Greetings. Welcome to the VF Corporation Second Quarter Fiscal 2022 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to John Kelley, Senior Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Mr. Kelley, you may now begin.

Good morning, and welcome to VF Corporation's Second Quarter Fiscal 2022 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 defined in the press release that was issued this morning. We use adjusted constant dollar amounts as lead numbers in our discussion because we believe they more accurately represent the true operational performance and underlying results of 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. Due to the significant impact of the coronavirus pandemic on our prior year figures, today's call will also contain certain comparisons to the same period in fiscal 2020. These comparisons are all on a reported dollar basis. On June 28, 2021, the company completed the sale of its Occupational Workwear business. Accordingly, the company has reported the related held-for-sale assets and liabilities of this business as assets and liabilities of discontinued operations and included the operating results in cash flows of this business in disc ops for all periods through the date of sale. Unless otherwise noted, the results presented on today's call are based on continuing operations. Joining me on the call will be VF's Chairman, President and CEO, Steve Rendle; and EVP and CFO, Matt Puckett. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for your questions. Steve?

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our second quarter call. As we move through the halfway point of our fiscal year, I remain encouraged by the underlying momentum across the portfolio. And the broad-based nature of this strength gives me confidence that we are driving the right strategy to accelerate growth in the quarters ahead. Looking through pandemic-related disruption and near-term headwinds in China. We continue to see a healthy retail landscape, a strong consumer outlook and accelerating demand signals across our business. While the recovery has not been as linear as we had anticipated for some parts of our business, I'm proud of how our teams continue to deliver through the volatility. This is certainly where we excel. We are focused on what we can control. And despite a more challenging environment than we had envisioned, we were able to reaffirm our fiscal '22 revenue and earnings outlook, a clear testament to the resiliency and optionality of our model. We see our business emerging in an even stronger place than before the pandemic. We've accelerated our strategy to be a more digitally enabled enterprise while driving significant investment behind key capabilities to connect with our consumers. We are driving organic growth as we elevate direct channels; distort to Asia, led by China; and accelerate our consumer-minded, retail-centric, hyper-digital business model transformation. On top of that, our #1 strategic priority to drive and optimize our portfolio has netted us significant benefits. Over the past 5 years, we have strategically evolved and simplified our portfolio from 32 brands to 12 brands, each with significant D2C and international opportunity squarely focused on large, growing addressable markets. The macro trends around outdoor and active lifestyles, health and wellness, casualization and sustainability have only strengthened over the past 20 months, and…

Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everyone. I'm happy to give an update on our progress as we navigate the recovery. And importantly, I'm encouraged by the resiliency of our business during the first half of fiscal 2022. The environment has clearly evolved differently than we had planned in May. However, our teams remain focused on what we can control, and they are delivering. The underlying top line recovery across the majority of our business has exceeded our plan, offsetting new challenges in the APAC region and ongoing disruptions across the supply chain network. Through thoughtful allocation of investment, we've been able to drive continued strategic investment spending while leveraging other parts of our SG&A base to protect earnings. As a result, I'm proud of our ability to hold on to our fiscal 2022 earnings outlook of about $3.20 despite a more challenging-than-anticipated operating environment, including an incremental headwind of about $0.09 from expedited freight. This should be a strong signal that this management team is committed to leveraging the significant optionality in our model to deliver on our earnings commitment. Before unpacking our Q2 results, I want to quickly run through the operating environment across the region and share the latest outlook for our global supply chain. Starting with the Americas region. Product delays and reduced traffic during virus surges impacted the business during our highest-volume period this quarter. However, the region was able to deliver 22% organic growth in Q2, representing continued sequential underlying improvement. Retailers remain bullish on the upcoming holiday season, and we are focused on delivering products in time to support strong demand signals. Cancellation rates remain historically low due to tight inventories. Conversion remains exceptionally strong, and we see continued reductions in promotions compared to last year, driving strong average selling prices. Next, the EMEA region…

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Matthew Boss with JPMorgan.

So maybe to start with Vans. So global brand revenues, more or less flat to pre-pandemic in the first half of the year. I guess, could you just help walk through drivers behind the confidence in 7% to 9% for the year? What exactly accounted for the forecast cut this year? And any change to 12% to 13% as a multiyear target?

