The global situation is turbulent, where will the 2019 fashion industry go?

It was thought that there was no new round of global financial crisis in 2018, and the fashion industry could develop steadily. However, the global situation in the past year has been obvious to all. Sino-US trade war, Brexit, Italian debt crisis, French yellow vest movement, German political turmoil...

The original harmonious globalization pattern was blocked by the high walls of various nationalisms, and social media has completely docked our food, clothing and living. Under such circumstances, the fashion industry is destined to enter a new stage of development.

Looking back, many people have been missing the 1980s and 1990s. Fashion designers represented by Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, and Tom Ford have been competing with their talented works on the T stage. Their identity is like this. Superstars generally shine.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War immediately ended. Since then, the US-led free trade has been attacked across the globe. When China joined the WTO in 2001, the global free trade integration pattern has gradually improved. With the rapid changes in mass communication methods, especially after the Internet began to spread around the world in the millennium, fashion brands quickly expanded their global presence with the help of capital and technology. Since then, fashion has truly become a common topic in the world.

After the global financial crisis in 2008, global fashion entered an inflection point. After that, emerging market countries led by China became the growth ground of the fashion industry. Ten years later, when time came to 2019, in a post-global era that was shackled by nationalism and social media, where would the fashion industry go?

01 consumption landscape

What are the common characteristics of fashion brands and designers who have been popular in recent years, from Vetements to Gucci to Virgil Abloh?

The elements that appear in their costumes are basically borrowed/approached. The creators and wearers do not need any maverick declarations and gestures to make themselves behave very personally, because the familiar elements are interpreted. There is a new era of meaning that is self-explanatory. As for the meaning itself is vulgar, or cool, it doesn't matter, because the reinterpreted behavior is the meaning itself.

As a result, more and more brands have embarked on this path – by borrowing/appropriating a well-known element of the public, shaping a rationalized contemporary concept, interpreting a popular and entertaining image, and ultimately harvesting a happy consumer landscape.

This logic is not new, but more and more in recent years, giving people a sense of appreciation that everyone is borrowing/appropriating. To some extent, this situation is the result of consumer counterattacks.

As we all know, fashion consumption is driven by the fashion trend. In the past, a genius idea of ​​fashion designers can trigger a wave of fashion through the division of labor in the industry system. Today, social media, where everyone participates, makes traffic the number one factor in fashion trends.

As a result, advocating innovation is very out of place, the only difference is the level of borrowing/appropriation.

The actual case is right in front of you.

On December 5th, 2018, Chanel held the 2019 early autumn fashion show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The show was held at the Temple of Tanjung, and Lafayette Karl Lagerfeld borrowed the ancient Egyptian legacy to create a classic image of Chanel.

Chanel is still the Chanel, and the heavy ancient Egyptian legacy is just a foil, which is the borrowing/appropriation height that any younger designer can't match. It's no wonder that Lafayette Karl Lagerfeld is very proud of the interview with New York magazine after the show. It is said that fashion designers have revived old brands in recent years, some of them are not good, and he is more fortunate. The boss has always let him do what he wants.

If you look back at the fashion show that Chanel has launched in the past, you can see that Lafayette has a deep insight into the era. He feeds people's thoughts about the times to the show and internalizes them into the brand image. .

Not everyone can be as skilled as Lafayette. The more direct and effective way is to borrow/approach a cultural symbol with a wide range of recognition.

On November 27, 2018, Dior Men held the 2019 early autumn show in Tokyo, Japan. Designer Kim Jones commissioned Japanese art master Hajime Sorayama to create a huge metal robot sculpture in the center of the T-stage. Metallized clothing, as well as cherry blossom patterns, give a sense of deja vu.

As early as 2003, Louis Vuitton, led by Marc Jacobs, and the Japanese art master Murakami, combined the classic cartoon characters created by the artist with the cherry blossom pattern and the LV embossed letters, and applied them to the handbags. Fifteen years later, Kim Jones was selected by the LVMH Group from Louis Vuitton to Dior Men, almost a re-appreciation.

The surreal romanticism presented by Japanese pop culture has been a common memory of generations since the 1980s. Kim Jones, born in 1979, grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. It is the time when Japanese design and Japanese culture are popular all over the world. It is not difficult to explain that he can introduce it into the new shape of Dior Men so skillfully and finally transform. For real consumption.

This logic is also applicable to the new Celine and the new Burberry.

The new Celine's first season work by Hedi Slimane is seen as a reinvention of his previous work during Dior Homme and YSL. The new Burberry led by Riccardo Tisci chose to work with Vivian Westwood, which also evokes memories of the iconic punk spirit of Xipo.

It also works on Calvin Klein and Raf Simons.

Raf Simons's new American dream for Calvin Klein is as far-fetched as the framework of the American Gold Rush in the mid-19th century, combined with the work of some niche artists, to make the public feel empathy. Coupled with the precarious status of the United States as a parent of the world, it is not enough to support the effective export of the American dream on a global scale. Therefore, in the face of a strong European brand, the same price of clothing, naturally not Calvin Klein was consumed, and eventually the two sides broke down at the end of last year.

There is also Prada, who does not take the usual path. The brand soul character Miu姨Miuccia Prada borrows/appropriates more complicated. She internalizes interdisciplinary languages ​​such as art, architecture, film and literature into brand genes and builds a strong brand. Cultural magnetic field.

