Moderated Newsletter Is Changing Its Calendar
Hello and welcome to the 45th issue of moderated, a newsletter created to dive into insights and phenomenons of the Fashion Industry. It also has a curation and summary of the most talked about last week’s events of the industry, offering further readings for more details.
If you are new here, welcome! I hope I can somehow help you to keep up with the fast-paced Fashion Industry.
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In this week’s moderated, I will announce a few changes to this newsletter’s calendar.
But before jumping into all that, check the last week’s recap of the Fashion Industry.
Last Week’s Recap
First Hanfu Expo Reflects an Interest Surge in Traditional Chinese Costume
Hanfu Expo will be an event focused on the traditional Chinese costume movement. It will have fashion shows, economic forums, and cultural events that both consumer and industry insiders will be able to attend. The event will be held from May 7 to 9 in Henan province’s Xiuwu county, which became known as the capital of Hanfu.
Hanfu, which was once a niche market, has grown a lot due to China’s younger generation's increasing interest in traditional culture. This surge was linked to the popularity of anime, comics, games, and short video social media platforms. To put it in numbers, in 2015, the Hanfu industry was worth 190 million yuan (US$ 29.1 million). In 2019, the industry rapidly grew to 4.52 billion yuan (US$ 693.4 million), maintaining a 70% growth for four consecutive years, according to iiMedia. In 2019, the number of Hanfu Consumers exceeded 3.56 million. In 2019, Alibaba even launched the Gutao App, a social platform dedicated to the Hanfu community.
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Searches on Google Revealed US Consumers Are Ready to Dress Up Again
Due to the fast speed of vaccination, the US is slowly going back to normal. Businesses are reopening, small events are being scheduled, and passengers’ volumes are increasing for the first time since March 15, 2020. As a result, consumers’ buying patterns are also shifting, showing people are ready to dress for a more social life again. By tracking US Google searches, it is possible to see consumers are ready to dress for a more social life.
On one side, Google searches for sweatpants are having an epic collapse in 2021. The number of queries about high-heeled shoes, on the other side, is hitting numbers not seen since February 2020. This quick return of pre-pandemic shopping patterns points to a fast recovery for some apparel categories that were hit hard during the pandemic. However, it is unlike that US will party as if it was 2019, since many large iconic fashion events are not ready to come back to normal just yet.
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The RealReal and LVMH Shared New Strategies for the Unused Fabric’s Issue
According to Queen of Raw, every year, unused fabric costs the fashion industry about US$120 billion. Thus, it is no surprise that companies are finally seeing value in this deadstock. Players are not only developing solutions to deal with unused fabric but also ways to profit from it. For example, the high-end second-hand e-commerce platform The RealReal is launching the ReCollection program in April. The program consists of upcycled collections made from old garments. This is the first time that the website will be developing its own line. The first drop will have 50 pieces made from donated items from labels such as Balenciaga and Stella McCartney. At the same time, LVMH is quietly preparing to launch an e-commerce marketplace for the unused fabric and leather from its brands. Both of these initiatives are great advancements towards a more circular fashion industry.
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Arab Fashion Week Postponed Following the Pass of Sheikh Hamdan
The event that started on 28 March and is coming to an end on 1 April, was supposed to happen earlier in the month. In fact, the Arab Fashion Week, based in Dubai, was starting on 24 March. However, the same day, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Deputy Ruler of Dubai and the Minister of Finance and Industry of the UAE, passed. Due to that, the Arab Fashion Council announced the event would be postponed, following the three-day mourning across the UAE. The Arab Fashion Week currently happening is the second digital edition of the event. A total of 25 fashion designers from the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and America are showing their collections.
Check here the shows of this season’s Arab Fashion Week.
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Youtube Starts Trial of New Automatic Product Detection Tool in Videos
Youtube is testing a new feature that will automatically detect products on videos uploaded to the website, offering viewers a list of the items. The new tool will be a great revenue strain for creators. Youtube will also beneficiate from the feature since it will presumably get a cut of any sales made from these product links. On top of that, in the near future, the video platform can develop a new feature that recommends videos that include similar products. The beat trial is available only in the US since March 22nd. This is a great opportunity for the fashion industry to build a larger community in the video platform and convert it to sales.
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After High Investments, Japan’s Malls Won’t Have Tourist During the Olympics
One of the main incentives of hosting the Olympics is the tourism the event brings to the country. Unfortunately, the boost in retail and hospitality industries that Japan was expecting will not happen. The country decided to ban foreign spectators from the upcoming Olympics in order to contain a new spread of Covid-19. The issue is that developers made heavy investments to prepare major shopping districts for the sport’s event. Around 300 billion yen (US$2.7 billion) were poured in the Shibuya district’s shopping and dining space alone. Other major shopping regions are also suffering from the travel restrictions and could use a boost from the tourist peak that the games would bring. In fact, fashion sales in Japan have been dropping for 16 consecutive months, according to Japan’s Department Store Association.
Moderated Newsletter Is Changing Its Calendar
The moderated newsletter is a project of two people, one for the text and the other for the illustration. When we created this publication, we were both in a different moment in life, with the pandemic at its peak and not much in terms of work. But the scenario changed a lot and now we both find ourselves with other obligations and projects, thus with less time to invest here.
The last thing we want is the content quality gets worse, but with less time to dedicate to moderated, we decided to change the calendar a little. You will keep receiving weekly news of the fashion industry, but the articles will only come every two weeks. Thus, instead of four articles a month, moderated will now have two articles a month.
Thanks a lot for understanding these changes. We will stay focused on bringing you quality content about the fashion industry, we will just need a little more time to deliver it to you.
Best regards,
Luiza and Ana :)
Thanks for reading this week’s moderated and next Tuesday I will be back with more.
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Bye-bye and see you next week!
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