Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into outfits that depict distinctive ways of dressing as signifiers of social status, self-expression, and group belonging. As a multifaceted term, fashion describes an industry, styles, aesthetics, and trends.
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB, also known as H&M Group, is a multinational clothing company based in Sweden that focuses on fast-fashion clothing. As of 23 June 2022, H&M Group operated in 75 geographical markets with 4,801 stores under the various company brands, with 107,375 full-time equivalent positions.
River Island is a London-based, multi-channel fashion brand, founded in 1948 by Bernard Lewis. The retailer has a presence in over 125 of worldwide markets, in stores and online.
Vintage clothing is a generic term for garments originating from a previous era, as recent as the 1990s. The term can also be applied in reference to second-hand retail outlets, e.g. in vintage clothing store. While the concept originated during World War I as a response to textile shortages, vintage dressing encompasses choosing accessories, mixing vintage garments with new, as well as creating an ensemble of various styles and periods. Vintage clothes typically sell at low prices for high-end name brands.
Fast fashion is the business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail quickly while demand is at its highest. The term fast fashion is also used generically to describe the products of this business model. Retailers who employ the fast fashion strategy include Primark, H&M, Shein, and Zara, all of which have become large multinationals by driving high turnover of inexpensive seasonal and trendy clothing that appeals to fashion-conscious consumers.
Sustainable fashion is a term describing efforts within the fashion industry to reduce its environmental impacts, protect workers producing garments, and uphold animal welfare. Sustainability in fashion encompasses a wide range of factors, including "cutting CO2 emissions, addressing overproduction, reducing pollution and waste, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that garment workers are paid a fair wage and have safe working conditions".
Anti-sweatshop movement refers to campaigns to improve the conditions of workers in sweatshops, i.e. manufacturing places characterized by low wages, poor working conditions and often child labor. It started in the 19th century in industrialized countries such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom to improve the conditions of workers in those countries. These campaigns are meant to improve the working conditions through advocacy for higher wages, safer conditions, unionization and other protections. These campaigns are meant to improve the working conditions through advocacy for higher wages, safer conditions, unionization and other protections. While they are meant to undermine the reputation of companies using sweatshop labor, they are not statistically significant as intended.
Carry Somers is a British fashion designer, social entrepreneur and campaigner. She is founder of Fashion Revolution and was previously founder and director of Pachacuti.
Clothing industry or garment industry summarizes the types of trade and industry along the production and value chain of clothing and garments, starting with the textile industry, embellishment using embroidery, via the fashion industry to apparel retailers up to trade with second-hand clothes and textile recycling. The producing sectors build upon a wealth of clothing technology some of which, like the loom, the cotton gin, and the sewing machine heralded industrialization not only of the previous textile manufacturing practices. Clothing industries are also known as allied industries, fashion industries, garment industries, or soft goods industries.
Digital Fashion is the visual representation of clothing built using computer technologies and 3D software. This industry is on the rise due to ethical awareness and uses of digital fashion technology such as artificial intelligence to create products with complex social and technical software.
Everlane is an American clothing retailer that sells primarily online. The organization is headquartered in San Francisco, California and also has stores in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Austin, and Palo Alto. The company was founded with the mission of selling clothing with transparent pricing.
The True Cost is a 2015 documentary film directed by Andrew Morgan that focuses on fast fashion. It discusses several aspects of the garment industry from production—mainly exploring the life of low-wage workers in developing countries—to its after-effects such as river and soil pollution, pesticide contamination, disease and death. Using an approach that looks at environmental, social and psychological aspects, it also examines consumerism and mass media, ultimately linking them to global capitalism. The documentary is a collage of several interviews with environmentalists, garment workers, factory owners, and people organizing fair trade companies or promoting sustainable clothing production.
Sweden is home to a number of influential fashion brands with large international spread, ranging from more high-end contemporaries such as Acne Studios, J.Lindeberg, and Filippa K, as well as the global retail company H&M and its subsidiary brands like COS and & Other Stories. Sweden's capital, Stockholm, is the host of the country's biannual fashion week.
Islamic Fashion as a phenomenon stemmed from the combination of a set of Islamic practices and of the rising need and desire to include these specific clothing items in a broader fashion industry. The global growth of “an Islamic consumer sector, which explicitly forges links between religiosity and fashion, encouraging Muslims to be both covered and fashionable, modest and beautiful,” is relatively fresh: Islamic Fashion as a particular phenomenon started appearing toward the 1980s.
Slow fashion is an aspect of sustainable fashion and a concept describing the opposite to fast fashion, part of the "slow movement" advocating for clothing and apparel manufacturing in respect to people, environment and animals. As such, contrary to the industrial practices of fast fashion conglomerates, slow fashion involves local artisans and the use of eco-friendly materials, with the goal of preserving crafts and the environment which, ultimately, provides value to all, slow fashion brands, consumers and retailers.
A fashion influencer is a personality that has a large number of followers on social media, creates mainly fashion content and has the power to influence the opinion and purchase behavior of others with their recommendations. Brands endorse them to attend fashion shows, parties, designer dinners and exclusive trips and to wear their clothes on social media. If a salary has been involved, the influencer may be required to label such posts as paid or sponsored content. Before social media "they would have been called 'It girls'".
The fashion industry, particularly manufacture and use of apparel and footwear, is a significant driver of greenhouse gas emissions and plastic pollution. The rapid growth of fast fashion has led to around 80 billion items of clothing being consumed annually, with about 85% of clothes consumed in United States being sent to landfill.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects the global fashion industry as governments close down manufacturing plants, and through store closures, and event cancellations to attempt to slow the spread of the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on fashion brands worldwide. At the same time, the fashion industry faces challenges in consumer demand. New opportunities are also presenting themselves as fashion brands shift to making fashionable COVID-19 face masks. Domenico de Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International, remarked that "I have seen a lot of difficult situations in my long career and this has been the most devastating event, not just for fashion and luxury, but all industries."
Orsola de Castro is an upcyclist, fashion designer and author. She is the co-founder and creative director of Fashion Revolution, an activism movement which works towards a sustainable fashion industry. De Castro has been in the sustainable fashion space for more than 20 years, since founding upcycling brand, From Somewhere, in 1997.
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) is a global, non-profit alliance in apparel and consumer goods. SAC owns and develops the Higg Index.
