Daniel Herrmann doesn’t want to talk about elevation strategies — at least not explicitly.
The managing director of H&M-owned COS believes elevation is a matter of perception, and true elevation comes from the customer experiencing the products you create.
It’s a notable stance for someone who has presided over an unexpected retail success story, with COS landing among Lyst’s top 10 hottest brands in 2025 seemingly out of nowhere. Since taking the helm in April 2024, Herrmann has steered the brand through a moment in which it has emerged as a darling of the “quiet luxury” movement, capturing customers trading down from higher-end labels while maintaining its accessible price points. The brand has managed to stake out coveted territory between mass market and luxury — what Herrmann calls a “bridge” — by staying consistent to its minimalist aesthetic and focussing obsessively on value, whether that’s a £19 cotton t-shirt or a £1,000 investment piece.
It has also pushed a refined, aspirational image with its marketing, staging a buzzy runway show in September at New York Fashion Week.
Herrmann discusses how COS approaches brand positioning without chasing trends, why the brand thinks in terms of ageless style rather than demographic segments and how product remains the ultimate vehicle for storytelling.
BoF: COS launched in 2007 to serve an older customer base than H&M. The point was always to be more minimal, to be more refined. How has this point of view evolved or shifted?
Daniel Herrmann: I wouldn’t say that the brand point of view necessarily changed. Besides the aesthetics, which is obviously one important thing, we make sure that the entire universe within COS lives and fits together. We also developed within the brand point of view more of a narrative or a storytelling perspective, where we would like most of our storytelling to centre around what we call relevant fashion moments that we select and pick out that feel authentic to COS, like showing up at New York Fashion Week, or around craftsmanship, which is about the style and quality of the product.
BoF: In your strategy, or in your intentions, was elevating COS ever an explicit objective?
DH: Both yes and no. It’s a little bit dangerous as a brand to go after a word that you don’t own yourself, because I feel true elevation comes from the one experiencing what you’re trying to create.
Our hope is that we can deliver on something that feels elevated, but it’s more important, I feel, to talk about the quality and execution than us producing something that someone else should express as being elevated. I think it’s more important to, as a brand, discuss how you actually show up.
BoF: As young customers — Millennials and Gen Z — discover the brand, how have you been able to ensure that COS’ identity resonates with them as well as existing segments of customers?
DH: We tend to look at ourselves as more ageless, to be honest. We don’t look so much at our customers depending on age. We look at it much more [as] we are tapping into a style that is very genuine to COS, which is what we talked about before, being centred around something that is more timeless, centred around really quality materials and also of course really sustainably sourced materials.
I think we’re not trying to show up differently. We’re trying to be the brand we are, no matter what age the person is experiencing us. I think our positioning in this is much more focused on delivering what we feel is authentic to COS than trying to slice ourselves into different parts for different segments.
BoF: What does COS’ brand storytelling look like?
DH: We always go back to, ‘How can we amplify and use the perspectives of relevant fashion movements, of craftmanship and innovation, in our communication and how we actually reach out?’ Then we do that in producing shows. We go back to New York Fashion Week in the Fall, and then for the Spring season we are a bit more playful in where we go.
BoF: So, ultimately, product is COS’ biggest vehicle for storytelling?
DH: It’s so easy to talk about the ambition of generating elevation, but unless you have a product actually meeting that feeling, everything you do becomes unnecessary in a way.
What we are doing [to widen] our position in the market is to be very, very considerate in our price architecture of things. We like to talk about our positioning as this bridge between luxury and more mass-market players, and really giving more people from the mass market the opportunity to experience COS.
We have the cotton t-shirt for £19, which we feel is a competitive price for many of the customers buying from mass market today, so giving them a chance to start experiencing COS on a price point they are more familiar with is an important strategic choice for us.
BoF: Can you say more about COS’ overall approach to pricing architecture?
DH: Value is so important to us. No matter if the price is £1,000 or if it’s £20, we always focus on value, because that’s the proof that we’re trying to build something that you feel is elevated.
We look at our price architecture in three modules, which is entry price range, a more regular price point and investment pieces.
It’s so easy to talk about the ambition of generating elevation, but unless you have a product actually meeting that feeling, everything you do becomes unnecessary in a way.
BoF: What role do brick-and-mortar stores play in COS’ strategy?
DH: Retail is really important to us. It’s more than just transactional spaces, because it’s actually a way for us to create extensions of COS where you can feel cultural relevance by us working together with local artists. We did something with Sophie Ashby not too long ago where she helped us to actually bring art in store in selected ones across Europe, and of course, it’s also an extension of our aesthetics and our own point of view.
We also work with more experiential formats. Usually these are more short-term activations. We had a pop-up in Seoul where both customers and also press could come and learn and understand, and see and feel more about what the collection is about and how it was made. We also use the retail experience to test and learn in new places with pop-ups. I just came back from Paris where we opened a pop-up on the Champs Elysée to see if that’s a place where people would resonate with COS, and see how we would actually be perceived in a prestigious place like that street. Then, of course, just opening up COS to new markets, trying to find new COS customers and really taking COS out to new places. After this call I’m on a flight to India where we opened our first store in Delhi yesterday.
BoF: Many customers today are redefining what luxury looks like, including many high-spending shoppers trading down in reaction to tremendous price hikes in the traditional luxury sector. How have you observed these trends and how has COS adapted to these shifts?
DH: We’ve seen the trend of moving away from being logo- and status-driven to really also homing in and focussing on value. That’s a trend we see within luxury, that luxury brands are also now moving into value in both product and experience. We feel that’s really suitable for us, because we’ve tried to become this bridge between mass and luxury. We know that a lot of consumers today, they’re not either-or. They move fluently between all segments of the market.
It’s also why price architecture is a consequence of that too, where we both can showcase the really high-end while at the same time we can also onboard new customers from the high street and allow them to hopefully experience COS and over time buy more from the range that we offer. It’s an important answer to how we see the market is flowing.
BoF: Do you think that quiet luxury has more legs to it?
DH: When COS started we have always had this aesthetic. It’s not something we grew into with the trends in the market. It’s always been our starting point. Then, of course, that has been more of a macro trend that’s been really clear and significant within the market over the last period of time. We think it’s not a trend. It’s something that will live on as a style for people, I don’t know for how long but for a long time, and us tapping into that interest is of course both good for us because it’s authentic but also resonates with customers yesterday, but also for the years to come.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
This article first appeared in The State of Fashion 2026, an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company.
