A Decade In Fashion

Fast Fashion, Sustainable Practices and Demise of Retail.

Written in January for a Scheduled Spring Release Series- ‘Fashion In The New World’.

The Internet has touched and changed almost every industry, the fashion industry notwithstanding. In today’s world, it is all about speed when it comes to the consumer buying process. People want options, they want to shop it all, and they want these shipped quickly to them. They want the instant gratification of buying in store without having to leave the house. This was the reason for the rise of what would be aptly named, fast fashion.

Speed is the only major shake up that we have seen over the last ten years. Fashion is an always-evolving world and the only constant is change. This past decade marked one of change, one of the over due inclusiveness, and more diversity that is still not enough in my opinion.

After the turn of the millennium, Dove unveiled its Real Beauty campaign that celebrated the bodies of real, regular women. Since that point, we have seen the rise of the plus model. Additionally, we have seen more black and minority models than in past decades. The rise of brands like FUBU, which is an acronym for, For Us By Us, is proof of the changing landscape in fashion.

The online world has also drastically changed the fashion world. Today, Over 20% of all retail clothes purchasing is now being done online, and that number has continued to grow year over year since the early 2000’s. The online fashion industry is expected to surpass 150 billion dollars in annual revenue in the next decade.

Inside this booming world of online retail is the industry of fast fashion. Fast fashion is all about moving quickly. The generally accepted definition is that it refers to fashion designs that move quickly from the catwalk to the consumer and then unfortunately, to the landfill. This all stems from a want of having items now in the click-happy world of online shopping. In the last decade we would see both the rise and fall of fast fashion, but we will elaborate more on that in a bit.

Shopping in retail is a time-consuming task and is becoming a relic of a bygone era. Bouncing around from store to store, trying on multiple items, toting around big bags, going through long checkout lines, this all adds up. Even in if this is being done in a shopping mall, it can quickly turn into an all-day process. And if it’s a busy time on the shopping calendar, then you have to factor in finding parking, dealing with large crowds, fighting to pick through clothing racks, getting into a fitting room, the list goes on and on.

This change in consumer behavior over the last twenty years has had a massive impact on the retail industry. Even massive retail giants like Barney’s were unable to endure. As we head into 2020 here is a list of big retailers going the way of Barney’s, who have announced they are closing stores:

· Polo Ralph Lauren 5th Avenue

· Abercrombie & Fitch (Have closed hundreds of stores, announced they are closing three flagship stores and are redesigning over 80 others.)

· Footlocker (closing 165 stores)

· Gap (Closing 230 stores, nearly half of the existing locations)

· J.C. Penney (closed 138 stores in 2017 and another 24 in 2019)

· Topshop (Closing all 11 United States stores)

And worse than store closings, some are being forced to file bankruptcy. Here’s the list:

· American Apparel (Filed Bankruptcy in 2017)

· Forever 21

· Gymboree

· Payless (filed for bankruptcy in 2017 & 2019)

The list goes on and on, but you get the overall point here. It is a tough time to be in the retail business.

These are the reasons that online shopping is on the rise and fast fashion became a very popular trend over this last decade. There is an entire commerce cycle of buying, returning, rebuying, wearing, and then throwing away that is taking hold around the globe. In fact, fast fashion was aimed at creating 52 fashion seasons in a year. This is a way of saying that they wanted your new clothes to feel old the very next week so that you would want to go out and buy more to stay fashionable. In the United States, the average person will throw away nearly 70 pounds of clothes on an annual basis. Worse, the EPA estimates that a whopping 5% of landfill waste is from textiles (clothes). This friends, is not ideal.

The question is, what are we to do? The industry is changing and so are consumer habits, but our planet and landfills can’t be damaged in the process.

One solution is to invest in evergreen fashion trends. Evergreen fashion refers to items that are timeless and always trendy. Look, we all want to look our best. Men’s self-care and fashion have never been more acceptable in the mainstream, so we are looking to dress for success. A great way to do this but not harm our planet in the process is by using evergreen items mixed with accents of trendier items.

The way to do this is to have some staple items in your wardrobe and then you can dress them up. Here are a few examples:

· A classic white button up shirt

· Neutral colored cardigans

· A little black dress

· Long trench coats

· Blue jeans

· Black or navy-blue blazer

· Neutral colored t-shirts and long sleeve shirts

If you take classic looks and use neutral colors these items will always be in style and you can match other trendier items to enhance your overall look. Another is sustainable fashion, to repurpose and recycle your pieces.

There are other options to avoid the landfill as well. For one, donate your clothes to people who need them or organizations like Housing works, do not throw them away. There are more than enough people in need. While a large portion of these clothes ends up in landfills still, it’s a better first step than going straight to the landfill. There are also used clothes selling apps like Poshmark, which give users the ability to sell old items in a C2C model. Neither of these are full proof solutions but they are better than nothing.

Over the last decade the green movement has continued to grow, and the harmful tactics of the fast fashion industry was called to the carpet, pun intended. Stories of companies destroying last season’s inventory to take it out of circulation put a large spotlight on the industry and its behavior. Fashion lines like Burberry and Louis Vuitton were among the culprits. Seeing high-fashion stores like Barney’s file bankruptcy was a real sign that things are beginning to really change.

The single biggest impact you can make is to build an evergreen wardrobe that will keep you looking good while doing good. There will always be a need for trendy items that are “in” right now, but we mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Trendy fast fashion stores like Forever 21, Fashion Nova, H&M, and Zara, have driven a culture of consumption and waste. It’s time to look good while creating a sustainable system.