Greetings, and welcome to the VF Corporation Second Quarter fiscal year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Allegra Perry, VP of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Good afternoon, and welcome to VF Corporation Second Quarter fiscal 2023 Conference Call. Participants on today's call will make forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These uncertainties are detailed in documents filed regularly with the SEC.
Unless otherwise noted, amounts referred to on today's call will be on an adjusted constant dollar basis, which we've defined in the press release that was issued this afternoon and which we use as lead numbers in our discussion because we believe they more accurately represent the true operational performance and underlying results in our business. You may also hear us refer to reported amounts which are in accordance with U.S. GAAP.
Reconciliations of GAAP measures to adjusted amounts can be found in the supplemental financial tables included in the press release, which identify and quantify all excluded items and provide management's view of why this information is useful to investors. Unless otherwise noted, results presented on today's call are based on continuing operations. Joining me on the call will be VF's Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Rendle; EVP, and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Puckett. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. I'll now hand over to Steve.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our Second Quarter fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. I'll provide an operational update for the quarter and for the year to date, and Matt will provide a review of our financial performance. I'd like to first start with a few words on the macroeconomic environment, which even since we met for our Investor Day exactly a month ago, continues to dynamically evolve.
While consumer health remains relatively intact across most of our markets, we continue to see global trends result in more choiceful and cautious spending behavior. In North America, we saw a mixed back-to-school result across product categories, and today are seeing variable traffic patterns across channels and an elevating promotional environment in most markets. The situation in China continues to improve, although rolling lockdowns have slowed this progress.
Despite continued softness in China, we're seeing pockets of growth in this market led by The North Face as the brand's global leadership role in the important outdoor TAM continues to influence this relatively under-penetrated market. Outside of China, we're seeing further improvement across rest of Asia, led by Japan and Korea, which remain highly influential on Greater China.
We had another quarter of strong growth across our portfolio of brands in Europe, despite a backdrop of deteriorating consumer confidence. Despite this mixed macroeconomic picture, our portfolio of brands continues to deliver a broad-based performance as consumers continue to prioritize their active lifestyles and lean on our brands to fulfill those needs. The investments we're driving into our key strategic growth capabilities and platforms continue to support the growth of our brands.
For the quarter, our revenue grew by 2% and our adjusted operating income was approximately $380 million. We returned $194 million in cash to shareholders, bringing the year-to-date total to nearly $390 million. As you heard at our recent Investor Day, we are committed to building on those things that have always made us uniquely VF and to growing our highly intentional portfolio of brands.
To start with Vans, our actions to accelerate momentum at the brand are still early and as anticipated, sales in the second quarter were lower, primarily as a result of a disappointing back-to-school season in the Americas. Q2 sales were down 8%, bringing year-to-date revenue to -6% and -1% excluding China.
As mentioned at Investor Day, we have a deep and broad bench of strong talent at VF and are now strategically deploying this into the Vans business. We recently made two important appointments, adding a new position of Chief Product and Merchandising Officer and bringing a key leader from The North Face to head up digital.
In terms of Vans product, innovation in the Progression Footwear line, which today represents 25% of brand sales, continues to drive an uptick in demand with the new UltraRange EXO MTE Hi showing strong initial sell-through. As you heard from Kevin Bailey at the Investor Day, it'll take some time for the product-facing initiatives to be introduced, and when they come, we are confident that they will have a positive impact on the brand's results.
Traffic to our stores and digital platforms continued to be below historic levels, while the industry-leading conversion in store remains in line with our historic levels. Our test-and-learn in-store merchandising sprints are showing early indications of improvement in both stores and online. Our focus in the second half is to prioritize initiatives that drive traffic into our direct channels, where we have the opportunity to benefit from our strong conversion rates. I remain confident that we have the right people and the right strategy and will execute to deliver results at Vans.
Now to The North Face, which continues to deliver strong and broad-based performance and prove its undisputed leadership in the outdoor category with revenue up 14% versus last year. Reflecting double-digit growth across all regions and channels and leading to our biggest second quarter ever for the brand, bringing the year-to-date growth to 21%.
As you heard from Nicole Otto at the Investor Day, product innovation remains at the forefront of the brand's continued momentum. With a good start to the season in outerwear, which showed strength in soft shells, fleece, and lightweight insulated jackets as consumers prepared for the coming fall/winter conditions. In addition to the good performance of outerwear, the continued focus on 365-day apparel in the Americas led to double-digit growth in D2C for this region. Bags and luggage saw global success with recovering summer travel and a strong back-to-school season driving energy for the brand. Finally, The North Face and Gucci Chapter 3 collab launched and drove meaningful brand heat.
The brand continues to push boundaries with its technical innovation and was recently recognized by Outside's 2023 Winter Gear Guide, which featured eight, that's right, I said eight products from The North Face as season must-haves. In addition, I'm extremely proud that The North Face VECTIV Fastpack Insulated FUTURELIGHT Boot received the Editor's Choice Award and a feature-length review alongside its inclusion in the best winter hiking boots of 2023.
I encourage you to check this out. The North Face continues to deploy innovative tactics in order to deepen its understanding and connection with consumers and to enhance engagement. XPLR Pass membership added more than 800,000 new members in Q2, surpassing 15 million members in total. Overall, the brand has strong and balanced momentum and is well-positioned to continue to generate long-term sustainable growth. On to Timberland.
Q2 sales growth was up 3% versus last year, impacted slightly by shipment timing. Sales for the first half are up 7% versus last year, running slightly ahead of its long-term plans as the brand continues to perform well. You heard recently from Global Brand President Susie Mulder about Timberland's sharpened focus, and it's paying off.
Our new integrated brand and product campaign, Built for the Bold, taps into our cultural relevance and work and outdoor heritage with progressive products like the Greenstride Turbo Hiker, the number one new fall 2022 style across all regions and channels, and the new Trailquest Hiker, driving growth during launch week. As part of our marketplace strategy, the campaign launched in New York City and London, driving sales, traffic, and strong growth across digital platforms. Overall, the campaign has topped an impressive 1 billion impressions.
