Why Is The Fashion Industry In The State That It's In Today?

[Creative]

if fashion is for white Europeans only, shouldn’t they have their factories in Europe only, too and only employ native Europeans (not immigrants or migrants)

Nobody said it’s for white Europeans, I said it’s for the rich, and we are also saying high fashion was originated in Europe, so it’s normal that people working in the industry in Europe are mainly white and that the beauty ideal in European brands is more “whitish”.

If it originated in Africa, I’d totally get it would be the other way around, like it is with the African brands.

Globalization is another whole topic. Tbh, I don’t have yet a super strong opinion on it, but I think in terms of production is more negative than positive, so I’d say it would be better to produce everything where the brand is located (less eco impact as well), but my opinion on this topic is not very… strong.

 

[ecnerretneerg]

Idk why. I didn’t say idiotic at all. Actually, it would be ok if the designer would geniunely like a white model. The thing is that in European brands, they cast black people just to not get cancelled. There’s a quota and to me that’s completely wrong.

Anyways, imagine a white person saying what you said about a black person in a European fashion show 🫣

I agree with that. But you’re talking about Lago’s fashion week… something you had to look up… something that doesn’t exist in the larger context of fashion. I assume that most the garments shown during fashion week in Africa rely on their traditions and customs. Africans aren’t appropriating from other cultures or ethnicities for fashion like Europeans do 😉 Besides a kilt, enlighten me on traditional Parisian, Milanese, or English garments that constitutes a POC to not be cast in a runway show?

I’d also like @San Marco take on this

 

[blueorchid]

Okay, but haute couture isn't the entirety of fashion.

 

[San Marco]

I agree with that. But you’re talking about Lago’s fashion week… something you had to look up… something that doesn’t exist in the larger context of fashion. I assume that most the garments shown during fashion week in Africa rely on their traditions and customs. Africans aren’t appropriating from other cultures or ethnicities for fashion like Europeans do 😉 Besides a kilt, enlighten me on traditional Parisian, Milanese, or English garments that constitutes a POC to not be cast in a runway show?

I’d also like @San Marco take on this

Actually, I'm a bit amazed with the freedom with which racism and smigness radiates from you, so I need a bit to collect myself, and maybe in a couple of weeks when I have a vacation, I'll come back again and write a few more sentences about the inexhaustible tfs-topic called diversity.
Thanks for this direct inclusion, I certainly didn't count on it (hehe) and I hope the smileys didn't disturb too much.

 

[Nimsay]

I wanted to reframe my whole thoughts about Haute Couture.


Haute couture is distinctly french and is from Louis 14. there are distinctly french and italian manufacturing styles. if you dont know them then you dont know upper level fashion.

Moving on, clothing is not just about plaid and kilts. As I said before - the manufacture is a lot of the signature of an item. A French made LV Homme blazer has that tight french construction with fine seams and just absolutement precision. Dolce I get much more developed seamingg because theyre thinking you may resize the garment. LV is not because that is just French and Italian ways of clothes making...

this helps inform why galliano is so important for example... france has had a long relationship with Drape - more so than English or Italian - so gallianos expansion of that through bias is a perfect pairing, Galliano developing French codes.


the african pieces ive seen look like really bad galliano by dior. done in the wrong fabrics and poorly fitted. everything has a princess seam despite it never been executed exceptionally well. the worst parts is the use of non stretch cottons.

 

[LoveFashion25]

It’s a very complicated and perhaps impossible concept - but if it existed and worked before, I can’t imagine why it hypothetically couldn’t work again…not in an identical way, but in whatever way was appropriate for the “now.”

Where it would go in 20-30 years? Who could say. Would it inevitably wind up again right back where we are now? Possibly? Even so - would a reset be the worst thing?

I think the industry has reached a moment where it has to decide if it wants to be about fashion or about entertainment. There was a time - late 90’s/early 00’s - where the two worlds met and it was electric…but entertainment has eaten fashion whole. I look at the shows now and it almost doesn’t even register as design anymore…just another marketing event. And I don’t think it can continue on that way for much longer.

