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Op-ed: Putting Fashion Back Together

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  • Ahimsa
    Vegan Police
    • Sep 2011
    • 1879

    Op-ed: Putting Fashion Back Together

    OP-ED: PUTTING FASHION BACK TOGETHER
    by Eugene Rabkin

    "These days the fashion press that still bothers writing about fashion is filled with two types of articles. It’s either opinion pieces decrying the broken fashion system, or news about individual designers taking change into their own hands.

    Some of the woes befalling the fashion systems, according to the “broken fashion system” articles, is that the stores demand deliveries too soon and put them on sale too soon, and that the fast fashion system produces knockoffs at far cheaper prices and put them in stores before the real stuff hits the racks. Supposedly, the latter necessitates the former, but designers don’t like to be rushed, and the additional stress put on them is the other reason for the fashion system being broken. We have fall clothes filling the racks in the summer, and summer clothes in the winter. Everyone shops on sale.

    Designers like Burberry, Tom Ford, and Vetements have now decided to shift calendar and deliver the goodies right after their “seasonless” shows. Supposedly, this will combat the fast fashion copy cats and satisfy those rabid fashion fanatics who want the stuff now and have an attention span of a snail because their lives revolve around their Instagram accounts.

    To put this as diplomatically as I can, this is all a bunch of bullshit. The only real problem from the ones described above is that fashion is delivered too soon and gives people few reasons to buy the clothes they don’t need. But, the bigger problems are that there is too much bad fashion and that fashion is too expensive.

    First, for anyone who survived the Antarctic weekend in New York during the fashion week (which only proves, again, that god hates fashion), the idea of seasonless fashion is largely nonsense. Most markets that are located in the Northern hemisphere will still demand heavier clothes in the winter and lighter clothes in the summer. I don’t see this changing and some designers who were showing summery frocks on the New York runway this week got more raised eyebrows than critical acclaim for their forward thinking.

    Second, the threat of fast fashion copycats and knock-off artists to the designer fashion industry is mostly a myth that has already been debunked, but no one seems to listen. In the video linked in the previous sentence, none other than Tom Ford says that his consumer and the fast fashion consumer exist in different universes. In other words, the Park Avenue woman is not going to go to H&M to buy a Gucci knockoff, because she can afford the real thing and she wants the real thing for its tag and its quality alike.

    Furthermore, according to China Daily, half of the luxury fashion today is bought by Chinese consumers. Most of these are still aspirational consumers, and I know how an aspirational consumer works, because I, being an immigrant, have experienced it firsthand. Believe me when I say this – they want the real thing as soon as they have the money for it. Yes, they may wait for sales, yes they may hunt on eBay and YOOX, but they want the real thing. Knockoffs are for those who cannot afford the real thing, plain and simple. I don’t know exactly why so blindingly obvious a thing is hard to comprehend for the luxury executives, though I have an idea.

    The luxury conglomerates produce fashion but they operate by the same diktats as any other conglomerate – they are slaves to the logic of capitalism that dictates constant expansion and continuously growing profits. To them, everyone is a potential consumer, everyone is one market, and everyone is a competitor. No wonder they foam at the mouth when they see H&M opening 300 stores a year and Zara making more money than them. Obviously, there are some exceptions to the scenario outlined above, but by and large it is true.

    The most obvious solution for driving more customers to high-end fashion is lowering its insane prices. This past weekend I was browsing the spring issue of T-magazine, where plenty of outerwear and some dresses hovered in the $10,000 mark. Need I say more?"

    Full article on SZ-mag
    StyleZeitgeist Magazine | Store
  • Dropt
    Senior Member
    • May 2009
    • 405

    #2
    Amen… just to nitpick:

    The retail markups have grown, too. On average a retail markup is now times 2.6-2.8 from the retail wholesale price, and 3.2 is not unheard of.

    Comment

    • ronin
      Banned
      • Dec 2009
      • 200

      #3
      Thank you! Finally, some sense on that matter! I wholeheartedly agree with your explanations, which are more than welcome in the current context.

      The suggestion about lowering prices would unfortunately be hard to apply to smaller designers, especially those with an "artisanal"-inspired approach (who could hardly transition from a high-margin-small-sales to a small-margin-higher sales model, if only because of the sparse nature of their products); that doesn't make them any less relevant for luxury consortiums and other larger, settled companies - at the head of which, as you rightly pointed out, sit people very unlikely to take your advice. Not every design is suited to the Middle-Eastern market, and even this one is starting to be on the skids. Short term vision is the plague of our times...

      On that note, I think many companies still believe that a high price is both necessary and sufficient to make a product attractive. That might have been true on very immature, emerging markets, and on a larger scale before the economic crisis decided to linger. Such a conception is now increasingly obsolete (even though some success stories boggle the mind), but seems to remain rooted in the mindset of many decision-makers, especially in budding companies (I've seen several ones pitch their project to business angels stressing their high product positionning as a sure way to have a hord of customers swoon over their wares - needless to say, it never happened). Still, for some luxury brands, price is all that stands between their offer and that of their high-street counterparts, so it's quite understandable they would want to cling to it.

      Comment

      • zamb
        Senior Member
        • Nov 2006
        • 5834

        #4
        Originally posted by ronin View Post
        Thank you! Finally, some sense on that matter! I wholeheartedly agree with your explanations, which are more than welcome in the current context.