Let me just start off. We see nothing in the Vans strategy that would tell us that we cannot grow double digits long term. This brand sits in an active TAM with a very -- with attractive on a day to day, and we think only growing as this casualization megatrend accelerates. We've grown high teens since the acquisition. That's over a decade of high teens growth. And we continue to see significant international whitespace in China, in Europe, but continue to see growth here in the U.S. I think what gives us confidence as we look forward is we have a renewed focus on our icon management strategy. A proof point this quarter was the 25% growth that we saw in our SK8-Hi as they leaned into marketing that particular icon. And as we come through Q3 towards the back half, you'll see us begin to elevate the icons in general and really getting back into the systematic cycle of pushing the 5 key icons, while we also continue to support our Progression, which is where the Altra sits, MTE, where we've seen very strong sell-through as well as leveraging the growth in apparel, which is really opening up those multiple-wear occasions that the brand can enjoy. We'll continue to leverage the in-store experience. That is a core element of how this brand connects with its consumers. And we'll continue to lean into growth here in the U.S. and Europe and look to really support our Asia teams as we focus on that China growth trajectory and getting the brand back in sync with what we know is very possible as the brand pushes the notion of creative self-expression in a very brand right, but local consumer relevancy to elevate the brand there in China.

Hey, Matt, I'd just add a couple of things in terms of thinking about the acceleration in the back half of the year that's implied. And this is a true statement across all of our brands. But certainly, there's a significant inflection in the wholesale business based on the order books. And we've talked about the differences in the spring order books versus the fall order books. And the time that those order books were placed has impacted that pretty significantly. And just to give you an example. For Vans on a global basis, our wholesale business was down, call it, high single digits in the first half. We expect it's going to be up sort of low double digits in the second half. And again, that's supported by the order books that we have. And we've really got visibility at this point pretty much all the way through the end of our fiscal year. So that's one thing I think it's worth understanding. And certainly, again, it's relevant for all of our brands. The other thing is our demand-creation efforts will accelerate from a spend standpoint in the back half of the year. That's always been our plan. And you'll see that we've got that built into our modeling from the beginning. We did have a bit of an acceleration through back-to-school versus what we saw in the first half of the calendar year, but even more so as we move into the holidays. So strong demand creation investments and strong programs coming to support the business. And then probably the last thing, as we've said all along, we expect some continued improvement in our traffic into our large and highly productive brick-and-mortar base of business. And we've generally seen that. We did see a little bit of a -- a little bit lower than our expectations in the month of August, in particular, here in the U.S. in terms of the traffic build. And we think that was certainly tied in some ways to the Delta variant and some of the new restrictions that were placed back on consumers there in that period of time. But generally, from the beginning of this calendar year all the way through September, setting aside August, we've seen the business sequentially improve from a traffic standpoint. September was our best month of the quarter. October has actually started off good. We're actually on track. And honestly, we're slightly ahead of our expectations in the Americas region from a D2C perspective during the month of October. So just a few more data points there for you relative to really what's supporting the acceleration implied in the outlook.

That's great color. Matt, maybe just as a follow-up. On the gross margin, so the 56% for the year. I guess, could you just break down the underlying drivers that improved in the outlook, which helped to offset the worst freight headwind? And just any color in the third quarter versus the fourth quarter as we think about gross margin?

Yes, sure. So it's pretty simple, I think, in terms of the underlying drivers, Matt, that are offsetting -- yes, we continue to see some headwinds from expedited freight, and we mentioned that in our prepared remarks. It's underlying rate. It's better sell-through. And ultimately, the merchandise margins are stronger. And that's -- generally, we're seeing that across the board. So I think that's pretty straightforward. As it relates to some shaping in the second half, what I would say about gross margin is we expect Q3 to be about 57% with organic expansion a little bit stronger than what we saw in Q2. And we'll continue to have some expedited freight hitting that quarter as well. A lot of what went into the forecast that's different from the prior forecast is sitting in the third quarter.

Our next question is from the line of Erinn Murphy with Piper Sandler.

