From Maximalism to Minimalism: How Inequality is Affecting Luxury Fashion Trends?
Hello! This is the second edition of moderated, a newsletter created to dive into insights and phenomenons in the Fashion Industry. It also has a curation and summary of the most talked last week’s events of the industry, offering further readings for more details.
Thank you for everyone that subscribed last week, I hope I can somehow help you to keep up with the fast-paced Fashion Industry. If you haven’t subscribed yet to receive a weekly issue by e-mail, you can just by clicking below.
In the second week of moderated, I analysed the truth behind the recent return of quiet luxury. I explored the impact of inequality on luxury fashion and demonstrated how the pandemic affected this rising fashion trend.
But before we jump into the main article, check the last week’s recap of the Fashion Industry.
Last Week’s Recap
Kering Quarterly Results: Revenues Mainly Dropped, But With a Plot Twist
Kering, the luxury conglomerate that owns brands such as Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Balenciaga, released on April 21st their first quarterly results of 2020, which of course were impacted by the pandemic. Across the business, the group had an expected drop of 15.4% in revenues year-over-year. The luxury houses division had a fall of 16% in revenues. Gucci, the group’s largest brand, had the greatest fall on revenues, 22.4%, but the report pointed out that sales are already recovering in Mainland China.
The plot twist is that the brand of the moment, Bottega Veneta, had an increase of 10.3% in revenues. The report attributed the rise to the “outstanding appreciation of the collections by local clienteles in Western Europe and North America (…) despite closure of all stores from mid-March”. The other houses of the group had a drop of 4.1% in revenues. Check the full report here and the press release click here.
The Most Transparent Fashion Brands of 2020
The fifth edition of the Fashion Transparency Index came out last week. The report analyses 250 of the largest fashion brands in the world, ranking them based on the information they disclosed regarding “social and environmental policies, practices and impacts”. This year’s top performer was H&M, with a score of 73%. The average score across all brands analysed was 23%. An interesting insight from this year’s report was the rising practice between luxury fashion houses to disclosure more about their raw material suppliers. Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Ermenegildo Zegna are some of the brands leading this trend. However, Gucci was the one with a higher score amongst the fashion houses, 48%. Check the top and bottom 10 transparent companies below:
To read the full Fashion Transparency Index 2020 you can click here.
London Fashion Week Has a Date and a New Format: Virtual and Genderless
On the 21st of April, the British Fashion Council announced that the London Fashion Week will have to go through some changes. They stated that during the next twelve months, all London Fashion Weeks will be gender-neutral, merging menswear, and womenswear. On top of that, the Council announced the date of the next London Fashion Week: from 12th to 14th of June 2020. The event and will be held in the www.londonfashionweek.co.uk platform, which will soon be relaunch. The website will offer a platform for trade and consumer audiences, the general public, offering interviews, podcasts, designer diaries, webinars, and virtual showrooms.
Fashion Suppliers Speak Up About Brands Breaking Contracts Amid Pandemic
The fashion suppliers, a less seen but as important part of the fashion industry, have been struggling lately. Their main complaint is the lack of commitment of fashion brands to the contracts in place, demonstrated during the protests in Dhaka Bangladesh on 26 April. Rubana Huq, the president of BGMEA (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association), stated that amid many unexpected cancellations of terminated or almost orders, there is little legal recourse to demand that international retailers follow the terms of their contracts. "I don't want any grant, I don't want any kind of charity, I just want the bare minimum justice for our workers", she said.
Bangladesh is one of the countries that are most suffering from fashion order cancelations, once garments represent over 80% of the country’s exports according to Trading Economics. There, 980 million pieces were already canceled due to the pandemic.
In Vietnam, the textile manufacturer Vinatex, one of the country’s largest companies, made an alarming statement. The company said that if the situation does not improve, it will have to fire from 30 to 50 thousand employees by May.
The same scenario can be seen in many other countries such as Camboja and India. The textile industry worldwide is 31% down on orders (year-on-year), according to the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF). Even fashion suppliers in the UK are sharing the concern of going bankrupt due to extending payments and cancelations of orders. The fashion factories workers that are losing their jobs are being put in vulnerable positions, especially in developing or underdeveloped countries where their now gone wages were already low. As shared by Brishti, a worker at the protests in Dhaka: “We have not been paid for two months. We are starving. If we don’t have food in our stomach, what’s the use of observing this lockdown?”
According to BGMEA, buyers are contractually compelled to cover the total costs of ordered goods, including 16% for paying salaries. However, a Penn State University’s Center for Global Workers’ Rights survey revealed that 97% of buyers are refusing to pay the partial wages of laid-off workers required by law. Some companies such as H&M and Walmart have committed to pay in part or full for ordered goods, but this practice is far from being shared by all brands. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is trying to improve the situation by signing an agreement with some fashion brands, which guarantees support and proper pay to the supply chain.
