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As a growing number of pregnant women are joining prenatal exercises classes, the BBC's Sarah Porter - 34 weeks into her pregnancy - attends a boot camp in Singapore.

It's 8.45am on a Saturday and Singapore's Botanic Gardens are alive with people and activity.

Local walking groups chat furiously in Mandarin, while gaggles of women push prams, coffees in hand. No-one seems particularly deterred by the rising heat.

I'm here to join a brand new exercise group called Mom In Balance. It's a franchise business founded in the Netherlands that specialises in outdoor exercise programmes for pregnant women and new mothers.

As I sit and wait for others to arrive, a group of five or six women run by me, overtaking everyone in sight. They are being led by a tall blonde woman wearing a t-shirt that says Mom in Balance. I start to panic a little.

I've done a reasonable amount of exercise throughout my pregnancy, including some swimming and a (very little) bit of running. But there is absolutely no way I'll be able to keep up with the group I've just seen sprint past.

Thankfully, a heavily pregnant woman decked out in running gear comes and sits next to me. I'm at the right spot, she tells me, at the right time. The 8am class I've just seen run past is for mothers getting back into shape soon after childbirth.

The tall blonde instructor returns to take the 9am class - a group which is now made up of three or four quite visibly pregnant women, together with some others.

As we set off on our warm-up, we are already dripping with sweat. As it is far from usual to see groups of pregnant women exercising outside in Singapore, passers-by stop and stare.

"Don't worry, we're famous here," one woman says to me. "Some people even stop to take photos of us."

'Powerful growth'

Despite well-documented studies that show the benefits of exercise during all stages of pregnancy, globally the prenatal exercise industry is relatively new.

In fact, while a mass of data is readily available on the $542bn (£418bn) world fitness industry, it is very difficult to find any about prenatal classes.

For example, the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) reports extensively on the fitness industry, but has no statistics whatsoever on the prenatal sector. Nor could they find any for me, from any country.

However, GWI's director of research Beth McGroarty, says the sector is definitely now expanding strongly.

"Programmes are being added at existing fitness centres and there are more prenatal yoga, Pilates and other gentle workouts available," she says.

"And given the powerful growth in prenatal fitness programmes, one can assume there will be research on this market in the future."

Founded in 2006, Mom in Balance now has franchises in 11 countries, including the US, Japan and Germany, as it tries to meet increasing demand from mums-to-be.

While the bulk of its 7,000 members are in the Netherlands, founder Esther van Diepen, is aiming to see that figure hit at least 10,000 by the end of this year, as it continues to expand around the world.

Here in Singapore, the franchise is just four months old, with 75 active members. Jantien Kroese-van den Berg, a fitness instructor and the country's new Mom in Balance franchise owner, hopes to double those numbers by the end of the year.

At 150 Singapore dollars ($108; £83) per month for a variety of classes, Jantien says she is expecting to rely more heavily on Singapore's expat community than its locals for the initial growth in numbers.

Word of mouth, she hopes, will then see more Singaporeans joining, despite some cultural opposition to pregnant women doing exercises.

'Defend themselves'

In Singapore, where the population is about 75% ethnic Chinese, together with minorities including Indians and Malays, it's very rare to see pregnant women en masse taking part in rigorous activity outdoors. Prenatal yoga and Pilates is popular, but not more vigorous exercise.

Jantien says: "There is sometimes a general feeling that you should do nothing because that might be better to hold on to your pregnancy.

"The Asian-born ladies in my classes - they all have to defend themselves to their families, even to their friends."

A 2015 research paper that analyses the differences in beliefs, attitudes and intentions towards prenatal exercise between women in China and Australia explains a little of what's behind this.

"In traditional Chinese culture, pregnancy is considered a vulnerable period that requires rest and recuperation, with many antenatal taboos, some of which may contrast with international guidelines on exercise in pregnancy," the report says.

"Two relevant taboos intended to avoid spontaneous miscarriage include 'not walking too fast' and 'not walking too often', which have been reported to be adhered to by the majority of Chinese women," it continues.

But Mom in Balance member Richa Nair, a Singaporean Indian, explains it's not only a traditional Chinese belief that prenatal exercise can be dangerous.

"My friends sounded a bit shocked when I described the exercises we do, but soon that turned to admiration," she says.

"With regards to my family, they are mostly horrified and believe this is a time to relax and slow down the pace of life. Their eyebrows shot into their foreheads when I told them about my prenatal exercising."

