The Rise of Luxury

We are all continually made aware of the difficult economic state in Britain and how our high streets continue to suffer.  In the past twenty years or so our obsession with bargain hunting has grown, feeding the market for cheap, disposable fashion and high street knock-offs from catwalk shows. 

But as many of us have had to cut back on spending in the last few years, it seems that there has been a rebirth of higher-end spending on fashion items.  More of us are now saving to buy quality investment pieces rather than spending less but buying more.  Perhaps buying more, cheap, poor quality clothes is finally being recognized as an unsatisfactory quick-fix that isn’t the best way to spend the fewer pennies in many of our purses?

For many of us, buying into a luxury or heritage brand feels both safer and an investment.  Collaborations between high street brands and luxury designers/celebrities - such as H&M’s collections with Lanvin and now Beyonce,  have struck a balance between style/quality and price, convincing buyers of their worth.  Although these clothes are around 20%-40% pricier than other collections in store, you get the designer or celebrity influence at a manageable cost - how clever!  That these high street brands are showing at fashion events alongside big designer names retains our confidence, encouraging us to visit the pricier areas of their shops and reach deeper into our pockets. 

The creation of luxury collections within high street brands is also proving successful.  We can see this with the sell-out of Topshop Unique’s clothing lines and with the main buzz at this year’s AW13 fashion week: River Island’s collaboration with Rihanna.  

Will we one day say goodbye to fast fashion shops?  I for one will be happy to wave goodbye to Primark and welcome a wardrobe of well thought out and beautifully made clothing.