How Far Can H&M And ZARA Fast Fashion Brand Genetic Defects Go?

The "lipstick effect" in the economic downturn is driving H&M, ZARA and so on. Fast fashion " brand Rapid rise, however, will the "fast fashion" brand's low cost strategy make them come and go fast?

The marriage of Versace (Versace) and H&M was in the early November 17th at the entry store. From the first half of the curtain to another round of the shop, the fast fashion marketing strategy has broken the psychological defense lines of fashion fans again. Versace For H&M has become the perfect comfort for this early winter.

The same situation was also staged in 2010. In November 23, 2010, H&M joined hands with Lanvin to launch a new round of designer's fashion store sales. Some crazy fans even queued up the night before. The fashion of Lanvin For H&M was sold out almost in the first hour when the H&M store opened its doors.

The cooperation with H&M has made Versace and Lanvin, who are accustomed to high and low fever luxury brands, have experienced a "fast fashion" craze.

In the fashion of "fast fashion", ZARA, C&A and UNIQLO belong to the same kind. They, like H&M, come from different cultural backgrounds but grow into similar faces. Behind this, a large number of designers and fashion buyers quickly imitate and transform fashion with the help of highly integrated supply chain, and spread it all over the world on a large scale.

The "fast fashion" brand's rapid running has disrupted the inherent pattern of fashion, the top luxury brands and parity. Latest fashion The boundaries are increasingly blurred. Zara can be compared with Hermes, and the mixture can be used in Gap fashion to match Dior's gorgeous skirt. Even top designer Karl Lagerfeld is also happy to work for H&M. In any case, the "fast fashion" trend is bringing luxury to the pride of the booth, so that the general public can enjoy a luxurious feast.

The trend of the Chinese market is also rising and falling, and the challenges of survival can be seen everywhere. The net profit of ESPRIT in the last fiscal year ended by 98% in the year to 2011. The brands such as Etam and Veromoda have been repeatedly discounted and sold at a discount, but they still can not conceal the shrinking market share. ONLY's helpless direct shop transformation has triggered a great storm a few months ago.

The fashion industry in China seems to have been captured by fast fashion, but in this hot feast, the more the noise is, the more doubt it will be. If the design and quality injury can not be solved, the speed and marketing advantage is only taking one place to make up for another. How long can fashion go?

　 Fast fashion gene defect

"The more depressed the economy is, the more extensive the development of affordable fashion will be." this is the golden rule of the fashion industry. The decline in purchasing power brought about by the global economic downturn has become a common phenomenon. In order to please those consumers who are still fastidious in purchasing power, the lower prices become the necessary conditions for fashion. The rise and popularity of fast fashion brands such as ZARA, H&M, GAP and so on are at the right time to take a proper road - the interesting economic phenomenon of "lipstick effect" is once again verified.

"Being a trend follower rather than a creators" is the position that ZARA and H&M fast fashion brands have been sticking to. From the T show in Paris, which represents the annual fashion trend, to the cheap garment foundries scattered in China's two or three tier cities, the latest fashions of high-end brands are being modeled and adapted by fast fashion designers, sometimes only a week away from the launch of new products.

Of course, following this strategy of fast fashion brands is followed by the accusations of duplication by all parties. In Europe, ZARA needs tens of millions of euros a year to pay for plagiarism, but for ZARA, which costs billions of euros a year, it is a drop in the bucket. Even so, the grey area of law often makes it difficult for relevant proceedings to enter legal proceedings.

Louboutin, a famous shoe shoe brand in France, is deeply impressed by its taste. It always uses red soles as its signboard. After seeing that rival Eve Szentgrolan sold the red shoes in the stores in Manhattan, she took the name of "illegal competition" and "trademark infringement" to the law court. However, the final ruling of the US Court held that although the red sole had its own characteristics, it could not be regarded as exclusive all privileges and dismissed the case. Forever21, the fast fashion brand in the US, has also been the object of the accusation. In the past 4 years, it has been prosecuted 50 times for its famous works of plagiarism.

