Freya Haynes

At the heart of nearly every business in our society, profit is the most important aspect of succeeding and growing as a corporation. The fashion industry is one of the biggest industries present today, with equipping just under 450 million people with jobs globally (Common Objective. (n.d.). The rise of the fashion world comes with many positive aspects, for example, the extreme range of creativity that it shows to the world and the ability that the industry has in allowing people to express themselves, whether this be through designing, styling or even just wearing. The industry as a whole also brings a lot of negative effects to our society, due to the exploitation of workers and its effect on our environment. In other words, “Just as fashion has the power of transformation, it has the power of destruction” (Vilaça, 2022). Business of Fashion also address this topic through the idea that sustainability is not as important to consumers as some people may want it to be (Pucker, 2023). This article also speaks about the idea that in order for a significant change to happen, everyone within the industry must get involved and have the same end goals in mind, however clearly states, “companies prioritise profits over planetary welfare” (Pucker, 2023).

Since stores had to close down for extended periods of time due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the fashion industry suffered greatly from a drop in sales and due to this, the market’s revenue between 2019 and 2020 declined by 20% globally (Amed et al., 2021). This posed as a challenge especially to small businesses which faced the danger of having to close down permanently. However, Nike managed to bounce back after the pandemic due to the fact that more people were working out and working from home instead of going into the office, so their trainers experienced a rise in sales, stated Neil Saunders (Forrest, 2022). In order for other brands to remain competitive during these uncertain economic times, brands had to have a clear differentiation from other businesses in order to stand out to their consumers. One way in doing this is through collaborations, bringing two different audiences together.

Selfridges serves as an illustration of how creativity and commerce may be fused together by creatively displaying ready-to-wear clothes in an effort to veer away from a predominantly commercial portrayal. They achieve this through their creative shop window displays which are extremely famous all around the world, using basic items of clothing in an innovative way (Figure 1).

Reference List:

Common Objective. (n.d.). Faces and Figures: Who Makes Our Clothes? [online] Available at: https://www.commonobjective.co/article/faces-and-figures-who-makes-our-clothes#:~:text=The%20global%20workforce%20is%20estimated.

Forrest, F. (2022). Covid two years on: Expert analysis of top 10 global apparel companies. [online] Just Style. Available at: https://www.just-style.com/features/covid-two-years-on-expert-analysis-of-top-10-global-apparel-companies/?cf-view&cf-closed [Accessed 20 Oct. 2023].

Pucker, K. (2023). Brands Know How to Curb Their Climate Impact. Why Won’t They Do it? [online] The Business of Fashion. Available at: https://www.businessoffashion.com/opinions/sustainability/fashion-brands-curb-climate-impact-why-not-inaction/#:~:text=Their%20Climate%20Impact.- [Accessed 20 Oct. 2023].

Vilaça, J. (2022). Fashion Industry Statistics: The 4th Biggest Sector Is More Than Clothing. [online] Fashinnovation. Available at: https://fashinnovation.nyc/fashion-industry-statistics/.

www.selfridges.com. (2023). Material World – Windows | Content | Selfridges. [online] Available at: https://www.selfridges.com/GB/en/features/articles/content/material-world-windows/.

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/.

The planet pillar is all about exploring the ideas that come with sustainability and how we can use our voices in the fashion industry to have a positive impact on our environment. To put into perspective the severity of the climate crisis in relation to the fashion industry, we know that this industry takes up approximately 20% of all the water used on our planet (Shaikh, M.A., 2009) and that this contributes to a severe part of the “climate catastrophe” stated by the United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres. Textile production globally produces 1.2 billion tonnes of Carbon dioxide annually (Parvin, F., Islam, S., Akm, S.I., Urmy, Z. and Ahmed, S., 2020) which is a large factor of the problem as we are consciously contributing to the pollution of our planet. An area of this industry which is detrimental to the climate crisis is the way that materials are being treated during the process of making garments, regarding water consumption and the use of oil-based textiles.

