GUESS is a relatively young brand, having only been founded in the 1980s, but is it considered a luxury brand?
GUESS is considered a luxury, designer brand, but it’s far from the lofty heights of Gucci, Prada, or Hermés. While its products boast considerable price tags, they’re dramatically more affordable than some of its close competitor’s products. Unfortunately, GUESS just isn’t all that popular, either.
Read on to learn more about GUESS, where it sits in the ranks of the fashion industry, and how expensive it is as a brand.
GUESS What?
When it comes to a brand being established as a luxury brand, there are a few factors you need to take into account. The first and most obvious is whether the products that the brand offers are expensive.
Now, that doesn’t have to mean exorbitantly expensive, but just above the average prices you might see in a standard department store. Although luxury is often thought of as a ten thousand dollar Louis Vuitton handbag, that isn’t technically the only example.
GUESS is a luxury brand, but its products aren’t insanely expensive; you can purchase a jacket, pair of jeans, or a bag, and not go over a couple of hundred dollars. In fact, we checked out GUESS’ website and found t-shirts for as little as thirty dollars.
At the higher end of the spectrum sat a range of jackets, which easily climbed to over two hundred and fifty dollars in value. Finally, mixed in among the two ends of the scale, was a range of hundred-dollar shirts, two-hundred-dollar watches, and fifty-dollar sweaters.
The second driving factor behind a luxury brand is its exclusivity – how rare are its products and how many people can genuinely get their hands on them? Take Louis Vuitton, for example, the most valuable luxury brand in the world with almost two hundred years of experience.
Louis Vuitton is massively expensive, doesn’t offer discounts or sales, and regularly destroys any unsold merchandise. These practices all drive up the level of exclusivity and scarcity where its products are concerned.
GUESS doesn’t follow these practices, though – they have sales aplenty, and they certainly don’t need to destroy unsold merchandise. If it has an abundance of one particular line left over, it simply offers it out as a discount to move the stock.
The third factor that determines a label as luxury is its aesthetic; does it look like a luxury brand? While this might be a subjective factor, it’s massively applicable, and you can literally see the difference between a luxury brand and a standard one.
GUESS doesn’t push the boundaries of high fashion when it comes to designs, opting for a more ‘everyday’ aesthetic. Its products aren’t designed to turn heads and make an impact but simply be worn.
So, How Is It Luxury?
Admittedly, it seems like we’re painting a pretty dire picture of GUESS as a brand, but it ultimately is considered luxurious. First and foremost, it is quite expensive, and this is the key piece of criteria that determines whether a brand is a luxurious one.
However, when we’re trying to figure out if a brand is luxurious or not, we can always look to who wears it. More often than not, if a celebrity is seen out and about wearing a particular brand, it’s assumed that said brand is luxurious.
Although they’re not officially endorsing the label, just wearing it in public will have a positive effect on the brand’s marketing angle. For example, Kendall Jenner has been seen in Beverly Hills wearing a GUESS t-shirt.
In 2018, Disney Channel star Peyton List was wearing a GUESS designer jumpsuit. Also, Lele Pons was seen on a shopping trip rocking a pair of GUESS Perlina Caged Sandals, worth around one hundred dollars.
There have been some pretty big names seen wearing GUESS, from J Lo to Hayley Williams, and Jade Thirwall to Vanessa Hudgens. According to stealherstyle.net, there are plenty of female celebrities who gravitate towards the brand when they’re not performing or on the red carpet.
And, it’s also worth establishing that not every single GUESS product is run-of-the-mill. As a label, it does sometimes pair up with a fashion designer who will create a one-off or limited edition product that is a little more expensive and exclusive than the standard GUESS line.
Ultimately, we can confirm that GUESS is considered a luxury brand, even if it’s not at the standard of the top tiers of fashion. It commands quite high prices, celebrities love it, and from time to time, it does push out exclusive products.