'No high impact'

Dr Ann Tan, a leading obstetrician and gynaecologist in Singapore, says attitudes towards prenatal exercise are definitely changing, though perhaps more slowly in parts of Asia.

Like most medical professionals, though, she is guarded with her advice.

"Usually I don't like any high impact in the first trimester. I like walking, you can swim too. But no high impact stuff," she says.

"The second and third trimester depends very much on the lady herself. If she's perfectly well and she's been active all her life, then she can actually resume some of her exercise, but tail it down to about 60%."

Singapore-based personal trainer Aaron Rolley, the boss of International Fitness Consultants, has worked with pregnant women for about 20 years.

Charging 100 Singapore dollars for a one-on-one session, he has built a reputation as a leader in his field.

"Training during pregnancy is not about losing fat or going for a personal best," says Aaron.

"The workout for each mother will look very different, some will just stretch, foam roll and mobilise, while others will be doing chin ups and push ups. It depends on the individual and their training history."

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Nine-month stretch: The rise of prenatal exercise classes

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As a growing number of pregnant women are joining prenatal exercises classes, the BBC's Sarah Porter - 34 weeks into her pregnancy - attends a boot camp in Singapore. It's 8.45am on a Saturday and Singapore's Botanic Gardens are alive with people and activity.

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As part of the marketing mix, promotion includes all activities that involve communicating with the customer about the product and its benefits and features. Once a company has worked on the product and price elements, it is time to start a conversation with the consumer about the product. This includes raising awareness through different mediums to increase sales, as well as to create and foster brand loyalty.

Information provided to the customer at this stage helps them in making purchase decisions regarding the product. Often, there is substantial cost associated with promotional activities. But since the result is often an increase in sales or customer loyalty, there is thought to be long term return on this investment. There are many ends that a company may try to reach through a promotion including but not limited to an increase in sales, acceptance of new products, brand equity creation and brand positioning, addressing competitor actions and rebranding.

In this article we will look at 1) role of promotion in the marketing mix, 2) objectives of promotional activities, 3) major targets of promotional campaigns, 4) the promotional mix, 5) types of promotional strategies, 6) managing promotion through the product life cycle, and 7) an example of the promotion mix in action.

As briefly mentioned in the introduction, promotion is the communication aspect of the marketing mix. It is creating a channel for conversation with the targeted consumer base. Through promotion, the company aims to attract the customer's attention and give them enough information about the product to foster enough interest to motivate them to purchase.

The team tasked with these activities will begin by understanding the dynamics of the target audience and deciding which modes of promotion are likely to help meet targets. Once the channel is decided, information from other elements of the mix is incorporated to ensure that the message sent corresponds to the actual product features, benefits and user experience. None of the elements of the marketing mix work in isolation. Instead a unified body of information acts as the source for all activities within these 4P's. The available information is filtered to include those areas which will be most relevant to the target audience.

Different organizations have different expectations from their promotional activities. These expectations are developed into objectives which then shape the selection and execution of these activities. Some possible objectives of promotion for any company may include:

Building Awareness

Often, a product or brand may need to create an identity within the market. For the most part, this applies to a new company, a new brand or a new product. But often it may also be needed in times of rebranding or building up a failing product. The aim then is to select those promotional activities that help inform the customer about the company and the product.

Creating Interest

If the customer is already aware of the product or has been made aware through some activities, it becomes necessary to move them along to actual purchasing behavior. The aim here is to identify a need that the product fulfills and make sure that the customer recognizes this need as something that is unfulfilled for them.

Providing Information

Sometimes, a company may just need to provide necessary information regarding the product, its benefits, features or usage to the consumer. This may be the case if a new product is introduced into the market.

Unique features or benefits may need to be explained. In other cases, a new feature on an existing product may need to be highlighted. In some cases, such as in instances where environmental impact or health scares may be in play, information about a change in business practices and company policy may need to be communicated.

Stimulate Demand

A company may seek to enhance its sales through promotion. If sales have been lower than usual, then the aim may be to get them back up to target level by re-engaging old customers and encouraging new ones to try a product out. In other instances, the aim may be to increase sales further at certain times of the year such as near a major holiday. Free demonstrations or special deals may be used to reach these ends.

Differentiate product

In situations where there are many competitors in the market, a company may seek to use promotional activities to differentiate its product in the market and make it stand out from the crowd. The focus here remains on those features, functionalities or benefits that may not be offered by a competitor or may not be offered so well.

Reinforce the Brand

One basic aim of a promotional activity may be to further strengthen the brand and its place in the market. This helps turn a first time purchases into a life time purchaser. This can also help create advocates for the product from within the customer base.

