Why Fashion Needs to Stop Sleeping on YouTube

In 2020, Timothy Grindle, the co-founder and chief executive of the nine-year-old Boulder-based indie menswear boutique Canoe Club, uploaded a video to YouTube of himself and his chief operating officer answering customers’ frequently asked questions.

They thought of it as an interesting experiment, but the response was so enthusiastic that they kept going. Today, the retailer posts as many as 11 videos a month, ranging from outfit competitions, collection breakdowns and a video podcast called “Customer Service,” all featuring members of its team.

“At first it was nothing specific other than people liked it. There was a community building around it,” Grindle said. “Then we just started to see, ‘Hey, if we post a video where we do a talk through of everything that got delivered from Lemaire, we start seeing some Lemaire sales.”

With 2 billion daily active users, YouTube is the the biggest streamer in the world. Netflix, the second largest, has 325 million paid subscribers. An estimated 35 billion hours of shopping-related content is posted each year, according to Julia Hamilton Trost, head of creator partnerships at YouTube Shopping.

But while fashion-oriented content creators are prolific on YouTube with their hauls, try-ons and brand analysis videos, and glossies like Vogue and GQ have launched popular interview series on the platform, many fashion brands have been reluctant to bake original YouTube content into their marketing strategy. Mostly, they use their channels to post runway shows or dump video campaigns they’ve already shared on Instagram and TikTok.

That’s partly because of a perceived pressure for high-production value — many people watch YouTube on 4K television screens. But brands that actively invest in making longer-form videos on YouTube view it as a brand-awareness, world-building exercise that can turn into a competitive advantage in a saturated attention economy.

“There’s a million handbag companies out there,” said Matthew Grenby, co-founder of leather goods maker Parker Thatch, which hosts weekly live Q&A sessions on its YouTube page. “A unique way for us to differentiate, beyond the product, is developing that personal relationship through these platforms with our customers.”

YouTube is where creators go to foster in-depth relationships with an audience that prefers longer-form videos and wants to spend more time learning about a topic. To tap it as a brand-building platform, companies are producing consistent, budget-friendly content tailored to their ethos and target audiences. There aren’t usually massive sales bumps in the short term, but the level of engagement brands can get on YouTube through comments and shares can help build a new legion of passionate customers who will eventually purchase, and want to stay connected with the brand for years once they do.

“The more bespoke the content is, the better,” said Rian Phin, a content creator who publishes brand and trend analysis-driven videos to her 111,000 subscribers on YouTube. “I would save my money to get something from a brand that’s going to do fun, creative forms of storytelling.”

Why YouTube Makes Sense

YouTube is somewhat of an ideal entertainment hybrid, with the audience size of a traditional television network and the targeting capabilities synonymous with social media platforms.

That reach was especially enticing for German e-tailer Zalando, which has been uploading videos on YouTube since 2014. YouTube’s “lean back consumption,” where people go to hang out for long stretches of time, make it a perfect platform for Zalando to experiment with a variety of awareness-driven content, including its seasonal brand campaigns and interview series such as “The Perfect X,” where a rotating host talks to industry insiders like former Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson and makeup artist Emily Wood, said Ivan Ponce, the e-tailer’s director of go-to-market marketing and media.

The longer-form content also allows for more detailed videos. Canoe Club’s uploads feature staffers talking through new arrivals and showing how to style indie cult labels like Kapital and Orslow. Grindle said it’s a way to “advocate for the brands we carry” more meaningfully than “a brand bio at the bottom of the [product] page.”

More accessible options for consumer-grade cameras and editing software has also helped bring down the cost of post-production, said Nick West, founder and chief executive of activewear upstart Bandit Running. The brand has produced documentary-style videos following athletes along their fitness journeys or chefs training for marathons for under $5,000 a pop, West said. Plus, the costs are worth attracting the type of shopper that watches this sort of content, he added.

“The customer who watches for eight minutes, ends up being much more emotionally engaged, and a higher lifetime value customer than somebody who … watches a reel for six seconds,” West said.

Posting videos on YouTube also gives brands a broader catalogue to use for paid ads across platforms. Last year, Parker Thatch started clipping snippets from its weekly Q&A sessions, where co-founder and designer Irene Chen talks through the creation and construction of new products, for ads across Google, Grenby said. He attributed that strategy to the brand more than quintupling its YouTube subscriber count to 117,000 in 2025.

“Since YouTube is part of the Google ecosystem and plays nicely with all of our advertising efforts, that just makes it that much more compelling a platform for us to put time and effort into,” Grenby said.

How to Create the Best Content on YouTube

To stand out on YouTube, where over 500 hours of footage is uploaded every minute, brands should produce content that illustrates the world they’re building.

For Bandit Running, YouTube is a place to tell “the most emotionally engaging stories in the sport of running” that it can, West said. The activewear startup does so through its series that documents the journeys of runners who are part of the company’s “Unsponsored Project,” where the brand financially supports athletes across sports who are training and competing in qualifier events in hopes of making the Olympic team.

The goal should be to “make really good content that shows a brand’s uniqueness, but also feels organic and not overly produced,” YouTube’s Trost said. “That’s where you have to find a sweet spot.”

The right content on YouTube can also help a brand tap into the zeitgeist and seamlessly tie its products to a specific cultural moment — a tactic to ensure it reaches more of its target audience. Zalando uploads content to coincide with events it sponsors like the “Between the Lines” sports documentary series it posted last December showcasing athletes’ preparation for the 2026 LAAX Open, Europe’s annual freestyle snowboarding and freeskiing competition, Ponce said.

Whatever content strategy a brand lands on, it has to post consistently to create a sense of community among its viewers and increase the likelihood they’ll convert into customers. Parker Thatch livestreams on YouTube every Friday to foster its “one-to-one connection” with viewers, Grenby said. This year, Bandit will begin publishing videos every two to three weeks instead of once a month, or once every few months, West said.

YouTube requires brands to think deeply about how to depict their philosophy without feeling stuffy or unrelatable. The data the platform provides, including watch time and the moments viewers drop off, help companies find the right approach.

“[YouTube] is about curating a loyal audience, whereas TikTok and Instagram right now are about virality and swipeability,” said Drew Joiner, who publishes video essays on YouTube about the fashion industry to his 377,000 subscribers.