3. TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION — 3
LITERATURE REVIEW — 5
A - Streetwear — 5
United States — 6
Japan — 9
Paris — 11
London — 13
B - Luxury fashion brands and products — 15
Luxury brands classification — 17
It is not about the brand positioning — 17
The evolution of luxury fashion brands — 18
C - The link between Streetwear and modern haute couture — 19
Dapper Dan — 19
Hip-hop’s impact on Polo Ralph Lauren — 21
Kanye West’s influence on fashion — 23
How Virgil Abloh conquered the fashion world — 25
Luxury streetwear — 27
Rappers are fashion’s new kings and queens — 29
PROBLEMATIC & FIELD STUDIES — 31
A - Problematic — 31
B - Hypothesis — 33
C - Field study — 35
Methodology — 35
Qualitative study — 35
Quantitative study — 38
Results — 40
RECOMMENDATIONS — 53
CONCLUSION — 73
BIBLIOGRAPHY — 77
ANNEXES — 81
5. 3
INTRODUCTION
Streetwear culture has been around for multiple decades, but in the latest years we
have been witnessing a consumer shift in the luxury industry that has directly influ-
enced the fashion industry.
In March 2018, Virgil Abloh, the founder of Off-White, became the artistic director of
Louis Vuitton’s menswear operation. For a man that grew up with hip-hop culture and
who was the creative director of Donda, rapper’s Kanye West creative agency1
, it
was hard to imagine that he would one day become the head of the most renowned
European luxury house.
The new generation of consumers, generations Y and Z, has been at the center of
this new strategy for LVMH. Millennials are predicted to represent 45% of total luxury
goods spending by 20252
. Luxury brands need to adapt to them and deliver the prod-
uct that they are looking for: t-shirts, down jackets and sneakers had the best progres-
sion in 2017, growing by 25%, 15% and 10% respectively. These new generations are
already fueling the luxury market by being part of 85% of the luxury growth in 2017
and it is now this cultural energy powered by social media that is driving the business
model of luxury brands.
While the mix of high-end and streetwear has proven to be efficient to drive business
as we have seen last year’s Supreme x Louis Vuitton collaboration, we have the right
to wonder if luxury brands will be relevant as creating there own streetwear looks.
Kim Jones at Dior Homme, Riccardo Tisci at Burberry, Demna Gvasalia at Balencia-
ga... The new generation of designers that is taking over the creative direction of the
majors luxury brands might be able to change the landscape of the fashion world and
the business model of luxury goods as we used to see it.
Mixing is always a risk, streetwear could or could not be just another fleeting fashion
trend, we will try to understand how it could evolve and if luxury brands will be able to
stay relevant by incorporating the street culture into their business models.
1 “A brief history of Virgil Abloh’s meteoric rise” Vogue.com - March 28 2018
2 16th edition of Bain Luxury Study
6. 4
Streetwear
‘A distinctive style of street fashion.
Rooted in Californian surf and skate culture, it has grown
to encompass elements of hip hop fashion, Japanese street
fashion, and modern haute couture fashion.’
7. 5
LITERATURE REVIEW
A - Streetwear
We see the term “streetwear” everywhere in fashion right now and it is probably the
most trendy style to rock nowadays, but the origins of it could be hard to understand
for young generations. Born in the United States, it is a convergence of two different
cultures, two different approach of living, two different coasts of a same country.
Streetwear isn’t just about the United States, as we are going to see here, Japan,
and especially the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo, played a very important part in
the growth of the culture. London, a city that gave birth to the punk movement quickly
became a major hub of streetwear. Finally, Paris and other major European cities like
Berlin and Barcelona also developed their own kind of street culture and street style.
In this first part of this study, we are going to explore the history of the streetwear cul-
ture. How it grew in the different parts of the world, what were the influences and who
were the major architects of it.
Stüssy archives campaign
8. 6
United States
Streetwear started in the 1980s on two different sides of the U.S.
Under the Californian sun, the surf & skate culture started to explode with kids skating
in empty swimming pools and living an alternative life influenced by the punk culture.
In the back streets of New York City, rap music was listened by kids living in the inner
city and the hip-hop culture influenced them through different channels:
• Break-dancing, inspired by TV shows like Soul Train.
• Graffiti paintings, with artist like Basquiat that started to write on the city walls
• Music, through rappers like Kurtis Blow who proved that a career in rap was pos-
sible
In California, Shawn Stüssy, a surfboard designer started to print his trademark sig-
nature on T-shirts and selling them. This was a major shift that launched the whole
business model of streetwear brands. Complex Magazine1
perfectly resumed this
phenomenon:
“Stüssy took a multi-faceted, sub-culturally diverse, Southern California life-
style-based T-shirt brand and mimicked the limited feel of a high-end luxury brand.
And those are the two mist integral components of what makes a brand streetwear:
T-shirts and exclusivity.”
During that time in New York City, from Brooklyn to the Bronx, the hip-hop culture
started to emerge. With break-dancing, people were wearing baggy clothes to have
more freedom in their movements. It was an era that saw bling jewelry, Adidas Super-
stars and Nike Jordans taken off. Run-DMC released the song “My Adidas” in 1986,
a song that was an ode to their sneakers. They became, soon after, the first hip-hop
artists with a sportswear company endorsement2
.
By sponsoring the basketball player Michael Jordan and creating his very own brand,
Nike created a hero for the youth and Jordan’s signature brand sneakers became a
must have all around America.
At that time, youngAmericans were influenced by two main domains: music and sports.
Brands like Adidas understood very early that entertainers could also create sales for
sportswear companies, and brands like Nike understood that athlete could influence
every type of person to buy there products, not necessarily people doing sport.
In the early 90’s, Stüssy, which was later elected by Bobby Hundreds “The Greatest
Streetwear Brand of All Time”3
opened its first shop in Soho, the artistic district of New
York.
Prior to that, Shawn Stüssy’s inspirations were already coming from New York. His
Californian brand was influenced in the designs and colors by the multiple travels that
Shawn made all around the world and specifically New York.
1 http://www.complex.com/style/the-greatest-streetwear-brands/
2 https://www.mrporter.com/daily/how-run-dmc-earned-their-adidas-stripes/939
3 https://www.complex.com/style/the-greatest-streetwear-brands/
9. 7
Streetwear is tied with hip-hop and rap music and that what gave some of the early
streetwear looks. Rappers were copying drug dealers styles to legitimate their street
credibility. In the cold temperatures of New York City, most of the drug dealers were
wearing warm clothes from brands like Carhartt, Timberland, M-65s, MA-1s...
This gave birth to the Stüssy “look”: taking references from skate, surf and punk styles
mixed with an aspiration from hip-hop.
In 1989, James Jebbia, opened Union1
, a store that was selling British brands with a
younger-looking merchandise in Soho on Spring Street and West Broadway. It was
carrying young brands that felt close to the young customers and this is why James
Jebbia wanted to be the first East Coast shop to stock Stüssy. When Shawn Stussy
and James Jebbia met, they developed a great relationship that lead them to later
open the first Stüssy shop in Soho in 1990 on 104 Prince Street.
What kept Stüssy so relevant was Shawn Stussy’s ability to travel to other cultural
places like Tokyo, Paris and London. He created a global group of influencers and
developed The International Stüssy Tribe2
. Being one of the first brand to giveaway
free jackets to friends and family to be able to create “hype” around it.
By the mid 1990’s, Stüssy lost some of its flame and founder’s Shawn Stüssy sold his
shares while the brand was still selling well in Japan and Europe. During that same
time, James Jebbia saw the opportunity to create his own company and he launched
a brand called Supreme.
James Jebbia who, before working with Shawn Stussy, used to work at a Duracell fac-
tory and was spending his spare money to trips to London to buy clothes he couldn’t
find in the United States. It has always been about finding the “cool stuff” that others
didn’t or couldn’t have. James Jebbia, born in England and who left for the US when
he was nineteen, had always been around the skate culture.
“I always really liked what was coming out of the skate world. It was less commer-
cial, it had more edge and more f-you type stuff”
This was one of the reason why he decided to open his first store in Soho, on Lafay-
ette Street. It was a neighborhood that was a little bit forgotten and where a lot of kids
were hanging out and skateboarding. Keith Haring had a pop-up shop nearby and it
created a link between street-fashion and art.
The people employed at the shop were always kids, skateboarders themselves who
had an “I don’t care” attitude. James Jebbia quickly created an environment com-
posed of blasting loud music from Slayer, Big L, Wu-Tang, Bowie, etc. TVs playing
skate videos of the time and Muhammad Ali fights and video excerpt of Taxi Driver.
1 https://www.complex.com/style/2013/03/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-su-
preme/jebbia-cruz-parachute-teenagers
2 https://www.mrporter.com/journal/the-tribute/stssy/416
10. 8
At first, Supreme was only selling T-shirts and it organically grew to cotton hoodies
and fitted caps. Soon after came up the collaborations with artists on skateboard
decks, T-shirts and other apparels.
Many artists have worked with Supreme since the brand launched, from Jeff Koons to
John Baldessari or even Neil Young.
One collaboration in particular really created a shift for Supreme, it was in 2012 when
they produced a line of T-shirts, shoes and shirts with Comme des Garçons3
.
Supreme X Comme des Garçons campaign, 2012
Nowadays, Supreme is still mainly a retailer with eleven stores worldwide: New York,
Brooklyn, LosAngeles, London, Paris and five stores in Tokyo where it actually opened
its first international locations back in 1999.
Why so many stores in Japan? Because this is where Supreme developed the most
rapidly its fan base. Inspired by the weekly items dropping of Japanese streetwear
labels like GOODENOUGH or A Bathing APE, James Jebbia understood the impor-
tance of thinking about the end consumer from the very beginning of the process of a
collection.
Before getting deeper in the system of product release in the streetwear industry, we
must first explore the evolution of this culture in Japan.
3 https://hypebeast.com/2012/3/comme-des-garcons-shirt-x-supreme-2012-cap-
sule-collection
11. 9
Japan
Stüssy started to sell across Japan and Europe, but other international brands were
created around that time also. A very important one for streetwear history is BAPE,
also known as A Bathing APE with its iconic camo pattern.
