essay on fashion company

How current global trends are disrupting the fashion industry

In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , McKinsey senior partner Achim Berg talks with executive editor Roberta Fusaro about findings from McKinsey’s The State of Fashion 2022 report. They cover the concurrent effects of the many challenges facing both suppliers and brands, including the war in Ukraine, the pandemic, and inflation.

After that: the state of anxiety tends to get a bad rap. But in our second segment, Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, author and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Hunter College, shares why anxious feelings deserve respect.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

The McKinsey Podcast is cohosted by Roberta Fusaro and Lucia Rahilly.

Return to normal? Not yet

Roberta Fusaro: Achim, the world has changed since we published The State of Fashion 2022 report. What are the changes that have had the greatest effect on fashion and the textile industry?

Achim Berg: The invasion into Ukraine is one of those topics not fully on our radar in November or December.

But that’s not the only change that has occurred since we published the report. We also didn’t know that Omicron would be the dominant variant in the first half of 2022.

We also did not expect that inflation would be a permanent challenge. We expected, like many governments, that this would be a temporary problem. We expected that the supply chain would normalize after two years of a pandemic. That also didn’t come true.

We did not expect an energy crisis.

We also didn’t expect that COVID-19 would be a big issue in China again, because China looked like the big winner of the whole pandemic at the end of last year. That’s the challenge of writing a report that tries to somehow predict or frame the future: things often turn out slightly different. But overall, our forecasts provided reliable insight and included topics we identified to drive the industry in 2022.

Supplier challenges

Roberta Fusaro: From the panoply of issues you’ve mentioned, what challenges do suppliers face right now?

Achim Berg: There are a lot of different challenges. It depends on which country we look at. Some are quite challenged.

The supplier side has a practical problem of delivering what is expected. But they’re also facing the issue of forecasting in a proper way because we don’t know exactly how the consumption patterns will develop.

The industry is always a couple of months ahead of the consumer, so they need to make some bets. In this environment, which is much more volatile than what we have seen in the last 20 years, it’s very difficult to make the right bets.

Supplier solutions

Roberta Fusaro: Given the increased risk, how should companies respond? And what are some things that companies can do to hopefully end up on the right side of these big bets?

Achim Berg: They should look for real partnerships and closer exchanges with brands because that would give companies access to data and would therefore make things more predictable.

On the other side, it’s worthwhile to think about how to flex the system to the maximum, because demand patterns are not as stable as they used to be. Brands and retailers will be forced to react more flexibly to these challenges. And the suppliers are, by definition, at the receiving end, so they will have to increase their flexibility even more.

Cost pressure will continue, so they will likely have to work also on the cost side, and also on their tier-two and tier-three suppliers in the whole system.

Different regions, different challenges

Roberta Fusaro: What were some of the more interesting data that came out from different geographies?

Achim Berg: On a global level, we’ve seen a faster recovery than what we expected 18 months ago. We had expected that the whole fashion industry would not get back to 2019 levels until the end of 2022. And on a global level, we already achieved that at the end of 2021.

We had expected that the whole fashion industry would not get back to 2019 levels until the end of 2022. And we already achieved that at the end of 2021. Achim Berg

You could argue that the fashion industry has shown more resilience and a faster ability to deal with challenges than what we had expected. Maybe we were too conservative in the eye of the storm. That might be another explanation.

The recovery was also quite different by region. Asia, with the very strong leadership of China, was the motor of the recovery right at the beginning. They had a very short dip and then they were doing quite well.

Europe had the toughest challenge to deal with, because they were lacking international travelers. Also, given the fragmentations of the markets, the recovery wasn’t that fast or that strong.

North America was remarkable. We’ve seen a V-shape recovery, which we had seen after some of the financial crises before. But we didn’t expect to see that here in the pandemic. If we look forward, it’s difficult to make predictions, as we discussed earlier.

China is currently quite challenged with its zero-COVID-19 policy, but we don’t know how long it will take to get recovery here. Let’s hope for the best, because that’s going to be very important in particular for the luxury part of the industry. Europe is currently doing better, because we see travel coming back. North America is still going strong.

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It will heavily depend on how long the war in Ukraine continues, how long that will impact the cost of energy, and also how much stimulus the different governments will be able to provide after two years of continuous stimulus against the pandemic.

So the jury is out. We should prepare accordingly for some challenges we could face.

Think tech from beginning to end

Roberta Fusaro: During the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, we talked a lot about companies accelerating their use of technology. Has that momentum continued?

Achim Berg: Technology plays a very important role. We also just published the new State of Fashion Technology Report 2022 , which makes an important point: that we have to think about technology really end to end.