As Aruna Kashyap, Senior Counsel in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, said to CNN: “ These workers are really poor. They have worked in the supply chains and the operations of these brands for months and years. And at this moment of crisis, it's really important for brands and retailers to live up to their human rights responsibilities." The expected action from the fashion industry at this delicate moment is to offer the same support to these workers facing the fear of hunger that has been given to healthcare professionals. Many fashion brands talk about sustainability. Well, now is the time for them to show this is an actual value for their companies and take care of the most vulnerable workers in this industry.
From Maximalism to Minimalism: How Inequality Is Affecting Luxury Fashion Trends?
This week, I decided to write about something that has been in my mind for a while now. I thought this subject was already “old news”, especially because Covid-19 changed everything, but then Kering released its quarterly results. The conglomerate, which owns many fashion luxury brands, surprised me with one of their revenues results. On top of that, I read a recent article from BOF talking exactly about this topic and, even more, linking it to the pandemic. I was convinced this was as fresh as a topic could be and I decided to bring some of my insights to it, while politely disagreeing with part of the analysis made by BOF (their article is still great though).
This text will approach two main concepts: history repeats itself and inequality affects fashion luxury trends. But, to explain this well, let’s start by going back a bit in time, to one of the most controversial decades of fashion – the 2000s.
The 2000s: From Juicy Couture to Céline
Probably, when thinking about 2000s fashion, the first image that comes to mind is Paris Hilton wearing a pink Juicy Couture set with the brand’s logo on the but, carrying a baguette bag filled with colourful Louis Vuitton monograms and a few sparkling hair clips to give the look an extra touch. That may be because the 2000s fashion was beyond extravagant, more was better and logomania was out of control – and we loved it! At least until the 2008 financial crisis marked the end of the era of bling-bling style. The article of BOF brought theories to justify this shift, such as consumers preferring more professional clothes in moments of crisis and being more selective about where to spend their money. I wouldn’t go as far as to say these didn’t impact at all on the shift, but I believe the reason for such a change is simpler and shallower than these explanations.
So here it is my point of view. The crisis of 2008 mostly impacted the finances of middle and lower classes, but it still affected luxury fashion. To understand how a crisis that had a greater impact on the low and middle-income population affected a high-income market, it’s simple: image. If before, showing off your status with an extravagant filled with logos garment was cool, after there were people losing jobs and struggling to pay their bills, it became just insensible.
The showy trend was obfuscated by the minimalist wave of discrete wealth in luxury. Brands such as the unpretentious Céline by Phoebe Philo and the logo-free Bottega Veneta became the new protagonists. There were even rumours that the French luxury brand Hermès was allowing its clients to leave the store with a modest brown shopping bag, instead of its most common flashy orange one. At the end of the day, the pieces had the same expensive price (if you ever saw a price tag from Bottega Veneta, you know that). The only change was that, if someone was not part of the clientele of these brands or very into fashion, the person wouldn’t necessarily know those garments were luxury items. As BOF perfectly named it, it was a quiet luxury.
In the fashion industry, luxury brands are the ones that usually set the trends. Thus, if luxury brands and designs were going minimal, soon other middle range to high-street brands followed. The trend of less had taken the fashion market.
History Repeats Itself, So Do Trends
In politics and economy, it’s very common to read that history repeats itself. Ideologies shifts, political systems, and economic decisions tend to come and go as a cycle. These cycles don’t always happen the exact same way and sometimes can be hard to notice, but if a timeline is well analysed, you can see them. In history, this phenomenon usually happens with a gap of around four generations, but the fast-paced fashion industry has no time for that. Jokes apart, for fashion this happened in just a little bit more than a decade.
Until the first semester of 2019, the brand of the moment was Gucci by Alessandro Michele, with its eccentric style, unexpected mix of references and logos, many logos, everywhere. The success of Gucci started in 2015, with the nomination of Michele as the new creative director of the brand and it influenced the whole fashion industry. Soon, many brands joined the new trend Gucci started. It was farewell minimalism and hey maximalism. Brands such as Fendi and Valentino drowned in monograms and logotypes, Prada started to go extra and neon and Off-White exploded in the ostentation market. The extravagant era was back. Walking with a giant monogram in your bag, a flashy sweatshirt, and colourful limited edition sneakers was a statement of style and status.
However, as stated, history repeats itself, and just like in 2008, minimalism came back. But until recently, when the pandemic started, there was no financial crisis. On the contrary, the economy was mostly thriving around the world with a few exceptions (sorry Brazil and Argentina). So what triggered the shift this time? In 2016, Johann Rupert, chairman of luxury conglomerate Richemont, predicted: “We can’t have the 0.1 percent of the 0.1 percent taking all the spoils (…) it’s unfair and it’s not sustainable (…) Our clients will be targets. They’ll be hated, despised. People with money will not wish to show it”. In 2016, he basically predicted what would happen from the middle of last year to now: Fashion became aware of inequality.