I'm in an agreement that it needs a reset. I think thats why I'm into the 90s/00's because of fashion meeting entertainment. It was new and exciting but its now overdone. A reset is needed.

 

[LoveFashion25]

What I mean is, I don't see the conglomerates at any point ever saying "hey guys, let's maybe calm things down a bit — we'll stop doing mega shows, we'll stop giving tones of money to Vogue etc. so that we no longer have total look editorials, we'll stop making endless content for social media, we'll halt all plans for turning the maisons into holistic lifestyle brands with cafes, resorts, museums etc.". Their modus operandi of exponential growth is what is killing the industry. In all honestly I don't think anything will or can replace it.
Perharps the only thing that can actually change are consumer standards — a return to niche brands with

Well I think a return to niche brands is the only natural progression. Its the same way with how most of us consume entertainment now. Everything is so fragmented. Fashion is going to be impacted by this plus with the economy too, many of us will return to niche brands.

 

[LenaLena]

this is not the '90s
"fashion excitement" and "fashion as it once was" are nostalgic notions of the past
it so 35+ generation crying over ill fitted irrelevant theatrical costumes

this is the '20s
yes the fashion/beauty industry is indeed in a compete mess
the issue is how fashion can build an actual "conversation" whith the younger consumer

gen z is obviously cringing with whatever "luxury" and "fashion" stands for today
the hype, the exclusivity, the buzz

hard fact, luxury is irrelevant to gen z universe
they simply don't care for it and they are not willing to spend money on it

 

[Creative]

Hard fact, luxury is irrelevant to gen z universe
they simply don't care for it and they are not willing to spend money on it

You must live in a different world to mine. Gen z is obsessed with the fashion/celeb/influencer/luxury circus due to social media.

Millennials lived way more outside of it. Luxury 10 years ago was not half of what it is now. Kids need the Alexander McQueen, the Valentino or the GGoose. They love the Goyards. The Loewe tank tops. Little girls love Miu Miu. When I was younger nobody cared.

Millennials thought Abercrombie was something to aspire to… lol.

In 2010 you saw nobody but very important celebs wearing the bags or designer accessories. Now you open instagram and everybody seems to have a Kelly or something by a designer.

Even beauty is on another new level now. The newer generation is obsessed with looks, with money, with fame, with lambos. Millennials had other issues.

 

[blueorchid]

Millennials thought Abercrombie was something to aspire to… lol.

lol at first I was insulted… but you’re not wrong 🫣

 

[NYLA22]

lol at first I was insulted… but you’re not wrong 🫣

Lol, speaking as someone who was in high school in the late '90s, I have to agree. To be fair, Bruce Weber created an irresistible world back then (at least for a suburban teenager like me) via the A&F Quarterly, which I was obsessed with.

 

[blueorchid]

@NYLA22 I vividly remember when Abercrombie and Hollister opened in my city lmaooooooo (and Sephora and Urban Outfitters)

 

[susseinmcswanny]

^ this had no business tugging on my heartstrings so bad lol. I miss it. And also H&M and Uniqlo and benneton at the time too UGH

 

[philophile]

As a late gen Xer (almost millenial) I was obsessed with Miss Sixty at the end of the 90s and start of the 2000s (I had countless of their jeans and tops), a bit later with Fornarina. I was never really obsessed with the runways. Sure, I saw some McQueen, JPG, and others, but I wasn't really high fashion obsessed until the early 2010s, especially with Nicolas Ghesquière, Phoebe Philo, and Haider Ackermann.

I do think and agree with others that social media is to blame for the flexing culture we have nowadays. People will do/buy anything for the gram.

 

[blueorchid]

Miss Sixty is a brand I haven't thought about in a decade, at least. While flipping through an old magazine last night, I remembered Bebe!! Also BCBG. I also feel like Guess still had an aspirational aura for teenagers, too. Diesel was a big deal when I was in high school, too.


ebay

 

[svpernova]

I also think that the creativity of the brands has decreased because the designers have retired or even died. Of course Sarah Burton was good for McQueen, but she couldn't compare with him, he was on a completely different level because his designs were based on his personal trauma.
Galliano, for example, valued theatrical events, whereas Dior focused on the clothes and his RTW was more eccentric at the time compared to the classic Dior of the 1960s. Fast fashion also plays a role, but I won't go into that. The designers' successors just aren't that great anymore, they lack creativity. Social media also plays a huge role, Miu Miu literally invites celebrities who can't walk the catwalk, The American Vogue is just a playground for talentless celebrities.

