"Fast Fashion" Clothing Brand Is Popular In &Nbsp; Low Price Squeezing Workers.

Even in rainy days, London's busiest Oxford street is not lacking. Shoppers 。 A young woman walked out of the Primark clothing store, known for its low price, carrying 6 or 7 brown paper bags filled with "spoils of war" spoils. An overburdened paper bag was broken, and colorful clothes scattered across the floor. Surprisingly, the woman was too lazy to pick up her clothes because she had been wet by the rain.

Yes, this is today. fashion Portrayal: products are flooded, and prices are so low that they are almost rubbish. Businessmen claim that this is a "fast fashion" era. Anyone can have fashionable products faster, more and cheaper. However, the shortening of the popularity cycle and the reduction of costs are a chronic plundering. The social problems caused by "fast fashion" can not be ignored.

Clothes are not as good as clothes.

"Fast fashion" is popular. consumption Habit and Retail Business model.

In Britain, people now have 4 times as many clothes as they did 30 years ago. Each person spends an average of 625 pounds a year (1 pounds, or about 1.61 dollars) for clothes, 28 kilos of new clothes per year, and 1 million 720 thousand tons of fashion products every year. It is worth noting that the same weight clothes are thrown into the trash cans each year, though they are far from old clothes.

Data show that the relationship between people and clothing is changing. People used to wear clothes for one or two years according to income, demand and season. In the "fast fashion" era, people's attention to clothes is far less than before. The focus of the fashion industry is also tilted from manufacturing to sales.

Because of this understanding, Philip Green, founder of Topshop, a British clothing chain, has achieved tremendous business success. He bought the Arcadia group at 850 million pounds in 2002, and made the clothing chain enterprise into a "cheap fashion paradise" in Britain.

Based on this, Green set up a Topshop chain store, selling and designing the fashion that is close to the international first-line brand at the price acceptable to ordinary people. 3 years after its establishment, Topshop sold more than 1 billion pounds in six months, while the entire British clothing market sold for 7 billion a year.

For those with limited income, Topshop shops across the street are a shortcut to fashion T. They see patterns in fashion magazines, and then enter Topshop stores to buy similar clothes at a low price.

For retailers eager for sales, Topshop's success model is worth flaunting. Low price is only one of the reasons for Topshop's success. Keeping pace with market trends and rapidly adjusting supply varieties is another main reason for Topshop to attract consumers. Fast fashion has become an industry standard.

Fashion "quick response"

"Fast fashion" not only changed the retail business mode, but also changed the fashion industry's production, supply and marketing.

When the stores adjust the supply with the tide changing, the "quick response" becomes the key to winning the competition. The clothing factory emphasizes not quantity but speed. Every retailer is eager to get the fastest supply chain, and the production cycle is continuously compressed, which is shortened from several weeks to days or even hours.

While increasing production speed, the working hours of garment factories become more flexible. Because fashion trends change so fast, retailers often do not place orders at the last minute. Regardless of day and night, as long as the design team of the United Kingdom finalized the drawings, the buyers who contacted the suppliers would send a fax to the garment factories in the developing countries.

A few years ago, a single order from a large retailer usually agreed to produce 4 styles of clothing in 40 thousand weeks in 20 weeks. Nowadays, it is difficult for garment processing factories to receive large orders such a long production cycle. If a retailer is willing to order 10 thousand items in 5 weeks, any garment factory will feel lucky.

As the first fast reaction force in the fashion industry, Topshop successfully reduced the production cycle from 9 weeks to 6 weeks. This record was quickly refreshed. The other clothing chain store in Britain, H & M, completed the whole process from design to commodity shelves in only 3 weeks.

Limited edition "provocative"

Shortening the supply cycle, Zara, a clothing retailer from Spain, introduced the concept of "limited edition" to rewrite the rules of "fast fashion".

On the basis of reducing production in the industry, Zara further desalinated the quantity requirements and replaced the rich variety selection. The Zara design team designs 40 thousand costumes each year, 12 thousand of which are produced on the shelves and 5000 more than Topshop.

When the first Zara store opened in Regent Street, London, its marketing strategy was baffling. Compared with stores such as Topshop, the price of Zara is not cheap, but it is within acceptable limits. Hesitant consumers found that if they did not immediately buy the clothes they were looking for, they might return empty handed in second weeks.