The brand has its roots in the early 90’s and its founder, Nigo, was part of a group of
friends that became later some of the most important streetwear designers and influ-
encers of their generation:
• Shinsuke Takizawa who created Neighborhood in 1994
• Tetsu Nishiyama who established his first brand Forty Percent Against Rights in
1993 and WTAPS in 1996
• Hiroshi Fujiwara, the “Godfather of Streetwear” who created GoodEnough and lat-
er Fragment Design
All these designers have been emerging in ura-Harajuku, which was the underground
scene going in the Harajuku neighborhood.
Before launching BAPE, Nigo opened ‘Nowhere’ with Jun Takahashi of Undercover, a
shop that very much inspired the French concept-store Colette a few years later. The
shop was split in half, with fifty percents filled with Undercover garments and the other
with items curated by Nigo. Nigo associated himself with designer Sk8thing to launch
the brand with the famous faceless gorilla, referring to the Japanese idiom “A bathing
ape in lukewarm water”. The phrase means to describe a person or a culture that is
overindulging, to the point that it rests in bath that isn’t even hot anymore1
.
With its mixture of Americans clothings and styles with a deep appreciations of the
Japanese underground culture, A Bathing Ape and Nowhere quickly defined the “Ura-
hara” style of the 90s.
Nowhere shop by Nigo & Jun Takahashi
1 https://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/05/22/bape-a-bathing-ape/
12. 10
The power of exclusivity.
Much like Supreme did in the United States, Nigo understood the importance of re-
maining exclusive to maintain its “credibility” towards the consumers. In 1998, the
brand was sold in more than forty locations in the country but Nigo decided to stop
all wholesale operations and focus on their flagship store. The result was immediate.
Consumers became fans, and the formula of hype was spreading around Japanese
youth culture.
A specific aspect of Tokyo’s designers are their ability to stay connected with the
street, making music, skating, collaborating with new people and always trying to
break new ground.
From Rei Kawakubo to Yohji Yamammoto and Issey Miyake, Japanese fashion style
has been spreading across the world since the early 1980s, but it would be a crime
to not mention designer and DJ Hiroshi Fujiwara who many consider the godfather
of streetwear1
. He discovered hip-hop during a trip to New York in the beginning of
the 1980s. He fell in love with the music and the movement that he witnessed in the
streets of the city. Not long after he established himself as a DJ and started to bring
the hip-hop culture in the country. His interest towards hip-hop actually didn’t come
naturally at first because he was more into the punk scene from London. It is actually
Malcom McClaren, artist, musician and manager of the Sex Pistols who told him to
forget about new wave and punk and start digging into hip-hop.
Goodenough was founded in 1990 and it helped to launch Tokyo’s radical fashion and
culture transformation and inspire Nigo and Jun Takahashi. Fujiwara also became the
first Japanese member of the International Stüssy Tribe and he was receiving boxes
of products every months which he shared with local influencers.
In 1996, Nowhere, the store of Nigo and Takahashi started to represent the cultural
aspect of streetwear in the country. Japanese pop stars were fading off and the young
generations started to look for new style inspirations and they naturally adopted the
Urahara style: screen-printed t-shirt, camo-jackets, dark denim, high-tech backpacks
matched with Nike Air Max 95 or Adidas Superstars.
Undercover, GoodEnough, Neighborhood and BAPE became the favorite brands and
their head designers like Fujiwara and Takahashi were admired like pop stars2
.
Nowhere was elected the most popular store of the country in 1996.
This mix of music, art and fashion came to inspire not only the young generations of
Japaneses but also other cultures and we saw the opening of new look-a-like stores
across the world.
1 https://hypebeast.com/2016/10/hiroshi-fujiwara-goodenough-history
2 https://www.grailed.com/drycleanonly/nowhere-history-of-japanese-street-cul-
ture
13. 11
Paris
While Streetwear was mostly about baggy and oversized T-shirts in New York, skinny
jeans and printed T-shirts for Californians, Streetwear had a different meaning and
origins in France.
The Streetwear movement landed in France in the early 90s from the United States,
through the hip-hop movement that inspired French rappers to create their own brands:
Bullrot, Dia, Com8, 2High, Royal Wear, etc.
Most of these brands consisted as printed T-shirts or sweaters, but the French street-
wear style has also been inspired by sports. Lacoste, initially a “BCBG” brand with
tennis inspirations and who offers polos and elegant apparels, became the favorite
brand in French “banlieues”. Comfortable and classy, the Lacoste tracksuits was a
must-have alongside a fanny-pack and a soccer jersey.
La Haine, directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995
The Street style that inspired the movie La Haine, a reference in the French cinema-
tography with a deep exploration of the French ghetto in the 90s, was a mix of leather
bombers Avirex, Fila sweaters and Nike sneakers.
14. 12
Colette
Paris fashion world would not be what it is in terms high-end fashion brands and
streetwear if it wasn’t for Colette.
The store that operated on the 213 rue Saint-Honoré from 1997 to 2017 was the very
own creation of Colette Roussaux and Sarah Andelman. It offered a mix of art, fash-
ion, music, design and street style. For many, it is the first concept-store with three
stories with different vibes and purposes:
• The basement was a “water-bar” where customers could grab a salad or taste a
specific drinks that they couldn’t necessarily find somewhere else in the capital
• The ground floor featured the best of the new trendy street brands curated by Sarah
Andelman and her team with a selection of music, magazines, and home furnitures
• The first floor was dedicated to luxury fashion brands, an art section, a selection of
make-up and skincare products, and expensive jewelry items
For twenty years, Colette was the place to go for artists, fashion aficionados and
tourists from all around the world. You could see Karl Lagerfeld, Pharrell Williams or
French rapper Booba holding a showcase in the place. It was a hybrid place in con-
stant movements, during its 20 years, more than 2000 windows displays and thou-
sands of brands were featured.
“Rather than a static boutique, the place was though of like a style magazine: the
windows that changed regularly were like the cover, the ground floor filled with ac-
cessories like the opening pages, the top floor with fashion, the bottom with food:
the idea was a place of life rather than a place of luxe”
Guillaume Salmon, Colette’s head of communications for 18 years
That little boutique helped to shape the French touch in today’s fashion world and
translate it to customers. It was the link of the best of both world with luxury and street-
wear, tourists and regulars, artists and hypebeasts.
Colette iconic logo, designed by Guillaume Wolf with a Pantone 293C
15. 13
London
The second part of the twentieth century has seen London becoming one of the most
notable city in the world of street fashion.
Known for its traditional handcrafts of tailoring, shirt, hat and shoe making relied by the
English gentlemen, the city grew with an exciting subcultural club and street scene.
The famous art schools have been nurturing eccentric and innovative design talents.
1960s Mods of Carnaby Street and 1970s Punks of King’s Road earned to London the
notoriety of being the birth ground for revolutionary acts of sartorial rebellion.
A store that made a difference in the late 1990s was The Hideout on Upper James
Street, founded in 1998 by Fraser Cooke and Michael Kopelman (who now runs
Gimme5, a streetwear distribution company). It was originally named ‘Hit and Run’
and was specialized in Japanese and American streetwear. Many Japanese street-
wear brands were first introduced to the UK through the store: Neighborhood, W-Taps,
Visvim... Michael Kopelman was into DJing before opening the store, he was intro-
duced to the fashion industry through Shawn Stussy and was part of the International
Stüssy Tribe.
For a long time, it was the only place in London to buy streetwear brands from the
days, including Supreme which later opened its first European store in London in
2011.
The HideOut, by Fraser Cooke and Michael Kopelman in London
16. 14
Palace
Before being a brand and a shop, Palace stood for the Palace Wayward Boys Choir,
the name of a group of Southbank skaters. Founded by Lev Tanju in 2009, Palace
Skateboards and its eye-catching “Tri-ferg” logo has rapidly became an emblem in the
streetwear world.
From the outside, Palace has everything of streetwear: skate roots, gritty videos and
heavy collaborations. The designs are very much inspired from the UK 90s rave scene
with trippy graphics, outrageously-patterned bucket hats, fanny-packs and tracksuits.
British counter culture has always been strong and it was only a matter of time for a
streetwear skate inspired brand to explode. The difference with other brands that only
survived for a short period of time is that Palace doesn’t exist only for the hype of its
collaborations or recognizable logo but the brand has a deeper meaning for the young
British generations. It represents the skate culture of the UK, it isn’t a big corporation
and it feels like all the employees are part of the same families. In a sense, it is legiti-
mate to compare it to Supreme. Despite being from different continents, the roots are
the same: skateboarding and a connection to Stüssy.
Palace Skateboards is making functional clothing adapted to the city of London: wa-
terproof jackets, windbreakers and lined hoodies. It has a professional skateboarding
team and is well represented through collaborations with sportswear giants like Adi-
das and Reebok.
Palace Skateboards logo, by Fergus Purcell
Through this brief history of the birth of streetwear, we can legitimately say that it ex-
ists since the 1980s and has been in a constant evolutionary phase. It has become
wider and more dominant but the roots are still intact: exclusivity, printed T-shirts and
the tribe sense that the brands procure.
The aim of this study is to understand the evolution of streetwear but also its connec-
tion to luxury, the influence that it has and how the future could be for both worlds.
We are now going to take a look at the luxury market in the fashion industry, under-
stand how it works and study the luxury fashion brands that were influential in the
street culture.
17. 15
B - Luxury fashion brands
and products
Before taking a step further onto the high-end fashion brands, we are going to ana-
lyze what defines luxury, what constitutes a luxury brand and how luxury brands are
managed.
Luxury, from Latin “luxuria”, meaning “excess, extravagant living, profusion; delicacy”.
A major part of the following will be referring to Kapferer’s books12
which helped to
shape the vision of today’s luxury market and strategies.
One of the first fact is to distinguished premium and luxury.
We can find some of the characteristics of a luxury brand in premium (better quality,
selective distribution, emotional values) but there is a distance separating the two.