 

[LenaLena]

You must live in a different world to mine. Gen z is obsessed with the fashion/celeb/influencer/luxury circus due to social media.

Millennials lived way more outside of it. Luxury 10 years ago was not half of what it is now. Kids need the Alexander McQueen, the Valentino or the GGoose. They love the Goyards. The Loewe tank tops. Little girls love Miu Miu. When I was younger nobody cared.

Millennials thought Abercrombie was something to aspire to… lol.

In 2010 you saw nobody but very important celebs wearing the bags or designer accessories. Now you open instagram and everybody seems to have a Kelly or something by a designer.

Even beauty is on another new level now. The newer generation is obsessed with looks, with money, with fame, with lambos. Millennials had other issues.

Do not get confused.
There is a huge bunch of gen z who are not participating in the tiktok culture. Social platforms is a thing for older generations, the kids are so fed up.

The Gen z segment that is actually still into tiktok culture, is indeed obsessed with social exposure in general, but this does not mean they can afford luxury.

No offence but it feels that tfs is crowded with old(-er) people

 

[Melancholybaby]

Obscene Prices, Declining Quality: Luxury Is in a Death Spiral​

By Katharine K. Zarrella
Ms. Zarrella is a longtime fashion editor and lecturer.

The holiday shopping season is hitting its apex. And do you know what I, a longtime fashion editor, will not be buying my loved ones this year? Big-name luxury fashion. I’d sooner set my eyebrows on fire.

Why am I betraying the industry to which I’ve dedicated the better part of the past 20 years of my life, you might wonder? Let me tell you a story.
When, for the fall 2023 season, Marc Jacobs reissued the runway-show version of his Kiki boots — a sought-after, supple-leather style that I’d been lusting after since their 2016 debut — I found a way to squeeze them into my budget. I’d had a tumultuous few months, and I figured I’d treat myself to something I’d treasure forever. Something that would last.

They did not. The right heel cap fell off after a handful of wears, revealing a flimsy plastic cavern. I got it replaced, only to have a four-inch platform base snap off like a rotting tree limb days later. Timber! Two passers-by heaved me up, and I limped home, barefoot. In February, I demanded a refund, which I promptly put toward much-needed physical therapy.

My experience sums up everything that’s gone wrong with what once served as semiotic shorthand for the good life. In recent years, luxury of all kinds has become obscenely, disgracefully, inconceivably costly. And the price hikes we’ve seen are steeper than what inflation would dictate. What’s worse? As costs climb, quality hasn’t. In fact, it’s largely declined.

“Luxury is in chaos,” said Gill Linton, a fashion and marketing expert and a co-founder of luxury vintage platform Byronesque.

I’d go a step further. Luxury is in a death spiral. After a decade of nearly unfettered growth, the sector is bombing across the globe. Analysts point to less-affluent buyers reining in their spending and slowing demand in China. I believe there’s another culprit: a growing realization that many luxury houses have broken the principles that made them so successful. These hoity-toity brands, which cheapened their essence and eviscerated their desirability with down-market celebrity partnerships, licensing deals and influencer advertising, have no one to blame but themselves.

This started at the source of so many modern woes: social media. For those not glued to TikTok or “The Kardashians,” social media, helped along by reality TV, has instigated a frenetic game of one-upmanship in which top social-media content makers aim to project wealth while outdoing themselves and their competition. This means flaunting luxury goods in posts that are then spread widely by algorithms. Kyle Richards, a cast member of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” has become infamous for hitting the gym with a difficult-to-get Hermès Birkin bag — which costs anywhere from five figures to hundreds of thousands — dangling from her arm.

At the same time, the rich were getting richer — and more people were joining them. According to Swiss bank UBS, there were 7.64 million millionaires in the United States in 2000. By 2023, we saw that number nearly triple.

