A special collaboration with Adidas, the presentation of its resort collection in Puglia, Italy, and another collaboration with the singer Harry Styles, helped Italian fashion house Gucci claim back its title of the hottest brand from Balenciaga after three quarters.
CONSUMERS
Gucci Knocks Balenciaga Off Top Spot as World’s Hottest Brand
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Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.
PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.
In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”
The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris
A special collaboration with Adidas, the presentation of its resort collection in Puglia, Italy, and another collaboration with the singer Harry Styles, helped Italian fashion house Gucci claim back its title of the hottest brand from Balenciaga after three quarters.
Gucci is back on top as the world’s hottest brand, according to the latest edition of the Lyst Index, a quarterly ranking of fashion’s hottest brands and products. Searches for the brand in the second quarter of this year soared by 286 percent in the 48 hours after it released its collection with the sportswear brand in June.
In addition, its other collaboration with singer Harry Styles, and the presentation of its resort collection in Puglia, Italy, helped add to the momentum that Gucci is seeing at present, which knocked French fashion house Balenciaga off the top spot, after nine months.
Both brands have dominated the fashion conversation since the Lyst Index was launched in 2017, said Lyst, both amongst consumers and industry insiders.
“The brands’ aesthetics couldn’t be more different; Alessandro Michele’s colourful, maximalist utopia sits in stark contrast with Demna’s dark, dystopian vision. But together, the two Kering-owned fashion houses are now powering a huge 21 percent of the overall Lyst Index heat score generated by the top 20 brands.”
The report takes into account more than 200 million shoppers’ behaviour on the fashion technology company and premium shopping app, including searches on and off the platform, product views and sales. It also considers social media mentions, activity and engagement statistics worldwide, over each three-month period.
Prada, Valentino, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Miu Miu, Fendi, Diesel and Burberry made up the rest of the top 10 hottest brands, helped in large part by collaborations with other brands or key personalities.
The top ten hottest brands in the Lyst Index for Q2 2022.Credit: Courtesy.
“Lyst data shows that collaboration culture is still thriving; dropping the right remix can create a major brand moment and drive brand heat for both parties involved,” the report’s authors wrote.
“This quarter’s perfect pairings include the Fendace collaboration swimsuit, Adidas x Wales Bonner Samba sneakers, and the Yeezy Gap engineered by Balenciaga Dove hoodie,” they added.
Destination dressing also featured highly on shopper’s lists, inspired by the lavish fashion shows held in Instagram-worth locations. Dolce and Gabbana rose by 7 places to re-enter the Lyst Index, with searches for the brand climbing 114 percent following the Kardashian-Barker wedding in Portofino. Dior, which came in 6th, held a fiesta-inspired cruise show in Seville. Jacquemus climbed into 20th place, following an all-white FW22 catwalk show set against the salt mountains of Arles.
“No doubt inspired by fashion’s jet-setting creator community, shoppers are investing in statement high summer pieces, from Casablanca’s silk shorts to Miu Miu’s colourful crochet bucket hat, and the Iraca palm basket bag by Loewe,” the report said.
For the full findings from The Lyst Index, please click here.
Welcome to Data Digest, our breakdown of the latest data releases and reports focused on the luxury industry.
Senior Editor, Luxury Society
Limei Hoang is a senior editor at Luxury Society, based in Geneva. She was formerly an associate editor at the Business of Fashion in London. Previously, Limei spent six years at Reuters as a journalist, and she has also written for the BBC, The Independent, and New Statesman.
