Product Developer - Apparel

VF Corp. beats the Street in Q2 as Timberland, North Face, Altra deliver and Vans sees progress. VF Corp. expects Vans to see improvement in the wholesale channel in the back half of fiscal 2027. October 28, 2026, 8:14am VF Corp. posted second-quarter results that beat Wall Street's expectations, but shares still fell in pre-market trading on Wednesday. For the second quarter ended Sept. 26, net income jumped 50.3 percent to $285.3 million, or 71 cents a diluted share, from $189.8 million, or 48 cents, in the same year-ago period. Revenues were down 3.8 percent to $2.7 billion from $2.80 billion. Wall Street was expecting revenues of $2.67 billion and adjusted diluted earnings per share of 54 cents. VF bested the EPS estimate by 17 cents. By brand, revenue for The North Face rose 4 percent to $1.21 billion, and Timberland also grew 4 percent to $525.9 million. Revenue for Vans was down 10 percent to $547.6 million, while VF's Other Brands dropped 22 percent to $414.3 million. "The North Face and Timberland continued to deliver consistent growth, and Altra grew more than 40 percent, all powered by bold product design and innovation and brand storytelling that are resonating with our consumers," Bracken Darrell, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "Our plan to reignite Vans is working - global [direct-to-consumer] is growing again for the first time in almost five years, and strong orders from wholesale partners continue to give us confidence of a second half improvement." Darrell added: "We are delivering sustainable and profitable growth on our path to achieve our full-year guidance and medium-term targets, as the upside potential in our business becomes even more evident." The company has been signaling that the Vans business would turn around first in its DTC channel, followed by wholesale. Data points ahead of the report indicated that web and foot traffic for Vans indicate recovery, particularly with male teens, while Timberland resonates with upper-income teens. The drop in Other Brands for the quarter was due in part to the sale of Dickies, which was sold to Bluestar Alliance LLC for $600 million. The transaction was completed on Nov. 12, 2025. Excluding Dickies, revenue for the quarter was up 1 percent, better than VF's guidance of flat from year-ago levels. Meanwhile, the growth at Altra continues to be one of VF's biggest growth stories. By region, the Americas fell the least at 2 percent to $1.32 billion. EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) was down 6 percent to $1.01 billion and APAC (Asia-Pacific) was down 7 percent to $361.0 million. By channel, wholesale revenue including royalties fell 6 percent to $1.78 billion, while DTC inched up 1 percent to $915.2 million For the six months, net income was $188.1 million, or 47 cents a diluted share, on revenue of $4.36 billion. VF reaffirmed fiscal year 2027 guidance, with revenue at up 2 percent or better. That guidance was first disclosed in July when the company reported first-quarter earnings results, which was at the time ahead of the 1 to 2 percent range previously given. Daily Headlines

VF Corporation beat its own guidance in the second quarter ended September 26, 2026, and reaffirmed its full-year outlook. Adjusted operating income, excluding Dickies, reached $364M, well above the roughly $315M it had forecast. Revenue fell 4% year on year, but rose 1% excluding Dickies. Gross margin climbed 320 basis points to 55.4%, and net debt dropped $1.1B, or 20%. The North Face and Timberland each grew 4%, while Altra rose more than 40%. Vans revenue fell 9.8%, though its global direct-to-consumer sales grew for the first time in almost five years. The board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.09 per share, payable December 17, 2026.