For those who aren’t comfortably in the millionaire class, technology offers a solution. The exploding popularity of financing apps such as Klarna and Afterpay — online lending services that allow users to break payments up into installments — has ushered in a whole new era of buy now, pay later. It’s stigma-free layaway for nearly any item. Nobody has to know, and you get the product upfront.

Suddenly, brands accustomed to catering to a select few found themselves pursued by a surfeit of less discerning customers — some literally children — seeking a status boost for their social media profiles. Meanwhile, the platforms continue to both stoke class anxieties and offer a seemingly unlimited amount of data on what to want next. Confronted by hordes, companies tried preserving their images the one way they knew how: jacking up prices. In doing so, they followed the longstanding Veblen goods principle. Derived from the economist Thorstein Veblen’s “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” written in 1899, it states that demand for luxury goods will actually increase as their prices increase, because such hikes thin the herds and make scarce goods that much more desirable.

Which prices have skyrocketed? The better question is which haven’t.

From October 2019 to April 2024, the cost of Prada’s popular Galleria Saffiano bag increased 111 percent. In the same period, the cost of Louis Vuitton’s canvas Speedy bag doubled, and Gucci’s Marmont small matelassé shoulder bag went up by 75 percent. Chanel is particularly notorious: Its iconic medium 2.55 leather flap bag, which cost $5,800 in 2019, will now set you back $10,800 — and is increasingly the subject of quality complaints.
What about that perfect exotic backdrop to show off your new goods? A thousand bucks for a night in a normal hotel room, once unheard-of, is surprisingly common. Rooms at the sought-after Amangiri resort in Utah started at around $1,800 a night in 2018. Now they start at $3,509. Jaclyn Sienna India, the founder of a travel and lifestyle company that caters to individuals and families with a minimum net worth of $100 million, notes that the prix fixe menu at the exclusive Ibiza restaurant Sublimotion was about $1,675 a head in 2022. Today, she said, it’s $2,380.
Under the Veblen goods principle, shoppers should view luxury brands’ higher prices as a sign that the goods are precious and hard to obtain. The problem is that neither of those is the case.

Luxury has become nearly ubiquitous. Open Instagram, and everyone has a Louis Vuitton Speedy or a Chanel Boy Bag or some other instantly recognizable four-figure-plus purse from a mainstream luxury label. Some of that comes from the rise of resale (people disposing of their used luxury wares, usually at deep discounts) or dupes (similar-looking copies that trade for far less). And a growing number are superfakes — highly convincing counterfeits that seemingly offer similar quality for a fraction of the cost.

On top of all of this, some luxury purveyors also began expanding their product categories and selling overstock via off-price outlets. Boutiques that were once decadent salons offering fittings to clients when they sipped champagne are now tourist destinations for the rich and the upper middle class, trading in wallets and key chains, which, despite their comical price tags, are among the cheapest options. We are mere minutes away from a Chanel- and Gucci-packed outlet store popping up in a midtier strip mall near you.

For a while, it worked. After the pandemic, newly minted millionaires were eager to spend and show off. The Chanels and Vuittons jacked up prices “so the ‘wrong’ people stop buying,” said Erez Yoeli, a research scientist at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management. But part “of the pressure in the marketplace comes from the fact that you do have to be legitimately better,” he said. “And if you’re not, you’re going to suffer the consequences.”

They weren’t better. Ms. India found that service at many top-tier hotels nose-dived during the pandemic, partly from staffing shortages, and has yet to recover. And how about those $10,000 handbags? Taleen Akopyan, who with her husband has worked as a cobbler and a leather restoration expert for the past four decades, said her business has shifted from bags that are 50 years old and still in good shape to brand-new Chanels, Louis Vuittons and Guccis that need help after a few wears. “There’s definitely a quality deterioration across the board,” she said.

It had to end. By many measures, the luxury market is in free-fall.