We continue to see momentum in EMEA, with growth over 50% in our community membership month-over-month, and with the business being up nearly 20% in the quarter. We also continued to drive brand heat and attract new consumers with collaborations like Veneda Carter, with more than 70% of purchasers in EMEA being new to the brand.
Finally, our pro business returned to growth this quarter, fueled by strong performance in brick and mortar and a new campaign focused on bringing new consumers into the skilled trades. In all, a solid quarter for Timberland with momentum as we head into Q3. Finally, to round out the big four, Dickies. Global revenue was down 15% in Q2 and 14% in the half.
In the quarter, we saw strong growth in EMEA, driven by work lifestyle as the brand continues to gain traction in this region. These results were outweighed by further impacts in the Americas relating to our largest wholesale customer, which continues to tightly manage inventory levels. This performance impacted global results by about 10% in the quarter. Outside the value consumer, the brand is healthy, as you recently heard from new Global Brand President, Lance Miller, at our Investor Day.
The Icon's business was up mid-single digits in the Americas, with women's being a significant contributor. While overall Asia Pac continues to feel the impacts from COVID-related disruption, we continue to make progress in key markets beyond Greater China, experiencing significant growth with partners in Japan and successful expansion in South Korea.
On the marketing front, Made in Dickies campaign, celebrating the brand's 100-year anniversary, continues to support brand awareness with a meaningful growth in impressions driving organic pickup on prominent social media platforms. Dickies continues to expand its appeal with new consumers in all regions while maintaining strong brand momentum, giving us confidence in our long-range plans for the brand.
Turning to the rest of the portfolio in Q2. I'll start with Supreme, where the brand grew revenue by 7%. The fall/winter season has had a good opening. We've dropped the new Yohji Yamamoto collection as well as the Nike ACG release and launched the André 3000 poster campaign. Stores continue to see strong foot traffic in all regions, with Japan showing particularly good trends leading into the reopening of tourism. We also renovated our Harajuku store with the opening event featuring performances by Bladee and Yung Lean.
Our outdoor emerging brands in aggregate grew by 14%, driven by continued outstanding growth at Altra, which achieved a strong double-digit growth rate in both road running and trail running, and was up mid-teens in the Americas and triple digits in EMEA. The brand's performance has been fueled by continued success of the Lone Peak, as well as launches of key styles like Torin 6, Olympus 5, Outroad, and the Mont Blanc BOA. Smartwool revenue in Q2 grew by low double digits, driven by apparel up in the mid-20 range.
We saw continued momentum in base layer and the launch of Intraknit mid-layer collection. Icebreaker was up mid-single digits, led by strong brick-and-mortar performance and the launch of Shell Plus, a 100% natural outer layer, which has already won multiple innovation awards.
Icebreaker launched their fourth transparency report, celebrating 95% plastic-free materials and pioneering a journey towards regenerative wool practices. Momentum in our packs business continued in Q2, with high teens growth for the quarter, driven by strong back-to-school performance and continued recovery in global travel trends.
Across the majority of our business, we are delivering strong revenue growth as the investments behind our strategic growth platforms are yielding positive results. As we have highlighted before, our intentionally built portfolio of brands is generating broad-based growth, excluding Vans, which is early in its work to reset, refocus, and re-accelerate. The remainder of our portfolio grew revenue by 11% in the first half, with outdoor emerging brands continuing to gain scale and our packs business recovering nicely and seeing an acceleration of growth to +25% across the same period.
Regionally, our EMEA business continues to deliver consistently strong results, outperforming the broader European marketplace. Our first half revenue was up 16%, highlighting the strength of our portfolio, the relevance of our brands across all markets, and the important strength of our DTC international platforms.
The North Face business continues to power forward, including, and importantly, The North Face grew first half revenue by nearly 30% in Greater China, where most brands inside VF and across the broader market have been impacted by ongoing disruption. The Dickies brand is continuing to gain momentum across the work lifestyle segment, where sales excluding China were up about 20% in the first half.
We are continuing to actively manage the near-term challenges presented by our largest brand, Vans, the ongoing COVID-related disruption in China, and the broader macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges which have created an unprecedented level of uncertainty which all businesses and consumers are navigating. I remain confident in our ability to deliver on our overall revenue targets as we prepare to maximize our potential when the macroeconomic environment improves, leveraging VF's powerful brands, unique business model, and critical strategic growth platforms.
In summary, our performance in Q2 reflects a balanced delivery of results and speaks to our resiliency as we adapt to an increasingly variable and softer consumer backdrop. Our purpose-built portfolio of iconic, deeply loved brands continues to benefit from strong tailwinds in the outdoor, workwear, streetwear, and active spaces.
We continue to invest behind digital and innovation, with our brands generating a regular cadence of new product initiatives, driving an increasingly closer connection to our consumers. The quality of our performance is a testament to our deep bench of strong talent and the incredible teams whose enthusiasm, hard work, and commitment continue to enable us to deliver results. I remain incredibly impressed and grateful for their ongoing contributions. I will now hand over to Matt to take you through our financial performance. Matt?
Thanks, Steve, and good afternoon, everyone. As Steve mentioned, we delivered a balanced set of results in Q2 as we adapt to a more variable and softening consumer environment. Revenue was up 2% in constant dollar terms and up 4% excluding China. For first half, revenue was +4% and +7% excluding China. After accounting for a negative FX translational impact of approximately $195 million, nearly double the level seen in Q1, sales were down by 4% on a reported basis in the quarter.
Globally, both our wholesale and direct-to-consumer businesses generated low single-digit growth in Q2, and DTC returned to growth at the VF level, despite a lower performance than anticipated from Vans North America. Our adjusted EPS was $0.73, down 34% or down 27% on a constant dollar basis.
About 1/3 of this reduction versus last year relates to non-operating impacts. Before I unpack the P&L in more detail, I'll give you an update on the operating environment across our primary geographies. While rolling lockdowns continued to disrupt operations in China during Q2, we are otherwise open for business from a COVID standpoint across the value chain.
