PVH (NYSE:PVH) reported second-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's second-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Summary
PVH Corp. reported second-quarter 2026 revenue in line with guidance, with strong performance in direct-to-consumer (D2C) channels, especially in the Americas and APAC regions, despite a challenging wholesale environment in Europe.
The company beat profitability guidance with improved gross margins, excluding tariff refunds, and ended the quarter with inventory levels down 3% year-over-year, positioning well for the fall and holiday seasons.
PVH is focusing on driving growth in licensing, expecting the transition of its women's North America wholesale categories to be complete by the end of 2026, and aims for overall licensing growth starting in 2027.
Strategic marketing initiatives, including collaborations with high-profile figures like Jungkook and Travis Kelce, have driven significant consumer engagement and e-commerce growth, particularly among Gen Z and younger Millennials.
The company reaffirmed its full-year guidance for flat reported revenue and an operating margin of approximately 8.8%, with EPS expected to range between $11.80 and $12.10, while maintaining a focus on cost management and efficiency improvements.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good morning everyone, and welcome to today's PVH second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have an opportunity to ask questions during the question-and-answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the star and one keys on your touch-tone phone. Please note this call may be recorded, and that I will be standing by should you need any assistance.
It is now my pleasure to turn today's program over to Kate Howard, Senior Director of Investor Relations.
Kate Howard, Senior Director of Investor Relations
Thank you, operator. Good morning everyone, and welcome to the PVH Corp. second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Leading the call today will be Stefan Larsson, Chief Executive Officer, and Melissa Stone, Interim Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Global Financial Planning and Analysis. Alexi Rollier, our incoming Chief Financial Officer, has joined PVH, and we look forward to having him lead our third quarter 2026 earnings conference call along with Stefan.
This webcast and conference call is being recorded on behalf of PVH and consists of copyrighted material. It may not be recorded, rebroadcast, or otherwise transmitted without PVH's written permission. Your participation constitutes your consent to having anything you say appear on any transcript or replay of this call. The information to be discussed includes forward-looking statements that reflect PVH's view as of September 2, 2026 of future events and financial performance.
These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties indicated in the Company's SEC filings and the safe harbor statement included in the press release that is the subject of this call. PVH does not undertake any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement, including without limitation any estimates regarding revenue or earnings generally. The financial information and projections to be discussed will be on a non-GAAP basis as defined under SEC rules.
Reconciliations to GAAP amounts are included in PVH's second quarter 2026 earnings release, which can be found on www.pvh.com, and in the Company's current report on Form 8-K furnished to the SEC in connection with the release. At this time, I am pleased to turn the conference over to Stefan Larsson.
Stefan Larsson, CEO
Thank you, Kate, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. I would like to start by acknowledging our Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and PVH teams around the world. Thanks to your hard work, we continue to make meaningful progress on our multiyear PVH Plan. During the second quarter, we built momentum while navigating a dynamic environment, achieving our revenue guidance and beating on profitability. This morning, I'm also thrilled to formally welcome our new Chief Financial Officer, Alexei Rollier, to PVH.
Alexei will officially join us in New York next week. He comes to us with deep financial and operational experience, most recently as the global CFO and COO at Sephora, where he drove disciplined growth and significant profit expansion. Alexei's experience combining consumer-facing improvements with effective financial steering will help us deliver our PVH Plan and drive long-term shareholder value. I can't wait for you all to get to know him. Now on to a discussion of the second quarter this morning.
I'm going to start with an overview of the results before turning to progress on our PVH Plan, and we'll end with our thoughts on the remainder of the year and future opportunities. Turning to the second quarter, we delivered revenues in line with our guidance across all three regions and our licensing business. Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger revenues were in line with expectations, with consistent year-over-year revenue performance excluding the impacts of wholesale shipment timing.
We continue to drive momentum in our D2C business led by growth in both APAC and the Americas, while the wholesale business was impacted by the tough macro environment in Europe. E-commerce continued to be a source of strength and was supported by strong year-over-year increases in online traffic across both brands, with Calvin up double digits and Tommy up high single digits. These results reflect the overall progress we are making in elevating our product, marketing, and the consumer experience.
We beat our guidance on all elements of profitability. Importantly, our gross margins, excluding tariff refunds, improved year over year and were above expectations. We continue to lean into our strong cost discipline while remaining committed to a balanced approach to investment that prioritizes brand building in support of the PVH Plan. We ended the quarter with very good inventory levels, down 3% versus last year, and we are well positioned for fall and holiday with improved stock freshness.
Turning to our performance by region, across the regions, our performance was in line with our expectations. We drove D2C growth across the Americas and APAC and delivered better-than-expected gross margin expansion across both brands. In the Americas, our business remained resilient, driven by e-commerce growth, strong AUR expansion, and disciplined execution. In APAC, we saw continued strength in D2C led by stores and better-than-expected gross margin performance.
Stronger consumer engagement drove higher conversion and AUR growth with strength in promotion management. In EMEA, we delivered on our revenue guidance for the quarter and drove e-commerce growth across both brands. We also improved D2C versus the prior quarter, while the wholesale channel remained under pressure, reflecting the challenging environment. Turning to licensing, which is a significant, high-value business for us, generating over 350 million in annual revenue and supporting more than 3 billion in licensed net sales globally.
