Hotel merch is having a moment, and everyone’s asking me the same question:
How do you compete with fashion brands collabing with hotels?
Fair.
Staud recently teamed up with St. Regis. Everyone’s pulling references from the Ritz-Carlton collections with Late Checkout. And boutiques are getting in on it too: limited drops, designer capsules, collabs with Barbour, Hunter Boots, BODE, and more.
Here’s the part that gets glossed over: most of these partnerships aren’t built to move real product volume. They’re built to move eyes and attention. These collabs are marketing-led partnerships with shared values and aesthetics. A PR engine. The merchandise itself isn’t the revenue story. The story is the revenue story.
And the customer for a $400 crewneck or a $250 bag? That’s a very select shopper.
Which is why there’s a large white space. An accessible, evergreen collection of high-quality branded merchandise that doesn’t have to share the stage with another logo.
Quality everyday essentials, done exceptionally well:
$40–$60 hats people wear on repeat
$25 totes that show up everywhere
Premium materials.
Design you’d buy even without the hotel connection.
That’s where volume lives. Not in the “fashion moment,” but in the everyday product that guests are wearing long after checkout.
The best merchandise isn’t a trend. It’s brand infrastructure.
The fashion collab may win the week.
But an evergreen collection wins the year.