Cookies and analytics
We use necessary cookies for sign-in, security and preferences, and optional cookies for analytics, better recommendations and advertising measurement. Privacy Policy.
Fashion, Fast Fashion, Sustainability
Mediocre Luxury
By Jean-Paul Bakkenist
·
12 November 2026
·
10 min read
The lines between fast and so-called luxury fashion has become blurrier, with the COSes of this world adopting the luxury aesthetic but with polyamide blends, while actual luxury has become increasingly aware how much it can get away with fast-fashion practices, while simultaneously increacing prices. But this same blurriness has allowed for a new form of fashion to emerge: one that is neither fast nor luxury.
A couple of years ago I linked a runway show of Our Legacy in one of the handful fashion Discord servers I was active in. One of my friends, whose opinion I respect given his own reverence for runway fashion and its history, immediately scoffed at it, saying that he doesn’t care about so-called mid-tier “fashion” labels and that he wouldn’t even call it fashion to begin with. This comment can be read as pretentious, but I nevertheless remember immediately understanding what he meant, even though I never necessarily thought about the hierarchy in this way. But ever since he said it, I could never really let go of it. Because he said something I probably already felt: that these kinds of brands are indeed a breed, and that they aren’t high fashion (if we agree that for something to be “high fashion” there needs to be some sort of artistic and sartorial innovation).
This is a topic I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time but have procrastinated for a variety of reasons. It’s important to note that I live in Stockholm, which will also form the basis of the brands I talk about. What continues to strike me is how it is home to brands that have proven to be immensely successful on a global scale over the two-or-so decades, coupled with the fact that they come from the same birth-place as fast-fashion (if we consider H&M its initial seed).
Our Legacy isn’t the only brand who positions itself in the space between fast-fashion and high fashion. That would make this entire article futile. It’s an entire category of brands, in which I would include the likes of Acne Studios, Toteme, Hope, Jeanerica, Filippa K, A Day’s March, Axel Arigato, and COS. I’m undoubtedly leaving out many, but this is enough to prove my point. And I also want to preface that I have more issues with some of them than others, for reasons that can’t rationally be explained at this point. And finally, to understand this category better, it also needs to be put in relation to the other tiers, which I will attempt to do.
Despite them not being capital F fashion, they still position themselves at the cultural forefront, and many of those who consume them would consider themselves at least moderately interested in fashion and culture. At least, they are concerned with appearing as such. But observing more attentively, they are mostly regarded by individuals whose interfacing with fashion is primarily marked by the algorithm, and typically stops at the point at which their favorite lifestyle influencers show their latest hauls. This is a huge market, and it’s exactly where these brands excel, in placing themselves in the right moments and places, and creating a product that is in line with the dominant aesthetic of the time. But what separates the mid-tier brand from the rest, is that they found a way of presenting the work as highly original or boundary-pushing and asking the price that is supposed to come with that. But in truth, they are like fast fashion, just with higher margins. And like fast-fashion, the only glimpse of innovation can arguably be observed on the level of simulacra (ie. brand concept), not in how they engage with the clothing material itself.
Arguments can be made that houses that were highly regarded, including YSL, Balenciaga, Gucci, etc operate similarly. They too have entire departments dedicated to measuring the cultural pulse, entire performance teams creating models to find out what’s selling, why and when, allowing LVMH and Kering to maximize profit. But, at least with some of the higher fashion houses, some of the profit still goes to some sort of sartorial and cultural exploration, such as the couture shows — where the point is not necessarily the maximization of sales, but a purer form of celebration of beauty. And at times even interesting conceptual critiques of itself. So what differentiates the mid-tier brand from high fashion brands is the complete lack of interest in innovation on the garment level — they are “pure product” packaged as “fashion that requires taste” but that, at the same time, doesn’t require any critical engagement with fashion itself. And because the entirety of the offering is simply a product that needs to sell, there’s no space and freedom for the unseriousness that serious fashion innovation requires.
The explosion of the so-called mid-tier fashion brand was of course also a result of the DTC boom that happened some years ago, during which entrepreneurs found out that commercial success doesn’t actually require innovation, but that the same old product in a new package is enough to spark people’s interest. I’ll argue that the people behind these brands are not creative talents, they are shrewd businessmen first-and-foremost, primarily adept in presenting an old thing in a new context; they excel in things that have nothing to do with clothing as such. Put differently, they have an eye for gaps in the market and innovate on the business level and they use clothes as a way to make money. But at the end of day, they simply flood the market with the same pair of jeans, wool cardigans, and straight wool pants “for any occasion”. Here I’m pointing at a specific species within the mid tier that seem to cater to career-oriented people whose biggest fear appears to be sticking out from the crowd. A brand that has seen huge global prosperity is Toteme, whose success in Asia I suspect stems from its aesthetic and its association with “Scandinavian minimalism”. But here on home soil it seems to cater to a particular upper-middle class persona whose notion of existential growth is confined to climbing the ranks in their e-commerce marketing department. The reason why I’m singling out this brand is because of the very apparent gap in their ideal customer and their actual customers. Not just that, there is a large gap in the brand they try to be and what they actually are: a blatant cross-over between The Row and Chanel, but cheaper. In fact, I’ll dare anyone to google “The Row runway” and “Toteme runway” right now and challenge them to see a difference. All I know is who was first, and who banked on the other’s success. I’ve been in their store a couple of times, either because I had to or out of pure curiosity. And the clothes aren’t well made to put it very bluntly, especially not for the money they are asking. So long as people can’t see the difference between Toteme and The Row/Chanel/Phoebe Philo on a flat screen, the former can use their strong branding to print money. But anyone who has a slight interest in how clothes are made, the difference can be quite glaring. So if it isn’t originality or quality that they got going for them, then what is left? A mere image of luxury and cultural preeminence similar to the more established houses, but without any sense of history or DNA.