Licensing is a recurring, growing, strong, profitable revenue stream driven by long-term relationships with brand-building partners. We are focused on complementing our own strength in our core categories with the expertise and capabilities of our long-term strategic licensing partners. During the second quarter, excluding the impact from the previously announced transition of our women's North America wholesale categories, we continued to grow our go-forward licensing portfolio.
We expect that growth to continue through the balance of the year. Importantly, we also remain on plan with the transition of our women's wholesale business in North America and expect it to be substantially complete by the end of 2026, and from there we expect to grow our overall licensing business. Turning to the drivers of our Q2 performance, we are relentless in delivering on our PVH Plan, and we continue to build momentum while navigating a dynamic business environment.
Now let's take a moment to discuss the progress we have made across each pillar of the plan. When we connect all parts of the consumer journey all the way to our doors and stores, we drive real commercial impact. And during the quarter, we continued to sharpen our consumer focus, deliver stronger products, and engage our consumers with cut-through 360 marketing, all while improving the marketplace experience in both D2C and wholesale. Let me share some specific examples that demonstrate the meaningful progress we continue to make this quarter, starting with building strength with the consumer.
We know that both brands outperform with Gen Z and younger Millennials and within those perform strongly with the highest-value consumer segments, the status shopper and the style enthusiast. We continue to focus our investments on reaching these power segments, and we are seeing early signs that is helping us acquire and retain high-quality consumers who shop more often, are less price sensitive, and are more loyal, and we see this in our acquisition of online consumers, which is up significantly across both brands.
We see it in the performance in the Americas and APAC, where we are driving D2C growth with higher pricing power, and we see it in our growing number of returning consumers at both Calvin and Tommy. Next is product. During the quarter, once again we grew multiple full hero categories in D2C, where we have the biggest right to win. Specifically, in Calvin Klein Denim, global sales rose double digits across both men's and women's, with women's jeans a particular standout as consumers responded really well to our new take on Calvin icons, leading to very strong gross margins and AURs up double digits.
And in Calvin Klein Underwear, we drove low single-digit global growth for the total category with mid-single AUR improvement. And at Tommy, D2C growth was driven by sweaters, which were up double digits, and shirts and polos, which were both up mid single digits, with linen a particular standout across categories, rising over 30% across all regions. Third, we continue to drive strong consumer engagement, increasingly connecting all the parts of the consumer journey end to end.
As previously discussed, we strategically increased our marketing spend in the first half of the year, and this investment, together with a sharper focus on our target consumer segments, delivered low single-digit e-commerce growth across both Calvin and Tommy, with improvements in share of online search. In Calvin Klein, the standout moment this quarter was Jungkook. For Calvin Klein, it's Jungkook's first product collaboration with us and our most successful global product collaboration in the history of the brand.
Jungkook is a global phenomenon with a unique ability to connect with fans across regions and demographics. By linking the campaign's product, marketing, and immersive retail activations globally, our teams created a true cultural moment that drove 5 billion in social media reach, triple-digit growth in e-commerce traffic compared to the spring brand campaign, and over 90% global sell-through. This collaboration is such a powerful example of how we can successfully deliver 360 global brand activations.
In Tommy, through our global partnership with Liverpool Football Club, we invited consumers into an iconic Summer of Soccer and style. Together with Cadillac, Formula One, USLGP, and our other partnerships, we continue to connect our iconic brand and products to growing, influential sport and entertainment platforms, leveraging Tommy's unique heritage across fashion, art, music, entertainment, and sport. Finally, we also continue to upgrade our marketplace experience across both brands, further investing in the shopping experience across digital shopping, shops, and store concepts globally.
We have now completed over 120 refurbishments and relocations and over 130 new store openings year to date. Looking at recent performance across regions and brands, I like where we are positioned. There is still more work to be done, but we are making good progress, and I'm optimistic that we will build on this momentum as we continue to thoughtfully execute the PVH Plan. This morning I would also like to share an update on our cost management actions.
We have extended beyond our traditional one-time programmatic cost actions to focus on more systematic, repeatable ways to become more efficient. We are embedding a culture of cost discipline in two main ways. First, we have globalized and centralized our indirect procurement capabilities to optimize spend by consolidating our indirect supplier base, standardizing our ways of working, and operating as one global team to leverage the full PVH scale across key areas, including global freight, cost, packaging, parcel sourcing, marketing, production.
Second, we are now driving enterprise-wide cost management by spend category, with senior leaders responsible for optimizing how we use our resources more effectively and more efficiently against our PVH priorities. Through these efforts, we are reducing cost across nearly a dozen categories and have already confirmed annualized run-rate savings of approximately $45 million, with a portion realized in 2026 and full realization in 2027. This is important work, and we are committed to finding next-level sustainable cost savings.
It's one of the many areas, along with his global brand-building expertise, where Alexei's experience is highly relevant, and identifying further cost opportunities will be a key priority in the upcoming months. While cost savings are a top priority, it doesn't come at the expense of our brand-building efforts to further strengthen our products, consumer engagement, and marketplace presence. Just last week, Calvin Klein launched a new denim campaign featuring Grammy-nominated pop sensation Tate McRae.
