The word fast fashion is fast, not fashion

Although the saying that fast fashion is dead has been said for several years, the recent series of news seems to have driven a few more nails to the coffin board of fast fashion. In June, H&M closed its first store in China on Huaihai Middle Road in Shanghai.

 In the past year, the brand has closed more than 60 stores in a row. At the end of July, ZARA's three sister brands: Bershka, Pull&Bear, and Stradivarius closed their Tmall flagship stores at the same time. And their offline stores have already closed last year. This means that these three brands have completely withdrawn from the Chinese market.

In August, GAP stores in several major cities announced that they would close their warehouses, and even the fire extinguishers and the models in the stores were labeled and sold. How should I put it, I feel that the brothers are very loyal, and they made an appointment to die in the same year, the same month, and the same day. Of the four major fast fashions that shined in the Chinese market that year, now only Uniqlo is still actively opening stores.

People have to sigh, the era of fast fashion has passed. In this issue, I want to start with the big contraction of fast fashion and talk about the changes in our clothing consumption. 01 Fast fashion, although the word "fashion" in its name, has nothing to do with fashion. In my opinion, fast fashion is essentially a modern supply chain organization. When the apparel industry develops to a certain stage, the supply chain becomes more flexible, the iteration is faster, and the rapid iteration will not significantly increase the manufacturing cost, the development of the supply chain will be transmitted to the consumer side, and it will become a fast fashion brand. The style update of traditional clothing companies is often based on quarters.

There are four quarters a year, and it is enough to hold an order meeting with the dealers every quarter. But when it comes to fast fashion, it is possible to update styles on a monthly or even 14-day basis and iterate quickly in a large and small fashion. And most fast fashion will adopt the model of direct-sale stores to remove the intermediate links to the greatest extent so that the products can be delivered to consumers faster and more efficiently to withstand the market test. Therefore, this model solves the most deadly risk of clothing brands to some extent: inventory. In addition, the iteration is fast, the richness of styles is far more than before, consumers have more choices, and the most cutting-edge trends in the fashion industry can also be implemented at the fastest speed.

Compared with the traditional clothing industry, fast fashion is undoubtedly a revolutionary existence. Of course, for any clothing brand, it's not about being fast. This model is a test of the flexibility of the supply chain and the clothing brand's sense of fashion trends. Although ZARA and H&M sell clothes very well, there is a problem: they do not have the right to speak in fashion. What color, design, and style will be popular in the next season, fast fashion brands have no idea.

It's Dior, it's the big names like Chanel, it's the top designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent, it's New York, London, Paris, and Milan. No matter how strong the business is or how powerful the supply chain is, there is no way to solve one problem: where does the design come from? In response to this problem, fast fashion brands are divided into two factions. The first faction is to let the entire fashion industry work for them. Take ZARA as an example, this brand has been marked with "plagiarism" and "printing" since the first day of its birth, the first product. Because of plagiarism, ZARA has to pay tens of millions of euros in fines every year. In this regard, H&M and ZARA are half-hearted. From luxury brands to street fashion brands, all products can be a source of inspiration for fast fashion. The other faction is less chasing fashion and focusing on practicality. The representative brand is Uniqlo, which focuses on classic basic styles. Anyway, no matter how stylish and stylish you are, you can't help but buy a T-shirt, right? Can't you wear panties and socks?

Can't you wear down jackets and thermal underwear in winter? In the categories that consumers buy every year, I do my best and have a stable customer base. The other faction is less chasing fashion and focusing on practicality. The representative brand is Uniqlo, which focuses on classic basic styles.

 Anyway, no matter how stylish and stylish you are, you can't help but buy a T-shirt, right? Can't you wear panties and socks? Can't you wear down jackets and thermal underwear in winter? In the categories that consumers buy every year, I do my best and have a stable customer base. Fashion design or something, that's a plus.


The gap means "generation gap" in English. Since its birth, this brand has hopes to make the kind of clothes that young and rebellious hippies like, and their parents can also accept, so as to fill the gap between the two generations. Therefore, its style is the style of college students in California, sweaters and denim khakis, as long as the public can accept it.


Therefore, such brands do not have to worry about inventory problems. Because they have very few styles, and there is always a market for classic styles. But they also need a flexible supply chain and fast market feedback, because what they want to avoid is that core commodity are out of stock, and reducing inventory is only a secondary goal. And fast fashion can help them do just that. So the word fast fashion, the word is fast, not fashion.


In order to be fast, brands can choose to copy, or they can choose to only make basic classics. 02 How did we dress in the past? Let me mention a phenomenon, my peers and those older than me must have impressions. When I was a child, new clothes were only worn during the Chinese New Year. Buying new clothes is not because the style is old, but because the size is small.