Are luxury brands losing popularity?

[EbonyWood]

I’m reading the news of Farfetch being sold, Matches looking likely to be acquired to some degree and reading people’s comments and reactions.

Most people are saying that luxury Ecom is dead, they don’t care to buy luxury fashion anymore and they want to buy less.

Everywhere I see, luxury companies are closing stores, seem to be struggling, discounting a lot. What’s happening? I know lots of people are really struggling right now. But, the rich always seem to stay rich and be able to afford luxury items.

Is everyone just done with buying stuff, luxury or not?

A stylist let me know about this handbag company as I was struggling to find a handbag style back pack for my laptop etc.
Sarah Haran bags is my holy grail of bags. A few hundred but the thought that has gone into the design and I'm not paying for a 'name'. sarahharan.com/products/poppy-4-in-1-backpack-tote

I love the story that she was in IT and couldn't find the bag she needed, so set up her own company!

Very interesting thread. I used to buy designer fashion much of it from Flannels pre Mike Ashley. I was that middle manager with a reasonable disposable income and an interest in fashion. I don’t buy much at all now. Two things changed for me and they’ve been mentioned by previous posters. Firstly fashion got boring. Post Mike Ashley I went into Flannels to buy a dress for a black tie event. There was nothing - not even a cocktail dress. There were just hoodies and T-shirts in black or white with every conceivable designer brand name on them. Cheap to produce and sold at massive margins.
The second thing that stops me buying now are the prices. As a poster said up thread, I am willing to pay £300 for a pair of shoes but not £800. The fact that most of the brands are under the same ownership has reduced their status in my eyes too.

I went into the flannels in the local city recently. It’s been open a couple of years. Absolutely no one in there. Nothing inspiring at all. My 15 yo dd loves it in there but not much more than Zara and there’s no way I’m buying for her at those prices. She has a Canada Goose coat from last year, which I bought directly from CG as flannels didn’t stock the one she wanted and they have an exchange only policy so I would only buy things like ghds and jewellery from there. Anyway, dd has worn the darn CG coat tops 20 times before declaring she wants a North Face one. Grandma is obliging on this front and a vinted purchase rather than brand new. I wonder long how these shops can last, especially the physical ones.

Such an interesting thread.
I used to work in an adjacent industry and remember hearing a lot about how luxury was forecast to focus a lot more on bespoke items, experience of physical stores, and provenance (so, you'd order your handbag and then see videos of the master craftsman producing exactly what you want).
I don't know if that's all come to pass.

Well, I called it - Matches have been sold to Frasers Group (which is owned by Mike Ashley).

Sigh. Will a real concern is the end of Raey, which I love, I don't know if I can bring myself to spend money somewhere owned by Ashley anyway.

I haven't shopped at Matches in quite some time, my worries are for Raey too. Returns with Flannels are a nightmare so if I consider shopping at Matches again I'll be reading all the fine print very carefully. Customer service at Matches was already bad, I doubt it'll improve with this takeover.

@botemp Quite. Matches customer service used to be exemplary. Now, although the agents are lovely, they're bound by stupid rules that they never were. Refunds have been a nightmare too, the straw that broke the camel's back was having to insist on the shipping fee being refunded due to being sent a faulty pair of jeans with a giant rip in the crotch. Before that, was sent completely the wrong item. Haven't shopped there since.

Having seen in my previous job what like Ashley does with companies he buys I will no longer be buying anything from matches

I agree and there's so many factors. Brands lowering quality, outsourcing overseas, being bought out by PE firms. Prices being raised so much it's obvious the brands just are greedy and want exclusivity rather than offering a high quality product. The internet pulling back the curtain on the industry, and the magazine industry that used to orchestrate this and is now dead.

I love Raey, the designer used to be at Topshop. 🥲 farewell Matches

fully aware that i sound like a twat but I'm going to say it anyway

I have a lot of designer handbags most of which are Chanel and Hermes. The 'quiet luxury' trend really ruined my love for a lot of the brands I used to enjoy. Luxury is no longer luxury and it's absolutely everywhere. I feel like designer brands have been shoved down my throat so much in the last year that I'm sick of the sight of a lot of them. Classic pieces don't feel classic anymore. These days I buy for comfort and longevity. I avoid carrying a handbag a lot of the time as I either don't want to draw attention or be dressed the same as everybody else around me. I haven't yet got to the point where I'm ready to part with my collection but I think I'm heading that way.

Ahhh, I can see that.

Apparently, Raey is the most profitable part of Matches, which makes sense given how much the line has expanded these past few years. Sadly, it's pretty much unaffordable for me now (although do often pick up great pieces second hand).

@bunnybunnybunnybunny I have some amazing Topshop Boutique bits that are very similar & were pretty cheap. Raey is £££

@naughtynine Used to love Topshop Boutique in its hey day.