It's a great example of how we are connecting the iconic Calvin brand to a new generation of consumers all over the world. The consumer reaction has been incredible, creating another major cultural and viral moment for Calvin and driving 28 million views across Instagram and TikTok in just the first week, with strong resonance among Gen Z audiences. We quickly followed this week with a new consumer moment featuring Tony Award–nominated actor Sadie Sink, the star of two of the biggest entertainment phenomena of recent years, Stranger Things and Spider-Man.
Both campaigns are built around our new field of fit denim platform, where we connect Calvin's authority in denim and fit with the individual style of some of today's most relevant talent. We are supporting the campaign with a full 360 activation, bringing together the power of the brand, the relevance of the talent, and the strength in product all the way through to our doors and stores. And coming this fall, we have the strongest lineup of Calvin talent yet.
Leveraging the momentum Calvin has created with global stars like Dakota Johnson, Bad Bunny, and Jungkook, we're also continuing to build out the expression of the Calvin brand in even more immersive and aspirational ways. We have recently upgraded the underwear shopping experience in approximately 100 of our stores, and we'll do the same with a new in-store denim concept beginning this fall. For Tommy, we continue to lean into the brand's classic American cool DNA.
This fall, we have our first campaign with football superstar Travis Kelce. Travis is our newest global brand ambassador and creative collaborator, and his style, energy, and enthusiasm are a great representation of the brand. The campaign is set at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, where Travis is joined by an incredible group of mega talent across fashion, music, and sport, including Gigi Hadid, Jisoo, Carmelo Anthony. They all bring Tommy's take on prep to life in a way that's fresh and relevant.
The early consumer response has been really positive, and we are excited to see the campaign impact continue to build in the coming weeks. Also in Tommy, the campaign puts key growth categories front and center, including cable-knit sweaters, shirts, and transitional outerwear, as we continue to focus on expanding the strength of our products into bigger parts of the assortment. The Travis campaign complements the recently launched Always Denim campaign featuring Romeo Beckham.
It supports Tommy's accelerated focus on the denim category, and the campaign drove a roughly 30% increase in North America and Europe D2C jeans sales in the first month following its July launch, again reinforcing how our category-focused approach is translating into measurable commercial results in the marketplace. We are continuing to step up Tommy's consumer experience both online and in stores, with pilot openings of the new Tommy Hilfiger shop-in-shop concept in major cities around the world.
Finally, next week, both Calvin and Tommy will be presenting at New York Fashion Week. It's another powerful expression of how each brand is bringing its iconic DNA to life in ways that are highly relevant to today's global consumer and culture. Turning to our forward-looking guidance, the fall product season is off to a positive start across both brands and all regions. Looking ahead, we are pleased to reaffirm the full-year guidance that we shared last quarter.
From a regional perspective, we continue to expect growth in both the Americas and APAC for the full year, with continued strength in e-commerce across all our three regions. And in EMEA, we expect continued momentum in e-commerce offset by wholesale. Given the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the tough spring season in the region, European wholesalers are understandably cautious, and this is reflected in our spring 27 order book, which is down mid single digits.
To mitigate this, we are working more closely than ever with our key accounts, curating stronger assortments and providing them more in-season replenishment of our best-selling products. We also take in the insights we get from our own D2C business in the region, where our European consumers continue to demonstrate their strong engagement and love for both of our brands, and using that to better serve our wholesale partners. And we know that as we execute these actions together, we will realize the significant long-term opportunities in the region.
During the summer, I had the opportunity to visit five markets in Europe and over 30 locations. It's always great to see the consumer love for our products firsthand, and I was so impressed with the passion of our store teams and partners and how our focus on the key growth categories and best product franchises is translating more and more into the consumer experience. During these visits, I also see that we have still real growth opportunities in further expanding our category and franchise strength all the way out to every door and every store.
In summary, we continue to make real progress as we execute our PVH Plan, leveraging the strength of our iconic Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands to drive long-term, increasingly profitable growth. We delivered on our guidance for the quarter with strong gross margin performance, continued strength in e-commerce and D2C growth, and AUR expansion in both Americas and APAC. In EMEA, we are navigating a challenging consumer environment by staying even closer to our consumers and partners and leaning into the strong love they have for Calvin and Tommy.
Across both brands, we continue to see that where we focus on the key categories where we have the right to play and win, we drive real commercial impact. With growth in multiple D2C categories, we remain committed to expanding the strength of our products to more of the assortment, season by season. At the same time, we're stepping up our cost discipline, prioritizing our resources behind the PVH strategic pillars that will drive growth and long-term value creation while continuously finding more efficient ways to operate.
And we are starting Q3 well. Both Calvin and Tommy are cutting through with stronger product, great campaigns, and some of the most relevant talent in culture today, and we are looking forward to peak fall season. Before I hand the call over to Melissa, I would like to thank her for her truly exceptional partnership and great work as interim CFO. I look forward to working closely with both her and Alexei as we continue to execute our plan and unlock the full potential of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
And with that, I'll turn the call over to Melissa.
