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It’s that time of the year again…when Lyst releases its hottest brands list for the second quarter.
And we have some clear winners starting with Spanish luxury brand Loewe, which topped the hottest (20) brands list. The trendy retailer climbed 13 places over the past 12 months to reach the top spot and owes its success to being able to cater to “the imagination of different cohorts of customers,” Lyst noted. Demand for its cult-like products like its Anagram tank top and the Loewe basket bag also contributed to its rise, per Lyst.
Closely following Loewe were usual suspects like Prada, Versace, Miu Miu, and Bottega Veneta. Louis Vuitton too earned the 11th hottest brand spot right after newly minted creative Pharrell Williams’s debut menswear collection.
One of the most surprising names on the list, however, was Balenciaga, which after a dramatic drop down the hottest brands ranking over the last two quarters, came in at No. 16. Its ascent back into popularity comes after the brand was embroiled in a string of controversies but has since seen celebrities like Michelle Yeoh, Isabelle Huppert, and Alton Mason wear its products on red carpets again.
But back when…: While a mix of factors contributed to the success of this quarter’s hottest brands, retailers like Kim Kardashian’s Skims (which came in 17th on the list in Q2) dominated in Q1, mostly thanks to a combination of quality and accessibility.
Katie Thomas, who leads the Kearney Consumer Institute, an internal think tank at Kearney, previously told Retail Brew she credited Skims’s popularity to the mass casualization movement in which people want products to be accessible yet unique.
“Something like Skims, you could characterize that as, ‘No, it’s not cheap, but it’s not designer luxury prices, either,’” she said. “So it’s maybe a good price point for somebody right now who wants something stylish.”