Bestseller brings iconic brands back into culture with influence at scale

About the brand

Founded in Denmark over 50 years ago, European fashion group Bestseller has a wide portfolio of international ready-to-wear brands spanning womenswear, menswear and childrenswear. Present across Europe, North America and Asia, the group brings together brands with strong, clearly defined identities, each speaking to a specific generation, style and mindset.

In France, Bestseller operates 19 active brands, ranging from youth-driven fashion labels to more established names. This diversity is both its strength and its challenge, especially when it comes to influencer marketing.

The challenge: relaunching an icon, while managing influence at scale

When Topshop officially returned to France, the pressure was on. Once an iconic UK high-street brand with cult status, Topshop had been absent from the French market for almost a decade. Its relaunch at celebrated Parisian department store Printemps Haussmann was more than a store opening, it was a cultural moment designed to relaunch the brand in physical retail while supporting the e-commerce store.

“Topshop is a very global, very iconic brand,” explains Corentin Lardy, Bestseller Marketing & PR Coordinator for France. “The challenge was to reconnect with people who already knew the brand, while also making it relevant for a much younger generation.”

But Topshop is just one brand within a much wider ecosystem. In France, Corentin oversees influencer and PR activations for 19 different Bestseller brands, each with its own audience, tone and calendar, from youth-oriented labels to more classic fashion players.

“With that many brands, you can’t work instinctively,” he says. “You need structure, segmentation and visibility across everything you’re doing, which is where Kolsquare comes into play.”

The strategy: structured influence, brand by brand

Rather than treating influencer marketing as a single channel, Bestseller approaches it as a brand-by-brand discipline, deeply connected to PR, events and cultural moments.

Using Kolsquare, Corentin organises activations across Bestseller’s key French brands, including Vero Moda, Selected, Pieces and Only, alongside major launches like the Topshop activation. The platform allows him to segment creators by brand, audience, geography and platform, and to keep a clear overview of all actions of individual brands.

“Kolsquare gives me access to a huge database and lets me really segment and activate the right profiles for each brand,” he explains. “I use it for everything, gifting campaigns, paid activations, events, even press trips.”

This structured approach enables Corentin to run more local, tactical activations. For example, during a summer festival activation in Cannes, Kolsquare helped Corentin identify creators based on the Côte d’Azur, a network he wouldn’t have been able to reach through personal contacts alone.

“Kolsquare helps me concentrate my efforts on the profiles that actually make sense,” he says. “I can see the data, validate the profiles, and move fast.”

Creator selection and content: heritage meets Gen Z

The Topshop relaunch illustrates how Bestseller balances brand heritage and youth culture.

For the launch event at Printemps Haussmann, Corentin deliberately built a mixed creator lineup: fashion creators with long-standing knowledge of Topshop, alongside younger profiles discovering the brand for the first time.

“We had creators in their twenties who knew the brand name but not the history,” he explains. “And others in their thirties, forties or even fifties who remembered Topshop very well. What was interesting is that their audiences reflected that too.”

Kolsquare’s audience filters played a key role in making that balance possible. Instagram was the main platform, supported by TikTok to reach younger audiences and tap into current fashion conversations.

Kolsquare’s role: a daily tool, not just a campaign platform

For Corentin, Kolsquare is not a nice-to-have tool, it’s an essential part of his workflow.

“I use it several times a week,” he says. “Kolsquare allows me to manage all my brands with a global overview, while still going very deep into the details when I need to.”

Beyond discovery and segmentation, Kolsquare helps him track who is already talking about Bestseller brands, monitor performance, and identify creators with long-term potential.

“It’s very useful to see who mentions the brand organically,” he adds. “If someone performs well, it immediately opens the door to stronger collaborations.”

During large-scale events like the Topshop launch, the platform also proved essential operationally. With around 200 guests, including roughly 150 creators, managing invitations, approvals and post-event content required tight organisation.

“Kolsquare really helped us manage everything,” Corentin explains. “From listings and validation to retrieving content after the event, it made a big difference to our ability to track and report results.”

Results: strong engagement and renewed cultural relevance

The Topshop relaunch delivered strong, tangible results. Content generated around the event achieved an engagement rate close to 5%, with an estimated Earned Media Value approaching €500,000, and reach close to the million mark, all driven by a single launch moment.

“These were very good results, especially for a return to the market,” says Corentin. “The level of engagement really proved that people were excited about the launch.”

Beyond the launch itself, the biggest result is structural. Today, Corentin estimates he works with close to 1,000 creators annually across organic and paid initiatives for Bestseller in France, all managed and tracked within Kolsquare.

From bringing an iconic UK brand back into the spotlight to managing day-to-day influence for some of Europe’s most recognisable fashion labels, Bestseller has turned influencer marketing into a structured, scalable growth lever.

“Kolsquare really accompanies me in everything I do,” Corentin concludes. “It saves time, brings clarity, and allows me to be much more strategic.”

Want to bring structure, culture and performance together in your influencer strategy? Book a demo with Kolsquare and see how influence works at scale.