Tapping Into Pet Fashion

Exploiting the 'dog looks like owner' concept is now a well-proven model of business for selling pet clothing. Once seen as celebrity driven, the pet-clothing market is growing into a full-blown fashion industry of personal expression. Whatever your style, a surfable wave of specialist pet clothing stores is rapidly developing that will gladly help you fill your designer pet wardrobe.

These days, if your Pug wants to turn Punk there is an online pet store that specialises in only that style. Try The Punky Pup. First registered a year ago today, The Punky Pup is part of the early, but fast moving niche specialisation of the pet fashion market.

Pet ownership is of itself a lifestyle statement and as such is highly susceptible to fashionable trends..

Last year the largest UK pet product retail chain, Pets at Home reported a sudden and massive increase in sales of pet clothing. This it said was driven by a celebrity trend for pet clothes and diamante collars.

Comparison of the very different styles of two London-centric online retailers, the Urban Dogwear site Dogside and the Pet-Chic site Pet London, demonstrates how effectively independents can divide the pet fashion market.

While there are some well established clothing and pet accessory designer brands on the market, (see Pucci Petwear, launched 2003), branding is not yet as important in pet fashion as it is for people clothes. So there is room for new innovative designers to establish their styles in the new market.

The pet fashion market is therefore fast moving and an exciting part of the wider pet industry. Nimble designers and retailers hoping to tap into the pet owner psyche will require good timing and intuition and no small amount of courage.