Walmart wants to be America’s No. 1 fashion destination as $100K households become its fastest-growing new shoppers

During Walmart’s fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call in February, executives called fashion a “bright spot” in stores and online and said it helped lead growth in U.S. general merchandise sales. Walmart also reported that Marketplace categories including fashion grew more than 40%.

“We want to be the No. 1 destination for fashion,” Denise Incandela, head of Walmart U.S. fashion, told The Cut. “Our customer is America.”

Walmart’s fashion reset

Incandela joined Walmart in 2017 after working at Saks Fifth Avenue and Ralph Lauren and has helped lead that shift. Early on, Incandela showed Walmart executives how much clothing spending they were missing out on. About 80% of what Walmart shoppers spent on apparel was going to higher-priced retailers instead.

Walmart already had the customers. The challenge was getting them to buy more of their clothes there.

“We knew we weren’t servicing all their closet needs,” Incandela told The Wall Street Journal, adding that customers gave Walmart credit for value, but not necessarily for “style and quality.”

Since then, Walmart has invested more heavily in its own clothing brands. One of its newest, Scenario, includes more than 280 pieces with what Walmart calls a “romantic, modern bohemian” look, with most pieces priced under $25. Some shoppers are already taking notice.

“These are Walmart. Incredible, right?” TikTok creator @facefirstfashion said while showing off pieces from a recent haul. “You would think I paid hundreds of dollars for this,” she added while showing off a beige cardigan.

Walmart has also brought in designers with high-fashion credentials. Brandon Maxwell, who has styled everyone from Lady Gaga to Dr. Jill Biden and runs his own luxury label, serves as creative director of Walmart brands Free Assembly and Scoop.

Under Incandela, Walmart has launched or refreshed 15 of its own brands and added more than 1,500 outside brands to its assortment, according to The Cut.

Why the timing may work in Walmart’s favor

Walmart’s fashion push is coming at a time when shoppers are paying closer attention to price.

McKinsey found consumers are becoming increasingly value-conscious: 80% are doing things like shopping around or waiting for sales, while 70% say they plan to spend less.

That pressure is showing up in household finances, too. A 2026 Federal Reserve report found that 58% of U.S. adults said higher prices over the previous year had made their financial situation worse.

That could work in Walmart’s favor. If shoppers can find a sweater, coat or pair of jeans they like for less, the name on the tag may matter less. A $45 cashmere sweater, for example, can look more appealing when similar pieces elsewhere cost much more.

Walmart’s enormous purchasing power can also help keep prices down. Incandela told The Cut that its scale gives the company leverage on everything from production to shipping, pointing to a Scoop blazer priced around $50 that she said might sell for roughly three times as much elsewhere.

Can Walmart change how shoppers see the brand?

Lower prices and better-looking clothes might be enough to pull shoppers from the snack aisle toward the sweaters. But the harder sell is changing how people think about Walmart in the first place.