Does Fast Fashion Rely On "Slow Down" To Regenerate?

Increasingly weak fast fashion Can the market really regenerate with the help of "slowing down"? Or has it always advocated that "fast and fast" fashion can be slow?

"Fashion to good": the cruelty of fast fashion

The new consumption ethics in the fashion field is shaking up the foundation of fashion.

1, the fashion of stealing. Over the years, fast fashion plagiarism has been criticized by the industry as a whole to satisfy the new business model. Zara, Forever 21 and so on all have been hit by big brands such as Puma, Gucci and Adidas after a year. trademark Accusation of infringement. This kind of plagiarism is often tested because it is hard to gain recognition in court in the past. For example, Zara designers are anonymous, so long as designers change, they can avoid legal liability. Now, the European Union has adopted a new patent system to protect designer's clothing patents. Under the new intellectual property law, Zara parent company Inditex finally came to the first defeat of its plagiarism career.

2, the cost of fast response. Leading fashion trend New products and replenishment stocks are delivered weekly. This rapid response method (QR) has greatly improved the manufacturing efficiency of the garment industry, enabling Zara to produce more than 30 thousand products annually in nearly 1600 stores in 58 countries. But its side effects are also obvious: for fast delivery products, short life and low quality, frequent replacement is needed, consumers buy more unconsciously, and in the end, too much inventory and clothes that are not fashionable will appear in landfills, and the disposal of them will produce a lot of harmful gases.

At present, Europe has issued a ban prohibiting the sale of clothes that can not be sold. As for second-hand and recycling? Let's lose heart. Even the African brothers and sisters who lack clothes and wear will not want to have them. South Africa has banned the sale of second-hand clothing, and the East African community EAC has put strict controls on secondhand clothing imported from the United States.

3, those who pay for the cheap. In order to pursue higher profit margins (fast fashion industry's profit margin is around 23%, while traditional fashion retail stores only have 7%), fast fashion. brand Cheap labor in developing countries is often used to maintain low prices as far as possible, and to ignore a series of rights and interests.

It is obvious that the basic prerequisites for winning the fast fashion industry are trend replication, rapid production, low quality and competitive prices, which are being disintegrated by new fashion ethics.

The next stop of fashion: slow rising Slow Fashion

A closer look will show that "slow down" is not a life-saving straw for fast fashion.

To make the fashion industry greener and more ethical, the starting point is certainly good. But the problem is that this violates the commercial foundation of fast fashion for a long time, and it does not accord with the habit of low price and fast selling that the public has been trained for.

In fact, although H&M has invested a lot in marketing costs and sponsored the World Recycle Week, it has launched a recycling plan in the world stores, but according to H&M development sustainability manager Henrik Lampam (Henrik Lampa), only 0.1% of all clothing collected by charities and recycling projects is recycled into new textile fibers, and it is even more unlikely to be resale.

Furthermore, the hidden contradictions behind the "slow fashion" seem to be unsolved at the moment.

First of all, the products of sustainable shopping are often more expensive. A more equitable and environmentally friendly clothing trade, whether it's marketing expenses or practical manpower. Material Science Such cost increases will eventually be passed on to terminal consumers. Many used clothing or environmental brands, and can not meet the consumer's style and dimension inclusiveness and other diverse needs. At the beginning of the whole moral fashion market, it can not be directly converted into "fast fashion" performance growth.

Secondly, the main consumer of fast fashion is still the young generation who loves beauty and pursues individuality interesting and new products. Their consumption is uncertain, brand preferences are not obsession, and continuous attention to the new, which is obviously contrary to the conscious consumption culture pursued by "slow fashion".

More importantly, even with the strong endorsement of the Internet and Instagramer, it is not easy for consumers to figure out the sustainability of each brand. When fast fashion brands try to make some useful attempts to advocate better labor and environmental standards, they may be doing useless work.

If we want to maintain high-speed operation without squeezing the supply chain, huge material research and development costs and marketing costs will add to the weak performance.

Another core scene that is being altered by technology is the store.

"Slow fashion" is a high quality and high quality sustainable route. It is difficult to cultivate users' habits in the short term, and naturally can not be quickly spanformed into commercial success. At present, it seems that the combination of digital technology and stores, using AR/VR and other new interactive technologies, fundamentally reinventing consumer impulse, seems to have more opportunities.

The most typical example is UNIQLO. Two years ago, we launched the "Ming plan" to spanform "information manufacturing and retail". In order to highlight the determination of technology, President Ryui Masa also officially announced "off group", and fast fashion to draw the boundaries of Chu River.

Therefore, UNIQLO did not follow the industry practice to scale down the scale to cope with the "efficient recession", but continued technological innovation to the existing stores.

For example, the UAV and the "smart buyer" digital screen are introduced to the offline, consumers can browse new products in the store, wear suggestions and preferential information, and conduct interactive games. It is said that the "intelligent buyer" has brought about 15% improvement in the conversion rate of real shopping. Coupled with Amazon and Alibaba, Tmall and other three party business platform to get through, accelerating the seamless integration of online and offline shopping experience.

For this series of operations, the performance of the fast selling group of UNIQLO parent company also explained everything: newsgroup group rose 2017 in fiscal year 148%, a record high.

In contrast, H&M plans to install RFID RFID technology in the global stores this year to achieve automatic statistics of product categories and sales volume. There is still a long way to go whether it's the use of big data or the introduction of interaction technology.

All in all, the fast fashion of self rescue, facing the bottleneck of demand and the efficiency of the industry itself, will undoubtedly be a painful and lengthy process.

But at the same time, under the fetters of new fashion ethics, everyone is opening up a new dialogue from the long "splendor and Carnival". From a historical perspective, social and cultural changes are actually caused by the middle class. This is why fast fashion has begun to appear in front of us in a more restrained and more humane way.

In some vertical scenarios, new technologies such as AI, block chaining and other new technologies are used to enhance industrial efficiency, and to find new possibilities in a more cool way of experience.

From this perspective, the rise and fall of fast fashion is never without trace.