Fashion

Fast Fashion Leaders H&M And Zara; Weathering The Pandemic Fast fashion, which is the mass production of fashion trend-right products at inexpensive prices, may have to deal with something it is not used to; excess inventory. Typically, the business model calls for many styles shipped frequently to stores, allowing for the trend-right merchandise to have a high sell-through, minimizing markdowns and improving profit margins. The industry inventory turnover for fast fashion is over 4.0 which is considered healthy for apparel stores. Factors impacting the industry are closed stores and a shift in consumer mindset. Photo by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via...

COVID-19 and Climate Change Will Reshape Festival Fashion   CREDIT: ETIENNE LAURENT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock With COVID-19 forcing some of music’s biggest festivals to postpone until the fall—Coachella, which was to take place April 10-12 and April 17-19, is rescheduling for Oct. 9-11 and Oct. 16-18—and others to cancel completely, including what would have been the 50th anniversary of Glastonbury in the U.K. in June, fashion experts are confident the virus currently sweeping the world will influence festival fashion when the time comes. The industry is already seeing apocalyptic influences on the Fall/Winter 20-21 runway, with gothic glamor and grunge serving as the main storylines for the season. In line with that,...

Remembering Jenny Polanco, Renowned Dominican Fashion Designer Who Died After Coronavirus Complications   Renowned designer Jenny Polanco spent the last four decades creating effortless women’s clothing, handbags and accessories which, as she put it, represented “a fluid dialogue between classic avant-garde style and the Caribbean.” Last Tuesday, Polanco passed away in a hospital in Santo Domingo after complications with COVID-19, marking one of over 40 deaths in the country as a result of the novel virus. Her death is a major loss in the Latin American world of fashion.  Polanco had studied interior design at the Pedro Henriquez Ureña National University in...

Forever 21's new owners face a slowdown in fast fashion The retailer, with rivals Zara and H&M, revolutionized apparel sales. Now they must change. Forever 21 has a new lease on life thanks to the successful $81 million bid assembled by the brand conglomerate Authentic Brands Group and the two mall developers that bought it out of bankruptcy. That's literally true, too — Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners are two of the fast-fashion retailer's major landlords; now they're also two of its major owners, and more stores will likely remain open as a result. But that doesn't mean that things aren't going...

Why owning fewer clothes makes you a better dresser  A Guardian fashion editor’s take on the capsule wardrobe. Composite: Daniel Benson There is a sartorial magic to the kind of streamlined wardrobe made famous by Audrey Hepburn and Sade. Here’s how to master it The capsule wardrobe has always been cool. The capsule wardrobe is Françoise Hardy and Sade. It is Audrey Hepburn and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. It is all the heady intoxication of fashion with no hangover of buyer’s remorse. It is a magic pill to streamline your wardrobe, so no more tying yourself in knots figuring out what to wear. Outfit repeating used to be...