Dissecting Exclusivity in New Luxury

Throughout history, exclusivity has been a hallmark of luxury. A powerful operational tool, here's how New Luxury's relationship with exclusivity has evolved.

Throughout history, luxury has stood as fashion's peak. Bearing distinct hallmarks–assured quality, high price points, and exclusivity–owning luxury items brings status. However, monumental shifts in taste and perception of what constitutes luxury in a modern market have brought about the sharp rise and quick dominance of New Luxury. 

Through the amalgamation of expense-related accessibility and product exclusivity, the social construct of luxury in fashion has been just that—exclusive. As cited by Highsnobiety’s ‘The New Luxury: Defining the Aspirational in the Age of Hype,” New Luxury, through aspiration, cultural relevance, and authenticity, has seen the paradigm shift in favour of inclusivity and the experiential–the antithesis of exclusivity. 

Despite this, brands denominated as New Luxury (across the spectrum of expense) from Stüssy to Salomon and Our Legacy,  have seldom neglected the application of exclusivity operationally, leveraging a fundamental law of supply and demand to elevate the perception of their products and optimise supply chain performance. 

With New Luxury defining a culture of inclusivity in favour of the consumer, fashion brands continue to utilise elements associated with traditional luxury– to understand how and why, we explore the exclusivity in New Luxury.

Traditional Luxury vs. New Luxury. 

Where traditional luxury products from elite fashion houses like Louis Vuitton and Chanel are concerned, high-to-outlandish price tags and exclusivity models are standard. Combining these elements and the brands’ image (historical and contemporary) has cemented their products as status symbols. 

Whether in fashion, fragrance, or the automotive industry, consumer psychology, both individual and shared, sits at the core of exclusivity, which, in traditional luxury, is defined through scarcity. 

By limiting the quantities of a product available to purchase, the producer creates scarcity, elevating the product’s value in the consumer’s mind, thus creating a sense of prestige in ownership.

 Like the same side of a coin, the expense of traditional luxury items creates exclusivity through market accessibility. 

Although the items we associate with traditional luxury, such as leather goods, have a higher production value and, as such, are less viable to produce at the quantities we’ve come to expect of a New Luxury product like a Salomon XT-6 or Our Legacy denim, traditional luxury brands’ implementation of exclusivity is more heavily consumer-facing, as a means of influencing consumer psychology in their favour. 

Through the limitation of production, they can maintain a brand and product image that is prestigious and high quality–hallmarks of luxury fashion throughout history. 

New Luxury’s relationship with exclusivity, however, is somewhat different. 

While the aspirational nature of New Luxury ensures that brands within this space look to align their products with traditional notions of luxury, its inclusive and diverse nature puts much of the power back into the hands of the consumer. 

Driving secondary markets. 

Through increased access and buying power, the idea of luxury becomes more consumer-defined, which has seen New Luxury influence, dominate, and ensure the success of a myriad of secondary market channels by implementing exclusivity in supply chain operations.

Operationally speaking, exclusivity models encompass regionally-locked-or-limited-edition releases and collector’s items often serialised or individually numbered to boast their limited status. 

Although the exact level of exclusivity applied to an item’s production isn’t often expressly declared in marketing or third-party distribution channels such as boutiques or consignment stores, products marketed as collector’s items with individual numeration further bolster the feelings associated with exclusive ownership–a watch numbered 1/500 like Rowing Blazers’ most recently Seiko collaboration, for example, has the potential for greater secondary market value than one numbered 1/2000. 

In the age of hype, secondary markets are extremely lucrative. More often than not, secondary markets like StockX, Klekt, and Kick Game are a driving force of primary sales channels as “hyped” products are hugely profitable–the more limited the product, the bigger the (potential) profit. 

Expense has always been a hallmark of traditional luxury, and despite this no longer being the case for New Luxury through streetwear’s cultural dominance, high pricing (through secondary markets) creates an association with traditional luxury (and all of its qualities) in the minds of consumers. 

Playing to the tune of secondary market channels may not be the intent of brands operating within the New Luxury space–Cortiez’s successful implementation of anti-bot systems online demonstrates the opposite, separating it from the straight-to-resale traditionally suffered by Supreme and Palace’s releases–but the results yielded by strategically implementing exclusivity in their production and distribution are highly beneficial for the brand’s image.

As such, employing an exclusivity model plays to the secondary market–intentional or not–resulting in releases selling out instantly and elevated value and prestige in ownership associated with the brand’s image. 

Perfecting supply chain performance.

