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A new wave of disruptive entrepreneurs came to the fore in fashion and beauty this year, with a focus on building loyal consumer communities and exploring new business models.
Some have capitalised on the archival luxury boom, with engaging, Gen Z-focused content online. Others have honed in on hero items, or steadily scaled their luxury labels before showing on the international stage in New York, London, Milan or Paris, to avoid cash flow issues or production strains.
We featured a mix of these founders in our weekly Next-Gen Edit newsletter throughout the year. Here are some of the key lessons and highlights.
Archival fashion and luxury resale: Harnessing internet culture
As archival and vintage continue to thrive among young consumers, luxury resellers and archive retailers gained ground in 2023. Unlike bigger players, such as The Real Real or Vestiaire Collective, these new-age resale platforms are using social media to create entertaining and/or educational content, build loyalty, drive sales among young buyers and direct traffic to bricks-and-mortar stores.
Online luxury resale platform Luxe Collective, based in Liverpool, was launched in 2018 by brothers Ben and Joe Gallagher. But it was during the pandemic, when Ben, now 23, started posting educational videos about fashion on TikTok, that sales began to soar. From designer biographies to show reviews, under the @luxecollective handle, the company has accrued 1.6 million TikTok followers since 2019. Luxe Collective hit over £7 million in sales this year, up 60 per cent over 2022. “As long as you teach the [TikTok audience] something and they come out of the video gaining some knowledge, that’s what works,” Ben told Vogue Business.
Gen Z founder Gabriel Rylka has scaled his archival luxury business, Break Archive, launched in 2021, through entertaining, meme-inspired content on TikTok and Instagram. Ahead of each drop, Break Archive builds anticipation with stylised or funny TikTok and Instagram teasers, before dropping secondhand handbags from Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Dior in one go. Revenues reached £800,000 this year. “It’s about opening a dialogue with your clients and your audience and TikTok has been a massive help for that,” Rylka told Vogue Business in March.
The Edit LDN, a luxury resale platform focused on sneakers and streetwear, launched in 2020 and has taken a different approach to marketing this year, using sports stars and celebrity investors to drive awareness and build credibility. On the other hand, the emerging player is ensuring to build loyalty and community to differentiate from bigger players like Goat or StockX. Platform founder Moses Rashid and members of his team regularly appear on The Edit LDN’s Instagram. “We want people to feel like they’re part of the team,” he says. “And then, as we continue to grow, we want them to feel that they’re coming along [on] the journey. Intrinsically, they kind of feel a bit more bought in.” The company has a policy of responding to an Instagram DM within three minutes and an email within 30 minutes, to stay connected to the community. Rashid plans to maintain this as it scales.
In New York, vintage sellers No Standing, Treasures of NYC and James Veloria began their robust resale businesses online, driving sales on Instagram and TikTok. They have opened bricks-and-mortar locations in recent years, to deliver luxury options to New York’s thriving secondhand economy. While online can support brand awareness, in-real-life shopping often results in higher purchase value and more items sold, said No Standing co-founder and CEO Helena Dweck, as people are inspired when physically browsing, and often bring a friend along who also makes a purchase.
There’s also opportunities for tech players when it comes to the resale market. Due to the sheer amount of inventory on resale platforms, often with inconsistent descriptions, AI platform Sociate launched a new chatbot called Maia, which learns to ask the right questions to improve discovery. The company partnered with UK resale platform Hardly Ever Worn It in March, to better discovery and engagement on the platform.
Having faith in your USP and celebrating hero products
Some of the high-growth labels of 2023 have honed in on a USP or hero item, which brands previously were afraid to do, at risk of it falling out of fashion. Athleisure label Tala reached eight-figure revenues this year, by focusing on the functional elements of its versatile sportswear. Founder Grace Beverley regularly posts on both her own and the brand’s social media, to show potential and existing customers why Tala has placed a certain seam or pocket, or why it’s selected a particular fabric. Audiences lap it up: Tala sold £1 million worth of puffer jackets in a single day in November.
In luxury, New York brand Luar founder Raul Lopez understands what it takes to create a unique brand universe online, with entertaining content around its hero Ana bag. “Our social is all about surrealism, playing with people’s minds,” he told Vogue Business in February, referring to his tongue-in-cheek photo edits of people wearing the accessory, ranging from women in Renaissance portraits to the Grinch. The Ana bag represents over half of the brand’s sales. As a result, Lopez has invested in alternative models and styles, like the large version, made available this year.
Paris label All-In, which attracted a high-profile crowd for its third off-schedule show in Paris in September, also engages with online audiences to understand what they’re into. When buyers didn’t pick up its jewelled heart shoe, founders Benjamin Barron and Bror August decided to produce them anyway, selling them direct-to-consumer. The bet paid off and the shoes all but sold out, helping to fund All-In’s September show. They updated the styles for SS24 to keep up with demand.
Rethinking the traditional launch-to-runway pipeline
For years emerging labels have felt pressure to show in one of the big four cities in order to accumulate buzz. But once you’re on the official calendar of New York, London, Milan or Paris, the expectation is that you will show every season, come what may. Brands are now rethinking the first few years of brand building, to reduce the pressure.
After a debut in Paris in 2019, in which they didn’t intend to sell anything, All-In has shown off-schedule the last two seasons, slowly adding stockists and increasing production quantities season after season, as they learn the ropes of the business. At New York Fashion Week SS24, New York designer Wiederhoeft sent out a collection of 24 looks (plus 20 more Wiederhoeft-dressed dancers) on stage in La Mama, a small theatre in New York’s East Village. Titled ‘Night Terror at the Opera’, it was a performance in three acts, with nods to David Lynch. In Paris, upcycled, genderless local label Jeanne Friot held a queer party last summer before staging her first official presentation during Paris men’s this year, dressing her community in her designs.
Korean label Andersson Bell celebrated its 10th anniversary with its first-ever Milan Fashion Week menswear show in June. Andersson Bell has been profitable since launch and brings in $15 million in annual revenues, but at the 10-year mark, it felt like time to scale abroad, said founder and creative director Dohun Kim. To coincide with the show, the brand invested in marketing, including a takeover of the city’s trams featuring its campaigns, as well as other localised activations to engage with new audiences during fashion week.
Latin American labels Àcheval, Banzo and Lucas Leão, finalists for emerging designer of the year at the inaugural Latin American Fashion Awards, staged in November, have each built small luxury labels without a fashion show. Instead, faced with production and shipping costs, and in the absence of a local fashion week, they provide small edits to buyers that they feel will perform commercially, to reduce risk.
Instead of a traditional stockist relationship, Àcheval collaborates with retailers on exclusive drops. “Retailers like it because it’s more interesting to have something that not everybody else will have,” founder Sofia Àchaval de Montaigu told Vogue Business. Camila Banzo operates like consignment with wholesalers, where she sells a small selection of popular pieces that she thinks will resonate in each market. The awards, which will now take place bi-annually, are a new way for these labels to garner attention.
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