When Virgil Abloh became the artistic director for the iconic fashion house that is Louis Vuitton, the fashion industry was waiting excitedly waiting to see how the streetwear mogul was going to do when taking the reigns of a more traditionally styled label.
However after the creative’s debut collection recently dropped widely across the globe, the numbers came in and apparently the brand has seen a major increase in sales. As for why it is just apparent, numbers haven’t been officially released as all details remain within the company. However, the CEO, Michael Burke, did report that within two days of opening, the Tokyo pop-up alone outsold the Supreme collection by 30%.
Although this sounds like a major win, many are more sceptical of what this means as the previously-mentioned collaboration was, of course, a lot more limited and featured far fewer products. Furthermore, the target audience for the Supreme collaboration was more streetwear-based and those who would have liked to have bought it probably didn’t want to fork out the amount labelled on the hefty price tags, contrary to the average Louis Vuitton fan.
However, this doesn’t mean Virgil and his team are faking the success, of course the designer and the house have had a huge success on their hands. But, the decision to compare the SS19 collection to the Supreme collab’s sales was likely made in order to catch headlines and increase the confidence of the shareholders, as although it’s true, it shouldn’t be used an accurate marker to measure the success of the offerings.
