High-end streetwear helped to boost global sales of luxury personal goods by 5 percent this year to an estimated 263 billion euros ($309 billion), according to Bain & Company, and it will sustain this growth for the foreseeable future. With such figures in mind and with the ever-increasing on the younger consumers, it should come as little surprise that luxury brands want in.
Fashion brands have been looking to woo younger consumers, namely, millennials and their younger Gen-Z counterparts, in an attempt to turn them into full-fledged fans as their level of disposable income continues to rise. This has seen brands packing their front rows and Instagram feeds with younger, more relatable influencers (as opposed to traditional models or other celebrities) and looking to buzzy streetwear brands and streetwear-inspired wares to inject their houses with youthful zest.
One need not look further than the recent seasons’ street style imagery – which is rife with images of graphic Off-White or Vetements sweatshirts, bags from the likes of Louis Vuitton and Supreme, which collaborated this spring to much fan fury (and also a bit of dismay), or Burberry and Gosha Rubchinskiy wares, another recent collaboration of note – to see the budding appeal of this calculated brand direction.
It is working. “Customers are becoming younger, and that is very good for the mid- and longer-term survival of this industry, since the younger generation seemed to be a little detached from luxury brands,” Federica Levato, a partner at Bain & Company, told the AP. “There is a big market of 2.5 million euros for luxury t-shirts, for example, that is growing very fast. And a half-a-billion-euro market for rubber sliders, which is very unusual in this market.”
Share
