Luxury Collabs: Innovation or temporary solution to bigger issues?
The notion of collaborations within the fashion sphere is nothing new. Every year, fashion enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting for H&M’s next designer collaboration to be announced around the summer. High-Low collaborations have been prominent for a while, from Halston designing collections for JC Penny, to Karl Lagerfeld bringing back the trend with his 2000s collection for popular mass retailer M&M. Multiple other collaborations followed, including Stella McCartney, Balmain and Versace for H&M, Missoni for Target etc.
High and low collaborations are working for multiple reasons. Firsty, luxury designers get to approach younger demographics that are the typical customers of mass retailers and start selling their luxury brand image to them. While addressing the masses, luxury brands also get to maintain their exclusivity, an integral part of luxury business, with the extremely limited edition nature of the collaboration. On the other hand, the mass retailer gets to attach their name next to the luxury designer and thus get some of their glamour and status associated with their brand name. The collections -usually a commercial hit- are also bringing in a very healthy revenue influx to both parties involved. Most of all however, these collaborations are publicity machines. Not only are they always present on print, TV and social media, but it is specifically the internet that really allowed them to be extremely successful. Virality is the most desired outcome here, which is quite often within the fashion loving communities.
As these collections became more and more popular throughout the 2010s the market seemed to eventually get relatively saturated. From having 5 of them a year to now, fashion crowds share a bit less of excitement about them and fewer are taking place. As a result, luxury businesses looked inside themselves and started collaborating with each other instead.
Over the last few years we have seen multiple luxury x luxury collaborations. “Fendace” the coveted collaboration of italian houses Fendi & Versace, was unveiled recently and earlier in the year Gucciage (Gucci x Balenciaga) broke the internet with their viral show. Last year, Dries Van Noten and Moncler Genius also seeked the help of other prominent luxury designers to step into their creative director role for one or multiple seasons. This trend raises multiple questions around the motives and business model associated with the practice. Can’t a luxury consumer simply get the look, by wearing a Versace top and a Fendi skirt together?
Sharing the same type of customer, luxury fashion houses can benefit from introducing enthusiasts of one house to the other through their collaborations (even though it is often easy to spot the most prominent of two luxury brands) and maintaining the relationship moving forward. Going viral, the publicity that can be associated with such limited editions is bringing media exposure that would be equivalent (if so) to millions of dollars spent in marketing budgets. Most important however, these collaborations are a quick fix for brands to maintain their relevancy and share of voice in the market. In the age of digital, the oversaturation of online offerings means that users tend to loose their interest extremely quickly and brands have to find ways for them to engage with their brand. Limited editions are indeed all the range with younger customers. By allowing them to achieve that, the practice of luxury collaborating with itself might keep being prevalent for the next time period.
Many are worrying however, that luxury fashion is staying stagnant by choosing this route. Instead of focusing on innovation and frankly creating new revolutionary pieces, luxury houses have become well oiled machines that have their bottom line and revenue numbers driving their creative decisions. For brands that have invested millions, if not billions, of dollars in marketing and distribution, not a single collection can be a commercial failure. This means that brands have to cater to broader demographics and create products that will create quick excitement and hope that consumerism will do it’s job.
There is a time and a place for any kind of creative collaboration within the fashion industry and this will never change. Elsa Schiaparelli herself was oftentimes collaborating with renowned artist Salvador Dali, creating masterpieces that were blurring the lines between fashion and art. As an industry however, we need to reevaluate our core objectives and goals to perhaps focus on what is important to us from a cultural perspective. This does not need to mean commercial failure, but instead a change in strategy.
In 2021, we are seeing a progressive shift into areas such as the Metaverse, NFTs and their capabilities in the luxury industry. Gamification is also extremely important, with the customers of tomorrow being well versed into that culture. It is these areas and those new meeting points that are slowly building the future of our culture. Having historically been linked to creating culture, luxury companies push innovation. The most successful luxury companies of tomorrow will be the ones who recognised that they needed to focus on the correct birthplace of culture, instead of focusing on quick media fixes.
The road to that model is not easy. New innovation is almost equal to risk and companies will have to spend money without being sure of the results. Up to now, we have seen that conglomerates and groups were able to be on the forefront by having big budgets for marketing. What we have to wonder now is, if their rigid corporate structures and focus on revenues will even allow them to explore the world that really holds the key to future success. If not, new passionate players who have nothing to loose, will be the ones brave enough to explore the new drivers of culture and thus becoming the luxury companies of tomorrow.
