Living Luxury: The Accessible Luxury Opportunity
Published 18 November 2024
Aspirational luxury consumers (ALCs) account for 50% of the luxury fashion market’s value (McKinsey, 2024), but recent steep price increases have deterred them from purchasing, plunging the luxury fashion industry into downturn mode. Here we highlight the exciting opportunities for brands to build business with this priced-out cohort, with notes of cautionary advice for the ultra-premium players.
High(er) End High-Street Futures
Elevating the Everyday: Pocket-Friendly Perfection
Advice for Luxury Brands
Mass- and mid-market brands should be engaging with price-savvy, luxury-hungry customers by delivering ‘halo’ capsule collections featuring standout design and superior quality fabrics. Meanwhile, elevating your pitch by having a presence on the red carpet is another way to promote higher-end relevance, as is to sprinkle some celebrity-designer stardust over your brand.
Mass- and mid-market brands should be engaging with price-savvy, luxury-hungry customers by delivering ‘halo’ capsule collections featuring standout design and superior quality fabrics. Meanwhile, elevating your pitch by having a presence on the red carpet is another way to promote higher-end relevance, as is to sprinkle some celebrity-designer stardust over your brand.
As predicted in our Look Ahead 2024, the cost-of-living crisis, in tandem with the ongoing appeal of quiet luxury aesthetics, is driving appetite for elevated everyday items; perfecting the most humble yet useful of pieces via thoughtful design and quality fabrication. This represents a type of luxury that should be accessible to everyone, and a massive commercial opportunity for all kinds of brands and retailers.
Luxury fashion mark-ups are increasingly coming under harsh scrutiny, with industry observers criticising exponential price rises and social media commentators exposing the real cost of goods to astonished consumers. High-end brands and retailers need to take a reality check on margins and reframe entry-level product opportunities, or risk further damaging their already fragile segment. Likewise, they need to reprioritise independent, creative thinking as a gateway to success.
Living Luxury: The Accessible Luxury Opportunity
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