A front row seat: following luxury trends on TikTok
Ad hoc strategies and the help of creators: the two platform demiurges tell how an alternative way of telling young people about fashion can be developed.
by Barbara Sgarzi
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7' min read
7' min read
That it is no longer - or has never been - just a stage for funny choreographies, everyone has realised. With over a billion users worldwide, TikTok hosts valuable content on every subject, including philosophy and literature. And despite the light and amusing tone of voice, it is making its way into the rarefied and exclusive world of luxury, imposing itself as an alternative for telling brands such as Prada, Balenciaga, Balmain, Gucci, Cartier: here, perfection takes second place, in favour of authenticity. Hence the partnership with the Chamber of Fashion, with digital creators narrating the catwalks through the hashtag #behindthe scenes, or the sponsorship of the last Met Gala, which saw CEO Shew Chen himself as honorary president. Speaking of numbers, the #Luxury hashtag in 2023 grew globally by 300 per cent, and a third of users buy because they are inspired by the creators - and then tell it with #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, TikTok made me buy it -, feeding the circle endlessly. The two women who lead the fashion and luxury sector of the online platform talk about the reasons for this success. Spoiler: it won't end soon.
MORE INFLUENCERS THAN INFLUENCERS
"The real revolution? Going beyond aesthetics, showing the creative process of brands and the craftsmanship behind luxury products'. For Laura Milani, head of fashion & luxury hub of TikTok Italia, this is one of the platform's added values. A career devoted to digital and innovation, from Yahoo via Facebook, where she was already involved in fashion, Milani does not just work for TikTok, but lives in its uninterrupted flow of content, trends and suggestions.
"Haute couture, luxury, have indeed found a source of fresh water. On the one hand, brands experience a new openness and effective transparency by telling their stories in an authentic way. On the other, creators share the backstage of collections and fashion shows for an audience that has a particular attitude: they are there because they want to discover something different". Luxury brands were among the first to grasp the potential of TikTok to get in touch with a wider and younger audience. But also to tell, from a global stage, the artisanal values behind each piece, which are indispensable to understanding it: "An example is the work done with La Selleria by Fendi. Seeing an artisan at work, following the entire supply chain, gives back the intrinsic value of an accessory and motivates its price'. In this regard, TikTok is said to have contributed to the democratisation of luxury. But how do we make objects that were created to be exclusive affordable for everyone? "We are a meeting point: value is told through personal experience, with a contemporary freshness and a bottom-up approach. Those who are passionate, but perhaps do not have great spending power, nevertheless feel that they are part of a sector that fascinates them". Thanks also to an algorithm that rewards the most relevant content and a form of entertainment that enhances music: "The sound is always 'on' on TikTok and often the big brands choose the pieces that accompany the fashion shows already thinking about their performance on social. I dream of a front row increasingly full of creators, because we are in a mature phase, in which fashion houses have realised that there are important changes in communication and want to be part of them". Also because the impact on business is real: "Almost 60 per cent of those who buy luxury products do so more frequently after seeing them on TikTok. We offer new tools, give measurable results with digital metrics and study the audience with research and surveys. Instead of influencers, we prefer to talk about 'influencers', young people with a great knowledge of fashion who are able to tell their story'. And to re-evaluate - almost paradoxically, given that we are on an online platform - the boutique experience.
"After the pandemic, the desire to shop in a physical place and to tell the story step by step, to give value to the chosen item, has returned. Luxury on TikTok is not an automatic reflex: I want it, I click, I buy it. It needs its time'. Exactly like another liturgy of the platform, unboxing: unveiling the purchase from bag to box, documenting it with detailed videos. There is another point: giving weight to the purchase also goes hand in hand with sustainability, in the perspective of less is more: "There is a very high demand for transparency, people want to understand more about the brand's values and in this the creators are a fundamental hub. They talk about preloved garments or sustainable collections such as Prada's Re-Nylon, iconic bags revisited in ecological materials. A trend that shows no sign of waning, with videos generating tens of millions of views'.
