Amazon has been selling clothing for years. The giant e-commerce company ran its first fashion advert in 2012, and there was even a moment in 2018 when a padded Amazon own-brand coat went viral, with editors and celebrities spotted wearing it on the streets of Manhattan in New York. Traditionally, though, Amazon clothing has been more “brandless fleece coat” than “embellished high-fashion catwalk” – meaning that, almost uniquely among retail sectors, luxury has been largely untouched by the online giant. Not for much longer – according to Amazon, anyway. In the US last month, the mega platform launched its latest bid for the luxury market with a glossy new designer section where brands can create their own digital online boutiques without worrying that their wares will be advertised alongside phone chargers and dog food. With its individual storefronts and action model shots, it is clearly based on Alibaba and its Tmall luxury site – one of the fastest-growing fashion e-commerce platforms on Earth (Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post ). There is no doubt that Amazon has China in its sights – the country is now by far the most lucrative luxury market in the world. But while it has some luxury labels on board, Amazon has failed to woo prestigious European brands. Nearly all of them have refused to partner with the giant, even though they have worked with Alibaba – which offers a very similar model to Amazon – on vast campaigns across China. Why? Nerd no more? Jeff Bezos makes a wild fashion statement The answer is that luxury fashion thrives on image, and billions of US dollars can be spent cultivating an aura of prestige and sexiness. Amazon – with its bland interface and focus on the mass shifting of products – has made money from being practical and reliable, but it has never been in the business of making dreams come true. But, boy, has it been trying to up the sexiness factor. Last month, Rihanna showed her second Savage x Fenty lingerie fashion show on Amazon Prime Video, featuring some of fashion’s biggest names including Cara Delevingne and Bella Hadid. In October, Amazon part-sponsored Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid, live-streaming the shows and making the collections shoppable on the site. And to coincide with London Fashion Week , the platform partnered with the British Fashion Council and fashion magazine Vogue to create a digital storefront featuring 12 British designers including 1x1 Studio, De La Vali, Grenson, Les Girls Les Boys, Emilio De La Morena, Kat Maconie and Olubiyi Thomas. The numbers that Amazon is investing are eye-opening: US$18 billion is being promised to help independent retailers from all sectors grow on the site, while US$100 million will be given directly to new fashion brands. This new round of investment comes on the back of the launch of fashion platform Common Threads, a partnership between Vogue and the Council of Fashion Designers of America to support independent designers. Featuring brands like Anna Sui, Cushnie, Lemlem and Thakoon, the platform kicked off in the spring. Since then, two labels – Tabitha Simmons and Chloe Gosselin – have asked to be removed. Sales to date have reportedly been lacklustre. “That’s mostly because Amazon is a transactional marketplace, where the product brand is less important than the marketplace brand,” says James Thomson, partner at Amazon consultancy Buy Box Experts and former business head of Amazon Services. “The Amazon customer is much more likely to search for products using an unbranded keyword term like ‘women’s dress’, rather than a branded term like ‘Prada evening dress’. With fashion being typically experiential products, it’s hard to understand how an outfit will look on you if you are buying on Amazon.” Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is hoping, however, that the ramifications of the pandemic will force resistant brands to partner with them, create their own unique storefront and thus encourage a new type of customer to use the site. “While Amazon’s algorithms market different products to every consumer, that’s not the same as a personal-shopper experience one might expect in an exclusive luxury-products platform,” says Thomson. “I don’t see Amazon ever trying to provide the same experience – instead it will offer an easy return policy, and the ability to get products delivered quickly. Unfortunately, because Amazon democratises the purchase of most products, that’s exactly what luxury brands don’t want: they want exclusivity.” Unfortunately for Amazon, the pandemic has forced luxury to urgently revamp its digital offering. Even before global lockdowns, premium fashion was a crowded field made up of online-only players like Farfetch , which has itself now had a multibillion-dollar cash injection from Alibaba and luxury goods holding company Richemont to help it expand into China. But what about Alibaba? “[Amazon and Alibaba] are not pitted against each other right now in terms of the consumers they serve, but they are running into each other in India and Southeast Asia,” said Danielle Bailey, managing vice-president of research firm Gartner, to Vogue Business . “China is surpassing the US as the largest retail market in the world, and Alibaba is the largest business-to-consumer platform in China. People underestimate Alibaba in terms of what it represents on a global stage.” Amazon and Alibaba are, however, competing for scale and prestige. “Alibaba is more sophisticated than Amazon. That is where the competition aspect of it comes in – the perception as the global e-commerce leader,” Bailey said. In a game like luxury fashion, winning the image part of the competition can mean winning the entire match.