Back 
Best Shopify Themes for Fashion and Clothing Brands (and the Features You Should Look for)
The eCommerce fashion industry accounts for 29.5% of fashion retail sales in the US alone. The value of the US market is set to reach $100 billion by 2021, owing to the shift in consumer behaviour that leads to making more online purchases than ever before. But it’s not just the number of people shopping online that is increasing, the number of businesses taking their brands digital is too.
Posted 2 years ago by Vanhishikha
Table of Contents:
So a typical online shopper today gets at least ten brands to choose from when making a purchase. Be it athleisure, sportswear, loungewear or party wear, think about the last time you were buying any of it online and the number of options that were available to you.
Now for a minute, think about how you chose who to buy from.
You didn’t just choose to buy from a brand that offered a good deal on their collection. You instead chose to interact with the one that made its fashion and clothing collection really stand out and look good, even digitally.
And not to forget, the one that made it easier for you to make the purchase online.
So when you choose a Shopify theme for your online store, this is exactly the future you define.
That’s why you have to get it right from the get go!
In this article, we’re going to share some of the best Shopify themes for fashion brands and also dive deeper into the must-have features you should look for when choosing one.
Now if you’re new to Shopify, we’d like to urge you to read The Definitive Guide To Understanding Shopify Themes as well. It will help you understand what Shopify themes are, the benefits of using a Shopify theme and how you should be choosing one for your store.
But if you’re already familiar with Shopify themes, let’s get down to business.
The best Shopify themes for clothing and fashion brands
After having worked with various Shopify theme developers, customizing the look and feel for global fashion brands, we shortlisted a few names to give you a headstart.
1. Impulse by Archetype Themes
A modern, clean and bold design, Impulse is one of the best Shopify themes for fashion brands. Impulse includes columned menus, powerful sidebar filters, ability to create subcollections, add engaging videos and include additional product page content. It’s image-focused approach is great for brands that want to highlight their inventory.
The overall design style tips towards a minimal aesthetic.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Impulse theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
2. Debutify by Debutify
Another versatile Shopify theme for fashion brands is Debutify. It comes packed with features like customizable HTML content, tab name, icons, images, reviews, layout per page, visibility per product and more. It lets you easily create and organize rich content that enhances the shopping experience for your store visitors.
The theme gives you the flexibility to decide its design aesthetic based on the customizations you make.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Debutify theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
3. Streamline by Archetype Themes
Another smart-looking Shopify theme for sharp fashion brands is Streamline. The theme design and layout focuses on quick load times and easy interaction on all pages for mobile shoppers. The customizations enable you to create a luxe or a hype vibe across your store. The theme is optimized for high-resolution images.
Again, this Shopify theme is pretty versatile and can be customized in terms of the look and feel across all the pages based on your brand.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Streamline theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
If you’re looking for a more classic vibe for your fashion brand, Pacific is one of the best Shopify themes. The features that make it our top pick include a multi-column menu, multi-tiered sidebar, custom modules for the home page like FAQs, blog posts, promotional blocks and more. It also offers multiple product page layouts with complete customizations to help you create a tailored shopping experience for your store visitors.
This Shopify theme is a good example of a modular design that comes with built-in styles and color palettes.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Pacific theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
Designed for visual storytelling, Prestige is another theme for fashion brands that is optimized for large images with an overall minimalist look. The theme though comes with smart conversion features like image hotspot linking, slide out cart, customizable content sections on the home page, drop-down navigation and free stock photos to get you started.
If you’re looking for a clean aesthetic with just your brand colors, this is a theme you could go for.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Prestige theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
If fashion magazines have a special place in your heart, you’re going to love the Lorenza Shopify theme for your fashion brand. The theme lets you showcase brand and product imagery in large, unique image panels that can be further customized with a parallax effect to add more depth to their look. It also includes features like color swatches, a sticky navigation and product filtering to make it easier for shoppers to find their way around.
The overall look and feel of this Shopify theme is very editorial-inspired and is perfect for boutique retailers.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Lorenza theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
For fashion brands that are seeking a modular yet minimal look for their Shopify store, Pipeline is a good choice. It lets you showcase brand and product-related content in a stylish layout that can be customized to highlight what you want to focus on. The theme also lets you add an animated depth effect as you scroll down the page to give an immersive experience to store visitors.
The overall look and feel of this Shopify theme tips more towards extreme minimalism.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Pipeline theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
Another Shopify theme that puts your products at the forefront, is Mr Parker. It includes pre-made theme styles – wardrobe, sunset, apothecary and desk, that offer a quick starting point for setting up your theme and matching it to the look and feel of your brand. Some of the other lovable features include slideshow with video, two product template layouts, advanced layout page formatting, product shortcodes for variants, notification bar, custom image product swatches and more.
If you’re someone who’s still deciding on the aesthetic your store should exude, Mr Parker is a great starting point and the customizations across all the pages will help you create a look totally exclusive to your brand.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Mr Parker theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
If you’re a fan of a collage-style layout, Kagami is a good Shopify theme for your fashion brand. It lets you feature multiple products, posts and promotions in a masonry-style layout. The theme also offers you the ability to feature videos on the home page and the product page. We like how they offer a dedicated FAQ page to address pre-purchase anxiety that most online shoppers face!
