Deep And Fast Fashion Should Be Slow.

In the face of the classic question of efficiency and fairness, the ultra fast fashion as a new thing still has no satisfactory answer.
According to a deep report released by New York Times on Monday, the US Fashion Nova is accused of working with illegal factories in Losangeles. These factories pay employees less than the minimum wage standard. The working environment is bad and the phenomenon of employing illegal workers exists, causing media and public attention.
The paper quoted the labor department's internal documents from 2016 to 2019, indicating that dozens of factories producing Fashion Nova clothing owed wages to workers up to 3 million 800 thousand dollars. The report also said that some Fashion Nova outsourced employees paid their salaries to less than 2.77 dollars per hour.
In this regard, Fashion Nova claims that anyone who has been found to be in breach of the laws of California will be temporarily terminated in the social media, and lawyers say the company is working on it. "We have actively discussed with the Ministry of labour and are working to ensure that all workers working for Fashion Nova are properly compensated," Erica Meierhans, general counsel of Fashion Nova, told the times.
"In addition, we signed a written agreement with more than 700 suppliers who promised to pay wages to employees and subcontractors in strict accordance with the laws of California. Any supplier who does not meet the requirements will be granted a probationary period of 6 months. If there are second violations, all agreements with the supplier will be suspended. "
It is noteworthy that the business model of Fashion Nova is not directly working with factories or employing employees, but by purchasing materials and sending them to contractors. Some of the contractors allegedly employ low paid workers.
Another reason for this great concern is that in order to keep pace with the speed of fast fashion and respond to their production needs in time, the issue of labor rights is increasingly occurring in the local clothing manufacturers of the United States rather than the three world countries such as Bangladesh or India.
Fashion Nova is a newly rising US super fast fashion business. The founder of Richard Saghian opened the first Fashion Nova store in California in 2006, and transferred to the electricity supplier in 2013 and launched the official website Fashionnova.com. Most of its official net clothing is the Kardashian family's symbolic sexy and tight style. Most of the price is only about 30 to 50 dollars, and the discount is very strong. There is often a clear discount information on the website.
Fashion Nova official website clothing is mostly Kardashian family's symbolic sexy and tight style, most of the price is only about 30 to 50 dollars, and the discount is very strong.
In a crowd of ultra fast fashion brands, Fashion Nova, which started in physical stores, first grasps the draught of social media, and its success is closely related to young people's love for Instagram.
Fashion Nova can attract customers to buy products from the website by releasing new products on the Instagram every 30 minutes. Its Instagram fans have reached 17 million, far exceeding the 5 million 200 thousand of their local counterparts Missguided and 6 million 300 thousand of the UK's ultra fast fashion Boohoo, and even more than the 16 million 300 thousand of the fast fashion Forever21, but there is still a distance from the 37 million 300 thousand of the fast fashion brand Zara and 34 million 200 thousand of H&M.
The careful layout of social media has also made Fashion Nova more exposed than its fashion counterparts. In Google's 2018 fashion brand search rankings, Fashion Nova was surprisingly ranked first, surpassing the traditional luxury brands LV, Gucci, Dior and a familiar fast fashion brand Zara, H&M and Forever21, becoming the most searched brand on Google last year.
Fashion Nova has attracted 17 million of its customers to buy products from the website by releasing new products on Instagram, and its Instagram fans have reached the level of
The target audience of most fast fashion providers is the huge network of net red and self interested young people who constantly publish photos of the latest brands in the social media. In order to satisfy the vanity of young consumers on social networks, the ultra fast fashion providers must quickly publish and produce expensive clothes that look expensive.
Richard Saghian, founder of Fashion Nova, said in an interview last year that young generations who love social media need to buy many different styles, and may only wear them several times, so that their Instagram can always be kept fresh.
The online super fast fashion presents an amazing speed driven by social networking. According to relevant reports, the supply chain cycle of the UK's ultra fast fashion Boohoo and ASOS from design to listing is two weeks, and the ultra fast fashion e-commerce Missguided originating in New York is only a week, Zara is five weeks, H&M is slightly slower, and traditional retailers need 6 to 9 months.
