Were You One Of The People Who Bought 2020’s Most Popular (And Surprising) Item?

2020’s hottest product for both women and men is, drumroll please, The North Face’s 1996 Retro Nuptse jacket. The puffer jacket, which has been worn by both Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski, soared in popularity in the last quarter of 2020, with searches increasing by 174% as we all braved the elements to socialise outdoors.

In the Q4 Lyst Index, the quarterly ranking of fashion’s hottest brands and products by global search platform Lyst, Gucci has clung on to its position as the hottest brand in the world. As we finished last year year still in the grips of a global pandemic, the brand proved that it was able to adapt, premiering its film festival instead of a traditional catwalk show, the Gus Van Sant-directed #GucciFest, and announcing possibly the most hyped collaboration of all time with, you guessed it, The North Face. With the just-launched collection of branded boots, backpacks, tees, bum bags and even a logoed tent still flooding our social media feeds, both brands look set to continue their dominance into the first quarter of 2021.

The second hottest brand was Balenciaga, who also produced an innovative solution to not being able to host a physical show with its online video game for AW21, and the third was Moncler. The Italian outerwear brand was the chart’s biggest mover, climbing 10 spaces as the puffer jacket’s popularity grew and news that it would be acquiring Stone Island, 19th on the hottest brands chart, in a deal worth €1.15bn was announced last year.

While we might have talked about re-emergence dressing, shoppers still turned to practicality, particularly when it came to footwear, at the end of last year as lockdown 2.0 was announced and restrictions once again tightened. On the women’s hottest products list, Birkenstock’s Boston clogs claimed the number two spot (searches for the style rocketed by 367% and it sold out across multiple retailers), followed by Bottega Veneta’s Lug boots, Chloe’s Betty boots and UGG’s Classic Ultra Mini boots (spotted on Emily Ratajkowski and Irina Shayk). Our obsession with small screen fashion was also reflected, with Marc Jacobs’s Snapshot bag (from Emily in Paris) claiming the number eight spot and Stand Studio’s Nikki coat (its checkered pattern bringing to mind the chessboard in The Queen’s Gambit) coming in at number 10.