Revenue in the Americas was down 3%, but up 3% excluding Vans, against a difficult macro backdrop characterized by softer traffic and components of our D2C network, higher inventory levels across the marketplace, and an increasingly promotional environment. Our outdoor businesses continue to perform strongly, led by The North Face, growing low double digits% in the quarter and continuing to generate strong sell-out across channels.
Vans' performance in the region was down 11%, impacted by lower back-to-school sales and increasingly cautious approach by our wholesale partners, leading to higher cancellations and lower traffic affecting our direct channels.
Finally, Dickies, down 17%, was impacted by further inventory adjustments made by our largest third-party retailer. Across the rest of the business, the brand was down low single digits overall, despite similar inventory pressures in other more value-end consumer work accounts. This was helped by double-digit growth in work-inspired products.
Our business in EMEA remains strong despite a further deterioration in consumer confidence and the corresponding impact to traffic levels. Revenue in the region was up 12% in the quarter, and by 16% in the year-to-date, driven by broad-based growth across all brands, with all brands growing and 10 brands growing double digits in the quarter.
Both D2C and wholesale are up double digits, again signaling the broad-based strength our brands are enjoying in the region. Within wholesale, the third-party digital business was softer, reflecting a more conservative approach to inventory, as well as some cancellations amidst lower traffic. By market, four of the five largest markets generated strong double-digit growth, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany.
As anticipated, APAC progressively improved and returned to growth, with revenue plus 2% in Q2, in line with our plans, a testament to the strength of our brands and to the efforts of our teams to respond with agility to ongoing market headwinds, particularly in China. The performance in Greater China improved to down 10% in the quarter, in contrast to down 30% in Q1, but continues to be impacted by widespread rolling COVID lockdowns and restrictions, as well as lower consumer spending.
This result was largely in line with our expectations for the half. The rest of Asia improved further, growing 30% during the quarter. The outdoor segment continues to experience favorable tailwinds, and The North Face delivered yet another quarter of strong double-digit growth across the region, highlighted by revenue growth of nearly 30% in the first half in Greater China.
Now moving on to gross margin, where we were again adversely impacted by a number of factors in the quarter. Our adjusted gross margin was down by 240 basis points. As anticipated, after two negative quarters, the mix impact was flat in the quarter. Rate was down 220 basis points, primarily reflecting higher discounts, increased promotional activity, and elevated inventory levels. Higher product costs have been offset by planned price increases. Turning to an update of the supply chain environment.
Our supply chain is one of our key strategic platforms and a competitive advantage for VF. As you heard from Cameron Bailey at our recent Investor Day, we continue to act with agility and speed, leveraging our scale and diversification to mitigate ongoing headwinds and disruption. Our sourcing and production base remains open and is operating with greater diversification stemming from a concerted effort to move production closer to consumption where it makes sense.
We are still feeling the effects from the eight weeks of large-scale lockdowns in China during Q1 as the impacts work through the system. While much more stable, we continued to deal with ongoing micro lockdowns and the impacts to operations in China during Q2. That said, our diversification, scale, and agility were enabling us to adjust as needed to minimize disruption.
From a logistics standpoint, we are seeing a further improvement in transit times across the water and dwell times in port, which are contributing to improving overall predictability and reliability. Although it's worth noting that variability continues to remain somewhat elevated as compared to the pre-pandemic environment.
Overall, we've begun to reduce lead times from both a production and logistics perspective, although the total cycle time is still higher than historical levels. We anticipate closer to normal lead times as we move into fall 2023. On the cost side, both ocean and air spot rates reduced further during the quarter, but remain substantially higher than historic levels. Finally, our port and route diversification strategy in North America remains in place as we continue to follow the ongoing West Coast labor negotiations.
This allows us to more consistently and better serve the consumer, but adds cost in the short term. In summary, while the situation continues to improve gradually, the supply chain overall remains disrupted relative to the pre-pandemic norm. Let me spend a couple minutes on inventory, which of course is the hot topic at the moment.
As we mentioned on our last earnings call, during Q1, we implemented a supply chain financing program with the majority of our finished goods suppliers. This results in us taking ownership of inventory at the point of shipment rather than at the destination point, meaning we own the inventory for an additional month or so. There's no impact on cash flow since the point at which payment is due to the supplier hasn't changed.
The increase in inventory is offset by an increase in accounts payable, as evidenced by our Q2 result, where payables were up 91% in the quarter. As part of the program, as of September 1st, VF has increased payment terms with the majority of its finished goods suppliers. This change will begin to benefit VF's overall cash flow later in half two, and this impact has been contemplated in our operating cash flow outlook.
Inventory levels are up 88% versus last year, including an increase of about $510 million in in-transit inventories relating to the supply chain financing program. Excluding this factor, inventories are up 58% versus last year. On an organic basis, excluding in-transit versus Q2 of fiscal 2020, which is a pre-pandemic comparison, gross inventories are up about 35%.
Roughly 75% of the increase versus last year was to right size the inventory levels from their unusually low levels and to support this year's growth plans. The balance of the increase largely represents higher than planned levels of inventory at Vans and Dickies, primarily in core products. Actions are underway to mitigate this and ensure we are well positioned at our fiscal year-end, and importantly, as we manage the overall health and levels of inventory towards spring and summer 2023.
These include adjustments to forward purchases where possible, controlled sell down of excess and distressed inventory, and in some cases, where the stock is largely replenishment, plans to carry a higher level of inventory in the near term, such as in the case of core Dickies workwear product.
Now to wrap up the P&L. Our adjusted operating margin was down by 440 basis points, reflecting lower gross margins as well as ongoing targeted investments which we continue to make to advance our key strategic priorities and support our brands' growth opportunities. SG&A was up 7% on a constant dollar basis in the quarter. Still above, but more in line with our full year revenue growth outlook of 5%-6%. Operating expense deleveraged in the quarter, the result of three key factors.
First, we continue to invest behind our key strategic priorities. Those investments were up by 9% in the quarter, primarily reflecting initiatives in the digital and technology space and continued investment in demand and product creation in the brands. Second, our revenue growth of +2% in the quarter is projected to be our lowest quarterly growth of the fiscal year.
