Does Fast Fashion Need To Find A Way Out In Pition?

The rule is to pursue the fastest.

Be a fast fashion

The fastest way to do this is to consider other directions.

Sweden's fast fashion brand H&M officially released the first complete series of its brand new ARKET this week.

ARKET creative director Ulrika Bernhardtz said

Combining Nordic traditional style with functionality, the word "ARKET" in Swedish means "white paper", which agrees with the Nordic design concept of brand pursuit for minimalism.

The overall style of the series is similar to that of another brand COS of H&M group. It also adheres to pure color, comfortable fabric and neat tailoring.

According to brand officials, the new series will be priced between 18 pounds and 300 pounds. The first flagship store will open in Regent Street in London in August 25th. Online shops will also be launched on the same day, but consumers can register in the official website from 23.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, H&M has also selected second and third stores, one in Copenhagen and another in Covent Garden business district, London.

In order to better enhance the shopping experience of consumers, ARKET stores will not only sell products such as men's garments, children's clothing and household products, but also sell selected products from other brands of the group in the ARKET store, and have a Nordic cafe for consumers' entertainment.

H&M has been looking forward to this new brand for nearly two years.

At present, apart from ARKET, H&M group has 7 brands, including H&M, COS, &Other Stories, Monki, Weekday, Cheap Monday and H&M Home.

From product positioning to shop decoration, the new brand ARKET is very similar to COS.

Now we are curious to know why H&M group, which already owns a COS, has to rebuild COS? COS is one of the reasons for its commercial success. H&M hopes to copy and expand its success mode.

In the short 10 years since its establishment, COS has rapidly attracted attention and consumption in the fashion industry. According to the data, the brand is expanding with the average annual opening of 22 stores.

Relevant data also showed that sales of COS grew rapidly. From 2009 to 2014, the sales volume of COS increased from $132 million to $625 million, nearly 5 times that of COS.

The Group expects that COS will enter the club of 1 billion dollars this year, and will reach 10 billion Swedish Crown's 1 billion 170 million dollars, which has the potential to become the second largest brand besides H&M.

It is noteworthy that, as the H&M group's high price medium brand, COS's profitability is quite amazing.

Earlier data showed that COS's single day profit in London has surpassed all H&M stores in the same city. In fact, COS has become a new growth point for H&M group.

The second reason is probably the strategic adjustment of the H&M group, which has begun to enter the bottleneck in the fast fashion field and is seeking new development direction.

Earnings data show that Zara is still in the growth period, and the growth rate of the fast fashion industry, including H&M, has begun to slow down.

In 2014 and 2015, H&M's sales revenue increased by 14% and 18.9% respectively. In 2016, it recorded a record low of 7%.

In the three months ending April 30th this year, ZARA parent Inditex Group sales rose 14% to 5 billion 600 million euros, with sales growth in Europe, Asia and the Americas the strongest.

Group gross profit also increased by 14% to 3 billion 200 million euros, gross margin was 58.2%, net profit rose 18% to 654 million euros, which is two times more than that of its main competitor, H&M group (STO:HM), in the first quarter.

At present, H&M group is far away from its biggest competitor, Inditex group.

In fast fashion industry, competition is direct and cruel.

Some analysts believe that H&M is now in a very awkward position, and its fashion and renewal speed are not as good as ZARA, and its quality is not as good as UNIQLO. The loss of individuality and uniqueness will make consumers lose their freshness to the brand quickly. In order to better survive, H&M must find new growth points as soon as possible.

There are indications that H&M is changing its strategy to the development of high-end products. It also wants to avoid confrontation with ZARA in the fast fashion industry.

Considering the emphasis of H&M on the concept of sustainable development in recent years and the frequent joint joint action, H&M has gradually differentiated from the way of ZARA operation.

Taking H&M's sustainable development concept as an example, the concept has been criticized as "green washing" (greenwash), that is, environmental protection is a gimmick to enhance brand status, but it does not make practical environmental behavior, because many ideas believe that fast fashion and environmental protection are basically a concept of exclusion.

Those clothes that wear only one season, consumers who constantly pursue the trend of fashion, and the consumers who donate their old clothes to H&M, are not well matched.

But there are more signs that H&M is very serious about sustainable development, and even hopes to turn it into a H&M brand project.

In May, H&M formally joined EP100, the global climate initiative, and promised to double the energy productivity of enterprises in the future.

H&M global sustainable business expert Pierre Borjesson said that reducing energy use and improving economic output were the strategic foundation of H&M for a long time. It plans to reduce energy consumption per square meter by 40% in 2030, and launch a climate friendly value production chain in 2040.

Since 2015, H&M has launched the Conscious Exclusive environmental conscious action limited series every year, all of which are organic or recycled, mainly made of cotton.

The series also includes formal dress skirts, and encourages star artists to wear such environmental gowns on formal occasions. Chinese star Hsu Chi's wedding dress is from this series.

If we want to develop fast fashion at the same time, the core concept of H&M will be hard to justify.

For the sake of the sustainable development of the future group, H&M can not make the brand grow up in self contradiction.

Now it seems that H&M has chosen the latter as the focus of future development between fast fashion and sustainable development.

Some analysts speculate that H&M may gradually weaken the fast fashion competition and turn to the lifestyle boutique brand.

Now, the group will focus more on the high-end product line COS and the brand new ARKET that will soon be released. The two are not fast fashion in the strict sense.

People can smell different smells from H&M's newly announced designer collaboration this month.