It is reported that Missguided can launch 1000 new products every month and update its inventory once a day, while Fashion Nova releases 1000 new models a week, raising its speed to a new level.
Its founder, Richard Saghian, has said that if he thinks of a design concept on Sunday night, then Fashion Nova can produce samples on Monday afternoon and take photos on the Instagram. The same dress that Kardashian attended at the banquet appeared in 48 hours on the website of Fashion Nova.
The ultra fast fashion electricity supplier has no entity shop pressure, and has achieved a more rapid response than the traditional fast fashion brand in a lighter posture. Fashion Nova released new photos on Instagram and determined the production volume through the reaction of 17 million fans. The whole process is very similar to the "pre-sale" of Taobao store, and the circulation is faster. In this way, the supply mode based on social media can respond to changing needs in time, effectively avoiding product shortages and overstock, and the consequent reduction in prices and profit margins.
The bad working environment in fast fashion factory
However, in the design and production mode, the ultra fast fashion business providers, in fact, have not been able to avoid problems in the garment production process. They are still being criticized for more than ten years by the fast fashion, which is full of moral criticism business models to meet the speed requirements.
Although this latest report is the first public accusation that Fashion Nova has suffered from sweatshops, similar allegations have long been centered on traditional fast fashion brands. For example, Forever 21, which was recently hit by the bankruptcy crisis, had already been sent to court by the American labor force with the help of the rights protection organization as early as 2001. The workers said that the Forever 21 generation factory had a bad working environment and no overtime pay.
The United States Department of labor's wages and labor division mentioned more than once that Forever 21 did not comply with the minimum wage, overtime and record law of the United States Fair Labor Standards Act, but Forever refused to cooperate with the investigation 21 times. In 2008, a documentary about 3 illegal migrant workers accused of Forever 21 sweatshop made in Losangeles was awarded the 29 news and documentary Emmy Awards.
As time goes by, there is no substantial improvement in the mode of fast fashion deduction.
In November 2016, the Labor Department of California disclosed some factories in southern California that made clothes for fast fashion brands such as Forever 21, Ross Dress for Less and TJ Maxx, which infringe upon the rights and interests of workers. The Ministry of labour has investigated 77 independent factories in southern California, and found that 85% of the factories were suspected of labor infringement. The clothing workers in these factories only earn 4 dollars per hour, less than half of the minimum wage of 10 dollars per hour stipulated by the United States.
The Ministry of labour has ordered factories to pay reasonable wages and compensation of 1 million 300 thousand US dollars to workers, but according to relevant laws, the Ministry of labour can only punish factories that directly employ workers, but the fast fashion retailers as the source will not be affected. At that time, there were related appeals that consumers should reduce or stop buying cheap fast fashion products to stop this phenomenon spreading.
Loopholes in the law become excuses for escaping responsibility from ultra fast fashion. Ultra fast fashion is not responsible for the production of clothing, they rely on the huge third party supplier network to create products, such as Fashion Nova's clothing from hundreds of different manufacturers. Faced with the allegation of sweatshops, the most common response of these large fashion retailers is that they are not aware of the fact that they usually declare that they do not have control over the behavior of third party suppliers nor do they have legal liability for it. Forever 21 is like that.
No surprise, Fashion Nova also chose to shift all responsibilities to manufacturers. Erica Meierhans, general counsel of Fashion Nova, said in a statement that any claim that Fashion Nova is responsible for the low remuneration of workers is absolutely wrong. Fashion Nova said it would suspend cooperation with illegal outsourced businesses and properly compensate workers, but would not talk about their role in sweatshops.
From a legal point of view, the scale of fast fashion brand supply chain is huge, so the argument of "shirking responsibility" is not unworkable. According to the California law of the United States, if Fashion Nova can position itself as a dress retailer rather than a manufacturer, it is likely to avoid being punished, according to The Fashion Law, a fashion legal website.
