Honey Bosworth

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Purpose

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Every brand has a purpose, examples include raising awareness and promoting wellbeing. Brand purpose is particularly important for customers, especially Gen Z. This is supported by a Forbes repOrr that found that Gen Z are so conscious of brand ethos now that they are actually willing to spend “an incremental 10 percent or more on sustainable products” (Forbes, 2020). Brands have to adapt to these shopping patterns of Gen Z and acknowledge that customers are willing to boycott companies that don’t practice ethcial behaviours. The demand for an ethcial purpose is rising and brands are now expected to communicate their purpose to their customers.

An example of a brand that has entirely embraced the demands of an ethical purpose, is Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. The foundations of Rare Beauty is embracing your individuality and uniqueness, ”Rare Beauty can be more than a beauty brand. […] You’re not defined by a photo, a like, or a comment. Rare Beauty isn’t about how other people see you. It’s about how you see yourself.” (Glamour, 2020). As well as this Rare Beauty established “The Rare Impact Fund” which has pledged $100 million for mental health services to individuals in underserved communities. In order to achieve this, Rare Beauty is donating 1% of all sales to the fund. 

Image may contain Selena Gomez Human Person Cosmetics and Face
Figure 1: Allure “Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty Line Is Coming Soon, and We Got to Try It Early”

Like Rare Beauty, ’Wellbeing’ is a concept often prioritised by brands. While it is such a widespread term it can often be hard to describe. According to the American Psychological Association (APA) ’wellbeing’ is “A state of happiness and contentment, with low levels of distress, overall good physical and mental health and outlook, or good quality of life.”. While some brands, like Rare Beauty, have communicated their purpose without distracting from their products, other brands such as Goop have fully commercialised the concept of wellbeing by heavily endorsing ’wellness’ products. Goop has marketed wellness products with false and unreliable scientific claims to Gen Z audiences by claiming that it will improve their wellbeing. One of their most notable controversies is the infamous ‘Rose quartz egg’ that claimed to ‘balance hormones and regulate menstrual cycles’. In 2018, Goop suffered a $145,000 (£112,000) loss for making these unscientific claims (BBC, 2020).

Figure 2: Rose Quartz Egg on Goop Website (Accessed: 28/10/22).

According to the CFI, the sharing economy can be described as “an economic model in which goods and resources are shared by individuals and groups in a collaborative way such that physical assets become services” (Corporate Finance Institute, 2021). The sharing economy is relevant in today’s climate as it eliminates waste and the need for people to own all of their possessions. For consumers, the sharing economy is particularly beneficial as it makes everyday costs more affordable. “The basis of the sharing economy is simple: by using the internet to expand our networks, the needs of one consumer can easily be met by another community member.” (IE University Driving Innovation, 2020). In practice, Uber is a good example of this. Uber drivers can work as much or as little as they choose to, by providing consumers near them the service of a taxi for a reasonable cost.

Figure 3: IE University, the sharing economy.

Reference List:

Allure (2020) Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty Line Is Coming Soon, and We Got to Try It Early., Available at: https://www.allure.com/story/selena-gomez-rare-beauty-makeup-line-interview-review (Accessed: 28/10/22).

BBC (2020) Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop series on Netflix slammed by NHS chief., Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51312441 (Accessed: 28/10/22).

CFI (2021) Sharing Economy., Available at: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/sharing-economy/ (Accessed: 28/10/22).

Forbes (2020) Sustainable Retail: How Gen Z Is Leading The Pack., Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2020/01/31/sustainable-retail-how-gen-z-is-leading-the-pack/ (Accessed: 28/10/22).

Glamour (2020) Rare Beauty: Selena Gomez’s Beauty Line Is Finally Here., Available at: https://www.glamour.com/story/selena-gomez-rare-beauty-line-details (Accessed: 28/10/22).

IE University Driving Innovation (2020).,Available at: https://drivinginnovation.ie.edu/what-are-the-advantages-of-the-sharing-economy/ (Accessed: 28/10/22).

Figure Reference List:

Allure (2020) Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty Line Is Coming Soon, and We Got to Try It Early., Available at: https://www.allure.com/story/selena-gomez-rare-beauty-makeup-line-interview-review (Accessed: 28/10/22).

Goop (2020) Rose Quartz Egg., Available at https://goop.com/goop-wellness-rose-quartz-egg/p/ (Accessed: 28/10/22).

IE University Driving Innovation (2020).,Available at: https://drivinginnovation.ie.edu/what-are-the-advantages-of-the-sharing-economy/ (Accessed: 28/10/22).

