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It’s not just you. Nobody knows where to shop right now.
After a year and a half of next to no shopping for work and ‘going out’ clothes, consumers needed to restock their wardrobes. Many came out of pandemic lockdowns with changed bodies, mindsets and budgets. But, they’re finding that fashion feels more expensive, even though quality hasn’t improved in step with rising prices. Fast fashion is out of favour with most young adults who feel financially secure enough to invest in longer-lasting clothing, but they don’t know where to graduate to. Discovering new brands organically feels difficult, with inspiration on Instagram and TikTok now mostly paid for. Unless you have a luxury fashion budget, chances are you feel lost in a sea of Shein hauls and sticker shock.
“The pandemic definitely threw the collective style zeitgeist for a loop,” says writer and fashion commentator Alexandra Hildreth. “Many consumers stopped shopping for office and non-athleisure daywear altogether, and many others got their own style identity swept up in TikTok’s unprecedented trend acceleration.” Hildreth thinks the latter is coming to a close (perhaps due to the recent emphasis on minimalism), with a shift toward longevity. More consumers — conscientious of the climate crisis — are paying attention to what fashion pieces are made out of. A lot of the time, it includes plastics.
“Don’t piss me off,” Twitter user @ghostinmypocket tweeted in July alongside a screenshot of a $1,295 Mirror Palais ‘Ruffle Tunnel Gown Cloud’ dress and its fabric content: 100 per cent rayon (a semi-synthetic fibre). Another user retweeted and added: “Once you start checking the fabric you really find nothing to buy.”
Last week, pop culture creator Meredith Lynch called out womenswear brand Ramy Brook for a $445, 100 per cent polyester dress at Nordstrom with threads coming loose on the buttons. Lynch, whose wardrobe needed a post-lockdown update, was disappointed in the quality and price of the items on offer. “I have to wonder if brands are decreasing quality because online shopping increased significantly during Covid-19 and they know many consumers won’t see an item in person until it’s arrived in their home,” she says. Aware of how hard it is to find the ‘right’ products, TikToker Jennifer Wang has an account dedicated to helping consumers find quality pieces at prices that aren’t cheap but are less eye-watering than high luxury. One video shows an $800 Max Mara coat that she advises investing in for long-term wear, instead of buying cheaper equivalents each season.
Editor and consultant Eugene Rabkin recalls a recent trip to a Totême store, where he notes the high prices clashed with the materials used, including polyester. Totême sells an $850 “quilted cocoon coat”, listed online as 100 per cent recycled polyester (which, even though it’s recycled, still sheds microplastics into the environment); $520 “sewn pleat wool-blend trousers” are 55 per cent; a $720 “double-breasted blazer” is also 55 per cent.
“I find it hard to find affordable brands that are good products that are good quality,” says TikTok fashion creator and commentator Alyssa Mosley. “If you want natural fabrics, it is going to be a premium — especially right now.”
Meanwhile, designer goods have moved steadily out of reach, with $500 to $1,000-plus price tags that feel particularly inaccessible during periods of inflation and cost of living crises in the US as well as parts of Europe. Phoebe Philo, for example, last week debuted a line of elevated basics. Prices run between $450 and $25,000.
So-called “accessible” luxury is feeling less so. Prices are rising. (Average luxury prices are up 25 per cent since 2019, according to retail insights platform Edited.) Globally, average apparel prices have been steadily on the rise since 2020, and are projected to increase further through 2028, according to fashion and luxury market insights firm Euromonitor.
“There is an absolute dearth of mid-tier options,” says Rabkin. “Unless people really do their homework, unless people are really into fashion and they know where to shop. But, most people are not. They just want something decent, and that’s increasingly, nearly impossible, to find on the high street.”
What commentator Hildreth calls the “hyper-nichification of algorithms” is pushing both brands and consumers into a corner. If a user is an active consumer of fashion content, they may well be easy for a brand to reach. “But [they’re] not able to jump over the wall and reach an entirely new audience without funnelling money into paid advertisements,” she says. The brands that do pump dollars into paid ads risk damaging their own appearance, she adds, given users’ lack of trust in paid social ads.
Hard to find as they may be, demand for these clothes is there. “[Mid-range] is still an important segment of our business,” says Mytheresa vice president of buying Tiffany Hsu, noting that it’s very product dependent. Laura Baker, founder of Lower East Side concept store Essx, describes the $300 to $600 range as a “sweet spot”. What she calls “advanced contemporary” is also where most uniqueness and new design is happening, she argues.
