Shoe Market Highlights: Single Slippers Become The Trend Of Youth

After masks, mobile phone cases and socks (click on the text to see the article), CEO brand watch continues to explore the seemingly ordinary emerging fashion items. This time, we turn to slippers.

In the past two years, the market of slippers has become more and more fierce, and the major brands are competing to get into the market. The sports slippers represented by yeezy slide have already become a sharp tool for the fashion people to create a concave shape, and also drive the traditional sports brands to actively develop the slipper market; The leisure slippers represented by "cave shoes" Crocs play a great role in creativity in products and cooperation forms, so that consumers can continue to "really fragrance"; And fashion and luxury brands like Givenchy, Gucci, Dior and other fashion and luxury brands have also launched related products... Once considered as "ugly slippers" that can not be used in the hall, they are developing in the direction of fashion and high-end.

Sports slippers keep coming out

From fitness scene to daily wear, sports slippers have a high rate of appearance. According to the 2021 current culture index released by stockx, the resale platform, sports slippers are the fastest growing footwear in that year, and they have won two of the top three brands in the list of transaction volume.

Among all the sports slipper brands, the personal brand yeezy of Kanye West has to be mentioned.

In 2018, yeezy brought the slipper product slides into public view. This kind of slipper adopts the Velcro type upper, which looks like bread on the surface. The design subverts the public's aesthetics and once arouses public interest. The following year, Kanye West and Adidas jointly launched yeezy slide, which not only gave the slippers a trendy label, but also made this piece enter a new market position in terms of pricing.

Since then, yeezy slide has been constantly updated. The color and integrated design of the palette not only breaks the traditional design style, but also has high recognition and texture. Today, the yeezy slide with a positive price of 500 / 600 yuan is still in short supply, and even the number of popular yards has a high premium in the secondary market.

Yeezy slide's positive market feedback has made many sports brands see the market demand of fashion sports slippers and expand their product layout one after another. In particular, domestic traditional sports companies and Guochao start-up brands have also followed this field rapidly and produced their own "representative works" of sports slippers.

Peak peak's state extreme slippers apply the running shoe technology "peak Taichi state pole" to sports slippers, which greatly improves the foot feeling and comfort. According to public reports, peak sold about 2.5 million pairs of state pole slippers in 2021, that is, for every three pairs of state pole series products sold, one pair is slippers.

In July this year, xDNA, a trendy brand of Tebu, introduced the Zen charm of Shaolin into the "Shaolin series" slippers made of Hunan sofa cloth in July this year. It integrates the charm of Shaolin into the slippers, and integrates beauty, comfort and creativity into one, which makes many fashionable people feel moved.

In terms of old domestic sports brands, Li Ning's Wade way series slippers and 361 degree Ag slide slippers are all slippers with better appearance and comfort, which also have a good market response. At the same time, the new brand is not willing to be outdone.

Eqlz Inc., a sports shoe brand owned by local sports technology company eqlz Inc., launched a slipper named oasis oasis last year. With its unique shape and comfortable foot feeling, it has become a net red model, and one shoe is hard to find. Eqlz, a new and cutting-edge sneaker brand launched by the company in May this year, has also chosen sports slippers as its products.

Uzis, a local fashion sports brand founded on professional basketball socks, not only cooperates with peak state slippers to promote the combination of "sports slippers + basketball socks", but also launched its own footwear product "the step" sports slippers in March this year, in which supercritical materials are used.

It is not difficult to see that sports slippers are gradually becoming a new growth product of sports brands. At the same time, domestic brands are also making efforts in the application of science and technology and modeling design, forming a competitive situation with international brands.

"Ugly slippers" superimposed fashion buff

The emergence of sports slippers has raised the threshold of fashion and comfort for consumers, attracted fashion brands to pay close attention to the category of slippers, and accelerated the trend of leisure shoes brands such as Crocs (demand area: 30-70 square meters, representative projects: Beijing Century Jinyuan shopping center, Wuhan Huiju shopping center, etc.), birkenstock.

Recently, Crocs, which is famous for its "cave shoes", and 7-Eleven, a convenience store brand, jointly launched four products. Among them, China's limited color matching products have opened the lottery in China on October 9.

In recent years, this controversial shoe brand in the fashion industry is the joint name of many brands. The famous brand effect and celebrity effect constantly promote it to become a sharp tool for people's concave modeling.

Up to now, Crocs has co branded with luxury brand Balenciaga and launched popular products such as high-heeled hole shoes and thick soled hole shoes; Cooperate with the Japanese fashion brand beams to add tassels, beads and other fashion elements to the hole shoes; Hand in hand with Shangguan, a Chinese fashion designer, to create Crocs clog with detachable shoe cover

With the continuous co branding, Crocs's fashion buff is full, and Jibbitz accessories enable consumers to show their individuality. At the same time, the brand also aims at different seasons and scenes to create shoes that can win the favor of young consumers, such as warm cotton shoes suitable for autumn and winter, woolen slippers for outdoor sports, etc.

As a result of a series of combinations, Crocs achieved a record revenue of $2.3 billion (about 14.6 billion yuan) in 2021, an increase of 66.9% over the same period in 2020, and a sharp rise of 132.3% in net profit to $725 million. Nowadays, Crocs is also accelerating the development of this potential market in China. At present, Crocs has set up off-line stores and counters in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities.

Besides Crocs, birkenstock, a German shoe brand, has injected fashion into slippers.

Birkenstock, known for its comfort, launched the "1774" trend product line in 2018 to fill the market gap in the high-end field. In addition, birkenstock has cooperated with Valentino, Dior, St ü ssy, ader error and so on, and the products are all eye-catching.

Last year, birkenstock was acquired by LVMH's private equity fund L catterton, valued at $4.9 billion.

In addition, Jil sander, Maison Margiela, Melissa and many other brands are "Researching" slippers, trying to speed up the circle through the categories of slippers.

The reason why "ugly slippers" can become a trend is closely related to the strong demand of contemporary consumers for leisure, practical and simple items. On the other hand, it also benefits from the constant increase in the functional and timely fashion of slippers, which makes this piece change its negative image of "local flavor" and "cheap".

Summary:

The lazy and luxurious aesthetic has become an important part of popular culture. The fashionable and high-end "ugly slippers" have attracted people inside and outside the circle to switch from "really ugly" to "really fragrant".

In the future, slippers will gradually expand from leisure occasions to broader scenes. The domestic slipper industry has been in the low-end stage, and there are few middle and high-end brands. The branded slippers may stand out in the convoluted track. To highlight the business philosophy and establish brand barriers are the issues that brands need to focus on.