1. First of all, luxury must give value to the beauty, the excellence and the “unique-
ness” of the product. For Kapferer, the most representative of this type of luxury is
Rolls-Royce.
2. The second point to consider is the creative and sensual aspect of the products, it
must feels as prototypes. Gucci is one of the best representative of that.
3. Timelessness and international reputation are other key values of a luxury brand.
We can see it through the Louis Vuitton logo or the Porsche designs.
4. The last factor of luxury is the rarity of the product. Even if this aspect could remove
a lot of brands from being categorized as luxury brands, it is mostly the feeling and
the perception of rarity given by the possession of the product that is important.
These characteristics are Kapferer’s fundamentals for a luxury brand to be distin-
guished as such.
The work of Klaus Heine on ‘The Concept of Luxury Brands’3
caracterizes luxury
brands with six criterias:
“Luxury brands are regarded as images in the minds of consumers that comprise
associations about a high level of price, quality, aesthetics, rarity, extraordinariness
and a high degree of non-functional associations”
Taking these criteria independently wouldn’t qualify a brand as luxury. We can de-
scribe individually each criteria and identify the key difference in each one of them that
would help to make the brand stand out.
1 “The new strategic Brand Management - creating and sustaining brand equity
long term”, Kapferer, J. (2008). 4th Ed. London: Kogan Page
2 “Luxe oblige”, Kapferer, J. (2012). 2nd Ed. Eyrolles
3 “The Concept of Luxury Brands”, Heine, J. (2011)
18. 16
The price is often assimilated to luxury. Luxury products are usually seen as the most
expensive products of their category. But nowadays a lot of premium brands offer
products in the same zone of price as traditional luxury brands so it makes it a lot
harder to separate the two based only on this characteristic.
Quality is an obligation for any type of luxury products. Being timeless, if we take the
example of a Birkin bag from Hermès, olders are often the rarest and the ones that
have the more value.
This is why, quality is defined in multiples dimensions that are examined therefore:
• The expertise of the manufacturer, that requires technical and stylistic competenc-
es
• The manufacturing complexity, which includes handcraft and time
• The material and components, being related to the type of product. For example,
silver is considered high standard in cutlery, but in terms of luxury watches, gold or
platinum are the minimal
• Construction and function principle that should stream into comfortability and func-
tionality
• Workmanship through a goal of attaining perfection even if planned imperfections
could add value to handmade aspect of certain products
• Special features to differentiate the premium from the luxury product
• An excellent service, from the beginning of the purchase experience all the way to
the after-sales through a personalized customer relationship management
• Durability in the value: it is expected from the consumer to have a product with a
high and long-lasting value whether it is from the superior materials, the sophisti-
cated manufacturing or the special features and services that come with it
• Finally, consumers assume that luxury products should simply perform better than
ordinary or premium products
It is through this panel of characteristics that a consumer can evaluate the quality of a
luxury product. Therefore, it should not be obvious to him but feels natural during his
purchasing experience and along his utility of the product.
Concerning aesthetics, Heine explains that they are perceived as a distinct character-
istic of luxury products. It is not related to the high price tag but to world of beauty and
elegance that it must represent.
It is also what gives the rarity of luxury products such an important role, without it, the
product becomes normal and has an ordinary feel. It is the feeling that a consumer
has when she or he is the first one to have a new item, and a year later everyone has
it. The value of it drops and in the eye of that very first consumer. In order to maintain
that rarity aspect, quantities must be limited and products should be able to be indi-
vidualized.
Finally, Heine believes that a luxury brand needs to have some sort of symbolism
whether it is through its design, informations, communication or endorsement of spe-
cial people. Luxury brands can then be divided in four different types.
19. 17
Entry-level luxury brand
E l i t e - l e v e l
luxury brand
Top-level luxury brand
Medium-level luxury brand
Luxury brands classification
When we talk about luxury brands, a study conducted by Antoinette M. Fonda & Chris-
topher M. Moore in 2009 untitled “The anatomy of the luxury fashion brand” focuses
on the importance of a signature product for the luxury brands. It can also be referred
as a special “designers style”, a “handwriting” or the “brand DNA”. It is becoming more
and more exploited by brands through exclusivity of a product and a high price to de-
fine an entry barrier.
The classics of the brand are what represent and what should drive most of the busi-
ness, or at least create the envy, for luxury fashion brands. Season trends, in compar-
ison, would drive business but will also be on sales the next season and so, lose the
magic that must create the brands.
It is not about the brand positioning
For Kapferer and Bastien, luxury brands should never focus on the brand positioning
but on the brand identity.
Marketing studies, analytical data and surveys should not define the brand but it should
reflect the result of what have been created through “the close bonds with the psyche
of clients who are seduced with the brand identity” (Kapferer and Bastien).
This is where the storytelling takes an important part. Luxury brands have to reflect a
story, it could be a real one like Coco Chanel or one that has been created to repre-
sent the vision of its creator like Ralph Lauren.
For each one of these level we can
provide different examples:
• Entry-level: Hugo Boss, Mercedes
• Medium-level: Dolce&Gabana,
Moschino
• Top-level: Armani, Cartier, Louis
Vuitton
• Elite-level: Rolls Royce, Bottega
Veneta, Patek Philippe
20. 18
This aspect is also represented in advertisement in luxury marketing. The purpose
of an advertising campaign for a luxury brand is not to sell but to keep on filling the
dream. The dream is constantly degraded by the media or the bad exposure that can
suffer the brand from. It is important for the brand to create awareness without mak-
ing it too available. The brand should be known not only by the targeted group but by
everybody else. Kapferer and Bastien use the case of Rolex to reflect this concept:
“One of the best example is Rolex.
Recognized by many as a luxury asset and worn by only a few.
All of these concepts lead to the continuous increase of a luxury items prices.”
It gives the opportunity for the brand to increase its prices to the targeted customers
and then sell affordable products to the aspirational ones.
The evolution of luxury fashion brands
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines fashion as “social standing or prominence
especially as signalized by dress or conduct” or the “prevailing style during a particu-
lar time”. Clothing and accessories have been mainly about the functional aspect for a
long time, it has now evolved where we now wear it more for the fashion and prestige
that it represents, especially in luxury fashion. In the 1800s, incomes rose and gave
the opportunity for people from the mid and upper level class to seek for luxury. It is
during that time that we witnessed the birth of luxury fashion with brands like Hermes
(1837), Burberry (1856), Cartier (1857) followed later by Chanel (1910) and Prada
(1913).
While customers aspired to acquire some of the aforementioned brands, another cat-
egory emerged with affordable luxury fashion brands with prices below the luxury
competitors: Coach (1941), Michael Kors (1978) and Tory Burch (2004) are some
examples.
The strategies behind the brands, whether luxury or affordable-luxury, are similar in
many aspects. Product categories and target markets may vary but there is numerous
consistent patterns amongst these brands. According to Quan and Shen, the interna-
tional growth is the most common point: different channels to build revenues and a
focus on the storytelling and heritage of the brand.
As the brand keeps on the growing and mature, the development of new products and
licensing agreements start to occur. The process to licensing products is used when
brands lack of expertise in a certain domain, for example sunglasses and perfumes
are very often licensed products in luxury brands.
Eventually, brands start to develop enough knowledge and are able to develop the
licensed products in-house as the licenses expire.
21. 19
C - The link between Streetwear
and modern haute couture
When we are talking about the history of streetwear and the connection it has with
haute couture, there are a number of key people and brands that must be mentioned.
In this section we are going to focus on a number of them: from the influential Har-
lem tailor Dapper Dan, to brands like Ralph Lauren and rapper Kanye West, they all
helped to create a link between the street and the runway, whether it was the main
purpose of their actions are not.
Dapper Dan
Rapper LL Cool J, boxer Mike Tyson and drug dealer Alberto Martinez all had one
thing in common: they used to shop at Dapper Dan’s Boutique in Harlem for there
customized luxury clothing.
Daniel Day, who is almost seventy years old now, is most commonly known as Dap-
per Dan. Dressed as an uptown dandy, his early inspirations came from Africa where
Dapper Dan took a sponsored trip when he was young. From Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya
or Ethiopia, Day experienced Africa for the first time. He later went back in 1974 for
George Foreman’s training prior to the Rumble in the Jungle fight. He took the time to
have another tour of Africa, in Liberia he became friend with a tailor who made him a
tailored suit mixing vivid local fabrics, a West African inspiration on an American style.
Back to America, Day started to study what people were wearing in Harlem and how
they were shopping it. Slowly but surely, he started to hustle his way by selling import-
ed dresses and shirts on the street and he was quickly involved in the fur trade.
He then opened his own boutique in Harlem where he was selling high quality furs
at lower prices than the competition. What differenced Dapper Dan from the other
wasn’t his prices but his keen sense of what customers wanted. People wanted their
fur to be seen? He started to put the fur outside as well so the customers could even
reverse it. He always wanted to make his clothes extremely luxurious so he used
designer-leather trim to turn any garment into a name-brand one. The technique re-
mained quiet expensive and Dapper Dan started to use raw leather instead on going
to the Gucci store. He turned the high-fashion logos into silk screens and found a way
to paint them over the leather he had.
While a lot of people would scream to this being just another counterfeit technique,
Dapper Dan says that he just looked for a way to improve these brands by creating an
own world of luxury in Harlem: “I Africanized it”.
It was one of the first introduction of the street with the luxury fashion brands. Day
helped to lay the groundwork for the modern hip-hop aesthetic.
22. 20
Dapper Dan has served various celebrities in Harlem, from rappers, gangsters and
athletes
Eventually, fashion houses started to notice Dapper Dan’s work and, even if they later
admitted it was a great source of inspiration, recognized him as a counterfeiter of their
logos or products. In his view, Day wasn’t parodying these brands but paying tribute to
them. It helped the younger generations which grew up in the streets to be interested
in the high-fashion and know the luxury brands.
After many lawsuits and continuous fights against luxury brands’ lawyers, Day had
to shut down his store in 1992. He continued to work in the fashion world but always
outside of the regular industry.