The topic of reducing our carbon footprint is one of the most frequently discussed topics in today’s society, using the idea of a circular economy. Throughout the whole of Europe, more than 30% of clothing that has been purchased has only been worn once (Palacios-Mateo, C., Van der Meer, Y. and Seide, G., 2021) showing us the extent to which this problem persists and sheds light onto the fact that we need to be thinking about what to do when a garment has reached the end of its life. During the end-of-life period, we should be thinking about how to utilise material recovery processes to maximise the potential of materials that we already own (Gwilt, 2020). As seen in Figure 1, we can see that although our input to fast fashion brands is not declining, our use of second-hand clothing stores/websites is rapidly increasing which will encourage people to shop with a more environmentally friendly mindset.

The fashion industry is able to provide for so many people all around the world, equipping more than 850,000 people with jobs in the UK alone (Orsola de Castro, 2021). This industry will never be eliminated, but most importantly, fast fashion is what needs to be eliminated due to the exploitation of workers and the negative impact that this has on the environment. What needs to change in our society is the way people respond to fast fashion and whether people make the choice to support these brands when they know that their environmental impact is not improving. Fashion is “one of the most socially exploitative and resource-polluting industries in the world” (Orsola de Castro, 2021) as it takes advantage of laws in less-developed countries where the pay for workers is extortionately low, not providing any of these workers with a salary able to live off of.

Reference List:

Allen, R. (2022). Why fast fashion is under threat from sustainable shopping habits. [online] www.clickthrough-marketing.com. Available at: https://www.clickthrough-marketing.com/industry-reports/sector-insights/why-fast-fashion-is-under-threat-from-sustainable-shopping-habits.

Gwilt, A. (2020). Practical Guide To Sustainable Fashion. S.L.: Ava Academia.

Lovelace, T. (2019). The Environmental Impacts of Fast Fashion. [online] Hawthorn. Available at: https://www.hawthornintl.com/impact-of-fast-fashion#:~:text=Gas%20Emissions.

Muhammad Ayaz Shaikh (2009). Water conservation in textile industry. Pakistan Textile Journal, 58(11).

Orsola de Castro (2021). Loved Clothes Last. Penguin UK.

Palacios-Mateo, C., Van der Meer, Y. and Seide, G., 2021. Analysis of the polyester clothing value chain to identify key intervention points for sustainability. Environmental Sciences Europe, 33(1), p.2

Parvin, F., Islam, S., Akm, S.I., Urmy, Z. and Ahmed, S., 2020. A study on the solutions of environment pollutions and worker’s health problems caused by textile manufacturing operations. Biomed. J. Sci. Tech. Res, 28, pp.21831-21844.

Peachy Den

Isabella Weatherby was the founder of Peachy Den in 2019, starting her brand with their famous “Slinky” trousers. These trousers kick-started the brand from the beginning and led the designs towards jumpsuits, then co-ords using velour sustainable fabric. The “slinky” trousers and the “Kernel” jumpsuit are the 2 distinctive images of the brand and claim to both be “conversation starters”.

The brand states that 60% of their current inventory was made using certified, sustainable materials and they produce their clothing throughout Europe with family-run suppliers sourcing local materials and fabrics to try to enforce a sustainable outreach. Peachy Den is very popular within the teenage/young adult crowd as they produce pieces that follow trends but they also encompass innovation, with their style taking inspiration from the 70’s, using hugging/comfortable materials to show off the female silhouette. The soft, velour materials that are used are what makes the brand unique as the clothes are comfortable yet also stylish. The brands steers away from a primary focus on loungewear and combines this with style and aesthetics in order to incorporate both of these qualities within every design.

Peachy Den recently came out with a new collection called “Call My Lawyer”, which has the primary idea of clothes which can last from the office until night adding their reach to workwear instead of just streetwear and loungewear. This brand has become increasingly popular in the past few years due to the way that the brand has expanded its products and its range of materials and patterns. When the brand was founded, all of the clothes were produced in the same colour-blocked velour fabrics, however, now they are using denim, gingham, mesh and lace, widening their product range, therefore appealing to more customers.

Peachy Den is a very media focused brand which makes the brand appealing to a younger audience, having an active status on Instagram and other platforms by using influencers to promote their brand as well as having creative ideas for photoshoots and capturing all types of women in their clothes to encompass inclusivity within their clothes, as every women sees herself in the brand.

Every single piece within their broad collection is distinctive to the Peachy Den brand, showing that every design has been carefully thought-out to represent everything that the brand stands for. Every piece has a similar style whilst also being extremely versatile, showing a wide range of different styles, cuts and pieces which are all cohesive under one name.