The group's choice of designers is not so high a topic of Erdem, the latter is famous for its printing and dress, and avoids the street style that is best sold nowadays.

This month, the group also announced that it will launch the H&M Studio 2017 autumn winter cooperation series with Colette, a buyer shop in Paris. The cooperation includes 9 single items, and special color combinations, hand painted graffiti and burlap jacquard are derived on the basis of Colette landmark blue.

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H&M has become more and more cautious about the selection of partners, and is more inclined to choose the partners who have higher wind ratings rather than topics.

In the fast growing fashion market, with the expansion of the middle class, they are no longer satisfied with the short pleasures brought by cheap and fast fashion, and begin to break away from excessive consumer goods. Instead, they choose "small but fine" and have a high pursuit of quality of life.

COS's success coincides with the demand of the expanding middle class, although sales of H&M are higher than that of fast fashion, but sales growth is very impressive. It also proves that the market space of the middle class has not yet been fully explored.

In fact, more and more clothing brands begin to take note of this potential market and enrich the brand matrix through the expansion of high-end boutique brands.

ZARA's parent company Inditex also has a high-end brand Massimo Dutti. Last month, the brand and Tmall super brand Japan Cooperation held a hologram image show in Shanghai, stimulating the sales of the brand under the Chinese online and offline, reiterated the importance of the Inditex group's high-end brand.

UNIQLO has always been a fast fashion brand in the eyes of the public. However, according to American media, its parent company Xun marketing group is planning to pform UNIQLO into the direction of high quality clothing brand, get rid of the fast fashion brand that only focuses on fashion trends, focus on the design and production of high quality clothes, and strive to draw a line with the fast fashion brands such as ZARA and TOPSHOP.

In order to provide consumers with "non one-time and high quality" clothing, UNIQLO launched a LifeWear Series in 2013.

CEO Ryui Masa, a fast retailing group, said: "with fast fashion only focusing on the latest trend of trends, UNIQLO is concerned about completely different things. In the brand concept, LifeWear refers to the high quality, fashionable and affordable, comfortable everyday clothes."

Some analysts pointed out that with the recent exposure of a lot of fast fashion brands behind the ugly reality, such as sweatshops, human rights violations and environmental hazards, UNIQLO obviously wants to clear away these fast fashion negative images as soon as possible.

Now, more and more consumers are withdrawing from this cycle of constantly consuming mediocrity, no longer buying cheap fast fashion brands of mass production, and are making choices about the availability and morality of clothing.

For the pformation of the high-end line recently launched by UNIQLO, analysts say at least the change in brand definition helps consumers to improve overall brand image and generate desire to buy.

In recent years, UNIQLO has also been promoting cooperation through cooperation with designers.

For example, the cooperation with Christopher Lemaire, the creative director of former Hermes dress, eventually extended to a fixed series of Uniqlo U. It is evident that UNIQLO is attracting more middle-class interest in classic materials and materials through high-quality design, trying to convey durable and lasting fashion ideas instead of constantly updated fast fashion.

UNIQLO has also enriched its own matrix through new series such as Uniqlo U, in order to seek more possibilities for development.

Therefore, H&M group's adjustment to its strategy is not only based on the internal development needs, but also the overall wind direction of the market.

But why did the H&M group not choose to improve the fast fashion brand H&M, which is the main share of the group? Instead, it chose to reintroduce a brand. The authoritative fashion retail analyst said that this may be because the business mode of fast fashion H&M tends to be solidified and the space for pformation is smaller and smaller.

Though fast fashion H&M is trying to enhance its brand reputation through joint cooperation, too many joint series consumers are becoming more and more smart.

After trying to wear the joint style of the long queue in the store, they found that the styles and fabrics were not satisfactory. After a few impulsive consumption, the big gimmicks began to become less attractive. This is a common phenomenon in many consumers.

The fast fashion joint series is most often criticized for its quality problems.

Some consumers reflect that there is no support for high quality workmanship, but there is little difference between the design of large brands and the ordinary ones.

Karl Lagerfeld expressed strong dissatisfaction after its first sale with H&M's joint series, saying that the quality of products produced by H&M was too bad, which completely damaged his original intention.

The bad quality caused many designers to give up the second cooperation with H&M, and also made consumers feel the quality of H&M.

Although H&M has recently invested a lot of energy in environmental protection, there are analysts who believe that the fast fashion is constantly causing the supply chain scandal to bind itself to the label of "low quality and poor labor environment".

Vivienne Westwood, a well-known designer and environmentalist, appeals to everyone to buy less or even buy fast fashion.

This may be the reason why H&M group has launched a new brand.

The relationship between fast fashion brand H&M and sustainable development concept is somewhat far fetched, so the introduction of new brands will give more room to play, and new brands will also be more plastic.

Just like the word ARKET, the new brand is a white paper for the group.

It is noteworthy that H&M has also been more rational and cautious about the choice of the new brand market, and even avoided the Chinese market with strong purchasing power.

Group chief executive Karl-Johan Persson believes that Chinese consumers are not mature enough, so ARKET has no plans to open stores in the Chinese market in the short term.

This is different from the traditional fashion of fast fashion and speed.

In a word, according to the brand image currently exposed, ARKET is likely to become the second COS.

Competition among two brands is also something that many people are worried about. But for H&M, this may not be a bad thing. Maybe it can make the market bigger, because the urgent task at present is to adjust the strategy, and the group needs to have enough powerful potential in the high-end clothing field to be able to turn the tide.

The future H&M group may no longer be a fast fashion group. Will it eventually become a high-end boutique apparel group?

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.