Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

Quote from: Sanguinemoon on 2014-10-12, 22:10:10

Quote from: mjmsprt40 on 2014-10-12, 20:45:09

We used to be one of the leading producers of wears, but these days most wears are made in Asia. Just look at the labels. 

Yes, but I think he's mad because so many brands still have headquarters in the USA. American Apparel, for example must really get his haggis.

The manufacture of fabrics is practically purely Asian, but that's not where the money is. The money is in the marketing of fabrics.

This industry as it happens is dominated by Europe (the European part of Eurasia and Eurafrica). The biggest clothing retailer in the world is Spanish Zara, followed by Swedish H&M. Zara as it happens is largely producing the clothes in Europe, because the secret of Zara is speed, and Zara's customers have been largely European, unlike H&M, which is more global, competes on price, and largely produce their apparels in Bangladesh.

This is how the world is changing. Production is getting so automated that the cost of labour is so low that the factories could be anywhere (though Zara produces in low-cost areas of Spain), while logistics is getting crucial.

The flip side is that the factories provide much less employment than they used to do.

Maybe we should have a thread on this, the awsomesauce of/what is going on in the fashion industry?

this industry puts the new in you

A pair of articles in Sourcing Journal by John S. Thorbeck document the financial gains of the Zara -led transition, as well as the resistance of traditional US managers to embrace a better way and their willingness to live in a kind of “retail denial.”

Fast fashion has been around for some time. When Harvard Business Review looked at Zara in 2004, it called Zara’s management practices “questionable, if not downright crazy.” That was because “Zara defies most of the current conventional wisdom about how supply chains should be run.” And yet, strangely, even then, the performance was there: “The company can design, produce, and deliver a new garment and put it on display in its stores worldwide in a mere 15 days. Such a pace is unheard-of in the fashion business, where designers typically spend months planning for the next season.”

The fashion industry obviously faces extraordinary challenges. The industry that is mercurial and trend- driven. Zara’s fast fashion business model exploits consumer and cultural changes, with dramatically improved financial results. The key is the familiar Agile technique of “postponement:” transforming a product into its final form at the latest possible moment.

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“Because demand for short-life-cycle products or fashion goods is extremely hard to forecast, retailers and brand owners chronically suffer from costly markdowns (price reductions to move merchandise unsold at full price) and stockouts (lost sales due to sellouts of popular styles). Estimates of the costs of markdowns alone range widely, some as high as 33 percent of retail sales…. Companies employing ‘fast fashion’ tend to have significantly lower markdowns (both in items and in magnitude of markdown) than other classes of retailers.”

Whereas Zara’s markdowns are typically around 15%, the markdowns at US apparel retailers and department stores are typically in the 50-70% range. These markdowns and stockouts are very costly for fashion companies.

Groan, groan. That damn ex-colonist wording again. Tut, tut. Everything is awesome to the point of wondering what nursery encouraged it.

I left Primary School at 11.

You are slipping armchair man. I did not say jax was an ex-colonist what i emphasised was the damn misuse of the word in the ex-colonies.

Oh and before I forget in not been a slave to the rise of ex-colonist word nonsense

Uniqlo did its best to arrive in Chicago with a splash. It took over an “El” (elevated light-rail) train, decorated it with Japanese lanterns and brought over a DJ to pump out Japanese pop as the train travelled round the Loop, the central business district. Chicagoan chefs, cheerleaders, rappers and other “tastemakers” were hired to model Uniqlo’s clothes on its website.

The retailer is performing well at home in Japan, thriving in China, South Korea and Taiwan, and doing not so badly in Europe (though it did close some of its British branches). But America, where it has more than 40 shops, is a different story. Uniqlo has been in the country for ten years, but its presence is still much smaller than that of its main global rivals, Zara and H&M, respectively a Spanish and a Swedish retailer of fast fashion. It is also smaller than two local casual-clothing chains, Gap and Forever 21, and than “off-price” sellers of designer labels such as Ross and T.J. Maxx. Last month Fast Retailing, Uniqlo’s owner, reported losses for the fourth fiscal quarter, mainly because of the dismal performance of its outlets in America and of J Brand, its ailing American denim chain.

Succeeding in America’s fiercely competitive retail market is never easy, for local and foreign firms alike. American Apparel declared bankruptcy in October. Gap is closing a quarter of its 675 shops in the country. J. Crew, an American brand that Fast Retailing considered buying last year, is reporting slumping sales. Abercrombie & Fitch, until recently a rising star, has been struggling. Among the foreign retailers, Mango, of Spain, is shutting all its 450 concession outlets in J.C. Penney department stores in America. United Colours of Benetton, an Italian retailer, shut its last American shop in September. (In the same month Primark, a super-cheap Irish retailer, opened its first American shop in Boston: if it proves as successful as it has elsewhere, it could make life even more brutal for the established chains.)

What a wonderful thing that we don't dress all the same way.

The daft walk of models and their played on snootiness puts me right off them.