TL;DR: In November, 2024, LVMH Ventures invested in Swedish menswear brand Our Legacy, adding another strategic piece to their growing portfolio in the middle-tier fashion segment. Founded in 2005, Our Legacy now joins other recent LVMH acquisitions like Aimé Leon Dore in a category that is commanding attention disproportionate to its market size.
Middle-tier brands operate between accessible fashion and traditional luxury. Their success stems from a deliberate strategy that combines competitive pricing, quality-focused product development, and authentic cultural connections.
Finding the Sweet Spot: Positioning Between Luxury and Mass Market
Middle-tier brands operate between accessible fashion and traditional luxury. Their success stems from a deliberate strategy that combines competitive pricing, quality-focused product development, and authentic cultural connections. While they lack the historic prestige of heritage luxury houses, they've created their own form of cachet through product integrity and community building.
The contemporary fashion landscape has fractured into multiple segments, with the middle tier emerging as particularly dynamic. Brands in this space have identified an underserved consumer: style-conscious individuals who appreciate design and quality but find traditional luxury increasingly unattainable or misaligned with their values. These consumers seek products with integrity and cultural relevance rather than status-driven logos or heritage narratives.
"Brands in this space have identified an underserved consumer: style-conscious individuals who appreciate design and quality but find traditional luxury increasingly unattainable or misaligned with their values. These consumers seek products with integrity and cultural relevance rather than status-driven logos or heritage narratives."
Strategic Pricing in an Era of Luxury Inflation
The middle tier's pricing strategy creates a critical point of differentiation. While luxury shirts from established houses like Prada typically command £600 or more, brands like Our Legacy, Mfpen, and Sunflower position themselves in the £150-300 range. This isn't merely a matter of lower production costs or simpler supply chains—it represents a deliberate strategic choice.
Mfpen founder Sigurd Bank articulated this positioning clearly when noting that "Everyone in Scandinavia is middle class, I barely know anyone who can afford luxury." This awareness of market realities informs their entire business model. With European luxury prices rising dramatically since 2019, these middle-tier brands offer an attractive alternative for consumers feeling priced out of traditional luxury.
The positioning is calculated—these products remain expensive enough to feel aspirational but accessible enough for consumers who have grown increasingly sensitive to fashion's surging price points. They occupy a mental space of attainable aspiration that many heritage luxury brands have abandoned in their upmarket push.
A Quality-First Approach
Middle-tier brands have built their identities around product integrity rather than logo recognition. They emphasise fabrics, silhouettes, and construction techniques while minimising overt branding. This approach aligns perfectly with evolving consumer values that prioritise "fewer, better things" and concepts like quiet luxury.
Scandinavian brands in particular have developed recognisable design languages—often featuring cropped or relaxed silhouettes—that communicate premium positioning through design rather than logos. This product-focused approach extends to production strategies as well. Brands like Mfpen intentionally limit production runs, creating approximately 150 pieces in each style. As Bank explained to Vogue Business, "We like to make money but we don't want to [scale] too fast."
This controlled approach to growth preserves brand integrity while creating natural scarcity. The emphasis on quality over quantity represents a sustainable model that contrasts sharply with the constant expansion pursued by many heritage luxury houses.
Culture Through Community
Perhaps the most valuable asset these middle-tier brands possess is their cultural relevance and community connections. The Scandinavian fashion scene in particular has cultivated powerful creative networks, with designers frequently collaborating and supporting each other's work.
As menswear columnist Louis Cheslaw recently wrote in Magasin, Scandinavian brands feel part of an organic, creative ecosystem that creates a sense of authenticity that's impossible to fake.
The cultural positioning creates a new form of aspiration based on insider knowledge rather than conspicuous consumption. Many industry insiders now favor lowkey aesthetics and the subtle cachet of "knowing the founder" over traditional brand status. This represents a significant shift in how fashion credibility is established and maintained—one that older luxury houses are struggling to navigate.
Digitally Native
Most luxury houses were established decades ago—many over fifty years old—with infrastructures designed for previous market conditions. Middle-tier brands, in contrast, were born digital and built for responsiveness. They excel at developing direct customer relationships, implementing agile product development cycles, and managing brand perception across digital channels.
Their digital fluency extends beyond mere e-commerce capabilities. These brands understand community building in digital contexts, content creation that resonates with contemporary audiences, and the balance between exclusivity and accessibility that today's consumers demand.
Future Implications
LVMH's investment in Our Legacy represents more than just another brand acquisition—it suggests a recognition that these middle-tier brands have developed valuable expertise that even luxury giants need to understand. As the middle tier continues to gain market share and cultural influence, we can expect more strategic investments from luxury groups seeking to modernise their approaches.
The future of luxury may well be shaped by the principles these smaller players have mastered: balanced pricing strategies, quality-focused product development, authentic community connections, and digital fluency. The traditional luxury playbook is being rewritten, and the middle tier is holding the pen.
What remains to be seen is whether these brands can maintain their distinctive qualities as they grow under the umbrella of luxury conglomerates. The very aspects that make them attractive acquisition targets—their authenticity, community connections, and controlled growth—could potentially be compromised by traditional luxury expansion strategies.
For now, the middle tier offers a compelling alternative in the fashion landscape—one that balances quality with accessibility, exclusivity with community, and aspiration with attainability. This balanced approach may prove to be not just a temporary trend but a fundamental shift in how fashion brands create value in the contemporary market.