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Updated: August 25, 2020

Why hardware stores might be the future of fashion

Photo | Flickr/Mike Mozart A Lowe's storefront.
By Alexis Benveniste, CNN Business

New York Fashion Week is going to have an unexpected participant this September: Lowe's. Yup, the hardware store.

Jason Wu, Rebecca Minkoff and Christian Siriano will feature Lowe's products in each of the their live New York Fashion Week shows.

It sounds like an odd combination, but the designers are meeting the public where they are: More Americans are staying home and flocking to home improvement projects and creature comforts as the pandemic continues to spread across the country.

"The relevancy of fashion has shifted with the zeitgeist," Lowe's Chief Brand and Marketing Officer Marissa Thalberg told CNN Business. "People are very focused on their homes and how homes really are the new epicenter of fashion and self-expression."

New York Fashion Week will look very different this year. A series of events that was once made up of indoor runways and large crowds will now be more focused on the digital experience. The pandemic enabled the designers and production company IMG Focus "to look much closer and deeper into what's possible from a digital perspective," said Dominic Kaffka, IMG's managing director.

Kafka acknowledged that the Lowe's collaboration is "unexpected," but he said the pandemic has shifted consumer behavior.

"It definitely helps those designers who are working with planning and executing their vision this season because obviously everyone's budget is tight this season," he said.

Wu, in a statement, noted that the home has become the fashion center of people's lives ... because it is the center of most people's lives during the pandemic.

"My home has always been a great source of inspiration for me, especially now that it's not just a place I live, but where I've worked to bring my Spring 2021 collection to life," he said.

Lowe's had a strong second quarter, which comes as no surprise since Americans are more emotionally invested in their homes than ever. Lowe's second quarter sales came in at $27.3 billion, a decent increase compared to the $21 billion it had the second quarter of 2019.

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