But even if we can drill the loopholes of the law, the ultra fast fashion can not deny that they are the driving force behind the sweatshops. They helped consumers develop the habit of buying large quantities of new clothes at cheap prices and flaunting them in social media. Then, in order to satisfy this habit, the outsourcing factories had to further urge the outsourcing factories to squeeze cheap labor and not to perform the supervisory responsibilities of the outsourcing factories.
Fernando Axjup worked in a garment factory for Fashion Nova. He told the New York Times that the clothing factories he worked for often exploited workers, but the Fashion Nova who bought outsourcing services never visited factory workshops to check how low priced clothes were made. He thought Fashion Nova should supervise garment factories to ensure that workers get a reasonable reward. Fernando Axjup was recently dismissed from the clothing factory. He suspected that it was because he helped the exploited employees to safeguard their rights.
David Weil, former director of the Department of labor and time division of the US labor department, told the Losangeles times in 2017 that all problems should be solved by fashion retailers. Retailers could reduce their production costs to the lowest level expected by their powerful voice in the supply chain, which eventually led the front-line workers to bear the cost and risk of the whole system.
David Weil still applies to today's situation. It can bring a large number of orders, a few fast fashion brands and many garment manufacturers to form a buyer's market.
An important link between producers and ultra fast fashion is "subcontractors". Many companies in Losangeles are engaged in the role of "subcontractors". They design clothing samples, outsource their clothing work to small factories at a low price, and sell clothes to Fashion Nova and other fashion retailers. The small factories that undertake the work of making clothes are the high places where the working environment is bad and the wages of the employees are deducted.
The times visited 7 Fashion Nova subcontractors in November, and the clothes they sold to Fashion Nova came from factories that paid unreasonably low wages for their employees.
The five owners and employees who agreed to interview said that Fashion Nova strived to pay the lowest possible price for each garment and demanded rapid production. It is reported that several large orders of Fashion Nova can make a small subcontractor continue to operate for a year, and driven by interests, they are trying to find factories that can make clothes quickly and cheaply.
In addition to the fast track fashion of shirking responsibility, the young consumers who pursue cheap fashion may also be a potential driving force for fast fashion ethics problems.
Although the sustainable fashion awareness of young consumers is generally higher than that of other generations, many consumers still believe that it is not necessary to pay more expensive price to buy H&M environmental protection series similar to ordinary products and other brand launched environmental protection capsule series.
According to the survey conducted by the International Trademark Association INTA this year on young consumers of Z generation in 10 different countries, such as China, Japan and the United States, when young consumers make actual shopping decisions, they often need to balance their moral choices and incomes. Although morality is considered an important influence, it is not as important as income factors. When the income of the Z generation can not meet the standard of living they want, they may even choose to buy high imitation products or extremely low price super fast fashion.
Contrary to common sense, the Z generation is actually very sensitive to price. A 23 year old female interviewee from Argentina said he first considered the price, and then if the price was convincing, he went to see the product.
Fashion Nova plagiarized the "jungle print" dress suit at a price of only $69.99, and it was sold out when Versace filed a lawsuit.
The "sweatshop" accusation is not the only accusation recently received by Fashion Nova. Luxury brand Versace filed a lawsuit in the Central District Court of California in November 25th, accusing Fashion Nova of copying the logo design of Versace, violating its copyright and trademark ownership.
These iconic designs include the black and gold "Barocco" printing of Versace, and the classic dress "jungle print" dress of Jennifer Lopez at the Grammy Awards 2000 at the new Versace spokesperson. This dress was once rated as "one of the most iconic skirts" in the consumer survey in 2008. After being improved, Jennifer Lopez was once again dressed in the Versace 2020 spring fashion show in September this year.
Fashion Nova plagiarized the "jungle print" dress suit for only $69.99, and it was sold out when Versace filed a lawsuit. Versace accuses Fashion Nova of deliberately making use of Versace's reputation and valuable business reputation to promote sales. Versace also pointed out that Fashion Nova uses social media to distribute misleading information. When consumers search for Versace related information, Fashion Nova's web page will appear at the top of search results.
