The fashion trend
The most consistent trend in fashion these days is that fashion trends are always changing. From season to season, and from country to country, what is ‘in’ is a transient concept. Restrained elegance in muted colours, or ruffles and tucks in vibrant florals? Whatever the style, an end consumer can
usually be found. So how does this mix of tastes translate into solid sales in the travel retail arena?
Of course, there must be a link with local high street trends, hence the growth in affordable brands at prime European airports (see pages 55-56). Travelling consumers increasingly expect to see the names they recognise – which sums up the major trend that is emerging in travel retail fashion: the evermore demanding and product-conscious consumer. “What has changed significantly over the last years in travel retail is the attitude of the consumer,” says Hugo Boss head of travel retail, Nadine Heubel. “Consumers in travel retail today are much more demanding. While in the past you could maybe satisfy your customers with an offer of basic merchandise, consumers now expect an offer with fashionable items and ‘hot’ brands.”
For Hugo Boss this has implications in the way it presents and markets its brand. “If you want to satisfy the consumers’ expectations, it is not enough to dedicate five square metres to one brand,” says Heubel. “Our concept has also evolved. While in the past it was important to cater for shirts and ties (the basic business offer), we now have a concept which conveys the lifestyle of the brands and allows a presentation of the whole collection.”
Italian menswear brand Ermenegildo Zegna is basing its brand development on the consumers’ growing demand for a more complete, high-fashion offer from any given name. Fashion trends in the luxury field, says head of travel retail Loris Bellarmi, are constantly changing. Male consumers no longer want a men’s fashion store – they want a fashion “experience”, in much the same way as women do.
New domestic flagship stores opening in Milan and New York later this year are testament to the company’s more detailed approach, and although the level of luxury and theatre will not spill over into travel retail right away, new fixtures and merchandising will start the process. Moreover, the brand is expanding beyond men’s ready-to-wear to create a more lifestyle-oriented approach. A new focus on leather accessories is on the cards, and Bellarmi expects the 11% company market share of leather to increase dramatically in the coming year. “People know us as a menswear brand making high quality ready-to-wear. They don’t yet know we also make leather with the same level of quality.”
Like Zegna, Etienne Aigner is broadening its focus beyond ready-to-wear to accessories, a category which the company believes is growing with consumer demand. In the pipeline from the company is a new travel retail line of luxury accessories.
Marco Della Croce, managing dircector of MA.AL.BI – which handles the brand Alfredo Pria – believes that the way fashion items are presented and sold in travel retail locations is increasingly important. Consumers want more information, more point of sale material, and more offers.
Pria is working closely with Nuance-Watson in Hong Kong to create a Christmas box filled with cashmere socks that coordinate with a cashmere scarf. This concept moves away from the traditional tie gift and captures the attention of the consumer with the product pairing.
Additionally, the company is inviting top retailers to the Nabuco opera at the Roman arena in Verona in June – interlinking fashion with art, and artfully drawing the buyers’ attention to its products above the rest. Buyer attention leads to point of sale focus, which attracts today’s consumer… and so the trend gathers pace.
German brand Marc O’Polo is centring its product development around a particularly contemporary consumer demand with its latest line, Organic Cotton. The popularity of natural and environmentally-friendly products presents all sorts of profitable business opportunities. “What’s important are values like quality, fair trade, natural,” says manager for travel retail Toni Hager. “Marc O’Polo has keywords which reflect the value of the brand – quality, simplicity, natural, innovation, personality. These keywords are important for our product, but also the activities with the retailers.”
Organic Cotton, proclaims the company’s publicity, is created without the use of pesticides, artificial fertiliser, genetic modification or defoliants, and ensures fair prices and trading conditions.
Fashion developments may not be hemmed in by an immovable set of boundaries and fixed trends in style and colour – indeed, the variety of lines out there are testament to the huge range of consumer tastes – but they are nevertheless subject to intense consumer scrutiny at point of sale. Growing demand for a wider selection of innovative and contemporary lines, shrewdly marketed at the end consumer, may just be the most important trend of all. n
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