Alex Eagle is not a logo person. But many of her customers are.
The London-based designer sells an assortment of minimalist essentials — thick cashmere sweaters, pleated trousers and crisp Oxford shirts. Her eponymous brand’s name appears only on a tag tucked discretely inside — with one major exception.
One of Eagle’s best-known products is a baseball cap bearing the phrase “Alex Eagle Sporting Club” in block letters across the front. The designer said she started selling the caps after opening fitness studios in her stores in 2020. They’ve become frequent sights on the streets of London, particularly after Paul Mescal was spotted wearing one last year.
“I loathed the idea of having baseball caps with a logo on it, and it’s a bit weird having my own name,” said Eagle. But she’s come around to the concept: “People like the fact that it’s niche and a bit unknown. They might not even know who Alex Eagle is.”
Logo-heavy clothes were one of the dominant trends of the 2010s. But fatigue set in as luxury brands flooded the market with hoodies, bags, sweaters and tights blaring their brand codes. The proliferation of quiet luxury seemingly spelled the end of what was (usually derisively) called logomania.
But logos never really went away.
Balenciaga, Gucci and Prada will still sell you a hoodie or T-shirt with their name, or logo, or both splashed across the front. Though pricier than they used to be, they’re still a key draw for aspirational customers.
But when many shoppers — particularly Gen Z — wear a logo on their hat or shirt these days, it’s often not from a big luxury brand, but their favourite local coffee shop, the hotel they visited last summer on vacation or the local designer they discovered at a shop in their neighbourhood.
They have plenty to choose from. High-end hotels and trendy restaurants have dramatically expanded their merch lines with an eye towards the fashion crowd. There’s also a thriving genre of hats and sweats put out by influencers and podcasters, featuring phrases their followers would instantly get, and often inscrutable to anyone else.
“It is almost a rebellion against authority,” said Thomaï Serdari, professor at New York University and director of the school’s luxury and retail MBA program. “Gen Z doesn’t want to be told what to like and what to wear. They want to discover.”
While any brand can stitch their logo on a shirt or hat, most will be lost in a sea of branded merch. Those that last are likely to feature sharp design and an under-the-radar name.
“For Gen Z, it’s not about the brand endorsing them, it’s about them endorsing the logo,” said Jackie Cooper, chief brand officer and senior advisor at communications firm Edelman.
A Secret Club
That “if you know, you know” element is precisely the point of Logomania 2.0. Niche logos have long held an appeal — NPR, the US radio broadcaster, gave out the first of its popular tote bags in the 1970s, and it was seemingly required for up-and-coming labels from the 2010s to release one. But for most businesses, merch was an afterthought.
Cut to today, there are an endless number of businesses churning out merch and hoping to go viral. For consumers, the appeal in wearing a coffee shop’s cap or carrying a hotel’s bag is an evolution of the same desire for status that drove so many to wear head-to-toe big luxury branding. The difference is that anyone with the spare funds could buy Louis Vuitton or Gucci monogrammed items in any major city or department store. Wearing a Palm Heights hat telegraphs a different kind of exclusivity: that you both knew about that trendy hotel, and maybe even stayed there too.
That connects the wearer to a larger group of people who shared an experience beyond tapping their credit card. The same goes for a sweatshirt made by a popular influencer, which can form the basis of an instant connection with a stranger in a coffee shop who is also a follower. The same magic works for small fashion brands, which can turn a few customers wearing well-designed logo shirts, bags or caps into a viral word-of-mouth campaign.
“People don’t really relate to those status brands anymore,” said Mathieu Lebreton, the co-founder of GiftShop, a business that makes merchandise for Parisian restaurants such as Café de Flore and Bistrot Paul Bert. “People buy things because they feel like they have a direct connection with the brand and the person behind it.”
If they find an audience, these items can provide steady revenue, season after season. New York designer Emily Dawn Long’s caps, which display the cheeky slogan “Take Off Your Clothes” or the brand’s signature illustration of two swans, make up “an insanely large” percent of her overall sales, Long said. They’ve been seen on stars like Emily Ratajkowski and Jeremy Allen White.
“I’m always asking people what they want, but in no way did I think, ‘What graphic are people looking for on their hats?’ said Long. “I was just working on something, and we put it on a hat, and it happened to work.” She’s since incorporated the swan motif onto other, more expensive products, including a $468 knit halter top and a $598 sweater.
Creating the Right Products
The logos that connect tend to have a backstory, said Marie-Louise Sciò, chief executive and creative director of Italy’s Pellicano hotel group.
Sciò said she tries not to “overbrand” Pellicano products, which it sells both on site and online through its Issimo e-commerce platform. There’s a tote bag with the hotel’s name on it, but also beach towels in the same yellow-and-white stripes that cover its umbrellas on the property with no wording or images at all. The company also leans on its past for inspiration: Last summer, it reissued pyjamas provided to guests in the 1960s.
“We cater to people who like a logo and want to feel part of something, but don’t necessarily want to wear a logo,” Sciò said.
Businesses are looking beyond baseball caps and canvas totes. GiftShop created dishware for Bistrot Paul Bert to be sold online and at the restaurant’s Paris location, after the restaurant’s owner told the company its diners were routinely swiping plates.
“Instead of it being something that you buy to feed the company’s bottom line, it’s something that you’re buying to hold onto an experience,” said Cooper. “It’s a memory, not memorabilia.”
Constant iteration keeps a logoed assortment feeling fresh and exclusive. Alex Eagle has created several different versions of her signature hats, including “Alex Eagle Hiking Club” and “Books Books Books.”
“It’s like wanting to buy a postcard,” said Eagle. “You want to buy it as a reminder of something you’ve done.”
