What makes a luxury product worth buying now?

That question sits at the center of the industry’s current reset. Consumers are researching more extensively before they buy — moving between AI tools, resale platforms, social media, and editorial recommendations — while price increases have raised expectations around quality, durability, versatility, and service. As a result, brands are under growing pressure to demonstrate the value of products beyond design alone.

At the same time, luxury houses are entering a new creative era. After 18 months of sweeping changes across brands including Chanel, Dior, Gucci and Bottega Veneta, the industry is moving into the commercial reality of translating new creative direction into products consumers actually want to own.

This spring, Matthieu Blazy’s debut collection for Chanel offered one of the clearest examples of how luxury product strategy is evolving. The pieces that generated the biggest frenzy — two-tone slingbacks, ballerinas, and East-West bags — were not radical departures from Chanel’s heritage, but carefully reimagined versions of recognizable house codes. Social media filled with videos of queues outside boutiques in Paris, London and New York, as customers raced to secure pieces before they sold out.

The response demonstrated the enduring power of familiarity when paired with freshness, says Roopal Patel, luxury expert and former SVP of the fashion office at Saks Global. “[Blazy] took the iconic codes of the house, and, rather than reinvent them, brought a bit of newness for this chapter for Chanel,” she says. “It created a frenzy and a buzz for iconic classics.”

“I was in Paris when the Chanel shoes were delivered. I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Lisa Aiken, Vogue’s executive fashion director and Condé Nast’s SVP of fashion and lifestyle shopping. “It was a masterclass in driving demand.” In May, Chanel credited its positive 2025 financial performance to “exceptional creative momentum” and excitement surrounding Blazy’s debut show (the company returned to growth, hitting $19.3 billion in revenues).

The balance between continuity and novelty is becoming increasingly important across luxury, as brands attempt to sustain desirability in a more selective market. Aiken notes that average order values across brands and products are up around 30% year-on-year on Vogue’s affiliate business, Vogue Shopping, while average order volumes have declined double digits. And while sneakers, ballet flats, and everyday fashion staples continue to generate high volumes of clicks and browsing activity, higher-priced categories such as jewelry, handbags, and luxury ready-to-wear are driving a greater share of commission revenue. “People are shopping less often, but at a higher price point,” she says.

Vogue Business’s cross-market consumer survey reinforces this. Luxury shoppers spent the most on watches and jewelry over the past 12 months (€1,675 on average), followed by handbags (€1,213). The highest performing clothing category was outerwear (€808), while respondents spent an average of €410 and €403 on bottoms and tops, respectively. The findings show luxury spending is concentrating around categories associated with longevity, collectability, or repeat wear.

Luxury’s product reset is therefore not a question of lowering prices, chasing trends, or retreating into timeless basics. Instead, brands are being pushed to create products that can survive deeper scrutiny while still generating excitement and desire.

“There’s this myth that in order for something to be sellable, it has to be very commercial, very basic, very plain,” says Patel. “I think it’s the opposite. The customer is looking for something unique, designed with creativity in mind, that can stand the test of time.”

Step 1: Understand how products gain traction now

Shopping for fashion remains deeply emotional. “Fashion is about seduction, connectivity, and desirability,” says Patel. “It moves something in you.”

However, the amount of information available to consumers has expanded dramatically, with significant implications for brands. Focus group participants described shopping journeys that moved fluidly between editorial recommendations, resale platforms, AI search, social media, and store associates — often all laddering up to the same purchase decision.

One participant in Mexico described researching The Row’s Margaux bag extensively through TikTok and YouTube, because the product was unavailable in bricks-and-mortar stores locally. “I trust a lot of online reviews [and] I always go to TikTok. I really get along with my sales associates, too, so I ask them what they think about the product and the insights they get from the brand,” they explained.

Others described using AI tools such as ChatGPT to compare prices or authenticate items before buying; using reverse image search tools such as Google Lens to identify products spotted on the street; relying heavily on newsletters for product recommendations; or using resale platforms and peer reviews to validate whether products are genuinely worth the investment.

Our consumer survey suggests that, while traditional editorial authority still plays an important role, social media and other platforms are quickly catching up. Magazine and newspaper articles are the single source luxury consumers relied on the most to discover new products and brands (42%), followed by e-commerce sites (39%), social media (37%), and fashion shows (33%). Within this, discovery is materializing through a blend of editorial content, newsletters, creator recommendations, TikTok styling videos, and affiliate-driven shopping edits.