This is the success of Zara, which results in the psychological hunger of consumers through the reduction of quantity, that is, the so-called "limited edition provocation". This marketing strategy causes psychological panic among consumers and fears that they will hesitate to buy opportunities forever.

Even Green, who founded Topshop, praised Zara's strategy. "Genius is the essence of fashion industry," he said in an interview with industry magazine. Many clothing brands including Esprit and Mongo quickly copied the success of Zara: the order to delivery time was shortened to the shortest, and the product category was no longer restricted to the four seasons, while the number of each style was greatly reduced.

For fashion Retailer In fact, holding inventory at hand is the most outdated performance. For consumers, traditional factors such as material and brand are not important to measure clothing quality. We are busy buying the latest and the most fashionable design, and are willing to try different designs for more than 20 different dressing seasons each year. In the age of "fast fashion", if someone is still satisfied with the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, he is a "fashion dinosaur". {page_break}

"Luxurious democratization"

cheap Clothing chain store It is not the only commercial beneficiary of "fast fashion". When cheap goods are rampant, high priced front-line fashion brands are opening up new markets and calling themselves "luxurious democratization".

In July 2001, sales of clothing and shoes and hats in the UK increased by 12% over the same period last year, the highest annual growth rate since mid 1970s. At the same time, clothing retail prices continued to decline. In 2001, the overall retail price of clothing in Britain dropped by 6%. In the 4 years from 2003 to 2007, the average retail price of clothing decreased by 10%.

Small profits and quick turnover are the way to success in "fast fashion". In addition to the number of clothing brands that have been discounted for 30% to 50% a year, the UK has appeared to be the main chain store for cheap products. Primark is the model. The price of the brand is 4 per garment. Low prices encourage consumers to over buy, and ordinary people can change 4 clothes a day.

When consumers are delighted to cut down on clothing purchases, the mix and match wind is rising. The so-called "mashup", the Sunday times magazine in 2005, "the art of mixing luxury goods with cheap products". The most fashionable trend is that it is no harm to wear a luxury item, even if it is cheap. Since then, cheap is no longer a taboo.

Luxury goods targeted at high-end markets all year round find that the "new world" turns to the potential of middle-income consumers. Since buying clothes has saved a lot of money, why not buy a luxury to reward yourself and practice the most fashionable "mashup dream"? The chief executive of the luxury group claims that this is "luxury democratization", making the luxury goods "within reach".

The dark side of "fast fashion"

The low price strategy is the secret of retailers' "turning the stone into gold", but it is the low price that exposes the dark side of "fast fashion".

Supporting the fashionable appearance is the physical work that is full of sweat. According to incomplete statistics, there are at least 40 million workers in the world engaged in garment processing, cutting and sewing textile raw materials into ready-made garments. In addition, there are 30 million temporary workers working in family workshops for clothing embroidery, fringes or sewing ornaments. Most of these temporary workers are women.

The principle of "fast fashion" depends on the low price and fast speed, which challenges the limits of workers. In developing countries, garment processing factories earn little profit from each order. Every reduction in the retail price of clothing can affect the income of garment workers. In Bangladesh, many workers are the only source of income for their families, but their daily income of 1 pounds is far from enough to maintain their family's expenses for the whole day. Shortening the supply cycle adds to the pressure of garment factories. The workers were told to work overtime before they went off duty, and they could probably work for more than ten hours in order to rush orders.

Even the craftsmen craftsmen craftsmen craftsmen are expensive. Luxury brands have never relaxed their control over the supply chain. In order to reduce labor expenditure, the main production links of luxury brands in developed countries are all outsourced to developing countries such as Eastern Europe and Asia.

Even in developed countries, cheap labor is replacing traditional and expensive "studio" production methods. In the Central Textile City of Prato, Italy, about 25 thousand garment workers from developing countries make luxury goods locally. According to the Italy TV documentary "extravagant slave" exposure, the working environment of these workers is extremely bad, and the wage level is less than half of the legal minimum wage in Italy.

The World Wide Fund for nature released a report on "deeper luxury" in 2007, rating the luxury brands from the perspective of social and environmental sustainability. As a result, many well-known brands were rated low. Louis Weedon, France (LVMH) was rated C, while British Todd (Tod) was F grade.