MENAISSANCE: Heterosexual style-conscious men are the saving grace for the global luxury fashion market.
By Kira Roybal, Staff Writer and Editor
Sporting an Yves Saint Laurent monogram messenger bag and Neil Barrett high-top sneakers, the well-manicured New Yorker standing at the corner of 5th Avenue and 58th Street hails a canary yellow taxi. The Versace scent and sleek, perfect hair are undeniable. This is not some sporty version of Audrey Hepburn or Carrie Bradshaw. This is the rising star of the trillion dollar global luxury fashion market—the yummy, or the young urban male.
The term “yummy” was first coined by the luxury goods team at HSBC, a global bank and financial service organization. In their research report titled “Rise of the Yummy,” Erwan Rambourg, Antoine Belge and Cathy Chao concluded that the luxury fashion market should rejoice over future prospects, rather than dwell on possible slumps, for three reasons. Firstly, urbanization and economic growth are creating an influx of clientele for luxury items. Secondly, the “metro-sexual” shift is a driving force in this trend. Lastly, technology savvy youth will be making more frequent purchases from all around the world. The young wealthy twentysomething boys, with iPhones armed and ready, are the new millennium’s version of the 1980’s yuppie. Sprouting out of the nineties metro-sexual minority, the yummy majority is expected to raise global luxury sales by eight to nine percent in 2014.
Men now marry later in life (the world average, as calculated by the United Nations, is approximately 32 years of age), which is bringing about a Menaissance. With their 20s free from the responsibilities of marriage, yummies are able to splurge their budding wealth on Burberry trench coats and mani-pedis. They are Madonna’s material girls in charming and polished Bradley Cooper form. If high-end luxury brands want a piece of the yummy action, they will have to fight for it—with style and sophistication, of course. Burberry, for example, is developing travel tailoring, a new technology designed to keep suits looking fresh even after a long or strenuous flight. The company also streams its runway shows online and currently works on a plan called “Customer 360,” which tracks an individual’s buying habits worldwide. Some brands, such as Tod’s and Ralph Lauren, even include a lounge bar in their stores, providing their clients with the opportunity to relax and enjoy a drink worthy of the finest wool suit. Investment in the yummies seems to be paying off; Coach has expanded its menswear sales from $100 million in 2010 to $700 million today.
According to HSBC, the unprecedented spending by the yummy generation is “driven by psychological and social trends whereby customers prefer to display social status earlier on (while older, better-off consumers may have less to prove and will tend to buy for themselves rather than to impress others).” Here, the velvet utopia of the young urban male meets its city limits. The yummies can only extend their shopping habits so far before they are dubbed materialistic and narcissistic. No one blinked an eye when classical Hollywood royalty Elizabeth Taylor requested 200 pairs of mink earmuffs from the fur department at Bergdorf Goodman’s, but many people will not stand to see a young man spend his money on luxury consumer goods rather than saving it for a potential family life and 401(k) plan.
Traditionally, men are the gritty, bare-knuckled bread winners, while women are the sensitive, doting, always fashion-forward wives and mothers. Guyliner and pricey Chanel backpacks, however, represent the Menaissance zeitgeist in the 21st century. Certainly no change ever came without a bit of backlash. Bloomberg Businessweek declares that yummy is a “handy verbal shortcut if one can say it without gagging,” and the London Evening Standard pledges its allegiance to its own concoction, the “Yucky: Young, Urban, Can’t be doing with this.” There is a general assumption that all of this “feminization” is due to a lack of self-esteem in young men, who seem to only care about being Instagram ready every time they leave the house—or penthouse. The complaints of the more fiscally and fashionably conservative are actually nothing new; even Socrates, the ancient philosopher, commented that “our young now love luxury [,] they have bad manners [and] contradict their parents.” Hmm, I wonder if Ancient Greece had its own yummies.
How a young man spends his earnings is no business of the scrutinous general public that loves to put its two cents in every nook and cranny it can find. As long as he believes he is pleased and happy and is not engaged in illegal activity, what’s the problem with splurging on a $400 pair of Tom Ford sunglasses? The yummy is not looking for lifelong happiness in his possessions; he’s not even thinking about his retirement plan. What he buys is all a matter of social status and temporary satisfaction. The yummy’s purchasing trends indicate that the (heterosexual) man of future is ready to set aside the time and effort to always look like he just stepped out of a GQ photo shoot. High-maintenance may become the new masculine adjective. Take it or leave it, the yummy’s habits reflect the rise in disposable income for corporate ladder-climbing young men, coupled with a later marriage age and the pressure to look good among other men of the same or greater affluence. The yummy is bringing hope to the luxury fashion market, increasing his country’s real GDP and stepping his Maison Martin Margiela sneakers inside Bergdorf’s on the corner of 5th Avenue and 58th Street.