For some time now, Moncler, the down jacket brand, has been expressing its personality with more than its usual models. Each season, a related label called Genius invites an outside designer to bring its own vision on the brand’s offer. A rather unprecedented move in a sector that is used to having its own talent, deemed as an all-powerful demiurge. It requires an excellent organization, since, in parallel to this ballet of capsules, the permanent lines keep living as if nothing happened. As a result, since the launch of Genius, the brand has touched new audiences, gained in modernity and agility, and created a buzz. Quite a lot…

This strategy deserves attention because it could represent the future for collaborations, now flourishing on all markets.  Usually, brands team up to combine signatures embodied by an emblematic product (the invited brand bends to the reality of the inviting brand). The logic of Genius, though, resides in its radicality since the concept is open to experimentation and to going beyond borders. Extravagant sizes, reinvented looks, outrageous materials. The stated objective is to create astonishment, to surprise, to break out of the brand’s codes to provoke reactions and create  newness.

Today, a brand that doesn’t provoke a debate is a brand that loses points… In the fashion industry, this temptation to let someone else take the wheel is growing. After its alliance with Versace for a collection, Fendi recently partnered with Kim Kardashian’s brand SKIM, and Aigle asked the ultra sharp design studio Etudes to imagine an offer. At the beginning of January, Gap approached Yeezy (created by Kanye West) to produce drops, then Burberry with its “creative series” called Friends and Family built on the idea of collaboration with designers from unexpected backgrounds. A celebration of friendship, style and family, according to the press kit.

The emergence of a new marketing approach is confirmed. It consists of a brand taking a step to the side to get closer to another world. The “marketing crab” was born.