Future of Luxury is more Collaborative than Competitive

A brand collaboration that combines hot designers and mass retailers to create an eye-catching limited-edition collection at an affordable price; one that also creates a media impression, drives traffic to the store and has a strong touch with fashion customers. It has been useful for a long time to generate points.

“Luxury has mastered the art of questioning itself season after season, year after year…no matter what the obstacles on its path” – Bénédicte Epinay, President & CEO, Comité Colbert.

Luxury multi-brand retailers and their brands have realized that working together for a common goal — increasing a brand’s product sales — is essential for both parties. True partnership is about planning, sharing, evaluating, and executing together.

“There are going to be new ways of partnering between brands and collaborating for the good of the customer and the innovation of the industry. I am very positive about that”. – Federica Levato, Bain & Co (Quoted in the Webinar by Luxury Cruxx)

It was in 2004 when H&M; launched its first designer-centric collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld, in a bid to fuel further growth, command higher margins, and enter new markets. The eruption of technological change in the luxury space and these expectations look set to continue.

The Fashion Pact is an example of collaboration: a global coalition helping major luxury Houses such as Burberry collaborate with smaller ones by offering brand-to-brand exchanges. In doing so they enable the circularity that consumers want. In a sector that prizes heritage and tradition, all this will be a cultural challenge. For the Houses and brands that rise to it, however, it brings the opportunity to ensure that the savoir-faire and timeless quality of luxury Houses and brands thrive in the twenty-first century.

The online experience can seamlessly blend into the offline. Brands like Chanel have partnered with Farfetch to offer the opportunity to loyal clients to pre-select runway or pre-collection looks and try them on in front of high-tech mirrors fitted in the former brand’s boutiques in Paris. Hermès received a great deal of attention this month when it announced a selection of keyrings, bag charms, and luggage tags with a specially branded version of Apple’s Object Tracking Air Tag. Luxury French brands also offer iPhone cases using Apple’s MagSafe technology and a special version of Apple’s Watch. Here, both brands win. Apple has strengthened its credibility as a luxury brand, and Hermès is attracting more and more spending customers. In the technology category, especially with Apple.

Recently, LVMH has joined forces with two other major luxury names –Prada and Cartier, part of Richemont – to develop Aura Blockchain Consortium, the world’s first global luxury blockchain. Aura represents a new way for luxury brands to communicate directly to consumers, telling a unique story around the quality of their materials, craftsmanship and creativity, and strengthening the relationship between client and brand.  This unprecedented collaboration between competitors represents a single, innovative solution to shared challenges of communicating information on authenticity, responsible sourcing and sustainability in a secure, digital format. The objective is to provide consumers with a high level of transparency and traceability throughout the lifecycle of a product.

“Brands becoming collaborative is eventually going to benefit the customer and this is going to act majorly against counterfeiting”. – Abhay Gupta, Founder & CEO, Luxury Connect (Quoted in the Webinar by Luxury Cruxx).

Quality and credibility

Sales numbers are great for these projects. There is no doubt about how brands benefit financially. These campaigns give a great boost and products go out of stock pretty quickly. Yet, some issues remain a bit under the surface.

Partnerships to reach new audiences

Exclusivity has always been the bedrock of the luxury experience. In an age when digital rules commercial and personal interactions, brands can find it difficult to maintain control over how their products are discovered, marketed, and purchased. Covid-19 offers a stark example of the need for change: under normal circumstances luxury brands sell a limited number of products online, reserving their main retail operations and VIP customer experiences for traditional bricks and mortar settings. However, lockdowns and social distancing have meant brands faced falling revenues if they did not transition to sophisticated, comprehensive online offerings.

Are partnerships the future of fashion? The culture of the fashion industry is changing rapidly: major brands and companies that consider themselves competitors are starting to realize the power of partnership to meet customer demands for greater experiences, services, and sustainability. 

In my opinion, through partnerships, companies can go further and faster to accomplish common goals. In doing so they stand to not only surpass modern customer demands but evolve culturally and organisationally to ensure they are on-trend for generations to come