Now even affordable brands want to raise prices

Until last year, the concept of creative director was one of the main pillars of the modern fashion myth. A title that over the past decade has completely replaced the old “designer” to specifically indicate a figure who manages a brand’s creativity without personally designing the individual garments or accessories. A definition that is precise yet whose contours are rather vague and blurred, turning it into a brilliant tool for branding and market elevation. Because, being a role that operates on the relatively more abstract level of the brand’s image, the creative director has ceased to be the exclusive domain of luxury fashion. The first example that comes to mind: A$AP Rocky becoming the creative director of Ray-Ban. But in recent times we have seen many: the freshest appointment is that of Adam Selman, former Savage X Fenty designer hired by Victoria’s Secret as the new creative director; then there was Jonathan Saunders joining & Other Stories as creative director (the exact title is “chief creative officer” but that is the essence) after holding an identical role at Diane Von Furstenberg and at his own brand. More dated but still recent appointments include that of the veteran Clare Waight Keller for Uniqlo C and Zac Posen from The Gap. All these are expressions of a drive that mass distribution brands, whether in the high street segment or fast fashion—what we generally define as “middle market”—have been undertaking for some months now and that, in a recent article, Vogue has defined as “premiumisation”. But what exactly does this elevation consist of?

The Vogue article we have just cited starts from a sound and provocative idea: on the websites of brands like COS, Mango or Massimo Dutti, leather jackets priced at 500 euros and coats that reach four-figure prices have begun to appear. A similar phenomenon is also seen with Stussy or Supreme where the top-of-the-line products exceed 400 or 700 euros depending on the case. In general, beyond the prices themselves, all these more mainstream brands have made great efforts towards elevating their image and credibility, whether it is through Zara with its collaborations with designers and the SRPLS label or H&M with lines such as “The Studio” or its Premium Selection. Gap Studio, another premium line, has even dressed Thimothée Chalamet for the Oscars dinner. And living in the late-capitalist world we find ourselves in, it is not difficult to understand why this elevation is being sought: to raise prices. Speaking again to Vogue, Krista Corrigan, an analyst for retail intelligence company EDITED, essentially justifies price increases with H&M’s “The Studio” line, for example, which between SS24 and FW24 has increased its offering by 98%, with an average price increase of 66% compared to the previous year. At Zara, the items from the so-called “designer capsules” have a cost on average 59% higher than standard items. 

The bet, however, works: despite the sluggishness of the first few months of the year, Inditex has reported positive growth; ten days ago, a statement from Mango stated that the company «has consolidated an exponential growth trajectory over the last five years. Since 2019, the company has increased its revenues by 40%, above the industry average», with a turnover of over 3 billion euros in 2024 while Gap, despite a slight drop in sales, has forecast modest growth for its already billion-dollar revenue. And even the H&M group has reported a growth in sales, albeit very modest, for the first quarter of the year despite a 53% drop in profits. However, through various brands of the H&M group, the possibilities of this elevation can be discerned: COS is the most obvious example, with some of its dupes of The Row or Dries Van Noten becoming viral products and even making it into the Lyst ranking alongside Skims, UGG, and &daughters; but also Arket, which, since its arrival in Milan, for example, has opened its own café inside its store – an unprecedented format so far for a “department store” brand. The problem, however, remains that of identity since these brands are neither accessible enough for the price-sensitive consumer, nor exclusive enough for the luxury consumer. 

To solve this identity crisis, given that the product can be more premium but will never be authentically luxurious, several experts cited by Vogue indicate a possible path in improving the in-store experience – from the tailoring service offered by Uniqlo stores to the aforementioned Arket café and the “Zacaffè” experimented by Inditex in Madrid last December, which later landed in Japan and Korea. In general, improving the experience in stores is considered a fundamental principle on which all the mentioned brands are working. Clearly, these types of stores are different from the typical boutique: many floors, often crowded, filled with products to the point of confusion. Their very size prevents each from becoming tied to the aesthetic of a specific place or connecting to a local community. Perhaps this is why the most popular services are the café and repair services.

But according to Tamara Cincik, founder and CEO of Fashion Roundtable, also interviewed in the same article, the rethinking of spaces must respond to the needs of the community but above all must aim (a bit like what is happening in certain bookstores) to transform the anonymous and replicable mainstream mega-store into a unique place, with a clear identity, a differentiated offer, and a deeply local soul. In short, according to the expert, these fast fashion or adjacent names should imitate the playbook that, in recent months, has defined the operations of what we a few months ago defined as "friendly neighborhood brands", that is, those brands oriented toward young people and accessible modern streetwear that have turned their stores into venues for “analog” experiences. The challenge will therefore be to remain “mass-market” without appearing so. The risk of not trying, however, is high: one might indeed gravitate towards the upper echelons of the market or end up merged with fast fashion brands like Temu and Shein – and even they are not faring so well these days.