The Product Rhythm Of "Fast Fashion": A New Product Can Last Up To 20 Minutes

Most fast Fashion brand The use of color is relatively "calm". Although the style is updated twice a week, the clothing in spring and autumn is mainly black and white, and the winter clothing is mainly dark gray. At the same time, many fast fashions try to take the "high cold" route and move closer to luxury goods, which can be seen from the expressions of models in the advertising brochures or the "poker faces" of some shop assistants.

If Zara and H&M opened their first stores in Shanghai in 2006 and 2007, 2014 ushered in the "seven-year itch" for fast fashion brands to enter the Chinese market. The so-called fast fashion refers to the clothing consumption with rapid product replacement and new products updated twice a week. Typical brands include Zara H&M、 Uniqlo, etc.

Fast fashion brands have expanded at an astonishing speed in the past seven years. Now, only the section of Nanjing West Road near Meilong Town Square in Shanghai has Zara H&M、 Uniqlo GAP、Massimo There are nearly 10 brand stores such as Dutti. Every day, the competition between fast fashion brands is quietly staged here. Style, material, display and service attitude are all the runways of the industry.

What consumers can't see is that more and more fast fashion products are transported by expensive aircraft in order to be "faster"; In order to create a brand image, the proportion of discounted inventory is getting lower and lower; In order to "guide" consumption, first-line fast fashion brands launched 25000 new products throughout the year, and the average design time of each new dress is only 20 minutes.

The fast fashion industry as a whole is also facing changes. At the moment when online shopping orders of 15 billion yuan can be created in a day, we are setting up stores nationwide and opening stores into the fast fashion of Tmall Taobao. Don't you worry about becoming "Taobao fitting room"? From having its own "super logistics" system to changing the lighting layout and fitting mirror style of stores for Chinese customers, the brand fast fashion behind the shop window is quietly changing.

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　　 Phenomenon 1: Creativity can't keep up with the market trend: plagiarism has become an unavoidable disease

● "Tear off the sign, you can distinguish Different brands " A fashion designer said that the resentment of "plagiarism" between fast fashion and luxury brands, as well as the "imitation" between fast fashion and each other, has become the "normal" in the industry. "On the night of December 3, 2014, Victoria's Secret became the most forwarded content in the designer's WeChat circle of friends. The new models on the T platforms in Paris, Tokyo and Milan will be found in the global streets two weeks later. This is fast fashion."

Shanghai Nanjing West Road may be the most fashion related road. On the north side, luxury stores such as Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Prada and Chanel are lined up, while on the south side is a fast fashion street led by Zara and H&M, while in the alleys along the street, there are many clothing stores with only one or two front rooms. If you are more careful, you can find shops that set up sewing machines and sew buttons for people to change pants length. The world's latest trends and the most traditional dress concept intersect here, or low-key or high-profile, or fast or slow... This may be seen as an ecosystem of clothing consumption.

The price positioning of 500 yuan to 2000 yuan has made most fast fashion brands fall into the category of "affordable fashion". The seemingly huge market has become very crowded due to the influx of more than a dozen brands. As a result, many fast fashion designers have always been extremely vigilant to inspiration and creativity, and they appear in various fashion conferences.

About two weeks after the launch of the new products of first-line luxury goods, the new elements can be found in the new products window of fast fashion. For example, a luxury product once launched decorative paintings similar to film negatives in autumn and winter, which were deformed by more than one fast fashion brand. The imitators simply changed the deer image into a bear, or made the "negatives" bigger. Similarly, the metal buckles on the shoes of a brand also appeared in the street shortly after the press conference, but the appearance was slightly deformed. The inspiration of the designer is "transferred".

● "Fast fashion is really a part of today's society. The design of fast fashion should have original ideas." Miucia Prada once said, "There are many 'bad copies' at present." How to find new inspiration is the biggest problem of fast fashion. Some brands have even formed the habit of extracting a part of profits to pay compensation for plagiarism.

Isn't it plagiarism to decorate one's own design with other's materials? Some designers said that the huge market pressure has kept fast fashion R&D on the verge of collapse. "Learning" from major design elements has become one of the "hidden rules" of fast fashion brands.

Although plagiarism will damage the brand image, few people are willing to change it. After all, the definition of fashion itself is hard to fathom. The relationship between the market and designers is similar to that between chicken and egg. It is hard to find the answer to who inspires who and who triggers whose consumption desire. France's Christie Louboutin brand is famous for red soled shoes. After seeing Yves Saint Laurent also selling red soled women's shoes, he once sued the other party for "illegal competition" and "trademark infringement". However, the court finally decided that although the "red sole" was unique, it could not be regarded as an exclusive "trademark".