I guess I have a question first on China. It did decelerate versus the last quarter, and you called out some of the COVID challenges there. But as we take a step back, can you just share a little bit more about your confidence in the region longer term? And then I do think you cut your APAC region outlook by about 600 basis points. Was that all China? Or are there some other regional headwinds we need to be mindful of?

Yes, the region issue sits squarely in China. Though there have been some Delta impacts in some of the smaller markets, what we've seen is certainly an issue building here in China. I mean there's a number of factors that are impacting our China business. First is the resurgence of COVID across the Greater China region. It really has had an impact on economic growth and, more importantly, consumer confidence. And we've seen that in our store traffic coming into brick-and-mortar. And we've also seen that challenging some of the digital titan platform traffic, where we have a big presence from a digital standpoint. And some of our legacy marketing tools, specifically key opinion leader marketing, are no longer available and having a short-term impact. It doesn't mean long term that we won't adjust. And in fact, we are, but that did have a short-term impact. But I think, importantly, what we do expect to see is a reacceleration. And I think there's 3 really key reasons here. Our decision to establish an even stronger structure and presence in Shanghai, something we've been working on now for many months, allows us to better understand the marketplace variables and to speak to the local consumer in a more relevant and authentic way for each one of our brands. Our decision to hire our leader in China and expand Winnie's scope beyond just Greater China is having a very outsized impact. Her confidence and experience in understanding the local market, local consumers, how to engage with our key strategic partners, is certainly elevating our brands and our business' ability to understand the consumer and navigate some of these new variables that we see. As we stand up our brand teams in Shanghai, that local market knowledge is going to help us really bring our brand purpose, our VF purpose for our associates to bear. And we're seeing that as a really important element today as we focus on the health and well-being of our associates. There's a notion here in our brand marketing. We see it coming to life in North Face. We're really putting our purpose in place and really elevating our messaging and our connections and delivery of value around health and well-being to the Chinese consumer and really looking to improve their life through engaging with our brands, the experiences that our brands enable and connecting in a much more one-to-one way. We think these strategic shifts that we've been really driving over the last 12 to 18 months position us in a very strong way to navigate these new variables and get that reacceleration back into the business.

Great. And then if I could -- yes.

Erinn, a couple of data points there to build on Steve again. When you think about the China reduction that's implied in the guide, about 1/3 of that is coming from, let's call it, COVID-related impact, primarily demand. I mean a little bit of supply challenges there, but primarily demand. And then the rest is sort of the comment that Steve made about the consumer and what we've seen here in the short term. And then as you said, there's certainly some COVID-related impacts across the rest of the region as we saw some lockdown measures and closed stores and just generally consumer confidence in some of those other countries that waned a bit during the quarter. Maybe last thing I would say, because I think it's important, from a VF perspective, we certainly -- we didn't really change our guidance. We did soften the language slightly. I can tell you that's all really driven by China. Without that, you wouldn't have seen any change. And I would also tell you, without what we saw occur in China, we would have not changed our Vans outlook.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then just if I can add one more. As we move into holiday, obviously, inventory is very clean. What is your promotional outlook for this holiday? And then as we move into the early part of 2022, we'll all be, particularly in this marketplace, lapping a pretty hefty stimulus. Just curious on, do you see the promotional outlook evolving as we move into the first calendar quarter?

Yes, I would say we expect the promotional environment to be quite clean for the holiday time period. That's how we're set up and what we expect. And certainly inventories continue to be really lean across the marketplace. That's the case for our brands and, I would say, for most. So we expect a really clean and lack of promotional kind of environment certainly versus historical. And as we think about moving into spring next year and even beyond, certainly, our view will be that the promotional environment is going to continue to be quite good. Yes, I'll remind you that our business historically is clean. We don't promote a lot in our brands. And that's been one of the things we've been trying to help everyone understand when you look at the 2-year compares versus some of the peer set. Our business was really clean and healthy 2 years ago. It's that way now. We expect it will be next year. As you think about gross margins next year, we expect margins will expand, bottom line. I think we expect margins will expand probably at least 0.5 point in line with our LRP. Certainly, there's some headwinds: input cost inflationary pressures, elevated freight costs that will certainly going to continue for a period of time. But there's tailwinds as well. As I said, promotional environment remained clean. We certainly would expect we're not going to see the same level of expedited freight that we've seen this year. Our mix benefit will be intact. We've got continued momentum in some of the brands. We've had opportunities to strengthen gross margins on the back of stronger brand equity. Timberland and Dickies are examples of that. And then last but certainly not least, the biggest, I think, tool in the toolbox here is pricing. And we certainly expect -- and we've talked about we're going to start to see meaningful impacts from pricing as early as our fiscal Q4 and as we think about spring '22 and even more so fall '22 of next year.