Zac Coughlin, CFO
Thank you, Stefan. Good morning. In the second quarter, we met or exceeded guidance across all key financial metrics. Revenue decreased 3% in both reported and constant currency, at the high end of our reported revenue guidance and slightly ahead of our constant currency guidance, with all three regions and licensing in line with our expectations. Operating margin was 11.1% and EPS was $3.70, ahead of our guidance, with both gross margin and SG&A better than our plan.
Tariff refunds were received during the quarter as expected and contributed approximately 510 basis points to our operating margin and approximately $1.80 to our EPS. We are pleased with our second quarter execution. While top- and bottom-line results excluding the tariff refunds were below last year as we continued to navigate the dynamic global macro environment, revenue was in line with guidance and profitability was better than expected. This supports our confidence in the full-year plan we discussed last quarter, balanced with caution given the continued uncertainty around global consumer demand.
We are reaffirming our full-year outlook for reported revenue of approximately flat and a slight decline on a constant currency basis, operating margin of approximately 8.8%, and EPS in the range of $11.80 to $12.10. I will now discuss our second quarter results in more detail and then move on to our outlook from a regional perspective. Americas revenue was down 1%, with DTC up slightly compared to the prior-year period. We continued to drive strong growth in our e-commerce business, which was up high single digits.
Wholesale revenue was down low single digits and reflected the timing shifts of certain shipments into the second half, as we discussed last quarter, primarily impacting the Calvin Klein business, partially offset by an increase in wholesale revenue driven by the license transitions for Tommy Hilfiger North America. In APAC, revenue was up 3% reported and up 1% in constant currency. DTC revenue grew low single digits in constant currency, led by growth in stores.
E-commerce was down slightly but remains on track for full-year growth. Wholesale revenue declined mid single digits in constant currency as our partners remain cautious within the region. We drove strong mid single digit e-commerce growth in constant currency in China. In Australia, while macro headwinds continue to weigh on consumer spending, we saw an improvement compared to the first quarter result. EMEA was down 6% in both reported and constant currency, reflecting continued macro pressure, including lower consumer demand due to the direct and indirect effects of the conflict in the Middle East.
DTC revenue declined low single digits in constant currency, improving compared to the mid single digit constant currency decline in the first quarter, with continued strength in e-commerce, which was up mid single digits and grew in both brands. Wholesale revenue declined high single digits in constant currency, reflecting the cautious market backdrop. In our licensing business, revenue was down 13% as expected due to the North America license transitions.
Excluding the impact of these transitions, our ongoing licensing business grew low single digits. Turning to our global brands, Tommy Hilfiger revenues were flat in both reported and constant currency and included an approximately 3 percentage point increase attributable to the wholesale sell-in of previously licensed Tommy Hilfiger women's product categories in the Americas. Excluding the transition impact, Tommy Hilfiger revenues were down approximately 3% versus last year.
Calvin Klein revenues were down 7% in both reported and constant currency and included an approximately 4 percentage point decrease attributable to the wholesale shipment timing in Americas, as just discussed. Excluding the timing impact, Calvin Klein revenues were down approximately 3% versus last year. From an overall channel perspective, direct-to-consumer revenue was flat in reported and constant currency. E-commerce grew 4% reported and 3% in constant currency, driven by growth in EMEA and Americas, with growth in both Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
Revenue in our retail stores was down 1% on both a reported and constant currency basis, with growth in APAC more than offset by decreases in EMEA and Americas. Wholesale revenue was down 6% in both reported and constant currency, primarily driven by EMEA. Americas and APAC also declined to a lesser extent. As I just discussed, in the second quarter our gross margin was 63%, an increase of 530 basis points compared to last year. During the quarter, we received the tariff refunds we discussed last quarter, which contributed $107 million and approximately 510 basis points benefit to gross margin.
Excluding the benefit of tariff refunds, gross margin increased approximately 20 basis points compared to last year and reflected lower product costs, including favorable foreign exchange, and favorable channel mix, partially offset by a more promotional environment in EMEA, increased tariff costs net of mitigation, and the impact of the North America license transitions. Notably, gross margin expanded in both APAC and in the Americas excluding tariff refunds, driven by higher AURs in DTC supported by strong promotional discipline and a benefit from favorable channel mix.
Inventory was down 3% and lower in all regions. We continue to tightly manage our inventory, and we have healthy levels of core products and improved stock freshness. Looking ahead, we expect Q3 inventory will be up year over year to support the Americas wholesale shipments, which are weighted more heavily to the second half compared to last year. SG&A increased 240 basis points to 51.9% of revenue but was better than planned, reflecting continued cost discipline across the business and an approximately 20 basis point timing benefit from a shift in marketing spend into Q3.
The increase versus last year reflected our continued investment in the business, including an 80 basis point increase in marketing, as well as a higher channel mix impact and deleverage on lower revenue. Excluding the increased marketing investment, SG&A dollars were approximately flat to last year in constant currency. In sum, EBIT for the second quarter was $233 million and operating margin was 11.1%, including the $107 million tariff refunds benefit, compared to EBIT of $178 million and an operating margin of 8.2% in the prior year.
