How to Attract Gen Z’s New Club Kids

On a balmy evening in July, the cobbled streets of historic Ibizan neighborhood Dalt Villa began to look more Berliner than Balearic. Streams of cool kids dressed in all-black tank tops, slip dresses and leather pants crammed into the old town, sipping cocktails as DJs slid faders. Only a few flyposters gave away that this wasn’t an impromptu street party, as did a stone facade carved with the text: “YSL Beauty.” The club-inspired event was part of the brand’s “Block Party” series, which has seen the house take over cafes and squares in cities including Marseille, Jakarta and Madrid.

It follows in the footsteps of other branded parties and hangouts on the island. This summer, Casablanca has been on tour across La Isla Blanca, continuing a long-running events series with Solid Grooves at airport-adjacent hangar DC-10 and taking over Six Senses’ beach with a more laid-back pop-up. “For me, Ibiza will always be more than a destination. It’s a place where fashion, music, design and culture naturally come together, making it the perfect setting for the Casablanca world,” says Casablanca founder Charaf Tajer. Armani Exchange, meanwhile, has been bunkering down at Ibiza’s Amnesia club for a series of Sunday parties. “It shows how fashion can become an authentic part of club culture,” says Beatriz Murillo, Amnesia’s marketing manager.

Casablanca took over Six Senses’s beach, opening a pop-up with a chill-out space, a detox smoothie menu and laid-back DJ sessions.

Of course, a fashion brand heading to Ibiza is nothing new — for decades, designers have leant into the wellness and culinary scenes of the island, with branded beach clubs and flashy influencer trips. Nor is throwing a sponsored party (see: almost every fashion activation, ever). But it’s fair to say that stepping into the rave scene has always been met with trepidation, a possible nightmare for brand safety officers.

But if brands can successfully attach themselves to DJs with die-hard fans and club nights full of young clubbers looking to amp up their wardrobes, there’s more than just clout on offer — there’s the chance of a serious afterglow. “Experiential activations are fast becoming the best way to access consumers, and few things are more impactful than a truly transcendent night on the dance floor,” says youth culture journalist, model and party girl Bee Beardsworth.

Gen Z are increasingly searching for this transcendence, looking to escape from the permacrisis that’s pervading reality. Many have caught up to their older siblings’ partying ways; almost seven in 10 (68%) 23-year-olds reported binge drinking in the past year, while nearly a third (29%) said they did so at least monthly, up from 10% at age 17. “Gen Z are guided by wellbeing, but they’re increasingly aware of the traps of perfectionist wellness, and they’re looking to inject more pleasure into their leisure time,” says Annie Corser, senior trends editor, pop culture and media at Stylus.

But there’s also a sober curious group to cater for; it’s why the Milan edition of YSL Beauty’s Block Party was teetotal, reflecting a desire to enjoy banging beats without the equally banging headaches the next day. Similarly, while Casablanca’s DC-10 series, which has run since 2024, is not a sober affair, Casablanca’s Six Senses soiree focused on detox smoothies, not boozy cocktails. “We wanted to create a destination where celebration and restoration could exist together. Ibiza has this unique ability to balance vibrant energy with moments of calm,” says Tajer.

For some, daytime dancing, rather than after-dark raving, is the new way to go out out — just 16% of the young people surveyed by Obsurvant in 2025 said they were staying out past 10pm more frequently. Partially, that’s because there’s nowhere to go — since 2020, a third of clubs have shuttered in the UK. “London’s dying nightlife is killing the fashion club kid,” declared Dazed in July. Or, as Charli XCX cheekily put it on Rock Music: “The dancefloor is dead.”

Some buzzy parties have bucked this trend and galvanized a new scene. Lost, the near-mythical night at the former Odeon Covent Garden, flashed back to past euphoria. Strikingly, it was phone-free, taking inspo from Berlin’s taped-camera policy and the 567% rise of off-grid club nights. “For even the most seasoned clubbers, there is something in Lost that feels like a revelation,” wrote Megan Townsend for Mixmag. “It’s the type of party that you will be telling everyone to try, without being able to explain exactly why and what they should try it for.”

