Fashion brand

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The term "fashion brand" (or "fashion label") includes all the brands that operate within the fashion industry. [1] A fashion brand combines symbolism, style, and experiential elements, and it needs to differentiate its products and coordinate its supply chain to succeed in the market. [2] [3] Consumers commonly employ brands as a means of expressing either their genuine identity or an idealized self-image that they aspire to achieve. [4] [5] [6]

Contents

History

Prior to the mid-19th century, clothing was mainly handmade for individuals, either domestically or by hiring dressmakers and tailors. [7] The origins of couture can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century in Paris. Charles Frederick Worth pioneered haute couture by introducing high-fashion dressmaking. Currently, the concept has gained widespread acceptance. Chanel, Balenciaga, and Christian Dior are prominent fashion brands that offer haute couture lines. [8]

However, with technological advancements and the rise of global capitalism in the early 20th century, factory production and retail stores, such as department stores, emerged, allowing for mass production of clothing in standardized sizes and fixed prices. [7]

Global fashion brands

The fashion industry is widely recognised as one of the most actively internationalising sectors within the retail industry. [9] A significant proportion of globally recognised fashion brands conduct the majority of their commercial activities beyond their country of origin. [9] International operations are the primary source of revenue for prominent brands such as H&M, Inditex, and Nike. [9] Nike's global success serves as a pertinent illustration of the significance of brand extensions in the growth of sport brands. Other prominent brands in this industry, including Adidas, Reebok, Puma, and Asics, have similarly embraced this trend by introducing new apparel and footwear offerings. [10]

Categorization

The fashion industry involves the design, production, distribution, marketing, retailing, advertising, and promotion of various types of clothing for men, women, and children. This includes both high-end designer fashion and everyday clothing, ranging from couture ball gowns to casual sweatpants. [7] The category of fashion brands displays a significant variation in terms of both price segmentation and product quality. [1] [3]

Luxury brands

Premium and luxury brands are characterized by their exceptional performance in their designated market segments, along with their capability to offer distinctive and valuable features and benefits that are specific to their products. [11] Examples are Gucci and Hermès. [12] [2]

Mid-luxury brands

Ralph Lauren is among the fashion brands classified as mid-luxury in the United States market. [13]

Discount supermarket chains or brands

KiK, Lidl, and Aldi are currently expanding their discount segments, catering to a clientele that is particularly price-sensitive and seeks low-cost options. The purchasing decisions of those in this category are not influenced by the quality of the product. [1]

Fast fashion brands

In recent times, there has been a rise in the emergence of fast-fashion companies such as Zara, H&M, Primark, and Mango. [1] These companies have garnered a positive reputation by swiftly adapting to the ever-changing fashion trends. Furthermore, the customers' increasing demand for fresh styles and a wider range of products has led to shorter production cycles and the introduction of micro-collections. [14] [1] [15]

Fashion brand communication

In the fashion industry, brand communication denotes the ways in which fashion brands engage and establish connections with their consumers and the larger society through diverse channels such as initiatives, platforms, spaces, and interfaces. [5] Fashion is a dynamic and constantly evolving field. [5] The communication strategies employed by brands exhibit unique characteristics that set them apart from those utilised in other industries and sectors. [5]

The communication of fashion brands encompasses a range of activities, including "visual brand communication, product design, advertising, public relations, brand experience, sponsorship and collaboration, digital brand communication, user-generated content, content marketing, and influencer marketing." [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fashion</span> Stylish clothing

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Merchandising</span> Promotion of product sales

Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative way that entices customers to purchase more items or products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inditex</span> Spanish multinational clothing company

Industria de Diseño Textil, S.A. is a Spanish multinational clothing company headquartered in Arteixo, Galicia, Spain. Inditex, the biggest fast fashion group in the world, operates over 7,200 stores in 93 markets worldwide. The company's flagship brand is Zara, but it also owns a number of other brands including Zara Home, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, Uterqüe and Lefties. The majority of its stores are corporate-owned, while franchises are mainly conceded in countries where corporate properties cannot be foreign-owned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zara (retailer)</span> Spanish multinational fast-fashion company

Zara is a fashion retail subsidiary of the Spanish multinational fashion design, manufacturing, and retailing group Inditex. Zara sells clothing, accessories, beauty products and perfumes. The head office is located at Arteixo in the province of A Coruña, Galicia. In 2020 alone, it launched over twenty new product lines.

