Street Fashion And Trendy Clothing Brands Are Emerging

In recent years, traditional luxury brands have become "street oriented" one after another. From Gucci to Louis Vuitton, traditional luxury brands that were once "condescending" have either invited rappers to endorse their brands, or reached cooperation with street fashion brands and launched co branded series. From Daddy's shoes to IKEA bags, consumer favorite items seem to be getting ugly. At the same time, the demand for street fashion in China is rising year by year.

Fashion track gains capital attention

Fashion clothing brands emerge

Recently, the trendy clothing brand Starter completed the financing round C of 40 million dollars. This round of financing was led by QY Capital. Sequoia China, Disu Fashion and M31 Capital added capital in this round of financing, and Gaohu Capital acted as the exclusive financial adviser. QY Capital had previously led the investment in the D-round financing of the beauty store brand HARMAY Huamei on January 19. Previously, the brand obtained round A and round B financing of RMB 100 million and US $30 million in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

Starter was founded by David Beckerman in New Haven, Connecticut in 1971. The brand has dual genes of "sports" and "street". Starter's sports gene was established at the early stage of the brand - Starter started providing team uniforms for high school sports competitions, signed licensing agreements with NBA, NFL, NHL and CFL in 1983, and launched "authorized sportswear". The "sports team clothing" had a great impact on Hip Hop in the early 1990s. Starter was the first choice for many rap and hip-hop artists to wear. In fact, by the end of the 1990s, Starter was no longer popular, but the brand is now regarded as a classic as OG (slang, meaning Old School, Authentic). This classic and its accompanying 90s nostalgia make Starter still frequently become the co brand of new generation street brands, including Supreme. In 2011, Starter added the high-end street derivative brand Starter Black Label.

In 2004, Nike acquired Starter for $43 million and sold it to Iconix Brand Group for $60 million three years later. In 2017, Iconix China Limited signed an agreement with Hei Ant Group, and Hei Ant Group has become the exclusive authorized operator of Starter in Greater China. In 2019, Starter opened Tmall flagship store, and its first offline store was settled in Beijing. In 2020, Iconix Brand Group announced to sell Starter's China business to New Power Sports for 16 million dollars. It is reported that the brand's annual performance growth in 2021 will reach more than 150%, which is highly sought after by the new generation of consumers.

In fact, in recent years, the trendy and fashionable new brands targeting Generation Z consumers have no lack of capital attention. Taking Sequoia China as an example, it has made many bets in the fashion industry. In June 2021, Sequoia China will become the first investor of international trend e-commerce SSENSE. SSENSE, headquartered in Canada, is a multi brand fashion retailer selling designer brands and high-end street fashion; In January 2022, Sequoia China announced the acquisition of a majority stake in the global fashion trend brand We11done from Seoul.

In addition to "street" fashion brands, Chinese capital has paid more attention to designer brands with smaller customer base and higher quality than in previous years. In January 2021, Sequoia China strategically invested in French designer brand AMI.

Street fashion is popular in Europe and America, and underground culture is promoted to the mainstream

When China's fashion trends began to take shape, western street brands had already entered the mainstream.

Chav, as a British disparaging term for the underprivileged youth in sportswear and anti society, was once regarded as a subculture. At the beginning of this century, the love of the bottom youth known as Chavs for Burberry logo character design once led the brand to face a public relations crisis. Since then, Burberry has made great efforts to try to get rid of its connection with the working class and avoid the brand becoming "vulgar". From ancient times to the present, the "exclusiveness" of luxury goods seems to crowd out people with lower social status. The essence of many middle-class people buying luxury goods is to pay for the illusion of "transcending the class".

However, today, the condescending attitude of luxury goods has been dramatically reversed. Different from the exclusion of the working class in the past, in recent years, luxury goods have reached an almost flattering level in their acceptance of the underlying culture. The driving factor of this position replacement may lie in the replacement of "hip-hop culture" for "elite culture".

