What's Up With Logomania Luxury Fashion?
Logos are nothing new to the fashion industry. Identifiable logos and patterns have been a staple of branding fashion houses and demarking their exclusivity since luxury goods began flooding the market.
Considering that luxury fashion originated from a celebration of craftsmanship, design, and quality of production, the distinctly late 2010s shift to aggressive branding of rather standard consumer goods is puzzling.
* Before I continue, a disclaimer: My point is not to pass judgement on this branding approach, but to highlight the fundamental shift in luxury houses’ approach to mass producing fashion. Rather than arguing that it is a net good or net bad shift, the aim is to highlight the changes and speculate about how they originated. I am by no means an expert. Okay, you can keep reading.
Fashion is undeniably dynamic and should change with the times. Yet the 21st century phenomenon of “premium mediocre” goods (such as luxury branded flip flops or baseball caps) has reached an unprecedented extreme. The era of luxury brands exclusively creating holy grail and statement pieces seems to be giving way to an era of producing mundane pieces featuring prominent designer logos. Big names in the industry which used to make handcrafted pieces in extremely small quantities have become increasingly globalized brands that produce any amount and variety of standard clothing under their name.
In fact, at this point many branded items are recognizable only due to their logos rather than distinctive features. It’s hard to tell the difference between rubber pool slides unless they have a logo on them. Whether it comes in the form of a licensed brand pattern or a trademarked logo, luxury houses seem to have latched onto the idea that these flashy designs are critical to their ability to be recognized and appreciated.
Many of these changes originated from significant branding overhauls. As leading brands replaced their creative directors and began creating new versions of their logos and patterns, others followed. Some of the first houses to rebrand were Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton (under Virgil Abloh), and Gucci. Rebranding opened up avenues for them to begin marketing to younger generations, to increase social media presence, and to create new collections, which were inevitably branded with their new, and oftentimes simplified, logos.
The Burberry logo redesign and monogram: via
The massive successes that these rebrandings brought about (measured in a drastic increase in sales) prompted other houses to begin changing their brand names and approach to producing luxury goods. Soon afterward Versace, Burberry, and Saint Laurent, and others followed.
Pictured above: Louis Vuitton rebranding under Virgil Abloh. The discontinued Murakami print vs the new monogram.
Arguably, logomania originally emerged as a fashion statement of its own. Brands like Supreme and OffWhite made their money from their names alone by selling generic nylon factory products at high markup. These new brands emerged with excessive branding as a staple. At first, it was an ironic and bold statement challenging traditional fashion trends and launched their collections on the basis of the excessive branding.
High-end fashion houses, however, followed suit and adopted the distinct style into their own collections as well, leading to the creation of “premium mediocre” and the craze of logomania.
Logomania emerged as a trend that persists in street fashion today as result of rebranding and the simplification it brought with it. Brands have realized that it is easier to market a product through social media and create recognizable product placement when there are standardized and flashy elements to the designs. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a picture with a thousand logos on it really drives the point home.