Excluding the tariff refunds, EBIT for the second quarter was $126 million and operating margin was 6%. EPS was $3.70, including the approximately $1.80 benefit from the tariff refunds, compared to $2.52 last year. Interest expense was $12 million, and our tax rate was approximately 22% on a GAAP basis. We also recognized a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $439 million, reflecting changes in valuation assumptions associated with geopolitical and macroeconomic factors.
Now moving on to our outlook, we continue to expect full-year reported revenue to be approximately flat to the prior year and down slightly in constant currency, with relatively similar expectations for both Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger versus last year. Regionally, our revenue outlook also remains consistent with what we shared last quarter, with growth in both Americas and APAC offset by pressure in our EMEA business. Importantly, we continue to expect e-commerce growth for the full year in all regions.
For the year, we continue to expect gross margin and SG&A as a percent of revenue each to increase approximately 100 basis points versus last year, and we are reaffirming our operating margin outlook of approximately 8.8% and our EPS outlook of $11.80 to $12.10, which, as we talked about last quarter, includes the benefit of the tariff refunds we received in Q2. While new tariff rates have been recently announced, the situation remains fluid. We continue to closely monitor developments, work hand in hand with our partners, and actively manage our mitigation efforts.
On SG&A, we continue to invest in our brands and our business where we see momentum. We continue to expect that marketing spend will increase at least 50 basis points to approximately 6% of sales for the full year. And as Stefan shared, we are managing our costs with increased rigor, and this work will drive the discipline and governance needed to support additional savings in 2027 and beyond. Turning to below-the-line items, net interest expense is now expected to be approximately $70 million compared to $75 million previously.
Our expectation for our tax rate is unchanged at 22% to 23%. With respect to capital allocation, we remain on track with our plans for capital spending of approximately $250 million, or approximately 3% of sales, as we invest globally in e-commerce, stores, and shop-in-shop renovations, and we continue to expect to repurchase at least $300 million of our shares. Now moving to our outlook for the third quarter, we are projecting third quarter revenue to be down low single digits in both reported and constant currency compared to the prior year, with Q2 DTC trends generally expected to continue across all regions.
In Americas, we are planning revenue up mid single digits, with DTC up slightly and wholesale revenue benefiting from the planned first half to second half timing shift discussed previously, with the more significant timing benefit expected in Q4. In Asia Pacific, we expect revenue to be relatively flat in constant currency, as growth in DTC is offset by continued caution in wholesale. In EMEA, we expect revenue to continue to be down mid single digits in constant currency, with declines in both channels.
In our licensing business, revenue is expected to be down mid single digits, driven by the previously mentioned North America license transitions, with growth expected to continue in the go-forward business. We expect our third quarter gross margin to increase approximately 100 basis points compared to last year, reflecting lower product costs, including favorable foreign exchange, higher AURs, and favorable channel mix. We expect gross margin expansion in all three regions.
SG&A expense as a percent of revenue is expected to increase over 200 basis points compared to last year, reflecting strategic investments in our brands and our business, including approximately 100 basis points of higher marketing investment, as well as a higher channel mix impact and deleverage on lower revenue. For the second half, marketing as a percent of sales is expected to be up slightly versus last year, with spending weighted to Q3 due to the timing shift from Q2 and the acceleration of certain investments to maximize their impact around key consumer moments.
As a result, marketing as a percent of sales is expected to be up in Q3 and down in Q4 versus last year. Third quarter operating margin is expected to be approximately 7.5%, improving compared to Q2 operating margin excluding the tariff refunds benefit. EPS is expected to be in a range of $2.50 to $2.65, with a tax rate of approximately 22% and interest expense of approximately $18 million. In closing, we are pleased with our second quarter execution and the improvement in several parts of the business, while recognizing that the external environment remains uncertain.
Our targeted investments behind our brands, disciplined inventory and cost management, and continued execution of the PVH plan support our confidence in our full-year outlook and our ability to create long-term shareholder value. With that, operator, we would like to open it up for questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, press star one on your keypad. To leave the queue at any time, press star two. Once again, that is star one to ask a question, and our first question today comes from Bob Drbul with BTIG. Your line is now open.
Bob Drbul, Analyst
Hi, good morning. I was wondering if you could spend some time on the marketing side. It's been really good visibility, some of the activations, and I'm just curious if you can talk to the marketing ROI that you're seeing with some of these pretty high-profile campaigns. And I guess I was also curious if you had to pay Travis Kelce for his dog in the comment video.
Stefan Larsson, CEO
Thanks, Bob. I'll come back to Travis dog, Wendy. So we'll come back to Wendy because Wendy now has multimillion following on social, as I'm sure you have seen. So just grateful that he decided to bring his own dog to the shoot. And it tells you a little bit about Travis connection and partnership with Tommy. It's pretty incredible. But let me back up and talk about the strengthening marketing ROI because it's really something that excites us because we see that our investments and the way it's—especially our investments and the way we apply those investments—that drive the strengthening ROI.
So the key leading indicator is we see strong, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we see strong traffic growth. Consumer acquisition is really strong, targeted to our power segment, the status shopper and the style enthusiast. So we see the e-commerce traffic, Calvin up double digits, Tommy up high single digits. That's a very strong leading indicator that then drives the D2C growth, e-commerce growth across the company, including in, including in Europe.
