Off-White Is Now The Most Popular Brand In The World, Beating Gucci And Balenciaga

Over the past year, Virgil Abloh’s cult streetwear label Off-Whitehas gone from strength-to-strength, thanks, in part, to highly-publicised collaborations with Nike and Ikea, and Abloh’s appointment as artistic director of household name-brand Louis Vuitton. Now there are stats to prove the company’s mighty ascent.

The latest edition of the Lyst Index, the quarterly report ranking fashion’s hottest brands and products, shows that Off-White has risen 33 places, surpassing Gucci and Balenciaga at the top of the leaderboard for the first time. To put this into context, three out of 20 products in the hottest product list were by Off-White. Searches for the brand across Lyst’s partner retailers, meanwhile, are up 14 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

Gucci, Balenciaga, Nike and Prada round up the top five brands, with Nike climbing five places up the index to reach fourth position. The sportswear giant’s collaboration with Off-White, which was worn by Serena Williams during the US Open, no doubt boosted its profile, along with the Just Do It campaign starring Colin Kaepernick. Four out of the 20 hottest products this quarter were by Nike.

Similar viral social moments, such as the Kaepernick for Nike adverts, are also the reasoning behind Yeezy’s jump to seventh place after being absent from the list for a quarter. Remember the furore around Kanye West’s too-small Yeezy pool slides? In terms of brand notoriety, that’s the equivalent of great marketing.

Other findings from the research, which is generated by monitoring the shopping behaviour of more than five million people, are perhaps more predictable. The Dior Saddle bag was the most searched-for product of the quarter, with a 957 per cent spike seen after 100 global influencers posted an Instagram image of them modelling the nostalgic accessory on July 19th.

And it was finally the turn of cult contemporary brands Staud and Ganni to enter the hottest product list owing to the growing Instagram following that both have backing them. Accessibly priced items, including Staud’s Shirley bag and Ganni’s Dainty Georgette wrap skirt, sit next to Gucci’s Flashtrek sneakers, Off-White’s logo belts and Saint Laurent’s LouLou sunglasses in the top 10, as the tide has shifted away from luxury names to those that garner currency of their own on Instagram.