Despite remaining a qualifier of luxury and helping explain the relationship between consumer psychology and the perception of luxury, this isn’t the be-all and end-all of exclusivity in New Luxury. Instead, implementing exclusivity is a powerful tool in supply chain operations and performance. 

Behind the scenes within operations–specifically within production and distribution on the product supply chain–exclusivity models define the exact number of products produced and released, how much stock goes where, and how accessible a product will be to consumers. 

These are all crucial factors in the success of a product or collection and, in turn, the success of a brand. By implementing exclusivity models, New Luxury brands afford themselves greater distribution control and a minimised risk of overstock, resulting in better implementation of transparency within the supply chain. 

Forecasting is crucial in implementing exclusivity in supply chain performance, as it highlights success-dictating factors, such as demand planning, inventory management, production planning, supplier management, and resource allocation.

As the conversation surrounding the DPP (or Digital Product Passport) continues to evolve amongst policymakers and retail industry leaders to realise a more sustainable future for fashion, forecasting and risk-aversion relating to production are more important than ever. 

DPP is a tool to create transparency and encourage circularity that bears risk to brands, such as fines, for non-compliance, bolstering the importance of forecasting and supply chain performance optimisation, making exclusivity a powerful operational tool for brands within the New Luxury space–particularly those that are fledging. 

Reducing the number of products produced and distributed amongst suppliers and sold through primary retail channels through exclusivity models is the key to answering questions concerning transparency and sustainability in the supply chain: what if we overstock a release, and what if it doesn’t sell out? Failing to answer these questions leads to financial mismanagement and products going to waste. 

While “hype” or the trending nature of a brand, product rollouts through teaser images, influencer or celebrity gifting, and media outreach may speak to the potential success of a release, the fast-changing nature of trends and social media dictates this isn’t enough to answer important supply chain-related questions. 

As previously outlined, limited releases run parallel to hype, boosting product desirability through scarcity and, in turn, playing to secondary markets, reducing the risk of overstock; should the release sell out, it opens the door to rereleases, adding longevity to the product lifecycle. 

The release of Corteiz’s three-piece Nike Air Max 95 speaks to this formula. One of New Luxury and Youth Culture’s most heavily desired streetwear imprints, the hype surrounding the brand offered an early indication of the performance of the upcoming release.

Despite this, there’s always a level of risk in new collaborations. By implementing exclusivity through regional release events across London, Paris, and New York, Nike and Corteiz could track their collaboration’s performance with a limited production quantity before following up with subsequent online and IRL rereleases. 

All in all, the pair were able to extend the product’s hype cycle while strengthening their supply chain performance. 

An assurance of quality and sustainability.

Exclusivity in New Luxury has proven massively successful in operations by affording brands time and resource management through optimised supply chain performance but also offers an assurance of high quality and sustainability to consumers in the same way that traditional luxury brands leveraged high pricing as an indicator of quality. 

For Paynter, quality assurance and sustainability are achieved by crafting limited-edition releases in small batches four times a year. With the intention of “bringing meaning back to clothing” by offering made-to-order outerwear, exclusive behind-the-scenes production content for buyers, keeping no stock, and recycling offcuts, Paynter speaks to two key attributes of New Luxury as defined by Highsnobiety: sustainability and ethics, and experiential over material. 

As you’d expect of a Supreme x The North Face collaboration or JJJJound x New Balance sneaker, Paynter’s quarterly product releases sell out in as quickly as 86 seconds. 

The brand’s use of exclusivity still yields the same perceptive results of traditional luxury– desirability through scarcity and prestige in ownership–but ensures impeccable quality, a sustainable and transparent supply chain, and the provision of an experiential consumer journey. 

Similarly, Zellerfeld has pioneered the 3D-printed sneaker industry by creating fully recyclable, factory-free footwear that is user-customisable. 

At Zerllerfeld, exclusivity is a technological byproduct, as direct-to-consumer production only produces the amount of products sold.

Through its list of collaborators that includes brands identified as players in New Luxury, such as Heron Preston, as well as the sustainability-focused PANGAIA and Rains, it has nurtured a culture of co-creation (another attribute of New Luxury) and bolstered its own quality assurances through association with respected fashion brands and designers.

What Paynter and Zellerfeld have done, through individual means, is showcase how to use exclusivity to build a more sustainable fashion industry while speaking to the desirable attributes of traditional luxury. 

It’s clear that the historical attributes of traditional luxury still stand and are things that modern consumers aspire for in ownership–this remains true of exclusivity, as there are buyers who desire to own and collect scarce products.

However, as taste and perceptions of luxury have evolved through New Luxury, the use of exclusivity by brands has evolved, becoming a means of championing high-quality products, sustainability, and optimising supply chain performance and transparency.