Given that we had a disruption from the Middle East war, we were still able to drive strong traffic increase and e-commerce growth and then full D2C growth in North America and APAC where we had less disruption. So those, those are really encouraging proof points. Then I often feel like it's best to break it down into concrete examples. And if we look at fall and the start of fall, we are just—the brands are lined up stronger with more integrated campaigns since, I would say, since we started the PVH journey.
And as you know, we have had a lot of heavy lifting to do to get the foundation in place. But when you see Calvin start with Tate McRae and Sadie Sink—let's just take Sadie Sink, the most recent talent—and it's not just about the talent, it's incredible, but it's the way the campaign is built up in the key and core categories. So it's a denim campaign that connects many different talent to feel the fit, and then it's denim and underwear. And if you look at denim and underwear, that's a big part of Calvin Klein.
So if you look at the Sadie campaign so far, just with Sadie: 14% social engagement rate, which is really high. Consumer mentions versus spring up 60%. Over 20 million views on Instagram first week. But here's what's really interesting: 96% of those views were from non-followers, status shopper demographics 18 to 34. So we are starting to become really effective in driving our consumer acquisition to our target consumer. They already love the brand because both Calvin and Tommy are two of the most—two out of five, seven—most beloved brands globally.
And then we are getting more and more effective to connect the different parts of the consumer journey. Travis. I have to come back to Travis. 10% social engagement since we launched—really high. Search interest globally up. Over 20 media outlets in the US only have been writing about Travis and Tommy. Travis mentioned it on his podcast, which is a top 10 podcast globally. We have 1 billion impressions on social first 24 hours. Instagram views up versus same time last fall 500%.
And you can see how this is driving. So in Q2 you saw how this started to drive return in sweaters up double digit in revenue, shirts and polos up mid single digit, transitional outerwear up. So that's what's driving the strengthening of the ROI. But I'm really proud of the team's work on lining up such strong fall start. And you should check it out on both Calvin and Tommy. If you haven't checked it out, it's very good. Do we have more work to do?
Of course. We can improve in every single area. But it's a lot of foundational work that has led to the strength of fall.
Bob Drbul, Analyst
Thank you very much.
Zac Coughlin, CFO
And Bob, I'll just add in terms of our outlook, we previously shared that we're increasing our full-year marketing investment by at least 50 basis points as a percentage of sales compared to last year, bringing it to 6%. And that in the second half we would lap the stepped-up level of investment that we began in 2025 in the second half. And so within that we are rebalancing our investment between Q3 and Q4 to drive that consistent drumbeat in fall and into holiday that Stefan just talked about.
Bob Drbul, Analyst
Thanks Melissa. Thanks Paul.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jay Sol with UBS. Your line is now open.
Jay Sol, Analyst at UBS
Great. Thank you so much. My question's about the trends in Europe. You mentioned the order book for spring. Can you just talk about what you see as the underlying demand for the brand? Because it sounds like you're going to take some actions to be able to sort of fulfill at once for wholesale partners to make it easier for them. But just talk about what you think the Europe business can grow in total from a total sellout standpoint, including all channels, as you get through this year and into next year, and kind of why you feel that way.
Thank you.
Stefan Larsson, CEO
Thanks, Jay. Really important question. So if we look at Q2 for Europe, we were early—one, if not the most early—to flag the Middle East war effect, and we took a hit in Q1 for that. But what is good to see is what we said we were going to do and the trends we saw, we delivered in Q2. So Europe continued to be consistent with what we expected coming into Q2, coming out of Q2. But within that, we see e-commerce growth increasing, and it's very much driven to what Bob asked about, the marketing effectiveness in the areas where we have the most control of the end-to-end consumer experience.
We drove strong growth in traffic and growth in D2C e-commerce, and then all D2C trends overall in Q2 improved in Europe versus Q1. So to your point, we are focusing on two things here. We are working closer with our key accounts than any time before. So we know that wholesale, when they have a tough season like we had in spring in Europe, they will be cautious going into the next spring. We knew that and we know that. So what we're doing is we're working super closely with them on a very granular level to make sure that we lean in even more into the key growth strategy, even more into our key franchises with newness and innovation.
Because having spent a lot of my time this summer in Europe with the team, where we lean into the key growth categories, where we lean into the best franchises, where we have newness and innovation—whether it's transitional outerwear, shirts, denim, underwear—we are able to drive growth. So the way we apply that is much more granular: even more detailed planning on a key account level for next spring, but also complementing the forward-looking orders with the in-season replenishment, which is just going to be increasingly important.
So we are working closely with identifying our key categories, key franchises, right price points, right timing with accounts, and then having capability to replenish much more in season. So if you look at the forward-looking order books, it's north of 50% of the wholesale sales and the rest is in season. So that's how we work with wholesale. On D2C, we just continue to lean into the consumer love that's so strong in Europe for both Calvin and Tommy.
Again, I share it with the team coming back—I was at five, six, seven different airports in Europe this summer—it's incredible when you are at peak holiday period, you walk around in an airport, you take a coffee, and you see so many consumers wearing Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. So it's really about taking share in a market that's being disrupted by the Middle East. But the good news is e-commerce up, D2C improved, and closer to our wholesale accounts.