In the early 2000s, as the high-fashion became more and more aware of the street-
wear, designers who grew up inspired by some of Dapper Dan’s very own creations
took up jobs at luxury brands. In the last decades we saw logo-print trousers and jack-
ets from Tom Ford at Gucci (2008) or Marc Jacobs collaborating with Pharrell Williams
on Dapper Dan’s inspiration at Louis Vuitton (2004).
Recently, Gucci decided to collaborate directly wit Dapper Dan to open Gucci’s Har-
lem Atelier: a place very much inspired by Dapper Dan’s boutique. It is followed by last
year (SS 2018) Gucci’s fashion show by Alessandro Michele which showed a jacket
looking just like one of Mr Day’s.
Gucci’s Harlem Atelier will focus on the customer by listening to them and creating
what they want, taking their inspiration and make it fit to their personality and look.
23. 21
On his appreciation of the opening of the Atelier, Dapper Dan expresses his opinion
about this joint venture:
‘‘We created this universe of culture that came out of Harlem and it was parallel to
this universe that was coming out of Europe. And then this amazing man comes
along, Alessandro Michele, and because of him, because of his appreciation of cul-
ture and of everybody’s contribution to culture, he made it possible for these parallel
universes to come together’’
Hip-hop’s impact on Polo Ralph Lauren
One of the very first high-end fashion brand that was taken over by hip-hop without
being a goal for the brand was the notoriously famous brand with the horse.
On October 14, 1939, Ralph Lifshitz was born in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish im-
migrants. He eventually changed his name to Ralph Lauren and, in 1967, launched
Polo. What started as a tie company grew into an American sportswear brand, spe-
cializing in menswear.
The brand was not dedicated to the hip-hop community until a crew of Brooklyn teen-
agers called the Lo-Lifes and adopted the label from head-to-toe. “Lo” designated
the Polo brand and it was a word play on the term “low-life”, which means someone
unaccepted by his community. It was late 1980s and it exploded in the streets by the
1990s. Polo Ralph Lauren became a part of hip-hop culture, from magazine covers to
music videos.
The fact that Ralph Lauren created his own American dream and his brand represent-
ing his vision of it, a lot of young people from New York’s inner city were inspired by it.
The relationship between the brand and the hip-hop has sometimes been a little bit
rocky. The Lo-Lifes were not purchasing the products they were wearing and Thirs-
tin Howl, a founding member, says “Every day was a fashion show and a shoplifting
spree throughout upstate malls and Manhattan stores”. It is one of the reason why
Polo never made an effort to embrace the culture that created a new market for the
brand. And it is why the Lo-Lifes get on representing that brand, bought or stole, it was
a way to take a piece of the pie.
Some pieces like the Snow Beach pullover became iconic and finding a vintage one
would cost thousands of dollars now. The aesthetic of the old-school Polo garments
is now reflected in modern hip-hop brands: bold patterns, bright primary colors, etc.
Supreme’s founder James Jebbia once told i-D “What they do is the best” and it is not
a surprise to find a lot of inspiration in Supreme’s collection from Ralph Lauren.
25. 23
Kanye West’s influence on fashion
Kanye West is originally a music producer who became a rapper and is now a fashion
icon for millions of people.
It was not always the case and in 2014, Mister West started to perform shows where
he would go on long monologues1
about how the fashion industry is discriminating
him from others for being famous and black:
“Cause you know damn well there aren’t no black guys or celebrities making no Louis
Vuitton nothing.”
Now, time has change and Kanye West’s brand Yeezy, which sells apparel and sneak-
ers created in collaboration with Adidas, is ranked ninth place in a list of “hottest
brands” created by Business of Fashion2
.
But Kanye West is not a new comer when we talk about fashion and his journey in this
industry is quite unconventional. Since he came out with his album The College Drop-
out in 2004, Kanye West has evolved from collaborations with Louis Vuitton, A.P.C.,
Nike to now his own brand Yeezy.
When he first started as a rapper, Kanye West was not dressed as usual rappers from
that era, wearing baggy jeans and bandanas, but more like a preppy: colored rugby
shirts, pink polos and Louis Vuitton backpack.
In 2007 he did his first collaboration with a streetwear brand (BAPE, that we present-
ed before) on a sneaker featuring Kanye’s iconic “Dropout bear”. A year later, he wore
a pair of “Air Yeezy” that he made in collaboration with Nike. This was the first time
Nike did a signature shoe for a non-athlete. What would later be very common, Kanye
West was a pioneer in the genre. That same year, he started wearing his own clothing
label “Pastelle” to every shows or Fashion Week he was attending. Pastelle clothes
were featuring hoodies and a jacket in very bright colors with BAPE inspired patterns.
In January 2009 Kanye West made his first apparition on a runway when his collab-
oration with Louis Vuitton on a pair of sneakers hits the brand Fall-Winter collection.
Soon after, he announced that he was stopping Pastelle (the brand never went to
stores). During that Fashion Week in Paris, photographer Tommy Ton took a picture
of Kanye West and his crew that came out to be one of the most famous street style
picture of all time. Ton captured an unique moment that represent the beginning of the
hip-hop industry shifting towards luxury fashion with luxury fashion actually embracing
it. The picture features also Virgil Abloh, one of Kanye’s protégée.
1 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/06/kanye-west-pharrell-wil-
liams-wireless-festival-review
2 https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/sponsored-feature/the-truth-about-
vetements-and-fashions-hottest-brands-and-top-selling-products-in-q1
26. 24
Kanye West and his crew including Don C, Taz Arnold, Chris Julian, Fonzworth
Bentley & Virgil Abloh at Paris FW, January 2009
First major hits followed in 2009: the Air Yeezy 1 came out in three colors and sold out
instantly for a retail price of $215. In July, the collaboration with Louis Vuitton came out
and sold out in a few days as well for retail prices between $800 to $1200.
“Rosewood Movement” was created and launched by Kanye and his crew in the Sum-
mer of 2010, it was conceived by Kanye’s love for Dior suits and represented by wear-
ing black suits and white shirts every day,
In 2011, Kanye West introduced Givenchy to the world of hip-hop. He commissioned
Givenchy’s designer Riccardo Tisci to design the Album Artwork for Watch the Throne.
An album that would become one of the greatest hip-hop record of all time. Follow-
ing this action, the French house Givenchy became one of the most popular label
amongst rappers.
Later that year, he presented his own collection in Paris under the name of Kanye
West. Exclusively womenswear, the label lasted two seasons (SS12 & FW12) and
received a limited success.
The end of the year 2012 saw Virgil Abloh, Kanye West’s creative director, launching
his own label Pyrex Vision that sold out in top retailers around the world. The success
of Abloh is largely influenced by Kanye’s support and help throughout his journey as
a designer.
27. 25
The first success of Kanye West in fashion except on designing sneakers came with
his first collaboration with the French brand A.P.C. The collection consisted of two
pairs of jeans, a hoodie and a tee-shirt that sold-out instantly.
A year later Kanye signed a deal with Adidas allowing him to create a joint venture
with the brand with the three stripes. In the same way as Stella MCCartney and Yohji
Yamamoto have, Kanye launched Yeezy that started with instant sold out sneakers
followed by complete collections.
The brand Yeezy is now on its seventh season. Despite receiving good and bad critics
over his collections, also due to his personal life and Twitter statements, Kanye West
was able to create a link between the street culture and luxury like none other before
him. Working with Margiela, Balmain, Giuseppe Zanotti and others, he learned from
the most famous designers and is now applying it to his own brand.
Throughout his career, Kanye West was able to surround himself by a lot of creative
people in different fields: music, art and, of cours, fashion.
One these people in particular has been all around the fashion news in 2018: Virgil
Abloh, Louis Vuitton’s new artistic director.
How Virgil Abloh conquered the fashion world
In less than ten years, Virgil Abloh went from stylist for Kanye West to founder and ar-
tistic director of streetwear label Off-White. More than ever in the limelight, Virgil Abloh
is accumulating creative jobs and exclusive collaborations. He was recently named
menswear artistic director at Louis Vuitton and is one of the best example of the link
between street fashion an luxury.
Born and raised in Chicago, Virgil Abloh was not destined to become a fashion de-
signer. He studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin followed by a Mas-
ter in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
In 2002, at age 22, he became the right arm of Kanye West, advising him on mer-
chandising, album cover design or scenography. In 2009 he interned for Fendi at the
headquarter in Rome and then decided to open his own concept store with Don C,
Kanye West’s co-manager. The concept store was named RSVP Gallery and featured
street designers and haute couture pieces, it became quickly one of the must-go plac-
es of Chicago. In 2012, he launched his first label called Pyrex Vision, dedicated to
sell Champion tee-shirts and Ralph Lauren shirts stamped with the logo “Pyrex 23”.
It was an instant hit, mostly due to the multiple collaborations with influent artists and
rappers on exclusive capsules. The brand was sold in famous concept stores across
the world like Colette in Paris, Union in Los Angeles, GR8 in Tokyo and Storm in Co-
penhagen.
28. 26
Pyrex shut down a year later so Abloh could focus on his new project: Off-White.
Launched in 2014, Off-White is a label with a streetwear aesthetic and high-end fash-
ion positioning. Black and white diagonal stripes and inspirations from FW12 Nicolas
Ghesquière’s collection for Balenciaga: street style with a household haute couture
name.
But what distinguished Off-White from other brands and what gave it its incredible rise
among new customers and professionals from the industry is how well the label man-
aged its social media. 2.6 million followers on Instagram and 1.4 million on Abloh’s
personal account allow to reach and create direct links with the fans.
This is what makes the biggest difference right now, the communication and the hype
created by Virgil Abloh around everything he does is perfectly done. During SS18
Fashion Weeks, Virgil Abloh’s collaboration between Off-White and Nike released in
New York, London, Milan and Paris. The project was called “The Ten” and it reworked
ten iconic Nike sneakers. It created an amazing energy for both brands and sneakers
were reselling to up to $1.500. Off-White keeps on doing successful collaborations:
Ikea, Jimmy Choo, Moncler, Byredo or Kith have all had an exclusive capsule with the
brand. At the end of 2017, the brand Off-White won the British Fashion Awards in the
“Urban Luxe” category, surpassing Supreme and Vetement.
