Vases Are The New It Bags - When Fashion Expands To Homeware
Hello and welcome to the 32nd issue of moderated, a newsletter created to dive into insights and phenomenons of the Fashion Industry. It also has a curation and summary of the most talked about last week’s events of the industry, offering further readings for more details.
If you are new here, welcome! I hope I can somehow help you to keep up with the fast-paced Fashion Industry.
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On this week’s moderated, I expanded the horizons the fashion industry has been expanding and I entered the world of homeware. I analysed how the pandemic accelerated the trend of fashion brands tapping into home goods and how they have to adapt to adventure into this industry.
But before jumping into the main article, check the last week’s recap of the Fashion Industry.
Last Week’s Recap
Pinterest and 1 Granary Launch a Visual Discovery Platform for Fashion Design Graduates
Pinterest and London-based magazine and digital platform 1 Granary teamed up to help this year’s graduates network, showcase, and sell their work. The partnership consists of a platform called ‘Designers to Hire’ that will amplify profiles and portfolios from graduates in order to connect them with employers, stylists, and buyers. Young designers will also be able to commercialise their work through shoppable Product Pins. Olya Kuryshchuk, 1 Granary’s founder and editor-in-chief, explained how the platform will differentiate from others:
“The main part of the project is not to celebrate, showcase or support by exposure. We wanted to put the work in a context of employability. The project is designed with the objective to provide all this and simultaneously reach a wider audience, providing the designers with the opportunity to direct commercialisation. The visual-led nature of Pinterest along with its interactive features and tools ticked all the criteria that we consider essential when a young graduate gets out in the job market.”
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The Pandemic Is Forcing Retailers and Landlords to Have a Closer Relationship
Lockdown measures implemented due to the pandemic are impacting the relationship between retailers and landlords. The scenario is quite simple: with foot traffic dropping and consumers buying less in physical stores, retailers can no longer afford their leases. On the other side of the business, landlords are scared of losing their tenants and sitting on vacant spaces for years. To give you an example, according to a survey of storefronts on Manhattan’s Broadway thoroughfare done in August, there are 300 street-level vacancies, which is roughly an 80% increase since 2017.
The solution that both parties are finding to go around this new issue is to deepen their business partnership beyond rent. Some retailers are paying a percentage of revenue to landlords as an extra or even as a replacement for their rent. Ultimately, in some cases, this exchange is evolving to landlords taking stakes in their tenants’ businesses. According to real estate professionals, this was a trend before 2020; the pandemic only accelerated it. A famous example of this dynamic this year is Simon Property Group. The mall conglomerate acquired stakes at Forever 21 and Brooks Brothers, which are tenants in many of its malls. As much as this is a solution, it is important to flag that landlords see this measure as a last resource. Many are only agreeing to these terms in order to avoid being vacant during one of the worst years in history for commercial real estate.
If you liked this subject, I really recommend this article from Business of Fashion.
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Founding Editor of Vogue China Angelica Cheung to leave after 15 years
After 16 years working at Vogue China, which is completing 15 years in 2020, Angelica Cheung announced she is leaving her position at the magazine. The founding editor of Vogue China is considered one of the most powerful people in fashion in China. She was responsible for building the successful modern culture of fashion magazines in the country. While Vogue's parent company Condé Nast had another recent and sudden change in leadership, Cheung is also the fourth high-profile Chinese fashion magazine editor to exit their job in 2020. Condé Nast hasn’t announced Cheung’s successor yet. However, Vogue's international editor Anna Wintour will be overlooking the handover.
Rating La Mode - Pop My Eyes
So this week I am recommending an Instagram profile called Pop My Eyes that curates and creates art - with many pieces tapping into fashion. The best way I can think to describe this profile is: be uncomfortable but make it fashion. Most images look kind of “wrong” but at the same time you just can’t stop looking at them; while the rest, as the Instagram account explains, is just awesome shit. I recommend the follow to get inspired by some cool weird art.
To follow Pop My Eyes on Instagram, click here.
