflects exactly that. It is not a classic salesroom, but a place of exchange, curated like a concept store that entices visitors on a tour of brands, history, and materials, starting with new labels and ending with bestsellers. So that you can understand the journey. And small gestures everywhere: an Italian chocolate cube with coffee, hand cream in the bathroom, soft music. You can sense that someone here is thinking about experience, not KPIs. Brandidos is a play on words combining Brand, Bandidos, and Dos, and it stands for this attitude. Two people, two paths, a shared understanding of authenticity. No calculation, no overacting, no hustle, just respect for the other person. "You have to make an effort," says Sara. "Sales don't happen if you wait. You have to go there, call, listen, understand." For her, this is not a step backward, but progress—an alternative to convenience. "Because in the end," she says, "it's very simple: if you stop visiting your customers, you lose them, and if you understand them, you win them over every time."

So what does the sales model of the future look like?

There is no clear answer to this question; rather, there are variations, each of which has its merits. The fragmentation of the market is creating new spaces in which a wide variety of models can coexist—and that is precisely what keeps the industry alive.

Some work with large showrooms, international teams, and strong brand portfolios, and are successful as a result. Others rely on smaller, more agile structures, proximity, flexibility, and intuition, and achieve their goals in their own way. What successful concepts have in common is that they not only recognize the customer, they also understand the brand and the market in which both operate. They translate between them, connect and communicate. Success in sales today comes from precision: from knowing who you are, who you work with, and who you do it for. In the end, it's not the structure that counts, but the people behind it. Norbert Klauser sums it up: "Fashion is people's business—it always has been and always will be."