Fresh off favorable reviews for his most recent runway show, Willy Chavarria has launched a PacSun collaboration.
Reached in Miami Wednesday afternoon, where he had just spoken of “The Economics of Fashion” in relation to the Latine market at L’Edition conference, Chavarria agreed that a lot was going on. “But it’s all good. It’s what I’ve been working toward,” he said.
The Latine consumer spending power in the U.S. is more than $3.2 trillion, according to this year’s U.S. Latino GDP report.
“We see it in business, but especially in design, the arts and in music. People are rising up as public-facing figures, building their networks of Latinx teams that also will grow, develop and create,” Chavarria said.
From 2010 to 2021, Latine real consumption grew three times faster than non-Latine consumption, driven by rapid gains in Latine income, which grew nearly two and a half times faster than the income of non-Latines, according to the report.
To appeal to the increasing Latine consumers, the designer said he proposed to PacSun that they enlist him as a known Latine designer to offer products to a market that he knew they were already selling to. “I just knew there was a business for them and they knew it too. So it just worked.”
The first batch of the Big Willy by Willy Chavarria collection sold out online within four days. New arrivals of $40 T-shirts and an $80 hoodie were offered on the company’s site Wednesday afternoon. The capsule collection is also being sold in 100 PacSun stores, according to the designer. Some of the proceeds will benefit Fresno Barrios Unidos, a nonprofit in his California hometown that fosters positive development and supports young adults in the Fresno community.
A second season is already in development for PacSun. Pleased as he was by the swift initial sell-throughs, the designer said he was not surprised. “I’m no spring chicken. I’ve been in the business long enough to have an awareness of who’s buying what.”
The 12-piece capsule was released one week after his New York runway show to create “a direct visibility between doing $25,000 gowns and still being able to sell a $40 T-shirt. I wanted the message that I do to be received by a wider audience,” Chavarria said.
“It was very clear to me that there’s a market out there that doesn’t have mass [Latine] designers that it can connect with,” he said.
Selective in the potential deals he’s offered, the designer said that comes down to “smart business” and the kindness and communal efforts that have always been the foundation of his brand. Next up is a collaboration with FB County, a California-based streetwear brand that sells to “kids in the hood,” Chavarria said. So far, most of his collaborations have been “not with bigger brands,” but brands that he has wanted to elevate. Discerning as ever, there are “casual talks” with Nike, Adidas and others, he said.
After speaking at the L’Attitude, he said the premise of the event was recognizing the financial value of the Latine community. He said that he has wondered many times what has taken major companies so long to recognize that Latinos account for the fastest-growing consumer base in the domestic market. “It’s funny that we don’t see that reflected in what businesses are doing. There is an awareness among some of the top business leaders at this conference like Nike, Target and Amazon. That’s one of the reasons why it was important for me to come here — to learn from others and to network. Latinos are the new mainstream economy [driver],” Chavarria said.
In fashion, there has been “a stubbornness with the old guard” in that within many of the high ranks in different businesses, they tend to look at numbers from the last 10 years. “When you do that, you’re really missing out on the future,” he said.
Taking an authentic approach is essential because otherwise the effort comes off as contrived, Chavarria said. “I’m so sick of that word authenticity because people are misusing it. The bottom line is the Latino community is the customer base for business. There isn’t any getting around that,” Chavarria said.
“There most definitely are discriminatory factors in place, and there were even more so in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Now with the growing Latino population and the stars that have made it to the top have brought in other stars. We have started to see this shift. There is a larger voice present,” he said.
Source: WWD