Finally, lower profit margins in our highly profitable Vans direct-to-consumer business, reflecting the brand's recent performance. We are continuing to maintain strict cost management against all controllable spend. Moving on to our outlook for the rest of fiscal 2023. We are confirming our full year revenue outlook of +5%-6% constant dollar growth, and now expect about 6.5 points of impact from foreign currency translation on reported revenues.
Considering the velocity with which the macro environment and the marketplace has evolved, even since we at last updated you just a month ago, we're taking a more cautious approach in planning profitability for the balance of our fiscal year. That said, we're proactively taking near-term actions to drive higher revenue and profit in our half two amidst a difficult and highly promotional environment.
Specifically, we are leveraging our portfolio strengths and sharing learnings across the organization in order to, first, increase consumer traffic, engagement, and conversion in our direct channels. Leveraging better performing tactics across our company and deploying these to other areas. Second, we'll drive the profitable sale of excess inventory utilizing our own channels first, followed by other important strategic partners.
Third, we will work with our brands, particularly those that are performing well, to position the businesses that Spring 2023 early in our fiscal Q4, where opportunities exist to drive incremental revenue. Finally, we will reduce all non-strategic controllable spend in the year-to-go period. We remain committed to maximizing profitability in the back half of the year in the face of a challenging set of macro factors.
Within the details of our fiscal year 2023 revenue outlook of +5%-6% constant dollar growth, we are anticipating The North Face will grow by at least 12%, suggesting an implied half two growth rate of at least 7%. Our Vans guidance for the year to be down mid-single digits implies a low- to mid-single-digit decline in half two. A slightly better result than in half one, where the brand declined 6%, driven by easier prior year compares in China.
Moving on to our fiscal year 2023 adjusted gross margin outlook. Considering a more impactful promotional environment reflecting the heightened and increasing levels of inventory across the marketplace and ongoing U.S. dollar strengthening, we now anticipate gross margins to be down by 100-150 basis points versus last year.
As a result of the lower gross margin and greater foreign currency impacts, we are lowering our adjusted operating margin guidance to be approximately 11%. Our EPS range is now anticipated to be $2.40-$2.50 relative to $3.18 last year. We've mentioned previously, there are several non-operating factors that are impacting the compare to last year, and these have only increased with the larger foreign currency headwinds.
The total negative impact versus last year of these factors, led by a FX translation impact of $0.31, is about $0.50. Finally, a quick update on our projected cash evolution this year. Our full year guidance implies continued healthy cash generation over the course of the year, with adjusted operating cash flow, excluding the one-time Timberland tax deposit, expected to be at least $900 million.
To give you an update on the Timberland tax deposit, the appeal was filed on October seventh, and we made the forecasted payment of $876 million in the early part of Q3, while at the same time drawing down $800 million against a recently established term loan facility with capacity up to $1 billion. We've approved a further increase in the dividend to $0.51 a share as part of our ongoing commitment to return cash to shareholders. Finally, our balance sheet remains sound, with liquidity expected to exceed $2.3 billion at year-end. I'd like to conclude my prepared remarks by reiterating the confidence we have in our strategy and our commitment to delivering superior shareholder returns.
We will continue to invest in our portfolio of brands and our strategic platforms in order to further strengthen our business model and position us to drive consistent, sustainable, and profitable growth over the long term. As I said at Investor Day, we are committed to being a growth company consisting of growth brands and are well positioned to perform despite a softening consumer environment and continued elevated uncertainty. Finally, I continue to be impressed with the invaluable contributions and achievements of our teams, which make all the difference in ensuring VF is well positioned to continue to deliver against our strategy. Thank you. We're happy to now open the line and take your questions.
Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that's star one at this time. One moment while we post our first question. Our first question comes from Michael Binetti with Credit Suisse. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking our question here. Matt, I wanna dig in on some of the actions to drive revenue and profit that you spoke to. I know you gave us a little list there, but maybe just a little bit more on what we'll actually see you're doing since you introduced the highlights there.
You know, as we look at Vans and we, you know, I know you said where there's a little bit of an easier compare on China, and when we look at it on a one-year basis, when we look on a multi-year basis to pre-COVID, it looks like the revenues for Vans will need to accelerate a little bit in the back half to get to the down mid-single from where it was in second quarter. Is there any numericals you can give us to help us get the building blocks to, you know, what rolls off or what comes online that should help for a better trend on a multi-year basis?
Yeah. Sure, Michael, and thanks for the question. Nice to hear your voice. You know, first I would say relative to the actions, you know, we're not happy at all about what we're seeing in terms of the profit projection and, I think the approach that we took to adjusting the full year profit outlook while revenue remains intact. You know, we just see some headwinds on the horizon associated with kinda rising inventory levels and a promotional environment in the marketplace that's gonna be all around us, and we certainly expect that's gonna have some impact on our business. I think we felt like it was important to plan prudently in that regard.
Despite that, you know, we're gonna work really hard to kinda bring that profitability level back, and that really is what those actions are all about. You know, as it relates to driving traffic and conversion in our own formats, in our own stores and our own websites, you know, one of the biggest opportunities we see is to really look across. This is kind of the power of our platform in a sense, look across our businesses and where we see things working well tactically, you know, within digital marketing and, you know, tactics to drive digital commerce.
Where are things working well, and how do we deploy those in other brands or other places where we're not seeing the same kind of benefit or the same kind of returns on the tactics that are being deployed today? Just to be honest, probably no surprise. The North Face, we're seeing those things work a little better and Vans is an area where we see opportunity. We've got some of our best people across the company kinda working on that.
In fact, we've moved a couple people permanently into the Vans business with obviously great track records in other parts of our company, as Steve may talk a little bit more about that. We're also using some third parties to help us really do this.
We see opportunity to be more efficient in how we're deploying some of the tactics and some of the spend in certain parts of our business, and we're aggressively and fast after that. You know, we're gonna work really hard to kinda leverage the channels at our disposal, first and foremost, our own channels, to sell off some of the excess inventories that we see building. We're in a pretty good place overall from an inventory standpoint relative to, you know, where we plan to be. We're higher in certain areas, and I think I mentioned that in the comments, you know, in a couple of brands in particular.
