Fast Fashion: The ‘In’ Thing

Fashion is getting faster. Brands are pushing their manufacturing boundaries every season to find different ways to appeal to an increasingly impatient audience. The big question is will anyone really own ‘brand’ in the future? Owning stuff is so last generation for the young hearts now. ‘Closet staples’ is increasingly becoming a forgotten concept. The new generation of shoppers is relying on lending, trading and sharing to fill their wardrobes. Crossroads Trading Co. and ThredUp are gaining momentum. In the age of social media, people do not want to be seen in the same dress more than twice. Fast Fashion is not going anywhere soon. It is demanding a huge change in the fashion industry. H&M, Mango, Zara and Forever 21 have a very short shelf life. TNS World Panel Fashion Focus issue says, “We now buy 40% of our clothes at value retailers, with just 17% of our clothing budget.” A Cambridge University study finds that women have four times as many clothes in their wardrobe as they did in 1980. Women are also getting rid of similar amounts each year. The lifecycle of fashion basics has become short. Brands are in competition against each other for market share by introducing more lines at lower cost every year. Additionally, offers, discounts and online deals exist year round. Interactive platforms, online forums, instant coverage of fashion week and street style online are changing the fashion scenario altogether where every week a new trend is in vogue. Now a garment takes two weeks to turn around from sketch to shop floor. Zara and H&M are at the forefront of this fashion retail revolution and have become synonymous with the term. Fashion is now perceived as fast, disposable and low price, especially by the young generation. Fast fashion has three differentiating model factors: market timing, cost and buying cycle. The objective is to create the shortest production time possible. Not labels, but personal style is the new ‘It’ thing in fashion, because personal style evolves constantly. Forever 21 is centered on the concept that fashion is attractive and creative, yet affordable. Young people love to express their individuality and are fond of runway-inspired style. This merchandise is produced quickly and inexpensively for mall chain stores. Fast fashion retailers seem to be emerging as a driving force behind most consumer purchases. Consumers want high fashion designs, but at affordable prices. Fast fashion brands are doing that with a distinct profit margin. Rapid prototyping, small batches combined with large variety, more efficient transportation and delivery and merchandise are made ‘floor ready’ with price tags attached in a very short time.

Luxury is re-defined now by the consumers who are embracing fast fashion. The element of luxury now has more to do with behavior than the actual product purchase itself. Fast fashion retailers have the advantage of appealing to a wide variety of consumers who desire seemingly high end products at affordable prices. They sacrifice quality, but a sense of beauty for these non-essential items is maintained, thereby encouraging repeat purchase.

Fashion public relations have become an increasingly valuable element for gaining success – as a retailer and as a business. Fast fashion brands like H&M and Forever 21 are using public relation strategies to effectively attract consumers through social networking platforms, community relations, media relations and competitive marketing. To continue to thrive as a company and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between the brand and the consumers, it is important for the fast fashion brands to recognize the strategy behind brand messaging and consumers’ perception of the brand.

Fast fashion brands are providing shoppers with an unprecedented selection of today’s fashion that is always changing and always in style. In the growing social environment, knowledge of the economy has affected consumers’ purchase behavior. For youth desirous of the latest styles, fast fashion brands have designed a fail-proof alternative to high-end spending, offering trends at an affordable price. Store locations, store layout, placement of merchandise within the store, deals and offers, specialty programs for frequent buyers and savvy online platforms have made the customers’ experience (CX) pleasant, convenient and rewarding.

Zara has taken the lead in the emerging trend of fast fashion. In the past year Inditex sales increased 8%, far stronger than its competitors, as stated by Forbes. This competitor is truly beating the pants off of the H&M’s and Mangos of the world. Zara moves fast, it introduces new styles every week, which keep the consumers coming back again and again and their sale markdowns are never too low or too frequent, as is the case with its competitors.

H&M uses a slightly different strategy. One quarter of its stock is made up of fast-fashion items that are designed in-house and farmed out to independent factories. But Zara prefers to add new stock to their collection rather than repeating the stock that moves out quickly. Chico, a Florida-based apparel chain is climbing up the ladder and is a possible threat for Zara as they promise consumers with their alluring slogan, ‘You’ll find something new every day at Chico’s.’

However, everything has its flip side as well. Stella McCartney tells director Andrew Morgan in his latest documentary, The True Cost, “The fashion industry just needs to think.” In the film, Morgan exposes the naked truth about what exactly goes into the global production of fast fashion. He documents his journey through decrepit clothing factories, villages suffering the effect of toxic waste produced by the garment factories, landfills loaded with rotten clothes and protests of factory workers demanding a living wage. Consumers in the developed world would get cheaper goods and people in developing countries would get jobs that will help them to work their way out of poverty. Unfortunately, the scenario has completely taken an about turn as fashion brands are competing against each other for the lowest prices, which are creating immense pressure on factory owners in developing countries to produce garments at cheaper prices by compromising the wages and working hours of the workers. Consumers now buy 400% more clothing than they did 30 years ago, CNBC reports. The fashion industry is now designed to make consumers feel out of trend every week. The fashion industry is churning out 52 micro-seasons per year, Huffington Post reports, wherein Topshop is introducing 400 styles a week on its website. Most of our clothing that the fast fashion brands are churning out has synthetic, petroleum-based fibers that will take decades to decompose. Beading and sequin dresses involve child labor, as 20 to 60% of such garments are sewn at home by informal workers mostly children in developing countries. Machine-driven production of these garments is very expensive and the fast fashion cycle cannot afford that.

Forever 21 has 600 stores, H&M has 3,200 stores, and Zara has more than 1,800 stores globally. Uniqlo and Topshop are expanding. All said and done, as long as shoppers are being fed with fast changing fashion trends, the insatiable hunger of being in vogue will not subside. Though H&M, Zara, Forever 21 and Gap have signed the pledge for vendor compliance and improving factory conditions, as long as apparel is offered at $2, the questions on production dynamics will continue to linger. Fast fashion is here to stay. It’s wasteful, but indulgent.