How Fashion redefined Supply Chain

The days of Fast Fashion are almost behind us.

Nobody should really feel sad about this. Better quality retailing experiences are just around the corner as Customer first Fashion is slowly replacing Fast Fashion.

You could say the Fast Fashion retail revolution started in 1963, when Luciano Benetton, a 30 year old salesman from Treviso sold his younger brothers' bicycle, to buy a second-hand knitting machine, and produced colorful sweaters for local stores in the Veneto region.

The company grew sales above 1 billion euro, in large part thanks to savvy marketing campaigns, highstreet stores, and its ability to react to fashion trends and colour preferences, faster than the competition, bringing the final touch and color to each clothing, thanks to local manufacturing partners in the Treviso region, near their hometown.  

Fast Fashion is referring to a unique retail model, which allows high-street retailers to quickly capture new fashion trends from the catwalk, and offer young and less young fashionistas, the latest designs at an affordable price.  

Zara has been at the forefront of this approach, almost becoming synonymous with the term, delivering designer products to a mass market at relatively low prices. But other large retailers such as H&M, Zara, Peacocks or Topshop leveraged similar models to come center stage in the mid-2000s 'bobo chic' era, bringing fashion to the masses.

But this unsustainable story of excessive shopping and throw away clothes - stored in closets which are never seeing the daylight - slowly comes to an end as we are starting to see the emergence of a new model we could label Customer First Fashion.

Consumers are connecting with each other on social media and fashion blogs, drawing from various sources to find a look that's literally and figuratively tailored just for them — and they expect retailers to deliver a personal look, rather than a fashion magasine look and a full wardrobe of non-wearables.

New start ups are providing this new Customer First retail experience.

Let's have a look at this exciting trend, and summarize some of the fun fashionistas, and fashion neutral consumers like myself will experience in the coming years.

The Customer First model promises lots of fun for all of us:

1. Access your Personal Stylist Online 

Fast fashion clothing collections used to be based on the most recent fashion trends presented at Fashion Week in both the Spring and Autumn of each year.

Today the customer runs the show and the inspiration for each personal style comes from various sources.

Take Stitch Fix for example. Women sign up filling out style profiles that includes their clothing sizes, favorite styles, fit preferences, price ranges and some aspects of their personal lifestyle.

This information is then used by the assigned personal stylist of Stitch Fix to suggest and mail five pieces of apparel or accessories, which will be delivered by mail. The customer has three days to decide what she sends back, and then has the opportunity to rate each item and tell her stylist what she liked or disliked, turning traditional retail shopping and e-commerce into a highly personalized fashion experience.   

More about Stitch Fix in attached link:

https://www.stitchfix.com/

Note that for Stitch Fix returns are an integral part of the customer experience.

2. WoW Service

Fast Fashion was famous for critical importance of product marketing. Photographer Oliviero Toscanini was given carte blanche by the Benetton management to create highly controversial billboard-sized adds.

Zara adopted a unique marketing policy of “Zero investment in marketing” and positioned itself thanks to uniquely placed Flagship stores' in premium locations, offering a great shopping experience, product exclusivity, differentiation and affordability.

Compared to Fast Fashion, Customer First retailers offer a level of customer service that is out of this world. One of the best examples is shoe fashion company Zappos. Zappos employees don't read from scripts when servicing a customer.

The exceptional Customer Service culture at Zappos can be illustrated by the cult stories of service reps going the extra mile for their customer. One customer service rep physically went to a rival shoe store to get a specific pair of shoes for a woman when Zappos ran out of stock. A story also circulates about Zappos overnighting a free pair of shoes to a best man who had arrived at a wedding shoeless.  

https://www.zappos.com/

Note that for Zappos exceptional WoW delivery is an integrated part of the customer experience, its cost financed by replacing marketing budgets by special budgets for service reps and exclusive training about how to produce these great stories about customer service.

3. Wardrobe Swaps

As mentioned before, one cornerstone of Fast Fashion is the store.

In the new Customer First world, the wardrobe and the store are perfectly interchangeable concepts.

Poshmark is one of these fashion retailers that makes your wardrobe the center of your fashion world. It allows fashionistas to buy and sell from wardrobe to wardrobe, finding unique items that are just sitting in someone elses closet, ready for use at up to 70% off retail prices. 

Try out the very personal closet retail experience with Poshmark, if you wish.

https://poshmark.com/

"By connecting women's closets around the country, we've created a closet sharing economy," said Manish Chandra, founder and CEO. "Each woman in this economy now has a revolving closet, where she can feel confident purchasing new items knowing that she can re-sell it later or sell her other unwanted items to offset the cost. We simply would not exist without our vibrant, engaged community."

The clothes rental market is in full swing. Many entrepreneurs are looking to find a substitute to the store but also for the closet. 

Companies like Rent the Runway provide both the wardrobe, drycleaning and unlimited rental of any dress for any occasion.

https://m.renttherunway.com/rtr_home

And there are plenty of competitors with new experimental approaches like 'Girls meets Dress', 'Gwynnie Bee' , 'Swapdom' , 'Bag borrow or Steal' or 'Le Tote'.

Note that in these models both owning and paying the dress became optional. It is all about the Shopping experience.

4. Big 'Intimate' data

Fashion Retail has become real fun.

Founder of True&Co and CEO Michelle Lam said that her company's mission is to re-engineer the most complex and intimate garment on the market by using data.

Many women spend years, even much of their adult lives, wearing the wrong bra size. The answer is a proprietary fit quiz, using data collected from more than 1 million women, to help customers find the perfect size and fit for their body.  

Take the quizz, if you are looking for the perfect bra and got tired never finding the right one trying model after model and size after size.

https://trueandco.com/quiz/shoulder_straps#/quiz/intro

Note that in this model, even the dressing room left the shop. The fit quiz and home-try-on service gives this retailer extensive and very intimate big data about what drives all types of women to buy their products."

5. Dressing Events for Fashionistas, Undressed events for all the others

But the ultimate shopping experience is to get dressed advised by other fashionistas without having to pay a dime nor looking in your own wardrobe.

 This is the retailmodel startup Rentez-Vous is promoting.

https://rentez-vous.com

Young, French entrepreneur Fiona Disegni describes Rentez-Vous as "the Airbnb of fashion". Rentez-Vous allows people to rent out their clothes, access other people's wardrobes, and meet like-minded individuals.

It allows for sustainable fashion far away from the shopping frenzy of fast fashion addicts always buying te latest new model to end up with fully packed wardrobes filled with collectibles, just to find out there is nothing fashionable to wear for the next event!

So next time you offer your wife a dress from a FastFashion retailer, make sure you considered all these aspects of her shopping experience too!

Or if you are a frequent traveler like myself, just avoid events and go for PackNada (advertised in youtube below), dressing up your partner for the occasion, I would say...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OvvTFf1ihjA

The clothes for both of you will already wait for you: cleaned, ironed and nicely arranged in your next hotel room.