The great luxury slowdown

A year or so ago, if anyone had told me that Tommy Hilfiger would have stolen the show at New York’s Met Gala, I would have laughed. But it seems the end of giant luxury labels is upon us even before we expected it. The American ready-to-wear designer Tommy Hilfiger seems to have created the maximum media buzz at the 2024 Met Gala, according to several data analytics firms.

- NAMRATA ZAKARIA

Even though big names such as Loewe, Balmain, Armani, Chanel and Maison Margiela made their statements here, almost equally prominent were mall favourites like H&M, Hilfiger and even Gap. Yes, on celebrities.

How did luxury labels fall out of favour with celebrities? Simply because they did so with consumers first. Even though many European luxury brands are showing an uptick in their numbers, their consumers are mostly the new rich or the aspirational rich. These don’t bring much cred to the brand, they mitigate the label’s snob appeal instead.