Our next question is from the line of Bob Drbul with Guggenheim.

I guess the first quick question is, are you thinking of changing the name of the company to Vans, given all the questions that we have on Vans? No. But I do have a couple of questions on Supreme, if you could. I think you talked about Supreme missing or just missing some supply opportunities in terms of the business. Can you quantify that a little bit? And just as you think about the back half of the year, do you expect to sort of get that product in? And will you continue to sell it there? And could you just give us an update on the international expansion plans for the Supreme business over the next 12 months?

Yes. So Supreme, Supreme has had a disproportionate impact to the supply chain disruptions that we're talking about. They've got an exposure into Vietnam. And if you think about the model, due to the nature of how they flow products, they don't carry forward inventory. So when a particular drop is not able to be delivered on time -- yes, they have an agile model and they're able to move around. But the impacts that they've seen this quarter were such that it had a pretty material impact on what we were able to do in Q2. The good news is sell-through trends continue to be very strong. And we -- while we saw a decrease in inventory, we did see a continued strong interest and a clear opportunity for the brand to continue to grow. But I think the supply chain interruptions are helping us all see the further benefit of the supply chain integration that is in place, that will help us help our Supreme team really diversify their footprint and focus in areas where we can help them maintain better flow. As we think about longer term and coming into the second half, we have line of sight to delivery, the inventory required for the weekly drops. And that wasn't true 6 weeks ago. So I think there's a lot of confidence here that we can recapture that momentum, and we really start to recapture that lost volume. In some of the most recent drops, we've seen a really strong evidence of that demand. So I think, in light of this disruption, the plan that this group operates with, the agility to be able to flex continues to be a competitive advantage. And as they integrate into our supply chain, it will help be able to mitigate some of these impacts. To your European question, our international expansion, COVID's had an impact on our team's ability to travel, begin to meet and work with our European and international team, though that work is continuing virtually. Our Supreme team needs to get into market. The model by which they look for new stores, that really anchors the brand in new cities, has been slowed based on COVID. They've worked with our team, certainly will help them speed up that knowledge base as to hit market. But we're certainly a few months off of what would have been a plan that we were ready to execute going to fiscal '23. But the geographic expansion potential remains very strong, a key part of our growth, and you'll see us continue to open stores, both in Europe and Asia as the teams were able to get into market.

Great. And I guess just a bigger question on -- you talked about wholesale shipments sort of not making the second quarter, shifting into the third. I think you specifically called it out for Vans. Can you quantify how much of the wholesale business will shift into the third from the second? Or what you missed in the second that you'll catch up in the third one?

Yes. Sure, Bob. Let me see if I can get to what you need here. So from a -- first of all, this is why we didn't provide guidance for the quarter. If I try to call the split there between Q2 and Q3 as -- we knew it was going to be a pretty volatile environment, and it certainly played out that way. From a timing, shipment timing perspective, we said mid- to high single-digit impact to VF's organic growth in the quarter relative to fiscal '20. So -- and that's really impactful across all of our businesses, certainly several points of growth for the Big 3 Brands. And also, as Steve just described, pretty impactful for Supreme in the quarter as well. And this was especially true, I would say, in the U.S. and Europe and to a lesser degree, to some degree in Asia, all those small impacts there. At a brand level, Vans would have been sort of at pre-pandemic levels in the quarter. And TNF and Timberland in particular would show meaningful acceleration versus where we were in Q1, adjusting for the impact of the wholesale shipment timing. And I think in terms of what we expect, we expect virtually all of that's going to get out the door and ship here in Q3. And as a result, it's one of the reasons that we've been comfortable in essentially holding our full year revenue outlook and then coupled with what we see in terms of the strong underlying momentum from a sell-through perspective.

