1. The Wild Frontier
One of the great achievements of the hipster movement has been to bring the style of the great outdoors into line with the fashion agenda. Since the early 90s, most outdoor, adventure and camping brands seemed to inhabit another universe where everyone wears green and purple all the time. But the hipsters’ urban appropriation of outdoor cliches and styles, particularly in the U.S., has revitalised (or gentrified?) the genre.
More recently, brands have begun taking even more explicit measures to show their outdoor credentials. This month saw several examples, with outstanding releases from the likes of Topo Designs, revisiting its 2013 collaboration with fishing lifestylers, Howler Brothers. UGG (now without ‘Australia’ in its name) and Pendleton also teamed up for a collection of shoes and home textiles with the National Park Service. And the Bedrock-owned Filson dedicated a nostalgic and affectionate capsule to the U.S. Forest Service spokesman, Smokey Bear.
2. Music loves Fashion
While it may not be news that music and fashion are in a serious relationship, Kanye West’s breakout success has been a major catalyst for new marriages and activations. Over the festival season, new interactions between brands and artists have been evolving both in frequency and format.
Justin Bieber followed up on his extravagant Purpose Tour capsule for Barney’s with an exclusive collection for Urban Outfitters. John Varvatos designed a 15-piece line for Guns N’ Roses, as did Alexander Wang for Chinese star, Chris Lee. Meanwhile both Zayn Malik and Jennifer Lopez signed on with Giuseppe Zanotti to curate their own luxury footwear sub-labels.
Kanye himself was in the business news again too. After the success of his $1 million-grossing “Pablo” New York pop-up, he surprised fans in mid-August by mounting 21 temporary merch stores in 21 cities around the world. Though the initiative enjoyed extensive global coverage, West was upstaged by IKEA’s clever mockery of his very public proposal to create a furnishings collection together.
3. Generation X
Nineties and noughties icons are increasingly extending their brands by avoiding traditional licensing and endorsement business models. The proliferation of celebrity Creative Directorships and collaboration capsules has given yesterday’s stars new opportunities to extend and deepen their profile. Only this month, new initiatives oriented around Generation X included Lucy Liu with Bruno Magli, Eva Longoria for The Limited (following on from TechnoMarine), Liv Tyler for Belstaff and – in a more traditional licensing vein – Tony Hawk at Walmart.
Meanwhile the influence of 90s sportswear on fashion continues to spread. Hypebeast wrote an interesting piece explaining the relationship. Calvin Klein‘s appointment this month of Raf Simons as its new Creative Director surely puts it on course to be a major benefactor of the resurgence. However even Urban Outfitters were attributing a recent spike in performance in large part to 90s-flavoured exclusive collaborations with the likes of Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Fila, as well as sales of vinyl records.
4. Lifestyle Line Extensions
Maybe the summer heat was to blame, but August saw a rash of brands eager to show a more outgoing side. Leading the way was Moleskine, opening its first café in Milan.
Other lifestyle brands to extend their coverage included New Balance, with the launch of its first luxe casualwear collection, and the debut of a heritage edit by Lee Cooper named Cooper Collection. Among the more outlying names to put themselves into the lifestyle mix was Glenfiddich. The distillery announced the imminent release of Glenfiddich Wardrobe XXI, a Scottish-flavoured men’s collection curated by stylist Josh Peskowitz.
But for quality of category fit and execution, it was difficult to find many better examples of brand extension than the new kitchen and cookware line created by the UK natural fast food chain, LEON, in collaboration with John Lewis.
5. Complex Collaborations
Selfridges made headlines in June by announcing it would be the exclusive reseller for 19 limited edition Morgan EV3 cars. In August the 3-wheeled electric nostalgia car arrived, replete with an exclusive driving kit created by the department store in collaboration with 9 invited labels, including Alexander McQueen, Globe-Trotter, and Belstaff.
On the surface, Selfridges’ concept is far-fetched and elaborate, but its success in media and in-store shows the efficacy of collaboration as a platform for creating value and unique, contagious brand experiences.
Similarly elaborate examples seen this month included Diadora’s “From Seoul to Rio” – a collection of seven special edition shoes created with seven elite sneaker stores in seven cities. Meanwhile the Denim Every Day campaign run by J. Crew subsidiary Madewell saw it pay tribute to denim by releasing collaboration styles with different labels every day in August. Like the Selfridges project, it’s complex, but it’s sensational, exclusive, and impossible for competitors to imitate.