The new luxury cash register: blazing the trail from discovery to purchase

Relatable and real is the new aspiration. “Customers want to see themselves and that’s how communities are built,” says Jess Christie, Brand Director of Matches Fashion.

According to the study, consumers primarily want brands to create consumer-centric content on social platforms that meet their needs. They want luxury brands to give them expert advice on how to dress for different body types and help them find sustainable brands and products. These needs are prioritized over more traditional purchasing engines, such as new trends or luxury cultural productions linked to music, cinema or art.

Sara Hernando, director of fashion feature films at Vogue Spain sees this as the key to creating content that provides both inspiration and connection on social platforms. “Consumers like to see real cabinets that they could access; real bodies with which they can identify; or real stories that remind them of theirs.

Christie of Matches agrees with the value of channeling reality, both to be discovered and to inspire, saying social content now needs to be “much less dictatorial and more immediate”.

Inspire customers by celebrating their own style

Inspiration has democratized, with an emphasis on peer-to-peer. In particular, the most important influence on purchasing for survey respondents was that an item should work with what they already own. Offering tips and tricks on how to fit luxury pieces into an existing wardrobe or makeup bag is essential to impacting how consumers shop across all demographics and platforms.

Having worked with TikTok designers such as Leonie Hanne, Dior inspires users by having its pieces worn by designers who often represent how real wardrobe and accessory collections work: with low-cost pieces alongside designer articles. “The digital talents with whom we work closely have shared their own stylistic interpretations of our collections,” says Dior’s Bialobos, adding that it is “highly regarded by our customers in search of inspiration”.

The market power of the wardrobe remix is ​​demonstrated by social media initiatives, such as “Unlikely Closet Staple,” launched this year by Matches Fashion. In this setting, social designers like Josh Peskowitz and Imani Randolph take an unexpected wardrobe item and show off its versatility by styling it in five different ways. “These stories were among our top performers on our social channels and resulted in an instant increase in sales on the products shown on the set,” she said.

Iconic style and entertainment value drives luxury shopping

The second most important influence on a luxury purchase, before wardrobe compatibility, is that a room must have an iconic style. For those interviewed in Italy in particular, this came out on top.