Louis Vuitton is not a new comer in terms of mixing streetwear and high-end fashion.
Its previous creative director, Kim Jones, was already following that trend and its
collaboration with streetwear’s most famous brand Supreme was one of the best suc-
cess in 2017’s fashion world. So, when Kim Jones left Louis Vuitton to go to Christian
Dior in early 2018, it created a great opportunity for the brand to hire the most talked
about designer of the industry and the first African-American artistic director for the
brand.
The surprise comes from the fact that Virgil Abloh does not come from any of the
renowned fashion schools like most of the designers in the industry but like we have
seen before, his biggest strength is his way of communicating. The critic Angelo Flac-
cavento resumed it:
“The appointment is a perfect reflection of our hype - and communication - driven
times. Abloh is not a design genius but he is a smart communicator.”
Collaborations between brands is not a new trend neither but it is a great tool of com-
munication that has been used very well by Abloh in his career. The phenomenon is
getting more and more popular and is helping, in a way, the luxury fashion to reach
younger generation through mixing their high-end products with the street culture.
29. 27
Luxury streetwear
Called sports-luxe, high-end athletica or luxury streetstyle, the last decade has seen
the evolution of high-end street-inspired fashion brands with garments made in Italy,
France or Portugal.
Nowadays, a hoodie and a sweatpants can be sharply designed and have their own
runway show.
High-end streetwear labels are attracting the attention of the fashion industry now
more than ever. Since hip-hop has become the number one music genre accounting
for 24.5 percent of all music consumed in the United States1
, artists and celebrities
like A$AP Rocky, Drake or Pharrell Williams are becoming the biggest influencers for
the evolution of streetwear. Because of this movement, streetwear is not just for the
street anymore and the catwalks can sometimes be completely about streetstyle with
brands labeled “luxury urban wear”.
Here are some of the most iconic and influential high-end streetwear brands:
• Raf Simons
The Belgian fashion designer started his own label in 1995 before becoming long af-
ter the creative director of Dior in 2012. The label has made many collaborations with
brands like Adidas or Eastpak and has been praised by hip-hop artists for a long time.
Inspired by music culture, graffiti and art, the brand is dedicated to bring innovation
into the design and fabrics used to create the garments. During the runway shows,
Raf Simons often use “regular” men and not necessarily professional models to show
his collection in order to “avoid the trappings of the fashion system”.
• Helmut Lang
Considered by many like the oldest streetwear high-end label, it has a minimalist
design which has influenced most of the streetwear industry. Lang is not designing
anymore for the label, it still brings an architectural style in the collections which his
definitely his signature.
• Rick Owens
Created in the mid 90s, Rick Owen’s namesake label was first shown in Paris in 2003.
The collections are known for being “relaxed luxe” with a black & white color palette.
• Pigalle
Stephane Ashpool named his brand Pigalle in reference to the neighborhood where
he grew up. His label is mixing the Parisian elegance with his basketball and street-in-
spired tastes.
1 https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8085975/us-music-con-
sumption-up-2017-rb-hip-hop-most-popular-genre
30. 28
• Hood by Air
Shayne Oliver describes his inspirations from him growing up in the ghetto and tak-
ing the metro to go downtown New York to be immersed with the culture from there.
HBA debuted in 2006 and has been credited for bringing some originality to New York
Fashion Week. It has a Tokyo streetstyle with an anarchic attitude.
• Vetements
The Parisian collective has been criticized by many and appraised by others, how-
ever, it remains one of the most talked about label in the industry. Revisiting classic
anti-fashion pieces of clothing like a DHL T-shirt, showing them on the runway and
selling them for more than 500€ really questioned the people about taste and beauty
in the fashion industry.
Virgil Abloh’s Off-White label has been presented in a specific section but it is definite-
ly one of the most influential one right now, whether it is through its own collections or
its countless collaborations.
Other brands that can be mentioned are: County of Milan by Marcelo Burlon, Alexan-
der Wang, Golden Goose, EYTYS, Jeremy Scott, Astrid Andersen, Buscemi, Heron
Preston, Nasir Mazhar, etc.
31. 29
Rappers are fashion’s new kings and queens
Whether it is punctual like rappers Young Thug, 21 Savage and Playboi Carti for
Adidas Orginals or A$AP Mob for Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins campaign, brands are
requesting rappers more and more often for their campaigns and look-books. Without
necessarily creating signature collections or creative collaborations, labels are work-
ing with hip-hop stars sometimes just for modeling. It has become one of the easiest
and most efficient way to give visibility for a collection targeted to the specific audi-
ence of the artists.
Certain fashion houses went even further by taking rappers as their favorite muses:
A$AP Rocky for Dior Homme under Kris Van Assche or Pharrell Williams for Chanel.
This status creates a trustworthy relationship between the human, his audience and
the brand, which is associated to the image of the artist for a longer time than just a
simple campaign.
Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs have all featured hip-hop artists in their
latest campaigns and fashion houses Versace and JW Anderson have even collabo-
rating directly with rappers 2 Chainz and A$AP Rocky.
“It’s a way of reaching young kids that usually would not take an interest in high-end
fashion or high-end tailoring”
Kris Van Assche,
Former artistic director of Dior Homme
New artistic director of Berluti
Signature collections and collaborations
Not restrained to sneakers anymore, rappers are even designing entire collections
and are being more and more included in the creative process. The most commonly
known line is Yeezy by Kanye West which enters its seventh season in collaboration
with Adidas Originals. A recent collaboration between Pharrell Williams, Chanel and
Adidas has created a pair of sneaker that is reselling for more than 15.000€.
Rappers’ lyrics have been including high-end fashion as a luxury status for a long
time: Migo’s Versace, Lil Pump’s Gucci Gang, Jay-Z’s Tom Ford. Rapper’s Radric
Davis even has his own stage name from a luxury brand: Gucci Mane. In 2013, A$AP
Rocky’s song Fashion Killa was an ode to all luxury megabrands1
.
What about the future?
The literature review helped us discover how streetwear and luxury are associated in
the fashion industry. The creative process for cultural and business purposes leads us
to the field study that will help us to answer our following problematic.
1 https://genius.com/A-ap-rocky-fashion-killa-lyrics
33. 31
PROBLEMATIC & FIELD STUDIES
A - Problematic
The literature review helped us to define streetwear and its anchor in modern luxury
fashion. Very few books have been written about the subject of streetwear but the
Internet is overflown with articles about it. Some journalists were very prolific, like
the late Gary Warnett (1978-2017), but there is not yet a full collections of books on
streetwear in comparison to luxury, which has been studied and documented, notably
by the great books of Kapeferer.
We tried in this first section to understand through the different analysis why street-
wear became so important for the new generations and how it influenced the global
fashion market. Streetwear was at first looking up at luxury, adopting its management
and advertising methods, now luxury is trying to be more involved in this trend that
seems to be taking over everything. From fashion, to music and art, the street culture
has been embraced by the majority and it is not offensive anymore to come to an in-
terview with sneakers and a sweater.
If consumers and designers have grown together in an environment nursed by the
street culture, from hip-hop to skateboarding, we can legitimately ask ourself how the
future of fashion will be? Once we understand this point, we can go deeper and look
at the luxury sector and try to figure out how it will evolve. Will streetwear takeover the
luxury fashion brands? Will hoodies be the new blazers? How luxury fashion, which
features haute couture, catwalks and expensive showrooms, a sector that is far from
any type of street lifestyle, could be able to become legit to new generations seeking
for credibility?
Through this unanswered questions we can develop a problematic that will guide the
rest of this thesis in order to understand what the future of fashion will be for the next
generations:
Problematic:
While high-end brands are collaborating more often
with streetwear brands to reach younger generations,
does luxury fashion needs street credibility to reach
future consumers or can it be done without it?
34. 32
Recent years have seen the explosion of collaborations between luxury and street-
wear brands, the most iconic one happened last summer. French superpower luxury
house Louis Vuitton collaborated with cult skatewear brand Supreme.
How and why it happened?
Kim Jones has been creative director for Louis Vuitton men’s collections since 2011
but the idea of a collaboration with Supreme came from Michael Burke, Louis Vuitton’s
chairman and chief executive officer. Kim Jones, who has always been deeply linked
with streetwear and skateboard, was easy to convince (in college he actually worked
unpacking boxes of Supreme at a company distributing the products in London).
The collaboration between the two mastodons was not an easy deal considering the
highly protective approach of Louis Vuitton towards their Intellectual Property (IP).
The interesting fact is the lawsuit that happened twenty years ago between Louis
Vuitton and Supreme. The streetwear brand released a skateboard deck featuring
the iconic monogram of the French house which took it to court and made instantly
stopped Supreme from selling these decks (which is now a product highly valued in
the streetwear culture). Back in the late 2000s, former creative director Marc Jacobs
entered a fight with the heads of the company when he worked with the artist Stephen
Sprouse to put neon graffiti on the brand’s monogram.
But in terms of collaboration, Louis Vuitton is a brand like none others and to enable
the brand to benefit from this type of partnership, it includes a full control over all the
variables: goods are only sold on Louis Vuitton’s stores for instance. In this terms, it
is less surprising. For example the collaboration could not have happened if the roles
were reversed and Supreme was making and selling products with Louis Vuitton’s
logo.
The remaining question is “Why it happened?”. Despite the critics of many insiders
from the fashion industry, the collaboration brought benefits for both parties.
First, Louis Vuitton is willing to reach the die-hard consumers of Supreme, the ones
that would line up outside the store for two days in order to “cop the new stuff”, they
embody the cult audience. It is an easy way for Louis Vuitton to sell any garments and
accessories regardless of their prices. Moreover, it is a great opportunity to upgrade
its cool factor amongst millennials, the demographic that every luxury brand is trying
to reach.
For Supreme, the brand will get a nice paycheck in exchange of giving its trademarks
to Louis Vuitton and some high fashion bragging rights.
35. 33
B - Hypothesis
To help us to reply to the problematic presented previously, we are going to identify
three hypothesis about streetwear and the luxury industry. Through these hypothesis,
we will be able to define or not the future of streetwear in high fashion. We will use
them as guidelines to answer our problematic when will we study the question through
our qualitative and quantitative studies.
