The NEXT 20: Who Will Shape Youth Culture in 2021?

Now, over a year into the global pandemic, brands have adapted to the new realities of creating, and selling, online. Yes, the desirability drivers that once made up “luxury” — including superior quality, exclusivity, and a distinct design aesthetic — remain just as relevant as ever. But “agility” has become key in recognizing what other pillars drive excitement for today’s consumers. Smaller brands — those without an established mainstream global footprint, a heritage to keep in mind, and unlimited financial means — have always been able to be more agile, to their benefit in times like these. With these brands there often isn’t a set hierarchy in place, resulting in decisions being able to be made in real time, leaving more time to actually spend time exploring not just the trends in just product, but in consumer behavior of the communities they aim to speak. We found that this year’s winning brands demonstrated their understanding that culture is not something set in stone, but rather a dynamic built on a day-to-day basis in constant conversation. They also didn’t just broadcast to consumers, but to the broader culture that surrounded them as well. More than ever, that meant community-driven content over strictly brand-owned content, innovative 360 marketing campaigns (often with collaborators) over meaningless hard sells, and being quick to align with the real life values its consumers have over staying silent on important matters. In doing so, they changed from sellers of product, to creators of culture, media, and looked at a reality outside of fashion. These are brands that aren’t waiting for the wider fashion industry to invite them to their “honorable table,” and instead create their own. We see these characteristics with brands like ERL, Harris Reed, Post Archive Faction, and Pharrell’s Humanrace, all rising labels that have graduated from last year’s sub “on the rise” list to this year’s main slot.

Over in London, an emerging fashion boom is happening. When the 20 semi-finalists for the annual LVMH Prize were announced last month, six brands based in the British capital came up. They included Saul Nash and Nensi Dojaka, both alumni of Fashion East, the fashion incubator founded by The NEXT 20 advisory board member Lulu Kennedy. Both designers also feature on this year’s NEXT 20 brand list, along with fellow London-based labels Mowalola, Harris Reed, Maximilian, Dingyun Zhang, Story MFG, and now with Motherlan and Vivendii, both whose co-founders split their time between Nigeria and the UK. It’s a fashion renaissance of sorts. London, like the rest of the UK, has been hit hard since new Brexit regulations. So too for young designers who are included in the nearly one million individuals who work in the country’s £35 billion ($48 billion) fashion industry (which before the pandemic was growing roughly 11 percent year-on-year). And yet creativity arises. When new laws make VAT charges and handling fees incredibly complex, resulting in many shoppers outside of the UK to stop ordering from British businesses, creativity arises. When international wholesalers intentionally stop stocking British brands to save costs, creativity arises. And when severe delays at the border means designers suffer radical delays in fabrics and samples, they make it work, and creativity arises. The talent and grit coming out of this hardship is telling, the world no longer can ignore. Part of their perseverance, and subsequent international success, is their important approach towards storytelling, which they seamlessly translate into innovative content that in itself is seamlessly distributed across the right channels, all in the front of potential customers’ eyes. At a time when the playing field has become fully democratized by the pandemic, brands, big or small, battle online. It’s where smaller brands often win. They’re more agile, have an actual online community, an in-the-know eye for new talent, and overall lead fashion forward, not afraid of risk. Brands like Mowalola, Humanrace, Motherlan, Post Archive Faction, Story MFG, Bstroy, St Michael and Illegal Civ get it. The founders of all, surround themselves with creatives outside of the boundaries of fashion. They collaborate, showcase the local communities and subcultures that birthed them, and don’t adhere to a traditional fashion system that for years has dictated when to create, show and sell what product where. In ignoring these traditional fashion codes, they’ve become new age fashion brands, those whose every move is aimed at growing its brand universe, its visual identity, and consumer loyalty above anything else. Products, then, simply represent trophies of belonging for its fans. That mindset isn’t strictly reserved for the young brands on this list. Smart heavyweights like Marc Jacobs, Nike, and Birkenstock are successful because they reach the scale of a mega multinational while keeping the allure, cultural literacy, and agility, as demonstrated by the smaller brands on this list, alive by working with those more in the know than themselves. Nocta, Nike’s sub-line created in partnership with Drake, acts like a startup while leveraging the Canadian rapper’s global reach. It creates products, distributes its marketing, and works with creative collaborators in ways that its main Nike line never would have. The sportswear giant takes that similar approach with its ongoing collaborations with Cynthia Lu’s Cactus Plant Flea Market. Gap — who appointed Mowalola as design director of Kanye’s highly-anticipated Yeezy x Gap line — takes a note out of that playbook. So does Birkenstock who partnered with four Central Saint Martins students, including Dingyun Zhang, on experimental designs. Marc Jacobs’ newly formed sister line, Heavn — headed up by modern day polymath Ava Nirui — might be the best branding exercise we’ve seen in the past decade when it comes to breathing new life into a brand. And it works, with social mentions, average monthly Google searches, and purchases on Lyst growing significantly over the past three months. Investments well made.