The Backpack, our merch trends newsletter, became a bit of an obsession for us in 2025—out of 2,000+ stories researched, 500 made the cut, all pointing to one thing: merch isn't just merch anymore. It's fashion. It's flex. It's what people actually want.
The line between promotional merch and fashion didn't just blur in 2025—it vanished. There is no distinction anymore. Merch is fashion, culture, and style, as evidenced by the host of brands and companies we featured throughout the year.
We wanted to share the themes that emerged from our 24 issues published this year. Plus, we mixed our newsletter intel with insight from our 930 distributor companies and 5,700 users on our platform and landed on eight trends that dominated 2025.
BTW: Stick around to the end and we'll tell you how we think this shapes trends for 2026!
When it comes to generic corporate apparel, brands finally figured out they need to pick a lane between mere functionality versus a touch of style -- and unique style won. The era of just slapping a single color logo on a blank tees is over—now you're either world-building or you're boring.
And this year, the "cowboy cool" aesthetic absolutely dominated, fueled by Beyoncé's country pivot and Post Malone's evolution into full western mode. But here's what made it work: brands committed to actual craft instead of costume. An example? When Chili's x Tecovas boots did a collab, they went deep, featuring leather inlays and custom toe bugs—this wasn't promotional merch pretending to be fashion, it was legitimate fashion that happened to promote a restaurant chain. McDonald's went all-in for Calgary Stampede with a western collection that felt native to rodeo culture, not grafted onto it. Wrangler x Coors nailed western heritage branding. The trend drove real material shifts too: leather goods, bandanas, denim, merch that evolved into functional accessories and style.
Running parallel to the cowboy theme was the "old money prep" resurgence—tennis whites, collegiate fonts, cable knits, and that understated luxury vibe that signals "generational wealth" even if you don't have it. Taylor Swift's summer merch featuring open knit sweaters bridged both trends beautifully. Frame partnered with Sotheby's for terry towels and cropped sweatshirts that screamed Hamptons energy. Even Lollapalooza, a festival literally built on alternative culture, dropped an Ivy League-themed collection. When counter-culture adopts prep, you know the trend has hit.
Trends insight: In 2025, generic branding died. The winners picked a specific aesthetic universe and committed fully—because people don't buy merch anymore, they buy into worlds.
The biggest shift? Merch stopped being sold and started being dropped. A24 released Marty Supreme windbreakers before most people had even seen a trailer for the film. Dutch Bros x Lonely Ghost sold out instantly. Domino's gave customers exactly 10 days to grab their 80s nostalgia collection. Palantir's $300 tech puffers sell out in minutes with cult-like demand that rivals Supreme drops.
Brands fully adopted sneaker-drop mechanics: manufactured FOMO, pre-launch hype, and scarcity. This isn't a tactic anymore—it's the entire product launch strategy. The "always available" model still has its place but scarcity creates heat, and heat creates relevance.
Trend insight: When everything's available forever, there is no urgency. Drops create desire.
The pop-up shop broke into two opposite strategies in 2025—and both crushed it.
On one end, you had the hyper-exclusive physical drop designed to create lines and spectacle. Using that jacket example again, A24's Marty Supreme pop-up in LA wasn't just selling $250 windbreakers —it was engineering scarcity. Single location. Limited inventory. This is merch as pre-hype machine, not souvenir. Claude (Anthropic) hosted pop-up experiences that drew epic lines worldwide. For a tech brand, a physical pop-up humanizes the product—it transforms software into a moment people can touch and merch serves as a physical expression of an intangible service.
On the opposite end, you had the hyper-scalable digital shop that turned corporate merch into retail experiences. commonsku customers built over 12,000 shops this year! Just one customer example? The Callard Company built over 70 digital shops in a single quarter, moving from reactive ordering to proactive shop management. Shops let brands offer a retail-like experience to thousands of employees or clients simultaneously, turning corporate gifting into bespoke boutique experiences.
Trend insight: Pop-ups aren't about location anymore—they're about hype, control, and demand. And digital shops deliver unique brand experience and convenience at scale. The brands that master both strategies win.
Fast-casual restaurants went full lifestyle brand in 2025. CAVA launched a dedicated merch shop calling customers "flavor fans" and sold feta hoodies and hot harissa hats—you literally had to eat there to get the joke, which is brilliant. Campbell's partnered with PBR to create beer soup and opened pop-up bars. McDonald's "Lil McDonald's" miniatures drove adult collectors wild. White Castle sold a $3,000 bouncy castle (sold out). Panera offered mac & cheese lip balm and pillows that also sold out.
According to Square's Fall Restaurant Report, nearly 50% of diners now expect their favorite spots to sell branded gear—this isn't a novelty anymore, it's an expectation. London restaurants are selling out of totes and tees. Dunkin' collaborated with Tokyo streetwear brand AMBUSH on "grab me a glazed" hoodies that elevated Boston coffee culture to global street fashion.
Trend insight: Gen Z doesn't separate their favorite restaurant from their favorite brand—it's all lifestyle now. If your food and beverage clients aren't thinking merch strategy, they're missing legit revenue potential.
Big Tech's merch went from throwaway conference giveaways to flex-worthy collectibles. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wore Excel merch like it was a concert tee. Stripe gave away premium Carhartt hats on the streets of SF and NYC for Black Friday. Adobe turned software into streetwear with Photoshop vests and Creative Cloud hoodies that people actually want to wear outside.
