Louis Vuitton Readies for Summer With New Ready-to-Wear Capsule

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Following up on its spring-ready Alma bags, Louis Vuitton has now launched its 2021 Summer womenswear capsule designed by Nicolas Ghesquière. The lineup features fun ready-to-wear garments, as well as dreamy leather goods and accessories.

A gradient theme is spotted throughout the handbag collection on oversized monogram patterns. Summery hues such as coral orange, sky blue and pastel pink are splashed onto the fashion house’s key silhouettes ranging from the Papillon BB and NéoNoé, to the Onthego and Marshmallow. The purses are accessorized with tropical leather charms in the shape of flowers and leaves.

As for garments, a loose-fitted jumpsuit dons a similar theme, while monogram prints and bold stripes take over a series of shirts, shorts and more. The Damier check is splashed onto a dress, jacket, swimwear and bodysuit.

Scroll through the gallery above for a closer look. Louis Vuitton’s Summer 2021 womenswear capsule is now available at all stores.

How Supreme-Style Merch Drops Took Over Corporate America

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To the outsider, it can all sound kind of insufferable. But for direct-to-consumer startups — many of them born in the Instagram age, run by Gen Z founders, courting Gen Z customers, and trying to outsmart snowballing customer acquisition costs — it’s not surprising that merch has become a favorite tool for building brand awareness and creating community on the cheap. Whether or not they are actually buying your core product, merch with a point of view can resonate with people who are somehow finding it to be a form of self-expression. And even if it doesn’t generate significant revenue on its own — not usually the point, anyway — it’s essentially free advertising. “If you can monetize brand marketing, it means you can do endless marketing,” says Witte. “That is a competitive advantage.”

Perhaps no direct-to-consumer startup has so deftly managed the product-merch-and-Instagram tribe-building strategy as Glossier, the cult beauty brand launched by blogger Emily Weiss in 2014 that popularized minimal makeup for people who don’t really need any. The company’s first merch, a gray crewneck sweatshirt with “Glossier” in collegiate lettering, was handed out to employees and selected influencers starting in 2014. But once customers saw it on their social feeds, they started clamoring for it, prompting the company to release a limited line of clothing and then, in 2019, formally launch Glossiwear, a brand-within-the-brand featuring limited-edition merch and a “permanent collection.” The majority of items in its first drop sold out within hours or days; the company’s popular millennial pink hoodie — spotted on celebrities like Timothée Chalamet, Amy Schumer, and Iris Apfel — had a prelaunch waitlist of 10,000 people. Another 10,000 signed up for a restock, which got permanent-collection status this May. A back-of-envelope calculation shows that those first 20,000 hoodies alone added nearly $1 million to the top line.

Newer DTC startups are building entire merch arms from day one. Cessario, the CEO and co-founder of Liquid Death, a Santa Monica-based startup that sells water in a tallboy can with the promise to “murder your thirst” approaches merch like a musician might. The three-year-old company, which sells online and is also the fastest-growing water brand at Whole Foods, raised a total of $32 million in VC funding in 2020. Part of that funding has gone to 50-plus Liquid Death-branded products now being sold on its website, including “skull warmers,” an Eternal Death hoodie ($54), a Koozie Death Pack ($16 for a 4-pack), stickers, onesies, and bibs. “A band’s core product is music, but they know that apparel is a huge part of building their audience loyalty,” he says. “Bands have multiple revenue streams and take every part seriously. That’s our approach.”

Cessario, a former creative director and copywriter at companies like VaynerMedia, sees Liquid Death’s apparel — with its over-the-top heavy metal aesthetic — as a walking billboard, a point-of-sale dealmaker, and a tribe-builder. “If they’re wearing the shirt, what do you think the chances are that when they wander into 7-Eleven, see Liquid Death, they buy it because they’re wearing the shirt. It builds an emotional connection.” It’s only apt that the brand has taken it one step further — now also selling its Chainsaw Massacre trucker hat at select 7-Eleven stores too.

If all of this seems like some kind of obscure commercial performance art created by the youngs in startupland, then you haven’t been paying attention to what is simultaneously happening inside the biggest consumer packaged goods companies. On November 17, just in time for mid-pandemic holiday shopping, the Nestle subsidiary Stouffer’s dropped its first collection of merch, catering to folks whose idea of a good time involves donning a mac and cheese hoodie ($50), a Lasagna Dreams adult-sized onesie ($65), or “Catching Some Mac & Z’s” in a $95 sleeping bag. (The Annals of Merch 2020 will have a striking overrepresentation of pajamas, loungewear, slides, “hotel slippers,” blankets, and puzzles — a weird reflection of human priorities during the Covid shutdown.) All these items “perfectly align with our brand values,” a Nestle spokesperson tells Marker in an email. “Fans,” she says, are encouraged to keep an eye on Stouffer’s social channels to look out for “drops and re-stocks.” Reminder: This is a multibillion-dollar Swiss multinational, the largest food and beverage company in the world.

Arizona Beverage Company — the 99-cent-a-can iced tea maker that you might have thought peaked in the ’90s — has been in the obscure merch game for nearly a decade. The 28-year-old company has grown to over $1 billion in annual sales while forgoing traditional ad spending, relying instead on the design of its oversized cans, brand legacy, social media, and merch. Its massive e-commerce shop, launched in 2013, currently sells everything from skateboard decks ($44.99) and skimboards ($59.99) to silk blossom-print pajamas ($120 for full set).

Arizona also understood earlier than most that if there was a gateway drug to creating brand hypebeasts, it’s sneakers.

“By not spending a ton of money on billboards and commercials we have been able to keep our price point [at 99 cents] for as long as we have,” says CMO Spencer Vultaggio. “Apparel has become such a huge part of our identity that we create supporting merchandise for almost all our brand initiatives.”

The best new menswear to buy now: relaxed workwear, sportswear and floral shirts

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Overhauling your wardrobe every season now seems excessive, particularly when many lockdown purchases never got the airtime they deserved and some are still fully tagged. The key to a fresh wardrobe? Pieces that spark joy. Consider colour — something bright and bold is more than welcome after 12 months of slouching. Grown too attached to your trackie bottoms? Fear not, elasticated waistbands are everywhere, even on office-friendly pieces.

Find our edit of the best menswear pieces below.

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