“Her little black dress kind of won us over. It can be a new classic.” Those were the words of Virgil Abloh after Nensi Dojaka was announced as the winner of 2021 LVMH Prize for young designers earlier this year. If new figures from Vestiaire Collective are to be believed, then there are plenty of shoppers out there who feel the same.
Following Dojaka’s win and London fashion week debut, searches for her garms on the resale platform increased by 45 percent. Wilder still, they have now increased by 105 percent. The newcomer was hailed as one of the strongest victors in the award’s seven-year history, with Marc Jacobs remarking how, for the first time ever, the panel unanimously decided on the winner.
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Another interesting — and wholly unsurprising — tidbit from Vestiaire’s latest dump is that Balenciaga is in white-hot demand. Searches for “Balenciaga-Men” also rose 100 percent in response to Kanye’s DONDA project and Kim Kardashian’s Met Gala look. The site said expects those figures to rise further with the release of the luxury Fortnite capsule.
That Vestiaire cites a fashion contest, album “release,” and a celebrity party as the main driving forces behind both labels’ stratospheric increase in popularity highlights the MerchTainment effect in full swing. Or as Highsnobiety Editor-in-Chief Thom Bettridge put it in his big fashion week debrief, “MerchTainment is the fashion industry swallowing entertainment whole, at a time when no one could care less about a Grammy or an Oscar, and when many teenagers can name more creative directors than film directors. MerchTainment.” Read that piece in full here.