We used to focus more on the front end—everything that was more consumer focused, through e-commerce, through loyalty systems. But we are realizing now that the back end also needs to be digitized for many reasons.

Traceability from a sustainability point of view has become more important and will become even more important going forward. So digitizing the whole supply chain end to end is a big topic for many of our clients. And that’s also why technology investments for the fashion industry are expected to ramp up.

The importance of consumer demand for brands

Roberta Fusaro: Thinking about the challenges now for brands, what obstacles do these organizations face?

Achim Berg: It all comes down to consumer demand. And as I said, we had hoped that 2022 would mark the end of the pandemic, that certain freedom would return that would allow people to celebrate, to entertain. And the fashion industry was very ready to dress consumers exactly for that. And, to a certain extent, we see that that is happening. Some of the categories that were hammered throughout the pandemic, like dresses, high heels, even suits, have had a strong return in the first five or six months of this year.

We also expect that people will do a lot of traveling. Europe is clearly returning to the whole vacation industry; I think Americans will do the same, and Asia as well, with the exception of China. That will drive consumption.

In a way, despite a looming recession and inflation rates, we see that consumers have a kind of backlog and a desire to spend on fashion. The problem is that energy bills will continue to increase, and we don’t know how long the conflict between Russia and the Western world will continue.

The conflict will likely continue to have a negative impact on the cost of energy and on the cost of living. Realistically, we might see a lot of consumers returning from vacation and from a great summer, realizing that everything has become much more expensive. That could hit larger parts of the fashion industry—in particular, the discount, the value, and the midmarket segments. The jury’s still out on how luxury will play out in this environment.

We were all surprised by how quickly luxury returned from the lows of the pandemic. This return has mainly been driven by China, but also by a very strong recovery, and a fast recovery, in the United States. The demand for luxury is super strong at this point in the year. I’m more concerned with the Christmas business and, in particular, the outlook for 2023.

Innovate plans, flex systems, and manage costs

Roberta Fusaro: Thinking about that, Achim, what should brands do?

Achim Berg: Brands should prepare for a likely recession. If the recession is not happening, we’re all going to be positively surprised.

But—given the current inflation levels all around the world, driven by energy cost increases, and the fact that interest rates are increasing around the world—that will have an impact on a lot of things. It will have an impact on consumption patterns. It will have an impact on refinancing patterns and on the cost structures of companies. What we’re discussing with a lot of the clients is how to prepare for that.

On the one hand, that means having a robust plan for the demand side and for how to flex your systems, similar to the suppliers, to varying demands. The industry has been quite innovative in that respect over the last two years of the pandemic. This will somehow have to continue.

On the other hand, the industry will have to manage costs. Many of the leading players have started to tackle that by reviewing their investment budgets, reviewing their cost structures, and preparing for a challenging 2023. That is what brands will have to focus on in the coming months.

The winners and losers of 2022

Roberta Fusaro: Most companies in this industry have been challenged for several years now. How do they respond to these disruptions? And how do they find ways to invest in new technologies?

Achim Berg: 2020 was the worst year from an economic-profit point of view since we’ve collected data about this industry—probably going back to the Great Depression.

2021 was a recovery year for many. And in that respect, a more difficult 2022 and an even more difficult 2023 could have some devastating effects to the industry. Our report also shows that profitability is more and more polarized in the industry.

In 2020, less than one-third of the companies were value generating, while two-thirds were value destroying. So a longer recession and a more challenging environment will definitely lead to a shakeout in the industry. We also see there are a few companies we call the “super winners,” the top 20 performers of the industry. But you could broaden that to the top 20 percent of the industry that are quite healthy. These companies have already started to invest in technology and digitalization. They’ve invested in sustainability, they’ve invested in talent—all the things that you would want to invest in. They also have a more balanced, more global business. So they will likely get better through the months ahead.

Without any question, companies will have to do this transformation away from physical stores and toward a more digital business model. They will have to find ways to redirect budgets into those areas. That will be more difficult for some than for others, which will likely lead to even more polarization in the industry.

The importance of sustainability

Roberta Fusaro: Is sustainability one of those factors in thinking about how companies are going to transform?

Achim Berg: Sustainability is the big topic for the industry. It was the big topic before the pandemic hit and it continues to be the big topic.

I always say that we’re going through different stages. It took us a couple of years to really create awareness for the topic and for the industry to accept that sustainability is a big topic—not only on CO 2 , but also on worker rights, worker conditions, and pollution in a much broader sense. The industry has finally accepted the challenge.

