The Global Fashion Industry

What is Fashion?

Definition: The style of a consumer product of way of behaving that is adopted by a discernible proportion of members of a social group because that chosen style or behavior is perceived to be socially appropriate for time and situation
Soft Goods vs Hard Goods?
What’s the difference?
Soft goods = apparel, footwear, and accessories + home fashions
Hard goods = physically solid, electronics, furniture, and appliances

What is a part of the fashion supply chain?

Textiles
Fiber processing
Yarn spinning and fabric deconstruction
Dyeing and finishing fabrics
Design
Planning, interpreting, and creating change
Involves intellectual creativity
Good design is user-centered
Reflects the values of the designer(s) in relation to those exhibited by culture, society, and time
The design process is systematic
Merchandising
Planning the assortment of merchandise to each store
Finding the products to sell in a store/on a website
Pricing products
Presentation of products
Wholesale selling
Manufacturing
Physical making of fashion products throughout the fashion supply chain including the manufacturing of textiles, garments, and accessories.
Marketing
Connects product offerings with the values, wants, needs, and behaviors of customers.
Who is our consumer? What do they want? Where do they shop? Etc…
Connects research to management decisions for strategic merchandising & promotion choices

History of the Fashion Industry

Is Fashion Revolutionary?

How Does Fashion Change?

Consider Fur

“As early as the 11th century, fur was worn as a symbol of wealth and social status rather than just out of the need for warmth.”
Then, in the 1950s and 1960s it became more affordable and you could see Hollywood stars wearing these pieces

What Have Been Key Influences in the Evolution of Fashion?

1789-1890 Mechanization of production

Point in time: Industrial Revolution
Mid 1700s (1760 to 1820-1840)
Started in England
Spinning and weaving of fabric: from a labor intensive hand process to mechanized (Industrial Revolution)
England’s cotton and wool textile industries were the most technologically advanced; protective of machinery and procedures
Meanwhile in the U.S…
Cotton grown in the colonies
Shipped to England to be processed
England sells the cloth and yarn back to the colonies

What Changed This?

1789-1890 Mechanization of production

1813 – Francis Cabot Lowell invented the power loom in USA
Invention led to vertical integration of the US textile industry
Now, all processes from spinning the yarn to producing cloth was happening by machine under 1 roof
Cotton Gin: mechanization of the weaving process → increased demand for cotton
Handpicking seeds from cotton bolls is time consuming
1754 – Eli Whitney patented the Cotton Gin for cleaning cotton
Could clean as much cotton in one day as 50 people
Allowed cotton growers to supply New England’s demand
The North and the South
Northeast continued to be the primary producer of wool fabrics
Cotton was grown in the south creating the Cotton belt:
Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida
Manufacturers built textile mills in south so they could be close to this important source of cotton
By 1847, more people were employed in textile mills than in any other industry in the US
The working conditions were bad in the US and in England

Ready-To-Wear

The RTW industry began in early 18th century (1700s)
By the early 19th century demand for RTW increased
To me meet demand, tailors used scrap material left over from custom-made clothes for sailors, miners, and working class men

Innovations in the Fashion Industry (cir. 1800s)

The RTW Industry

Who were the first RTW clothes made for?
Men’s RTW developed first, the boys, girls and finally women
Why did the men's RTW industry develop first?
Men’s size standards were available
Size standards – the proportional increase or decrease in garment measurements for each size produced
Men’s styles were less complicated than those of women

Where were they selling RTW clothing?

Some retail history

1818 - Brooks Brothers, the first men’s apparel store to open in NYC, catering primarily to sailors and working class men.
1826 - Lord & Taylor opened in NYC
Lord & Taylor, the first department store established in the United States, now an e-commerce retailer
1857 - Macy’s opened as a wholesale and retail dry goods house
Catalogs became available
Montgomery Ward in 1872
Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1886

Growth of the RTW industry

1900s Working Conditions

Production of RTW apparel was labor intensive
By 1900, approximately 500 shops in NYC were producing shirtwaists
A massive amount of immigrants worked the factories
Introduction of sweatshops using cheap immigrant labor
Long hours
Low pay
Unclean and unsafe working conditions
Efforts to improve working conditions led to the formation of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union
11 years later… → Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
March 25, 1911 nearing closing time a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. which employed 500 workers mostly young immigrant women, working poor, many of them as young as 15 years old
Locked doors
Marginalized population in fear of speaking out about working conditions
Ladders were too short to reach upper floors
146 died

NYC Garment district then and now