Coach and Burberry and Tory Burch, Oh My! It's The Era Of The Brand Renaissance
Nostalgia is a huge force influencing the fashion world, with a lot of past favorites currently rising in popularity. What does this mean for brands?
If you don’t believe that fashion trends come back around, just take a look at the state of the fashion world in 2025. Coach, after its vintage bags were labeled by British Vogue as “Gen-Z’s Must-Have Accessory”, has seen an 800% surge in popularity this year*. Today, Coach shoulder bags and clutches are all over the biggest TV shows of the moment, Amazon Prime’s The Summer I Turned Pretty and HBO Max’s And Just Like That.
And it’s not just Coach that’s back. The Burberry bikini is the luxury item of the summer, with Burberry’s stock, after a rough financial patch, currently up 13% YoY. And, last year, Tory Burch started increasing nearly 40% in popularity every month on average*, and is currently a favorite among fashion's insiders and shoe fanatics.
It’s pretty remarkable to see. Today, there are more fashion brands than ever putting out new collections, and the competition is fierce. And with the luxury industry currently in a bit of a slump, winning over consumers is more important than ever.
But in the battle of which brands grab consumers’ attention and wallets, it seems people are going back to familiar names that have been around for quite some time—The Coaches and Burberrys and Tory Burches of the world. Why?
THE BIGGEST FASHION TREND RIGHT NOW IS…NOSTALGIA?
The idea of nostalgia being a strong and emotional driver for consumers is not a new one. Just listen to critics of how all movies nowadays are basically just sequels. They’re not wrong. In 2024, the top 10 highest-grossing movies of the year were sequels. And the nostalgia factor doesn’t seem to be winding down any time soon.
The Devil Wears Prada, a fashion fanatic favorite which premiered in 2006, is currently filming a sequel. Sex and the City, which debuted in 1998, landed on Netflix just last year, and is making waves among a new generation of loyal fans. One of this summer’s biggest premieres is a follow-up to the 2003 comedy Freaky Friday, with lead actress Lindsay Lohan using press tour looks to reference her old movies and roles. And even though Clueless just celebrated its 30th anniversary, the fashion from the movie—and its famous smart closet app—is still discussed, dissected, and used as inspiration.
Naturally, as these cultural moments contain a strong element of fashion, the influence of nostalgia spills over into fashion trends. Favorites from the 90s and early 2000s—low-rise jeans and Converse and Balenciaga city bags and bandage dresses as per Alaïa and Hervé Léger—have all seen significant resurgences in popularity in the past year.
So it’s no longer just runway shows that dictate what becomes popular among the masses, as per Miranda Priestly’s famous “cerulean blue” monologue. Today, the playing field has widened and nostalgia, influencing movies and music and culture and fashion, too, is a top contender.
But in fashion, when new trends are introduced almost daily and cycles change sometimes in just a matter of weeks, how does this make sense? When we have an endless supply of new trends to obsess over…why aren’t we out with the old?
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