Desire & Fashion How Aspirational Shoppers Keep the Industry Running

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WORDS Kriti Asthana

Lagerfeld risked quite a few raised eyebrows when he decided to showcase Chanel’s Fall 2014 RTW collection in a supermarket setting at The Grand Palais in Paris. While the fashion elite felt he was downgrading high-fashion and everything Coco Chanel stood for, some applauded his efforts at creating a consumerist satire through a fashion show. Tim Blanks from style.com called it ‘an epic celebration of consumerism’, that Lagerfeld’s ‘spectacle’ presents fashion as a supermarket where we can each have our own pick.

While the idea carries some merit, it is perhaps the bitter truth that most of us cannot afford to shop in a Chanel supermarket, regardless of how much we covet Jackie O’s pant-suit. So while some may deem this a facade, Lagerfeld’s marketing genius is apparent.

Hermès, New Bond Street, London. Hermès scarves have become a low-end brand staple as they offer a collector a cheaper window to the world of high-end luxury. Photo: tubblesnap/flickr

In his own words, he makes ‘a modern statement for expensive things’. He not only satisfies the elitists by catering to their desire for the extravagant and the expensive, but also manages to conjure an array of supermodels in trainers and ragged sports luxe, something that will typically appeal to any modern woman. He was also one of the first designers to have a high-low collaboration with H&M over a decade ago.

Lagerfeld, like all other design houses now, is trying to expand his target consumer-base and acquire new clientele. Designers are not looking for exclusivity anymore. Fashion, like any other business, is a numbers game. Let me paint a picture to elaborate.

It’s Oscars 2014 and Nicole Kidman wears a McQueen gown (designed by Sarah Burton) worth 30,000USD. As it goes in the fashion world, Burton has generously let Kidman borrow the dress for the red carpet. While this act of generosity means no sale for Alexander McQueen directly, when millions tune in to watch the Oscars or read about it in the papers or blogs, this creates infinite press for the brand. In many cases, some consumers develop a strong visual loyalty to the brand.

The image of an iridescent Kidman in a beautiful McQueen might not generate sales in terms of gowns (because less than a third of the population will fall in the income bracket to afford high-end buys such as gowns), but millions of aspirational shoppers end up buying maybe a McQueen scarf worth 300USD. So there is a conscious disconnect between the target and actual consumer. If designers were to actively start targeting the middle-class, by way of lowering their costs, it will essentially kill both these demographics for them. The rich don’t want to be seen in clothing that everyone can afford, and the same item does not have the same aspirational value for the rising classes once it is easily available to everyone.

This expanding clientele is significant not only in terms of mass low-end sales that make up for a majority of the revenue, but also because in an anything-can-happen world, a brand needs to have a positive image in order to secure future clientele. The zeitgeist today is a far cry from times when designers prided themselves on having exclusive clientele. It was quite common for a couturier to turn people away from his dress shop if they weren’t royalty. But changing environments and two world wars later, here we are in a world where our motto is ‘show me the money’.

There was a scene in the Julia Roberts-Richard Gere starrer Pretty Woman where the former is turned away from a Beverley Hills designer store because she is not dressed appropriately, even though she has the money to buy their merchandise. This would never happen today. In a world where Narendra Modi can rise from being a tea-seller at the railway station to becoming the Indian Prime Minister, we are waking up to the power of the middle class. We live in a world where writer JK Rowling, born to a humble engineer is currently making more money than the Queen herself. Design houses can tap into this future niche market of the nouveau riche only if it’s perceived as something that will have a positive effect on potential consumers’ self-image.

Aspiration and the desire to change self-perception is something that brands have been cashing in on forever. A classic example would be The Marlboro man, sending the message that if you smoke Marlboros, people will see you as macho. This becomes particularly true where appearance is concerned because most of us tend to value ourselves based on how other people perceive us, and it is an unfortunate reality that other people’s perception of us is largely based on how we look. So if I want to make a statement about me by choosing to drink Starbucks, what I’m saying about myself in terms of what I’m wearing and how expensive my handbag echoes a louder message about me to other people.

A girl wearing a Louis Vuitton monogrammed scarf. Photo: kavehkhkh/flickr

A quite simple example of how design houses look for opportunities to create aspiration in the public for their brand can be seen at big fashion events such as The Met gala and The Cannes film festival. Although The Met Ball started as, and still remains, primarily a charity event, it is the most important fashion event of the year. Also falling in a similar category would be The Cannes Film Festival, which is technically a film festival, but is now being touted as ‘a supermodel convention’. These events prove to be an ideal runway for designers as people tune in to see who and what their favourite actors are wearing. Supermodels strategically placed in these events are the perfect mannequins for designers to show off their creations to the public.

Creating aspiration in the multitude and yet remaining unattainable to them in order to create longing, has been the ultimate goal of couturiers for centuries. For this aspiration to translate into profit for design conglomerates, it must sustain and not entirely fade away. This could be achieved if the ‘aspiree’ consumer were to physically acquire something small from the brand, thus in essence, get a taste of the brand and start developing brand loyalty. This can be done in a number of ways.

• All fashion lines, even if their lines are entirely dependent on leather bags or clothing, now have extensive accessory lines, be it key chains, belts, scarves.
• The same idea is also behind more economically priced subsidiary brands and high-low collaborations. For instance, for Marc Jacobs, there is a Marc by Marc Jacobs, and for Giorgio Armani, there is an Emporio Armani. In high-low collaborations, such as Lanvin for H&M, high streets can make money off of someone else’s name, and designers can reach out to a wider audience at a fraction of the price.
• Another example of this can be observed in outlet stores. Brands economise on past season’s collections that can no longer be held in stores by selling them for cheaper prices. They thus reach out to a wider audience. Some like Louis Vuitton however, are famous for consciously side stepping the outlet trend. Even though Louis Vuitton refuses to participate in the outlet store culture, it probably has the most reasonably priced core line out of all the high-end designer brands. The fact that this core line is so loudly branded is a reason why it continues to appeal to the nouveau riche, bringing in millions in revenue to LVMH.

If we were to consider an extreme analogy, low-end brand staples can be likened to a cigarette smoker who starts out by taking a couple of drags from other smokers’ cigarettes to eventually smoking whole cigarettes and in the final stage becoming an addict.

In the fashion world, fantasy is essentially fuelling reality. There is a clear disconnect between the target consumers, which are the elitists, and the actual consumers that contribute more to revenue, the middle class. To appeal to the actual consumers, the fashion industry needs to continue to associate an aspirational value to it. This is done through clever marketing and PR strategies. At the same time, discounted outlet stores and economically-priced subsidiary brands maintain the aspirational level by allowing the middle class to acquire brand staples.

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