Do you speak fashion vocabulary ?. Well even if you don’t we’ll get you speaking it in no time.
Ever wondered in which market segment all of your favorite brands fall? If your answer is yes, we’ve got the answers you’ve been searching for. The most important criteria to segment a market is price. Here we are talking more about the brands and not so much about the company as the same company may have different brands under its belt in different market segments. For instance Armani has Prive, Giorgio Armani, Collezioni, Emporio Armani, Armani Exchange, and so on all in different segments.
The fashion Pyramid has 5 price segments. On the top we have Haute Couture, then we have Ready to Wear, Diffusion, Bridge, and Mass Market. The higher the positioning on the pyramid, higher the price gets, and the same goes for level of creativity and quality and therefore, the value proposition that is offered to the customer.
Let's start the analyzation from the top of the Pyramid.
1.Haute Couture
Haute Couture is celebrated as the highest form of fashion, all the dresses are bespoke, meaning they are stitched by hand from start to finish. Dresses that we find here are mainly for the red carpet events which are most often times attended by celebrities and high profile individuals. Haute Couture includes brands such as Chanel, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent
2.Ready to Wear
Below Haute Couture we have Ready to Wear. All the clothes in this segment also happen to be very high quality but they are industrialised so they are not as much expensive as Haute Couture. Yet the creativity and craftsmanship of these products is something that is adorned by everyone. Ready to wear includes brands such as Ralph Lauren, Laura Biagiotti, Isabel Marant
3.Diffusion
In order to expand their market range designers moved from top, down to Ready to wear to a market range that was more affordable. It is called a second young line and it occupies the market segment named diffusion . They are relatively more affordable as they are produced in bulk, most of the times outsourced. Diffusion includes brands such as Versus for Versace, DKNY for Donna Karan, Marc for Marc Jacobs
4.Bridge
As the name suggests Bridge, this segment brides the gap between high end and mass market. Key here is to offer customers the right level of creativity while simultaneously providing the right value for money. Bridge includes brands such as Diesel, Emporio Armani, Massimo Dutti
5.Mass Market
At the lowest end of the pyramid we have Mass market, this segment consists of the products that are produced on a large scale and they often serve for the people’s day to day needs of clothing. Mass-market producers target different customers, different occasional views, as well with-in different price ranges. Mass Market include brands such as Zara, H&M, Mango.