Hip Hop Culture has a profound impact on street brands. In just a few decades, it has developed from a marginal subculture to a dominant force in popular culture. In New York in the 1970s, hip-hop music originated from the response to the mainstream culture of Disco. In communities deprived of citizenship, Caribbean immigrants and African American youth began to participate in impromptu street parties in Bronx and other regions.  

In the 1990s, in addition to the hip-hop culture in New York, street fashion also appeared in the surfing and graffiti culture in Los Angeles and the nightlife culture in Japan. In fact, street fashion should be seen more as a cultural movement than a wave of trends - the characteristics of hip-hop music that is rebellious against the Confucian orthodoxy have been well transmitted to the core values of street fashion. Rap singers and skateboarders consume T-shirts with patterns, spacious jeans and declarative sneakers, precisely because of their resistance to mainstream culture.

Street brands present on the catwalk, and underground culture becomes the mainstream

The rapid penetration of street fashion in China may be due to the fact that its rebellious spirit coincides with the value proposition of Generation Z consumers.

Dentsu pointed out in an article that Generation Z refused to suppress emotions, pursued "freedom" and appreciated "wild aesthetics". 58% of young people regard "reality" as their priority needs - Dentsu describes the feature of Generation Z as "not pretending".

From the high-end to the middle end, traditional fashion brands have launched street style capsule series or invited street fashion opinion leaders to speak for the brand. This enthusiasm is not so much called "cooperation" with rappers as "enthusiasm" for street fashion. Chanel cooperates with Pharrell Williams to launch SS19 Urban Capsule Collection; A $AP Rocky spoke for Calvin Klein's "I Speak My Truth" event.

From the catwalk show to the main visual posters, more and more black faces have replaced the stereotyped and boring white images in the past.

The black image is so popular in the fashion field that it is not too much to regard the black model as the "standard configuration" of Gucci brand vision

"Wildness" replaces "stereotyping", and traditional luxury brands subvert past aesthetics

Black models may not be able to fundamentally change the brand tonality dominated by elite culture, but the continuous penetration of black designers in fashion brands has broken this limitation. The head brand that is sharp enough quickly responds to the change of consumption trend, and ensures the authenticity of street fashion by appointing a black person as the creative director. In July 2021, LVMH acquired a majority stake in the street brand Off White, and later announced that it would further deepen its cooperation with the founder and art director of the brand, Virgil Abloh, and plan to jointly launch a new brand. In November of the same year, Abloh died of illness at the age of 41.

The death of Virgil Abloh not only caused a sensation among celebrities in the fashion industry and entertainment industry, but also caused a great stir among street fashion consumers - this is reflected in the soaring price of Off White sneakers. Within a few hours after the news of Abloh's death, the after-sales market price of Off White Air Jordan 1 "Chicago" doubled from the usual $5500 to $10600.

In fact, it is not new that street brand products are expensive. Influenced by hip-hop culture, sports shoes (Sneakers), as an indispensable part of street fashion, are welcoming consumers' pursuit of "beyond reason". This almost blind enthusiasm even weakens the footwear attribute of sports shoes - its usability has been submerged by its collection attribute, and the price of many sports shoes on second-hand platforms has far exceeded the price of traditional luxury products of the same category.

In 2022, Gucci men's shoes, including sports shoes, will be priced no more than $1890, with a minimum of $320. In contrast, although the official website price of Off White sneakers ranges from $330 to $850, the brand's "online celebrity" products tell a different story on second-hand platforms. As early as 2018, the price of Off White sneakers on the Stock X platform was as high as $2339. So far, the average price of Off White x Nike Air Force 1 Low on this platform is 8206 dollars.

Similarly, the official price of Supreme is very friendly, with a T-shirt retailing at $38 and a sports shirt retailing at $138. However, by creating "scarcity", the price of the brand products in the second-hand market can reach 30 times of the original price. It is reported that on the product release day, the traffic of the official online sales channel of Supreme can even increase by 16800%.