In fact, the soul of fashion brand has never left the original design. The lowest design threshold and even imitation plagiarism is the most fatal damage to brand added value. If you try to remove the trademarks of ZARA and H&M, it is difficult to identify their brands from similar designs. Although low inventory and limited edition of psychological tactics seem smart, they can not change the same design. If 10~15 women in 100 urban white-collar workers wear similar clothes to work in the morning, the brand will come to an end.

Compared with the style, the quality of fast fashion brands is also widely criticized. ZARA has been on the blacklist of quality inspection for the 7 time in two years in China, and once encountered consumer trust crisis in China. In fact, the quality problem has always been the inherent defect of fast fashion gene. Based on the consideration of cost control, these fast fashion brands have excluded high-quality and long life fabrics in the design stage. Especially with the increasing labor costs of Chinese foundries, fast fashion brands have to further reduce the quality cost in order to maintain low prices. For many fast fashion brands, frequent replacement of lower cost raw materials and foundries in pursuit of low cost has become the norm.

ZARA and H&M still have no match in the domestic fashion industry, and the continuous pursuit of Chinese consumers has left them with no choice. However, "brand building is the core of brand development no matter what time". If ZARA means a crash and rough production on a certain day, how long will their age last? Perhaps no brand can achieve perfection. However, ZARA seems to be eager to build their skyscrapers when they are weak and vulnerable. The farther away they may be, the more they will lose. {page_break}

Suffered from acclimatization

After the rush to attack the city, the boundaries of ZARA and H&M thousands of stores were astonished by the world. Even Parson, the founder of H&M, had questioned him. He asked her son Stephen (Stefan Persson): "is this expansion too late? Why are you so anxious?" Stephen's answer is simple: "when you are hot, you can't stop to cool the heat." (Erling Persson)

Therefore, the infiltration process of ZARA and H&M to China's second tier cities has been carried out step by step, but we have also witnessed the neglect of their management in the same period. The spacious shops on the first floor of ZARA and H&M in Xidan's Joy City are the same as those on Paris's Champs Elysees street, indicating their position in the current fashion trend. But the clothes in the shop were chaotic, stacked, incomplete, and the long queue at the door of the fitting room had blocked many customers out. "The real reason for ZARA's internal complaints is that the service is not in place, causing consumers to accumulate complaints," ZARA insiders revealed.

In fact, ZARA and other fast fashion brands are the same as the foreign brands that have entered China in the past. In line with the European and American styles of human body cutting and color matching, China has gone through various discomforts. The designer Zhang Jicheng believes that "these fast fashion brands are very westernized and have more loose money", and many garments are not compatible with Chinese aesthetics.

At present, any brand's global strategy will naturally not ignore China's huge market. However, in most cases, these fast fashion brands value the Chinese market, not the needs of Chinese consumers. This led directly to the fast fashion brand, intentionally or unconsciously overlooking the cultural gap between them, and did not fully understand Chinese consumers before it arrived.

UNIQLO was born in the depression of Japan. In that special period, cheap is the goal pursued by most people. Using rich colors to make up for the defects of single style is a good medicine for UNIQLO to reduce costs. In the eyes of some fashionable buyers in the mainland, "UNIQLO only considers the basic funds and not fully considers fashion." But in China, the situation is different.

There are mainly three generations of clothing consumption groups in China. Different life periods make them have a huge gap between culture and fashion concept. These consumers of different ages have great demand for fashion and clothing. So the 7 year old children and 70 year olds in Japanese UNIQLO stores can buy the scene of their favorite clothes, which can not be duplicated in China.

At the same time, H&M, UNIQLO, ZARA and other fast fashion brands are often harvested in the first tier cities such as Beijing, and they can hardly wait to announce their ambitions to the world. But after all, the domestic market is different from the European and American markets. The recognition of fashion in different regions is quite different. So we can see that Mcglaughlin and mango have been rejected in the second tier cities such as Wenzhou.

