Although US menswear revenues are expected to grow 5 per cent in the next 2 years, outperforming womenswear, few brands are catering to the burgeoning market on their digital platforms this was revelaed by The Dark Horse of Fashion report. The study, found a third of brands carrying both women’s and menswear did not feature any men’s products on their e-commerce homepages. A further 19 per cent demoted these products to secondary status by only showing them below the fold.

Calvin Klein was tinted as a coed brand missing a trick, prioritizing womenswear on its homepage, while men's underwear was its most viewed product page in 2017. The study also found 15 brands that did use their data to target men more precisely in this way saw significantly higher open rates in emails featuring menswear-specific subjects, suggesting a clear marketing benefit.

This could go some way to explaining the bias identified by Zine's survey, as, by this logic, menswear brands should be aiming to coordinate a smaller pool of more highly influential digital promoters. In a market increasingly dominated by e-commerce and digital marketing, fashion brands carrying menswear would do well to take heed of L2’s findings as men’s apparel and accessories come into their own in an industry that is traditionally female focused.

It is a shift which is being reflected across all levels of the industry with Nordstrom gearing up for the opening of its first men’s flagship in New York and menswear labels outnumbering women’s wear in the short list for last year’s LVMH Prize. The increased importance of men’s fashion is even affecting the catwalk as more and more brands choose to host coed runways.