At the same time, new forms of algorithmic discovery are beginning to emerge: while still nascent, 10% of luxury shoppers already use AI search tools such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude to discover products and brands.

Aiken says the rise of social commerce and creator-led discovery is fundamentally reshaping the role of multi-brand retail, and forms part of the rationale behind the launch of Vette, Condé Nast’s new creator-led marketplace. “That idea of trust — whether it’s how to style or what to invest in — is now at an individual level rather than a brand level.” This helps to explain why trends themselves are weakening, she adds: “There are subtle evolutions, but everything is focused on personal style now.”

Step 2: Give consumers clearer value signals

As products come under greater scrutiny, brands are being forced to communicate value more clearly and in ways that extend beyond craftsmanship alone.

While quality and materials remain fundamental, consumers now evaluate products through a broader mix of practical, emotional, and cultural considerations.

One shopper in Italy recalled damaging the leather patch on a pair of Bottega Veneta jeans in the dryer, and having it replaced free of charge by the boutique. “After sales is important,” they said. Others highlighted emotional connection and the in-store experience. A participant from Mexico recalled visiting JW Anderson’s Milan boutique with their mother. “They treated us like we were about to spend a million [dollars], even though it was one bag,” they added. “My mum fell in love with the brand because of that experience.”

Our brand-level survey findings underline the continued dominance of large-scale brands with highly recognizable products — particularly leather goods and accessories businesses. Gucci and Ralph Lauren emerged as the most widely purchased brands over the past year, each bought by 37% of respondents, followed by Hermès (33%), Louis Vuitton (32%), Dior (31%), Prada and Chanel (both 30%). Coach and Longchamp, both purchased by 22% of respondents, also performed strongly, suggesting high-spending consumers are responding to brands that offer a sharper price-to-value equation, alongside recognizable product signatures and everyday usability.

Coach has been among the clearest examples of brands repositioning around that value equation. CEO Todd Kahn says the company’s “expressive luxury” strategy was developed around the insight that younger consumers increasingly seek emotional connection and self-expression alongside quality and accessibility. “If you’re just selling functionality, that’s not emotional. It doesn’t create brand loyalty,” he argues.

Coach’s marketing spend has risen from around 3% of sales historically to north of 12%. But rather than leading solely with craftsmanship messaging, Coach has focused on storytelling and identity-driven campaigns designed around consumer behaviors and cultural insights. As part of its latest campaign, which was inspired by Gen Z’s growing interest in reading culture and “digital diets”, the brand launched miniature readable books as bag charms.

Craftsmanship has to be tablestakes, says Kahn. “We take great pride in our craftsmanship. We are the original house of leather. Our manufacturing is as good as truly anyone’s well beyond our price point,” he explains. “And for a while, we leaned heavily on that. But that’s not emotional. No one needs our product. If you’re just selling functionality, that’s not emotional. It doesn’t create brand loyalty.”

Aiken agrees: “Everyone wants to tell the craftsmanship story, but I don’t know if that’s what’s driving the perception of value versus it being a must-have piece that everyone is talking about or from a show. Craftsmanship should be assumed.”

At the higher-value end, Aiken notes that consumers are still willing to invest, but are becoming more discriminating about where they spend, often pulling back on apparel while continuing to stretch for bags, jewelry, and shoes. “The aspirational recession [in ready-to-wear] is very tangible,” Aiken says. “People are not buying ready-to-wear at [a high] price point anymore.”

She points to growing momentum behind brands such as Toteme and Dôen, which occupy an increasingly influential middle ground between contemporary fashion and traditional luxury. Their appeal lies in offering design credibility with a sharper price-to-value equation — building demand around adaptable wardrobe staples such as sharply cut outerwear, elevated knitwear, and refined separates.

“They’re not contemporary brands and they’re not designer brands, they’re somewhere in the middle,” says Aiken. “That’s where a lot of our ready-to-wear sales are coming from. Even five years ago, that middle band didn’t really exist when you look at the scale of the brands that are there now.”

Price sensitivity, she adds, remains highly relevant even at the top end of luxury. “The idea that a luxury consumer doesn’t care about price is not true. If you can prove the value of your product, a luxury customer is there to show up — but [the price] needs to make sense.”

Step 3: Offer novelty without reinventing the wheel

Luxury’s strongest performing products are increasingly those that balance familiarity with enough newness to spark desire.

In fragmented digital environments, products with stable, distinctive silhouettes are easier to identify in fast-moving feeds, easier for AI systems to categorize, and easier for consumers to validate through repeat encounters. Miu Miu’s Penny loafers and New Balance collaborations, for instance, have become longtime hero products because they are both instantly recognizable and easily refreshed through seasonal materials and color updates.