        The suggestion about lowering prices would unfortunately be hard to apply to smaller designers, especially those with an "artisanal"-inspired approach (who could hardly transition from a high-margin-small-sales to a small-margin-higher sales model, if only because of the sparse nature of their products); that doesn't make them any less relevant for luxury consortiums and other larger, settled companies - at the head of which, as you rightly pointed out, sit people very unlikely to take your advice. Not every design is suited to the Middle-Eastern market, and even this one is starting to be on the skids. Short term vision is the plague of our times...

        On that note, I think many companies still believe that a high price is both necessary and sufficient to make a product attractive. That might have been true on very immature, emerging markets, and on a larger scale before the economic crisis decided to linger. Such a conception is now increasingly obsolete (even though some success stories boggle the mind), but seems to remain rooted in the mindset of many decision-makers, especially in budding companies (I've seen several ones pitch their project to business angels stressing their high product positionning as a sure way to have a hord of customers swoon over their wares - needless to say, it never happened). Still, for some luxury brands, price is all that stands between their offer and that of their high-street counterparts, so it's quite understandable they would want to cling to it.
        Ill come back to this later, but this aspect of things is complete bull.
        We here are one of the most Artisanal of Artisanal companies, making our own products in our own factory space, with a lot of hand finishing details and steps. We continue to be price friendly, not cheap but definitely GOOD value compared to a lot of other brands that have way less overheads and cost than we do.

        The problem of high prices is not just a matter of the production volume, its that thee is TOO many things to pay for and too many people to be paid in the whole supply chain that gets the product to the consumer.
        But a BIG part of it is not with the designers and stores only. it has to do with the consumer too.
        A lot of consumers are not buying value, they want the BIG Price because it signals $$TATUS,
        But while wanting the big ticket item they also want it on SALE,
        all of this creates a viscous cycle for all parties in involved
        “You know,” he says, with a resilient smile, “it is a hard world for poets.”
        .................................................. .......................


        Zam Barrett Spring 2017 Now in stock

        Comment

        • eleves
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2012
          • 524

          #5
          Eugene,

          Great, poignant and refreshing article. I hope that it comes to the attention of people that need to see it because your points are very, very spot on. There is a lot that needs to be changed in order to ensure the survival of this industry. I see the nonsense that you have pointed out every single day at work (I merchandise for one of the big NYC retailers) and I am consistently shaking my head in disbelief throughout my work day. It's really sad seeing the troves and troves of people coming in that work hard and deserve to be able to buy into what they like rather than just buying what they can without ruining their lives. You would think that a lot of designers would understand this fact, as many were poor artists or students at some point. There are 10,000 dollar fragrances that consistently sell here, and it just blows my mind that people buy this. The fact that these companies can even legitimately make things like 200,000 dollar fragrances (also sold here at one point) knowing that someone will buy it is crazy.

          Zam,

          You are absolutely correct about status. I see it all the time when kids are running around wearing the worst possible things they can find from designers like RO because they are easier to find at a lower price and they can still say they're wearing RO. This is going to continue. You can even see this in the amount of the RO dustbags/totes that a lot of people carry because it's a pseudo RO item and they are even selling for 50 dollars or higher on the secondary market! Some people on SZ can probably pay their rent if they sold all the bags they had lying around! It all also tunes right back into the article and that prices are just astronomical these days and lends to the idea of why people need to settle for items that they don't really prefer just to maintain some sort of status image. This all truly is a terrible cycle. I do like your system though and it really is good to see what you put out and still be able to maintain your relatively good pricing, kudos to you and your team for that!
          Originally posted by Faust
          HOBBY?! HOBBY?!?!?!?!?! You are on SZ, buddy - it ain't no hobby, it's passion, religion, and unbounded cosmic love rolled into one.

          Comment

          • ronin
            Banned
            • Dec 2009
            • 200

            #6
            Thank you Zamb for clarifying things. I regret bringing that up since it's already been discussed elsewhere and drifts away from the matter of the article. I never meant to say it was impossible for a smaller company to lower their prices to a point where, as you put it, they are good for the value. I only meant that the specific logic of lowering profit margin per item in order to increase sales volume at full price seems harder to pull off when you only have 5 or 10 editions of an item than when you can actually hope to sell hundreds. This is of course far from being the only lever to lower prices while maintaining benefit. Re-reading the article, I realize that's not even what was suggested, rather that markups were calculated in terms of raw figures instead of percentages (the latter bordering indeed on ridicule when applied to a four-figure price), so I apologize for pointing out something both unrelated and irrelevant. Of course, there are many more parameters to the equation, consumer behaviour, as you point out, being a major yet often overlooked one. Being stricter with sales periods, as suggested in the article, might indeed help with that to an extent, but old habits die hard and this bargain-hunting habit has been around for a long time, and let's not forget about third-party companies selling discount products all year round (even though it doesn't concern smaller/niche designers that much if I'm not mistaken?). The problem is rooted deeper, a true change of behaviour would require a mindset shift and, despite some major tendencies in some cirlcles, I'm not sure the current mainstream zeitgeist is headed this way. Educating one's customers on the issue is already a huge step, and, call me naive, but I believe in the viral if (very) slow propagation of constructive attitude.

            Comment

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