A lot of companies have now made commitments, most of them until 2030. COP26 was a big event in that respect. We’re now heading into a phase where the industry has to deliver against those promises. And that coincides now with a phase where we likely have limited budgets and more stress on the demand side. So, without any doubt, it would have been much better in the end, and also for the planet, if we were having a stronger recovery after the pandemic. But that’s unfortunately not what we are facing.

On the other hand, the planet cannot afford an industry that’s not making progress. So, in that sense, companies will have to do all of that. They will have to deliver against the ambitions of digitalization, and also against the demands of sustainability.

Consumers have become more demanding in that respect. A lot of people have been at home throughout the pandemic. They have had more time to think about their consumption patterns. We’ve seen a big change—in particular, in Western Europe and North America—in how consumers think about sustainability and what they demand from brands. Therefore, brands will have to do it all. It’s not going to get any easier for brands in the whole industry in the next 18 to 24 months.

Roberta Fusaro: In the report, you talked about the use of digital “product passports,” which contain data about how products came into being and their impact on the environment. Do you think digital product passports are a good tool to help brands reach their sustainability commitments?

Achim Berg: Product passports and traceability are the two big topics when it comes to sustainability. Digitalization will be a key lever here: on the one hand, to provide the required transparency along the whole value chain, and on the other, to provide that information to an ever-more-demanding consumer who wants to have that transparency. Let’s not forget that there is a regulator out there that will request that transparency. And the supply chains are very complex.

There are different stages. It’s happening in emerging markets. It’s transported in most cases at least around half of the world. So all of that requires the use of technology to provide the transparency and the reliability that you need to drive the business.

Learning from the top 20 performers in fashion

Roberta Fusaro: What are the lessons that companies can take from some of the top companies in our research?

Achim Berg: Super winners have been outperforming the industry now for many, many years. That has led to the level of polarization that we have at the moment. We also expect that the top players will get stronger due to the next crisis we are facing, given the resources they have built and the brands and business systems they have built.

They are a constant inspiration for the rest of the industry. Not all of what they do can be replicated; many low-performing players have challenges in funding some of the things that the top performers are doing.

You need to be active in different geographic regions to balance risk. It also helps to operate across different product categories—a higher share of digital and a more consistent use of data are clearly beneficial to the performance.

And then, last, it’s the fashion industry. If you put your chips on the right trend, and if you have the brand heat that you wish for, of course you’re going to do better. And you can be like a phoenix rising from the ashes over the next couple of seasons. That’s the beauty of the industry.

We also see some strong brands now that were not that strong before the crisis. So, unfortunately, it’s a sliding scale for many. But there’s always some renewal and innovation and hope. We’re going to see some surprises over the next 24 months, without any question.

Roberta Fusaro: Thanks so much, Achim, for joining us today.

Achim Berg: Thank you, Roberta, for having me.

Lucia Rahilly: And now, let’s hear from Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary from our Author Talks series about her new book, Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad) .

Tracy Dennis-Tiwary: The core message of the book is that we mental-health professionals have unintentionally given people some damaging information when it comes to anxiety. And we’ve essentially spread a couple of fallacies about anxiety.

First, it’s that anxiety is always a debilitating experience, it’s dangerous, and it’s even something we should think of as a disease.

That means that the solution would be to prevent it and eradicate it and destroy it at all costs, like we do with any disease. The problem with that, when it comes to anxiety, is that it is literally a recipe for making anxiety worse.

There’s a paradox of anxiety: the more we avoid it, the more it tends to spiral out of control. So we not only have more intense anxiety because we’re avoiding it, but we lose the opportunity to look at anxiety and its potentially helpful parts.

There’s a paradox of anxiety: the more we avoid it, the more it tends to spiral out of control. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary

Anxiety is an emotion that we’ve evolved to anchor us into the future tense. This ability to think into the future not only protects us but also makes us more persistent, more innovative, more creative, and more socially connected.

So this story that we have all come to believe about anxiety is actually really starting to get in the way, especially during a time like the pandemic when we can’t escape anxiety.

And that’s the second false idea that we’ve unintentionally spread—we mental-health professionals—that any experience of anxiety is a malfunction and a failure.

So what do we do? We start to try to fix it all the time. And we lose those opportunities to see how it can actually be a strength and a source of resilience. Anxiety can be very intense, very extreme, even, but that doesn’t mean that it’s an anxiety disorder.

A healthy mindset about anxiety is one in which we look at it very differently than we’re used to looking at it. We’re looking at anxiety as a problem to solve, but anxiety is a feature of being human. And when you look at the difference between anxiety and fear, it starts to help us understand that.