Peckham’s new-ish club Palais is similarly offline. “The reopened basement club has a phone-free policy, but it’s not crafting or birdwatching going on down there — it is proper clubbing, and it’s packed every week,” says Corser. While Amnesia doesn’t have a blanket ban on phones, it does try to encourage a digital detox. “We must be realistic: sharing an experience is also part of how audiences behave today. The challenge is to find the right balance between digital visibility and truly living the moment.” With young clubbers more scared than ever of being filmed while dancing, ditching phones is a way to ease the vibes.

They drink less, post more and prefer their cocktails canned, collabed and content-friendly.

This highlights a drive toward more intentional, experiential clubbing. And for brands, this offers new opportunities to engage with club culture through listening parties, morning-after sessions or DJ workshops. “As iconic clubs shutter across London, Berlin, Southeast Asia, and beyond, something more intimate and intentional is quietly taking shape: elevated experiences,” Pigeon and Planes’ Tia Ho recently argued. “The club becomes a live editorial, where clothing, music and visual production create a shared atmosphere,” thinks Murillo.

Clubbers have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to new looks. “The club can be a laboratory for newness and innovation. It’s obviously not the only place where innovation happens, but it’s definitely somewhere you can see people putting things together before those ideas have been completely codified,” says Charles Jeffrey, whose legendary Loverboy Dalston club night, started while a student at CSM, informed his design. Chet Lo, the London-based designer who has often tapped into club culture, echoes this: “Club kids are always at the forefront of what style is going to be!”

Chet Lo's runway debut for the talent incubator Fashion East, during London Fashion Week SS22.

But for brands wanting to address this consumer, their style is more fluid than ever. In many cases, it’s a throwback. “Younger clubbers are definitely drawing their references from 2010s Tumblr, like seapunk, indie sleaze, Jeffrey Campbell and American Apparel days,” says Beardsworth. “There is a lot of DIY — ripped shirts, stockings as dresses, underwear as outerwear — and they are buying it from Vinted, car boots and charity shops, which clearly displays a rebellion against the hyper-consumerism of fast fashion.”

It seems that the Cyberdog days are here again. “They’re emo. It’s a sea of emo kids and I freaking love it so much,” says Lo. “Statement pieces like small digi cams covered in plastic gems are common, along with furry boots and cat ears,” says Zak Hardy, founder of Dance Policy. “The Tumblr influence is certainly strong (re-imagined through the prism of Euphoria) — glitter, neon, the 2010s MGMT throwbacks,” Corser adds.

Other clubbers are taking cues from the DJs. Often, this stems from a desire to know where to go out. “I think club kids are increasingly looking to DJs and influencers to dictate their nocturnal adventures,” says Beardsworth. “I get people telling me all the time that they’ve gone to a night because I posted about it on socials, and we all know the era of the celebrity DJ is very firmly upon us.”

But they’re also having influence on what to wear. Peggy Gou, a regular on DJ Mag’s highest-ranked selectors, has made her personal brand more immersive by collaborating with the likes of Pacha Ibiza and Alpha Industries on capsule collections. Honey Dijon, meanwhile, has collaborated with Comme des Garçons and, most recently, attended Burberry’s Winter 2026 Show.

Now, a new generation of social media-savvy DJs are building vast, fervent Gen Z fanbases and driving younger, more diverse audiences to the mainstream club scene. This year, US-based EDM DJ John Summit debuted his residency at superclub UNVRS, attracting a young crowd, many of whom had flown in from the States to see the show. The DJ has 2 million Instagram followers, 1.2 million followers on TikTok and over 42 million TikTok likes, and is known for sharing his journey, from being fired from his accountant job at Ernst & Young to launching a DJ career. Likewise, young UK-based DJ Josh Baker debuted his residency at Amnesia this year, drawing a younger crowd than some of the longer-standing resident DJs on the bill.

These mass-market, luxury-leaning DJs are waiting to be dressed by sportswear and streetwear labels. “They represent a huge opportunity for brands. Every artist has a highly engaged community, allowing brands to connect with very specific audiences through music, dance culture and shared experiences,” says Amnesia press manager Delfina Uriarte. In June, JD launched a private villa party with Baker. “We linked up with Josh at a luxury villa for an evening to remember. The ultimate party,” reads the what went down blog. “Got the flights booked for your own summer hol? Now it’s time to prep the suitcase.”