Gucci has remained the number one most popular luxury brand online, new data reveals.

The Italian label received 15.2 percent of the total search interest for luxury goods in 2020, according to luxury good magazine Luxe Digital. Chanel and Hermès followed close behind with 11.6 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively.

Next came Dior, Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Tiffany, Prada, Versace, Armani, Valentino, Balenciaga, Cartier, Burberry and Omega.

That’s according to the latest annual study by Luxe Digital, which analysed over 3,000 data points from Google, website traffic, and social media reach to find its results.

Versace and Hermès shine

Italian label Versace and French label Hermès saw particularly strong growth during the year, gaining 10 and eight points, respectively.

Luxe Digital said Gucci came first because of its “constant drive to experiment and innovate online”, from digital gifting with split payments to AR-powered try-on features on Snapchat and the Gucci App.

One of the keys to success for brands this year was adapting to the new stay-at-home economy and launching more casual looks, with Luxe Digital highlighting Versace’s bathrobes worn by Drake and Jennifer Lopez and the Nike-Dior sneakers.

Unsurprisingly, sustainability was also key, with every luxury brand in the ranking this year currently running some form of sustainable efforts.

Meanwhile, brands Louis Vuitton, Burberry, and Balenciaga saw their online popularity declining compared to last year.

Balenciaga lost six points in this year’s ranking to end number 12 on the list. “This is mostly driven by the declining popularity of the brand’s designer sneakers,” Luxe Digital said.

Gucci, one of the world’s leading luxury designer brands, will be the first in it’s class to begin accepting bitcoin payments in some US locations. 

According to Vogue Business: “In-store payments will be made using a QR code that customers can scan with their crypto wallet, sent by Gucci via email. The stores will accept various digital currencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu.”

The first locations to accept crypto are Wooster Street in New York, Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, Miami Design District, Phipps Plaza in Atlanta, and The Shops at Crystals in Las Vegas. 

Other high-end brands—most recently, Off-White—have already begun accepting crypto.

Offering in-store crypto payments is the latest in Gucci’s move into Web3. Earlier this year, Gucci entered the metaverse by purchasing virtual land in the decentralized blockchain game The Sandbox for an undisclosed amount; it’s building a virtual “Gucci Vault” for Gucci-themed NFTs.

Dior and ERL took over a few blocks in the heart of Venice Beach for a co-branded runway show. Dior has the resources to create hermetically sealed, cinematic runway universes practically anywhere, like when they built a Looney Tunes desert in Paris—complete with cacti—for the house’s collaboration with Travis Scott last year.

In Venice, Windward Avenue asphalt was painted bright blue. But curious neighbors on nearby rooftops watched SoCal legends like Tony Hawk walk in, and local taquerias and vintage stores framed the runway (or, erm, street). At one point during the show, a water balloon fell from the heavens and splattered a few feet from the VIP section where Jaden Smith and Kevin Abstract were sitting.

The collection is not a collaboration, exactly. Dior Men’s artistic director Kim Jones has done plenty of those, working with artists like Raymond Pettibon, Amaoko Baofo, and Peter Doig to turn their work into patterns and prints for his couture-level garments. He’s also designed collections with the help of streetwear savants like Shawn Stüssy and Travis Scott.

For the spring ’23 capsule, Jones wanted to try a slightly different approach. “I thought, I’d like to give someone that I think is talented an opportunity to go to the archives and work with it,” he said before the show. So he recruited Linnetz to “guest design” the capsule.