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Profit

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‘Profit’ considers the financial aspects of the fashion industry. In the UK the “Fashion industry is worth £26 billion” and it provides “800,000 jobs to the economy” (The British Council, 2016). This makes the fashion industry the largest creative industry in the UK. Not only does the UK Fashion Industry thrive in business but it also hosts six of the world’s 20 leading fashion universities (The British Council, 2016) making it the world leader in fashion education. While global fashion brands can appear to prioritise other aspects of business, such as ethics, for the majority their main priority is profit. They aim to maintain a large profit margin, and keep costs low while maintaining their brands level of quality. 

The most successful sector, financially, within the fashion market is the luxury sector. Luxury brands appeal to both high end consumers and high street consumers. For items ‘straight from the runway’ high end consumers may spend up to thousands of dollars, but for high street consumers it is more in the range of hundreds. They may purchase smaller pieces from the designer collections including accessories like sunglasses, bags and costume jewellery. In this way luxury brands can appeal to a wide audience while maintaining their prestigious reputations. The conglomerate LVMH, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, has a “$194 billion market value and assets exceeding $108 billion, making it the 73rd largest public company in the world” (Forbes, 2020) dominates the luxury market. They own 75 prestigious brands including Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Givenchy and Fendi. 

Figure 1: Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH.

During times of economic crisis and instability, it can be difficult for businesses to maintain sufficient levels of profit. When interest rates are high and consumers restrict their spending, brands can face huge declines in sales and find themselves having to use different pricing strategies. This makes brand competitiveness harder to achieve during a declining economy because costs still have to be covered in the price while offering a better price than competing brands. 

In the current social climate, there is an emphasis on creativity and commerce. Art is now widely accessible and creativity is of great importance to many consumers. Some may argue that fashion is art in itself and consumers want to feel this in the buying process. Selfridges is an upscale department store on Oxford Street, London who have embraced this concept and bridged the gap between creativity and commerce by immersing art into their store experience.  They claim to ‘balance the consumption of goods with the consumption of culture” by allowing customers to experience art first-hand.

Figure 2: Art at Selfridges, London.

Reference List:

Bloomberg (2021) Bernard Arnault Places $538 Million Bet on Booming LVMH Stock., Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-21/bernard-arnault-places-538-million-bet-on-booming-lvmh-stock?leadSource=uverify%20wall (Accessed: 21/10/22)

Forbes (2020) The World’s Largest Apparel Companies 2020: LVMH On Top While Nike Gains Foothold., Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/marleycoyne/2020/05/13/the-worlds-largest-apparel-companies-2020-lmvh-on-top-while-nike-gains-foothold/?sh=3581b0c30ed3 (Accessed: 21/10/22)

Selfridges (2020) Art at Selfridges., Available at: https://www.selfridges.com/GB/en/features/articles/selfridges-guideto/art-at-selfridges/ (Accessed 21/10/22)

The British Council (2016) The Power of Fashion., Available at: https://www.britishcouncil.org/research-policy-insight/insight-articles/power-fashion (Accessed: 21/10/22)

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People

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‘People’ is another of the four pillars to be considered within the fashion industry. People are the consumers of the fashion industry and without people the fashion industry would not exist nor have revolutionised in the way it has. Generation Z or commonly referred to as ‘Gen Z’ are “people born from 1995 to 2010” (McKinsey 2018 ‘True Gen’). They are the first generation of ‘true digital natives’, who have been fully exposed to technology since birth. 

Figure 1: Forbes 2021 ‘Five Undeniable Truths About Marketing To Gen-Z’

Gen Z is an ‘omnichannel generation’ (Vogue Business, 2021) that utilises whatever is available to them to best suit their needs and desires. While Gen Z is exposed to such a variety of fashion, their large awareness and emphasis on ethics turns a majority of their spending to second hand or pre-loved markets rather than fast fashion. Depop, a second hand resale platform, is popular with Gen Z with an overwhelming 90% of their customers being under the age of 26 (Neate, 2021). Their chief brand officer, Peter Semple, explained to vogue that “by shopping in this way, Gen Z is redefining what ‘newness’ means” (Vogue Business, 2021). Gen Z has adopted more sustainable behaviors than any other generation. 50% of Gen Z have reduced how much they buy and 45% actually stopped purchasing and supporting certain brands because of their lack of sustainability or ethics (Deloitte, 2022). Research such as this demonstrates the changing buying habits of new generations and inspires other generations to follow. 

Gen Z has inspired an age of brand interactivity and communication between consumer and producer. As digital natives, they use resources available to them to research brands, influencers and producers of the fashion industry. Allowing them to make informed decisions about who they are really supporting. At the same time, producers of the fashion industry harness this heavy use of social media to target Gen Z through methods of digital marketing. Brands acknowledge the power of media presence and the large potential reach that social media provides, to interact with their consumers. For example, Oh Polly, a British clothing company, regularly posts ‘sneak peaks’ of new collections and customer ‘competitions’ on Instagram to get consumers to repost their Instagram account. When Gen Z consumers repost a brand’s account, it engages external Gen Z instagrammers who aren’t already existing customers. New fashion brands rely on this method of digital marketing as it is highly effective and has very low costs.  Fast fashion companies almost exclusively use these methods such as Boohoo, who have increased their sales by 51% through increased use of Instagram marketing (Mighty, 2019).

