The Price Of Fast Fashion

Compared with 1980s, today's consumers clothing Demand has doubled 4 times. Moreover, we can now buy more outfits with less money. What did we lose in the fashion of luxury parity and luxury democratization?

Over the past 15 years, we not only overspend, but also taste more and more alike: compared with the previous 10 years, the 10 year old wardrobe has lost a lot of formal clothes and suits, instead of a household casual wear full of grain.

A survey in 2005 showed that our fashion consumption The change began in the middle of the 80s, and respondents admitted that they consumed more than they used to and did not know when the growth of consumption would stop. The consumption pattern of the old people is consistent with their income, season and way of dressing, but the way of consumption is quite different now.

In the millenium, the mainstream fashion industry in Britain focused more on retail rather than on manufacturing. The "king without crown" in that era is the famous Philip Green. In 2000, Green bought the high street brand Bhs, which was then on the brink of bankruptcy. In 2002, he spent 850 million pounds on the Arcadia group's income. After three years, he started the brand Topshop and created 1 billion pounds of amazing sales in the first two quarters, when the total retail sales of the British apparel were only 7 billion pounds.

Retailers have copied Topshop's success model. Fast fashion This has become the industry standard of fashion industry, with more and more styles of clothing and faster metabolism. High street fashion is very vigilant and responsive to fashion trends and consumer demand. And Topshop's kill technology is its fastest supply chain, the production cycle reduced to 1/4 of the original.

A few years ago, it took 20 weeks for a factory to complete an order of 4 styles and 40 thousand garments. Now, the factory will complete 20 thousand items in the first 5 weeks with the efficiency of 500 clothes per week. After the clothing is listed, it will be tested by Taylor Swift, Daisy Lowe or Lindsay Lohan, and if the consumers respond strongly, they will immediately catch up with the remaining 30 thousand pieces. Topshop squeezed the production cycle to 6 weeks, while H&M was reluctant to reveal that their products would only take 3 weeks from design to listing. Zara is the ultimate revolutionary. When Zara opened its first store in Regent Street in London, consumers had a lot of complaints: first, the price of Zara was high; two, if you look at a garment, you must start immediately, because when you go back to the second shop, that dress is likely to disappear.

The output of each style of Zara is very small; 200 designers design 40 thousand styles every year, and 12 thousand of them will be put into production. Once consumers hesitate, it is very likely that they will lose the opportunity to buy. Harvard researchers compared the Zara model to the "possessing". This mechanism has raised the appetite of consumers. Usually only when the styles on the T platform are seen at the right time, do they buy or not? "Buying or buying" is not the crux of the problem. The key is that consumers who lose their good sense of loss because of hesitation will encourage them to buy without hesitation in the future consumption experience.

Zara changed the rules of the fashion retailing industry. Even Philip Green said: "this is really a gifted move and the core of the fashion industry."

As consumers, we gradually lose our dominant power. For a long time, we regard quality and brand as the most important factor. Now, this habit is being abandoned gradually. Instead, we are attracted by new products and cheered by the arrival of the new fashion season.

The British fashion market helps the discount stores to keep prices at the same level by manipulating the fashion media. Those fashions priced up to 4 are as easy as street fries. But consumers regard these worthless bargains as treasures, because that means they can make four styling in a day like Lindsay Lohan.

How do fast fashion giants overwhelm retail prices? First, there are about 40 million basic workers in the fashion industry. The tailor, the garment worker and the sewing worker are what we call CMT. A piece of cloth has just completed the evolution of one piece of fabric, one garment to another trend in the hands of CMT. In addition to CMT, 30 million home workers are expected to work on beads, embroidery and sewing sequins. Secondly, the factories set up by overseas fashion companies are synonymous with exploitation. Taking Bangladesh sweatshops as an example, a laborer can earn about 1 pounds a day, which is probably the only five source of five. Many Western companies simply do not consider the production capacity of Southeast Asian regions, blindly pursue cheap labor and invest huge amounts of orders. Therefore, the garment factory workers have to work under the pressure of huge orders. The poor production environment: crumbling production machines, exposed wires, running boilers, stacked mountain fabrics and yarns, all of which look like a time bomb. All along, luxury goods are elaborately built by the top workshops in Europe. Artisans and seamstresses have lofty social status. In contrast, the fast fashion giants consciously avoid the fact that "workers hand make clothes". In the luxury industry, * women workers are brilliant stars, and in fast fashion, they become worms in dark corners.

In 2005, the concept of "stingy fashion" took the lead in the British fashion industry. Deirdre Fernand, in an interview with the Sunday times, called the low cost fashion "miserly fashion". This means that people who wear cheap clothes from head to toe can also become a member of the fashion industry. As the fashion writer Dana Thomas said in the book Deluxe, business tycoons and financial oligarchs saw the great potential of the fashion industry. They bought luxury companies and turned to the large middle class consumer groups. How great the "democratization" and "parity" of luxury goods in their mouths are as sublime as socialism. But the real purpose is simple, that is, to accumulate money without any need.

In the process of "luxury democratization", did the luxury group lose control of the supply chain? In order to reduce costs, clothing production links were usually outsourced to factories in Eastern Europe and Asia. It is difficult for European factories to find a balance between production efficiency and labor rights. Prato is a world-famous cloth production base in Tuscany, Italy. There are about 25000 cheap laborers from China who specializes in luxury goods. But the production conditions here are horrible, and the wages of workers are only half of the minimum wage in Italy. In 2007, WWF assessed sustainability of the world's major luxury brands. The level of LVMH is C, Tod 's gets a F. In 2007, LVMH fell out of the FTSE index because its supply chain had a negative impact on the environment and society. "Miserly fashion" is the banner of "cheap luxury", and "democratic luxury" can not satisfy the basic needs of consumers for luxury goods. Consumers suffer from the "crazy buying syndrome", lack of fashion consumption budget, and less capable of cleaning up the packed wardrobe. In 2008, our average cost of clothing and footwear reached a record low of 21.60 pounds per week, accounting for 4.6% of the total weekly budget. But the fact is that we spend more money on more outfits. We filled 17% of the wardrobe 40% with the clothing budget. This sounds paradoxic, so you will ask: is our budget substantial enough? Do we spend money on the knife edge? If your income is on average, then I suggest that you increase your clothing consumption to 6% of your weekly income, thereby ensuring the stability of your wardrobe. Suppose the average annual salary of women aged 30 to 39 is 22047 pounds, which means that they can spend 20 pounds a week on clothes. If you slow down the shopping frequency, you will save about 100 pounds. If you agree with the idea of "you wear 20% of your clothes in 80% hours", pick out 20% of the most worthwhile products, then you will reduce your purchases from 104 to 21 per year, which is enough to make you a smarter consumer.

It's time to name the wardrobe, which will bring vitality to fashion enterprises.