Hospitality: a new growth driver for fashion
With the rise of brand experiences and a renewed interest for in-store shopping, hospitality is having a moment, building crucial bridges between fashion and all things lifestyle.
“Hospitality is first and foremost a human quality” says Maxime Coupez, Head of Innovation and Foresight at Nelly Rodi. For 40 years the consulting agency has helped brands understand the world around them and define their strategy to adapt, in real time, to increasingly fast-paced changes. Maxime Coupez is adamant: the notion of hospitality is now at the crossroads of everything consumers are looking for, including fashion.
The art of welcoming
“Beyond transaction and sales, clients are looking for memorable experiences. They want to feel welcomed and cared for.” Says Maxime Coupez. In an increasingly nomadic world where we seek both belonging and singularity, where wellness and performance merge and where pleasure is reach through escaping, the spaces in which we consume are gaining importance. Beyond places to buy, they are becoming places to meet and to stage ourselves on social media, where we build a culture of self and community, boosted by the quality of the environment and the services they offer. A good product served in a nice place is no longer enough to earn our loyalty, the challenge for brands is now to stand the test of time through service and experience. And hospitality becomes a new expression, a way to exist beyond the product.
To tell, to engage, to recruit
A brand’s goal today is to create value through storytelling. The ideal brand is now defined by a global universe that embarks its customer through space, time and sensation. In this perspective, the setting must be in tune with the neighborhood in which it is located and the service must be as desirable as the product. For an increasing number of luxury brands, the entry level is no longer the key ring but the coffee that you can drink within a branded space. Hospitality thus establishes as a new growth driver, embodied by salespeople who now act as ambassadors, and carefully thought-out sales rituals: wellness moments, small gestures and customization. Nothing is too much to expand a brand’s universe.
At the crossroads of industries
Through this new dynamic, all lifestyle industries intersect within the same experience. Wellness, food, fashion and culture merge in spaces where a clothing brand now offers spa, food and sports services, and where hotels and restaurants now have their own merchandising lines. Museums and cultural centers are also key ingredients, fueling brand narrative by playing on a more intellectual register.
Café Kitsuné, tea from the Ritz, Jacquemus cinema and private clubs of all kinds set the tone for a new kind of hospitality, at the crossroads of identity, entertainment, community and exclusivity. One that could well extend to all areas of consumption in the future.