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Any promotional activity is usually designed with a specific target audience in mind. The activity is therefore created using messages, cues and information that they will respond to. Realistically, the major portion of any promotional budget is aimed at this specific targeted audience. However, there may be important fringe groups who may have an influence over the intended target or stake in the product. Some of these fringe groups may include:

1. The Actual Audience - These are the current customers of the product as well as former customers and any potential new customers. The activity is created for these people specifically.

2. Influencers - People or organizations that may have their own sphere of influence over the target audience make up this category. If a positive impact is made on these people, they may then use this influence to encourage sales. The media, opinion leaders, Trade associations and special interest groups are some of these influencers.

3. Distribution Channel Members - The product is handled and provided to the customer through this channel making them an important category of targets. A retailer may choose to display a certain product in a more prominent position than the others if they believe in the product and its benefits.

4. Other Companies - Communicating with other companies may open up opportunities to collaborate on joint ventures.

There may often be a tendency to narrow down the focus of promotional activities to only advertising. Quite the opposite, there are a number of ways to approach the audience with information about the product. Increasingly, businesses feel the need to use both one directional and two sided means of communications to reach the customer.

Through the promotional mix, a company aims to fulfill two basic objectives. One is to make the customer that the product and brand exist. The other is to them to actually pick this product over all others and continue to buy it.

Five Elements of the Promotional Mix

There are five methods that make up a promotional mix. A company may choose to use one or more of these in harmony to ensure a clear, effective and direct message reaches the customer. The selection of the portfolio of activities may depend on the company's marketing and sales strategies and budget allocations. These five methods are:

1. Advertising - This mode of promotion is usually paid, with little or no personal message. Mass media such as television, radio or newspapers and magazines is most often the carrier of these messages. Apart from these, billboards, posters, web pages, brochures and direct mail also fall in the same category. While this method has traditionally been one sided, advertisement over new media such as the internet may allow for quick feedback.

2. Public Relations & Sponsorship - PR or publicity tries to increase positive mention of the product or brand in influential media outlets. These could include newspapers, magazines, talk shows and new media such as social networks and blogs. This could also mean allowing super users, or influencers to test the product and speak positively about it to their peers. This type of advertisement may or may not be paid. For example, sponsoring a major event and increasing brand visibility is a paid action. Sending free samples to a blogger then depends on their discretion and opinion and is not usually swayed by payment.

3. Personal Selling - Opposite of the one directional promotional methods, direct selling connects company representatives with the consumer. These interactions can be in person, over the phone and over email or chat. This personal contact aims to create a personal relationship between the client and the brand or product.

4. Direct Marketing - This channel targets specific influential potential users through telemarketing, customized letters, emails and text messages.

5. Sales Promotions - These are usually short term strategic activities which aim to encourage a surge in sales. These could be 'buy one get one free' options, seasonal discounts, contests, samples or even special coupons with expiration dates.

Important Considerations in Promotional Decisions

Whenever a company sets out to design its promotional mix, it needs to consider the following points:

1. Stage in the Product Lifecycle - During the beginning of the lifecycle, there may need to be more aggressive and informational advertising, while a slowdown in promotions may be seen during the later stages.

2. Nature of the Product - If a product is not new in its usage or function, there may be less need for information and more focus on brand equity creation as well as on emotional aspects of the product.

3. The Allocated and Available Budge - A certain total budget is set for promotional activities and these then need to be designed and executed within these constraints.

4. Cultural Sensitivity - If a product is to be launched in a new international market or translated across markets, it becomes imperative to take into consideration local affiliations and sensitivities. These include both cultural and religious considerations. Often, these issues may even present themselves within one country.

5. Target Market Composition - The people who make up the target market need to be considered before committing to a promotional mix. If a market is not tech savvy, then more traditional means may need to be employed. Conversely, an internet generation used to instant gratification may need to be provided more focused and targeted messages.

6. Competitor Actions - The methods a competitor uses need to be taken into account as well. There may not be a need to spend money on a radical advertising method if a customer is using rudimentary methods for example.

A company may use different strategies to promote its products. These can be broadly categorized as push and pull strategies. Both strategies differ in how the customer is approached.

Push Strategies

As the name indicates, this is when the product is taken to the customer by the company. This is mostly used when the product is an impulse purchase or if the company has an established relationship with the customer base. Companies may sell directly from their showrooms or at tradeshows etc. Essentially, there is less need to create an advertising buzz and more to make the product readily available at retail outlets and showrooms. Push marketing may focus primarily on short term sales.