As we look across all of our brands, we're gonna take opportunity to kinda peel back inventory a little bit, leveraging our own channels, and doing this ultimately to drive some additional profitability. You know, we're looking in a few places where we see the business performing quite well to maybe set floors a little bit early in spring 2023 and drive a little bit more revenue in our fiscal year that we would view as incremental and maybe an additional term, as an example. Then lastly, as we always do, right?
It's kind of a broken record in some ways, but I think even more aggressively in the short term, we're looking at all non-strategic controllable spend and are gonna reduce as we move through the balance of the year with an eye towards driving higher profitability. Those are the actions. I mean, there's a heightened sense of urgency given kind of the environment that we face and our commitment to driving, you know, consistent and sustainable profitable growth. We, you know, take that really seriously, and we're after it.
Michael, let me build a little bit here on the traffic and conversion piece. I think an important part here, and it really is leveraging the portfolio and the cross-functional teams and expertise that we have, not only in brands and functions, but we have assembled, you know, cross-functional teams organized in pods, working in very agile ways against four very specific areas of focus.
One is around consumer acquisition. How do we acquire that consumer? How do we move that consumer in and drive traffic to our environments? When we have that consumer, how do we retain them? Third would be, how do we really enhance that consumer experience, so we have a higher likelihood of moving them through to the fourth point, which is conversion. Very, very specific sets of actions being worked on by these cross-functional pods.
Probably at the last point here is this is something, you know, that we're taking so seriously is that Matt and I are meeting with these teams on a weekly basis to keep track of, understand and help take any kind of roadblocks out of their way so that we can move very quickly and agilely through this process.
Yeah. Michael, your question about the Vans kind of, you know, the drivers in the back half of the year. I guess a couple of things that, you know, I don't know exactly what kind of period, you know, the period you're looking at and, you know, the stack itself. Our view of that would say, if you go back four years, you know, kind of pre-COVID and look at the CAGR, it's pretty consistent in the first half to the second half at the total Vans level globally. So that's one thing, I think it's that I would say.
As we look at our assumptions in the back half of the year relative to what we saw occur in the first half of the year, it's really all driven by an accelerated impact and benefit from China. I will tell you, in fact, we are planning Vans North America to be a little tougher in the back half than actually what we saw occur in the first half. We're planning pretty cautiously there overall. You know, if you think about where we are, you know, down mid-single digits, which we delivered a down six, I think, here in half one, implies low single to low mid down in the back half of the year. It's really all driven by that acceleration in Greater China, which is obviously coming against easier compares.
Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Michael.
Our next question comes from Omar Saad with Evercore Partners. Please proceed.
Hi. Yes. Thanks for taking my question. I had a couple of quick brand questions. Is Dickies the only kind of pandemic winning business, or at least that portion of Dickies, the pandemic winning business kind of giving back some of those gains? North Face, any early reads on winter, you know, demand in places where the temps have started to drop and kind of any early reads on that appetite for that category as, you know, winter starts to set in some places? Thanks.
Stephen, yeah, I can take the Dickies part, and if you wanna take.
Sure.
The North Face.
Sure.
Yeah, Omar, for sure, Dickies is feeling the impact here in the first half of the year of, you know, what's going on in the U.S. market and obviously particularly with our largest retail partner. You know, the exposure to that value and consumer, to your point, you know, we've done really well from a growth standpoint over the last couple of years with Dickies. I wouldn't call it giving it back. We think this is kind of short-term in nature as some inventories were being right-sized.
Certainly that consumer being impacted pretty significantly by the inflationary challenges on food and fuel and those types of energy costs, those types of things impacting that lower income consumer more significantly and more quickly, quite honestly, has impacted the wholesale component of that business in the short term.
What we also know is inside that inside the business and inside, you know, even that retailer, our brand continues to outperform on the floor better than the competitive set. As that business goes away pretty quickly at times when they pull back on inventory. Again, they can slam on the brakes pretty quick. At the same time, they can hit the gas pretty quickly as well. As we come out of this over time, hard to predict how that will play out.
As it does and when it does, we expect the business to kind of pick right back up and accelerate. Meanwhile, the lifestyle part of the business continues to perform incredibly well, and that's really how we think about the long-term growth drivers of this business is getting our fair share of the work component as you'd expect us to, but really driving outsized growth internationally and here in the U.S. in a lifestyle product. Yeah, a little bit difficult in the short term, but doesn't change our confidence in where this brand is heading and really kind of the momentum that the business has.
Yeah. Omar, on The North Face, we continue to be very excited and proud of what that team has done, you know, up 21% through the first half and, you know, firming that outlook of 12% for the year, which is, you know, slightly ahead of, you know, that high single- to low double-digit that we committed to just a month ago on the Investor Day. I think what should be good from a confidence-building standpoint is the growth. It's broad-based. We're seeing it across all regions. We're seeing it all across all channels, and we're seeing it across all product categories.
Certainly the brand is benefiting, you know, from, you know, that outdoor TAM and the energy that's really come into that particular part of the market, but it's also benefiting from its number one influencing position and really driving that with strong, authentic product. You know, we talked a lot here over the, you know, last few calls about the commitment to 365 Apparel and moving beyond just outerwear, being able to focus on those everyday ready-to-wear apparel items, which giving us permission to move now more to that active component of the consumer's life that they're asking us to participate in. Our footwear, you know, last year we launched, or a couple of years ago, we launched VECTIV.
To be able to now talk about getting a major award, you know, for the VECTIV Fastpack, you know, FUTURELIGHT style is an affirmation of the quality of the team, you know, the quality of their consumer understanding and the differentiated product that they're putting into the marketplace, specifically here with the VECTIV. Then you see outerwear continuing to work extremely well. You know, those kinda shoulder season fleece, lightweight shells, lightweight insulated jackets doing really well. But now as we come into cold weather, yesterday you may have seen it, the KAWS drop highlighted, you know, some of the Heritage Nuptse, Himalayan Parka, you know, I think the Mountain Jacket was in there and the Denali.
