Click:hype culture
Luxury Brands Like Gucci, Fendi And Stella McCartney Latest To Create “Pint-Sized” Lines
The future of luxury consumption in China?
The New York Times reports today that more top luxury brands — including Gucci, Fendi and Stella McCartney — are adding children’s lines to their collections, in a move that may indicate that the global luxury industry is moving beyond recovery and towards actual growth for the first time in two years. Quoting Datamonitor findings, the article points out that children’s wear in the E.U. is outperforming the rest of the market, mostly due to the fact that parents are quicker to spend on their children than themselves, even in a tougher economic market. From the article:
Although the high-end children’s market is still centered in Europe, it’s no surprise that China is seen as a prime potential destination for top brands’ children’s lines, and not just because of the country’s population. China’s one-child policy has, over the past 30 years, brought the emergence of the “Little Emperor,” an only child who can best be described as “spoiled rotten” by parents and grandparents. Generally raised in China’s more prosperous coastal cities, “Little Emperors” present a huge opportunity for Western luxury brands that have already made fans of mom and dad.
This week, the Chinese news portal PCBaby looks at the prospects for top luxury brands in the Chinese children’s market, suggesting the industry has experienced three stages of development since 1990: product awareness (1990-2000), brand awareness (2000-2010), and high-end brand maturity (2010-).
From the article (translation by Jing Daily team):
Whether this luxury demographic proves a windfall for Western brands, domestic Chinese brands, or both, China’s “Little Emperors” are certain to make up a significant portion of high-end sales in coming years, and — given the country’s population and growing affluence in second- and third-tier cities — it wouldn’t be surprising to see China become the world’s top single market for luxury children’s wear within the next five to 10 years.