Great Opportunities For Street Apparel: Female Consumers

In 1994, X-Girl, a street apparel brand founded by women and dedicated to women, released its first series across the Marc Jacobs's anticipated fashion show. Brand founder Kim Gordon and Daisy von Furth hope that their non-traditional fashion show can catch their eyes when fashion editors leave Jacobs's show in the SOHO area.

In the same year, the first store of skateboard brand Supreme entered the Lafayette Street in New York. Over the past 20 years, Supreme has continued to lead the trend of street apparel and rewritten the business model of the fashion industry. X-Girl has never forgotten its original intention and insists on being a niche brand, and is deeply loved by fans who are closely related to it.

Now 25 years later, street clothing has become the mainstream: brands have shifted advertising from sheets to outdoor billboards, and have opened flagship stores around the world. Dapper Dan, famous for its luxury products, has now become a Gucci brand ambassador and partner. Kith, a street apparel retailer, has cooperated with Versace. In 2017, Supreme sold 50% of its shares to Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, which valued Supreme at $1 billion.

Street apparel is expanding in the luxury market and fast fashion market, but the most successful street wear is men's clothing and customers are mostly men (most of whom are male queues outside any Supreme store). Data from retail analysis firm Edited show that men's products account for 61% of the street apparel market. In stark contrast, data from NPD group, a market research firm, show that women spend three times more on clothing and other goods than men.

Although many street apparel brands sell men's and women's wear at the same time, female customers often complain on the online forums and social media that their sizes are not complete and their choices are limited. They also feel that they are afraid of the dominant culture of feminism. Although brands such as Nike and Stussy are vigorously advancing towards the female market, Stussy has collaborated with designers and net red Jayne Min. Nike's "The" Force is Female campaign has been successful, but the industry still has a long way to go.

There are signs that the street apparel market is changing. Edited data show that in 2018, women's street apparel products increased by 38% over 2017, which is faster than men's products.

From this series of rare phenomena, you can see that men's wear market has begun to show more fashion trends.

"Women are the biggest consumer groups," said Chris Black, founder of Done to Death Projects, a company that has worked with brands such as Stussy, Woolrich and Converse. "Attracting young women and turning them into customers is the goal of all brands and companies. I think the street apparel industry is failing in this regard."

Aside from X-Girl and other brands driven by women's demand, street clothing is popular partly because men can express interest in clothes and retain masculinity through street apparel. Since 1980s, Stussy, Fuct and Supreme have been sponsoring related sports and professional athletes in order to cater for surfing and skateboarding enthusiasts. The result has brought about the style of street wear Logo T-shirt with Vans coat and low crotch trousers.

The street wear, which is born out of extreme sports, has spanformed and simplified the simple garments such as T-shirts, hoodies and sports shoes. Street clothing stands out from the men's wear market, while high-end brands and mass market brands dominate the men's market. Most of them are clinging to Polo shirts and casual wear.

"From this series of rare phenomena, you can see that men's wear market has begun to show more fashion trends," said Lawrence Schlossman, Grailed brand director of the street clothing and classic clothing trading platform.

The street dress culture has also been spanferred to the Internet: netizens (mostly men) are on the Kanyetothe and other street wear forum and Four Pins websites. A survey by Hypebeast showed that nearly 96% of respondents used Instagram to understand street clothes. Grailed and other companies are making profits from this market. They have also provided inspection services while maintaining Street clothing and classic fashion lovers' communities.

At the beginning of its establishment, fear of speech and feminism was full of street clothing communities. Clothes that jump out of gender norms or distort the image of women will be fiercely attacked, and Pyrex Hoodie and Helmut Lang binding sets are sought after.

This phenomenon has not yet completely disappeared. In 2018, Supreme announced cooperation with the artist Nan Goldin. The T-shirts, hoodies and skateboards were printed on the photos of the "Queen of disguise" and members of the New York queer club. For this reason, many bloggers and Reddit forum users have published cross gender fears. According to i-D, the series of cooperation has been sold out for several weeks and not quite a few seconds to Supreme.