Really, I think what you see there is leveraging historical strong styles done in a very brand-right way with a partner like KAWS driving that halo impact that then cascades across everything they're doing in that snow ski category, the commitment to climb, hike, active as you look at the online presentation and the remerchandising of that homepage.
You know, this is a brand that now has, you know, really anchored its product, you know, creation capabilities, strengthening its storytelling, you know, capabilities, with the addition of our new CMO, a new chief product and merchandising officer that's only going to help us to strengthen and focus that product offer.
With, you know, Nicole's expertise in direct to consumer and the online engagement, we think we've got a real winning formula here to continue to drive that long-term sustainable, consistent growth.
Thanks for the color.
Thanks so much.
Our next question comes from Jonathan Komp with Robert W. Baird. Please proceed.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you. I just wanna ask maybe another question on Vans. I'm curious, just your latest view when you look at the geographic divergences and, you know, Europe looks like it's holding up so much better. Curious, you know, what you currently think of and make of that trend. As you think about Vans, just when would you expect to see signs of progress, and what are you looking for in the Americas to know that you're on the right track here?
I think the way you're looking at it is absolutely correct. You know, I mean, our European business in general, you know, continues to show exceptional performance. Within that is certainly the Vans business. We've talked pretty openly, and I think Kevin did a good job unpacking this for everybody in the Investor Day.
You know, the primary opportunity here is our North America business, and within the North America business, it's our direct-to-consumer channel. This emphasis we're putting today around traffic and, you know, engagement, retention all the way through to conversion, Vans is, you know, squarely in the middle of that. You know, we have a number of test and learn actions that have been taking place the last couple weeks.
Taking those learnings now, we'll apply it to the balance of our portfolio. You know, really looking at what will be required to utilize these, you know, this strong component of our go-to-market set of options. Where we've got such strong conversion, how do we start pulling consumers across that lease line in to engage with us on our footwear and apparel story.
Number one is the Americas, and within that, our North America D2C. China is a significant opportunity as well. We've been certainly impacted with the COVID environment there. Again, at the Investor Day, Kevin spoke a lot about, you know, pushing decision-making into the regions and providing more and more latitude for local, you know, decision-makings around product, around storytelling.
Certainly staying within the confines or the framework of the brand strategy, but really, you know, giving, you know, more freedom and more empowerment to the regions. You see that taking place in Europe and taking those learnings and applying that now more effectively with our Asia team, specifically in Greater China.
Okay. That's helpful. Maybe just one follow-up. A broader question on the margin outlook. Guiding to 11% operating margin for the year now, you know, will be the lowest you reported in some time outside of COVID, maybe, you know, the last decade or so. Just, Matt, I don't know if there's any way to think bigger picture about what's temporary in the margin that's impacting it this year versus more lasting. Then are you willing to quantify any of the actions you're taking to tighten up on the cost side? Thank you.
Yeah. Great question. I would tell you that we believe there's quite a bit that's impacting us this year that is, I'll say, relatively short term in nature, impacting the margins. That's primarily in, certainly in the gross margin line. Clearly, there's a little bit of pressure on elements of our fixed cost base. You know, obviously something like the Vans store base itself and kind of what we're seeing there in the revenue and, you know, kind of the performance in the stores. From a margin standpoint, you know, we still got, you know, we're dealing with higher levels of, I would say inefficiencies from a supply chain standpoint, you know, freight and how we're moving freight.
The extra storage costs given the higher inventory levels is in there that we would say is transitory. Really the big one is just kind of the assumptions that we're making right now relative to, you know, what may be required in the marketplace from a promotional standpoint. Both our own channels but also in support of our wholesalers. You know, we talked about here, even in Q2, the rate impact largely being the result of higher discounts. Some additional promotions, you know, already showing up a little bit in our own channels, particularly outlets, and certainly some additional inventory reserves given our elevated inventory.
There's a lot there that I would say, you know, really everything we've just done from a margin standpoint is all tied, in my view, to kind of things that are, you know, commensurate with the current marketplace and environment and are not what we'd expect to see persist moving forward. You know, I think we still are really confident in our ability to drive expanding gross margins over time, our ability to drive higher prices over time to mitigate kind of, you know, inflationary product cost increases, which by the way, we continually and consistently have been able to do. There's a lot there that's transitory that we would expect that over time will come back to us.
As it relates to SG&A, you know, the actions that we recently announced of over 600 roles or positions that were eliminated across our company, both you know, role eliminations for open roles and also kind of reorganization. The overall impact of that on an annualized basis, and we'll get a little bit of that this year, you know, not certainly not anywhere near all of it, but it's a bit over $100 million. This is on top of $100 million that we've taken out really over the last couple years as part of Project Enable, which was a set of actions we announced.
Back during the pandemic. Over $200 million of costs that will have come out versus the pre-pandemic level that I'll call fixed kinda G&A primarily, although it expands, you know, into other parts of SG&A, but largely G&A. Those are some of the actions. There's obviously some benefits that will accrue to us next year as we kinda get the full impact of those things, you know, hitting our financials. You know, the 11%, I agree, it's not at all where we expect to be or where we want to be, and you'll see us recover pretty quickly as we get past this kind of moment in time.
That's really helpful. Thank you.
Thank you, John.
Our next question comes from Laurent Vasilescu from BNP Paribas. Please proceed.
Oh, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Steve, Matt, I would love to ask about Supreme. I didn't see how the brand performed on a revenue perspective for this quarter in the slides. Any context on how it performed? What drove that performance? And then, maybe a little bit more context, Matt, on the impairment charge. What drove that? And what's your confidence to get to that goal that you called out a month ago of high single digit, low double digit growth for the brand? Thank you.
Okay. Laurent, thanks for the question. I'll take Supreme. You know, from a Q2 standpoint, Supreme was up 7%. This is despite opening up about a week later, you know, than planned, based on a decision to make sure we hit market with an optimized assortment. You remember us talking quite a bit last year where we came to market with, you know, well under normal percentage allocations against key styles. This year, the team, you know, took a very, you know, proactive approach to hit the market second half here running with the right assortment at the right time. We were up 7%. Even despite some supply chain disruptions, you know, the brand has done well.
