Fashion collaborations are here to stay!

5 Mins

"Fashion collaborations have been around forever. In the past decade we have seen every majo...

"Fashion collaborations have been around forever. In the past decade we have seen every major Celebrity/Designer collaborate with the High Street to produce lower priced capsule collections. All of a sudden high fashion from some of our favourites designers (like Marni, Lanvin, and Karl Lagerfeld just to name a few) became affordable as well as accessible.

Back in 2004, Karl Lagerfeld for H&M caused a ‘camp outside in the cold’ kind of hype – this clearly was the beginning of a new phenomenon. H&M has been a great platform for many designers to extend their reach since too, on a global scale; Jimmy Choo, Comme des Garçons, Maison Martin Margiela, Isabella Marant and most recently Alexander Wang – have been major hits and massively popular on eBay too!

Earlier this week Victoria Beckham was quoted saying she may be bringing a version of her line to the masses; ‘I’d like to work on clothing pricing and I’d like to reach more people, and I would like to offer clothes to people who don’t want to pay designer prices,” she told New York magazine. “I would love to do something like [a H&M collaboration]. I want to reach out to that customer.” 

Last week we saw the drop of another ‘Celebrity vs. High Street’ collaboration as Kendall + Kylie launched for Topshop. No doubt this 15 piece collection of California inspired separates (post Coachella) will be a huge success. The target demographic is the same as Topshop so what better brand to boast the collection.

Kate Moss was brought in by Topshop in 2007 to showcase a collection based on….well her! With Kate being a ‘style icon’ so many girls wanted to emulate her look and Topshop cashed in on this. Eyebrows were raised when it was announced Kate was joining, since when did a supermodel become a fashion Designer? Regardless, her great taste in clothes and the fact that the collections were based on her own wardrobe made this a smart move. The beauty of this was that was not a one hit wonder –type collaboration; Kate Moss was an actual department within Topshop’s London HQ with a Buying and Design team dedicated to making these styles come alive and went from strength to strength for several years. Topshop has partnered with a number of designers and brands including Mary Katrantzou, J.W. Anderson, Adidas Originals and Marques Almeida.

Clearly collaborations are no longer a trend. They’re just reality. For most fashion brands and mass retailers, collaborations take up a tiny part of the big-picture marketing strategy and it is the norm now to offer‘high-low’ collaboration. This gets a particular group of shoppers very, very excited.


This year we’ll be seeing Whistles collaborate with Frame fitness studio and the H&M X Balmain."


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