In 2019, an impressive amount of protests started to erupt around the whole world. To mention some, France and Spain in Europe; Hong Kong and India in Asia; Chile, Colombia, and Bolivia in South America; Sudan and Uganda in Africa; Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq in the Middle East. The phenomenon that perplexed specialists required some analysis to be able to identify its cause: inequality. The rage of being left behind was real and it was widespread. Inequality was present despite the fact that many of these countries had apparently thriving economies.
The US and its healthy economy, for example, had (still has) the highest inequality rate since the 1930s. Even with this alarming income gap, most of the country’s economic policies kept being tailored to benefit corporations and the wealthy. Worldwide, Oxfam calculated that the 26 richest people owned as much as the 50% poorest people globally.
So, whenever inequality became more and more evident, wearing a garment that throws on everyone’s face how much it costs may not be the most sensible thing to do, and many people realised that. Overshadowing the eccentric Gucci era, the logo-free discrete Bottega Veneta became the new favourite brand of the moment (again). It was a mark that minimalism and quiet luxury were having a comeback. The brand won in 2019 the prize of Brand of the year and its Creative Director, Daniel Lee, designer of the year.
Other brands also beneficiated from this new shift, as stated by Brigitte Chartrand, the Vice-President of womenswear buying at Ssense. According to her, brands that had an already very established aesthetics and a loyal following were having an increase in sales with this market change. Rick Owens, Alexander McQueen, and Margiela are some of these. Even Gucci, that was such a strong trendsetter with its baroque style, simplified its designs.
Sustainability also had an influence on the rise of the trend, as pointed out by the Vice President of Fashion at WGSN, Francesca Muston. Indeed, many consumers were focusing more on sustainability and looking for pieces with longer use potential and better resale value in the booming secondary market. Lemaire and The Row, for example, were getting more popular with their products with extremely high-quality materials and visible craftsmanship. While avant-garde silhouettes and logo T-shirts were being less searched by consumers, dresses, and suits rose in sales.
Before stores closed around the globe, high street and middle-range retailers were already starting to sell their own versions of the restrained trend. But all that was before Covid-19, before any financial crisis, and before the major pandemic’s impact. History was repeating itself, but with a different path. But what is happening now that we actually have a financial crisis?
The Pandemic Intensified the Already Rising Trend
As I mentioned at the beginning of this text, I thought this whole shift was old news. I didn’t know how exactly the pandemic would affect fashion trends and maybe change the scenario. However, this week, Kering, the group that happens to own Bottega Veneta and Gucci, released its first quarterly results and, oh boy, the report said a lot about this whole topic.
Basically, everyone was expecting all brands to have a decrease in their revenues due to the isolation consequences. That’s exactly what happened to Gucci, which had a drop of 23.2% in revenues, like almost every luxury brand right now. Almost, but not the on-trend and minimalist Bottega Veneta, which grew 8.5% year-over-year. While everyone in the industry is presenting negative numbers, Bottega Veneta's results say a lot about how the pandemic affected the rising trend of quiet luxury. Intensifying it.
Inequality became even more evident due to Covid-19. Retailers believe that the pandemic's consequences will “accelerate changes that were already taking shape”. Mario Ortelli, the managing partner of luxury advisors Ortelli & Co, stated that, in this period, luxury consumers will be looking for more minimal and timeless investment pieces that bring a sensation of responsibility amid the state of the world.
This will happen again, and again, and again…
If you found it interesting that we are having such a similar shift to 2008, what if I told you this has been going on for way longer? For example, before the French Revolution, fashion was outrageous and luxurious for both men and women; at least the rich ones. In France, inequality was ridiculously high, and when this gap became too evident, the French aristocracy, including the it-girl of the time Marie Antoinette, tried to make a change to look more sympathetic to the underprivileged. They started to wear comparatively simple white dresses with more modest fabrics and without panniers. However, it was too late. With the fall of the Bastille in France and the executions of many nobles, it became dangerous to look fashionable, once that was related to the persecuted aristocracy.
During this period, Ancient Greece had a momentum in fashion, a reflection related to the appealing democracy concepts of that time. Garments got simpler and whiter. With the end of the Reign of Terror, the most turbulent period of the post-revolution, the country started to become safe again for people with money, and more complex designs started to slowly come back to fashion.
I can keep giving examples of this pendulum between fashion exorbitance and quietude in many other periods of history, but I guess you got it. As politics and economy repeat themselves, so does fashion with them. Fashion is a form of expression of the many sociological circumstances each period or region is going through. This constant shift is just one of these forms of expression. So much, it was New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology theme for an exhibition last year, as they described: “every fashion movement is a response to what came before it, perpetuating a design cycle that alternates between exuberant and restrained”. At the end of the day, inequality affects everyone’s behaviour. Luxury trends do change due to economic and social gaps in society; now you choose if you want to call it solidarity or public image control.
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