The first hypothesis is linked with history, we were able through the literature review
to identify the history of streetwear and luxury:
1. Luxury was always linked to street culture, and
vice-versa.
Our field studies will go through interviews of people from the fashion industry and
a general survey amongst consumers to determine how and why luxury and street
culture are linked. We will try to understand if luxury was always inspired by the street
culture and how streetwear brands learned from the luxury industry in terms of man-
agement and strategy.
It is important to understand how the two parties are linked in order to evaluate the
strength of the relationship: will it last? Is it just ephemeral? Or has it been around
for decades and we just see it more now with the presence of social media and
over-communication.
2. It is difficult for luxury fashion brands to be relevant
for the younger generations, especially the streetwear
consumers.
The younger generations: millennials (Generation Y) and Generation Z must be the
future for luxury brands. Millennials are born in the early 80s to the early 2000s and
grew up with the beginning of cell phones that turned into smart-phones and Internet.
The common thing between all millennials is their disruptive mind-set that regroups
this generation of 2 billion individualistic.
Millennials redefined luxury. For them, luxury doesn’t represent expensive shoes,
bags or watches. They need to attach a meaning to it and more specifically, an expe-
rience. They prefer experiences than things, which could be a problem when you want
to sell them a $6,000 bag. So the question is how to reach them? A digital marketing
research has shown there has been a 400 percent increase from last year in terms of
Instagram posts for fashion brands. The goal is to make the younger generations to
fall in love with the brand so they will go from buying the fragrance at first, then acces-
sories in their college years and a big expensive and iconic product from the brand
when they get their first big bonus at work.
36. 34
That last point is the key factor developed by every streetwear brand: they are able
to quickly make their consumers fall in love with them and create cults around them.
How are they able to do that? Because they are able to speak to them through differ-
ent channels: social media, online presence, relevant influencers and credibility. How
Supreme is able to make thousands of “hypebeasts” queue in front on their stores
nearly every Thursdays?
“Hypebeast:
1. A person who follows a trend to be cool or in style. A person who wears what is
hyped up.
2. A Kid that collect clothing, shoes and accessories for the sole purpose of impress-
ing others.”
Definition of Hypebeast by the Urban Dictionary
So not every millennial is a “hypebeast”, but the devotion that these consumers have
for their streetwear brands is what luxury brands are aiming to create with these new
generations.
Why do we say it is difficult for luxury brands to be relevant for the streetwear consum-
ers and more generally the new generations that are used to fast-fashion?
They need to understand how to communicate to a generation that shift preferences
easily and that does not have a preferred channel of communication. These genera-
tions are more urban than the precedents, and this might be one important fact for the
future of luxury fashion when it tends to look more and more like streetwear.
3. Streetwear is now the most represented fashion trend.
To elude this hypothesis, we will try to understand what exactly means the term street-
wear by interviewing fashion insiders and streetwear ambassadors. By doing so, we
will be able to analyze how it has influenced today’s fashion and if we can define the
impact it will have on the future.
From the runways and the emergence of the “street styles” of the influencers invited
to the shows, we will try to understand this phenomenon as well to see what it has
meant to fashion and brands.
How tradition from the luxury brands and modernity from the streetwear can match to
create the future of fashion?
37. 35
C - Field study
Methodology
The first part of our study of streetwear in the luxury industry consisted of examining
informations on the subject through articles, blogs, books, emerging companies, art-
ists, products and collaborative projects. It helped us to dive into the subject and have
a better understanding of where does streetwear comes from and how it has integrat-
ed the luxury world. The three hypothesis that we highlighted previously and that will
guide our research are focused on the history, the consumers and fashion. This is why
it is important to answer the problematic to have access to people from the industry
and from outside the industry.
The methodology for this field study was composed of qualitative and quantitative
techniques. By doing so, we were able to get insights from people within the fashion
world, understanding where the streetwear comes from and how it has conquered the
luxury industry. On the other side we tried to see through the cultural lenses of the
youth subcultures to determine their attach to the street culture and the streetwear
movement.
It was important to do both types of study to be able to really get what is the deeper
meaning of the subject. Luxury and streetwear are coming from two very different
worlds that have both been created through art, culture and people.
Qualitative study
Our investigation starts with people from the fashion industry, the principal method of
communication with interview respondents was done through emails. Interview ques-
tions began with career history and the process that made them to their current pro-
fession. We focused our questions on the three axes around the subject: the history,
the consumers and the fashion industry. It will then include other topics like the mod-
ern way of communicating, the evolution of global fashion and the way it is consumed.
Respondent profiles
Coming from different backgrounds, our respondents come also from different places,
Naomi Hwang is a fashion designer from New York, Jacquill Basdew is from Amster-
dam and worked for Dior Cosmetics before entering the world of art galleries, Valérie
Robert is a fashion consultant and a fashion teacher from Paris, Alice Barbier & JS
Roques are fashion bloggers (@jaimetoutcheztoi) specialized in street-luxe, Philippe
Bertozzi has worked in retail for NikeLab and is now in the luxury house Loewe,
Florian-Edouard Kempf was a fashion journalist that has worked for GQ and is now
working at Louis Vuitton, Khoa Tran has deep knowledges in streetwear and currently
work for Hermès.
38. 36
Questions
STREETWEAR FASHION & YOU
1. What is your current job and what is your career path?
2. Could you give your definition of streetwear?
3. How do you relate to streetwear and/or what is your vision of it?
STREETWEAR & LUXURY
4. In your opinion, why luxury fashion was always important in the street culture?
5. What makes streetwear so relevant for the new generations?
6. In what terms would you think it was inevitable for streetwear and luxury to unite?
7. Was it a necessity for luxury brands to collaborate with streetwear brands to reach
younger generations?
THE FUTURE OF LUXURY STREETWEAR
8. Should luxury brands keep on collaborating or should they provide in-house street-
wear designs? Could you explain why?
9. What role played social media to help these two worlds to merge?
10. Do you think streetwear is just a new trend for high-end fashion or it will be more
dominant in the future?
39. 37
First part: STREETWEAR FASHION & YOU
In this section we will try to understand the connection between the interviewee and
streetwear fashion. It is important to know the past of the person that we interview
to have a clearer vision about its point of view. A very difficult question is then asked
about their definition of streetwear. There isn’t a real definition of the term and it is in-
teresting to have one from different people from the industry. The last question is key
to understand what is their vision of streetwear and how they relate to it, whether by
wearing streetwear or just analyzing it.
Second part: STREETWEAR & LUXURY
The second part of the interview relates to the link between streetwear and luxury. We
first ask about the relationship between luxury and street culture. We previously saw
how important luxury was and still is in the street, it is a source of inspiration and a sign
of distinction. We then ask why it is so relevant for the new generations comparing to
the previous ones, is it the social media era? The development of the inner cities? The
important question comes next with the collaborations between streetwear and luxury.
We end this part with the necessity of collaborations between the two worlds in order
to reach younger generations, could luxury brands have done it otherwise?
Third part: THE FUTURE OF LUXURY STREETWEAR
The last part focus on the future of streetwear and luxury, what would luxury brands
do? How the street-luxe will evolve? Should collaborations still be the key of success
or will it come back to in-house designs to keep on reaching new consumers? It is
important to ask how social media were an essential factor to create the link between
streetwear and luxury houses. Would it be the same if social media were not so big?
The streetwear took over the luxury houses because of social media? Is it the reason
why it didn’t happen before? Last but not least, we will ask their opinion about the fu-
ture of the trend for high-end fashion. How do they think the streetwear phenomenon
will keep on evolving in the luxury sphere. The Internet is full of articles claiming it’s
just a new trend that will explode eventually, others are swearing it is the only way
luxury houses will be able to reach the market of millennials and future generations
because that’s what they grew up with.
The goal of the qualitative study is to explore, explain and try to understand the phe-
nomenon of streetwear in luxury. The data provided is narrative through open-ended
questions. It will give us biases, values and experiences of different people to interpret
in order to get the answer to our problematic.
40. 38
Quantitative study
The quantitative study has been conducted through a Google form that was sent to
participants. The panel was very wide but mainly focused on millennials and younger
generations in order to understand how they view the subject, considering that they
are the targets of the problematic.
We kept the survey very short (10 questions) to get a maximum of replies and reach
a wide audience.
Here are the questions that were asked:
1. How interested are you in luxury fashion?
2. How do you find out about new trends?
3. How interested are you in streetwear?
4. What do you think of collaborations between streetwear and luxury fashion brands?
Supreme X Louis Vuitton for example
5. Why do you think they do collaborations?
6. Should luxury fashion brands do their own streetwear designs?
7. You want to buy a streetwear item, without considering the price, where would you
look first?
8. Do you think streetwear style is just a new trend or will it last and be more present
in our daily life? (Work, going out, traveling)
9. What is your gender?
10. How old are you?
The goal to this research is to determine the link between luxury and streetwear in
fashion. It is a descriptive study governed by the following rules; subjects are mea-
sured once the intention is to establish associations between variables.
The research problem is our problematic and the main theme is streetwear and lux-
ury. The literature review that we did previously helped to synthesize key factors like
new trends, collaborations, prices and of course the interest of the subject to the field
of study.
The data was collected through percentages with sometimes multiple answers possi-
ble (questions 2, 5, 7) or unique answers (questions (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10).
41. 39
Why are we doing both methods?
While a quantitative survey will provide numerical data through mathematical and sta-
tistical methods. It also allows us to reach more people than with the qualitative meth-
ods and it will help to understand the detailed reasons for particular behavior in depth.
The qualitative method does not involve numbers or numerical data but only words
in our case. It is very useful to use it to explore how and why things have happened.
Our problematic focuses on the future but the subject has grown in the last decade, it
is the main reason why we felt that both methods had to be used in order to fully cover
and understand the subject. It is always a difficult task to anticipate what is going to
happen in the future in whatever field, but in fashion it can be even harder. The new
generation will be more and more connected, will maybe not even buy in stores any-
more, and now, anyone, anywhere can attract a following, promote a brand, create a
trend and build a business.