The next question is from the line of Michael Binetti with Credit Suisse.

Steve, thanks for all the color here today. I think the most helpful thing -- and I can't believe we're still here in late 2021 talking about these big coronavirus disruptions, but I guess here we are. So I really appreciate some of the commentary on the revenue and EPS outlook as you -- I can tell you're starting to look ahead to fiscal '23 already. And I know you spoke to North Face and Dickies outlook for 2023. You gave us an overall revenue and EPS thought. I'm wondering if you could help us complete the picture a little bit on what you -- how you're initially thinking about Vans and Timberland for '23. And then I guess, Matt, if -- I know you just gave us a little bit of color on Bob's question on revenues in third quarter versus fourth quarter. Is there any way you could just quantify what you see as the revenue dollars into the quarter or growth rates into the quarter? And it sounds like a lot of the wholesale snapback is in third quarter. But we've heard some of the other athletic brands and footwear brands speak to some supply chain constraint landing in the March quarter, so your fourth quarter. I'm just curious what you baked into the fourth quarter there.

Great. Thanks, Mike. I'll start. To your question on fiscal '23, clearly, it's early for us to be able to talk about how we're looking at that. But I think the confidence that we have in our portfolio, which we spent a lot of time strategically evolving to where we are today, each one of our brands has the potential of achieving its long-range plan. And you see that happening this year with many of our brands. Specifically to Vans, we see them getting back to low double-digit growth and being able to deliver that on a consistent basis. Our North Face business is building momentum. You've heard us really begin to talk with a lot of confidence. The work that's been done to really strengthen that team, tighten up our merchandising strategies, get the flow between the on-mountain and off-mountain product collections, raising our outlook for the year on a 2-year basis to 16% to 18%, I think, is a proof point of that confidence. Now Timberland is inflecting. We see them really owning and driving that boot culture. And as we really drive our integrated marketplace strategy and the merchandise flow, the new products coming with GreenStride, TrueCloud, some of the things you see going on in the women's business, give us confidence that this business is inflecting and has great potential. And I'll take one more point. Our Dickies business, raising our outlook as we did this year, just now to greater than 30% on a 2-year stack. This business is very unique. We saw this with -- at the point of acquisition and the way our team is really looking at, horizontally, playing out that work and work-inspired piece, but also been thinking on a vertical axis against the different distribution opportunities and moving into higher tiers of distribution with higher -- with product -- with a little bit more style, a little bit more quality of materials and opening up that lens and grabbing new consumers on a global basis. We have a brand that has the potential of achieving $1 billion here quickly, while at the same time becoming a benefit from an operating margin standpoint to the larger VF.

Yes, Michael, your question on shaping of revenue. So yes, I'll answer your question. Barring further supply chain disruption, but certainly contemplating what we know today and, in particular, around the flow of inventory as Vietnam ramps up, I would tell you in Q3 we expect revenue to be about $3.6 billion, including high single-digit organic growth versus fiscal year '20. And let me just fill in the rest of the blanks while we're at it because I assume it's going to come up. We talked about gross margin. I'd say operating margin of about 16%, earnings of at least $1.20, inclusive of about $0.06 of incremental expedited freight versus fiscal year '20.

Okay. So the other $0.03 from the $0.09 then goes in the fourth quarter, it sounds like. So a little bit of a placeholder there.

Well, the $0.09 is the incremental -- from our prior outlook to this outlook. That $0.06 is just to give you a sense of the difference versus the 2-year compare from an earnings standpoint. About $0.06 in that quarter is our current view.

Okay. And I guess the elephant in the room is how much is in that $3.6 billion from Squid Game.

Yes.

I can't believe you made it this far in the call without a question, guys. I can't believe you're going to let it slide.

Yes. Let me say this is Michael. Yes, Squid Game is -- we saw a nice spike -- let's -- I'd call it a small spike. But I'll promise you, this is not a Vans annual event. This certainty has helped raise some media attention that we'll leverage, to my point of us leaning into the Classics campaign. We'll use this moment and continue to build on Vans' connection to pop culture. But I think we're focused on things that we can control and the flow of new products and the benefits that has on Vans' connection to consumer. It's probably more where our emphasis is for sure.

