Rise Of Fast Fashion

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Rise of fast fashion: Marketing strategies underlying the success and impacts brought to the industry
Introduction
“Fast fashion is a contemporary term used by fashion retailers to express that designs move from catwalk quickly in order to capture current fashion trends.” (Hines, Tony, and M. Bruce, 2001) Thanks to the excellent marketing strategies and governance of continuous supply chains, fast fashion is now booming in the apparel industry, there are rapid expansion of fast fashion retailers such as H&M, ZARA, Topshop and UNIQLO, etc. in different countries in recent years. (Mollá-Descals, Frasquet-Deltoro & Ruiz-Molina, 2011) Triumph of fast fashion makes the brands’ founders to become the richest people in the world: The Swedish
(Agrawa &Kamakura, 1995) Fast fashion retailers are landing advertisements in famous fashion magazines such as Vogue, ELLE and Marie Claire, etc. The brands display their products through the advertising platform that was formerly the sole domain of luxury brands. This changes customers’ perception towards fast fashion by displaying their products in the magazines in a splendid way. (Okonkwo, 2007) Additionally, fast fashion retailers are cooperating with famous luxury brands designers to offer limited and exclusive products: H&M collaborations with Alexander Wang, Isabel Marantz, Versace, Marin, Mayson Martin Mariela, etc. (Okonkwo, 2007) These kind of collaborations raise the brand awareness by sharing the reputations of famous designers and succeed in boosting their sale by attracting fashion conscious
A Cambridge University Research preformed in 2006 reveals that people were buying a third more clothes than they were 4 years ago. (Allwood, J. Laurson, S. Rodriguez, C. Bocken, M.2007) 3.2 Ethics in design Despite fast fashion retailers’ success and popularity, fast fashion retailers’ key marketing strategy arouse ethical appeals from fashion designers regarding ethics in design. (Aspers & Skov, 2006) Designs acts as the core value and competence of a brand, fashion designers create great designs in order to construct a brand image as well as to attract customers. A “luxury fashion brand” is vital to the traditional high fashion brands. (Kapferer & Bastien, 2009). The value of a luxury brand is reflected in the innovative designs and customers who can afford them gain satisfaction and vanity from the clothes. However, Fast fashion clothing mimics the designs of luxury brands’ collections and offer closely designed products in their stores. (Muran, Lisa, 2008)
The luxury brands’ designs thus lose their uniqueness and originality. (Okonkwo, 2007)

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