The problem with fashion: fast fashion
Fashion is defined as a popular style of clothing, hair, behavior and so on. By the end of this article, you will discover that this definition contains a big trap.
The past: Less frequency, higher price.
let’s turn on the time machine and let’s go back to 30 – 50 years ago.
Fittings taking place at 14 Savile Row London
Some of the greatest tailors in the world were dominating the international scene. Everything was a little bit slower. There was not something like “home delivery” and “online shopping”.
What was the process for a gentleman to get a suit at that time? You had to go to a tailor, and after several weeks you could have your piece of garment. It was hand made and obviously you had to wait for slow delivery.
Taking a walk to Savile Row in London was a true pleasure for any gentleman.
After that purchase, you were absolutely fine for several years: a suit from these people was lasting “forever”.
With that high quality, You didn’t want to get a new suit every season. Also, fashion was almost timeless, with no great difference between a season to another.
The present: Less price, higher frequency.
What was the catch? Not everyone was ready to spend that money to have a suit. So things started to change slowly.
The majority of people would like to spend less, because of their budget. So what happened? Here is the rise of the “ready to wear“ fashion. No more tailors but prefixed sizes.
And they had tremendous success. Pushing new styles, new clothes, with high production and fast delivery, they could create a billion-dollar industry.
With faster production and fast-changing trends, they could create new seasons styles that were lasting 3 or 4 weeks and start with brand new style lines right after.
They created a “fast-food” fashion. If in the past fashion was timeless, now we have trends, a lot of trends, and the push for the last new garment.
The future: something that we will determine
We should approach Fashion in a different way. A week ago Giorgio Armani wrote an open letter as an answer to an article on WWD.
The problem with the fashion industry, as Armani said in his letter to WWD is that
the luxury segment has increasingly followed the influence of fast fashion – an accelerated production cycle, higher production volumes – and that this has caused a “decline of the fashion system”.
We have the power and the tools to solve this problem: we have options. We can be aware of this game and not be affected. Especially young guys that aren’t aware of this.
The real solution here is to help people make the right choice but also rise the ability to make money to the general public, so they can buy what they want. I’m not against HM, Zara or other brands. We just need to be more aware of this situation.
Fashion shouldn’t be for the elite. But shouldn’t be trash either.
I made this is a video to give you some tools to better evaluate information from fashion gurus:
I hope you enjoyed my article. What is your opinion about it? Leave me a comment below.
