Cashmere Pants: Which Luxury Brand Breaks the Bank?

Speaking of prices—who do you think broke the record for the most expensive women’s cashmere pants? Try arranging these brands—Hermès, Bottega Veneta, Christian Dior Couture, and Loro Piana—in descending order by price before reading the text below.

What determines the price in luxury?

Aside from tangible material expenses—such as the cost of materials, production, and logistics—there’s another category: the cost of the brand. This is what gets poured into shaping the perception of an item as expensive. I also include here marketing expenses and the creation of the necessary image and story (luxury groups typically report these at around 10%).

Among the brands mentioned, it would be perfectly reasonable to expect Loro Piana to have the highest price for cashmere pants, because their cashmere is special—sourced through arduous work in remote corners of the world known for this material (we’ll set aside the fact that the process isn’t always ethical, as was the case with vicuña).

Next we’d probably put Hermès, which also often emphasizes small-scale production and special attention to materials. However, one might expect a lower price here since the brand is primarily a specialist in leather goods.

That leaves Dior and Bottega Veneta. In terms of clothing price policy, Dior generally sits above Bottega Veneta. One might add that the price could be justified by some unique design, but the brand didn’t bother—they released the most basic model possible. So the higher price comes only from Dior’s overall positioning, which can be explained in part by active marketing.

And then we have Bottega Veneta. The brand is practically Kering’s main jewel at the moment, since among their fashion brands it’s the only one showing growth several periods in a row. But the brand’s true expertise lies in bags—this is obvious even if you visit a boutique, where the RTW selection is usually very weak and hidden away in the corners. The main shelves are occupied by bags. This matches the numbers: RTW brings in roughly 10% of the brand’s sales, while leather goods account for almost 80%.

So here it is: Bottega Veneta’s cashmere pants are the most expensive, equal in price to Loro Piana’s most expensive pair. Next comes Hermès, and after that, Dior.

Now, let’s talk about what you get for the price. Bottega Veneta hasn’t added anything special to the design—it's the most basic design possible (though the same is true for the others). The brand doesn’t have a long-standing heritage with cashmere that they highlight in their communications. So we’re not talking about any special craftsmanship or material. The price is essentially a gamble—maybe a client buying a crocodile bag will also pick up a pair of pants. Exotic leather is the focus of lookbooks and ad campaigns, as well as high spenders, which Kering mentions in their reports.

But can such an approach to pricing truly be considered justified—and, more importantly, effective for both a sustainable category mix and for sales? That’s highly debatable. Returning to the leaked memo on Kering’s strategy—they mention both “elevating the product mix in existing categories such as leather goods and RTW” and “the optimal price.” How this will play out in practice—time will tell.