Vases Are the New It Bags - When Fashion Expands to Homeware
We all stayed home more this year. I, for instance, shopped less fashion because I didn’t have many places to wear new pieces. In contrast, my apartment got a new table, a few new baskets, and other small additions to it. Staying more at home made us all realize how important it is to feel good where we live. From a pure business standpoint, while we shopped less apparel, we bought more homeware – and fashion brands saw an opportunity in this new behaviour.
Fashion has always flirted with homeware. For decades, fashion brands have been expanding outside of apparel to the home goods sector. Examples go from luxury labels like Ralph Lauren, Fendi, and Versace to high street retailers such as H&M and Zara. However, with the pandemic and its impact on consumer behaviour, many other labels joined this portfolio expansion. This is not only a way to keep sales, but also an opportunity to enter a slower industry that can connect labels with its customers in a more personal and long-term way - and that is what we will talk about this week.
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Fashion Brands and Homeware
The home goods market was expanding even before the pandemic. In 2019, the global sales in this sector rose 3.4% to US$682 billion, according to Euromonitor International. In 2020, the sector had a decrease in sales, but when compared to the apparel industry, the decline was mild. On top of that, Euromonitor predicted that this year sales of kitchen and dining items will rise by 1.3% to US$93.7 billion.
Before the pandemic, fashion brands that already had homeware collections would usually keep them in a second plan, figuratively and literally at the back of the store. Now, with people staying more home, this scenario changed. The fine jewellery brand Anissa Kermiche is an example of this shift, as the designer herself explained to WWD:
“People used to only think about how to dress to impress, but they now need to dress their homes, which became accessible to many more virtual eyes. That has undeniably helped [build] our brand awareness on Instagram: Everyone was posting their favourite item and a community was born, without the need to run a marketing campaign.”
And indeed her body-shaped ceramics became an Instagram’s sensation and now they are the first thing you see when you enter her website. Matchesfashion.com was able to demonstrate in clear numbers this shift. The fashion e-commerce platform has a dedicated home category for two years already, but this year, homeware sales rose 160% compared to last year. Once the retailer identified the opportunity in home goods, it boosted its home-focused content, including spotlighting wish lists by creatives that featured as many interior objects as they did Bottega Veneta pieces. Other fashion brands that have home products such as JJ. Martin and Dior also shared either growth in sales or at least stability in their homeware category during 2020.
In the fashion high-street retailers world, PrettyLittleThing is coming for Zara and H&M Home. In November, the e-commerce platform PrettyLittleThing launched its home collection with products for as little as £6 and going up to £40. H&M also had some new moves as a response to a great year of sales for its home category. The retailer is launching a collaboration with Diane von Furstenberg that will include the designer’s notorious patterns printing vases, cushions, blankets, and other products.
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Why Homeware Is So Convenient for Fashion Brands
Ok, it is growing, brands have done it for decades and are doing more now due to the pandemic. But why is homeware so appealing to fashion brands? There are a few reasons for that, so let’s go.
The first that comes to mind is that it can be relatively easy to translate a fashion’s brand aesthetic to homeware. As BoF explained, “the same aesthetic consumers love to see in a dress can often translate into dinner plates and ottomans”. This makes it possible for fashion brands to expand their universe to other categories, once many clients buy into them that much. Chelsea Power, a senior buyer at Matchesfashion.com, demonstrated that this link between fashion and home aesthetics can be easily done:
“We have always approached our homeware offer as an extension of our customer’s style. A customer with a purist style who wears The Row and Jil Sander might be enticed by an Anissa Kermiche vase or some Nathalee Paolinelli ceramic plates. We try and cater to that women’s full aesthetic and lifestyle.”
The second reason I will tap into is the same reason why fashion brands also expand to cosmetics so often: creating new price-points. Take Antwerp-based label Bernadette for example. The brand’s dresses are usually priced between €500 and €1,000. Its recently launched collection of home linens and ceramics, however, has a lower entry-price, charging €35 for side plates and €330 for a large platter. This allows the brand to connect with a new consumer that admires the brand but can’t afford its fashion collection.
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It’s a Similar But Still Different Industry
Homeware and fashion have a lot in common – and that is exactly why this is a comfortable industry that fashion labels can expand to. However, they are still different industries that have significant differences. I decided to tap into three differences that I thought would be interesting to discuss.
