fashion management

L1 | What is fashion beyond clothing?

A cultural and business system combining creativity, trends, communication, dream creation, stylistic change, social meaning, and business turnover.

L1 | Fashion vs style

Fashion is socially current and trend-linked; style is more personal, stable, and tied to individual identity.

L1 | How does fashion act as non-verbal communication?

Clothing, accessories, beauty, hair, jewelry, and body art signal occupation, rank, gender, class, wealth, group belonging, identity, and values.

L1 | What does it mean that fashion sells a world?

Brands create desire by linking products to stories, emotions, aspiration, status, and identity, not only function.

L1 | Dream factor in fashion

The symbolic and emotional value that makes consumers desire a brand world, especially in luxury.

L1 | Five types of value in the dream factor

Cultural value, social value, psychological value, economic value, and managerial value.

L1 | Why does fashion rely on continuous change?

Stylistic change drives seasonal renewal, product turnover, and consumer replacement.

L1 | Planned obsolescence in fashion

Products are designed or perceived to have limited style life, so consumers replace them before functional failure.

L1 | Trend lifecycle

Introduction, peak, and decline.

L1 | How do trends diffuse?

Innovators adopt first, opinion leaders amplify, then broader consumers follow.

L2 | Brand segmentation

The process of defining where a brand competes by grouping brands according to variables such as price, style, client, end use, materials, and product category.

L2 | Purpose of brand segmentation

To identify competitive positioning, brand clusters, key success factors, and industry attractiveness.

L2 | Main steps in brand segmentation

Define the business, choose variables, position competitors, identify clusters, name clusters, identify key success factors, and assess attractiveness.

L2 | Common segmentation variables in fashion

Price range, style, client type, end use, materials, and product category.

L2 | Fashion brand pyramid

A map organizing brands by price, quality, creativity, and fashion content.

L2 | Haute couture position

Highest pyramid level, focused on superior quality, craftsmanship, uniqueness, bespoke production, and a very limited customer base.

L2 | Why does haute couture matter even with few customers?

It builds brand image, dream value, prestige, and symbolic authority.

L2 | Ready-to-wear

Collections produced in standard sizes and ready to be bought and worn.

L2 | Diffusion segment

More accessible designer lines or premium industrial brands with style and quality at a more accessible price.

L2 | Bridge segment

Premium industrial brands offering updated, trendy products below designer luxury, often with outsourced production and mixed distribution.

L2 | Mass market segment

Affordable brands with wide product range, high efficiency, fashion content, communication, and accessible prices.

L2 | Business model

How a company creates, delivers, and captures value through its offer, customers, value chain, and distribution.

L2 | Business model components

Value proposition, client segment, value chain organization, and distribution channels.

L2 | Luxury brand business model

Timelessness, quality excellence, uniqueness, exclusivity, craftsmanship, wealthy clients, vertical integration, and selective direct distribution.

L2 | Product is king in luxury

Luxury depends on iconic, high-quality, heritage-rich products more than fast trend reaction.

L2 | Segmentation vs business model

Segmentation explains where a brand competes; business model explains how it creates, delivers, and captures value.

L3 | What does the Levi’s case mainly illustrate?

How a heritage brand uses iconic product, values, DTC, wholesale, lifestyle expansion, omnichannel, and retail KPIs to stay relevant.

L3 | Heritage brand strategy

Protect the core identity while updating products, channels, communication, and customer experience.

L3 | DTC strategy

Direct-to-consumer selling through owned stores, e-commerce, apps, and brand-controlled channels.

L3 | Why do brands grow DTC?

To control image, customer data, pricing, service, loyalty, and the shopping experience.

L3 | Wholesale as brand amplifier

Wholesale can extend reach and visibility when accounts match the brand’s positioning.

L3 | Brand-led strategy

Growth driven by strengthening the core brand, cultural relevance, and brand equity.

L3 | Lifestyle expansion

Moving beyond a core product category into complete looks and broader usage occasions.

L3 | Sales KPIs in retail

Sales vs last year, sales vs target, traffic, transactions, conversion rate, average transaction value, average selling price, and units per transaction.

L3 | Omnichannel KPIs

Online sales from store, ship from store, BOPIS, and online returns in store.

L3 | BOPIS

Buy online, pick up in store.

L4 | Why must production model match business model?

Because luxury, designer, and fast fashion brands have different needs for speed, inventory risk, exclusivity, and trend responsiveness.

L4 | Leather goods value chain main activities

Collection merchandising, design, product development, modeling, prototyping, industrialization, costing, purchasing, manufacturing, quality, after-sales, and stock management.

L4 | Collection timing phases

Collection creation, presentation, selling campaign, procurement and production, delivery to stores, and sales in store.

L4 | Make to order

Production begins after or during the selling campaign and is based on market orders.

L4 | Make to order production logic

Pull production, because market orders pull production.

L4 | Make to order benefits

Minimizes unsold stock, lowers heavy-loss risk, reduces capital tied in inventory, and creates more predictable cash flow.

L4 | Make to order weakness

Long distance from final market makes quick product adjustment harder.

L4 | Make to order lead time

Full process around 9 to 10 months; production lead time around 3 to 4 months.

L4 | Lead time reduction

Running phases in parallel, starting material purchasing early, producing once enough raw materials are available, and delivering as soon as products are finished.

L4 | Collection size and variety

Number of product categories in the collection.

L4 | Collection width

Number of product families within each product category.

L4 | Collection depth

Number of SKUs within each product family.

L4 | SKU

A stock keeping unit usually defined by combinations such as model, size, color, and fabric.

L4 | Make to stock

Production is based on forecasts and products are made before confirmed customer orders.

