Why DOES High Street now cost more than designer?
Designer fashion has never been my thing. even when i was younger and had the figure and the disposable income for it, i was always more comfortable with the High street knock-offs.
While my girlfriends were ‘investing’ in Prada dresses and Jimmy Choos, i was more of a Topshop or Designersat-Debenhams shopper. And Whistles, at a push.
There were the odd exceptions. i loved — and still do — a designer handbag, and i always enjoy a trawl through the rails at TK Maxx to see what discounted designer bargains i can squirrel away in my basket.
But the truth is i’ve always felt that paying more than £ 200 for anything is an unnecessary extravagance, especially given the variety of decent alternatives on offer.
For years, the great British High street has offered shoppers like me fashion at affordable prices — cheap and cheerful copies of designer pieces that, worn with a bit of flair, can approximate the real thing.
some of the oldest and more reliable friends in my wardrobe have humble origins: a silk shirt from H&M, a woollen cape from M&s, a timeless pair of Clarks winter boots. CPW — cost per wear — of these things must be less than a penny a pop. Yet they — and i — are none the worse for it. But something has started to change. it’s not that High street fashion has lost its appeal or its edge, plenty of mainstream brands still successfully borrow inspiration from the catwalks.
it’s that — as well as adopting the designer shapes, textures and colours — they are also starting to adopt the price tags.
some examples. A pair of suede leggings — leggings, mind, not even trousers — from gap for £399.95 (albeit now discounted to £359.95, but still). Ouch, right?
A mustard-coloured sheepskin coat from Whistles at £ 1,350. Leather trousers from Topshop for £225. Zara boots, £149. A leather coat from H&M (H&M!) at £249.99 (which is sold out).
river island wants £250 for a black embellished parka. Phase eight is charging £ 320 for a checked trench coat. even next is asking £299 for an asymmetric leather skirt.
serious wonga, by anyone’s standards. Yet they must be confident that people will pay it — or else why would they be selling these items?
especially when you consider that, for the same price or sometimes even less, you can get the real thing — a genuine designer item, cut from superior cloth and conceived by a brand with expertise and standing in the industry. something that brings real cachet to the wearer and that, arguably, constitutes an investment and not just another everyday item.
Whichever way you look at it, this trend constitutes a wellcoordinated High street land grab on previously hallowed designer ground.
in the struggle to stay relevant — and profitable — and faced with an ever more challenging retail environment, the High street has set its sights on new gains.
Bond street beware: the wagons are circling. One of the principal lines of attack seems to be quality. Whereas in the past, the High street tended to be one vast expanse of man-made fibres, no more. now luxury fabrics, more commonly associated with highend brands, are ubiquitous.
i mention my H&M silk shirts, something they’ve done for a couple of seasons now; but leather, suede, shearling, pure wool and cashmere are now everywhere.
The association with luxury is unavoidable. it is, unquestionably, part of what is pushing up prices.
Another is styling. Whereas in the past your High street cashmere or wool coat would have been designed along conservative lines, many of these new high-cost items deliberately push the style envelope. They are edgy, fashionforward, bold in concept and execution. They are aimed less at the High street shopper, who wants something a little above the ordinary, more at the fashion-savvy Voguette who would otherwise shop legitimate designer labels.
But the question remains: why pay £229.99 for a basic leather shopper (albeit extremely similar to a much- coveted Celine one) from Mango, when for the same amount you could buy a beautifully crafted, expertly designed equivalent from Michael Kors?
Part of it is simple psychology. Because the High street occupies the ‘value-for-money’ bit of our shopper brains, many of us assume that any item we come across in that space that looks even vaguely high end must, de facto, be a bargain. Zara leather boots? Must be a steal, quick buy them. Boden cashmere? Bound to be cheaper than Brora, i’ll take two.
Meanwhile, when it comes to designer labels, the reverse is true: if it’s got a swanky label then we assume it’s beyond our reach.
in the past, this was true, but recently, the picture has become more and more confusing — to the point where a Whistles sheepskin coat now costs more than a Joseph one. The designer houses haven’t helped much. in their eagerness to capture the mass market, many of the exclusive brands — from Armani to Vivienne Westwood — have invested in cheaper diffusion lines and diversification into accessories. unwittingly, they have been complicit in their own demise.
This ‘ democratisation’ of fashion opened up previously unaffordable labels to the High street shopper, who could now sport a coveted logo on a T-shirt or a pair of sunglasses; but it had the unintended consequence of devaluing the brand overall, of partly divesting it of that magical exclusivity that made it so desirable in the first place. The most famous example was Burberry, whose distinctive checks became synonymous with an urban culture far removed from the kind of customer the brand wanted to be associated with; but it’s also been the case with other designers, whose flair and talent have been diluted by one too many department store collaboration or High street homewares line.
Matthew Williamson, for example, once the darling of the London fashion scene, stopped showing at London Fashion Week in 2016; Orla Kiely, beloved of Kate Middleton, has closed its retail stores and website. in many ways it’s a tragedy: these are great talents.
‘The global luxury goods industry is going through a significant period of change,’ says samantha Dover, senior retail analyst at market monitors Mintel.
‘As young consumers are fast becoming key purchasers of highend fashion, luxury houses need to adapt. This has resulted in polarised performances among the leading players. Those that were slower to respond have lost market share.’
And it’s that market share the new high-end High street stores are taking aim at. it’s all part of a general repositioning, a shifting of the tectonic fashion plates that is changing the way we shop.
it’s a strange, topsy-turvy world in which something massproduced in China can cost more than something lovingly conceived and designed by a skilled, highly trained artisan.
And even i, as someone with no real fashion expertise, can see that it’s a tragedy.