How rich millennials and stars like BLACKPINK are making luxury streetwear cool
- The advent of social media helped streetwear explode onto the scene – as bold logos and graphics resonated with image-obsessed consumers
Two different fashion worlds have collided, and it has created a new kind of millennial uniform: luxury streetwear.
The streetwear subculture has been around for decades, originating in skate, surf and hip-hop cultures, Benjamin Schneider, a research analyst at Euromonitor International, told Business Insider. He said the most popular streetwear brands today, such as Stussy and Supreme, grew slowly throughout the eighties and nineties until they had developed cultlike followings.
“As athletes and hip-hop artists gained influence throughout the 1990s, so did the sportswear brands they wore, increasingly bringing brands like Adidas, Champion and Nike into the streetwear ecosystem,” he said.
But it wasn’t until social media that streetwear exploded onto the scene – bold logos and graphics resonated with image-obsessed consumers.
“Now that Instagram is the definitive medium for discovering fashion, traditional luxury brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton have adopted the defining characteristics of streetwear, finding bold logos and exclusivity to be key to reaching younger generations,” Schneider said.
It’s making Gucci cool again – in 2015, the brand brought in Alessandro Michele as creative director, and he led the brand in a millennial and teen-friendly direction by helping Gucci embrace streetwear and the influence of popular culture, Business Insider previously reported. Celebrities like Lil Pump and Kylie Jenner have further popularised the brand through Instagram and music.
And it’s working: Gucci nearly doubled its sales in 2018, with consumers under 35 accounting for 55 per cent of those sales. Michael Kors, Fendi and Ralph Lauren have also partnered with streetwear brands.
Millennials have a thing for athleisure