Yi Xu

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Purpose blog

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This pillar introduces the ‘why’ of fashion business’ existence and questions the ethics and responsibility of a brand. As stated by Liz Gee: ‘Ethical and responsible fashion businesses operate with genuine transparency and clear purpose.’

A brand philosophy is the mission, vision and value proposition of the fashion business, it plays an important role in explaining the value and clear purpose of why a fashion business exists and what it wants to achieve. The brand philosophy decides the corporate culture of a fashion business and what messages or values they express which communities with consumers. This value being expressed could build the identity of the brands and create an impression of the brand in the consumer’s mind called the brand image. By building brand image, they could effectively communicate with the audience about the personalities and characteristics of the brand, allowing the purpose of fashion business to be easily communicated.

As stated in the first paragraph, the purpose of a fashion business nowadays is more than just the brand’s intentions of establishing or the messages they want to communicate through fashion. They are asked to be responsible in their CSR and have an ethical aim which contributes the planet to being a better place. Referring to CSR, it stands for Social Corporate Responsibility, which the European Commission (2017) defined as ‘Companies taking responsibility for their impact on society.’ (Londrigan, M.P., Jenkins, J.M., 2018, pp.Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability, Pages: 41–60). Brands should consider their impact on society, taking action on their part to avoid unfairness in humanity and the environmental damage caused by their operations. Such as, protecting the life quality of workers in industry, taking sustainability into practice etc.

Gen Z is the largest percentage of the world’s population, they are more sensitive to the world environment and social events, expecting their favourite brand to stand for something (Forbes, Jeff Fromm, 2019). Therefore, to connect with this young generation communicating the purpose is significantly important, brands should use their purpose to create societal, functional and emotional benefits, being a purpose-driven brand (Forbes, Jeff Fromm, 2019). Fashion brands often collaborate with trends in the younger generation to introduce themselves to Gen Z. For example, the collaboration between Nike and AMBUSH tends to tell their value in sportswear and femininity, creating a connection spot for Gen Z and Nike. 

Reference list

Fromm, J. (2019). Gen-Z And The Three Elements Of Purpose Brands. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jefffromm/2019/07/26/gen-z-and-the-three-elements-of-purpose-brands/ [Accessed 29 Oct. 2023].

Gülmez, E. (2021). Brand Purpose and Purpose-Driven Marketing: The New Digital. [online] Handbook of Research on IoT, Digital Transformation, and the Future of Global Marketing. Available at: https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/brand-purpose-and-purpose-driven-marketing/286288 [Accessed 29 Oct. 2023].

Londrigan, M.P. and Jenkins, J.M. (2018). Fashion Supply Chain Management. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. doi:https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501317798.

Nike.com. (2023). The Nike x AMBUSH Collection Amplifies Sport, Style, Self-Expression. [online] Available at: https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/the-nike-x-ambush-collection-amplifies-sport-style-self-expression [Accessed 29 Oct. 2023].

Wilson, S. (2021). Where Brands Are Reaching Gen Z. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2021/03/where-brands-are-reaching-gen-z [Accessed 29 Oct. 2023].

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Profit

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Profit is the third pillar of fashion business school. Cooperating with the other three pillars, this explains about ‘Fashion Means Business’(Liz Gee 2023). It has been seen as the pillar of how and why the fashion business should create value with its resources, as explained by Liz Gee. Using her own words: “Business should be rewarded for harnessing planet and people resources to generate value in ways that respect the whole ecosystem.”

The fashion industry pervades everyone’s lives, it includes many branches, such as Footwear, Clothing, Luxury Fashion and Accessories. These daily objects and fashion items have a huge demand from consumers which result the fashion industry generating great profit each year. According to Euromonitor-Passport, the global market size of Fashion vending in 2022 was 11.6 USD million, Fashion Direct selling was 8,506.9 USD million, and Fashion E-commerce was 590,260 USD million. This totals 598,778.5 USD million, demonstrating the fashion sector’s significant impact on worldwide economies and consumer demand for the fashion business.

However, discussing the fashion industry, it’s not only the retailing part that should be embraced, sectors such as the supply chain the production process and the labour situation are also core of the fashion industry. Fashion brands are experiencing the problem of supply shortages because the manufacturing sector of the industry is lacking workers who are already skilled caused of the bounced back activities following the pandemic, since the industry is gradually awakening (Drapers 2023). It’s being suggested that the manufacturing model in the fashion industry should be changed as the biggest difficulties of the fashion system. The model could be renewed with vertical integration, nearshoring, and small batch production, supported by digitization (Mckinsey 2022).

To survive and stay competitive in the pandemic, brands need to stay conscious of the business environment and change the strategy of marketing and branding. For example, COVID-19 is a representative period of uncertain economic times, e-commerce has a special standout performance due to the restriction on mall shopping and outgoing. In 2019, the world market size of the fashion industry’s e-commerce was only 395,104.5 USD million, when the covid-19 started in 2020, the world market size of the fashion industry’s e-commerce in 2020 rose to the number of 502,932.4 USD million. If brands focus on their online purchasing services, they could stay competitive in the market as they stick to the needs of the consumer and fill gaps in the market by switching the distribution strategy.

The relationship between creativity and business needs to be balanced for a brand, to keep its innovation in fashion but also keep making profit so it can generate value. This role could be done by the creative director, an example would be Alessandro Michele the post-creative director of Gucci. He used his own aesthetics and creativity to reshape the brand identity and succeed in a few collaborations, this helped the brand expand its market, attract consumers and balance the value of a brand between creativity and commerce.

Reference list

desk, fashion (2022). Alessandro Michele. [online] Drapers. Available at: https://www.drapersonline.com/people/power100-2022/alessandro-michele.