Yang Dayun, President of UTA Fashion Management Group, has more than 10 years of experience in the fashion industry. In his view, "the concentration of domestic fashion industry is still very low. The domestic fashion industry has never had a brand structure that can cover the whole country, and no brand can occupy more than 70% of the market share in the United States as NIKE generally". Even at the peak of ONLY and Jack Jones, there is no more than 10%.

After the rise and fall of too many brands, in the recent 20 years of the domestic fashion industry, many brands that have led fashion consumption have not been able to last. The fashion industry in China has been changing hands. In the more than 10 years when he entered the fashion industry, Yang Dayun witnessed the late 1990s, Baleno, Giordano and other simple and pure European and American fans. After experiencing the quiet rise of punk bar culture, he turned to Jack Jones and veromada, who had a deeply rebellious Bohemia wind. "Every cycle of the field is only five or six years."

Now is the third generation Dynasty represented by "fast fashion". Before China's cracked consumer groups have yet to be changed, its rise and decline are also similar to those of the first two generations. Some predestined causes are always unavoidable, and bottlenecks after market expansion can not be broken. "The higher the share of ZARA in China, the closer it will be from the decline period," an industry insider predicted.

　 Who will take over fast fashion?

Due to the increase of raw materials and labor costs, the net profit of UNIQLO parent Fast Retailing declined for the first time in five years. Its operating performance in the 2011 fiscal year shows that the net profit is 54 billion 350 million yen, which is 12% lower than that of 61 billion 680 million yen in 2010 fiscal year. H&M net profit in the third quarter also fell 15% to 3 billion 590 million kronor. Fast fashion brands seem to be showing some weakness in running.

After the last brand transformation of domestic fashion, it has been hard for 10 years on this road. In the face of this new round of enclosure movement, local brands do not seem to be lagging behind. Local fashion brands such as the seven wolves and attachment have long been rooted in China's two or three tier cities. At the same time, while ZARA has infiltrated into the second tier cities, they have not stopped to step up to the high-end market, and domestic and foreign brands are beginning to face a close confrontation.

In fact, in the domestic fashion corner, domestic brands have been among them. But they dare not give up the original low-end market, even though they hold most of the market share, but we are still habitually at the brink of fashion. This fast fashion attack forced them to choose to turn hard. Metersbonwe's Me&City, Mcglaughlin's Euromoda and other domestic brands are also busy decorating the store, and even invite foreign designer to capture the international fashion trend, and constantly tap the real needs of consumers. It seems that foreigners know better how the style is more suitable for Chinese market.

The domestic fashion market will inevitably enter the era of segmentation in the aesthetic fault of different ages. And the fashion industry has always been unable to get rid of the concept of selling first and then selling products. This is even more true when psychological demand dominates clothing consumption. So when people choose fashion brands, they seem to ask, "if you want me to buy your clothes, then tell me what lifestyle you represent."

In fact, the fashion industry in China is experiencing a similar peak with the US in 1970s. After the transformation of punk and American culture, the fashion atmosphere began to precipitate. "In the future, there will be new brands and old brands will stand out. Ochirly and other brands will undoubtedly be promising for the next generation." based on the years of research findings in the fashion industry, Yang Dayun made this prediction.

Ochirly has been making a lot of progress in the supply chain upgrading and cost control, and the clothes or soft or elegant in the shop can only be left alone. Its tailoring has always been following the trend. Baroque style is coming in this winter and Rococo is coming next year. Ochily's concern is always the fashion of the future. Perhaps the old saying goes, "in fashion, you don't need to know what consumers need next year. You just need to know what's going on next year, because consumers are blind." It may be necessary to take a step forward to guide the trend.

Fashion trend is another world in the morning and evening. The "fast fashion" model with blurred faces will be a prolonged internal friction. The more the expansion, the deeper the injury. People will walk away from the embarrassing experience of frequent bumping shirts, and soon after the fashionable cultural differences are filled, the domestic fashion owners will be staged again. "If you can't follow the trend in time, you may never have to follow it again," the brutal fashion industry has always been like this.