Athletic brands such as Canadian yogawear retailer Lululemon and VF Corp-owned Vans are seeing a surge in appeal with teens in the US, a new survey has found, as casualisation of fashion continues and footwear is gaining wallet share.

Overall teen spending is up 6% from autumn 2018 and up 1% year-over-year, according to Piper Jaffray’s 37th semi-annual ‘Taking Stock With Teens’ research survey. The results highlight spending trends and brand preferences amongst 8,000 teens across 47 US states.

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Piper Jaffray says Generation Z consumers – those born between the mid-1990s and early 2000s – contribute about US$830bn to US retail sales annually. The demographic is the first digitally native group to grow up not knowing a world before cellular phones, smartphones, and other digital devices.

While food continues to be male teens’ number one spending category (23%), clothing takes the majority of female teens’ wallet share (25%) as casual fashion continues – with athletic brands Lululemon and Vans both achieving new survey highs. Vans, in particular, proved popular, hitting its highest level in survey history as a favourite footwear brand at 20%, the closest any brand has been to NIKE in years. 

Lululemon also hits an all-time survey high, taking second place as teens’ preferred athletic apparel brand and eighth place overall for apparel. While US fast fashion retail company Fashion Nova is making waves with America teens, stepping into the top five shopping websites for female teens.

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Meanwhile, 50% of those surveyed named internet behemoth Amazon as their favourite website.

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“Our Spring Teen Survey further validated several characteristics of this digitally-native demographic; 83% of teens have an iPhone, 50% claim Amazon as their favourite website and video game consumption hit an all-time high in our survey,” says Erinn Murphy, Piper Jaffray senior research analyst. “Broadly, casualisation of fashion continues and footwear is gaining wallet share. Brands Lululemon and Vans hit survey peak share.”