Forever 21 Bankruptcy After 10 Yuan Big Sale, Fast Fashion Brand Should Reflect.

Why is fast fashion becoming more and more unpopular?

Not long ago, the US fast fashion brand Forever 21 officially declared for bankruptcy protection, and will close 350 branches in 40 countries.

On the platform of Tik Tok, jitter and so on, there appeared a lot of "exploding and buying Forever Forever 21". Almost ninety percent off of them can buy fashionable clothes at the price of some products or even a price of about $1, which is really hard for people to lose heart.

Founded by Forever and 21 in the US, Zhang Dongwen and Zhang Jinshu were once fast fashion brands in the hearts of young people because of their cheap prices and fashionable young people's favorite styles.

But not only is Forever 21 unable to "always be 21 years old". In recent years, fast fashion brands are encountering various development difficulties.

Fast fashion brand is under the banner of "cost-effective, fashionable and young", but why is it becoming more and more unpopular?

　 Once the fast fashion hegemony is now facing "overkill".

Forever 21, founded in 1984, was once one of the largest fashion chain brands in the world.

In 2008, Forever 21 once opened the first store in Changshu, Jiangsu. But due to the misjudgement of the market, the store soon closed down, until 2012, only after the drums were drumming, it opened a real "first store in China" on Wangfujing street in Beijing.

Forever 21 shop in Wangfujing pedestrian street, Beijing

With the market competition of ZARA, H&M and other fast fashion giants, Forever 21 has not been in China for a long time.

At the end of last year, stores in Tianjin, Hangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing and other places were closed. In 2019, shops in major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing began to plunge into liquidation. Some clothes were as low as 10 yuan, 20 yuan and 30 yuan.

Not only is the Chinese market losing, but since 2016, Forever 21 has withdrawn from Belgium, Holland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan and Australia, and has closed most of the stores in North America.

According to Forbes data, Forever's sales in 212017 years have dropped by 14%, and its losses have been as high as 400 million US dollars.

But this is just a microcosm of fast fashion in the global recession.

What does it matter to me to copy clothes without copying them?

Fast fashion, as the name suggests, sells clothes like fast food, giving every ordinary person the right to pursue fashion.

These clothes often provide the current popular styles and elements, keep changing with the trend, and make a difference in styles and prices. Of course, the quality and fabric costs have been shrunk again and again.

Forever 21 was accused of plagiarizing the "three bars" by Adidas in 2015. In 2016, it was accused by the Gucci of using "blue red blue" and "green red green" stripe pattern.

GUCCI on the left, FOREVER 21 on the right.

As a fast fashion giant in the world, ZARA has gone too far, not only for many times, but also for independent designers.

ACNE on the left, ZARA on the right.

In 2016, Losangeles designer Tuesday Bassen posted a comparison map on Instagram and publicly announced that she had plagiarized her illustration design in the new Zara series.

The number of "boycott ZARA" tag has been countless on Instagram, and the annual royalty paid by ZARA for litigation is as high as tens of millions of euros.

There is a view that customers who support fast fashion are tacitly allowing their plagiarism behavior. For a large proportion of ordinary customers, TA will not think so much when they buy this dress.

"What does it matter to me if I wear good looks and copy without copying?"

In the blurring of the boundaries between "borrowing" and "plagiarism", the design rights of clothes have not yet been recognized as a standard of legal provisions. No one will think that the length of a dress or the length of a pair of trousers can only be owned by a brand.

However, this phenomenon is now under control in the European Union: in 2016, a patent system specially designed for fashion designers and accessories designers went online to apply for the right to design their own costumes and accessories as long as they registered. The validity of this design patent protection is generally 14 to 15 years, and the length of validity depends on the choice of brand.

　 The story behind fast fashion clothes

A piece of clothing comes from creativity to production, transportation and shelves to consumers. This cycle may take a year or even longer for big brands, but fast fashion brands get rid of the links of "creative design".

Such a fast pace to the end is far from the surface of the fashion industry.

Deteriorating quality allows most clothes to wear only a few times. After several times of washing, they start to change their appearance. Even some clothes are not sold. Hanging on the clothes rack has begun to break holes.

For ordinary people, the final destination of these clothes can only be discarded, and materials such as cotton and hemp can be degraded. Some man-made fibers are basically equivalent to plastics. Even burning will produce more or less harmful gas.

Artificial leather and artificial fur need to consume a lot of chemicals and produce waste water. These pollutants are discharged to natural water bodies, resulting in irreversible environmental problems.

Members of PETA protested at the door of FORERVER 21 shop.

In order to reduce costs as much as possible, most factories that manufacture fast fashion products are located in third world countries. The human rights and life safety of these garment workers have attracted more and more attention in recent years.

A fire broke out in a garment factory in Bangladesh in November 2012. 121 people were killed because they did not run away in time. In April 2013, a 8 floor garment factory in Bangladesh also experienced the worst building collapse in the history of the country, resulting in more than 1000 deaths and more than 1000 injuries.

In December 2017, a number of Turkey customers found a label for sweatshops in the pockets of clothes purchased by ZARA: "I made this dress you want, but I didn't get the reward I deserve."

The labels were left behind by a local factory worker who had previously worked for ZARA, Mango and some other fast fashion brands. In July 2016, the factory went bankrupt, but the workers did not receive the wage subsidies and severance payments paid by these fast fashion brands.

Every fast fashion garment you buy is likely to be produced by a worker in a poor labor insurance environment with a small salary.

Fast fashion brand's "self rescue"

In every corner of the world, fast fashion shops are located in the most bustling and bustling areas of the world, where young people get together. They even live next door to big shops. They can always give people an illusion of "easy buying fashion".

As the millennial generation becomes the main force of fashion consumption, their attitude towards fast fashion is different from that of fast fashion: the stereotyped fashion trend is out of date, and products that are personalized and innovative can attract most of their eyeballs.

According to a report released by fashion firm Thredup, 25% of female consumers said they would no longer buy fast fashion clothes in 2019, most of them young consumers.

Of the more than 1000 women surveyed by Thredup, 58% thought that waste should be reduced this year. Another 42% said they would reduce waste by buying second-hand goods.

In order to no longer lose customers, all fast fashion brands are also actively changing.

UNIQLO, from Japan, has been trying to get rid of the fast fashion brand image in recent years, selling all the essential elements in wardrobe, and actively developing hi-tech fabrics and long-term joint names with designers.

UNIQLO's U series is already fashionable.

ZARA and H&M are vigorously promoting the "recycling of old clothes" and "using environmentally friendly fabrics". They have established cooperative relations with all kinds of environmentally-friendly fabric suppliers, while selling clothes, they also popularize "how environmentally friendly clothes are manufactured" to customers.

This summer, there is a burning lyrics called "a generation will grow old, but there are always young people." this sentence is exactly the portrayal of the fast fashion consumers.

Many of the fast fashion consumers completed the transformation of their students' identity to office workers. Because of the changing demand for daily dress, the fast fashion clothes with poor quality were gradually eliminated, replaced by the mid priced daily fashion of about 1000 yuan, and the classic could reflect the texture and enhance the temperament.

But in the long run, there is still a lot of need for fast fashion. Students with low incomes and young people who are fashionable in fashion will soon be able to catch up with fashion.

The fashion of fast fashion always becomes fast. This time it is time for them to change their brand image quickly.