Jay Sol, Analyst at UBS
Got it. Okay, that's great. Thank you so much.
OPERATOR
Thank you. And our next question comes from Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is now open. Hi.
Dana Telsey, Analyst at Telsey Advisory Group
Good morning everyone. Stefan, as you think about the licensing transition, how is it progressing? What are you seeing there and how are you thinking about the brands and the categories go forward? Last quarter you mentioned about the hero products and new products. What are you seeing now and your thoughts for the future? Thank you.
Stefan Larsson, CEO
Thanks, Dana. As I mentioned as well in my prepared remarks, the licensing business—super important to us—and there are really two big parts there. The transition of our women's licensing in North America is on plan and going to be done by end of this year. So underlying the next part. So we are on plan and it's going to be done by the end of this year. The next big part in licensing from an investor perspective that's super important to share is we are leaning in and growing with our brand-building licensing partners.
We have over $300 million revenue coming from licensing. It's reoccurring, it's growing. So we are growing underneath the transition of Women's North America. We are growing our go-forward licensing portfolio. And having Joel Samaha come in with his deep licensing and partner experience has been really exciting to see what he has already been able to do with the strengths we have already on the team, on our licensing team, to set us up for overall licensing growth for 2027.
So it's really—our strategy is very clear. We are in control of the core brand expression, and we do those categories better and better and better as you can see in our e-commerce, D2C growth, etc. And then we complement that with expertise from our best partners globally. And I spend a lot of time with our partners, and it's the combination that excites them: that we are building the consumer flywheel in the core proposition of the brand, we are investing in relevance for the brands—relevance at the core categories—and then they complement that with relevance where they have more expertise than us.
It's been a long transition, but we are looking at the other end now where we see overall growth starting in 2027, and then we just continue to grow from there.
Dana Telsey, Analyst at Telsey Advisory Group
Got it. And then the product hero versus versus fashion. How are you thinking about that for the back half of the year for the brands also?
Stefan Larsson, CEO
Super interesting question. So Heroes has a lot of fashion in it as well. So if you look at denim, where when we look at our deep consumer research, we saw early in the PVH journey that we stand so strong in underwear and so strong in denim, but the business in denim is much smaller versus what the consumer sees us having the right to play. So when we lean into denim now, double-digit growth. Double-digit AUR growth. So here comes the pricing power.
And within that, we have a lot of ways that we have made the iconic Calvin denim more current than ever before. So it's really the combination of when something is iconic and something is fashionable and current, that's when it really works. Same with Tommy—leaning into sweaters and cable knits and building out those franchises, and then having Travis in those cable knits and loving the brand. And so it's really the combination of leaning into what's iconic—and we know from consumer research that the consumer already loves with the brands.
We don't have to convince anyone that they like Calvin and Tommy. It's about driving that brand love through the full funnel. And that's what we are doing, better and better. So it's a mix between—it has to be iconic and it has to be fresh, current, and fashionable. So you should again really check out how we show up in Calvin in denim, how we show up in underwear, how we show up in sweaters, transitional outerwear in Tommy. It's really a big step forward this fall.
Dana Telsey, Analyst at Telsey Advisory Group
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Blake Anderson with Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Blake Anderson, Analyst
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. So I wanted to ask first, it would be great to hear Alexi's key priorities in the new CFO role and going forward. And then if you could comment on the U.S. region and the consumer there — there's still higher gas prices. Would be curious how the macro impact is unfolding there on your business and especially any comments you're seeing on pricing elasticity given the AURs you're seeing there. Thanks so much.
Stefan Larsson, CEO
Yeah, thanks, Blake. So couldn't be more thrilled to have Alexis join. I know you have been waiting patiently from the investor community for our search to be completed, but what I shared through the process is true, which is we needed to find the person with the right experience. So here is Alexi — why his experience is so important to us is he has been part of the global leadership team for Sephora for a long time. During his tenure they have significantly expanded the business and the way they have done it is increasingly profitable.
So I wanted to find a partner on the finance side that is equally interested in the consumer-facing improvements of Calvin and Tommy as the efficiency part. So part of his priorities coming in, he's going to be here in New York with us on Monday, starting Monday next week or Tuesday after Labor Day. And one of the key priorities here is driving and leading together with me and the leadership team the increased cost focus. Because it's both — we are going to drive very focused investment in driving the consumer flywheel and you're going to see 2027 significant improvements on the cost side as well.
And we have not waited for Alexis to lean into that. But his experience of doing this with deep European experience, deep U.S. experience, APAC experience — and Sephora, they have gotten to be known for, they just deliver. So it's really exciting to have him join. Your next question, when it comes to the U.S. consumer. So we see the U.S. consumer being very resilient and holding up, and we see the consumer in the U.S. responding really well to where we lean into these key categories and key franchises.
We see the pricing power coming up. So it's really about delivering great value to the consumer. And that comes out of two pieces: relevance in brand and product, and the right price. And everywhere where we take that iconic strength of the brands and translate that into relevancy in product and create great price-value, it works really well. So we are encouraged so far. Dynamic environment, but we are encouraged by the consumer.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Binetti with Evercore. Your line is now open.
