retail buyer’s guide
RETAIL BUYER’S GUIDE
WOMEN’S STREETWEAR SS21
Skateboarding’s pandemic boom seems to have had a trickle-over effect on the women’s streetwear market. An overview of the SS21 category collections by Natalia Maruniak.
Photo Protest
The streetwear hype of recent years is still going strong and the negative effects of the Covid-19 crisis on many companies seem to be moderate for most streetwear brands. "It may sound paradox, but the pandemic affected our business more positive than negative because we mostly sell online," explains Julian Wolf, Head of Marketing at Homeboy. According to him, the reason is customer demographics: "Customers over 35 were afraid of reduced work hour (or furlough) and lower income, while the customers between 16 and 29 couldn’t spent their money at events or clubs. They were bored at home and why not spend the money you saved over the weekend on clothes?" Santa Cruz are upbeat too, "apart from a few unavoidable delays here and there we’ve come out of it relatively unscathed so far," says Santa Cruz Brand Manager Joe Bourne, attributing this to the global skateboarding boom that is positively impacting the streetwear market. Although the launch of the SS21 collections were faced with challenges for brands and retailers such as cancelled shoots, missing samples and delivery bottlenecks, most brands managed to overcome these by optimising their online presence and digitalisation. "Thanks to an enormous growth in online sales through our own web shop and marketplaces, we have managed to get through these trying times. A continuing effect of Covid-19 seems to be the increase in online sales," 85
reports Ine Wouters, Head of Womenswear Design at Protest. In the wake of the pandemic, the brand has switched from a traditional sales book to the online B2B tool Elastic Suite. This makes it possible to view and order the collections without visiting the showroom - a great advantage in times of travel and social contact restrictions. Iriedaily also got off lightly. Like many other brands, they did not integrate all the new planned styles into the SS21 line and incorporated carry-overs: "In an attempt to give the styles a longer life," says Denise Graff, Brand Marketing Manager of Iriedaily. Key Trends: Unisex and Oversized Unisex is (still) one of the big buzzwords in the SS21 Women's Streetwear collections. “The boundaries between the genders are becoming increasingly blurred and will, at least as far as streetwear is concerned, more or less disappear completely in SS21. Women are already wearing more baggies than men and the “boyfriend-look” will no longer be inspired by men, but by women themselves,” Julian Wolf of Homeboy states. Among the key looks of the unisex style are baggy pants, which "thanks to the skate scene baggies will finally be all the way back in 2021 and we can proudly say, that we are the original," he adds proudly. A modern version of the 90's original, the high-waisted X-tra Baggy Pants, is available to accompany the comeback. Iriedaily is also