“The proof is in the pudding,” Baker adds. “As soon as we started stocking those brands — that's what’s moving the fastest for us.” (Essx stocks brands such as Undercover, Our Legacy and (Di)vision.)
Demand may be there, but it’s a tough space for brands to fill. Gary Wassner, CEO of fashion financier Hilldun Corporation, cites a host of factors that have driven prices up in the contemporary space: global instability; the cost of production overseas; material prices; oil-based production prices. “This has always been an area that has suffered,” adds Thomai Serdari, professor of fashion and luxury marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business. “Because to provide something that is quality — perhaps a better type of fabric and good tailoring — is expensive. Brands that are in that mid-tier are squeezed from both ends.”
The discoverability conundrum
Commentator Hildreth thinks brand discovery could be at an all-time high — but that, in reality, we’re all too inundated with content for small brands to stand out. “We may be able to find and follow countless brands, but we forget as soon as we close the app due to the sheer amount of options,” she says. NYU’s Serdari agrees, arguing against the idea that Instagram and TikTok provide discoverability. She says brands who can afford to pay for ads (typically those that are part of large conglomerates) monopolise screen space, and discussions about fast fashion drown out the brands attempting to provide an antidote.
Brands are also working against a lack of consumer trust — particularly when products are as-yet unfamiliar. “Sure I can scroll on Ssense’s 72 pages of new arrivals, but I have no idea what the quality feels like and things can get lost in the doom scroll,” Hildreth says.
Typical department stores don’t have the breadth of options they once did, Serdari adds, attributing this to the lack of quality options. And many highly curated fashion stores, like Colette, Opening Ceremony, Totokaelo and Barneys, no longer exist. “Buyers go for really high visibility, premium names.”
Both Hildreth and Serdari lament the lack of in-person discoverability opportunities. Without physical stores, the consumer misses out on half of the brand’s promise, Serdari says. “Never mind not being able to discover who is the neighbour on the street next to that store.”
So, users turn to the pay-to-play internet where the same brands take up ad and SEO space. And even if consumers can afford to not purchase fast fashion, it’s hard to justify the significantly higher price tag that tends to come with smaller brands (quality or not) when they haven’t held the product in their own hands, Hildreth flags.
What can be done?
Brands that are working to find that sweet spot take pains to do so. Designer Maria Stanley, for whom quality products, fair pay and fair pricing are priorities, has felt the struggle as both a shopper and brand owner. “It is hard to find the middle ground,” she says. Stanley tries to make her clothing affordable for the average person — while noting that, from $109 for a hat to $650 for a coat, her clothes aren’t affordable to the actual average person. “I try and do my best,” she says. Stanley waits to raise prices until absolutely necessary, she says, sometimes taking a small loss on a garment for a time. The brand has just raised its prices 10 to 15 per cent for 2024. “We just had to,” Stanley says.
Maintaining quality production at an accessible price point can be done, NYU’s Sedari says, but only at a certain size, which can limit growth. Stanley says she has just one employee and works with two factories (one in Peru and one in India), both of which are willing to make small quantities. Stanley works with the factories to save money by cutting out the middle men between them.
The issue is when contemporary brands edge too close to the top. It’s difficult to capture, and even harder to retain, consumer interest. “They don’t have the brand heritage, they don’t have the aspirational aspect,” Hilldun’s Wassner says. “There are a lot of things missing and they can’t push things that high in price.”
Across the board brands need to act to cost cut in order to lower prices — and some are already looking into doing so. “I hear from a lot of people that they are attempting to develop product that is more competitive price-wise,” Wassner says. “Because they realise that even in the contemporary designer space, they’re pushing prices so high that it’s difficult for the consumer.” But, he warns, this takes time. It also doesn’t solve the discoverability problem.
Middle-tier brands’ best bet is to funnel energy into building community, Hildreth argues. “As influencers peter out and brand distrust remains at an all time high, peer-to-peer recommendations remain the strongest base a brand can rely on.” This doesn’t exclude social media marketing and influencer gifting, she notes — but urges brands to be more selective in the influencers they partner with: “Ones that have strong relationships with their audience, similar values to the brand, and therefore can be seen as a peer offering a recommendation rather than a paid mouthpiece.”
Brands should also place emphasis on their materials, Mosley says. Instead of marketing themselves as sustainable, brands ought to emphasise what garments are made of. “Make that the selling point.”
Something has to give. “For those brands who enter the marketplace at very high rates, I believe that when the funding dries up, the venture will have to either adjust (but that then is a very different brand) or cease to exist,” Serdarai says. “Because how can you maintain that sort of positioning?”
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