Por Andrea Mejia Fajardo
The impact of the pandemic has been felt in all economic sectors globally, especially in those considered non-essential products, a category that includes the Fashion System.
In London, the European city with the highest sales in retailIn the fashion sector alone, a decrease in spending of 20.6% is estimated: the fashion sector alone would have a decrease equivalent to US$13.06 billion. McKinsey and Business of Fashion foresee a reduction of the industry between 27 and 30% worldwide compared to 2019 as a consequence of quarantines. Added to this is the inevitable bankruptcy of a considerable number of companies in the fashion sector in the next 12 to 18 months, several of them with financial problems prior to the current crisis.
The Government of India, like other countries, has given strict directives that workers cannot be laid off or have their wages reduced, but the reality is different. In Bangladesh, the 1,000 factories closed due to quarantine are the source of income for 1.96 million workers. At the beginning of May, the Asian country reported business losses of US$2.67 billion due to the cancellation of orders by retailers and brands.
Arcadia Group, owner of Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge in the United Kingdom, and U.S. companies such as Walmart and Gap, decided not to pay for shipped production due to the closure of their physical stores, violating workers' rights in Asian countries.
In Colombia, with a Fashion System mostly made up of SMEs and informal companies, the scenario is not very encouraging. At May the unemployment rate was 21.4%, an increase of 10.9 percentage points over last year. And although employers such as Arturo Calle have managed to keep their 6,000 employees on the payroll, this is an exceptional case and the question is how long it can continue.
Fashion reflects
The cancellation of events such as fashion weeks, massive layoffs, temporary or permanent closures of stores, brands and factories, and the millions of dollars lost, have forced an entire industry to take the time to reflect on its production and consumption practices.
Designers such as Giorgio Armani have made their thoughts public: "The decline of the fashion system as we know it began when the luxury segment adopted the operating methods of fast fashion, imitating the endless delivery cycle in the hope of selling more". Every day more designers and brands are joining in questioning the industry and thinking about what changes to make to their business models.
The current situation calls for a rethinking of the fashion sector's priorities in order to project conscious companies in the face of social problems and the environmental crisis. Consumers, on a larger scale, have begun to demand sustainable development from brands, as product transparency and traceability become more important.
The pandemic has highlighted the fragility of the industry on social issues, but at the same time has shown that it can be an industry that goes beyond design, images and physical appearances. It is an industrial sector with the capacity to transform and positively impact communities, both socially and environmentally.
Fashion: more than an aesthetic
The pandemic presents an opportunity to reorganize the production chain. It is time to look back, to question bad practices and, simultaneously, to think of a world after covid-19 where the sector is an active actor of change.
Relevé Fashion is a virtual platform with a curation of designers that not only offers products that have an impact on the communities where they are made, the platform donates 10% of each purchase to an organization selected by the consumer. Relevé Fashion's goal is to make every purchase a meaningful experience in social terms.
Olivela, which brings together some of the most renowned luxury designers, has as its slogan when you shop, we donate (when you buy, we donate). Partner organizations include Malala Fund and Save the Children & No Kid Hungry. Due to the closure of schools in Latin America because of quarantines, millions of children have been left without the necessary food, so Olivela donates 20% of the profits to provide markets to families in need.
These types of social initiatives will be fundamental in the purchasing decision in the near future. Consumers, especially Gen Z and millennialsconsumers will favor brands with high social and environmental responsibility, as long as they engender buyer confidence, a growing trend that has intensified during the pandemic. A McKinsey study estimates that approximately 15% of consumers in the United States and Europe will focus their purchasing decisions on environmentally and socially responsible products.
Doug Stephens, known as the retail futuristIn March 2020, he said: "Use this time to reinvent how you do what you do, give consumers new choices, new value, and in the process, even reinvent your own brand. Several months after the start of the pandemic, entrepreneurs are weary of the word "new. reinvent itself, but it is a reinvention towards sustainable practices that will enable brands and companies to survive and participate in the construction of a sustainable future. new normalcy.
El texto original fue publicado en Revista Semana y hace parte de la tesis Policies for the sustainable development of the Fashion System in Colombia: opportunities in the value chain (Universidad de los Andes) de Andrea Mejia Fajardo.