In the West, street brands pose a threat to traditional luxury brands far beyond imagination. According to the quarterly ranking released by Lyst, a fashion e-commerce platform, Off White has become the hottest brand in the world in 2018.

"In the past year, the ranking of this cult street fashion brand has risen 33 places, surpassing Gucci and Balenciaga for the first time and ranking first. ”Lyst said.

It is not difficult to see why luxury goods can't wait to transform their DNA and inject a lot of hip-hop culture into it, precisely because of the "insecurity" that may be replaced at any time. It can even be said that street brands are redefining "luxury", and the status of traditional luxury brands is precarious.

Traditional luxury brands create exclusivity by raising prices, while street fashion brands create scarcity by reducing production. Traditional luxury brands establish authority and take a commanding position, while street fashion brands rebel against authority and advocate community spirit.

"Inharmonious Aesthetics" Is Popular: Ugly Things Show Taste

Luxury goods and street culture, "elegance" and "vulgarity", are like a group of extremely inharmonious chords. However, it is this disharmony that is now leading the mainstream of western aesthetics. Disharmony has become a synonym for beauty, while aesthetics lacking cultural shock is regarded as "outdated" and "vulgar". Ugly Chic pushed the concept of "ugliness is beauty" to the extreme.

In the summer of 2018, from social media Instagram to the catwalk show, the thick and ugly shoes were suddenly popular with stars and designers, and consumers called them "daddy shoes". According to Google Trend data, "Dad Sneakers" and "Dad Shoes" reached their search peak in the summer of 2018. According to an article released by USA Today in August 2018, since January, the search volume of "Daddy sneakers" on Pinterest platform has increased by 730%.

Among traditional luxury brands, Balenciaga became the pioneer of ugly appreciation culture with the "Daddy Shoes" released in the autumn and winter of 2017 series.

Although there is still no clear conclusion about who is the original driver of this trend, Jane Buckingham, founder and CEO of Trendera, a trend forecasting and consulting company, pointed out that before ugly shoes entered the luxury field, some sports shoes brand products had begun to become "bulky".

In August 2017, adidas and street brand Yeezy jointly released adidas x Yeezy Boost 700 Wave Runner, which is thicker than the fashion sneakers of the same period, and has shown a "daddy" trend. It can be seen that "ugly things" are closely related to hip-hop culture.

In fact, Balenciaga's sensitivity in the "ugly" track comes from the street fashion background of its creative director Demna Gvasalia. Before joining the brand in 2015, Gvasalia had co founded the street fashion brand Vetements with his brother Guram Gvasalia the year before.

Hip hop culture is not only likely to breed "ugly things", but also shows a high degree of compatibility with the core values of ugly appreciation culture. Hip hop culture originates from the resistance to mainstream culture, while the culture of judging ugliness shows the resistance of marginal consumers to mainstream aesthetics.

Hip hop culture redefines luxury goods, while "ugly appreciation culture" redefines beauty.

The street fashion deeply influenced by hip-hop culture can be traced back to the root of this school as an "outsider", which determines the indelible spirit of street fashion and the "eccentricity" that is incompatible with mainstream culture.

In addition to the "blood relationship" in the development process, the correspondence between culture (spiritual core) and vision (physical representation) may explain why "ugly things" frequently appear in street costumes, and even have officially become part of street fashion.

The rapid popularization of ugly appreciation culture is the development process of "the minority is the public". Every new product release of "Ugly" seems to meet the resistance of traditional consumers. From CNN to Dayton Daily News, Balenciaga's blue leather tote bag based on IKEA shopping bag design in the men's wear series conference in spring and summer 2017 was ridiculed on the Internet. The Washington Post even said that journalists were "dumbfounded" to report on it - "ugly things" seemed to subvert a certain social order. Triple S sneakers have further angered consumers, and the visual and psychological impact caused by their ugliness is "disturbing".