It is not difficult to see that fashion brands borrow / misappropriate some symbols with common memory, through the holding of large-scale promotional activities, such as fashion shows, art exhibitions, or the launch of cross-border joint series, capsule series, in order to maintain their high prices. At the same time, the label can make its own image have a wide range of popular cultural attributes like Disney and Coca-Cola, and eventually attract more people to join the consumer army.

Having said that, looking back at China's local fashion brands, it is not difficult to find that the 2018 red-hot brands such as Peacebird and Li Ning are insightful or misunderstood and have shaped and shaped the consumption landscape in the post-global era.

02 value update

In 2018, there were two big rumors in the fashion industry. First, Karl Lagerfeld was retired from Chanel numerous times. Second, the American version of VOGUE editor Anna Wintour was sent away many times.

Although the brands they have worked on have been smashed, the public is concerned about them. It’s not that the people who eat melons are not too big, but the alliance of fashion brands and fashion magazines. If they lack the two souls. Whether there is still a need to exist.

Over the past few decades, Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour have gathered the best talents and business resources in the fashion industry. They are the existence of spiritual leaders and mascots in the business. The past has always involved the direction of the industry.

Social media has caused the original value system to fall apart. Nowadays, traffic data is driving the trend of the fashion industry. Authority has become meaningless, and data has become the authority of the new era. As a result, the community of destiny built between fashion brands and fashion media has reached a more pragmatic stage of value recognition.

Looking at a larger dimension, in the post-global era, fashion brands that have consistently replicated and advertised the global context, facing the high nationalist sentiment in various regional markets, also need to show a more pragmatic attitude in value identification. .

As far as the Chinese market is concerned, from special ambassadors to wholesale ambassadors, after the precipitation of time, the 2018 traffic game has come to an end. European and American fashion brands urgently need to find a unique Chinese local value identification system in 2019, not just Just treat China as a simple consumer market.

Obviously, the Spring Festival in 2019 is a big test. The various theme items and related promotion activities of the Year of the Pig have come out one after another, and we can see the degree of intention of each brand for the Chinese market.

Recently, Burberry 2019 China's New Year's Eve advertising image has been controversial, which has highlighted many value contradictions.

Inviting Zhao Wei and Zhou Dongyu to appear in the post-production star, Burberry can not be said to not pay attention to the Chinese market, but the image of the two in the blockbuster is seriously distorted, another family photo, not only the photo background is unacceptable, the family Membership is also confusing.

In theory, how to shoot large films, how to deal with them later, the brand has its own plans, it does not matter that others are pointing, and may have foreseen various negative evaluations in advance.

The reaction to eating the melons and the masses can't be ignored. It has naturally been ignored. It has become a hot topic of public discussion and the situation has become complicated. To put it simply, this is the difference between the aesthetic differences and cognition of the two sides. From a complex point of view, although the negative topic has traffic and attention, it will also affect the brand image and sales of single products, how to choose and test the mind.

On the other hand, value recognition is also reflected in the universal values. For now, the biggest problem in the fashion industry is overcapacity: Nearly 3/5 of the world's garments are produced and will enter incinerators or landfills within one year; more than 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from clothing and Footwear industry; about 20% to 25% of the world's chemical compounds are used in the textile industry.

Therefore, a new round of value renewal is needed between fashion and environmental protection and humanitarianism.

In the past few years, in order to attract young people – the attention of the global fashion consumer force, several brands have announced the abandonment of natural fur, which is the value update of the fashion industry from the inside.

For example, Chanel announced the abandonment of natural fur last year, followed by the 2019 early autumn fashion collection, the biggest attraction is fake fur. The effects of alligators and pythons appearing in some show styles are made of artificial leather and even have a scaly glitter effect.

It can be seen that the value update is not a pretense, but a real measure that is not a false one, and it is related to the details of fashion consumption.

03 data nuggets

Fashion brands have figured out the consumer psychology and value orientation from the consumer side. Is it possible to go all the way and go forward? Of course, it is necessary to use scientific methods for data screening and analysis.

For example, economic data has a lot to do with the pricing strategy of the fashion brand and the location of the store.

Prada Group owner Patrizio Bertelli has publicly stated that the Asian financial turmoil in 1998 caused his company to lose one-third of its revenue in Asia, but the Japanese market's income just offset. Because Japan is a developed country, Japanese people used to travel abroad for tourism. After the economic recession, the number of people who traveled abroad decreased, and consumption stayed in the country.

This economic data-based consumption logic has been staged in many regional markets. One of the references is that VOGUE magazine has chosen to launch a new issue in a certain country or region.

E-commerce is also an excellent window. In 2018, the attitudes of major brands to e-commerce have changed a lot. There are more and more fashion brands queued to Tmall and build e-commerce. Chanel has invested in Farfetch, a well-known fashion e-commerce platform. Kaiyun Group announced that it will be in 2020. Before setting up a self-operated e-commerce.

From the perspective of traditional retail, this is a new round of channel warfare for fashion brands in the Internet field. From a technical point of view, this is the beginning of a new round of data warfare.

Because there is a fact in front of you, everyone is making a fuss about retail, who controls the business line long enough, and who will win in the future will be bigger. Social media, e-commerce, and mobile payments have revolutionized retail-related transactions, transportation, communications, and payments, and are based on data interaction, mutual optimization, and even the most critical design and innovation.

To put it simply, the fashion industry, which has always been driven by products, will gradually shift to being driven by data. This is actually a concept of an industrial Internet. For the traditional fashion industry, it takes a long time to go through every link through network means and data mining.

But there is no doubt that the data is new oil, new gold mines, who can take the lead, who can win in the future.