Our next question is from the line of Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group.

As you talked about the wholesale business and the shift to the back half of the year, are you seeing it different by brand in terms of that shift? And is it specific accounts where you talked about the strengthening and what you're seeing? And then just lastly, on price. Is price -- besides full price, are you seeing -- are you taking any price on any of the brands with any of the newer product that you're introducing?

Dana, in terms of the shipment timing, I think it's impacting all of our brands. I would say it's most impactful for the Outdoor brand. And honestly, I would say the 2 brands that are probably feeling it the most are The North Face and Supreme, honestly. But all of our businesses -- and as I said, it's impacting at least several points of growth for the Big 3. And as it relates to the comments about strength and sell-through, that's broad-based really across the businesses. And I'm talking specifically about the U.S. We see it in our big brands, certainly. We're also seeing it with the emerging brands and the Outdoor emerging brands, in particular, that Steve talked about. So it's not any one place. Certainly, The North Face brand is really strong, and the product is moving really quickly as we can get it on to the shelves. We're seeing significant growth in sell-through despite inventories still well below where they would have been 2 years ago. So it just speaks to the velocity that we're seeing from a sell-through perspective, in particular, in that brand.

Got it. Just one follow-up on the Digital business, which I think the guidance had been adjusted to 20% growth from previously 29% to 31%. Is that due to the stores reopening? Or is there anything you're seeing in China or the other markets given that adjustment?

Yes, it's primarily a China impact, Dana. That's really the primary driver. I mean there may be a couple of modest, very small changes in other parts of the business, but basically it's a China story.

And just lastly, on the freight side, do you expect that to go into 2022 -- into calendar 2022?

Yes, we do. We expect the freight -- yes, some of the pressures there on freight -- and I assume you're asking about cost, right? We expect that to continue from an inflationary standpoint, moving into calendar 2022. Over time, I think it will begin to moderate a bit, but we're planning as if we're going to continue to see pretty meaningful increases in freight moving forward. Now we do expect the level of expedited freight that we've had to navigate this year because of the shutdowns and the COVID challenges in the supply chain will certainly look a lot different next year. That's our expectation. But in terms of the underlying rates around freight and just the challenges of -- around capacities and those kinds of things, that we expect to continue for several quarters.

Our next question comes from the line of Jim Duffy with Stifel.

You've spoken about this a little bit as it relates to the supply chain disruptions. But I'm hoping you can discuss some of the inventory flow dynamics, what that might result in, in terms of mismatches and assortments. And I'm curious, is that likely to have an enduring impact? Or what are the strategies to manage through that?

I think, long term, this isn't an issue. It's really short term that our teams are having to navigate a disrupted supply chain. As certain factories were shut down, others have been operating at less than max capacity, and then as we look to bring our goods onshore to the different shipping lanes. It's really a short-term issue, Jim. And I think we can, for the most part, get ourselves back into sync as we come through Q3 and certainly position ourselves well for spring '22 deliveries. But it's an issue that we don't typically have to deal with. And it's really -- it's more broken assortments where you may not have every item that was planned for a floor set, either in our environments or our wholesale partners'. But that's where our teams swing into action. They're able to navigate what we do have to reset those assortments and get the proper amount of product as we wait for the supply chain to be able to fill back in the gaps.

Great. And I also want to ask on the Altra brand. Valuations of some of the comps in the marketplace represent a beacon. Can you maybe give us an update on the size of the Altra business and expected trajectory for that as you look out over the next year or so?

Yes. So Jim, I don't think I would give you sort of the exact size. I would tell you it's more than double what it was when we acquired it. Actually, at this point, moving towards triple here fairly quickly, I would say, in that thing. And we've said that business is growing around sort of 30% or north of 30%. And as we look into sort of the near-term view, no reason to think we're not going to continue to see this brand grow certainly north of 20% to 25% over the next several years.