"I think street clothing is essentially a male trend," Black said. "Male chauvinism is inside."

At the same time, the cooperation between Supreme and Goldin shows that even Street clothing brands are exploring the possibility of a new market dominated by women.

"We are at the starting point for all changes in women," said Aleali May, a street apparel website. In 2017, she collaborated with Nike's Jordan brand in a sex free sports shoe series.

Break into houses

Some women are naturally interested in street clothes, but they simply can't find the entrance to the street clothing community.

"I think a lot of women have been introduced by men around the street to become a member of the street clothing community," says Emily Oberg, creative director of Kith's original dress and Sporty & Rich founder.

Many brands have recently started to directly contact female consumers. For example, Grailed set up a sister website Heroine a year and a half ago to gain profits from the needs of female customers.

Heroine Kristin Dempsey, the original brand director, said that one of the attractions of Heroine is that the female sellers who are in touch with female buyers of street clothing "know more about women's street wear and understand why such a single product is so special in another woman". Most of the pictures on Heroine are for buyers to try on, and for photos of net red or models wearing some merchandise.

Correct product mix

Twenty years ago, X-Girl, the sister brand of the men's brand X-Large, began selling Street suits that fit women's figure: the crotch loosens but the waist trousers, the loosely cut T-shirt with no need to cut or tuck into trousers, and the A shaped skirt that is large but suitable for all kinds of stature.

Today, brands like Fenty and Stussy have successfully carved this pattern. Other brands only attract women consumers by providing smaller sizes. Many women say they prefer the former one, because the essence of the latter is to "change the size and change it to pink", which is a satire on some sneakers. They sell the traditional colors of hot products to women, and then sell them to female consumers.

I think street clothing is essentially a male trend.

Many brands do not provide women's sizes, including the May Nike x Tom Sachs joint sneakers. Last November, Steph Curry's sneaker conference received unexpected attention because a 9 year old girl wrote to Currie and asked him what he did not provide for women's size. The problem was solved quickly: Currie responded quickly, not only supplemented by the size of the woman, but also the men's and women's sizes on the official website.

Natalie Sereda, a partner at an art gallery in New York, is 23 years old. She often queues up outside street clothing stores or participates in raffle sales of sports shoes. The smallest size is usually men's 7, but her size is lady 6. Sereda said she used to line up in any way in order to sell the oversized shoes, but recently her feet have grown to the size of men's size 7.

"Women are automatically excluded from street wear, and they can't be the first to put Yeezys on the streets," she said.

Employed women

Designers and marketers are most likely to be men's brands, and are most likely to give women the impression of trying to attract female customers.

But Street apparel brands are slow to hire female designers. May and Jordan's asexual sneakers are the product of the second collaboration with women over the past 30 years (the first was in 2010 with music video director Vashtie). The sneakers are popular after sale. At present, they are priced at at least $600 in the StockX and Grailed secondary market.

"Because men have already established a complete pattern of street wear, there is still much work to do," May said. "I think it's also sending a message to street apparel companies:" look at how successful our women's own projects are. "

Street clothing and luxury goods are so closely related that it is difficult to distinguish them from each other.

Visibility is also important for women's street wear consumers, because they usually don't have pictures of women or models of red goods, so they can only match their clothes and sneakers with imagination.

Nike has increased its marketing campaign for women, although the percentage of sales contributed by women is less than 25% of the total sales. More and more women are beginning to appear in street dress promotion, and the status of women net red is becoming more and more important in the brand social media strategy.

The reason for this is partly that although Street clothing is initially a social movement that is contrary to fashion trends, it has become a part of mainstream culture, especially in the luxury sector where women are the largest customer groups.

Through joint series and cooperation, May and Oberg have widened the women's market of street apparel, and Fenty and other brands have created a feasible model for women's street apparel market through the new basic price of people.

"Street clothing and luxury goods are so closely related that it is difficult to distinguish them from each other," said Dominik Halas, The RealReal men's merchandise manager and classic expert.