LVMH and Kering, which owns brands including Gucci, Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent, reported losses this year. Same goes for Burberry; Richemont, which owns Alaïa, Cartier and Chloé; and Capri Holdings, owner of Michael Kors, Versace and Jimmy Choo. A fall study from the management consulting company Bain predicted that 2024 would be the first year of luxury slowdown since the 2008 financial crisis (excluding the pandemic). Certainly the luxury sector tends to be one of the first hit by a slowing economy. But many of the reasons for today’s problems the companies brought on themselves.

Some brands are responding by dropping prices, which risks turning a luxury label into a line that’s carried by outlet malls and desired by virtually no one. Investors shouldn’t have lauded Burberry’s new C.E.O., Joshua Schulman, when in November he announced that among other adjustments, the brand would be reducing the prices of its handbags.

Perhaps the most egregious sign of the problem is the fact that luxury goods are winding up on the shelves of discount outlet stores. Dumping excess product in less-than-glamorous locations can be so destructive to a brand’s perception that some companies used to set excess product on fire to avoid such a fate. And yet, according to Bain, at the end of 2023, that’s exactly where about 13 percent of all luxury goods were purchased, compared with 5 percent a decade earlier.
Some brands are trying to hold the line. In a July interview, LVMH’s chief financial officer, Jean-Jacques Guiony, implied that price increases won’t “end just because the aspirational customers are a little under pressure.” Fun fact: LVMH’s fashion and leather-goods sales did a 5 percent belly flop in 2024’s third quarter. So perhaps pressure isn’t so much the problem as subpar, overpriced goods, like the $2,816 Christian Dior bags that were discovered to have been made in an Italian sweatshop for around $57.

What happened to these once-prestigious bastions of craftsmanship and fabulousness? The eponymous founder of Louis Vuitton was born into a family of artisans in 1821 and dedicated his life to studying and perfecting trunk making. Chanel was founded by Coco Chanel in the early 20th century and brilliantly designed sporty wares for women that freed them from corsets. Christian Dior invented the New Look in 1947, an immaculately designed, hyperfeminine silhouette that was a return to belle epoque glamour after the austerity of World War II. These brands and their peers long upheld the traditions and standards of their founders — until they didn’t. When short-term bottom lines matter more than history and heritage, corners get cut, the soul gets snuffed out, and the product becomes trash in a fancy box.
An exception is Hermès. The company has raised the cost of its Birkin 30 bag in Togo leather just 15 percent from 2019 to 2024, taking it from $10,900 to $12,500. That said, many claim you may have to spend a great amount on other Hermès items to “earn” the privilege of buying one.

Like my sad Kiki boots, much of old-school luxury — the kind that was so glamorous, lush and exquisite that everyone understood it, many craved it and few could have it — is beyond repair. Once-revered establishments that prided themselves on craftsmanship, service and cultivating a discerning and loyal customer base have become mass-marketing machines that are about as elegant and exclusive as the Times Square M&M’s store.

Today, instant gratification, profit and appearances are more desirable than substance, depth or intrinsic worth. And while the decline of “luxury” might not seem like the end of the world (especially with so many apocalypse-adjacent events unfolding), its fall represents a deeper decay that’s gnawing at so much of our existence — from education, media and literature to interpersonal relationships and quality of life.

But back to shopping. Now is the perfect time to seek skilled, independent craftspeople and designers who remain uncompromised by the luxury conglomerates’ production quotas and politics.

If something is obviously awful and obscenely expensive, don’t buy it. Don’t tout it on Instagram. Tell the manager you know it was mid. I certainly won’t be dipping my toes into any Marc Jacobs platforms again. One bruised tailbone was terrible enough. I’ll happily tell you all about it.

nytimes.com

 

[ellearchivist]

nytimes.com

This article has really hit the nail on the head!

 

[tctra]

The conglomerate killed fashion and creativity. when the bottom line has to be financial return to shareholders, all you're gonna get are commercial watered down rags for the masses. blame LVMH, kering etc. when the biggest names are owned by only 2 or 3 groups where the finance guys get final say, it results in the mess that is fashion today. generic clothes that are overpriced without matching quality. cost cutting abounds resorting to manufacture in 3rd world countries, designers having their creativity hammered down so that more clothes and bags sell