Fashion designers do not care about sales. They are playing a fantasy game.
You're wrong Ducky, of course they care about sales, everyone wants to make money.
You're introducing a false dichotomy here - both things are true - they care about both things.
The question, with competing imperatives, is what someone cares about MORE.
There are definitely media producers (be it fashion, pornography, television, toys, newspapers, etc) whose competing motives (which everyone has) sometimes become MORE important than making money.
I'm guessing that's what you're getting at here.
The "NuclearShadow" poster you quoted is making the same mistake as you - engaging in a false dichotomy.
NS is right that there are factors besides "will this appeal to men" that affect foid fashion purchases, but goes too far in saying stuff like "it was never about".
Neither of you are going to have a productive conversation about this topic if you can't avoid speaking in absolutes.
If you two become more realistic, what you will probably find that your difference of opinion should be about how much weight you give to cause.
NS clearly thinks male gaze (call it Y-factor) is of lesser importance to other female motivations (call it X-factor) whereas I personally think Y-factor is still the prime cause.
What I do think is true though is that most foids don't actually process/accept that Y-factor is predominant because they couch it in other stuff they pretend is about their own opinions.
When foids say that Y-factor is low-importance they actually may often be honest about that because they may genuinely believe this, as they depress motivations like that as they are embarassing and anti-feminist to embrace.
we know they are all low IQ incelphobes who can't look past their own hatred of sub5 males, they will say and do anything to feel like they are disproving or getting one up on us.
I don't find generalizations like this productive.
Is there an element of such spitefulness amongst many (most?) of them? Sure. You could say the same of a lot of us. There are commonalities even if the frequency is not identical.
We should not overlook the strong possibility that they aren't "saying anything" and legit are expressing honest opinions which just come from a different perspective of social circles where they aren't blackpilled and repress acknowledgement of cause factors.