"Fast fashion" fatigue disease: where to break through

"Fast fashion" is not a new word. The famous "fast fashion" brand such as Zara, H&m, Forever 21 and so on in the first decade of the 21st century was dominated by the United States and later in many other markets. In essence, fast fashion is a clever bridge between the high-end products of grafting designers and the retailer's running volumes--its design often follows the latest season of fashion, through the "fast production, fast consumption, fast elimination" approach to provide consumers with a friendly price, fashion sense, and "wear soon and can be replaced by new" apparel products.

But there are signs that the era of disposable fashion may be fading. From the second half of last year, whether it is h&m, Uniqlo, or Gap, ZARA, are showing the trend of sales stagnation and decline, especially in the millennium consumers seem to be no longer eager to buy fabrics in general, work rough clothes. Bloomberg Businessweek even quoted many market analysts as "fast fashion fatigue" to describe the overall market performance, and also disclosed several leading "fast fashion" companies are the same brand positioning upgrade efforts.

First is the Gap brand, in its 2013 spring series focused on the best fabric texture and upgrade sense of the design; Uniqlo special highlights the concept of its pioneering underwear, "refreshing, breathable, light" and other innovative concepts to benefit from its company's consistent investment in technology research and development, and h&m sword higher end route, following the release of " Eco-Apparel Products "After the series has been committed to" environmentally conscious action, "the new COS brand chain also began to sell higher prices of the product line, and played" Timeless Design "new slogan, like" one-time fashion "concept of a draw; At the same time, Zara also launched a relatively high level of Massimo Dutti Chain clothing Store ...

All these efforts are trying to find a breakthrough point in the "fast fashion fatigue syndrome" puzzle. No wonder, the changes in the market environment has made "fast fashion" at the beginning of this century, the ecological no longer exist. At the time, led by the "democratisation of fashion" (the democratization of fashion), consumers were ecstatic about the first time that high-end fashion designers had ever partnered with retailers to make fashion "affordable for all"-for example, A limited edition of the Karl Lagerfeld for H&m series, which was first marketed 8 years ago, and later Proenza Schouler, Alexander McQueen and other designer brands in large retail outlets ... All received excellent sales shengjing.

To provide consumers with inexpensive fashion clothing is indeed a lofty vision, but very helpless, this goal in the real world is distorted, because, irresponsible consumer behavior to turn shopping into a sexual pastime. According to the British Textile Recycling Initiative and the International Charitable Organization (TRAID), today's consumers across the UK buy about 2.15 million tonnes of new clothes a year, while they throw away 90多万件 clothes every year, sometimes even the price tag. In the United States, the statistics are even more shocking: America's consumers have discarded more than 1 million tons of clothing a year!

Although not all designers are so, it is clear that some designers have been to "fashion democratization" began to say no. According to a column published by Stylezeitgeist magazine editor Yukin Lapkin, if you search for "h&m collaboration" on YouTube, you will see a lot of young consumers queuing up to buy a designer's video for a long night. In one of the videos, a young man in H &m in line 9 hours before the sale because he thinks Comme des Gar?ons is a cool brand ... However, ironically, such brand worship is the designer Messen Majera "sincerely consider undesirable"; for years, as a designer and architect of structural design, Majera has refused to stand in the spotlight, his clothing label does not have his name; he thinks of himself as a craftsman, a garment engineer, Pursuing is a kind of "its work intrinsic complexity is not at a glance" of the introverted realm.

Another change in the "fast fashion" consumer eco-circle is from the digital age apparel dealers. As far as cost advantages are concerned, apparel dealers have always been the challengers of offline entity retailing enterprises. Thanks to the trend of lifestyle evolution in the digital age, more and more "fast fashion" vertical field of electric dealers won loyal customers, they get through the design, manufacture (or direct purchase from manufacturers), online marketing, inventory management of the flat link, but also very familiar with digital marketing tools-for example, Everlane, an online fashion retailer based in San Francisco, has managed to get a 100,000-dollar start-up fund for the Kickstarter (Canadian web site), not only in the financing process, but also in a way that has already had heavyweight venture capitalists like Lerer Ventures and Betaworks's capital support, and everlane more sophisticated in marketing: its launch of a viral-spread chart (which interestingly shows how the cost increases in physical retail stores have pushed up the retail price of apparel products) has also been massively forwarded, Aroused great repercussions in the Internet world.

Now, electric dealers like Everlane are also advocating "buy less, buy better" consumption concept. It seems to be a testament to the belief that Everlane, once a "black Friday" at the end of last year, was artificially blocking the site to show that it did not support overconsumption. Despite succumbing to the will of capital, it must prove its investment value with a quick sales revenue report, but Everlane has not gone through the low texture, low price, high discard rate product strategy of "fast fashion", but follows the gilt Groupe and LA, a luxury-goods dealer's website, are marketing their hunger to stimulate shoppers ' shopping drives, thereby boosting margins and sales. "Buy less, buy good" such a quick fashion new consumption concept also in other electric commodity cards (such as glasses manufacturers Warby Parker, men's clothing brand bonobos, etc.) have been praised and echoed. ）。 "This article is published in" IT manager World "April 20, 2013, signed by China International writer. The