Overall, if you want your brand and product imagery to stand out from the rest of the elements, this is a good theme to start with.
If you need help setting up or customizing the Kagami theme, reach out to the Shopify Experts at HeyCarson.
Apart from these there are a number of other Shopify themes that you can use for your fashion and clothing brand. Some paid and some premium.
We’ll make sure we keep this list up-to-date!
No matter how good the reviews are for a Shopify theme, while choosing one, it is important that you look for some features that are an absolute mandate for your audience.
Let’s walk you through some of the good-to-haves in a Shopify theme for fashion brands.
PS. If you don’t find these details specifically mentioned by a Shopify theme developer, you can reach out to them with questions or ask for the complete documentation.
Must-haves in a clothing and fashion brand Shopify theme
A fashion and clothing brand’s consumer is typically one who is driven by visuals. They’re inspired by the content they consume on social media, motivated to try out new styles by influencers and celebrities they follow and at the same time, skeptical about doing it all.
That’s why they need a lot of visual clues and assistance while making a purchase online.
The good news is that you can offer them this assistance by simply choosing the right Shopify theme for your clothing and fashion brand. And of course, adding a few apps to it to enhance its features – but that’s a topic for later.
Let’s take a look at the features now.
Optimized for large images
78% of online shoppers want online stores to share product images that bring them to life. In fact, 50% of online shoppers say it’s important for the store to use large, high-quality product images. It helps them see products in much more detail and makes the shopping experience more enjoyable.
So the number one thing you need to look for is a Shopify theme that is optimized for large images across all the pages.
Product image zoom
No matter how big or what resolution of product images you use, some shoppers would like to zoom in to take a closer look. Being able to look at details such as the stitching of the product or its texture gives them more confidence in the purchase.
This is why your Shopify theme should not just be optimized for high resolution images, but also come with a zoom feature. One that works smoothly and does not compromise the resolution of the images as the visitor interacts with it.
Long-form home page
With so many options available to them, short home pages are no longer enough to convince visitors to buy from you.
While most online shoppers make specific searches on the search engine and most likely land on your product pages, there’s a high chance they do visit your home page. You want that to be a reason for them to convert and not bounce off.
Pick a Shopify theme that lets you create a long-form home page for your fashion and clothing brand. Use the space to promote all your collections, lookbooks, media mentions or even display user generated content like Instagram posts.
Collection page slider
As a fashion and clothing brand you probably have at least two or more collections on your Shopify store. But every visitor to your site isn’t going to explore them all in one session.
That’s why you need to make them easily found, encouraging the visitor to browse through more products in your store. You can do this by adding a collection page slider on your home page, product pages, collection pages and your search results pages.
The slider allows shoppers to browse through multiple product images without them leaving the page they are on. So they’re easily browsing through different product ranges before deciding which one they want to get more details on without the to and fro.
In addition to the ease of exploring products, the slider is a smart tactic to reduce page length!
Just make sure that the Shopify theme you offer has a collection preview slider that is responsive to clicks as well as taps. Other than that, it should be able to deliver the same experience across mobile devices as well.
Multi-level menu
If you have a large inventory or multiple collections under your fashion brand, it’s important to make it easy for shoppers to navigate through the site. This makes it extremely important to have a multi-level menu in the store.
This should be covered by your Shopify theme or they should give you the ability to customize the menu bar.
Multi-column menu
In case you have product imagery that represents an entire collection and would help with recall, you need to look for a theme that lets you set up a multi-column menu.
The feature allows you to include product images in a large, multi-column drop-down menu that visually guides how the store visitor navigates through your website.
Product page tabs
The only way for an online shopper to get to know more about a product is through the details you provide. Be it in terms of the dimensions or sizing of the product or its making and care after purchase, it’s important to include these details.
Look for a Shopify theme that offers description tabs on product pages that can be customized to include information based on what you sell.
Custom modules
Every brand is different and so is its audience as well as their expectations. While for some online shoppers a product description is enough to make a purchase decision, there could be others with some additional questions.
If you have an inquisitive target audience, look for a Shopify theme that offers custom modules and an ability to add them across all pages. It should let you share promotions, FAQs, conduct polls or even share blog posts and lookbooks easily on any page.
Sticky navigation
With features like product recommendations and lookbooks, your store visitors may move differently on your site. But at any given time, it should be easy for them to find their way back to the collection they found interesting while browsing.
This is where a sticky navigation comes handy! This keeps your menus fixed to the top of the pages even as the visitor scrolls down.
Product gallery
As a fashion brand selling online, you need to be able to help the shopper visualise a product or an entire look on themselves. Including product images from all perspectives is extremely important!
But so is making it easy for the shopper to view all the images. The Shopify theme you choose should let you create product galleries. The feature essentially lets you create a browsable collection for each product with high-resolution images.
