Dive Brief:

• The Saks Luxury Pulse report released this week showed that 40% of millennials planned to make wardrobe updates due to personal style changes, making them more likely to do so than their older Generation X (35%) and the combined Baby Boomer and Silent Generation (24%) peers.
• About half of total respondents (49%) said they felt their wardrobes were outdated and in need of a refresh. While 60% of respondents said they were concerned about the overall economy, over two thirds (67%) said they were optimistic about their personal financial situation.
• When it came to respondents with incomes of $200,000 or more, 57% said they planned to spend the same or more on luxury over the next three months, a drop from the 68% who said the same thing in the previous survey in January.

Dive Insight:

Saks began conducting its quarterly Luxury Pulse survey in March 2020, and a spokesperson said in an email that the report is designed to to take the temperature of the luxury consumer.

The current report, fielded between April 28 and May 1, revealed that 53% of respondents were planning to spend the same or more on overall luxury purchases over the next three months. That number is down from the 62% of respondents who said that in the last survey, which Saks says indicates a rise in travel expenditures and a focus on savings coupled with a slowdown in luxury goods spending.

Of the respondents who said they planned to spend less on luxury, 43% said they would need to see improvement in the overall economy in order to change their thinking, while 54% said they could be tempted by a sale or a promotional event.

“In line with our strategy and expectations for the year, the luxury consumer is responding to the economic environment and tapering their spending on luxury items,” said Marc Metrick, Saks’ CEO, in a statement. He added that even though consumers are reprioritizing their luxury spending, they haven’t given up on luxury goods. “Given the luxury consumer’s history of resilience, we anticipate their spending will be reinvigorated when the economic environment begins to improve,” he said.

Quiet luxury in particular was on the radar. The survey showed that consumers were continuing to embrace the trend, with 60% of respondents saying they’re aware of it, and of those, 86% who said they’ve already integrated it into their wardrobes. Furthermore, 35% of the respondents who said they planned to integrate quiet luxury into their wardrobes cited their desire to be more sustainable as a reason, because they felt quiet luxury pieces would be more timeless and outlast fashion fads.

Millennials in particular said they were looking for pieces that were timeless (87%) and comfortable (87%) rather than on trend (44%).

The Saks Luxury Pulse online survey is based on responses from 3,744 U.S.-based respondents over 18. It’s conducted by Saks, the luxury digital platform established in March 2021 as a standalone ecommerce company.

Saks has an exclusive partnership with SFA, the entity that operates the Saks Fifth Avenue stores. According to a company spokesperson, Saks maintains control of the Saks Fifth Avenue brand and is responsible for digital and physical merchandising and marketing. Meanwhile, SFA provides Saks customers with in-person services, including alterations and in-store return.