According to the Business of Fashion’s latest insights report, The Lifestyle Era: Luxury’s Opportunity in Home and Hospitality, “lifestyle extensions can not only provide fashion brands with access to untapped revenue, but also boost brand equity and help grow customer lifetime value.” The report goes on to explain how, while for most brands the homeware category on average accounts for no more than 2% of total revenue, it’s “the lower-priced decor, textiles, and home fragrances that are likely to become much bigger [among] affluent shoppers.”
From deepening the relationship with loyal brand fans to attracting a new, affluent demographic, the benefits are undeniable. It’s the same playbook the fashion industry has long applied to adjacent creative sectors. First with art as seen with partnerships between Schiaparelli and Salvador Dalí, Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama, and Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby. Later barging into hospitality as recently demonstrated by Prada and Dior, which recently opened pastry pop-up shops; cafés by Maison Kitsune, Aimé Leon Dore, and Ralph Lauren; and, long before that, hotel chains and bars by Armani and Bulgari. Design is next on fashion’s agenda.
“When I first started my practice, I quickly realized fashion, art, and design live separately in different ‘camps.’ In my first projects that I created I decided to mix all three of them together. I’m really happy to see that it’s turned into a movement,” Harry Nuriev writes in an email. The Crosby Studios founder has worked on fashion-based furniture and art with brands including Balenciaga, Nike, and Ugg.
Faye Toogood, whose practice encompasses interior design, homewares, fine art, and fashion, and who has partnered on collections with Birkenstock, Carhartt WIP, and Porter Yoshida, shares this sentiment. “Design and fashion share a natural fascination with unique shapes, colors, textures, and pushing the boundaries of functionality,” she says. “In many ways, creating a collection is very similar to creating a home, space, or object; in both fashion and design, one works with sketches, samples, fabrics and materials.”
But knowing the motivations for fashion brands venturing into design still doesn’t answer why we’re seeing more and more designers partnering with fashion brands on one-off design merch drops all the way down to fully designed apparel collections. “I think the appreciation of the handmade in a digitally driven world plays a part in why the creative worlds are merging,” Faye continues. “I don’t set out to follow trends, so one of the things that keeps me inspired and excited about future possibilities is the studio being open to new collaborations and areas of design. Throwing industry norms out the window forces you to look at something in a whole new way!”
Herbert offers another explanation: “It’s about visibility. You can’t carry around a designer chair, but you can put it on your T-shirt and show people that you’re in the know,” he says. “For designers or architects, it’s about transporting a lifestyle into new territories that are affordable. [Entering fashion] is how you can cross-merchandise your aesthetics. It’s an accelerator.”