The response to Blazy’s debut at Chanel has become emblematic of this shift. The collection generated intense demand around products that leaned heavily into familiar house signatures — from two-tone slingbacks to quilted bags and tweed tailoring — while subtly modernizing proportions and styling.

“The response to Matthieu Blazy’s debut confirms something that has always been central to Chanel: when products are deeply rooted in the house’s codes, they resonate immediately and endure over time,” says Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel fashion and Chanel SAS. “What we saw was not only strong demand, but engagement with pieces that were clearly identifiable as Chanel — through materials, silhouettes, details — while being expressed with a renewed modernity. Clients are looking for products that feel contemporary and relevant, but also anchored in a lasting identity.”

The same thinking is reshaping product strategy across luxury; rather than relying on constant reinvention, brands are investing more heavily in hero products that generate demand over multiple seasons.

Vogue Shopping data shows footwear dominates when it comes to both clicks and order volume, especially retro sneakers, ballet flats, and hybrid sport-fashion footwear — suggesting the category is functioning as a low-risk entry point to fashion. Notably, many of the footwear winners are heritage silhouettes that have been revived through cultural recirculation, such as the Adidas Samba, Puma Speedcat, Nike Cortez, and New Balance 574.

In this context, Coach has become more disciplined about extending the lifecycle of successful products. “In the past, we killed off our best bags too early,” says Kahn. Today, the brand’s biggest products, such as the Tabby, are evolved through seasonal updates in color, fabrication and detailing, while maintaining the core silhouette customers recognize.

“If you look at the best brands globally, they have a product that, with little tweaks, has been the same for 20, 30 years in some cases. That’s what it means to be timeless,” he adds. If you’re just chasing fashion, sometimes you’ll get it right; sometimes you’ll get it wrong. But you won’t be consistent.”

The strategy reflects a broader shift in how luxury consumers are evaluating products. Focus group participants spoke of gravitating toward items that feel culturally validated — whether through resale demand, repeated visibility across trusted channels, recognizable design signatures, or confidence that the product will retain relevancy over time.

That said, trends still influence purchasing behavior, especially in categories like sunglasses, says Patel. “You saw it with the transparent aviators — suddenly, all the girls are wearing it on Instagram, in street style photos. And then there are investment pieces — the icons from Chanel, Hermès, Dior, which you’re going to have for a really long time or resell. There’s room for both.”

Step 4: Turn product launches into cultural moments

As products become more heavily researched and socially circulated, luxury brands are borrowing tactics from streetwear to generate urgency and emotional participation around product drops.

Chanel’s rollout was a case study in how luxury houses are orchestrating product momentum across cities, social media, and retail environments simultaneously. Rather than launching globally all at once, products appeared sequentially across fashion capitals, amplifying anticipation and visibility at each stage. “That city-by-city launch strategy built this feeling of excitement,” says Aiken. “But all of that was around something fundamentally very recognizable — a Chanel two-tone shoe.”

The same logic is playing out further down the market. Aiken notes growing momentum for high street or mass-market players such as Zara, Cos, Mango and Gap, as these brands become increasingly sophisticated in using drops and collaborations to create urgency and desirability. Zara’s collaboration with Willy Chavarria, she notes, performed “exceptionally well”.

The success of these launches reflects a broader desire among consumers to feel connected to a cultural moment, not simply to own a product. That emotional layer is becoming even more important as luxury consumers navigate an environment saturated by product options and content. In practice, this means launches need to operate simultaneously as merchandising strategies, storytelling vehicles, and social signals.

At the same time, brands must carefully balance visibility with exclusivity. Viral products can quickly become overexposed, particularly as resale accelerates their circulation. Patel notes that luxury houses increasingly manage this tension through tiered distribution strategies: broad-access hero products sat alongside limited capsules, VIC exclusives, and differentiated assortments across channels and regions.

“It becomes part of the strategy,” she says. “Making sure there is different assortment and availability for different customer groups globally.”

Behind the scenes, luxury brands are becoming increasingly sophisticated about segmenting products and customer groups. Aiken argues that the old binary between “runway” and “commercial” product has become less explicit, even as brands continue to structure assortments around different levels of spend and aspiration. “Merchandising strategy is focusing on accessories,” she says. “That’s where [brands are] able to drive volume with a mass client. Whereas your ready-to-wear client is very elevated and is investing a pretty substantial share of their wallet with you.”