We expect an acceleration as we move into the second half, because we continue to get better and better positioned from an assortment and product flow standpoint. You know, a couple wins here. You were able to see these stores when we worked together in Europe, but you know, the Berlin and Milan stores are performing really well. Now as we come out of that COVID environment, we have the luxury of consumers being able to move, you know, tourism becoming more prevalent. Those stores which opened under the, you know, the cloud of COVID, now are performing extremely well.
From there, we've got some new stores coming. We talked in my prepared remarks around the Dover Street Market opening up in Beijing. That's the first time Supreme will be represented in a physical, authentic way, within the Dover Street Market environment. That's more of a shop in shop, but it'll be a great affirmation of the ability to expand, or what we talked about, really grow, you know, grow wide. We also did a refit to our Harajuku store in Tokyo. That's probably the most prominent, well-known store in the Japan market, and has seen just really strong results and energy resulting from that.
We have a new store coming in Chicago, you know, later this fall, which will be the first new store in the U.S. market in a while, and very excited at what that means as we again bring the brand through the physical environment first into new parts of the market where we know consumers are as we look to continue to you know provide better and better access.
You know, that geographic expansion continues to be a very important part of the longer term growth, and being able to get back to seeing that value, you know, come into the brand this year is a good proof point, you know, to the acquisition thesis coming in here. You know, it just gives us more and more confidence in the team's ability to execute.
Yeah, I'll just add one comment. I'll get your question on impairment too, Laurent. You know, as Susie talked even at the Investor Day, you know, really the long-term growth plan is, you know, best categorized as a grow wide strategy. Giving more consumers access to this brand, and that really speaks to geographic expansion. It's kinda core and central to the acquisition thesis itself.
You know, leveraging VF's capabilities, VF's platforms to more easily, more frictionless, not necessarily faster per se, but certainly the opportunity to go at the right pace over time. To open more doors internationally to give this brand access to more, or to give consumers around the world access to this brand, that's the vast majority of what's driving the growth. We're not counting.
You know, this is not about, you know, saturating the markets where we are today, right? We're very careful and cautious on kind of the scarcity model, but it's really giving more access to this brand around the world. That's why we're excited to really start to see the expansion take shape here in the next couple years, you know, in Asia in particular and obviously beyond. I just wanted to remind of that. As it relates to the impairment, I guess first and foremost, I would say, it's all driven by what I'll call non-operating factors.
You may even remember that earlier this year, we actually made an additional payment, earn-out payment associated with the acquisition, which obviously says you performed a little bit better than the original set of assumptions, and there was an earn-out. It was a bit lower than we might have originally expected, given the early performance of the business because of some of the supply chain challenges that we saw last year impact the brand, from a COVID standpoint.
We did actually pay a bit of an earn-out, which kinda implies we're on track, and we are on track versus our internal expectations. What we're dealing with here, and by the way, we wouldn't have even been testing the business from an impairment standpoint, if not for what we're seeing in the marketplace relative to interest rates and what that does to the discount rate and how you know, kind of present value those cash flows. Obviously, the currency environment, and, you know, the U.S. dollar translation from the Japanese yen and also from the currencies in Europe. For those two factors, we determined we needed to test.
We tested, you know, probably not surprisingly, given the fact that it's a fairly recent acquisition, and how materially a couple of those things have moved in terms of interest rates and what that means to discount rates as you evaluate those cash flows. You know, we're dealing with what's a non-cash impairment. None of that's related to our operating performance or our operating results. We still feel really good about where we are and, you know, everything that Steve mentioned earlier and that I kind of layered on there as well in terms of kind of where we are and the outlook. You know, we feel good.
That's very helpful on that. Second question is on gross margins. You lowered it by about 50 to 100 basis points. Could you possibly give us the bridge? You know, how much of it is incremental FX, supply chain costs, bottlenecks. We heard from one footwear company talk about it last night. Or is it driven by markdowns? Any context on that would be helpful. How do we think about the GM for 3Q versus 4Q? Any high level color would be very helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. I would say in our case, Laurent, there are some smaller impacts, and I'll start with the smaller impacts, and I'm not gonna necessarily give it to you exactly in terms of the percentages. But let's say in the neighborhood of probably 25% of the total is a combination of some supply chain inefficiency, mix, and currency.
The balance, so the majority is the assumptions that we're making on what's gonna be required, given inventory positions, and the operating environment that we expect that we're gonna face as we move through fall and holiday. You know, whether that discounts the wholesale partners or more aggressive actions that we'll take in our own channels, in particular our outlets.
In some cases, we'll be ready, depending on where the market is and what the competitive set is, to have to be targeted in appropriate ways, even in our full price channels as we move through the fall holiday season. That'll certainly vary by brand, and within brands will vary by product category. You know, we'll be very targeted in that.
We expect and we're positioned as we've kind of guided here, to be able to take those actions when and where necessary. As it relates to kind of your question, third, fourth quarter, you know, I think I'd say that a good way to think about the third quarter is kind of down 50-100 basis points and then more flattish in the fourth quarter. Mix is actually beginning to be a kind of nice tailwind for us as we get into Q4, by the way.
Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Laurent.
Our last question comes from Matthew Boss with JP Morgan. Please proceed.
Great. Thanks. Steve, what gives you confidence in keeping the five to six constant currency top line, as we think about the dynamic macro backdrop? Matt, could you elaborate on the heightened inventory and increased promotional activity in the marketplace, maybe relative just to 30 days ago? Specifically, how do you feel about your own inventory levels by brand today?
Thank you, Matt. What gives me confidence? There's quite a bit. I'll rattle off just a few points here. I think coming into where we are beginning of the second half is the consistent performance that we saw across the portfolio. Ex Vans up 11% in the first half. And the ability for us to kind of project that to be, you know, pretty similar into the second half.
Our European business continues to perform well. And you know, that cross-sharing, you know, ability within our portfolio, the you know, the assistance, you know, that they're providing our Asia team as we stand up, you know, in some cases, new operating, you know, disciplines in our Shanghai office, which is still fairly new.