L4 | Make to stock production logic

Push production, because products are pushed into stores based on forecasts.

L4 | Make to stock benefits

Very fast time to market, trend responsiveness, and products created during the sales season.

L4 | Make to stock risk

Higher unsold stock risk if trends or demand forecasts are wrong.

L4 | Fast fashion logic

Fast creative and production processes reproduce visible market trends quickly, prioritizing stylistic content and immediacy.

L4 | Make to order vs make to stock

Make to order reduces inventory risk but is slower; make to stock is faster but exposes the firm to unsold inventory.

L4 | High-end fashion production and commercial logic

Production is pull-based make to order, but commercially the brand pushes its creative vision to the market.

L4 | Fast fashion production and commercial logic

Production is push-based make to stock, but commercially product development is pulled by customer trends.

L5 | Main point of Kering sustainability operations

Luxury sustainability must focus upstream on raw materials, processing, manufacturing, energy, logistics, circularity, and overproduction reduction.

L5 | Emission sourcing

Identifying where emissions arise across the product life cycle.

L5 | Main source of fashion product emissions

Raw material sourcing, processing, and manufacturing, not mainly retail or transport.

L5 | Why focus upstream for sustainability?

Most impact is created before the product reaches stores or customers.

L5 | Main decarbonization levers

Volume efficiency, raw materials, energy, logistics, and circularity.

L5 | Volume efficiency

Improving the ratio between quantities produced and sold to reduce overproduction.

L5 | Raw material decarbonization

Use low-carbon, regenerative, recycled, and innovative materials.

L5 | Energy decarbonization

Use renewable energy, improve efficiency, and support supplier energy audits.

L5 | Logistics decarbonization

Reduce air shipping, increase sea shipping, use electric trucks, optimize routes, packaging, and cargo sharing.

L5 | Circularity as decarbonization

Reduce raw material use, improve cutting efficiency, extend product life, and reduce waste.

L5 | Modal shift

Switching from high-emission transport, especially air, to lower-emission options such as sea, road, or rail when possible.

L5 | Luxury scarcity vs availability

Luxury must protect exclusivity while ensuring product access; poor planning can increase emergency shipments and emissions.

L6 | Sustainability definition

Meeting present needs without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their own needs.

L6 | Triple bottom line

People, planet, and profit.

L6 | Sustainable fashion formula

Sustainable fashion = ethical fashion + eco-fashion.

L6 | Eco-fashion

Fashion focused on environmental responsibility such as resource reduction, recycling, organic fibers, and lower-impact processes.

L6 | Ethical fashion

Fashion focused on human and social responsibility, including labor rights, fair trade, and community impact.

L6 | Responsible fashion company model

A company embedding responsibility across environment, society, institutions, art, culture, territory, media, ethics, aesthetics, and profitability.

L6 | Environmental responsibility examples

Reduce, reuse, recycle, save water and energy, reduce waste, use organic fibers, vegetable dyeing, vintage, second-hand, and certifications.

L6 | Circular model

Materials and products are reused, repaired, resold, recycled, or regenerated.

L6 | Social responsibility examples

ILO compliance, support for disadvantaged communities, traditional production, fair trade, good working conditions, gender equity, and no child labor.

L6 | Rana Plaza lesson

Fashion responsibility must extend beyond direct operations to supplier safety, labor conditions, and production pressure.

L6 | Responsible sustainability communication

Credible, transparent, simple, relevant, emotional, authentic, interactive, and backed by real action.

L6 | Walk the talk

Align sustainability claims with actual company actions to avoid greenwashing.

L6 | Greenwashing risk

Reputational risk created by unsupported or misleading sustainability claims.

L7 | Three drivers of sustainable fashion change

Circularity, collaborative consumption, and traceability/transparency.

L7 | Traceability and transparency

Systems that allow companies to prove claims and monitor the value chain.

L7 | Circularity

Keeping products and materials in use longer through reduce, reuse, repair, resale, recycling, regeneration, and new business models.

L7 | Why invest in circularity?

To reduce supply risk, meet regulation, lower costs, innovate, meet consumer demand, and reduce environmental impact.

L7 | Where circularity applies in the value chain

Eco-design, raw materials, manufacturing, transport, retail, care, end of life, and waste management.

L7 | Eco-design

Designing products from the start to reduce impact and support durability, repair, recycling, modularity, and material reduction.

L7 | Sustainable inputs model

Using circular inputs, circular design, co-creation, or on-demand production.

L7 | Life extension model

Keeping products in use longer through repair, re-commerce, and durability.

L7 | End-of-life model

Managing products after use through recycling, regeneration, upcycling, or downcycling.

L7 | Product as a service

Access-based models such as rental, subscription, or leasing.

L7 | Biological cycle in circularity

Biodegradable materials return safely to nature.

L7 | Technical cycle in circularity

Man-made materials stay in use through repair, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and recycling.

L7 | Regulation pressure in fashion

Rules such as ESPR, Green Claims Directive, CSDDD, CSRD, forced labor bans, and EPR push traceability, circular design, and verified claims.

L7 | Collaborative consumption

Rental, resale, sharing, peer-to-peer exchange, and subscription models that shift from ownership to access.

L8 | Main point of fashion resale

Resale extends garment life, reduces environmental impact, creates jobs, supports social projects, and builds circular consumer habits.

L8 | Why is overproduction a fashion problem?

Clothing production has increased while use has decreased, creating underuse and waste.

L8 | Why does extending garment life matter?

Longer use spreads the product’s environmental impact over more wears and can reduce footprint.

L8 | Why is resale economically relevant?

It is a structured global sector, not only charity, with growth, employment, and supply chain activity.