Fear is the present certainty. We’re absolutely certain that right now we’re in danger. But anxiety is not that. Anxiety is apprehension about the uncertain future. That is, we know that there’s something coming around the bend. It could be bad, but it could also be good. What anxiety helps us do is prepare to make those good things happen.

A second healthy mindset about anxiety involves this perspective about anxiety, that it’s information telling us there’s something happening in the future and we really care enough to make it happen.

When we start to think of anxiety not as this dangerous thing but as a helpful thing, that changes everything about how we then face anxious moments, whether they’re controllable or uncontrollable—it helps us cope with that at our best.

And a third aspect about having a healthy mindset about anxiety is that we think of it not as something that overwhelms us when we face the uncertain world around us but rather something that helps us navigate uncertainty. Because anxiety is an emotion that evolved to help us translate and navigate the uncertain world.

How does anxiety help you?

What it helps you see is that because you’re in the future tense and you care about making the good things happen in the future, it helps you see possibilities. It can make us more persistent. It can make us be more fluent to think outside the box to be innovative when we need to, because we see that there’s a possibility for something good to happen.

When we’re anxious, we also are more reward focused. We have higher levels of dopamine in our brain when we’re anxious. We typically associate dopamine as a reward neurotransmitter that we feel when we’re experiencing something pleasurable. Well, anxiety triggers dopamine. Why? Because dopamine helps us move toward positive outcomes.

It also triggers our social-bonding hormone oxytocin, which increases when we’re with someone we love. It’s one of the ways that we biologically bond to each other. And when we’re anxious, that hormone shoots up. Why? Because social connection, social bonding, is one of the best ways that we manage our anxiety.

In the book, I also talk about a three-part framework for doing something with anxiety, for working with it. One is that we remember that anxiety is information, and we need to listen to it.

Two is that sometimes anxiety is not useful information. We can learn to tell the difference, and when we do know that it’s not useful anxiety, we can use those great tools out there to let go and immerse ourselves in the present moment, get help through therapy, do those things that help us scale back from the future tense. The third guideline is to really hitch that anxiety, that information we’re getting about what we want in the future, to what we care about, to what gives your life a sense of meaning.

Achim Berg is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Frankfurt office. Roberta Fusaro is an executive editor in the Waltham, Massachusetts, office. Lucia Rahilly is the global editorial director and deputy publisher of McKinsey Global Publishing and is based in the New York office.

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The State of Fashion 2024: Finding pockets of growth as uncertainty reigns

State of Fashion Technology Report 2022

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What a Fashion Company Is Worth Today

• Cathaleen Chen

Key insights

• Fashion companies are increasingly being valued based on their profits rather than just sales, a reversal of the trend during the zero-interest-rate environment of the 2010s.
• The bigger challenge in fashion M&A, however, is the dearth of buyers, including both private investors and strategic conglomerates.
• Still, exceptional brands like Skims and Alo Yoga with cultural heat and massive growth potential can still command frothy valuations.

When Milan-based private equity firm Styles Capital announced it acquired the sneaker brand Autry earlier this month, it seemed to signal a reawakening of fashion’s deal market.

Styles Capital paid about €300 million ($327 million) for 50.2 percent of Autry, valuing the company at an impressive six times its sales last year. It wasn’t quite the sort of valuation a hot direct-to-consumer brand might have commanded at the height of the boom – Allbirds’ market capitalisation of $4 billion following its 2021 IPO was roughly 15 times its annual revenue at the time. But it was a surprising splash of good news amid a drought in fashion dealmaking.

Today, there are a number of brands on the auction block, but few interested buyers. Last year, there were 118 acquisitions globally in the category, the lowest count in at least a decade, according to Dealogic. Ganni, A.L.C., Proenza Schouler and Isabel Marant are just some of the brands that have courted buyers or investors in recent years without securing a deal. It’s not just contemporary and luxury labels facing an uphill (though not impossible) climb to seal the deal; denim label True Religion and T-shirt start-up True Classic are among the brands currently in the market.

Unfortunately for them, the Autry deal and its revenue-based valuation was the exception that proves the rule, investment bankers and investors with expertise in the fashion space said. When offers are made, they are more likely to follow the more conservative measure of multiples of EBITDA, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

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Last month, Rag & Bone was acquired by a joint venture between Guess Inc. and brand management firm WHP Global. Guess will pay $56.5 million for its half, which values the brand at $113 million — about six times Rag & Bone’s adjusted EBITDA of $18 million in 2023, but just under half its 2023 sales of $250 million. Or take True Religion, which is currently exploring a sale. With about $80 million in annual EBITDA, it can feasibly sell for $400 million to $600 million, according to a source familiar with the business. If, that is, it can find a buyer in the first place.

