Luxury Shoe Wars: Sports Brand PK Luxury Brand, Who Is The Biggest Winner?

What happens when luxury brands collide with sports fashion? The answer may be the $ten thousand luxury shoes.

In downtown Milan, a pair of Nike black leather Air Jordan 5 Retro Premium sports shoes cost more than 400 euros.

A few steps away, one of the most unique shopping areas in the city, a pair of blue snake skin Gucci ACE canvas shoes with double G logo is priced at 450 euros.

Ilaria, a young saleswoman of One Block Down in Milan Chao Dian, said many customers would carry shopping bags at nearby luxury stores when they shop.

Claudia D "Arpizio," partner of Bain Co, a consultancy, said: "consumers of luxury brands and sports brands will coincide.

Luxury consumers also buy Nike and Adidas, and vice versa.

Luxury brand approach

Luxury brands such as Gucci, Prada and Balenciaga are increasingly looking for the growth of sports shoes, and compete directly with sports apparel giants such as Nike, Puma and Adidas by creating attractive and expensive products.

Several top executives of luxury goods groups have emphasized the importance of sports shoes for their businesses and said they are increasing investment and marketing budgets to face increasingly fierce competition.

Salvatore Ferragamo designer Paul Andrew said: "when I realized that sneakers will be sought after, it took a lot of effort on them.

Now we are sure to invest huge sums of money in this category and absorb professionals. "

"Luxury sports shoes are no longer just a trend, they have become an independent category," said Bruce Pask Pask, director of fashion dress at Neiman Marcus, a luxury department store in the US.

Italy luxury goods company Tod 's launched the first Hogan luxury sports shoes in 1986, which can be said to be the pioneer in this field.

Emilio Macellari, chief financial officer of Tod s group, said: "no brand is paying enough attention to the development of sports shoes now."

He pointed out that times are changing, and luxury brands are now being hit by sports apparel companies, which are more competitive than luxury goods.

Huge market potential

Bain's data show that sales of global shoe products increased 10% to 3 billion 500 million euros last year, an increase of 7% over that of handbags.

The price of high-end sports shoes is generally around $400, but those popular styles can easily rise to $3000 in the resale market, which is about the price of a pair of Christian Louboutin leather shoes.

The price of the limited edition high-end sports shoes can even exceed 10 thousand dollars, for example, Chanel X Pharrell Hu Race Trail or Nike Air Air Jordan 3 Retro DJ Retro and so on.

It is an important driving force for the luxury footwear industry. Ernst & Young also said that this is the fastest growing field of fashion industry.

The rise of luxury sports shoes is partly due to the growing influence of leisure and street clothing on high-end fashion. Nowadays, people have accepted the combination of suits and sports shoes.

Bain believes that the growth of young buyers has promoted the change of people's attitudes. Now the "millennials" born in the 1980s and mid 90s have accounted for 1/3 of the luxury consumers.

Federica Montelli Montelli, head of fashion business at La Rinascente, said: "now that women are wearing comfortable sneakers in the season, women are getting less and less comfortable with high-heeled shoes."

Insiders say that the so-called "sports shoe trend" may grab a share from the more traditional and more formal shoe market, while sportswear group says they are not worried about competition from luxury brands.

Bjorn Gulden Gulden, chief executive of German sports brand Puma, said: "if luxury groups begin to attach importance to sports styles, this will only have a positive impact on the whole market and promote the development of the sports shoes market. We will only be happy about that."

Analysts also said that with the expansion of the market, competition will not have a negative impact on profitability.

HSBC Rambourg analyst Erwan Rambourg said: "there is a lot of room for price increases, giving luxury shoes the attributes of sports shoes, which may even increase profitability."

Joint name and cooperation

In order to enhance their influence in sports shoes, luxury brands are very close to street brands, while sports brands prefer to cooperate with celebrities. Of course, luxury brands also have direct cooperation with sports brands.

For example, the Chanel X Adidas Originals NMD Hu mentioned above is jointly launched by the French classic luxury brand Chanel and the famous American singer, fashion star Pharrell Williams and Adidas. The price in the resale market has reached 40 thousand US dollars.

GOAT released the list of the ten most valuable sports shoes in 2017: Chanel x Pharrell x adidas, the three party joint venture topped the list; Chanel joined hands with Adidas, and the US idol singer Pharrell Williams released 500 limited pairs of sneakers, and the black market speculation price was 40 thousand dollars.

The French classic luxury brand Louis Vuitton launched its joint product series in May last year with the street trend Fragment Design launched by Japan's trend Godfather Teng Yuan Hao (Hiroshi Fujiwara), including sports shoes.

(see "ornate ambition" report: Luxury Brand X Street tide brand 4 joint case + Sports Brand X Fashion Designer 4 joint cases)

Sports brands and celebrities are more common.

The Chinese American designer Alexander Wang (Wang Daren) has maintained a cooperative relationship with Adidas, and has launched a number of joint sports shoes.

Nike launched a series of black and gold collocations in 2016 with French designer Olivier Rousteing, the French luxury brand Balmain creative director, while Nike and the former creative director of the French luxury brand, Givnechy Tisci, are listed in bold print.

Puma's latest quarterly report shows that the company has launched an exclusive product called Phenom Lux, with famous singer and actor Selena Gomez. This is the first shoe designed by Gomez, which has been sold out quickly after launch.

(see "ornate ambition" report: Puma releases the latest quarterly report: China's market helped boost sales in the Asia Pacific region by 34.8%; the first shoe sold in Selena Gomez was sold out quickly).

At the end of 2014, Puma appointed Rihanna, the female creative director, with a contract period of 3 years, which greatly promoted the rebound of Puma's performance.

In addition to celebrities, Nike has also announced the launch of a limited edition basketball shoe Nike PG2 with SONY, Japan's game company SONY, which is also the best seller in the resale market.

Referring to joint name and cooperation, the famous American rap singer Kanye West (Chinese nickname "kan Ye") is unable to avoid the Yeezy series launched by Adidas. Not long ago, Kanye West even claimed that Yeezy would become the largest clothing company in the history of mankind.