Well, that’s my Matches app deleted. Another one bites the dust.
I was thinking about this, when I couldn’t sleep last night. It’s a combination of

• post covid, dressing up isn’t as fashionable as being casual. Trying too hard is seen as a faux pas

• Under staffing, enforced queues outside luxury boutiques. Doesn’t seem desirable to me.

• Brands hiking up prices, often so they can sell them at 50% off. It’s an annoying way to price things. If you miss something and it sells out it’s annoying but it’s equally annoying to purchase only to see it half price a few weeks later.

• Too many releases of clothes. Go back to Spring/ Summer and Autumn/Winter. Let me covet things, let me save up and splurge. Don’t keep moving on. I miss eyeing something up for weeks then finally buying and being pleased with that.

• Most of all stop with the attitude that I should be grateful to spend my money with you. It’s such a turn off!

• Every single time a brand I love gets investment the quality immediately slides down and the prices treble. That’s exactly how you lose your customer base. I don’t want it half price a few weeks after it’s released if the buttoned cuffs have changed to elastic and the silk to viscose!

Labels and heavy branding is a fashion that will cycle around again. That’s fashion. Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s the greed of the brands but it’s time for a change.

I am happy to pay for design, materials, customer service, skilled labour even branding and marketing. I’m not willing to pay only for branding and marketing if there’s no substance behind it.

@Amara123 i came on to say the same as you. It’s what I see happening in my friends group.

People are actively choosing to support small artisanal, often local, businesses rather than the big brands.

Amara123 · 18/12/2023 21:03

I think people are gravitating towards smaller designers with attractive elements like being made locally/ sustainably/ with natural materials. Pieces that are classic. Overconsumption has become unfashionable.

Fakes are an elephant in the room I think. I wouldn't buy a real or fake chanel, for example, but the detailed information available now about how fakes can actually be better quality than the real thing makes buying one even more unlikely. And if the real one isn't even desirable of course you don't want a fake !

Really interesting discussion. I do think the luxury houses will regret narrowing their market. The super rich are not price sensitive but they also aren’t style setters. You need the aspirational consumers buying your product but they are going to be the consumers with a knowledge of fashion and an eye for what’s going to look right. They’re the people who are going to keep your brand current.

A thing I haven't seen mentioned yet about luxury spaces, the lines outside of doors, it's obviously deliberate (post COVID) as it's only ever at the usual suspects who treat customers like they're lucky to be allowed the privilege to shop at them and it does my head in. How is standing in line (often in the rain) luxury?

It's not, there is nothing remotely luxurious about being made to stand in a queue. A few weeks ago, I found myself on Old Bond Street as it started to rain. I did not have an umbrella with me, and for once, there was no queue, so ran inside only to have my name taken and told an assistant would be with me in 10-15 minutes. 30 minutes later, I was still waiting, so left. The lack of queue was not even to blame as the week before, I had queued to get into Hermes to collect something, and once inside, was made to wait some more.

It is ridiculous. Another reason I am loathe to spend money with them - don't make me feel like I'm being granted huge favour by being allowed to inside your store.

On a different note, I did raise this topic pre-pandemic, I think, and how luxury brands for the most part, weren't particularly luxurious anymore. Not only that, but many items deemed aspirational are not, not least because they are so many fakes flooding the market place anyway. I also wrote about how I preferred to track down old/vintage items instead of buying new. I was called a snob, ridiculed and bullied off the board for daring not to contribute to an industry that is taking the piss out of those who buy it, and for seeing through it. It's interesting to see how the tide has turned.

@TrishTrix yes it seems mad to spend a lot of money on something that is mass produced, in dubious working conditions, when you could spend the same with a smaller maker which produces something more special and employs people properly. It's hard to say that designers operate that differently to fast fashion operators and if they do I don't know about it

I bought a wool jumper this winter, spent more than usual, but it's a smaller company. I've worn it so much with great pleasure, it's better value than other stuff I've bought.

What the designer brands represent is no longer as aspirational. Exclusivity through high prices is not enough.

Which shop was that? That's terrible service.

I don't shop in Hermès terribly often but I don't recall ever being made to feel that way. Their assistants were always very good at spending time showing me endless scarves before I made my mind up.

That’s always been my experience at Hermes both at Bond St and Sloane St. Recently it was the same a LV Bond Street, no queue but 45 minutes to see someone.
The staff are always great- it’s just the hanging around.

If I’m travelling I get things sent to the airport as the shops there are quiet. Unless it’s cheaper to get the items in place I’m going to, the airport shops can reserve items and book appointments internationally. That’s a much more luxurious experience.

With regard to waiting around, I remember a thread on here from quite a long time ago by a woman who took her daughter to buy a small item from LV. She found it a disappointment because the process was so quick, literally like buying something in Boots. She was expecting more of an experience. So maybe the forced waiting works for some demographics.

Chanel. My error, I thought I'd mentioned it in my post!

I have what I call 'the Hermès cupboard' a few minutes walk from my house. They're so lovely in there even when I'm in my gym kit and covered in protein shake, and let me take my time. I prefer to go there rather than Old Bond Street as there's usually a queue to queue.