Yes. Jim, it has such a unique position in the market from it -- how it thinks about the foot and how the athlete's foot needs to really move through the different motions of running and trail running. And I think that -- we're seeing that really play out. The Lone Peak, it's no secret that it's been called out as the #1 trail running shoe here in the U.S. marketplace by multiple publications and it's the team's understanding, building on that 10-year history. But we're playing in a very significant TAM with a very unique brand that is scaling at a very rapid rate. And I'm glad you picked this up because we talked about our Outdoor emerging brands, over $550 million in revenue. They're profitable. They're growing high teens. And each one of them are in significant TAMs. If you think about that in context of some -- what's going on in the broader marketplace and some of the IPOs that we see, we have had a history of growing brands. What we've done with The North Face and Vans is -- we have the potential of doing with brands like an Altra and helping them achieve their full potential by leveraging the skills and capabilities and leveraging those aspects of our model to really help them drive their growth. So I appreciate you asking the question. We're excited about Altra and what it means, not just for the team, but for broader VF.

Our final question today will be coming from the line of Laurent Vasilescu with Exane BNP Paribas.

I wanted to ask about Dickies. You materially raised your guidance for the brand from mid-20s growth to over 30%. What's driving that? Is that driven by a particular region, product category or new distribution? And -- or is it driven by some of the entrants into the scrub business? And can you see this brand surpass the $1 billion mark? Or is the TAM limited to this $1 billion target?

Laurent, I appreciate you asking the question, and you're going to get tired of this word. But Dickies' growth is broad-based. It's happening across both work and as they talk about the work-inspired or the lifestyle component of the brand, really leveraging that work element more broadly. It's growing across all regions. And it's growing vertically beyond its core work, but looking for new points of distribution, even into Tier 1 and Tier 0-type distribution channels. The brand had a really interesting pop-up shop with Fred Segal during the quarter and saw significant sell-through and energy just validating this team's approach to harnessing the elements of the brand anchored to Work, extending it into that maker economy, but really building a strong community around all the aspects of creative self-expression, certainly moving into the maker piece. There's a SK8 element to this brand. It's always been there with the 874 work pant and really acknowledging that, speaking to that consumer, helping stretch into a new concentric circle. But it's really just looking at the integrated marketplace opportunity and really leveraging the core work heritage, driving those icons. But you'll continue to see us evolve our product offer, higher price points, higher-quality materials and make into those higher tiers of distribution, but continuing to expand internationally in Europe and Asia and really leveraging that core work heritage that comes from the U.S. marketplace.

Very helpful. And then the last question. Obviously, there's a lot of chatter around cotton. I think 10 years ago, I'm sure you were asked repeatedly about cotton. Obviously, you spun out Kontoor Brands. But just -- if you can just remind us about your cotton exposure, just your hedging and just the contracts. I don't think you buy directly cotton. But any thoughts on just raw material inflation broadly would be appreciated.

Yes. Laurent, I assume that one I should probably take. Yes, cotton, certainly, there are programs in terms of how we're buying cotton. And that's all, I think, fairly straightforward and consistent with what the industry would do by and large. But I think it's worth recognizing, as we've evolved our portfolio over time to be more focused on Outdoor and Active, cotton is probably less in terms of, say, the component parts of our product than it would have been historically. It's about 10% of VF's product cost today. And based on what we know about the pricing as well as, again, our forward contracts, et cetera, we expect this to negatively impact our product cost somewhere between 0.5 point and 1 point in fiscal '23, very limited impact this year, really sort of immaterial. And we're planning overall product cost inflation next year to be, let's call it, somewhere around a mid-single-digit headwind sort of in total.

I think you said gross margins will still be up next year. Is that still the right way to think about it despite the inflationary environment?

That's the right way to think about it.

At this time, I'll turn the call over to Steve Rendle for closing remarks.

Thank you, everybody, for joining us this morning. Just a few things I'd love to reiterate. We're very pleased with our broad-based strength across our portfolio and, I think, more importantly, the execution of our teams, particularly in this changing and challenging environment. We are seeing improving outlook across the majority of our brands and regions. And I take a lot of pride in our organization's ability to continue to adjust through these unprecedented times. While the pieces of our business have come together slightly differently than we anticipated 6 months ago, we are delivering high single-digit organic growth versus fiscal 2020. It gives me a lot of confidence in the resiliency that we enjoy from the diversity of VF's business model and our ability to accelerate momentum going forward. So thank you for your time, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.