Athletes playing on professional sports teams have increasingly entered the men’s apparel market, especially through collaborations, proprietary brands, and direct-to-retail deals. These have included players known for their careers in football (e.g., Russell Wilson with his Good Man brand), baseball (Mo Vaughn with his MVP Collections), basketball (Russell Westbrook with his ongoing capsules at Barney’s […]
Archive | Fashion
Mother-Daughter Design
The “mini-me” trend in high-end fashion—in which the design of children’s apparel, even for toddlers, emulates the look of adult pieces—goes back more than two decades. But it has been gaining traction over the past five years, driven in part by social media shots of celebrities’ and influencers’ children and their fashion-forward style choices, as […]
Vision Quest
In these days of collaborations, limited editions, and other in-and-out programs, it is sometimes easy to forget that long-term, traditional licensing deals are still going strong, especially in certain sectors. A case-in-point: eyewear. Collaborations and limited programs exist in this category as well, of course. But properties such as fashion, lifestyle, and luxury brands, among […]
World Cup Couture
With the finals of the FIFA World Cup coming up this Sunday, pitting France against Croatia, it seems like a good time to look at the impact of the competition on the world of high fashion, officially licensed and otherwise. Here are some of the strategies involving fashion labels, designers, sports licensors, and retailers trying […]
Tennis Players Ace Off-Court Fashion
Summer in the northern hemisphere is the season for many of the major global tennis tournaments, including the French and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon. It is also a key time for new product announcements involving well-known players, who have long been active in lending their names to fashion lines beyond their on-court endorsement deals. Tennis […]
Western Brands and Wanghong
Chinese social media celebrities—also known as key opinion leaders (KOLs), or wanghong—are increasingly becoming involved in product collaborations. This is especially true of a large and fast-growing group of Chinese fashion and style bloggers, who have been designing limited-edition capsule collections for Western luxury brands. A handful of recent examples: Tao Liang (Mr. Bags) teamed […]
Believing in the Beautiful Game
With the 2018 FIFA World Cup coming up this summer in Russia, it seems like a good time to take a look at the growing number of football-inspired lifestyle labels on the market, many of which are linked to licensing in some way. These are apparel and accessories brands that capture the sensibility of the […]
Remixing Fashion for Ravers
DJs from the world of electronic dance music (EDM) have become increasingly active in fashion collaborations over the past five or six years, with both the number of musicians involved and the number of deals being done continuing to rise. Compared to other genres of music, such as country, classic rock, or rap, EDM stars’ […]
Walking in Chefs’ Shoes
Chefs who enter the licensing business typically focus on items closely related to their vocation, such as kitchen gadgets, cook- and bakeware, tableware, and sometimes foods. A category that seems to be outside the scope of traditional chef-based licensing but has been growing rapidly over the past five years: sneakers. While at first glance there […]
Saving the Earth Through Fashion
Fashion labels’ use of synthetic fibers created from recycled plastic bottles continues to grow, including some licensed examples. Among the recent eco-friendly apparel, accessories, and footwear initiatives of this type, industry-wide: Gant paired with Seaqual, a company that makes polyester thread from plastics harvested from the ocean. They are producing a line of shirts for […]