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Collaborations, once a novel marketing tool that thrived on the unexpected, have become oversaturated to the point of absurdity. Used to broaden audiences and build hype, brands have taken that to the extreme, critics say, as luxury and fashion labels are partnering with celebrities, sports stars, car companies, fast food chains and technology giants almost daily.
In a sea of collabs, can they still work? Only if done right, experts say.
Collaborations hit a point of commercial saturation where it felt as though brands were colliding for no real reason, “with no purpose other than to combine brand equity and product”, explains Zack Meays, collaborations campaign manager at multi-brand retailer End, on the increasing backlash towards cash-grab collabs over the years. Today, to feel fresh, collaborations must be rich in storytelling, offer a quality co-designed product, or be truly innovative.
“The market’s changed,” explains Lazer, the founder of Nobo Agency, a communication agency that works with brands and talent on collaborations and partnerships. “Hypebeast culture is dead. Reselling has gone out of the window. Now people are buying into something because they believe in the narrative.”
Striking while it’s hot
Crocs may be the ultimate collaborator, working with a long list of brands including Simone Rocha, Salehe Bembury, Lil Nas X, KFC and Levis in the last year alone. Rachel Makar, senior director of merchandising at resale platform StockX, says that Crocs’s sales are up 43 per cent year-on-year on the platform, which she attributes, in part, to the collabs. Character-inspired releases are doing significantly well, she adds, with the Crocs Mater Clog (released October 2023) seeing more release-week trades than any other Crocs collaboration in StockX history, and the Crocs x Shrek (released September 2023) achieving more than 11,000 trades to date.
The heavily embellished, platform Balenciaga Crocs “really pushed Crocs into a new lane”, says Lazer, who explains that the pairing hit upon the “ugly” shoe zeitgeist that was unravelling at the time, while the more absurdist partnerships with Shrek and KFC were in keeping with the footwear company’s playful, expressive DNA.
Adidas’s collaboration with British designer Grace Wales Bonner helped the samba silhouette secure its title as 2023’s most-popular shoe, with the average price premium on their silver pair upwards of 596 per cent, according to StockX. And next-generation streetwear brands like London label Corteiz are invigorating the market with sold-out collaborations with Supreme, Nike and photographer Simon Wheatley.
Even media companies such as Highsnobiety have found success with the model. The global media brand’s latest “Not In Paris” collaborative series featured 20 partnerships with the likes of Palais de Tokyo, Jean Paul Gaultier, Diptyque, École Kourtrajmé, Café de Flore and L’As du Fallafel.
“Even though collaboration as a marketing tool is called into question every few years, the fact is that they are still powerful tools in a brand’s marketing strategy and that they continue to evolve over time,” says Highsnobiety founder David Fischer. He points out that what makes a great collaboration today is very different from five to 15 years ago. “Everyone collaborates with everyone and everything today and therefore having an authentic story as a foundation, and of course a great product as the outcome, is crucial.”
A new playbook
According to Callum Hill, senior collaborations design manager at End, there are two main reasons why a brand collaborates: “There’s a pool of collaborations that exist for a reason, whether that’s to change something, make something better, or be a true expression of two or more entities,” while others, “simply exist because it makes business sense”. Hill says that consumers are more cynical now, and must believe the collaboration exists for a reason beyond financial gain, whereas in the 2010s, that justification wasn’t as necessary because of the prevailing hypebeast culture.
Makar says that the recent Loewe x On collaboration resonated deeply with StockX buyers, through its perfect pairing of luxury Spanish design and Swiss engineering. Pegged as a celebration of “the craft of movement”, it also debuted On’s innovative Cloudtilt midsole technology (for lighter movement), which was complemented by Loewe’s fashion-forward design.
Now on its fourth edition, the collaboration is sold out on Loewe’s website. And currently the average price premium on StockX is +130 per cent — demonstrating that when storytelling and great design converge, success may very well follow. Based on the success of the trainers, Loewe and On are launching apparel too, Loewe announced on Friday, releasing 23 May.
Not every collab is a runaway success. Lazer points to Puma’s first collaboration with A$AP Rocky and F1, launched at a one-off, flashy activation at the Las Vegas Grand Prix last November, which he felt didn’t directly link to Puma’s community. “It was a whole load of commercial nothingness that didn’t cater to the brand’s core audience. It felt like they just wanted to say, ‘Hey we’re at the most expensive event in the world and we’ve dropped this product.’ But it’s not culturally relevant and very far from the consumer they’re trying to target,” he says.
Similarly, the Tiffany x Nike Air Force 1 tie-up was criticised for its lacklustre design, expensive price tag (it retailed for $400) and inauthentic synergy between the two brands. “The issue is more in the execution than the idea,” marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania Barbara Kahn told Vogue Business at the time.
Instead, both Lazer and Fischer point to Corteiz teaming up with Simon Wheatley as an example of an authentic collaboration. Featuring an iconic image of British rapper Crazy Titch on a Corteiz jacket, Wheatley told The Face that the partnership authentically came about because “[Clint] told me that he felt the younger generation needed to be seeing my work”, rather than because he wanted the pair to make an obscene amount of money. “There’s only 300 of these jackets made. He could have made 1,000 and sold them out quickly and made more money. But it’s not about that for him,” Wheatley added.
Dior’s collaboration with Stone Island, announced last week via a tongue-in-cheek online profile of Dior men’s designer Kim Jones, is another strong example, says Fischer. “Dior and Stone Island coming together feels both surprising and it makes sense, as it’s two brands that live in different fields of the fashion universe, yet they are both very well known for their craft,” he says. ”It allows Stone Island to go upmarket and Dior to address a younger consumer that may otherwise not pay that much attention to their brand.”
Artistic director Jones explained the tie-in in the campaign: “Stone Island is something that I’ve worn since I was a teenager. I could afford one piece. I remember saving up for it and it was so hard to get,” further legitimising the partnership.
However, “even if audiences are still very much into it, there is a need to think more broadly about the purpose of a collaboration”, warns trend forecaster Lisa Douët on the growing disillusionment of late towards the market. “It’s about choosing the right partner, telling the right story, because today the story you tell around a collaboration has become as important as the product delivered.”
“What makes a collaboration a success is the narrative first and foremost,” agrees Lazer. “When a consumer asks why this happened? The answer can’t be that these two brands have money, they have different demographics, let’s put this collaboration together and make loads of money from it.”
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