Those are the lucky ones, in a sense. Last year, Parade and Tamara Mellon were acquired by manufacturers in what bankers said were likely fire sales last year; sleepwear startup Lunya filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in June.

“It’s the absolute worst time to sell right now,” said Elsa Berry, founder of Vendôme Global Partners, a fashion M&A advisory firm. “It’s impossible to say where the buyers are … And you’re not going to get a top price unless you are an exceptional brand.”

Today’s market is a return to a sleepier era, before the days of ZIRP, or zero interest rate policy, a period lasting roughly between 2008 and 2021, when central banks globally slashed borrowing costs as a form of economic stimulus. Investors and large companies borrowed billions of dollars, which they poured into fast-growing, often unprofitable brands, such as Allbirds , or retail start-ups like Farfetch and The RealReal , in the hopes of generating big returns down the line as those businesses matured.

Many of those investments did not pan out. Allbirds’ market capitalisation currently hovers around $100 million.

Founders and investors who came of age during the ZIRP days are confronting a harsh reality where the paths to an exit are mostly blocked. On the public markets, even growing, profitable companies like Birkenstock and Amer Sports have failed to command premium valuations, which has had a mirroring effect on valuations in the private market too, bankers said.

For brands the options are stark: accept a lower price and a wider potential pool of buyers, or wait and hope today’s market conditions are temporary, and not the new norm.

“Two years of the pandemic followed by the last 18 months of a reset in the global economy has changed a lot of the calculus of how we start getting liquidity in our portfolio,” said Bill Detwiler, managing partner at Fernbrook Capital Management, an early-stage investment firm that has purchased stakes in Tory Burch, La Ligne and Universal Standard. “We feel that the [market] will open up once we get the election out of the way and interest rates come down.”

Fewer Buyers

The fashion M&A space can quickly shut down in challenging times because the category is particularly vulnerable to shifts in the wider economy. Brands that appeared to be cruising to a multi-billion-dollar exit can suddenly lose momentum if trends shift, or price-conscious consumers pull back on discretionary spending. Case in point is Matchesfashion, which was acquired by private equity giant Apax Partners in 2017 for over $1 billion, and sold late last year to Frasers Group for £52 million ($63 million), amid a broader slowdown in online luxury spending.

Matt Leeds, a former partner at L Catterton who launched his own private equity fund, Forward Consumer Partners, last year, said he sets an especially high bar when considering investing in an apparel brand, as opposed to food or other categories. Start-ups that might have a few years of rapid growth, and zero profits, need not apply.

“I would be interested in brands with a proven track record of success over decades and are still relevant today,” he said.

Tapestry’s $8.5 billion blockbuster acquisition of Michael Kors-owner Capri Holdings is a prime example of this thesis in action. Capri’s brands, which also include Versace and Jimmy Choo, have struggled to resonate with consumers in recent years, their name recognition has the potential for massive scale under the right management.

Higher borrowing costs and unpredictable consumer spending have also kept large retail holding groups on the sidelines. VF Corp. has historically grown through acquisitions of hot brands like Supreme; now it’s looking to sell some assets. Kering, which bought a stake in Valentino last year, as well as the fragrance brand Creed, is also unlikely to add to its portfolio in the near term as it integrates those acquisitions and focuses on reviving Gucci, said Berry of Vendôme Global Partners.

Other luxury groups may be distracted by new dynamics in the sector, such as challenges around wholesale, as well as a volatile macroeconomic environment, she added. Some houses in healthier positions have other priorities; Puig, for instance, is preparing for an upcoming IPO.

“I don’t think there is a large number of strategic buyers in the short term,” Berry added. “But of course LVMH can always make a move, given their sheer scale and diverse businesses.”

Exceptional Players

Well-run, appealing brands will still find buyers at premium valuations.

A buzzy business that’s growing both in terms of sales and profitability can command EBITDA multiples of 12 to 15 in their valuations, according to Matthew Tingler, managing director at Baird’s consumer investment banking group. Larger brands showing growth, profitability and a strong brand DNA across multiple geographies and product categories can be valued at mid-teen multiples of EBITDA or higher, said Berry.

At brands with major cultural heat, topline growth can still be an important metric when it comes to formulating valuations, Tingler said. For those lucky few, the sky’s still the limit.

Alo Yoga was reportedly seeking new investment at a $10 billion valuation last fall, almost certainly at a higher ratio to EBITDA than publicly traded category leader Lululemon merits. While it remains to be seen if the brand will hit its target, Alo’s faster growth should allow it to command higher multiples, Tingler said.

The same goes for Skims, which was valued at $4 billion last year on estimated annual sales of $750 million and 27 times its EBITDA; it’s an unusually high multiple, but still possible in today’s environment — that is, if you’re Skims.

