Last week, luxury outerwear brands showed more resilience than the rest of the luxury sector. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Glossy Podcast for interviews with fashion industry leaders and Week in Review episodes, and the Glossy Beauty Podcast for interviews from the beauty industry. –Danny Parisi, sr. fashion reporter
Movement at luxury outerwear brands
It was a good week for luxury outerwear brands.
Despite the continued slowdown in its U.S. sales that has put a damper on recent Canada Goose earnings, the brand’s most recent report found that Asia-Pacific is more than making up for any North American losses. Canada Goose sales in Asia-Pacific surged 62% year-over-year in the quarter ending December 31, reported on Thursday. That was primarily driven by strong sales from Singles’ Day, which is celebrated in China on November 11. That made up for the 14% fall from the U.S., still a concerning trend but softened by the success Canada Goose has seen elsewhere.
Canada Goose has had multiple high-profile collaborations recently, including with its new brand ambassador, NBA player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Canada Goose collaborated with Gilgeous-Alexander, and also KidSuper, on a capsule collection timed to the upcoming NBA All-Star Game. Collaborating around popular sports events in the U.S. could help Canada Goose regain some of the mindshare it has lost with its American customer. But that depends on the recovery of U.S. luxury spending in general, which has remained low throughout the beginning of 2024.
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Meanwhile, another luxury outerwear brand, Moncler, ranked No. 5 among top brands on the quarterly Lyst Index, for the fourth quarter of 2023, which was released last week. While the list, compiled by fashion tech and e-commerce company Lyst, doesn’t measure sales, it does factor in data including search volume and public sentiment around brands, providing a good snapshot of what brands are top of mind for American consumers. Moncler has a reputation for making buzzy moves. For example, in late January, Moncler released a collaboration with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation brand. Jay-Z designed the capsule collection, which included a coat that made its debut when Big Sean wore it to a Lakers-Clippers game last week. And we saw more from Moncler this weekend when it held a show in the Swiss Alps. Late last year, it also collaborated with Adidas and Japanese luxury fashion house Sacai.
On the Glossy Week in Review podcast this week, you can hear more from me and Glossy’s editor-in-chief, Jill Manoff, as we discuss the other brands that topped the Lyst Index.
But a test of the resilience of the luxury outerwear market is coming soon as Perfect Moment, another brand in the sector, is preparing for its upcoming IPO. The company initially planned to sell 2.5 million shares at $6-$7 each, but, as reported on January 26, it cut its own IPO in half by reducing the number of shares to 1.2 million at the same price.
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Reducing the prospects of an IPO early on is not necessarily a bad thing. It can help set more easily attainable goals right out of the gate rather than set high expectations that would be impossible to meet. Often, it can be better to underpromise and overdeliver, rather than vice versa.
But if Perfect Moment can ride the same wave that Moncler and Canada Goose are on, it may signal that the luxury outerwear category can join the likes of Prada and Louis Vuitton as brands that are defying to ongoing luxury slowdown happening across the industry.