According to media reports, fast fashion brands spend tens of millions of euros on copyright purchase and "plagiarism penalty" every year. A brand in the United States has been sued 50 times in 4 years. Some critics said that by the time the judgment came into effect, clothes had already been sold out, and it might be a habit for some people to draw a part of profits to pay compensation after losing the lawsuit.

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　　 Phenomenon 2 Settling in online shopping platform: popularity depends on consumption "big data"

● In 2014, Zara and C&A were launched on Tmall, GAP opened its online store in JD, and UNIQLO's official website launched the virtual fitting function for the first time. Previously, H&M and other brands either entered other shopping websites or insisted on shopping on their own official websites. Compared with the fear of becoming an e-commerce "fitting room", fast fashion brands prefer to find a balance between online and offline profits.

China is the second largest e-commerce market in the world. In 2014, the total sales volume of Chinese e-commerce clothing is expected to reach 100 billion US dollars, an increase of 40% over 2013, while clothing sales account for more than 20% of the Chinese e-commerce market. However, with the development of e-commerce, the market share of physical stores is rapidly losing. Is fast fashion brand unwilling to cooperate with e-commerce?

In fact, with certain brand advantages, Fast Fashion does not worry about the business of physical stores. The reason why they are reluctant to cooperate with e-commerce platforms is that there are many counterfeiters on e-commerce platforms. "Previously, some consumers complained that they bought 'fake goods' online and asked us to negotiate with e-commerce, but e-commerce required us to pay' anti fake fees' annually." A fast fashion brand revealed that the online shopping environment a few years ago was not ideal.

Unlike one or several online shopping platforms in China, many fast fashion brands prefer to establish their own online sales networks in Europe, the United States or Japan. In 2014, not only a single brand and e-commerce cooperation, but also the overseas fast fashion shopping platform Topshop officially landed in the Chinese market through the cooperation of Mongpin. Although cooperation means that some channels and their profits will be "eaten" by China's online e-commerce, the development potential of the Chinese market still makes Fast Fashion look back.

● "Is there any difference between cooperating with Chinese e-commerce and opening a store in a shopping mall?" A fast fashion executive once asked when facing the Chinese media. The exploration of big consumption data is becoming the most important thing that fast fashion wants to do in China. "A brand can produce 15 to 20 series a year, and all clothes in the headquarters warehouse will not stay for more than 3 days. The basis for rapid decision-making is correct market data."

In the face of high costs, fast fashion brands entering the Internet do not have to work hard to build physical stores to cover the Chinese market, especially in the second and third tier cities, which saves the infrastructure requirements for site selection and store opening, and does not have to worry about the failure to guarantee service quality. What is more attractive to fast fashion brands is the big data generated by the network platform, which will become a real and effective market reference. When the physical stores in the first tier cities can no longer be crowded, which second tier and third tier cities will become the first choice for new stores may be derived from the online store data. Some insiders said that as one of the most important markets of fast fashion, China not only has a large number of consumers, but more importantly, for international enterprises, the Chinese market is evolving into an experimental field, the best way to predict online business profits.

What is worth learning is the fast fashion data development capability. An executive of Fast Fashion told the reporter that all its stores have an early meeting every day, and the quantitative data collected, namely the sales analysis report of the previous day, as well as the intuitive feedback of the store staff's contact with consumers, will be reported to the headquarters. Once a product is finalized, the design drawings will be sent directly to the manufacturer. In this way, we can not only ensure that we will not face excessive inventory pressure, but also get the most direct test from the market.

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　　 Phenomenon 3 Faster and faster update speed: quality is being squeezed by consumption

● There seems to be a trend of salted fish turning over and even being popular in 2014 for the autumn pants that are rejected by "fashion people". With the transformation of brand clothing represented by H&M, Uniqlo, Oysho, Zara, etc. on the technical level of "autumn clothing" and "autumn trousers", “MeMore "Cool" has finally been recognized by many young people. However, the update of materials is far less vigorous than the momentum. Fast fashion is accelerating the speed of clothes update by instilling "concept" into consumers.

A joke about a fashion brand is very popular in the industry. Once the founder of a brand stopped at a traffic light intersection and saw a young man wearing a jeans jacket embedded with metal sequins. Although many people at that time thought it was unconventional to wear such clothes, the big man felt very innovative. He immediately called his design director and said that he wanted this sequin element to appear on his brand clothes. Then, two weeks later, the jacket that had been improved by the first draft and finally shaped was put on the shelf and sold very well. Among consumers, there are both so-called street fashion sports boys and white-collar elites. Street fashion elements have entered the fashion circle through fast fashion design.

Clothing inspiration can come from the major shows, or from the streets. Some media said that Inditex, the parent company of Zara, not only has more than 300 designers, but also has a team of dozens of people in various fashion places such as bars in New York, business districts in Paris, and streets in Spain