Survival Mode

Skims aside, most brands have little choice but to harness a sense of financial discipline: Operate a lean business and generate cash flow to fund capital expenditures. If possible, brands should tap into their base of existing investors for necessary cash infusions.

“If someone is selling today, it’s either because they’re distressed, or their investor wants to get out and doesn’t want to keep putting money in,” Berry said.

For the most part, dealmakers don’t anticipate current market conditions to change anytime soon.

“The investment climate will stay the same,” said Tingler of Baird. “For [valuations] to go up again, interest rates will have to go down and there needs to be a more peaceful geopolitical environment. I don’t think it will change anytime soon.”

But being forced to run a scrappy business isn’t a bad thing. A high profit margin, after all, will be a major asset for fundraising or acquisitions down the road. And the more investors a business takes on, the fewer exit options there are, according to Jenny Gyllander, a venture capital veteran and founder of Thingtesting, an online platform for discovering online brands. Not to mention, diluted equity.

“People have been unable to raise funds for a while now, and that’s pushed them to be really creative,” Gyllander said. “Everyone’s now like, ‘Let’s be profitable from day one,’ and they want to be in control of how they’re growing.”

The Year Ahead: Fashion Is Set for a Surge in M&A

As the gap widens between the best-performing companies and the rest, M&A activity will increase as leaders manoeuvre to take market share, unlock new opportunities and expand capabilities.

Fashion’s Top M&A Targets

The market may be cooling, but a number of in-demand brands remain of interest to financial backers. BoF identifies the top targets.

Fast Fashion’s M&A Frenzy, Explained

Amid a spending slowdown and steep competition, the UK fast-fashion players including Asos and Frasers Group are selling off struggling brands.

Cathaleen Chen is Retail Correspondent at The Business of Fashion. She is based in New York and drives BoF’s coverage of the retail and direct-to-consumer sectors.

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The Evolution of Fashion Trends

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Published: Feb 7, 2024

Words: 511 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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The ancient origins of fashion, the influence of royalty and aristocracy, revolutions and societal change, the industrial revolution and mass production, the twentieth century and beyond, the role of technology and media, conclusion and the ongoing cycle.

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Fashion is more than just clothing; it is a powerful instrument that weaves together individual and collective identities, serves as a medium for self-expression, communicates social and political messages, and is influenced by [...]

In today's world of fast fashion and consumer culture, it's all too easy to find ourselves immersed in a whirlwind of colors, patterns, and knee-high leather boots. We often succumb to momentary desires and perceived "needs," [...]

In the digital era, where fashion trends are born and die on the screens of smartphones, the 'fast fashion argumentative' debate has ignited a firestorm of scrutiny and reconsideration within the textile industry and among [...]

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Essay on Fashion for Students and Children

500+ words essay on fashion.

Fashion refers to anything that becomes a rage among the masses. Fashion is a popular aesthetic expression. Most Noteworthy, it is something that is in vogue. Fashion appears in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, hairstyles, lifestyle, and body proportions. Furthermore, Fashion is an industry-supported expression. In the contemporary world, people take fashion very seriously. Fashion is something that has permeated every aspect of human culture.

History of Fashion

The origin of Fashion is from the year 1826. Probably everyone believes Charles Frederick to be the first fashion designer of the world. He also established the first Fashion house in Paris. Consequently, he began the tradition of Fashion houses. Furthermore, he gave advice to customers on what clothing would suit them. He was prominent form 1826 to 1895.

During this period, many design houses hired artists. Furthermore, the job of these artists was to develop innovative designs for garments. The clients would examine many different patterns. Then they would pick the one they like. Consequently, a tradition began of presenting patterns to customers and then stitching them.

At the beginning of the 20th century, new developments in Fashion took place. These developments certainly began in Paris first. Then they spread in other parts of the world. Consequently, new designs first came into existence in France. From Paris, they went to other parts of the world. Hence, Paris became the Fashion capital of the world. Also, Fashion in this era was ‘haute couture’. This Fashion design was exclusively for individuals.

In the mid-20th century, a change took place. Now Fashion garments underwent mass production. There was a significant increase in the rate of production of Fashion garments. As a result, more and more people became involved with Fashion garments. By the end of the 20th century, a sense of Fashion awareness was very strong. Now people began to choose clothes based on their own style preference. Hence, people began to create their own trends instead of relying on existing trends.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Fashion Trend

Political influences certainly play a major role in influencing Fashion. Many politicians become fashion symbols. Notable examples are First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana. Also, political revolutions make a huge impact on the Fashion trend. For example, in 1960’s America, liberal clothing styles became popular among the younger generation. This was due to the Liberal revolution.