The growth of digital and influence of ordinary people have taken the fashion industry
by storm. Nowadays it is more interesting for a brand to contact an influencer that
will go to fashion shows and be taken by photographs to feature their relevant “street
style” than to pay a enormous amount of money to have a double pages on a maga-
zine.
The qualitative method will help us to understand why we are here today and have
us question the future from insiders of the industry and the quantitative method will
capture the feeling from the general public now and for the future.
42. 40
Results
Quantitative study
Thank to a very wide network, we were able to have an important number of re-
sponses: 11.123 people answered the survey. Having such a large amount of replies
helped to get a very representative numbers amongst the population.
We will take a look and analyze the replies, we received a majority of answers from
women (we decided to mainly target them because of their interest in fashion) and
millennials and generation Z.
We mainly used social media to reach out to people and have a better exposure of
our survey, it was also the best way to reach the population that most of luxury fashion
brands are trying to get a hold on.
Almost 60% (59.5%) declared being interested in luxury fashion and more than a
quarter (26%) are very interested. Considering that most of the people surveyed are
millennials, it is a very good opportunity to notice for the luxury industry, it means that
the young generations are interested in what is done right now.
We can also notice that less than one person out of ten is not interested at all by lux-
ury fashion which is a good thing to consider.
43. 41
With no surprise, social media come first as the resource to find out about new fashion
trends (93%), blogs come second (33.6%) and only a quarter or less use the tradition-
al channel of fashion websites and magazines (25.9% & 22.3%). Friends and family
are still key players which shows us the importance of micro-influencing.
Luxury brands have taken some time to hop on the social media train but they are us-
ing it more and more often now. They first felt that they did not belong in that field and
it could ruin their image. But now it is an obligation for them to be on social media and
to use them well as it becomes the primary way to communicate. Fashion shows are
more watched now than ever thank to influencers who thrust the front rows of every
one of them.
We previously saw that almost 60% of the people we surveyed were interested in
luxury fashion. When we asked about streetwear, more than 75% (75.9%) declared
being interested in streetwear (36.9%) saying that they are very interested.
44. 42
This is a very important statistic to consider: 3 people out of 4 are interested in street-
wear. If we asked this question three decades ago, it is pretty sure that this number
would have been lower, some people would even have asked “what is streetwear?”.
What is interesting as well is to notice that more people have interest in streetwear
than in luxury fashion. Considering that most of the people surveyed are generations
Y or Z, it shows the cultural importance of this trend in the new generations. A fact that
luxury brands could not let go away.
The collaboration between Supreme and Louis Vuitton received some critics last year
from people from the luxury industry and streetwear fans. But the numbers here a
in favor of this type of project as we can see that almost 42% (41.9%) like the great
quality provided by the luxury brands and the cool streetwear design. 38.3% like the
idea but think that it could be done in a better way which shows that there is still room
for creativity and improvement.
A small fraction of the people surveyed hated it and do not think that this type of col-
laboration should be done (6.4%) and 13.4% do not think it is relevant to them.
The interesting number here is the 38.3% who think that “the idea is good but it could
be done better” which leads us to think in what way brands could work on the subject
and how they could improve it.
45. 43
Fashion is a business-oriented industry, otherwise big companies like LVMH and Ker-
ing would not have such important growth every year. We asked this question to know
if the consumers were aware of this fact. Almost 50% (47.8%) consider that collab-
orations between luxury and streetwear brands are for the culture. It is a very good
number because obviously it is important for the business but on the designers’ scale
they want to bring two worlds together and the archives work done prior to a collection
is to educate people about cultural facts.
In this question we try to seek how street-luxe should be done in the future. Two thirds
of the answers are positives about the subject: 29.6% would like luxury brands to do
streetwear designed collections and 36.8% think they should keep on doing street-
wear through collaborations.
When we add this number to the 28.2% who think they should do only collaborations
we have 65% who are relating more with luxury brands and streetwear brands collab-
orating the anything else. And it means that 94.6% are looking forward a street-luxe
style.
46. 44
Even with the emergence of high-end streetwear brands that thrust the top charts in
social media results and exposition on the Internet, the traditional streetwear brands
like Supreme are still the most trustworthy brands (50.6%) when a customer is looking
for a streetwear item. It is interesting to see that almost 15% (14.9%) are now consid-
ering luxury brands as the first place to look for when they want to buy a streetwear
item. On more than 11.000 people surveyed, it represents more than 1.600 people.
We are approaching the end of the survey and we want to know what people think
about the future of the streetwear style. A vast majority (61.4%) think that it is more
than a trend and it will last because the new generations grew with it, whether we are
talking about the designers or the consumers. It can not be taken for granted but for
now, luxury houses should definitely keep on considering streetwear as more than a
trend and listen to what the customers want.
47. 45
It might not be necessarily the design that is so much liked about the streetwear style
but maybe also the approach, the cultural aspect and how these brands link with
their customers and how they communicate to the young generations. The system of
regularly dropping limited products, always seeking for new collaborations and also
educate with an always open-mind.
Female
Male
What is your gender?
11,082 responses
Our survey was conducted with Google form and shared mainly through social media
and personal network. It was the best way to reach a large number of people but it
also does not represent a complete face of today’s population. We should consider
this while analyzing the results, a very positive and important fact is that almost 90%
of the people were from generations Y and Z which are and will be the future consum-
ers of luxury fashion.
48. 46
Qualitative study
As we saw previously, we divided our interviews into three categories. We first asked
about the connection to streetwear for the person interviewed, then his/her opinion on
luxury and streetwear and finally his thoughts about the future of luxury streetwear.
STREETWEAR FASHION & YOU
We briefly presented the people that we interviewed so we will give more details about
them as we go along with the results.
The second question asked was to give a definition of streetwear. From very short an-
swers like “Street culture translated to fashion” by Jacquill Basdew to more developed
ones like the one by Naomi Hwang, She told us that, as Philippe Bertozzi did, street-
wear was a reaction to the standard fashion and the codes that it owns. It originates in
the streets through skateboarding & hip-hop, sport is also a good source of inspiration
to make cool and comfortable garments.
We then asked their personal connection to streetwear, it is very important for some
like bloggers Alice Barbier and JS Roques who mix streetwear and high-end fashion
as a job by being sources of inspiration for others.
Basketball and rap music influenced the generation Y as they cited it pretty often.
Valérie Robert who is not from that generation was not personally influenced by it but
“as a fashion professional, it is very interesting to observe the evolution of streetwear
in the fashion world.” She also defined the iconic garments of the movement: “sneak-
ers, sweat-shirts, T-shirts, bombers and track pants.”
For Naomi Hwang, streetwear has changed as hip-hop and a part of the street culture
has changed: “When streetwear first came on to the scene, it was a way for hip-hop
to have their own uniform as a statement to those around them of who they are and
where they come from. However, today, with hip-hop as a form of mainstream music,
streetwear has become mainstream as well.”
The relationship between hip-hop music and streetwear is very strong and is now
translated to the luxury world as we recently saw, or should we say listened, to rap-
per’s Drake during a Louis Vuitton fashion show. Nowadays, rappers are the new
icons for many people from the young generations and they became omnipresent in
the fashion industry.
49. 47
STREETWEAR & LUXURY
As we saw in our literature review, luxury fashion was always important in the streets.
For Philippe Bertozzy who has worked for a streetwear brand (NikeLab) and is now
working for a luxury brand (Loewe), he explains that “by taking the ostentatious side
of luxury products, it is a way for disadvantaged classes to elevate their social status
who are looking for a way to show their success”.
So as soon as inner cities developed and followed by illegal money made there, luxu-
ry garments and accessories were quickly introduced in the streets. Showing off logos
and monograms was important, and it is reflected right now in today’s luxury fashion
as well. Alice Barbier, fashion blogger and former ASOS Insider, resumed it: “Fashion
is a way to express your style and personality; wearing luxury items is a sign of wealth
and identification to a certain social class. In a way, for the Street Culture, the more
you show-off the more you succeed.”
Khoa Tran explains that luxury fashion was shown on TV & magazines and were
sources of inspirations for young generations.
There is an interesting part to note pointed by Naomi Hwang: the streets are looking
up to fashion as sources of aspirations while the luxury houses are looking down for
influences. It helps us to understand the link between the two worlds and also tells us
about the history of the relationship. Even if luxury and streetwear were not mixed as
they can be right now in fashion, they were linked in a way.
Now more than ever, streetwear is the most relevant fashion trend for young genera-
tions. The reasons are multiples: social status, willing of freedom, social media, etc.
The new generations want to break barriers because of that. Just like streetwear
does. Naomi Hwang, fashion designer, tells us “Streetwear breaks barriers in that
when streetwear is now on the runways of high fashion, it claims that the invisible
caste system that fashion creates with the different dress codes do not really matter
any more. Streetwear breaks the rules. But I think streetwear has always been there
to break the rules.”
Streetwear adapts quickly to the needs of the kids, it evolves with them and is more
present on social media because it speaks the same language. It is also more afford-
able and accessible than luxury fashion but it is more distinguished than fast-fashion.
Valérie Robert who has studied the history of fashion and has seen the evolution
and the emergence of streetwear explains that young generations needed streetwear
“to differentiate from the codes established by previous generations and establishing
new ones.”
Streetwear is a way of expression from the streets that has been took over by young
generations which are the future consumers of luxury products.
50. 48
When we start to look at the inevitability of luxury and streetwear to merge, we re-
ceived different point of views
For Naomi Hwang, it is due to fashion as a rule breaker: “Fashion has always been
blurring lines and breaking rules. For example, the gender rules of today are being
broken by the many drag queens and transgender generation who refuse to be la-
beled as just male or female. Fashion has become a way to express this refusal of
societal restraints.” In a way, it isn’t luxury or the street culture but fashion in general
who, as a way of expression, became the speaker for street culture.
Jacquil Basdew has a more pessimistic point of view, it is also a point of view shared
by the people that we surveyed on our quantitative study: “Luxury sees a new oil field
to tap into, the money now is in street so luxury goes there. Tomorrow the oil field
might appear at the farm....”.