Balenciaga is a French-Spanish luxury fashion line that was founded in 1919 by Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga in San Sebastián. Balenciaga produces ready-to-wear footwear, handbags, and accessories, and licenses its name and branding to Coty for fragrances. It is owned by the French corporation Kering.

Lane Crawford (HK) Limited is a retail company founded in 1850 operating specialist department stores selling luxury goods in Hong Kong and Mainland China. It is headquartered in One Island South, Wong Chuk Hang.

Streetwear is a style of casual clothing which became global in the 1990s. It grew from New York hip hop fashion and Californian surf culture to encompass elements of sportswear, punk, skateboarding, 1980s nostalgia, and Japanese street fashion. Later, haute couture became an influence, and was in turn influenced by streetwear. Streetwear centers on comfortable clothing and accessories such as jeans, T-shirts, baseball caps, and sneakers. Brands may create exclusivity through artificial scarcity; enthusiasts follow particular brands and try to obtain limited edition releases, including via proxy purchases.

Masstige is a marketing term meaning downward brand extension. The word is a portmanteau of the words mass and prestige and has been described as "prestige for the masses".

A lifestyle brand is a brand that attempts to embody the values, aspirations, interests, attitudes, or opinions of a group or a culture for marketing purposes. Lifestyle brands seek to inspire, guide, and motivate people, with the goal of making their products contribute to the definition of the consumer's way of life. As such, they are closely associated with the advertising and other promotions used to gain mind share in their target market. They often operate from an ideology, hoping to attract a relatively high number of people and ultimately become a recognised social phenomenon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fast fashion</span> Quick retail copying of catwalk trends

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, particularly clothing and footwear. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Designer label</span> Products sold under a marque named after a designer

The term designer label refers to clothing, luxury automobile manufacturers and other personal accessory items sold under an often prestigious marque which is commonly named after a designer, founder, or a location-like where the company was founded. The term is most often applied to luxury goods. While members of the upper middle class, or the mass affluent, are perhaps the most commonly targeted customers of these designer labels, some marquees—such as Cartier, Rolex, Montblanc and the haute couture — tend to a wealthier customer base. But almost every designer brand has merchandise that the middle-class wouldn't normally be able to afford, such as exotic skins, furs and hides, limited edition pieces, or things simply priced higher. Designer label companies use their smaller and cheaper merchandise, aimed at the middle class, such as wallets, fashion jewellery, key-rings and small accessories, to make the majority of their income, whilst the more expensive pieces such as haute couture, high jewellery, hand-bags, shoes and even furnishings are usually reserved for the wealthier upper-class clientele.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fashion design</span> Art of applying design and aesthetics to clothing and accessories

Fashion design is the art of applying design, aesthetics, clothing construction and natural beauty to clothing and its accessories. It is influenced by culture and different trends and has varied over time and place. "A fashion designer creates clothing, including dresses, suits, pants, and skirts, and accessories like shoes and handbags, for consumers. He or she can specialize in clothing, accessory, or jewelry design, or may work in more than one of these areas."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buyer (fashion)</span> Individual who selects what items are stocked

In the retail industry, a buyer is an individual who selects what items are stocked and their key responsibility is dealing with all the products that come into the store. Buyers usually work closely with designers and their designated sales representatives and attend trade fairs, wholesale showrooms and fashion shows to observe trends. They are employed by large department stores, chain stores or smaller boutiques. For smaller independent stores, a buyer may participate in sales as well as promotion, whereas in a major fashion store there may be different levels of seniority such as trainee buyers, assistant buyers, senior buyers and buying managers, and buying directors. Decisions about what to stock can greatly affect fashion businesses.

Wholesale fashion distribution refers to the global market of bulk clothing sales, in which producers, wholesalers and sellers are involved in a commercial, business-to-business process.