Even Apple—who historically almost never does merch—dropped vibrant retro gear at their developer conference, and people genuinely called it Apple's "best new product" of the entire event. When your Stripe hat has legit resale value and Palantir puffers sell out in minutes, tech merch has officially transcended corporate swag and become cultural currency. Wearing the right tech brand is now a genuine status flex.
Trend insight: Tech merch stopped being a perk and became a product. When your company hoodie has resale value, you're not giving away swag—you're dropping an icon.
Harper's Bazaar documented the cultural moment perfectly: "From Pope Leo XIV to Kylie Jenner, celebs are flaunting merch like it's fashion week's hottest trend." But unlike the 2010s high-fashion wave, 2025's movement is about signaling community and belonging, not just being seen in the right brand.
When celebrities rock baseball caps and tour tees now, they're not dressing down—they're signaling connection. They're showing what they care about, what communities they belong to, what stories they want to be part of.
Music merch elevated to an artform this year. The Weeknd's immersive NYC pop-up used horror aesthetics and Basquiat references to treat the album cycle as a multimedia art project. Grateful Dead partnered with Uruguayan designer Gabriella Hearst to create $4,450 cashmere pieces using sustainable deadstock materials—band tees aren't cheap cotton anymore, they're haute couture for wealthy aging demographics. Kendrick + SZA's Hi-Vis vests became instant grails. L'Officiel asked "Why does music merch look cooler than ever?" The answer: designers bringing haute couture precision to tour drops.
As Bryan Escareño of Amor Prohibido puts it: "Merch isn't just a logo on a tee—it's a piece of a story, a wearable statement." Merch became insignia in 2025, turning wearers into billboards for their passions and identities.
Trend insight: Merch stopped being just about the brand and started being about the wearer. People buy it to signal who they are, not what they can afford.
Here's what's wild: The comeback of heritage brands. Gen Z never lived through a heritage brand’s awkward phase (think: Gap in the early 2000s, or early Carhartt), so they only see vintage aesthetics as pure currency without any of the baggage. And nostalgia in 2025 split into two distinct camps.
You either went warm and fuzzy 70s (Tim Hortons' corduroy and camp mugs) or loud and aggressive 80s metal (H-E-B grocery chain releasing concert-poster quality tees that treated their brand like a touring band—Ozzy would approve). Domino's "Hot Since '85" capsule sold out in exactly 10 days. McDonald's x PacSun mined '80s nostalgia hard with their McDonaldland collection.
The athletic heritage wave hit hard too. Umbro dropped three designer collabs at once (White Mountaineering, graniph, plus their centennial collection). The Oasis reunion brought back '90s bucket hats with Levi's and adidas collaborations, proving '90s Britpop still moves product.
And then there were bears. Everywhere. Starbucks Bearista cups went viral and caused store fights. Ralph Lauren pushed Polo Bear Christmas hard. Mountain Dew used retro bear designs. In a year saturated with AI and technology, bears offered something softer—analog warmth in an increasingly digital world.
Trend insight: Heritage isn't history anymore—it's premium positioning. Looking backwards became the smartest way to look forward. Expect more of this in 2026!
Here's the shift no one's talking about: as merch became fashion, culture, and identity in 2025, brands stopped accepting mediocre presentations and generic product ideas. They started expecting creative direction—and distributors had to evolve or die.
The pressure showed up in our platform data. commonsku users submitted over 1 million purchase orders this year, with ePO submissions up 126% and created 320,000+ presentations. That's not order management—that's creative output at scale. And it’s hella positive momentum for the medium and our customers.
But the bottleneck for many is still obvious: distributors are drowning in PO admin and tracking, the "messy middle" that keeps them from doing what clients actually pay for—creative, strategic merch programs that move product and build brands. When Chili's drops Tecovas boots or A24 engineers scarcity with pre-film merch drops, those aren't catalog picks—they're creative campaigns.
The successful distributors in 2025 automated the backend so they could focus on the front end. They stopped being order-takers and started being brand architects. Because when merch is culture, you're not selling products anymore—you're selling creative vision.
Trend insight: Merch rose to a cultural force, which means distributors can't afford to be logistics coordinators anymore. Automate the boring stuff so you can be the creative powerhouse your clients actually need.
The defining characteristic of 2025 was pure intention: The "why" behind your merch mattered just as much as the "what." Merch signals cultural relevance. Eco-friendly materials signal values. Limited drops signal exclusive belonging. Tactile objects signal resistance to digital overwhelm.
Every choice communicated something about who you are and what you stand for. And smart brands know that the why matters just as much as the what.
Looking ahead to 2026: As the digital landscape gets noisier and noisier, every smart brand will seek to become a lifestyle label for their audience and that happens in the real world with tactile, immersive experiences, like merch. It's not about "going viral with merch" it's about creating meaning and momentum for the people that matter most. And distributors ---who streamline their ops, automate production, accelerate AI adoption, and remove bottlenecks-- will create time for their team to scale creativity and win future work that matters.
And a promise to you, our little newsletter The Backpack, won’t be just full of stuff—it will be full of the stories, brands, and merch people passionately want to wear and share. Subscribe here if you're not already a reader. And if you are a reader, thank you. You inspire us, backpacker.
We’ll keep keepin’ an eye on the trends for you.
See you in 2026.
This report synthesizes insights from The Backpack newsletter issues 55-74, published throughout 2025. The research was compiled from 24 issues of the backpack through Gemini and the article was lovingly co-crafted by Claude (AI) and by Bobby and Ritz (co-editors of The Backpack).