Licensing can extend a brand into new categories, a new area of a store and even into a new marketplace entirely. It is a way to reach a larger audience as well as enter new business categories and allows retailers and manufacturers to stand out from the competition by offering consumers the hottest brands and collaborations of today.
Licensing and fashion have gone hand in hand for decades. Today, fashion licensing represents nearly ten percent of the overall licensing industry. This process allows brands to expand into additional market segments by partnering with a distributor while focusing on their niche with little risk. This practice has proven beneficial as the global market for fashion licensing has increased from $551.36 billion in 2021 to $606.19 billion in 2022. This momentum is expected to continue as fashion brands and retailers look to diversify revenues and build credibility by partnering with well-known labels for collaborative launches.
Sustainability, resale and leisure wear are currently trending in fashion licensing. Sustainability and resale are currently hot topics as companies are utilizing the resale market to make luxury and designer fashion more accessible to a broader audience. Resale offers unique and vintage fashion pieces that are no longer available in traditional retail. The fashion and licensing industries have also embraced the athleisure trend, with renowned designers incorporating athletic-inspired elements into their collections creating noteworthy collaborations.
Recent successful fashion licensing projects include the Tyler the Creator X Converse collaboration, tying an iconic celebrity to a well-known brand and Kith x BMW, with Kith creating an apparel and accessories line for BMW. Fashion labels have also begun partnering with each other for limited-edition collaborations. For example, Birkenstock, comfort footwear, and Manolo Blahnik, luxury footwear, combined efforts to create a limited-edition footwear line.
So, what is next in fashion licensing? As demand for licensed products continues to grow, both the fashion and licensing industry will experience more crossover, as brands look to increase visibility and reach broader audiences in adjacent verticals.
It is predicted that more companies will partner with other brands in the cultural spotlight that are experiencing an increase in consumer interest, including environmental and social good initiatives. We will continue to see multitudes of band tees with odes to the past, in a recurring trend of ‘nostalgia dressing’ as well as movies and television shows, especially those that generate a large fan base like Marvel, creating merchandise and apparel lines designed with consumers in mind.
Licensing Expo, the meeting point for all things licensing, took this trend and turned Fashion into the core theme for their show this June in Las Vegas. Every year, thousands of retailers converge in Las Vegas for Licensing Expo to meet with potential brands to create additional revenue streams and diversify their offerings. Industry-relevant conversations on licensing in fashion will be discussed on a global stage with keynotes from the likes of Sam Edelman and Chrissan Furciato from Tommy Bahama to discuss why licensing is so successful in the fashion world. For more information on Licensing Expo visit www.licensingexpo.com.