Euromonitor (2023). Euromonitor . [online] login.euromonitor.com. Available at: https://www.portal.euromonitor.com/statisticsevolution/index.

Hill, R.J. (2023). UK textile manufacturers tackle the skills shortage. [online] Drapers. Available at: https://www.drapersonline.com/insight/analysis/how-uk-manufacturers-are-recruiting-a-new-generation [Accessed 23 Oct. 2023].

Liz G., Dean. (2023). Welcome to Fashion Business School [Power Point] University of the Arts London: London College of Fashion.

McKinsey (2022). The State of Fashion 2023: Holding onto growth as global clouds gather. [online] McKinsey. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/state-of-fashion.

Nast, C. (2022). How did Gucci become the most influential brand of 2022? [online] Vogue France. Available at: https://www.vogue.fr/fashion/article/gucci-most-influential-brand-of-2022.

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People

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‘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.

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Planet

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According to Liz Gee, the pillar planet is being explained as “Redefining sustainability rewards businesses for embracing ‘Re’ practices that keep our finite resources in a closed loop.”. She gave out seven key words about the planet which are: Reduce, Repair, Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose, Restore, Regenerate. This briefly explains the Pillar — Planet within fashion business, which brings in the concern of the sustainability of fashion industry, this mainly puts the focus on the ability of recycling and ability of waste minimisation.

The fashion industry’s production process and method has had a significant environmental impact. The McKinsey & Company has reported that the garment production is being doubled between 2000 and 2014, companies such as H&M and Zara are producing 10,000-15,000 new items per year. This massive amount of textile production is due to the operation of fast fashion and consumer need for catching up with new trends. This resulted in overproduction and resource waste, which raised the emission rate. This environmental damage caused by the fashion industry has re-emphasised the necessity of fashion sustainability, which may help to break the vicious cycle.

The concept of circular economy could then be brought in, the term ‘Circular Economy’ is an approach to promote the responsible and cyclical use of resources. It’s aiming to achieve it through reducing material input and reducing waste creation by decoupling economic growth from the usage of natural resources. Slowing and closing the resources loop are two features of the circular economy. Slowing means extending the product life cycle of goods so they can be used longer; closing the resources loop means creating a circular flow of resources using, preventing material from being over exploited, and keeping them in cycle usage. 

Sustainable Development Goal, known as SDG are the 17 Goals adopted by all UN Member States in 2015 to end poverty and protect the planet. The 12th goal, ‘Responsible consumption and production’ is the SDG that fashion industry should focus on due to the running out of resources on our planet, consumption and manufacturing behaviours should be altered to avoid resource waste. It’s stated on the UN SDG’s official website “If the global population reaches 9.8 billion by 2050, the equivalent of almost three planets will be required to provide the natural resources needed to sustain current lifestyles.” Referring to the extract, fashion businesses should commit to sustainable production to reduce waste in order to ensure that current and future generations’ livelihoods do not suffer from lack of resources in the future.  This recalls fashion business should be responsible for the CSR (Cooperate Social Responsibility), acting as a part of the social group and the planet.

References:

Liz G., Dean. (2023). Welcome to Fashion Business School [Power Point] University of the Arts London: London College of Fashion.

Moraga, G., Huysveld, S., Mathieux, F., Blengini, G.A., Alaerts, L., Van Acker, K., de Meester, S. and Dewulf, J. (2019). Circular economy indicators: What do they measure? Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 146(1), pp.452–461. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.03.045.

Moran, G. (2022). Collaborating for Change: Sustainability Report 2022. [online] Drapers. Available at: https://www.drapersonline.com/guides/collaborating-for-change-sustainability-report-2022.

Silva, E.S., Hassani, H. and Madsen, D.Ø. (2019). Big Data in fashion: Transforming the Retail Sector. Journal of Business Strategy, 41(4). doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/jbs-04-2019-0062.

United Nations (n.d.). Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. [online] United Nations Sustainable Development. Available at: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-consumption-production/.

United Nations (2023). The Sustainable Development Agenda. [online] United Nations Sustainable Development. Available at: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/.

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My Favourite Brand

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Diptyque

Diptyque Paris is a fragrance brand founded by three artists at Paris in 1961, its founders come from different backgrounds such as architecture design, theatre design, and painting. The name Diptyque comes from the word ‘diptych’ which in French is spelled as ‘Dityque’. 

It is well-known for its Diptyque oval-shaped label and the style of ‘Eaux de Toilette’ that spreads scent softly and gently. In contrast to typical parfum’s enticing and aggressive sensations, Diptyque’s ‘Eaux de Toilette’ has a sense of calm and nature. Diptyque manufactures home-use fragrance products such as hand lotion, scented candles, shower gel, and so on, in addition to perfume.

The oval logo was inspired by an original Diptyque fabric that was influenced by the Pretorian shield in the early days of the three founders. They opted to use this oval pattern as their symbol, which began to shape the brand’s concept. Although most of Diptyque’s designs are in black and white, the detailed drawing has a large impact on visual contracts, and each brush stroke offers a sensation of force.

The image in the oval label recalls memory and feelings from the senses. The images on the oval label of the Diptyque are known as the I.D card  (also called motif) for the fragrances being stated on their official websites ‘Each detail makes sense. Each image tells the story of a journey.’. The motif is designed with an artistic approach, it emphasises the story being told by the fragrances and gives it a unique identity to be recognised.

Diptyque sees fragrance as a container for story and memory, and scents as a link between visual images, journeys, and scents. Each fragrance has a story that belongs and by simply smelling the scents one will bring back memories of the scenario. Continuing this concept, they’ve launched a scent candle series called ‘The City Candles Collection’ which is named after Cities. The candles capture energy from various places, integrating the characteristics and aesthetics of the city into fragrances that can let people’s imaginations go wild.

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