What Up With Europe? The Kings and Queens of Fashology...

Good morning.

Also Good Friday to everyone who celebrates and I guess me because the markets are closed and I can enjoy some quiet.

I have forever talked about ‘fashology’ on this blog dating back to Oakley in 2005.

The master of ‘fashology’ is now of course Apple.

Back in 2005 I wrote that Oakley could sell sunglasses powered with Motorola bluetooth technology, but Motorola could never sell sunglasses they designed.

Oakley was acquired by Luxottica (Italian fashion company) and Apple proved that you could do fashion and technology (now the largest company in the world). Let’s not forget the ultimate fashion and technology company… Italy’s Ferrari whose stock $RACE is at all-time highs.

In 2023, with tech stocks in the dumps, Apple is hanging in best because they are still a fashion business (new yellow phones) and also a furniture company in many ways.

Behind Apple in the US, the closest thing to a ‘fashology’ company is Nike.

It is in Europe though that ‘fashology’, specifically luxury fashion and technology, might reign for years ahead and might even be growth vehicles assuming crypto, blockchain and NFT’s persist.

Head of the geeks - Y Combinator founder Paul Graham tweeted yesterday about this whole trend without talking about the actual trend because of course he’s a geek that wears white knee socks with sandals:

My friend Cole tweeted the outlier growth case that could be a tailwind for these European luxury brands:

I have no idea if this comes to reality, but while our markets remain in the doldrums, European markets are breaking out to highs:

My intern Ethan (he calls himself Chief Of Staff) has his own blog and put this together summing up what could be going on.

Catering to the 1 percent is the new catering to the 99 percent.