1.1 “Sector Overview”
“SECTOR OVERVIEW”
Off-White can be categorized as a brand serving the ‘luxury streetwear’ market, a sector that in the last decade has seen exponential growth, single-handedly subverting the traditional fashion system by redefining its main component: exclusivity (Hypebeast, 2019). Unlike high fashion, streetwear’s exclusivity is derived from ‘know-how’, producing a market in line with the sale of collectables and elevating a certain level of luxury. Streetwear’s dictionary definition is simple enough: fashionable, casual clothes, a trend that has driven the emergence of relatively new brands, Off-White for example - founded in 2012. Streetwear is no contemporary movement. Rooted in skate, surf and hip-hop cultures since the late 20th century, it’s paved the way to an underground market of logo-mania activewear constituting ‘hypebeast’youth subcultures, a trend evolving from micro to mass adoption (Nazir, 2019). Today, there are pure streetwear brands as well as streetwear derived from traditional sportswear names, for example: Adidas, Puma and Nike whom have developed their traditional athleisure portfolio to target this sector. It is estimated that currently, by sales, the size of the global streetwear market is at $185 billion making it about 10% of the entire global apparel and footwear market (Strategy&, 2020). This sector has seen a meteoric rise in popularity since 2017, when search volume of branded and unbranded streetwear terms grew by 157% (Jetley, 2019). A rising trend that is unexpected to plateau soon – further growth is expected over the next 5 years driven by casualization of workplace attire and younger buyers of luxury goods (Bain & Company, 2014).
“FIGURE 2”
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