Another significant factor which influences Fashion trend is technology. There certainly has been a rapid growth of technology in the Fashion industry. For example, wearable technology has become a popular Fashion trend. Furthermore, 3D printing technology and the internet have also made an impact on Fashion.

Social influences are probably the strongest influences on the Fashion trend. Many music stars strongly influence Fashion choice. For example, wearing hoodies became famous due to rap musicians. Furthermore, movie and television actors create a big impact on Fashion. Many youngsters love to emulate the Fashion sense of their favourite celebrity.

To sum it up, Fashion certainly has become a part and parcel of human life. It certainly is a force that is here to stay. Most noteworthy, Fashion has immersed every place on Earth.

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(page 124) p. 124 Conclusion

• Published: October 2009
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At the end of the 20th century, did the fashion industry shift from fashion to clothing? Did fashion end in the 1990s? Or has fashion just evolved? The early 21st century witnessed a growing number of ethically inspired labels and websites, focusing on fashion's impact on the planet and workers' rights. Fashion has also grown as a subject of academic study. Fashion has not ended, it has changed. It is on the brink of another major shift. The Western fashion industry hasn't died yet, but it will need to respond effectively to new global challenges.

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Shein’s fast fashion comes with fast-finance risks

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Mr. Goodall, who previously worked as an executive at Deloitte and at Cisco Systems, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Problem With Change.”

Silicon Valley, home of so many technological and workplace innovations, is rolling out another one: the unnecessary layoff.

After shedding over 260,000 jobs last year, the greatest carnage since the dot-com meltdown more than two decades ago, the major tech companies show little sign of letting up in 2024 despite being mostly profitable, in some cases handsomely so. In their words, the tech companies are letting people go to further the continuing process of aligning their structure to their key priorities , or “transformation” or becoming “ future ready .” Behind these generalities, however, some tech companies are using what has hitherto been an extreme measure in order to engineer a short-term bump in market sentiment.

Investors are indeed thrilled . Meta’s shares are up over 170 percent amid its downsizing talk. And where stock prices go, chief executives will generally follow, which means it is not likely to be long before the unnecessary layoff makes its appearance at another publicly traded company near you.

These layoffs are part of a tide of disruption that is continually churning the work days in corporations everywhere. If you’ve spent any amount of time working at a company of pretty much any size, you’ll be familiar with what I call the resulting “life in the blender”: the unrelenting uncertainty and the upheaval that have become constant features of business life today. A new leader comes in, promptly begins a reorganization and upends the reporting relationships you’re familiar with. Or a consultant suggests a new strategy, which takes up everyone’s time and attention for months until it’s back to business as usual, only with a new mission statement and slideware. Or, everyone’s favorite: A merger is announced and leads to all of these and more.

Now, no business prospers by standing still, and there is no improvement without change. Course corrections, re-orgs and strategic pivots are all necessary from time to time. Technological changes continue to demand the restructuring of major industries. But over the last quarter-century or so, the idea of disruption has also metastasized into a sort of cult, the credo of which holds that everything is to be disrupted, all the time, and that if you’re not changing everything, you’re losing.

You can take courses in disruption at the business schools of Stanford, Cornell, Columbia and Harvard. You can read, on the cover of a leading business magazine, about how to “Build a Leadership Team for Transformation: Your Organization’s Future Depends on It.” And if it is the catechism of chaos you’re after, you can buy the inspirational posters and chant the slogans: Fail fast; disrupt or be disrupted; move fast and break things. Part of this, of course, is a product of the hubris of the Silicon Valley technologists. But part, too, is the belief that the fundamental task of a leader is to instigate change. It is hard to remember a time when there was any other idea about how to manage a company.

Moreover, because a majority of corporate executives — together with the consultants and bankers who advise them, the activist investors who spur them on and the financial analysts who evaluate their efforts — have been raised according to this change credo, the constant churn becomes a sort of flywheel. A leader instigates some change, because that’s what a leader does. The advisers and investors and analysts respond positively, because they’ve been taught that change is always good. There’s a quick uptick in reputation or stock price or both, the executives — paid, remember, mostly in stock — feel they have been appropriately rewarded for maximizing shareholder value, and then everyone moves on to the next change.

But it’s hardly clear that this is having the desired result. Studies of merger and acquisition activity have pegged the rate at which they destroy — rather than increase — shareholder value at something between 60 and 90 percent; a Stanford business school professor, Jeffrey Pfeffer, has argued that layoffs seldom result in lower costs, increased productivity or a remedy for the underlying problems in a business; and few of us who have lived through re-orgs remember them as the occasion for a sudden blossoming of productivity and creativity.

