The fashion industry

A. The process of managing the flow of products, from the initial selection of designs, to the presentation of products to retail customers, is known as fashion marketing. Its goal is to maximize a company’s sales and profitability. Successful fashion marketing depends on understanding consumer wishes and responding with appropriate products. Marketers use sales tracking data, attention to media coverage, focus groups and other means of determining consumer preferences. They then provide feedback to designers and manufacturers about the type and quantity of goods to be produced. Marketers are thus responsible for identifying and defining a fashion producer’s target customers, and for responding to the preferences of those customers.

B. Marketing operates at both the wholesale and retail levels. Businesses that do not sell their own products to customers must place those products at wholesale prices in the hands of retailers, such as boutiques, department stores, and online sales companies. They use fashion shows, catalogs, and a sales force armed with sample products to find a close fit between their products and the retailer’s customers. Marketers for companies that do sell their own products at retail are primarily concerned with matching products to their own customer base. At both the wholesale and the retail level, marketing also involves promotional activities, such as advertising. This is aimed at establishing brand recognition and brand reputation for a range of characteristics such as quality, low price, or trendiness.

C. Closely related to marketing is merchandising, which attempts to maximize sales and profitability by persuading consumers to buy a company’s products. In the standard definition of the term, merchandising involves selling the right product, at the right price, at the right time and place, to the right customers. So fashion merchandisers must utilize marketers’ information about customer preferences as the basis for decisions about such things as stocking appropriate merchandise in adequate but not excessive quantities, offering items for sale at attractive but still profitable prices, and discounting overstocked goods. Merchandising also involves presenting goods attractively and accessibly through the use of store windows, instore displays, and special promotional events. Merchandising specialists must be able to respond to surges in demand by rapidly acquiring new stocks of the favoured product. An inventory-tracking software program in a department store in London, for instance, can trigger an automatic order to a production facility in Shanghai for a certain quantity of garments, of a specified type and size, to be delivered in a matter of days.

D. By the early 21st century, the Internet had become an increasingly important retail outlet, creating new challenges (e.g., the inability for customers to try on clothes prior to purchase, the need for facilities designed to handle clothing returns and exchanges) and opening up new opportunities for merchandisers (e.g., the ability to provide customers with shopping opportunities 24 hours per day, affording access to rural customers). In an era of increasingly diverse shopping options for retail customers, and of intense price competition among retailers, merchandising through the web has emerged as one of the most important functions of the modern fashion industry.

E. Fashion designers and manufacturers promote their clothes not only to retailers, but also to the media and directly to customers. Already in the late 19th century, Paris couture houses began to offer their clients private viewings of the latest fashions. By the early 20th century, not only couture houses but also department stores regularly put on fashion shows with professional models. In imitation of Parisian couturiers, ready-to-wear designers in other countries also began mounting fashion shows for a mixed audience. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, fashion shows became more elaborate and theatrical, were held in larger venues with specially constructed elevated runways (‘catwalks’) for the models, and played an increasingly prominent role in the presentation of new fashions.

F. By the early 21st century, fashion shows were a regular part of the fashion calendar. The couture shows, held twice a year in Paris (in January and July) by the official association of couture designers (comprising the most exclusive and expensive fashion houses), present outfits that might be ordered by potential clients, but which often are intended more to showcase the designers’ concepts of fashion trends and brand image. Ready-to-wear fashion shows, separately presenting both women’s and men’s wear, are held during spring and fall ‘Fashion Weeks’, of which the most important take place in Paris, Milan, New York, and London. However, there are literally dozens of other Fashion Weeks internationally—from Tokyo to São Paolo. These shows, of much greater commercial importance than the couture shows, are aimed primarily at fashion journalists and at buyers for department stores, wholesalers, and other major markets. Extensively covered in the media, fashion shows both reflect and advance the direction of fashion change. Photographs and videos of fashion shows are instantaneously transmitted to mass-market producers, who then produce inexpensive clothing copied from, or inspired by the runway designs.