Bringing those same disciplines, that same, you know, set of integrated marketplace, you know, set of capabilities to continue to, you know, to broaden their, really their influence. Our China recovery continues, and we expect that, you know, the second half, you know, will continue to be, you know, what we've seen, coming out of Q2 and certainly coming into Q3.
Our back half isn't reliant on a hockey stick from Vans. You know, we have a much more balanced, you know, view to be able to drive that 5%-6%. We certainly sit in parts of the market, you know, where there's a lot of tailwinds. You know, the active lifestyle, needs-based components of our portfolio playing into the outdoor and active TAMs certainly positions us really well.
Having the number one brands in many of those spaces to engage and ultimately, you know, drive those high-value experiences, it gives me a lot of confidence that we've got the right, you know, really the right portfolio, you know, driving the right strategy. But most importantly, we have the right people. Strong, deep bench of leaders.
You saw them, you know, speak to you at the Investor Day. Sitting alongside them in each one of our businesses, you know, sits strong, capable leaders. You know, we're moving leaders based on the strength of our bench into our Vans business. We're being able to hire extremely high caliber talent into our The North Face business, as well as into our Dickies business and Timberland business.
If there's the last thing here, it's the people driving the strategies and being able to really maximize the tailwinds and that momentum that we've carried out of the first half.
I'll add a couple of quick points just kinda from the numbers side that gives me confidence. One, and probably most importantly, is when you look at what have been consistently our best performing brands over the last several quarters, it's kind of the outdoor segment, right? I mean, generally, the outdoor brands have been strong. TNF, obviously the headliner there, but across that group of brands, they're a larger penetration to the total in the back half by a pretty meaningful amount. It's kinda 6-8 point increase in penetration to the total. The fact that our kinda best performing businesses are a larger part of the business in the second half of the year gives me confidence.
The other thing is just, you know, clearly the, you know, what we're gonna see, the movement we're gonna see from a contribution to total from Greater China in the back half of the year versus the, you know, the really tough first half and in particular, the tough Q1. A couple of data points there that I think are probably helpful as you think about that.
Yeah.
As it relates to your question on, you know, what are we seeing in the environment? How is it different even in the, you know, the last four to six weeks? In our view, it's become more promotional. You know, we're seeing it particularly in the Americas and particularly in China. Inventories are building. You know, we're kinda seeing that. We're understanding that, you know, as we kinda see what the market is showing. We're clearly paying really close attention to the competitive set and the competitive environment from an inventory and promotion standpoint. Kind of the signals that we see there would tell us that, you know, we may be heading into a time where it's gonna be more disruptive than we even anticipated, again, just a few weeks ago.
I think, you know, kinda one of the things that's happening is we expect probably a compressed full price selling window. You know, retailers are being very careful about taking in inventory and, you know, taking advantage of any opportunity to kinda delay receipts, you know, looking for a 100% fill when they might normally take a 90% fill, you know, as an example, to delay the receipt of something. I think our anticipation that they may break earlier, right? The market itself may just break earlier from a promotional standpoint as we head towards the holiday. That window of full price selling, we expect could be further compressed.
I think those are kind of a couple of key things, Matt, that we're viewing as we kind of evaluate what the market conditions are and what we think it may bear over the next, you know, few months. You know, in our own inventory, as I said, you know, a lot of what we're seeing in the increase certainly, set aside the in-transit, kind of the accounting change there that we've hopefully explained clearly at this point. You know, set that aside, we're still up a lot for sure. We're up nearly 60% to last year. A lot of that was planned, because we were way too low last year.
A lot of that is in those brands where we haven't been able to service the businesses consistently as we would have liked, and in some cases, we're still not all the way to the finish line there. We plan much higher inventories to get back to normal, more normalized service levels, and certainly, we hopefully plan for, you know, a pretty healthy growth assumption in a number of those brands. We sit higher than our plan today for sure, you know, primarily in a couple of brands. You know, fortunately, a lot of that's been core product. You know, but we have pockets of area where we're a little bit higher than we'd like to be across the world.
We're still a little bit higher in China than we'd like to be, and that's kind of a comment that might, you know, is applicable across a number of the brands. We're gonna be very targeted and choiceful, but we're gonna be aggressive to make sure we are taking advantage of traffic and getting our kinda fair share of the business in an appropriate way.
You know, I think we feel like we have a good plan to manage our inventories back down, you know, pretty close to plan at year-end. We'd probably still be a little high because there are certain core products, you know, Dickies products. Some of the Dickies products in particular just doesn't make sense to do anything other than just kinda right-size that over time with forward purchases.
We'll be a little heavier in a few places. We're gonna be very focused on leaving this year clean, setting us up for next year to have, you know, strong and healthy margins, but also take advantage of the opportunity to generate both top and bottom line over the course of the next several months.
Great. That's helpful color. Best of luck.
Thank you, Matt.
Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Steve Rendle for closing comments.
Great. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for your questions and, most importantly, for your interest. To close things out, I'd like to reinforce just a few points that I think are important for you to remember, before we get the chance to engage with you again in January. The first thing is that, you know, we are going to continue to navigate the many macro challenges that we see today. VF and our brands are sharply focused on taking the necessary actions to drive performance and deliver against our strategy and most importantly, our financial commitments. I think secondly is our businesses, they remain to be very resilient, with our overall full-year revenue outlook holding.
Importantly, we're performing well across our portfolio, certainly without the exception of Vans, but the balance of our portfolio growing low double digits in the first half with a line of sight to do the same as we move into the second half. I think this is demonstrated certainly by the fact that we grew constant currency revenue mostly in our outdoor brands, but the strength that we see in our emerging brands and, I think the importance, you know, that shows you of our model and our portfolio strategy. I think last, and I would just, you know, hammer home that we are going to remain extremely focused on those things that we control.
We know what's required to ensure we deliver consistent, sustainable, and profitable growth, and we have the right brands, the right strategies, and certainly the right people in the place to get the job done. Most importantly, you know, no one is more determined, you know, than this leadership team and this organization, you know, to deliver on our expectations. Again, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your interest, and we look forward to updating you as we turn the corner into next year.
This concludes today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.