Will The Bubble Of Luxury Brand Sneakers Break?

The trend of fashion and luxury industry is changing. After four years of luxury sports shoes reaching its peak last year, attractiveness seems to be decreasing.

New York Times fashion director Vanessa Friedman pointed out in an article that since last season, some luxury brands' attempts to sneakers have been dismal, and brands like Balenciaga have begun to return to the design of high heels.

She said that the current luxury brand production sneakers have been pformed into production from the initial comfort and functional purposes, and consumers have gradually had an aesthetic fatigue.

But earlier there was a view that sports shoes once played the role of how to better connect the millennial generation to the biggest challenge of luxury brands as the trend and market changes.

In 1996, Prada became the first luxury brand to launch sports shoes. In 2002, Yohji Yamamoto and Jeremy Scott became partners of Adidas, and Lanvin also introduced sports shoes in 2005.

In 2014, in Chanel's high-end custom fashion show with feminism as its theme, the high-heeled shoes at the foot of the The Grand Palace ladder were replaced by the customized sports shoes. The creative director Karl Lagerfeld took the sport shoes as the protagonist for the first time, and attracted the attention of the industry.

It is reported that the 64 pairs of sneakers launched by Chanel were provided by a senior customized shoemaker, and each pair of handcrafts needed about 30 hours to complete.

"The sneakers in the Chanel 2014 spring summer series obviously make the audience feel breathless, which is beyond the usual impression of Chanel," Suzy Menkes, a fashion critic, wrote in a post show commentary.

The guardian of the United Kingdom affirmed the series of Chanel. It believed that it created a new style for the luxury industry, and also liberated the feet of the models. This is not only a small step in the field of shoes, but also a great step in feminism.

In 2015, 9000 pairs of Yeezy launched by Adidas and Kanye West were sold out in 10 minutes. The sports shoes were officially pushed to a new height. Whether it was Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci or Valentino, sports shoes gradually became one of the leading characters in luxury brands.

According to industry sources, in recent years, brand marketing departments have begun to exert pressure on the design team, requiring that every series of shoes must have sneakers, and the shape must be exaggerated enough to have a sense of topic, such as Balenciga's old shoes, Versace's thick sole sandals, Jimmy Choo's Diamond Sports shoes, and Roberto Cavalli's silver sports shoes with spaceship like bottom.

For luxury brands, the appearance of sneakers is more important than professional performance.

Because of the value of luxury brands, these seemingly luxurious but uncomfortable sports shoes are generally expensive. Gucci's old shoes are priced at $580, a pair of Balenciaga Triple S sells for $895, and Louis Vuitton's Archlight sells for $1090, which has become one of the best selling products in the luxury industry under the pursuit of young consumers.

Return to the essence of business, because luxury brands see the potential of the sports shoes market, they will jump out of the traditional high-end positioning shackles, and constantly embrace the sports shoes market.

Some analysts say that this has something to do with the recent FOMO Fear of missing out, which is also applicable to luxury brands.

The brand that did not introduce sports shoes was eager to enter the market, worried about losing the discussion and marginalized by young people.

Fashion headlines reported earlier that with the increasing wear and tear of clothing in the global workplace, Nike, Adidas and Puma sports shoes instead of high-heeled shoes became the first choice for women to buy shoes in the United States. Wearing high heels has been regarded as outdated.

Besides, once female consumers take off high-heeled shoes, they will hardly be able to wear them again.

In the wedding of Prince Sussex, Prince Harry and American actor Meghan Markle, Serena Williams chose sneakers to match Valentino gowns, and she wore Nike sports shoes at her wedding party.

Like other products of luxury brands, luxury sports shoes are mainly made up of brand premium based on added value of products.

Compared with handbags and other traditional leather goods, the raw materials and production cost of sports shoes are lower.

Because luxury brand shoes do not emphasize functionality, the cost of research and development is also compressed.

Low cost and brand premium make sports shoes have a higher gross margin, which provides a possibility for luxury sports shoes to become "cash cows".