Figure 2- Oh Polly Instagram Account accessed on 13/10/22

Reference List:

Deloitte (2022) How consumers are embracing sustainability., Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/consumer-business/articles/sustainable-consumer.html (Accessed: 13/10/22).

McKinsey (2018) ’True Gen’: Generation Z and its implications for companies., Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/true-gen-generation-z-and-its-implications-for-companies (Accessed 13/10/22).

Mighty (2019) Fashion Retailer Boohoo Nearly Doubles Profits Thanks to Instagram., Available at: https://www.mightycomms.co.uk/blog/boohoo-doubles-profits-instagram/ (Accessed 13/10/22).

Neate (2021) Etsy buys secondhand clothing app Depop to tap into gen Z., Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/jun/02/etsy-buys-second-hand-clothing-app-depop-to-tap-into-gen-z (Accessed 13/10/22).

VeryWellMind (2021) What Americans Are Worrying About Right Now, From the Silent Generation to Gen Z., Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-americans-of-all-ages-are-worrying-about-right-now-5202028 (Accessed: 13/10/22).

Vogue Business (2021) Gen Z shopping trends uncovered., Available at: https://www.voguebusiness.com/consumers/gen-z-shopping-trends-uncovered-pay-pal (Accessed: 13/10/22).

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Planet

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Planet is one of the four pillars to be considered within the fashion industry. Arguably, it is the most vital and relevant to the current climate of the planet. A topical area often closely related to the planet is sustainability. Sustainability can often be described as consuming the planet’s resources responsibly without compromising that same accessibility for future generations. 

The United Nations introduced ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ also referred to as ‘SDGs’ to try and end poverty, inequality and the destruction of the planet. Many ‘SDGs’ are relevant to the fashion industry but particularly the 12th goal ‘Responsible consumption and production’. This specifically relates to the fashion industry due to mass production that uses valuable natural resources. An example of this is a single pair of jeans, that approximately uses 3,781 litres of water to produce- according to figures from the United Nations Environment Programme (The World Bank, 2019). The fashion industry is responsible for “10% of annual global carbon emissions”, more than both the aviation and shipping industry. While many fashion brands strive or claim to be sustainable, in reality it is far more difficult to achieve. It has been proposed that the ‘circular economy’ would be a realistic and accessible way to introduce more environmentally conscious practices to the fashion industry.

Figure 1: United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals

The circular economy reshapes the economy upon principles of eliminating pollution and waste to elongate the use of natural resources. It considers both the production and consumption of the goods. For producers of fashion, the circular economy suggests to recycle materials, recover damaged goods and to repair. This would reduce the loss of unused garments to landfill and would ensure that all the carbon emissions used in creating damaged items weren’t wasted.

Figure 2: The Circular Economy Model

For consumers of the fashion industry, the circular economy invites them to reuse, recycle, regift, refuse and reduce. In practice, this is buying less and making the most out of what you already have. For example, making alterations to garments that no longer fit or regifting them. As well as this, the services that are involved with buying product such as choosing online delivery with only electric modes of transport or refusing a plastic carrier bag and reusing an existing bag that you already own. For many environmentally aware customers, these recommendations are already being practiced. However, the reliance of changing environmental impacts cannot only come from the bottom (consumers). There is a large reliability for large corporations to make drastic and necessary changes to their practices to receive a large impact on the environment. While this is idealistic, in reality large brands have long standing traditional supply chains that have existed for years and it is difficult to introduce new strategies and to demand change when it is not in the company’s interest to. 

Reference List:

The World Bank (2019) How Much Do Our Wardrobes Cost to the Environment?, Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/09/23/costo-moda-medio-ambiente (Accessed: 10/10/22).

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A Favourite Fashion Brand

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A blogpost about my favourite fashion brand, Oh Polly. Oh Polly is a British clothing brand that designs and produces their clothing without relying on wholesale buyers, one of few in the UK.

Not only does Oh Polly produce high quality clothing, but they are also a brand built upon ethical values. The brand originated on Ebay in 2008 when co founder Claire Henderson visited south east Asia. Henderson was struck by the extreme deprivation and poverty, and wanted to do something to help out. Henderson partnered with Mike Branney to set up what is known as ’The Brannerson Foundation’ they started by selling old clothes and university books, which eventually raised enough money to establish a classroom and employ a local teacher full time in a small village in Cambodia.

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