2020.05.31
Designer Brands’ shift from “Aspiration” to “Familiar” Part 2
- Category FASHION
Attracting young customers and customer churn
The high-brand customer base has been mainly the wealthy people who have the financial power to spend money freely and high-brand followers in their 30s, 40s and older until now. One of the things that many brands have launched to attract young customers in their twenties is to wipe out the “difficult to enter” atmosphere of their stores, which is one of the characteristics of high-brands brands. They have become an open space where it is easy to enter for young customers, and the number of pop design items that are easy to pick up has gradually increased, leading to more customers to visit. In addition, another factor may be the increase in promotions targeting young people and rapid spread of words through SNS. The designs and items have been launched that make “young people who have not spent money on high-brand products” “want to spend money.” On the other hand, as the strategy has become geared towards young people, some people are even cynical saying that the new strategy has caused “customer churn” in which long-time customers of the brands in their 30s and 40s have lost interest in the brands…
High brand that continues to keep themselves as they are and street fashion that continues to evolve
Street fashion is a generic term that spontaneously arose from the fashions among young people and established. This is sometimes called Urahara fashion, but it means a fashion born out of the ideas of young people who are flexible enough to incorporate a variety of genres. Although young people are said “they do not spend money on clothes,” they have recently come to incorporate high-brand items into their street fashion as an item which spices up or upgrades their fashion. Specifically, they often use belts, shoes, and bags. Many vintage bags such as Celine and Gucci have a smaller brand logo or have it inside casually emphasizing the brand name.
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Also, in recent years, many second-hand clothing stores have begun to have high-brand vintages. For example, Celine's Macadam pattern has been a craze since around 2018 to the present, even though the brand has discontinued its production. The price is around 10,000 yen and it has become a popular product that sells out quickly.
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High brands used to be a longing dream that was hard to get and there was a sense of distance between young people and them. However, due to the change of designers and the influence of second-hand clothing stores, a sense of familiarity was born, and the distance between young people and high brands has definitely shrunk.
We cannot wait to see how the position of high brands will change in the future.
