Fashion's impact on the world

Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton... These are some of the hottest fashion brands in the world right now, and the popularity of fashion is rapidly increasing. But have you thought about the fashion industry's impact on economy and its relationship to it? Fashion trends don't come out of the blue; they are actually heavily dependent on the state of the global economy.

When the global economy declines, we tend to save money. And fashion is one of those things we save on. In tough situations, people decide to spend and wear clothes that will last in the long run, and soon this type of clothing becomes the new trend. Many put their own twist on the generic clothes that they have and this attracts global attention. However, when the economy is on the rise, different trends arise. For example, since 2014, "ugly sandals", such as the Birkenstocks or Adidas sandals, have been increasingly popular. The fact that people are willing to spend money on unpredictable and unique fashion indicates that the global economy is rising.

Additionally, the fashion market has expanded in the last decade. We are buying 1.5 times the amount of clothing we did back in 2011, and the industry was worth approximately 1.4 trillion dollars back in 2017. A main reason for this expansion is fast fashion. As most people are not able to afford luxury brand items, companies have come up with new methods to make other clothes trendy. Companies like Zara or Forever 21 produce cheap but fashionable clothing that attracts many individuals. These fast fashion brands have also improved their method of creating clothes and putting it out on the market, so people do not get bored of the same things. The supply and demand keeps increasing, resulting in a rapidly growing fashion industry.

Sources

https://www.elitedaily.com/women/fashion-reflects-economic-state/948110
https://fee.org/articles/fast-fashion-has-changed-the-industry-and-the-economy/
https://smartasset.com/credit-cards/the-economics-of-fast-fashion

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 20, 2019 at 7:12 PM

    Super interesting post! It's really fascinating to learn that fashion trends are dependent on the state of the global economy. I wanted to find out more about this, and according to one source, in the past fifteen years, clothing production has approximately doubled driven by an increasing middle-class population and increased sales in developed countries. As the world's economy continues to grow and develop, the fashion industry will also grow and develop. However, this will have a large economic cost because with greater clothes, comes the use of more resources. Just something to consider in this developing world.

    Source: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/numbers-economic-social-and-environmental-impacts-fast-fashion

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 20, 2019 at 10:10 PM

    Cool post! I never really thought of the fashion industry as being dependent on the economy, I just thought it was based on random spikes in the fashion trend that seemingly come from thin air. I wonder what the age distribution for purchasing of clothes is, and where the trends originate and how they spread. Does one person do it and it spreads like wildfire? Do people purposefully do this or is it on accident?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AustinApril 22, 2019 at 10:36 PM

    Anther factor that determines the sale of luxury fashion products is conspicuous consumption, where consumers believes the higher price of a branded product is a sign of social status. In addition to brand loyalty, this trend causes some fashion lines to have a rather inelastic demand, since the consumer is willing to consume their product at any price point, in exchange for the status gain from the branding. This is a trend that became normalized by companies such as Gucci and other luxury producers.

    ReplyDelete

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