The first and probably the main difference between both industries – besides the production and skills set - is the rhythm. As Dubern-Mallevays, co-founder of interior design retailer The Invisible Collection and former creative director of Dior Maison, explained:
“It’s a universe with a radically different rhythm from fashion. Brands have to have a different mindset and treat this activity separately.”
But what does that mean? Fashion has a very fast-paced rhythm with new pieces coming out as often as every day. In homeware the pace is different, there are no fashion weeks to produce for and collections are more spaced. Usually, people buy fewer home goods than apparel, once there is so much you can fit inside a house, so whatever they purchase is set to be a more long-term article.
This pace and long-term product means also a more personal relationship with its customers – which is our second difference. Home good articles will be brought home and will be part of that person’s life for a while. They will be inside their home, which they “dress” for themselves. This factor will eventually affect the whole marketing approach.
Of course, if there is something the fashion industry knows how to do is branding and marketing. In terms of branding, this expansion to homeware is usually not a big challenge. But, when it comes to other facets of marketing, it can be harder. The client needs to feel closer to the brand. They need to trust the quality and be open to starting a long-term relationship with the label. It is less seasonal than apparel. Even though I couldn’t resist making the comparison with It bags on the title, Dubern-Mallevays perfectly states there is a difference:
“You don’t change plates like you change It bags. There is a sentimental link, more intimate than for fashion.”
These two aspects of rhythm and relationship with the customer are challenging but are also an opportunity. Let’s start with the more personal relationship: having this type of connection with customers is every fashion brand's dream. Expanding to homeware can be an opportunity to create a stronger bond with customers. This can even generate sales for the label’s apparel, once the customer will be even more immersed in the brand's universe.
When it comes to a slower pace, this can be an opportunity to reconnect with design. The fashion industry is always in a rush, preparing for the next fashion week, next drop, next collection in a rhythm that sometimes affects the creative process. Some designers that adventured into home design, found its slower pace so refreshing that sometimes brought the same to their apparel collection. An example of this is Mary Katrantzou, who adventured into rugs a few years ago and discovered a whole new world of creativity. She saw an opportunity in this new rhythm and, last year, she moved her fashion collection away from the traditional calendar to the destination show format. The new approach allowed her to spend more time experimenting with design and creativity.
“It’s liberating, to be honest. When you slow down a bit, you can really think about what concept directly relates to the partnership you’re working on. Interiors can create the environment or the context in which you want your brand to exist in the future,” she said to WWD.
Finally, the third aspect that is drastically different from apparel - and this one is probably only a challenge, not an opportunity – is the logistics. While clothes and accessories are relatively easy to ship, homeware is usually more complex. From plates that can easily break to chairs that are heavy and large, the logistics of home goods demands more investment per product sold than a dress or a bag would. Since many fashion brands don’t have the capital or/and knowledge to deal with the logistics of home goods, they often partner with home design companies to expand to this industry. British label Shrimps partnered with home retailer Habitat for example, in order to be able to enter this new market. Some brands even turn to license deals for their furniture. Versace, for example, outsourced its furniture business in order to scale it through a license granted to Lifestyle Design Group in September.
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Is It Just a Phase?
No. Ok, maybe 2020's numbers are a bit exorbitant because of the pandemic. But this product extension of fashion brands into home goods is not new and I don’t think they will ever be over.
Style is not only about fashion, is about your make-up, your hair, your home, your car, your way of speak, what you listen to, what you read, and so on. It’s only natural that fashion brands will expand their universe to be more present in their customers’ style materialization. I believe the home I am slowly building matches my style of dressing and whenever I see a fashion brand I love launching homeware, I tend to like their new category. It’s no mystery, but as I demonstrate, there are some challenges to enter the complex market of home goods.
The pandemic made us see how important it is to feel good at home, as much as it is to feel good with what you are wearing. Would you trust the same brand you shop for clothes to buy homeware? In most cases - I would.
Thanks for reading this week’s moderated and next Tuesday I will be back with more.
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