Philippe Bertozzi sees the luxury industry as an opportunist because it “needs to con-
stantly renew itself and so it couldn’t stay away from streetwear.”
Florian-Edouard Kempf who has been working in luxury most of his life explains it by
the new of customers who are the millennials and who “are looking for new and ex-
clusive items. They can spend a lot of money, but it need to be limited, exclusive and
hard to find.”
The best brands to create this type of exclusivity and constant renewing are street-
wear brands: limited products, capsule collections, collaborations, Supreme’s Thurs-
days drops, etc.
Off-White, a high-end streetwear brand created by Virgil Abloh in 2014, has seen its
best successes through collaborations. Off-White X Nike “The Ten”, Off-White X IKEA,
Off-White X Moncler, Off-White X Heron Preston, Off-White X Levi’s, Off-White X Jim-
my Choo, etc. The list goes on an on and it helped the brand to expand. Collabora-
tions and exclusive capsule collections creates the hype around products, streetwear
brands understood and use it very well. It is also one of the reason for Louis Vuitton
to do a collection with Supreme. A collection that created a lot of noises around the
two brands but the release was not handled properly. Louis Vuitton tried to control a
streetwear type of release without using the streetwear codes and ways of doing it.
As a result, pop-ups were canceled by the police because the crowd could not be
handled in a right way and it became dangerous1
. It is the hard part for luxury brands.
As Alice Barbier and JS Roques explain, luxury brands need to reach new consumers
without getting too far from their origins:
“Luxury industry needs to align with current trends and approach the new consumers.
This new clientele is very into streetwear right now, luxury brands need to keep their
core values in order to maintain the historical customers but they need to stay up-to-
date with the massive trends.”
1 https://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/07/12/supreme-louis-vuitton-ny-pop-up-
canceled/
51. 49
THE FUTURE OF LUXURY STREETWEAR
The third and last part of the interviews were about the insights for the future of luxury
streetwear. Before going further it is important to understand what we are looking for
in this section. It is not possible to predict how streetwear and luxury will evolve and
whatever happens it will certainly not be for ever. Luxury will always need to adapt not
only to the trends but to the ways of communicating as well. Why streetwear brands
are so relevant right now? Because they know how and when to communicate to their
consumers.
We first asked the critical question of whether or not luxury brands should take their
streetwear designs in-house. The impact of doing collaborations is not great only
on the design aspects but also on the communication level. By collaborating brands
reach the consumers of the other brand/company as well.
We saw earlier in the quantitative study that 29.6% of the people surveyed would
like luxury brands to do streetwear designed collections and 36.8% thought that they
should keep on doing streetwear through collaborations.
For Naomi Hwang, “it is time for streetwear to make a stand on its own. Such as Off
White or Vetements. Too many collaborations can saturate an already crowded mar-
ket, and I think that even with recent successes, it is time for luxury to make the jump
into streetwear (vice versa). And we are witnessing it today with Virgil Abloh at Louis
Vuitton.”
The successes of the collaborations have been very important in the last few years
and for a time it almost seemed that it was the only way to bring energy into a new
collection.
What we are witnessing with Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton and Kim Jones at Dior
Homme is, for Florian-Edouard Kemp, a way to introduce new customers to high-end
fashion: “the streetwear trend will be for a long time and it will be a way to introduce
new customers to the fashion wear.”
Collaborations could have been just the first step for luxury houses into streetwear.
Alice Barbier and JS Roques explained that “Collaborating with streetwear brands is a
great opportunity to attract new customers, that is why luxury brands need these col-
laborations. Once the luxury brand has achieved this objective, it can offer in-house
streetwear design.” So both approaches are interesting and one should and could
help the other: “it has to be both collaborations and in-house designs in order to keep
the consumers attracted and create excitement.”
Reaching new consumers through collaborations has become a new form of commu-
nication. A communication that is now mainly done with social media and influencers
payed by brands, so we asked what was role played by social media in the luxury and
streetwear merging.
52. 50
For all the people that we interviewed, social media were key and even to do our
survey for our quantitative study it could not have been done at that scale without
social media. Social media create an “easy to access international conference room
allowing to mix both genders through influencers that are getting bigger and bigger”,
Philippe Bertozzi.
For Alice Barbier and JS Roques, social media are like streetwear, they break bar-
riers: “Social media has the power to overcome social barriers and luxury is not as
exclusive as it used to be.” It helped luxury to be more accessible without being more
affordable. Even if many luxury brands are not communicating very well on social
media for now, they understand the power of it. The tricky part for luxury brands when
they communicate on social media is that they don’t want to appear too accessible
neither, the dream needs to persist.
Jacquill Basdew sees the power of social media as an opportunity for influencers:
“the people from the streets who already had the cool appeal now had a much bigger
platform to influence others with their lifestyles thus stimulating the youth to strive for
luxury objects as well”.
Last but not least, we tried to know what they though about the future of streetwear
and luxury. Is it a new trend that will fade next seasons or will it become a corner stone
for the future of fashion?
Wehaveprosandcons,JacquillBasdewfeels“it’smoreofatrend”andFlorian-Edouard
Kempf says “it will be not more, not less, but still important and an interesting business
for high-end brands.”
Naomi Hwang and Philippe Bertozzi argues that “fashion is a world of cycles and
recycles” and “streetwear allows luxury to do a new cycling renewal”. Naomi Hwang
states that streetwear was already big in the 90s with brands like Rocawear, Phat
Farm, Juicy Couture, Sean John, etc, but “this time around, streetwear has made the
big jump into the big leagues with the luxury market (i.e. Virgil Abloh at LV)”.
They all admitted that it remains a trend and it necessarily has a limited lifetime and
will not be eternal, therefore it allows the new generations to have interest but also to
be part of luxury fashion through designers that for the first time are really close to the
public.
Alice Barbier and JS Roques pointed that streetwear is not the only interesting factor
about today’s fashion: “It is interesting to notice the emergence of the ultra-feminine
movement that is counter balancing the influence of streetwear in women fashion. And
next generations will not necessarily want to follow the same references their elders.”
So yes, our insiders agree to the importance of streetwear and the deep connection
with new generations that will last for the future but it would probably not dominate the
future of fashion neither
53. 51
KEY POINTS
Quantitative study
Without social media streetwear and luxury would probably never have merged as
they did. It helped to create the link between the two worlds that maybe missed in the
90s. Nowadays, millennials and younger generations are aware of the new trends and
are able to interact with each others through this new tool that has an international
reach.
Collaborations remain the most important factor to attract these generations but thank
to it, they now show a greater interest in high-end and luxury fashion.
Influencers are invited more and more often to the front rows of the runway shows, in-
fluencers that are getting bigger in terms of followers and attention than never before.
It brings proximity between the consumer and the brand, which is now a necessity for
luxury brands.
Qualitative study
Our fashion insiders praised the importance of streetwear in today’s fashion but did
not give a total approbation for streetwear dominating the future of luxury fashion.
Thus, they approved that seeing more creative directors in luxury houses coming from
a streetwear background and not necessarily from fashion schools brought a new in-
terest to new generations for luxury fashion.
With these two studies and our literature review, we will in the last part of this thesis
try to answer to our problematic and validate or not our hypothesis.
Street style is becoming more and more important for inspirations
55. 53
RECOMMENDATIONS
We are entering the last part of our study. Before going through the three hypothesis,
let’s identify what type of study we conducted and in what purpose.
Streetwear and luxury are merging now but what is important to notice as well is the
evolution of fashion and luxury in general.
We could not give complete recommendations without explaining what is happening
in fashion with new marketing concepts, fast-fashion and see-now-buy-now. So prior
to the recommendations arising from the validation of the hypothesis, we will review
the last decade of the fashion industry as a whole.
“It is a big mess. The world is changing - not always for the better - and we must
follow the changes, but there is a certain way to do it!”
Karl Lagerfeld
Like Karl Lagerfeld is saying, fashion and luxury are living in a disturbed period. More
and more brands are created with more or less success and there is more offers than
demands. The consumer can sometimes feel lost, whether he is shopping at Gucci or
Gap.
So what is happening right now exactly?
We will first develop a general statement of the fashion world and our relationships
with brands and fashion in general. Then we will describe the new economic models
emerging in the different categories, which could deeply change the face of the indus-
try.
Fast fashion
Nowadays, many brands are focusing more on the quantity than the quality and it has
a real impact on the consumer. Even luxury is not saved.
What is fast fashion?
Fashion must always offer more and go faster. The fast fashion industry is the norm
today with a single purpose: play on obsolescence till its paroxysm and propose new
collections multiple times per month, very easy to access financially to get consumers
hooked on new things all the time.
This is why we can here people say “I’d rather change often than buy expensive”, hav-
ing new garments is becoming more important than the garment itself. This phenom-
enon is of course emphasis by bloggers that brands overwhelm with new products
everyday to promote. There is a bulimia for cheap and accessible things.
56. 54
Cynically, maybe by recognizing this huge change in our relation towards clothes and
fashion, fast-fashion is the best performing marketing concept ever created.
Therefore, if it does not cost a lot for the consumer it has long term consequences.
Fast-fashion creates an enormous accumulation of clothes
An impact on different levels
The first consequence of this worshiping of fashion without conscious concerns the
ones who make it and the others... Directly first, because factories are on fire with
the heavy productions and the inhumane and unhealthy rhythm for the workers. Indi-
rectly then, because of the impact of textile production on the environment: air, water,
fields...
On a more structural point of view, fast-fashion touches the consumer in a significant
way: what is the right price for fashion? What means quality?
It explains the need for beginners to understand how a garment is well made, by ex-
amining the materials, fabrication, details, etc. What is a good value for money for a
jacket for example?
Luxury and fast-fashion: will the exception fade away?
We already saw a brief definition of what is luxury in the literature review. We will keep
in mind the definition of Kapferer:
“Luxury brands are regarded as images in the minds of consumers that comprise
associations about a high level of price, quality, aesthetics, rarity, extraordinariness
and a high degree of non-functional associations.”
