For Conscious Generations, Will Luxury Brands Become Irrelevant?

With a market of over £200B globally, the luxury fashion brand sector is significant; you only have to look at conglomerates such as Richemont, LVMH Group, and Kerring which within their stables boast, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Chloe, Cartier, Dior, Fendi, Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Stella McCartney to name a few.

Whilst in China, the market share is set to increase with 14% by 2025, it is set to contract by 8% in Europe and the US. However, the global trend of luxury consumerism seems to be on the increase, with 43%. It is forecasted that within the next decade Generations Y and Z will represent approximately 55% of the luxury fashion market up from 32%, offsetting the sales decline among older generations. But can perceived ‘luxury’ brands be so sure that their mass appeal can extend beyond the superficial?

Is fashion, in general, no longer tribal? The vast majority of Gen Y, Z, and Alpha, the less ‘well off’ generations, seem to adopt a more fluid approach to fashion as they may do to gender, sexuality, technology, socializing, etc. That sees an anything-goes approach in fashion, focussed less on brand and more on individualism.

Long gone is the need to conform to a stereotype, or compete with others. The fashion I see is an eclectic mix of second-hand clothes – let’s avoid the pretense that it’s ‘vintage’ and be realistic – combined with fast fashion which is naturally, ethically sourced to create a look. A look that’s unique to a persona and voice, occasionally punctuated with luxury brand items to complete the style.

So will this approach to high-end fashion make the luxury sector grow in particular for the brands that ‘get it’ or contract with perhaps some brands becoming obsolete to generations X, Y, and more importantly Alpha? After all, this generation which may be on a budget, won’t necessarily be in a decade’s time and if they have no aspirations to own luxury branded items, they may choose to share the budget more sparingly with brands that speak to them – investing in brands that resonate with the zeitgeist, not tradition, and demonstrate a social conscience in manufacturing, environment, sustainability, and how they give back a proportion of their vast profits to society.

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