Fast fit refers to a method of handling the shipping and sampling processes typical of multinational organizations who primarily manufacture offshore, specifically in the fashion and textile industry. Fast Fit centers on the sharing of 360-degree, annotatable images intended to reduce the costs and lead times associated with shipping physical samples. The term is particularly prevalent among companies that fit the Fast Fashion model, as Fast Fit is considered to be a vital component in the reduction of time between design inspiration and final production of a garment or product.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clothing industry</span> Industry encompassing the design, manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing of clothes

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital fashion</span> Visual representation of clothing with digital software

Digital Fashion is a field of fashion design that relies on 3D software or artificial intelligence to produce hyper-realistic, data-intensive digital 3D garment simulations that are digital-only products or digital models for physical products. Digital garments can be worn and presented in virtual environments, social media, online gaming, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) platforms. The field contributes to the development of a more sustainable future for the fashion industry It has often been praised as an answer to ethical and creative concerns of traditional fashion by promoting innovation, reducing waste, and encouraging conscious consumption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slow fashion</span> Fashion concept

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the fashion industry</span>

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the fashion industry was primarily caused by the sudden and global store closures worldwide which strongly impacted the fashion industry. The complete absence of revenue from physical stores caused a deep drop of revenue for fashion retailers, a complete reconfiguration of the stocks for fashion brands, and consequently a drop of orders for garment manufacturers. Many fashion retailers filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of the pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fast fashion in China</span>

Fast fashion is a term used to represent cheap, trendy clothing that is made to replicate higher end fashion trends. As of 2019, China remains the leading producer of fast fashion clothing. Many sweatshops are located in China, where the workers are underpaid and overworked in unsafe environments. China produces 65% of the world's clothing, with a majority of these clothes being labeled as "fast fashion". The top ten competitors in the fast fashion market make up 29.13% of the whole fashion market in 2020.

References

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  2. 1 2 "What is Fashion Brand | IGI Global". www.igi-global.com. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  3. 1 2 "Top15 Best Fashion Companies In India 2023 - Inventiva". 2023-03-07. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  4. ↑ "Understanding the Influence of Brand Personality on Consumer Behavior - Volume 3, No. 1, March, 2015 - Journal of Advanced Management Science (JOAMS)". www.joams.com. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Huggard, Emily; Cope, Jon (2020-02-19). Communicating Fashion Brands: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives. Routledge. ISBN   978-0-429-87558-8.
  6. ↑ Tungate, Mark (2005). Fashion Brands: Branding Style from Armani to Zara. Kogan Page Publishers. ISBN   978-0-7494-4299-6.
  7. 1 2 3 "Fashion industry | Design, Fashion Shows, Marketing, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  8. ↑ "What Does Couture Mean- Definition and French Translation - The Dapifer". 2017-07-08. Archived from the original on 2017-07-08. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  9. 1 2 3 Jin, Byoungho; Cedrola, Elena (2016-06-28). Fashion Brand Internationalization: Opportunities and Challenges. Springer. p. 2. ISBN   978-1-137-52337-2.
  10. ↑ Bouchet, Patrick; Hillairet, Dieter; Bodet, Guillaume (2013). Sport Brands. Routledge. p. 136. ISBN   978-0-415-53284-6.
  11. ↑ "Luxury Brands, Premium Brands". www.brand-trust.de. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  12. ↑ Fionda, Antoinette M; Moore, Christopher M (March 2009). "The anatomy of the luxury fashion brand". Journal of Brand Management. 16 (5–6): 347–363. doi:10.1057/bm.2008.45. ISSN   1350-231X. S2CID   167898713.
  13. ↑ Beras, Erika (2018-08-01). "Mid-luxury brands say no to discounted goods". Marketplace. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  14. ↑ Bhardwaj, Vertica; Fairhurst, Ann (February 2010). "Fast fashion: response to changes in the fashion industry". The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research. 20 (1): 165–173. doi:10.1080/09593960903498300. ISSN   0959-3969. S2CID   167708658.
  15. ↑ Sull, Donald; Turconi, Stefano (June 2008). "Fast fashion lessons". Business Strategy Review. 19 (2): 4–11. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8616.2008.00527.x. ISSN   0955-6419. S2CID   154671050.
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