Customer testimonials
With the lack of touch and feel in purchases, social proof is all that a consumer has to decide whether to trust or not a brand. This is where customer testimonials come in – product reviews, ratings or text testimonials.
In fact, studies suggest that displaying customer testimonials regularly can generate 62% more revenue for your Shopify store.
Hence, the Shopify theme you choose should have a section on all pages to display customer testimonials. If they offer a separate page to showcase all the good words around your brand, even better!
Another thing to keep in mind when seeking this feature, is to ensure the testimonials section is responsive. Also, you should have the ability to select which ones you want to display first.
While this can be achieved with the help of Shopify apps, it’s good to check the theme’s capabilities and compatibilities beforehand.
Story-focused product pages
With consumers having more time at hand, you’re going to see more store visitors going into the details of products. Apart from images and videos you include, you will notice that the new online shopper is thorough with descriptions too.
This is where a story-focused product page comes into play. Your fashion and clothing Shopify theme should give you the option to customize product pages to include more than just a description.
Be it the making of the product, the benefits, lookbooks or simply a few BTS videos, storytelling is the way to go if you convince every shopper to convert!
Mobile-friendly design
About 79% of smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile devices in the last six months. About 62.24% of people across the globe own a mobile phone (as of 2021). Surveys suggest that mCommerce in eCommerce is expected to rise to 72.9% by the end of this year.
Owing to how most of our fashion-related purchases are inspired by our scrolling on mobile-dominant apps like Instagram and Pinterest, a mobile-friendly design is an absolute must.
Before you implement a Shopify theme, check if it is 100% responsive. Everything from your home page to product pages, carousels, sizing charts and more, needs to be easily usable on mobile devices.
Product recommendations
Did you know that 43% of purchases that are made online are owed to personalized product recommendations in the fashion industry?
As consumers we visit online stores seeking products with something in mind. But most of the time, we’re not sure how to look for similar products that may suit our preferences better. This results in us leaving the site, without even exploring if they have something else of our interest available.
This is where your Shopify theme should have a section for displaying personalized recommendations on your product pages.
One, it will help you introduce a store visitor to more products on your site, giving you a chance to upsell and cross-sell easily.
Two, it will make the shopping experience of a visitor much easier and enjoyable as you tailor their journey across the site.
Sizing and fitting charts
Whether you’re selling fashion accessories or clothing, you’re obviously catering to a number of sizes. These sizes tend to vary from brand to brand and hence, need to be addressed clearly on your product pages to help shoppers make informed purchase decisions.
The Shopify theme you choose for your fashion and clothing brand should allow you to add a sizing chart visibly on the product pages. If not, it should enable you to customize the page to include one or to use a Shopify app for the same.
55% of consumers have said that sizing issues are the number one reason for them to return products when buying fashion products online. Don’t skip this one!
Return/ Exchange/ Refund policy pages
Did you know that at least 30% of all products ordered online are returned as compared to 8.89% at brick-and-mortar stores? The National Retail Federation found that the average return rate in the fashion and apparel industry is about 11.1% on the lower end, but can be higher depending on the type of products you sell.
As a business, you need to clearly specify your return and exchange policy on your Shopify store. This will reduce the number of to and from communication with customers if such an instance occurs.
Your Shopify theme should either offer a separate page to list down your policies or let you mention them on product pages in a dedicated section. Don’t leave anything to ambiguity!
Search engine optimization
Another important and yet most overlooked feature that your Shopify theme needs to have is search optimization.
With 60% of online shopping journeys starting from the search engine, it is important that every effort you make in terms of adding images, videos or product descriptions, gets recognised by the crawlers.
The Shopify theme you choose for your fashion brand should enable easy crawling across all pages. Even for the smallest of elements such as your sizing guides and customer testimonials.
Light theme
Walmart Inc., an American multinational retail corporation found that for every 1 second improvement in the page load time, their conversions increased by 2%. The study also saw other online retailers in different industries see their conversions improve by 7% when the page load time was reduced by 0.85 seconds.
That simply goes to say, no matter how big or small your brand is, online shoppers do not like waiting. Especially if they’re wanting to know more about a product or are wanting to make a quick purchase.
This is why we encourage brands to choose Shopify themes that are lightweight and optimized for a good page load time.
If you’re not sure how good the pagespeed is for a theme implemented on your Shopify store, you can check the same on PageSpeed Insights by Google.
Getting the best Shopify theme for your fashion and clothing brand
Choosing the right Shopify theme for your fashion and clothing brand can be tricky. But the hack here is to know who your target audience is, what you want to be perceived as by them and what they expect of you in terms of the look and feel.
A good idea here is to look at the brands they currently engage with and the brands that are aspirational to them. This will give you a good idea of the aesthetic your audience wants your Shopify store to exude.
But at the same time, you also need to ensure that your Shopify theme lets you put your best foot forward and offers customizations that let you personalize the look and feel.
Struggling to choose the right Shopify theme or need help customizing one?
Reach out to the Shopify experts at HeyCarson for theme customizations and more.
