People
The people pillar is all about exploring the relationship between the fashion industry and the consumer, most importantly, Gen Z. Gen Z refers to the generation of people born between the years of 1997 up until 2012. The generation have grown up with technology as a predominant aspect of their lives, with the introduction of Generative AI, which is said to have the potential to add up to $4.4 trillion every year, especially in the fashion and luxury sector (Chui et al., 2023). The utilisation of technology to enhance a buyers experience is an important factor in the rise of the fashion industry, for example, Adidas released a new collection called “Into the Metaverse” in December 2021, which consisted of consumers purchasing NFT’s that they released on their website, which could then be traded for items on their website (energii, 2022). This concept helped to incorporate the idea of exclusivity within their brand as well as increasing the desirability of their products, therefore providing them with a new innovation which made their brand current to social trends.
Gen Z account for nearly 25% of the world’s population (Schneider and Lee, 2022) and encompass characteristics which are solely focused on the enforcement of inclusivity and the representation of diversity within the fashion industry. Bo Finneman stated, “they want to breathe new life into what corporate responsibility looks like” (Finneman, Spagnuolo and Rahilly, 2020). Gen Z want to create an atmosphere where everyone feels truly accepted for who they are. For example, if a brand is only truly representative of one stereotype of a woman, then they are actively limiting the scale of their consumers. This could be related to brands like “Brandy Melville” who started their brand with no sizing at all, only “one size fits all”, however, this wasn’t a representation of true inclusivity as their clothes did not in fact fit all women.
Figure 1: Using Social Media as Inspiration for Fashion (Moran, 2022)
As shown above in Figure 1, we can see that within the 2022 Gen Z category, Instagram and TikTok have the highest percentage of consumers using their platforms as inspiration for fashion, with Instagram standing at just over 60%, and TikTok at 50%. In order for brands to stay relevant in today’s society, they must think of new ways to market and advertise their products, and one way for this would be to start producing UGC (User Generated Content). Due to the rise of social media, every advertisement must be eye-catching in order for someone to engage with their content. UGC is a way to increase the relevance of a brand within the media as the content is being produced by someone who is part of Gen Z.
Reference List:
Chui, M., Hazan, E., Roberts, R., Singla, A., Smaje, K., Sukharevsky, A., Yee, L. and Zemmel, R. (2023). The economic potential of generative AI The next productivity frontier. [online] Available at: http://dln.jaipuria.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/14313/1/The-economic-potential-of-generative-ai-the-next-productivity-frontier.pdf.
energii (2022). Adidas Metaverse: Everything You Need To Know. [online] NFT Evening. Available at: https://nftevening.com/adidas-metaverse-everything-you-need-to-know/.
Finneman, B., Spagnuolo, E. and Rahilly, L. (2020). Meet Generation Z: Shaping the Future of Shopping | McKinsey. [online] McKinsey. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/meet-generation-z-shaping-the-future-of-shopping.
Moran, G. (2022). Gen Z and Millennials 2022. [online] Drapers. Available at: https://www.drapersonline.com/guides/gen-z-and-millennials-2022.
Schneider, B. and Lee, D. (2022). Gen-Z and Fashion in the Age of Realism. [online] The Business of Fashion. Available at: https://www.businessoffashion.com/reports/retail/gen-z-fashion-in-the-age-of-realism-bof-insights-social-media-report/.