As the pioneer of street oriented traditional luxury brands, Balenciaga quickly captured the trend of ugly appreciation and commercialized it

However, Balenciaga's excellent "report card" proves that media opinion cannot represent consumers' true attitude towards "ugly things" later. In 2018, its parent company Kering said that Balenciaga has become the fastest growing company in its brand portfolio - its Q1 sales growth rate in 2018 exceeded the figure presented by Gucci (49%) in the same period.

The rapidly expanding demand of consumers for judging ugliness has turned the fashion industry into a battlefield. Whether fashion brands can be based depends on whether they are ahead of their competitors in timely abandoning outdated "harmonious aesthetics". With its inherent ugliness, Crocs ranks first in judging ugliness.

Recently, Crocs announced that its sales volume in 2021 is expected to increase by 67% compared with 2020. Although the inflation crisis has greatly weakened the referential value of the financial report data of American enterprises, compared with the fast fashion giants H&M, Inditex, and the hot sports brand Lululemon in recent years, Crocs' market performance in the past five years has made it self-evident that the fashion dominance of "ugly things".

"Taste alike" has contributed to the continuous cooperation between Balenciaga and Crocs. Recently, Balenciaga released the $950 co branded ugly shoes HardCrocs in the spring/summer 2022 series ™ Population structure changes amplify the "Duchamp effect"

Street fashion subverts western social order

From Demna Gvasalia to Virgil Abloh, many soul figures who dominate street fashion have talked about the great influence of Marcel Duchamp, the art pioneer of Dadaism in the last century, on this trend. Gvasalia even admitted that its aesthetic formation is the process of "understanding Duchamp".

Obviously, the creation of street fashion originates from Dadaism. However, this does not explain why Dadaism has set off a fashion craze in the past decade or the future. Duchamp may be able to promote the formation of street fashion, but "Duchamp philosophy" is not enough to support the popularity of this trend and the duration of this phenomenon.

The essence of Dadaism's leading fashion trend lies in the changes in the western population structure.

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, as the most common ethnic group in the United States, the non Hispanic white population has declined from 63.7% in 2010 to 57.8%. This change shows that the American population is more ethnically diverse than in the past.

The 2010 and 2020 Census Report Changes in the Proportion of Population of Various Ethnic Groups in the United States

(Source: United States Census Bureau)

White population "shrinking"

(Source: Statista)

In fact, the proportion of black or African American population in the same period has not changed significantly - from 12.6% in 2010 to 12.4% in 2020. However, although the single racial population of black or African Americans has only increased by 5.6% during this period, the mixed race population with black or African Americans has increased by 88.7%.

The rapid growth of mixed race groups in the black population may mean that the inclusiveness of other races to black people is rising sharply. The proportion of white people has declined year by year, while that of ethnic minorities has increased year by year. In the context of the weakening of white dominance, black and African Americans, as the race with the highest proportion of the population in the United States, have continuously increased their influence on American culture.

In addition, the rising educational level of the black population further weakens the voice of whites in a pluralistic society. According to Pew Research Centre data, from 2000 to 2019, among the total population aged 25 and above in the United States, the proportion of people with bachelor's degrees or above rose from 24% to 33%, and the proportion of adult black people with bachelor's degrees or above rose from 15% to 23%, which is higher than the year-on-year growth rate of the total population.

In 2020, the political and social movement Black Lives Matter advocating decentralization has far exceeded the influence of the movement in previous years, which may prove that the dominant position of white people is facing unprecedented challenges, and the population growth rate and education level of ethnic minorities "crushing" white people have accumulated to a critical point - the distribution of rights is undergoing qualitative changes.

It may be concluded that the essence of street fashion becoming mainstream is the subversion of the inherent hierarchy.

One of the controversies about the culture of judging ugliness is that brands regard the exclusive goods of the working class as a new luxury. The price of pragmatism products has been criticized, and critics who hold opposing opinions regard "the shameless source of design inspiration" as a mockery of the poor by the upper class. However, the fact is just the opposite - street fashion has become a phenomenal craze that is difficult to retreat, and it is the expanding social influence of the people at the bottom.

When people redefine beauty, they are reviewing the power distribution system. When people redefine luxury goods, they are rebuilding social order.

