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Brand collaborations are thriving. Is your brand seizing the opportunity? Dive into this analysis, created using Retviews, to find out the data on leading brands strategies, to optimize your next collaboration, staying ahead of competitors. Retviews, the AI-powered competitive intelligence platform allows you to monitor competitors in real-time and tap into new opportunities with confidence.

• Gen Z, who are a critical growth driver for the luxury sector, have a higher demand for luxury collaborations than other cohorts.
• The Fendace collaboration resulted in two different collections, each prioritizing a different gender mix.
• The Louis Vuitton X NBA assortment’s most prominent categories are accessories, leather goods and tops.

Luxury’s leading brands have launched viral brand collaborations within the past year, helping them tap into a wider audience, raising brand awareness and relevancy. With assortments that steer away from their core style, collaborations allow brands to bring a unique and refreshing aesthetic to their collections. Collaborations are increasingly present in the luxury sector today, as they drive brand hype, and therefore help a brand remain relevant at a time when consumer demand is shifting. The ​​latest report proves how collabs are key for fashion brands, as many of the hottest items of the quarter are part of brand collaborations, and were a driving force in brand popularity.
Luxury brands thrive on building a sense of exclusivity and scarcity for their audiences and can drive demand for their product even higher by collaborating with other brands and creating limited edition capsule collections.

Is your brand ready to tackle collabs? How can you get the right strategy? Dive into ¸é±ð³Ù±¹¾±±ð·É²õ’ article to discover the data behind some of luxury’s most buzzworthy collaborations and see how your brand can take advantage of the trend.

Fendi and Versace collaborated on two distinct collections to honor the legacy of both fashion houses, from the perspective of Kim Jones and Donatella Versace. The two collections had their first appearance in September 2021 during Milan Fashion Week, while the items were made available online in May 2022.

Retviews data show a strong difference within the Fendace collections’ gender mix. Fendi’s line has a strong focus on menswear, 71% of its assortment being dedicated to the sector, as opposed to Versace 39%. Was this done on purpose, to avoid market cannibalization?

Versace’s collab collection offers a wider range of categories than Fendi’s, as Retviews data show. The graph above indicates Fendi’s lack of outerwear and dresses, within its Fendace collection. Accessories are a major focus for both collections, with Fendi focusing on eyewear which represented 36% of the category, and Versace focusing on jewelry, making up 52% of its accessories.

Regarding shoes, Versace’s Fendace offer was more diverse than Fendi’s, as the latter only had flat sandals and high heels, whereas Versace’s assortment was made up of flat sandals (40%), high heel sandals (22%), boots (11%), sneakers (22%) and high heels (6%).

The two collections have been priced differently based on the brands. It is relevant to acknowledge that the collaboration’s price was similar in Europe and the US. In China however, the collection was 81% higher for Fendi by Versace and 13% higher for Versace by Fendi. A study indicates that Chinese Generation Z consumers are the segment which finds cross-brand collaborations the most appealing internationally. As Chinese Gen Z have a strong demand for collaborations, brands could implement the same strategy as Fendace, raising prices in the Chinese market, as it won’t have a negative impact on sales.

As it can be seen from ¸é±ð³Ù±¹¾±±ð·É²õ’ data, the Versace by Fendi collection overall has a higher price point than the core collection. The two categories with the largest difference in prices are dresses & skirts and accessories, with a 207% and 141% price increase, respectively.

Collaborations can serve as a powerful tool to attract a new customer base, by choosing a partner wisely, one who resonates with the target cohort’s values. This was the case for Gucci’s collaboration with The North Face, which was aimed at leveraging the activewear’s brand sustainable image to shift Gucci brand perception and lure the more conscious Gen Z consumer. The collaboration’s gender mix differs widely between countries, with the US, UK and Italy having a balanced gender mix, while in China and Japan there was a major focus on menswear.

As it can be seen from ¸é±ð³Ù±¹¾±±ð·É²õ’ graph, the most prominent categories in this capsule collection are tops and outerwear, reflecting The North Face’s retail strategy, outerwear being their main product category. In the tops’ assortment, short sleeves and sweats carry the focus, making up a respective 38% and 40% of the collection.

One of the hottest outerwear pieces throughout the past several seasons, the puffer jacket is the most prominent item in outerwear, representing 82% of the assortment. This is aligned with the  trend that we saw in fashion’s hottest brands this past year.

When luxury brands collaborate with mass or premium brands, the collection’s entry price is lower, giving consumers access to high-end products at a more reasonable price point. Collaborations between premium and luxury brands thus enable the latter to reach a wider audience.

Since the most prominent item in the collection was the puffer jacket, we dove deeper in ¸é±ð³Ù±¹¾±±ð·É²õ’ data to understand the pricing strategy. ¸é±ð³Ù±¹¾±±ð·É²õ’ data indicate that the puffer jackets from the Gucci x The North Face capsule collection have a lower entry price compared to the luxury brand’s core collection, with a smaller, albeit similar average price. The maximum price of the collaboration, however, is 13% higher. This pricing strategy enables the two brands to appeal to both higher income customers who want the exclusivity of the collection, but also to more entry-level consumers.  

In May 2022, The NBA (National Basketball Association) and Louis Vuitton unveiled their second collaboration collection, which is part of a three-year partnership. The collaboration is in line with the lifestyle of an NBA player, with accessories, leather goods and tops as the most prominent categories, as shown by ¸é±ð³Ù±¹¾±±ð·É²õ’ data. The leather goods assortment, which is the second biggest category, representing 24% of the entire capsule collection, is mainly made up of wallets and travel bags, each making up 32% of the collection.

When collabs are created between two luxury brands or between one luxury brand and a brand with a big customer fan base the price shows to be higher than the regular collection.

As can be seen from Retviews data, all the categories from The Louis Vuitton x NBA collection have a higher average price except for accessories and tops. The reason for the 17% price difference for accessories within the Louis Vuitton core collection lies in the lack of watches in the Louis Vuitton x NBA collab. The watch category is prominent in Louis Vuitton’s core collection, with prices ranging from $3 300 and $16 910, thus considerably raising the average price of accessories.

Younger consumers in general, in particular have a higher propensity for buying from ‘collaboration’ collections than older consumers. Brands are jumping on this trend to attract the younger generation and gain a share of the Generation Z spend as they are a critical growth driver for the luxury sector. Your brand can take advantage of Retviews, the automated competitive analysis platform for fashion, to monitor your competitors' strategy, to optimize your own and nail your collaboration. Fashion’s hottest luxury brands are harnessing the power of AI and staying ahead of the industry’s latest trends, with Retviews. Don’t miss your opportunity to lead the industry.