EXEC: VF Corp. still bullish on a Vans back-half recovery despite Q2 shortfall. October 28, 2026 VF Corp. reported Vans' sales fell 9.8 percent in its fiscal second quarter ended September 26, slightly worse than expected due to weakness at wholesale amid continued destocking. However, Bracken Darrell, VF's president and CEO, insisted Vans' continues to rebuild brand heat on new product introductions will feed an imminent return to growth. "You can feel throughout our organization that Vans is getting its mojo back," said Darrell on an analyst call. "There's beginning to be a swagger in Costa Mesa that was missing for some time." VF reiterated guidance calling for Vans to show significant improvement on a sequential basis in the second half, with sales to see a decline of 2 percent or better" for VF's full fiscal year, following steep declines in recent years and a 9 percent decline in the current fiscal half. For Q3, Vans sales are expected to be down 4 percent before potentially turning positive in the fourth quarter, driven by a recovery in wholesale orders and sell-throughs. VF officials noted that wholesale is bigger in the fourth quarter for Vans than the third quarter. CFO Abhishek Dalmia said the company has better visibility into orders and demand for Vans to view the second-half recovery. "The expected turn in wholesale in the second half of the year remains on plan," said Dalmia. Sgbonline is three months from when Sgbonline gave the initial expectation of the second half and have better visibility into the confirmation of its orders for Fall Winter 26 and Spring Summer 27." Global DTC Returns to Growth Among the positives in the second quarter for Vans, global DTC revenue grew for the first time in almost five years. Darrell noted that as VF has forecast, U.S. e-commerce for Vans was able to turn positive in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, followed by Americas DTC overall turning positive and now global DTC. Said Darrell, "That result reflects continued growth in Americas DTC, improved performance in EMEA DTC and encouraging signs in APAC DTC." Management has said Vans' changes in product, led by the brand's president and former Lululemon chief product officer Sun Choe, would positively impact e-commerce first, followed then by physical stores, with the wholesale recovery expected to lag DTC improvement by six to nine months. Another encouraging sign was that slightly more than 60 percent of Vans stores were posting positive comparable sales, a slight improvement on the previous quarter. Store and e-commerce traffic are also improving year over year. Darrell also cited several signs of Vans' brand heat building, including Vans maintaining its No. 7 spot as a favorite footwear brand among all male teens in Piper-Sandler's recently-released annual teen survey, breaking a streak of declines in previous surveys. AlixPartners also named Vans the number two fashion footwear brand in its recent Consumer Sentiment Index. At ComplexCon, which he described as "one of the biggest sneaker fan fests in the world," Vans collaboration with streetwear brand Satoshi Nakamoto "was so strong that we had to briefly shut down our booth." He noted that a following Satoshi direct-to-consumer drop sold out in five minutes with the collaboration ranking on the top 10 list for ComplexCon's Sneaker of the Year 2026. Among channels, Darrell said Vans' improved DTC performance is benefiting from a shift to a product-led, test-and-scale model rather than relying on discounts or marketing alone. He elaborated, "We are introducing new ideas first with small batches in e-com as well as with appropriate partners and cultural platforms, quickly introducing a few of those ideas into limited stores, then scaling a subset of those products into the wider fleet. Only after that, the product flows into wholesale where sell-in follows six to nine months behind DTC." Order Rate Improving He noted that while wholesale y/y decline worsened in the second quarter versus the first for Vans, "we have a lot of confidence in the wholesale channel for Q3 and especially Q4, based on a strong response from our partners to our increasing product newness." He stressed the turnaround is "primarily being driven by our focus on product," with Vans' icons range showing growth in in DTC in the quarter, led by Old Skool and supported by new treatments such as Pearlized and Souvenir. The Pearlized Old Skool Yacht Club achieved 100 percent sell-through in the Americas in less than 24 hours. Darrell added, "Authentic posted another quarter of strong double-digit growth across channels. Slip-On returned to DTC growth, while Half Cab and Era grew from smaller bases. The strategy is to make familiar franchises feel new again while preserving the core appeal of Vans." Vans is also finding some success expanding beyond its traditional core with products such as the Super Lowpro, mules and loafers. Darrell further identified women's footwear and apparel as significant future opportunities that have not yet been fully developed. Darrell concluded, "Our product-led improvement in DTC, in addition to the expected recovery of Wholesale, starting in Q3 and building in Q4, is what gives us confidence to commit to down 2 percent or better in the second half of fiscal 2027. To summarize, we are three months closer to what we told you would happen in wholesale, and we're reconfirming it. Our direction at Vans is clear, and I am confident that we will see acceleration." Analysts in the Q&A session particularly expressed concern about Vans' forecast for a strong wholesale recovery by the fourth quarter.According to VF's 10-Q filing, wholesale sales in VF's Active segment, which largely consists of Vans, suffered an 18 percent drop in revenues in the latest quarter, significantly steeper than 9 percent decline seen in the fiscal first quarter. VF's Active segment also includes Kipling, Eastpak and JanSport. The wholesale decrease was primarily attributed to decreases in the Vans brand in Europe and Americas in both periods and offset an increase of 3 percent in direct-to-consumer revenues, primarily driven by increases in the Vans brand in the Americas region in both periods. Overall sales for the Active segment decreased 8 percent to $700.3 million. Active segment profit margin eroded to 7.2 percent from 8.6 percent in the same period a year ago, primarily due to lower leverage of operating expenses due to decreased revenues. The decreases in segment profit margin were partially offset by higher gross margins, which were primarily due to channel mix in both periods, favorable foreign currency impacts in the latest quarter. Analysts Concern Over Wholesale Recovery Analysts questioned how sales could improve to a decline of just 4 percent or better in Q3, followed by a much stronger Q4. Retailers normally wait for their own sales to improve before ordering more. Darrell acknowledged that destocking could continue a little longer with a "little de-stocking" occurring in the current quarter, but he nevertheless expressed confidence in the second-half outlook based on order visibility. He said, "We have the orders and we have a good visibility on our orders now for Q3 and Q4. We're very confident about that guide for the back half." He said the order momentum is largely with existing partners rather than new wholesale accounts. Darrell said that while retailers tend to wait until sell-throughs improve before more aggressively purchasing orders from the brand, wholesale accounts are noticing the momentum Vans is seeing on the DTC side of the business. Darrell said, "We've got so much strength there, and that's not lost on our wholesale partners, and it's because of product and also the heat. I gave just a partial list of all the evidence that's coming in on the strengthening of the brand, and I think that's being product-driven and design-driven. So, it's really working and they're seeing it, and so they're bringing in more of it." Analysts also questioned to what degree limited-edition collaborations can drive the broader business, with management indicating the collaborations and new products are driving heat broadly, with a promise of accelerated innovation arriving to elevate demand further. Dalmia said, "There are a lot of new silhouettes that are coming out, new styles that are coming out, which is obviously generating a lot of heat, like the loafers, the Super Lowpro. There is a lot of reinvigoration of the existing icons. When you do one and two really well, it also really starts to create a better heat. It also starts to create a better heat on the core styles. All three are actually seeing that. Our traffic trends, both in stores as well as in e-com. Even in stores is improving year over year." Finally, one analyst expressed concern that Vans could face pressure from excess retro-product inventory in the marketplace and the need to liquidate stock, particularly from Nike, that might restrain orders for Vans. Darrell argued that Vans has less exposure to traditional sporting goods retailers and mall-based athletic chains than mainstream athletic footwear brands. He added, "Our biggest opportunities are in lifestyle, and we are looking at order books, and we are feeling good about them." He also highlighted Vans' price range, including some products priced at $120 and above "that are actually getting some of the highest recognition," as well as core products around $60 to $70 as a potential advantage across different consumer spending levels. "That is very affordable," said Darrell of the lower-rung product. "So, I really feel maybe not totally insulated from, but really protected from fear of the economy too. So, I feel like we are in a really good space going into post-election in the U.S. and whatever might happen in Q3 and Q4 around the world" Image courtesy of Vans