In a more selective market, luxury’s product reset is therefore not about choosing between creativity and commerciality, or between visibility and exclusivity. Luxury brands are moving away from the constant churn of seasonal novelty toward products with greater longevity. The challenge is balancing scale with scarcity: creating products visible enough to drive cultural momentum, while preserving the sense of individuality and exclusivity that luxury depends on.

The new rules of product

What’s over: Relying on novelty alone to drive demand. Assuming heritage or craftsmanship messaging is enough to justify rising prices. Launching new silhouettes every season at the expense of continuity.

What’s changing: Consumers are researching and validating purchases across editorial channels, resale, social, and AI before committing. Luxury value is being assessed more holistically — for example, through versatility, repairability, resale potential, and quality. Spending is concentrating around categories and products that feel easier to justify.

What wins now: Products that can withstand deeper scrutiny across price, quality, wearability, and long-term relevance — and balance continuity with enough novelty to sustain desire over multiple seasons. Brands that make value legible through service, storytelling, emotional connection, and aftercare. Creating cultural moments around launches while maintaining consistency.

Spotlight on: Todd Kahn, CEO, Coach

Coach has built a strong position around modern, accessible luxury. How are you thinking about product strategy today — and what feels most important to get right in the current environment?

People sometimes say Gen Z are fickle, but they’re not. They just have so many more choices, and they often do deep research before making a purchase. So we must speak to them in an authentic way. When we started to focus on Gen Z, we learned that self-expression was very important to them. When you go from adolescence to adulthood, there are moments where you want to put on a certain outfit because you know that it’s going to give you confidence. We want Coach to be that for them.

One of the things we like about our expressive luxury positioning is that we are still aspirational. We still have integrity of design and are not following trends, yet we’re very approachable on price positioning; $200-500 is our sweet spot. I don’t want someone to have to save four months of their salary to buy a handbag. Our Tabby bag, which is our flagship icon today, has so much value. It will look good five or 10 years from now. I think that value equation is very important, and the consumer sees it.

The path to purchase is so non-linear now. Everyone’s got all this information coming at them in different ways. How do you respond to that as a brand?

There are really no barriers to entry in our category. If you design a great bag and you get it on the right influencer, you can probably get it to pop. You no longer need to be stocked at a certain retailer to sell — you can have a direct-to-consumer business. To do it at scale, though, takes a lot.

When I look at the way we spend on marketing, it’s not performance marketing. The large majority is upper to mid-funnel — it’s focused on storytelling and brand-building. We do two campaigns a year, but what we do differently now is we don’t start with the product in mind. We start with a consumer insight. When you think about our current campaign, Explore Your Story, Gen Z loves books; they want a digital diet. And in fact, they have such a sense of community — they love book clubs, knitting circles, mahjong. And it’s pretty universal. It’s not just a North American or European construct. It resonates equally well in China, Japan and throughout the world. So we took the idea of a long-story format and created the Explore Your Story campaign, where we use our brand ambassadors and create these fun, fully readable books as bag charms. We do show how wonderful these book charms look on the Tabby bag, but that’s secondary.

What is resonating with customers at the moment?

Stuart Vevers [executive creative director at Coach] and the design team have done a great job constantly bringing newness to the Tabby. The Tabby is a very ownable shape. It has wonderful leather and the ‘C’ hardware, which is unique to us. And that gives it [a strong] brand identity.

We also have the New York family, led by our Brooklyn bag. It is only about two years old, and yet it has really jumped to icon status. It doesn’t have all the natural attributes of a great bag: it doesn’t have an adjustable shoulder, a strap. It has very demure branding. It has very little functionality inside. But it’s still a great bag that is so wearable. And the Terry bag has been a TikTok sensation.

The focus today is on amplifying our icons. We may change the material, we may change the hardware. And then, part of the expressive luxury concept is you can put a bag charm on it, put a chain on it. Because of the many permutations, it can be unique and bespoke to you.

What’s interesting today is that it’s the younger generation who particularly loves the product. There was a period of time when Coach wasn’t cool. Now, daughters are bringing their mothers in to shop and the mothers are digging out their old Coach bags from 25 years ago, which have become so iconic. That connectivity is very important. If you try to service every generation and be something for everyone, you fail. So we make sure we’re winning with the youngest generation, and because of their outsized influence, we’re seeing retention across all ages.

Vintage is also becoming a bigger part of the picture. There was always [something] cool in finding vintage treasures and thrifting, but it’s now become much more embedded into the journey. And I think that’s lovely, because you really get that feeling of people starting to appreciate products that last.