People
‘people’ is one of the four pillar of fashion business school. In fashion business people is an indispensable part, explaining this pillar Liz Gee stated: “Fashion, beauty and well-being choices are integral part of consumers daily life. Equitable treatment of all stakeholders should promote a positive relationship between dress, society and self identity.”(2023).
Discussing about ‘people’, Gen Z could be a topic to start with. Generation Z also being called Gen Z, considering people born from 1996 until 2010. The Gen Zers are the first generation born with internet to be widely used, this allowed internet became a daily product to them, therefore “digital natives” are other names they’ve been called. It’s being estimated that GenZ takes up 26% of the world population, with its rapid growth, when 2025 comes the population of Gen Z may reach a percentage of a quarter of the the Asia–Pacific region. This large population cause Gen Z to become the largest group of consumers in nowadays, which could be a target market for a lot of fashion business.
As “digital natives” Gen Z rely a lot on internet as consumers, it’s been proved that comparing to other generations Gen Zers used their phone more regularly and has a longer screen time. Within the screen time they use their phone to be engaged in social media and trendy platform such as TikTok, this lead them to be a generation which is easily influenced by social media or online platforms for brand decisions. Therefore, brands which seen Gen Z as target customer should empathise more on the advertising through social media and reputation of brand to avoid negative reviews online.
Gen Z was described as ‘inclusive consumer’, this shows that this generation has a strong moral sense, they care about justice, environment and equity. ‘Diversity’ is the term important to Gen Z, which may also affect their decision on consumptions. Responding to this, cosmetic brands such as Fenty Beauty did react by launching a series of Pro Filt’r Foundation which includes 40 shades for different skin colour of people. This allows people of different skin colour could all have beauty product which matches them, where cosmetics brands are not only producing products for stereotypical beauty skin.
Other than consumers, people working in the industry is also a significant sector that occurs this pillar. Fashion industries’ worker need to have team working skill to collaborate with each other, communication is then important towards team working. People need to have effective communication skills to increase the efficiency of work, this could help brands to minimise waste in time or resources to assure they are resulting in high quality products with the lowest cost being input.
Reference List:
Kim, A., McInerney, P., Rüdiger Smith, T. and Yamakawa, N. (2020). What makes Gen Z in Asia different? | McKinsey. [online] www.mckinsey.com. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/what-makes-asia-pacifics-generation-z-different.
Liz G., Dean. (2023). Welcome to Fashion Business School [Power Point] University of the Arts London: London College of Fashion.
McKinsey (2023). What is Gen Z? | McKinsey. [online] www.mckinsey.com. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-gen-z.
Weinswig, D. (2016). Gen Z: Get ready for the most self-conscious, demanding consumer segment. Fung Global Retail & Technology, 1-19.
Werle, A. (2019). TopSCHOLAR® Beyond Light, Medium, and Dark: Diversity and Inclusivity in the Makeup and Beauty Industries. [online] Available at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1838&context=stu_hon_theses.