Kate Spade: Best House In A Worsening Neighborhood

Credit Suisse’s Christian Buss mentioned that an analysis of consumer posts across more than 200 million Internet pages highlighted a decline in the number of handbag conversations from the peak levels witnessed in the first half of 2015. This could signal “category maturity within the digital realm.”

Analyst Christian Buss said that overall sentiment for the group remained high, “spurred by increasing interest in Luxury brands which were lagging in the digital world in our analysis last year.”

Kate Spade & Co (NYSE: KATE) came out as the “shining star,” leading its peers with “outsized conversation growth and increasing brand sentiment Y/Y,” which signals a favorable consumer response to recent product.

Buss commented, however, that Kate Spade being the sole premium brand with such results suggests that Premium [non-luxury] brands as a whole “are not moving the needle like they once were with the online community.”

Coach Inc (NYSE: COH), Michael Kors Holdings Ltd (NYSE: KORS) and Marc Jacobs remained in relatively the same spot from a year ago. Michael Kors has fallen to the bottom of the group, with the lowest sentiment score of 84.7, versus the group average of 91.6.

Calvin Klein and Tory Burch lost ground, moving from leading to neutral territory. “Calvin Klein conversation growth moderated significantly and sentiment fell below the group average. Tory Burch, while still highly positive, saw a decline in number of online conversations about the brand,” the Credit Suisse report noted.