Seen through the eyes of the people on the front lines, the reason for this gap between intent and outcome comes into tighter focus. After all, when the people around you are being “transitioned out,” or when you find yourself suddenly working for a new boss who has yet to be convinced of your competence, it’s a stretch to persuade yourself that all this change and disruption is leading to much improvement at all.

“It’s exhausting,” one person I spoke to about change at work told me. “It’s soul-sucking,” said another. One person told me that after the combination of two departments, his people were like deer in the headlights, unsure of what they should be working on. Another had 19 managers in 10 years. Another told me that perpetual change drained the energy from work: “You say the right things in the meetings, but you don’t necessarily do what needs to be done to make it happen.” Another learned to watch the managers and be alert when they stopped dropping by or communicating: “It is like before a tsunami, when the water goes. You don’t see the water, and then the tsunami comes — all of a sudden, it comes, hard. When everything is calm, I worry.”

Of the dozens of people I spoke to, every single one had some sort of change-gone-bad story to share. And these sorts of reactions are about more than simple frustration or discontent. They are rooted in the psychological response we humans experience when our sense of stability is shattered and our future feels uncertain, and indeed the scientific literature has much light to shed on exactly why life in the blender is so hard on us. Experimenters have found, for example, that our stress is greatest when uncertainty , not discomfort, is at its peak — and uncertainty is the calling card of change at work. Then there is the question of agency: a well-known series of experiments conducted by Steven Maier and Martin Seligman in the 1960s discovered that when we sense we are not in control of a situation we give up trying to make things better — this is “learned helplessness” setting in.

Other researchers have described our fundamental need, as a species, for belonging , and the importance of our social groupings — which helps to explain why we don’t like it when our teams are disassembled, reshuffled and reassembled. And others still have shown that we have — perhaps unsurprisingly! — a deep-seated need for things to make sense in our environment, a need that is so often thwarted by the generic C.E.O. statements and exaggerated cheer-speak with which most change initiatives are communicated.

But while the essential response of the human animal to uncertainty and disruption is hard-wired, the degree of change we introduce into our workplaces isn’t. It’s often a choice. We’ve reached this point because the business world seems to have decided that change is an unalloyed good, and so there is no amount of it that is too much, and no cost of it that is too great.

Were more leaders to be guided by the science of change, or by the stories that people on the front lines share, they would quickly discover that it is stability that is the foundation of improvement. Only once we begin to honor people’s psychological needs at work, by thinking twice before launching into the next shiny change initiative and by paying more heed to the rituals and relationships that allow all of us to point our efforts in a useful direction, can we begin to do justice to the idea that a company must be, first, a platform for human contribution if it is to be anything else at all.

Ashley Goodall, who previously worked as an executive at Deloitte and at Cisco Systems, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Problem With Change.”

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What stores are open on Easter 2024?

Get your pastel-colored eggs and pricey chocolates ready — Easter is here.

While many Americans will be celebrating the resurrection of Christ and enjoying Sunday brunch with their families today, for others, it’s just a regular old Sunday.

Whether you’re scrambling to fill up Easter baskets or just want to get some shopping done on your day off, you might find yourself out of luck — many major retailers say they will be closed for the religious holiday.

The annual feast day falls on a different Sunday each year — this year, Mar. 31 wins the lottery.

Easter usually rolls in on the first Sunday after the full moon, on or after the vernal equinox.

Meanwhile, Orthodox Easter will occur in 2024 on Sunday, May 5.

Keep reading and bunny hop to these stores to see where you can do some last-minute shopping.

Targets around the United States will be closed today.

Walmart  will be open today, with them even offering a “curated Easter meal, available for purchase at a price even lower than last year,” according to their corporate site.

Customers won’t be able to access the mega storehouse today.

These stores — which are all part of the TJX company — will be closed.

Home Depot hardware shops will be unlocked and loaded on Sunday.

The department store will not be opening its doors on Sunday.

The luxury clothing emporium will be shut down on Easter.

The retail chain will not be open for the holiday today.

Both pet superstores are set to stay open on Easter for all of your animals’ needs.

The apparel company will be open in some locations across America.

The Swedish home goods place will stay in business on the springtime holiday.

Kroger stores such as Baker’s, City Market, Dillons, Food 4 Less, Foods Co, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, Gerbes, Jay C Food Store, King Soopers, Kroger, Mariano’s, Metro Market, Pay-Less Super Markets, Pick’n Save, QFC, Ralphs, Ruler and Smith’s Food and Drug will all be open for business on March 31.