A more crucial problem is that the group that is highly contended by the millennial luxury brands is also willing to pay for the brand premium. When they buy luxury goods, they consider less value preservation and investment, and look more fresh.

In such a market environment and trend, according to the daily mail data, the sales of American sports shoes increased by 37% in 2017, about 2 billion 300 million US dollars, and the sales of high-heeled shoes dropped by 12% during the period.

Edited, a market research firm, pointed out that the stock of high-heeled shoes increased by 28% in the United States last year.

The loss of high-heeled shoes has hit some traditional luxury shoe companies.

Since March of this year, sales of Roger Vivier have ended their growth for two consecutive quarters, showing a decline of 8.7% and 2.3% respectively.

Gherardo Felloni, the new creative director of Roger Vivier, took sports shoes as his first work after he took office. He said in an interview, "not everyone will wear sneakers, but now 99% of women will do so. The whole industry is heading in this direction."

According to Strategy Business analysts, global

It will grow at an annual rate of about 4%, mainly due to the growing interest in health and fitness among consumers. The annual sales volume in this sector is expected to reach US $190 billion by 2020.

Beth Goldstein, a fashion shoe analyst at NPD group, said designer brand sneakers have become the most potential category of footwear for men and women.

Rati Levesque, head of luxury resale website TheRealReal.com, revealed that sales of women's fashion sports shoes increased by 35% over the same period last year.

Sports shoes are popular, sports shoes.

Josh Luber, co-founder and chief executive, explains that people in almost all fields need sports shoes. People can't buy jet planes or the same car as Jay-Z, but they can wear the same shoes.

However, Josh Luber believes that the luxury brand in the industry is not a good thing to do with sports shoes. "People have been asking me about sports shoes for many years. I don't think it's time to break down, but sports shoes have been separated from their original functional needs. Designers are making more sports shoes because of market demand, not for the brand itself or for consumers to wear."

Neil Clifford, chief executive officer of Kurt Geiger, a high-end shoe shoe brand, admits, "at every commodity promotion conference, we are asking ourselves whether we have enough sports shoes and whether we should buy more sports shoes, but now the situation has changed, and consumer preferences are always more changeable than imagined."

Beth Goldstein agrees with the Neil Clifford view that when the same thing becomes the mainstream of the market, the enthusiasm of the consumer will slowly cool, which does not mean

Itself will disappear, but under the influence of new things such as trend culture, millennial generation, social media and so on,

It is in a stage of rapid shuffling.

In fact, as the most influential wind vane in the four fashion week, the sense of existence of sports shoes in the latest season of Paris fashion week has declined.

In addition to the Balenciaga leather shoes that are not favored by street enthusiasts, Maison Margiela's main shoe in the latest series has also become a pointed leather boot.

Hedi Slimane, a designer who reinventing Celine, has not included sneakers in the new series. This undoubtedly releases a strong signal to the market, that is, the peak time of sports shoes has passed.

People in the industry pointed out that

In terms of product construction, it is more complex than logo.

No matter how hard a luxury brand works, when people mention skateboarding culture, young people think of not Valentino, but Supreme and Vans.

Although Vans's shoes are much cheaper than Valentino, they are considered to be more "cool".

This proves once again that for the millennial generation, the price level is not directly related to the attractiveness of the product.

Compared to "who is more extravagant", young people may be more likely to be "who is cooler."

It can be seen that the competitors of luxury brand sports shoes are not necessarily luxury goods, and there are more and more fashionable professional sports shoes. This undoubtedly adds more challenges to this business.

And the change of production relations behind this is that luxury brands are involved in the field of professional sports shoes which are not familiar with the past, or more research and human resources budgets are being put into this field, and the sports shoes industry also focuses on the design and creative marketing, like luxury brands.

A competitor of 8000 yuan luxury sports shoes may be a few hundred yuan Vans, or it may be a rebound of the signs of domestic products.

But when consumers are tired of sports shoes, the revival of the long shoe industry is still uncertain.