Seasonless fashion and how to aboard it
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Fashion
In recent years, trends and seasonality of clothing have started to be questioned. With the pandemic we have lived and continued to experiment to a lesser degree, things have changed a lot and this problem that was already put on the table has grown.
Do consumers and brands really need to follow trends and seasons in fashion? Seasonality should mean clothing according to a period with certain climatic characteristics. But in the fast-fashion world that is not really the situation, we have gone from 2 or 4 seasons a year with one collection per season, to sometimes 52 collections a year for brands like Shein, Zara or Fashion Nova. This means every week they are re-stocking their stores. Living in the social media era the youth customers were used to wearing clothing and discarding it because once they posted it, the life of the piece was over.
2020 was a year that made fashion tremble, the year runways were cancelled, Gucci and Prada cancelled collections, Michael Kors and Saint Lauren stopped participating in the seasonal calendar. The truth was, consumers were mostly at home wearing loungewear and activewear. Many brands suffer the consequences and furthermore, the factories and the workers were left unpaid and fired.
This served to wake up some of the consumer’s and make them realize how big labels are overproducing and the impact they are having. Although for 2021, many have slowly come back to buy every time they can, there are more and more fashionistas considering the true value of their clothing. According to Global Data, “51%* of people aged 16-24 years old have been buying second-hand or ‘used’ clothing more often. People are actively looking for alternatives to fast fashion” Which helps us to understand that trends are not their main worry anymore and how they are getting to understand the impact of fast fashion.
So, what are the consumers of this new era considering when buying seasonless clothing? Local brands need to know their target. If your brand is based in a country where you can barely differentiate seasons, there is no need to emphasize so much to keep up with the fashion seasonal calendar. It is also not necessary to try every trend. Pick the ones that will work with your DNA, but don’t lose your essence. If a brand is based in a place where you need to produce different clothing for the climate conditions and follow seasonality, then focus on producing items that won’t be out of fashion the moment the season ends, but on creating pieces that shoppers will wear year after year.
Another key point to consider is the increasing appreciation of the made-to-order model that many sustainable businesses are implementing. This means more dependence on timeless and core pieces, smaller drops, less waste produced. This makes brands stronger to face problematic seasons such as the COVID-19 pandemic. From the consumer’s point of view, this is something to bear in mind, but there’s also the fact that they feel a sense of owning a custom-made piece, something more special and less mainstream because there won’t be millions of replicas.
Honest marketing is another valid reason to purchase from a seasonless fashion brand, according to Vogue Business brands that predicate radical transparency and tell all about their journey to sustainability, the good and the bad, including the mistakes made, are more likely to appeal to a millennial and Gen Z audience. They now expect a brand to be fully transparent on their whole process and question every statement they release. Brands are encouraged to best and to talk about it, not sell lies. No brand is yet fully sustainable, but the road is important and misleading the clients is sure to be a deal-breaker.
A brand that has embraced this model, recently just releasing 1 collection per year is Graciela Huam. Their pieces are timeless yet youthful and fun, but able to last in time for its style and quality. They are currently offering pre-orders and they constantly share their background in their social media and web. You can track their origins; know the work the farmers and artisans do and check out their beautiful pieces on their web.
To summarize, brands and designers nowadays must be proactive and accept the changes and act on them before it is too late. Not only for the greater good but thinking from a business perspective too, because even though people making the difference continue to be a minority, the numbers are increasing and better to be part of the change instead of being hit by it.
