Why Is The Fast Fashion Giant Now Facing Bankruptcy?

FOREVER 21 is going to go bankrupt. I believe many people will know: FOREVER 21. FOREVER 21, once one of the iconic brands of the American dream, it has many fans.

The Korean American Do Won Chang and the Jin Sook Chang couple opened their first store in Losangeles, California in 1984, and gradually expanded over the past 30 years. Their brands are mainly men's and women's clothing. The main thing is to buy products that are fashionable at relatively low prices. It once became the favorite clothing brand of young people in the United States, and even appeared in many popular American TV shows many times. Most of the clothing products are sweet and hot girl fans, making use of high saturation color to create summer amorous feelings.

Kardashian has brought goods to them, and American stars have gone out with the same money, and even there are "Ya Ya Tong" in it. They are of physical beauty, inexpensive and not bad. They are the same with stars. That is less than 50 yuan. The most lively pop songs are always playing in the shop, and the clothes and warm lights on the shelves reflect each other. The customers who enter the shop seem to go to the romantic California with vitality and sunshine.

Looking at the land of China, the gorgeous seven storey buildings on the edge of the Bund, Shanghai, the shopping mall of Wangfujing Street APM, Hangzhou in 77, Hongkong Tongluowan and so on, can see the bright yellow FOREVER 21. With LV, Gucci and other luxury brand "brand face", it is not only without embarrassment, but also with a hint of self-confidence.

However, in May of this year, FOREVER 21 announced its withdrawal from China and even closed its flagship store on the line. After four months, FOREVER 21 has been revealed recently that it is preparing for filing bankruptcy applications. The former fast fashion tycoon will fall down. FOREVER 21 is no longer FOREVER.

In the past, excessive expansion of the store rent may become the last straw to drag down FOREVER 21, and sales can not keep up with it, but the rent is still to be paid. At that time, it was located on the 6 floor flagship store in Tongluowan, Hongkong, with a monthly rent of up to HK $14 million. Forbes's data showed that although FOREVER 21 realized 3 billion 800 million yuan in 2014, sales fell 14% to $3 billion 400 million in 2017, and revenue dropped to $400 million.

With the upgrading and transformation of consumption patterns, more and more people start online shopping, reducing the number and frequency of offline shopping. The brightest and most attractive stores in the most prosperous area correspondingly correspond to the most expensive rentals, and the sales that are not up to date are also caused by the fact that they are unable to make ends meet. But in the fast fashion recession, "consumers change" may be the root cause.

First, Easterners and Westerners have different shopping ideas. Orientals do fashion, emphasize embroidery and exquisite workmanship, make clouds and temples to be windows, attach a yellow flower to the mirror, Westerners do fashion, pay attention to boasting, gaudy, eye-catching, eager for capital, and strive for equality. Easterners may be able to see the sophistication of fashion from all kinds of Japanese brands. Westerners are bold in fashion, perhaps from all kinds of fast selling brands.

And the era is no longer the same. Chinese consumers can not always be the frog in the well. With the rapid development of the electricity supplier and the Internet, there is already a lot of difference and better choice in what to wear. The root of fast fashion is "fast", but now consumers have more requirements for quality. Maybe 1000 can buy a big wardrobe fashion dress in a fast fashion shop, but the problem is that almost no clothes can appear in your wardrobe next year. The bright posters and the beautiful styles of the poster may be unavoidable, but the sweater will be pilling for two days, and the white T will be washed for three times.

At that time, the fashion craze was too fast to be like a tornado, but after all, the consumer's fastidious still made them "have no way to go". Just imagine that in today's price war, there is a large number of local brands at the same price, and the quality may win the fast fashion. If the style and fashion can be copied, the domestic brands can also "copy" or even "duplicate". The quality is swept away by the classic product three streets, the popular forever slow tide card big half, the malicious plagiarism has been criticized all the time, speaks of the design and the price, is not worth mentioning in front of the luxury goods or the minority luxury goods.

Those characteristics that once made fast fashion proud are no longer prominent, and they are no longer popular. Of course, not only has a huge change in the concept of consumption, consumption mentality has also undergone significant changes. Fast fashion just moved in when it advertised convenience and foreign flavor, but at the moment when it was flooded, it advertised low quality and no cards. But after all, this is still a process of progress. Today, when the fast fashion giants are falling down, perhaps the only thing that is still hanging on the lips of consumers is UNIQLO.

Similarly, UNIQLO, which is positioned as a consumer product, has long been firmly in the Asian market and even aimed at opening up the global market in Europe and the United States. At the same time, the three words of "cheap price" have been created at the same time, and the price performance has become more and more important. If none of the fast fashion at the time can be found in the wardrobe next year, maybe UNIQLO is trying to break the spell, the U series is selling well, with the co grab of the topic works KAWS, and there are more "quality" elements in UNIQLO, among which, the Japanese style of simple design and the relatively durable quality, UNIQLO has emerged from the "low-quality" fast food products. On the other hand, another fast moving consumer magnate H&M, though we can see that they are combined with all kinds of designer brands and luxury brands, and MOSCHINO's joint name last year, although it has made a lot of eyeballs, but "poor quality" is still the way it can not get past.

In the process of market evolution, it is doomed to have the process of "picking up its essence and abandoning its dross". The word "fast" which belongs to the fast fashion is no longer effective. In the "post material era", under the background of consumption upgrading, it is more important to continuously upgrade the brand's quality standard and change the inherent view of consumers. In fashion, there are already more and more excellent alternatives. The fast fashion of purchase preference is no longer the first place. Even "luxury is younger" is a great opponent for fast fashion. In the eyes of more and more discerning consumers, classic comfortable and durable clothing has been placed in the first place. Fast fashion is no longer in line with Chinese tastes. What happens to FOREVER 21 is enough to show that survival of the fittest is a conventional law, and survival of the fittest is the law of survival.