  Local evolution of street culture

Lack of "cultural authenticity" of Chinese street brands

Blacks have become a trend symbol. Their great influence on popular culture has even led to the resistance of this ethnic group to cultural plagiarism. In fact, at the beginning of the formation of hip-hop culture, African Americans "harvested" a group of white music fans. The term Wigger (slang, often referred to as Wigga) was born to address the marginal white people who imitate black behaviors. In 2018, the term "Blackfishing" quickly became popular - white online celebrities who misappropriated black aesthetics sought attention by dressing themselves as "black", which was strongly resisted by black groups.

Compared with the West, the development of street fashion in the Chinese market is more like the "radiation" brought by hip-hop culture. However, the lack of cultural authenticity does not necessarily mean that "new species" have completely lost their growth space. In fact, from manufacturing to Internet technology, Chinese start-ups seem to be very good at this - secondary innovation based on "foreign products".

However, up to now, the "secondary innovation" ability of Chinese start-ups is generally limited to the innovation of business models. The challenge of Chinese street fashion brands is that for consumer products with strong spiritual attributes, their competitiveness depends to a large extent on brand capabilities, rather than a single commercialization capability.

In fact, although Chinese local brands have shown a leap in "brand awareness" in the consumption field compared with previous years, the "brand ability" of most enterprises still has great room for improvement. One of the manifestations of this in the fashion industry is that the brand positioning is still unclear.

Fast fashion and designer brand are a group of opposite concepts. In the article Self defined Premium: Why Small Fragrance Brands such as Summer View and Smell become Mainstream, which was released earlier, Yuanqi Capital explained the difference between "Salon Fragrance" and "Commercial Fragrance".

The commercial fragrance is positioned as "people friendly" and oriented to the "mass" market. It has strong reproducibility. The release of scale effect has reduced the cost, which creates conditions for low pricing; Salon Fragrance is positioned at the high-end. Facing the "niche" market, it has weak reproducibility, and its limited market capacity is compensated by the high pricing.

Commercial fragrance is to salon fragrance as fast fashion is to designer brand. The competitiveness of fast fashion brands lies in the extremely high supply chain efficiency, and the target customer group is "mass" consumers, which determines the characteristics of their products, such as low price, rich categories, rapid change, etc; The competitiveness of designer brands lies in their high quality and unique design, and their target customers are "minority" consumers, which determines their expensive, limited category, enduring and other characteristics.

Luxury brings the timelessness, exclusiveness and customization of designer brands to the extreme. Designer brand consumers pursue quality and exclusiveness, while fast fashion brand consumers pursue low price and timeliness. Although luxury goods are facing the challenge of "acceleration" in recent years, designer brands and fast fashion are still two points on the same axis, no intersection, far from each other - the process of brand positioning is the process of finding the balance between quality and efficiency on this axis.

However, the positioning of "fast fashion designer brand", which lacks mature thinking, does not seem to prevent new local enterprises from obtaining financing. In September 2021, the "fast fashion designer brand" bosie, which advocates "gender free", announced the completion of hundreds of millions of yuan of B+round financing.

The contradictory positioning of "fast fashion designer brand" may mean that Chinese local fashion brands are still in the exploratory stage

(Source: Bosie)

The lack of cultural authenticity does not mean that Chinese street fashion brands are doomed to collapse, but the lack of cultural core will inevitably lead to the inability of brands in cultural output - if they cannot meet the "spiritual needs" of consumers, street fashion brands seem to lose their sense of existence.

In the near future, pragmatism attitude may hamper the improvement of Chinese street fashion enterprises in brand capacity, but business model innovation may open up new growth space for Chinese street fashion. In December 2021, the trendy fashion collection store "KNOWIN" announced the completion of hundreds of millions of yuan of financing, which is the largest amount of financing in the offline "trendy" business.

As for whether "Guochao" can inject cultural connotation into Chinese street fashion brands, Yuanqi Capital will discuss this in future articles.