In order to ensure the biggest advantage of speed, fast fashion has never avoided the imitation and reference of luxury brands. Zara, a fast fashion giant, has maintained the practice of paying tens of millions of euros a year for plagiarism, but this is obviously not worth mentioning compared to its sales of up to 26 billion 100 million euros in 2018. As for the Fashion Nova, who has been plagiarized, it has always been the fashion concept of producing cheap but expensive clothes.
In February, the Kardashian family reality star Kim Kardashian, who had 120 million Instagram fans, appeared on the official website of the Fashion Nova in less than 24 hours after attending the Hollywood beauty dressing award Mugler retro dress. The similar price was only 49.99 dollars.
In this regard, Kim Kardashian denies that it is trying to draw a clear line with the ultra fast fashion. It is a disrespectful attitude towards designers that fashion is popular. "These fashion companies plagiarize designers' creativity at will, this behavior is devastating."
She also said that the sale of products to the official website of Fashion Nova has not been produced yet, in fact, in order to increase the users of the platform, it is in disguise to make use of her fame for marketing. "It took me nearly ten years to build up a relationship of trust and respect with these designers. I treasure them very much. So please don't believe in the comments on the Internet. I have never disclosed to anyone about my style, nor have I ever worked with them."
Although Kim Kardashian did not specifically named Fashion Nova, the latter made a statement on Instagram, saying that Fashion Nova could complete the design within a few hours and set a reasonable price for sale, admits that there is no direct cooperation with Kim Kardashian, but because of consumer preferences, they will be inspired and inspired by their style in product design and marketing.
In the United States, because of trademark law and copyright law, clothing is not included in the scope of protection. The trademark law only protects the designer's name or brand logo. Copying the designs that are not granted the design patent is not an offence. Patent protection is not practical for the brand. Because of the seasonal and cyclical nature of the fashion industry, the design product is usually available and has not yet been examined and approved by the design patent, and the replica has begun to circulate in the market.
There was a view that fast fashion brands like H&M and Zara had little impact on luxury brands, because the consumption of fast fashion and luxury brands were two distinct groups. But the change in consumer habits has made this view no longer valid. The consumption limits of luxury brands and fast fashion are being blurred. Under the guidance of fashion bloggers, luxury brands and fast fashion mashup are becoming more and more popular. It is not surprising that social media are wearing luxury brands.
Since its launch in 2004 and the famous designer Karl Lagerfeld's joint series, H&M has launched 1 to 3 designer collaboration series each year.
In addition to blocking fast fashion plagiarism, some luxury brands, especially designer brands, will choose a more clever "Huairou" strategy and launch a joint series with fast fashion brands.
Since it was launched in 2004 with the famous designer Karl Lagerfeld, H&M has launched 1 to 3 designer collaboration series each year. H&M launched a joint venture with the designer brand Valli this year.
Although H&M and Giambattista Valli have been sought after for a few hours, one of them has been sold for 5 times the original price. However, the industry has generally realized that the fast fashion mode can not rely solely on overrun joint cooperation. Since the beginning of this year, H&M has accelerated its transformation, expanding its rents, selling other brands and other businesses. H&M's joint name has also shifted from designer brand to new generation of young idols. It will launch a joint series with singer Billie Eilish in January 2nd, and all the single products in the series are made of sustainable materials.
Missguided, Boohoo, ASOS and other ultra fast fashion electric providers have brought people a pleasant surprise. However, a series of recent events in Fashion Nova illustrate that the shortcut of ultra fast fashion in R & D, labor and other expenses has not brought convincing commercial operation, which has followed the trend of fast fashion.
People have a cool day for speed fanaticism. Ultra fast fashion runs faster and does not run out of a truly innovative business model. It does not solve new problems, but it does not last at the pace of change. Fast fashion is the time to slow down.