Arguments can be made however, that we should always encourage attempts at someone chipping away at the pillars of traditional luxury, and sometimes houses need time; a DNA can always be reverse transcribed, quality can always be improved. Moreover, their business practice is similarly benevolent to fast-fashion (if we ignore all the drawbacks), by making the luxury aesthetic more accessible to more people. But people who argue this way (which more often than not will be business people) should also admit to the contradiction that then becomes apparent in their brand statements, which often is filled with the motivation of reducing waste through notions of “timelessness”. Something that the mid-tier fashion business space has a difficult time admitting, though, is that you can’t have the cake and eat it too.
People don’t just remember Phoebe Philos, Jil Sanders and Helmut Langs of this world because the clothes looked good, they also had a strong design vision, the clothes were well made and perhaps most importantly, they expanded fashion. Put differently, the material and innovation on garment-level came before the branding. With mid-tier brands, this is reversed. Nobody will care about the clothes in a couple of years because they have nothing going for them other than nostalgia and the capacity to capture and reproduce, rather than create, the cultural moment.
The eminence of these mid-tier “lifestyle” brands can also be read as a symptom of a systemic problem within fashion. We’ve seen well-established houses such as Dries van Noten bought up by groups and forced to make pre-collections and fragrance lines purely to make ends meet (or rather, satisfy the stakeholders). But what separates the likes of Dries van Noten from a mid-tier lifestyle brand is that there is a name to uphold and a loyal fanbase to please. At least there is a DNA and an incentive to preserve and expand it. That said, a part of me much rather sees the brand perish with the founder, similar to what happened to Y/Project, but that’s arguably a whole different topic.
The same symptoms can undoubtedly be observed in fashion academia, where the arduous process of becoming an educated fashion designer paints a startling juxtaposition with the apparent ease with which the entrepreneur-with-an-idea-and-some-extra-cash can erect a DTC lifestyle brand out of nowhere. And this is maybe the source of most of my personal resentment with the current fashion “business” space. The process of becoming a designer is typically marked by three-to-five tireless years in the studios of fashion school, at least three unpaid internships, having your work scolded at by some retired designer-turned-teacher, all the while being financially limited to the culinary choice between instant noodles and stale bread as you land back in your 25 sqm overpriced rental, knowing that actually making it on your own is slim-to-zero. And if they don’t know, they will slowly come to that realization. In other words, the combination of reverence, talent and luck required to make it from your first drawings to running your own house is almost non-existent. The majority of those graduating end up working for someone else, despite a large portion of their education being made to prepare people to design entire runway shows and run a business themselves. In fact, they’ll likely end up at some of the aforementioned brands — and if they do, they should be “happy”. But do individuals who’ve gone through hell and progressively seen their own fantasies crushed really want to work for glorified marketing people? No. But it’s the only career path that is available to them. From what I know about the curriculum, it has slowly transitioned from a focus on design and making to how to navigate the zeitgeist. Or, from the freedom to explore one’s own artistry to a preparation for survival. Some of them do make it out of the gutter somewhat alive and manage to make a dent in the regional scene, such as projects like Hodakova and Rave Review. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they struggle being seen in the AI-powered performance marketing e-commerce hellscape continuously flooded with variations of the same thing, where the primary mode of thinking revolves around creating a seamless UI and generating clicks. Put differently, most of the resources are poured into things that have nothing to do with clothing.
Again, mid-tier brands, though trying hard not to appear as such, are basically fast-fashion with a higher price. And I will argue they generate the same eventual negative repercussions on our planet, even if they like to position themselves as so-called “timeless luxury” and occasionally like to sprinkle their brand statements with words such as “circularity”. They are the opposite, precisely because those narratives are the only thing they got going for them. For this same reason, they won’t be remembered or hold their value on the second-hand market, exactly because their business and clothes represent a mere response to the moment, rather than creating a moment themselves with something that expands what fashion can be. All the brands that I mention in this article are as wasteful and devoid of sophistication as the conglomerates that are under continuous scrutiny by our culture, such as Zara and H&M, and we should stop pretending that the clothes are good.
op-ed
Keep finding great pieces.
Join KURB to get alerts on the brands and items you actually care about, across every resale platform.