Michael Binetti, Analyst at Evercore
Hey guys, thanks for all your help here today. Stefan, you talked about the EMEA spring orders for next year down mid-singles. Thanks for that. As you guys work closely with the wholesale channel, maybe talk a little bit about what you can do to try to drive the direct-to-consumer channel towards positivity in that environment, since that's where you have a lot more control. And then I think we've heard a lot of retailers talk about investing tariff refunds in lower prices in the U.S. Is that contemplated in the guidance considering the fourth quarter gross margin compressing year over year that Melissa talked about? And then I guess when you look at some of the medium-term comments that you have given us today, some of the run-rate cost efficiencies, the spring order books, the licensing wrapping up this year, it's pretty noisy. Is there a starting point we can think about for how the operating margins in the business should trend in 2027?
Stefan Larsson, CEO
Okay, Michael, so thank you. I picked up three parts of your question. So let me start and Melissa and I will take turns, but let me start on the D2C part. So that's where we see, again to your point, that's where we see the biggest proof points. Despite the disruptive background in Europe, e-commerce is up. D2C is better in Europe in Q2 versus Q1 and it's very clear. And Americas and APAC D2C up as planned, and we continue to have them up for the rest of the year.
And we really see — we are really clear on what's driving that D2C growth. It is that increased brand relevance, increased targeting the Gen Z/young millennial, increased focus on the key categories and putting newness and innovation, and putting investments behind the newness and innovation in the big franchises and really letting that show up super strong in the doors and stores. So that's very similar to how we work with our best wholesale partners.
I spent a lot of time with some of our best and biggest partners this summer in Europe and what's really exciting is they are really good retailers and they have really good consumer insights. And so they know — they see where the consumer is going and they see it across the market. So it's really hand in hand working closer with them on making sure we have enough newness and innovation in matching their consumer demand — whether it's denim, underwear, sweaters, transitional outerwear — and where we have that, we see that we drive growth with them.
And then, as I shared, in-season is going to be even more important with wholesale. So that's why the closeness of our key account partnership is just going to be even more important. And the way we already now prepare for Spring '27 to compensate for that cautiousness in the forward-looking order books is to make sure that we are ready to replenish our best sellers. And our best sellers — we are so clear on what they are right now. So when I'm coming back to Europe this summer, when I'm out in the five markets and the over 30 stores, I see so much growth opportunity just by being better in inventory, bigger and better presentation of our key categories, best franchises. And that's how we work across taking the D2C strength and also tapping into the strengths of our partners. Because when we combine their strength with our strength, that's when we can really mitigate the external disruption. The third, let's see here, the third question.
Melissa Stone (Interim Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Global Financial Planning and Analysis)
I think there's a question on gross margin, so I can just touch on that. So as we think about gross margin — yeah. So we have not changed our overall gross margin guidance for the year. In Q2, we drove gross margin better than planned, up 20 basis points including the tariff refunds. And we expect Q3 gross margin to be up about 100 basis points with expansion in all regions as we continue to drive that D2C strength through higher AURs, as we've already done in Q2 in Americas and APAC.
So we've seen a good start to fall, as Stefan talked about with our product, and Q3 is when most of our fall product ships, which supports that expansion. So we feel good about Q3 gross margin. And then when we think about Q4 and given our guidance for the full year, that does, as you mentioned, imply we expect gross margin will be lower. And so there's three things I'll mention as we think about that. First, there's a channel mix effect in Q4 when you think about that weighted timing of the North America wholesale shipments that we've mentioned.
Second, we're giving ourselves some flexibility to strategically support a promotional holiday landscape if that becomes necessary. And then the third thing is that there continues to be uncertainty around tariff rates, and so we have embedded support for volatility in that as well. And so I think we think that's a prudent approach given where we're at in the year and the dynamic operating environment.
Stefan Larsson, CEO
I would say, building on what Melissa just said, Michael, we take a prudent approach. We feel good about reaffirming our guidance, and then I'm not going to stress anyone out internally with giving guidance for next year, but what I can say is that we are really leaning into cost as a real driver of EBIT margin expansion. So you should expect that we are significantly leaning into that, and you should see an effect in 2027. More to be guided when it's time for guidance of '27.
Michael Binetti, Analyst at Evercore
Thanks. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. At this time we've reached our allotted time for questions. I'll now turn the call back to Stefan for any additional or closing remarks.
Stefan Larsson, CEO
All right, thank you everyone for investing your time with us this morning. What I would really like to reiterate is engage with Calvin and Tommy on TikTok. Engage in a way where you search Tommy and Travis, Calvin and Sadie, or Calvin and Tate — like really see, because one thing is what we say as brands but it's really what the consumer says. So as soon as we launch a campaign I spend a lot of hours at night looking at what others are saying. What's the consumer — that's the kind of consumer landscape we live in now. So you will firsthand see on TikTok, you will see the engagement on Instagram, click-through to shop, and the connection between the campaigns and the brand relevance and the key franchises and key categories. I hope you see what I see, which is — and the consumer sees — that it's much stronger. It's a step in the right direction and I'm sure you will see opportunities and send them my way because we are heads down just continuing to improve.
But check out Calvin and Tommy for the fall campaigns and looking forward to reconnecting next quarter. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.
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