Luxury fashion and the US-China trade war: are US brands still primed for rapid growth, or will European rivals benefit?
Mass-produced luxury brands such as Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Tory Burch and Calvin Klein appeal to aspirational Chinese, thanks to American culture’s pull, say an industry analyst and an e-commerce website
The trade war between China and the United States has made some Chinese consumers think negatively about America. Yet US luxury brands in China, from Ralph Lauren to Tiffany, are in a position of strength – they just need to know how to leverage it.
So says Jerry Clode, director of Smart, the research arm of Shanghai-based digital and social media agency Resonance, who made that argument last month in a presentation to the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. He emphasised just how much cultural weight mass-produced US luxury (“masstige”) brands have in China.
“In China, American brands have been incredibly successful in owning category and new behaviours,” Clode told the South China Morning Post. “Starbucks has created coffee culture, Disney is the exemplar family destination, Apple still dominates premium consumer technology and Tesla has captured the imagination of China’s future-focused middle class.
“As local consumers increasingly use fashion and luxury to express their lifestyle and identity, American brands have a profound head start on other nationalities in terms of precedent and aspiration,” he said.
Accessibility and aspiration aren’t working out as well for some “masstige” brands in their home market. Brands such as Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren are not as highly rated by American consumers as they once were.