Pull Strategies

In the opposite approach, there is an attempt to pull customers towards the brand or product. Through mass media campaigns to sales promotions and personal references, a company attempts to create brand loyalty and attractiveness. Pull strategies may attempt to focus primarily on long term brand loyalty then high sales in the short term. A lot of media hype and mass campaigns are required to create sufficient interest and encourage customers to seek out the product on their own.

Most companies will use a mix of these two strategies at different points in time.

As briefly mentioned before, different stages of the product life cycle require different types of promotional activities and strategies. This will help prolong the life of the product.

1. Introduction - At this stage, major promotional campaigns and activities will be designed and executed. A comprehensive promotional mix will be designed with full input from the rest of the marketing mix. The aim here is to provide detailed information about the product, its features and benefits. Special offers and sales promotions may also be used to pull in customers while in some markets push strategies may be used simultaneously employed.

2. Growth - Once the product is established and accepted, there will be a shift in strategy from information to more emotional aspects. The aim is to increase brand awareness, create strong brand equity and foster long term customer loyalty.

3. Maturity - By now the market may have matured and there may be stiff competition and similar products available. Promotional activities will now turn more persuasive and there may be an attempt to create product differentiation by highlighting specific benefits and features that fulfill needs and are unique.

4. Decline - At this point, promotional activities may wind down to the occasional reminder that the product exists in an attempt to forestall the product's eventual decline.

How Promotional Mix Helped Turn Skoda Around

Skoda has suffered dips and seen highs in its popularity as a brand over the course of its 100 year history. At its lowest point, there was a strong perception of an outdated brand with obsolete manufacturing techniques. Through a combination of new techniques, a new partner and an effective PR strategy, the brand was turned around and a new image created.

Public Relations at Skoda

There is no short term solution to change long held perceptions. If there is to be a long term change in perception, it needs to be achieved through sustained and consistent actions over a significant period of time. PR activities are an example of such a solution where positive messages are sent through different mediums to the public, eventually establishing a positive reputation over time.

The Image Problem

Skoda needed an image makeover in the UK where it was not taken seriously at all. In 1991, the brand was purchased by Volkswagen. This enabled the company to redesign its manufacturing and bring product quality and brand image at par with competitors in the UK and eventually the world.

Despite this shift, customer perception remained low, an unfortunate carry over from the past. Products were now updated and the brand able to offer more to the consumer. The challenge now was to educate the audience on these changes and bring about a change in perception.

The Challenge

The attempt at changing mindsets was divided up into two challenges. The first to move negative perceptions to neutral and the second to move neutral perceptions to positive. An integrated press and public relations plan was devised and rolled out to address the first challenge and communicate the changed company and product to the audience. Factory visits, meetings and interviews with designers and engineers, motor shows, sponsorships, displays at public arenas and well planned advertisement campaigns were part of this strategy. These efforts helped reduce the strong negative image and create the basis for further shift towards a positive image.

In attempting to address the second challenge, the company needed to encourage consumers to think about buying the product. This is not possible only through advertising for example, but needs a focus on building up the brand and what it stands for. This was done by emphasizing Skoda's brand values through cars that were practical, reliable, functional and robust. This was also reiterated through a focus on quality and value for money for the customer among other things.

The Result

Through this PR effort, and subsequent important brand launches, the modern Skoda brand name was established allowing the company to step successfully into the future.
Image credit: Wikimedia commons | Malakooti, B. (2013). Operations and Production Systems with Multiple Objectives under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

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Marketing Mix | Promotion in Four P's | Cleverism

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As part of the marketing mix, promotion includes all activities that involve communicating with the customer about the product and its benefits and features. Once a company has worked on the product and price elements, it is time to start a conversation with the consumer about the product.

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The global maternity wear market size was valued at USD 18.3 billion in 2018 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 4.3% from 2019 to 2025. The market growth is attributed to increasing focus on pregnancy fashion and growing pregnant working women population in developing and emerging countries.

Previously, maternity wear had been used to hide the baby bump, regardless of the fit. Recently, women have also become aware regarding the fitting of the clothes. Augmenting fashion consciousness among new mothers has led to the boost in demand for outerwear under both the casual and office wear categories. Most of these products include a layer of spandex or have elastane in fabric composition. Modern day mothers are highly conscious about their physical appearance even at the time of pregnancy. Hence, maternity wear is now highly differentiated based upon consumer preference and occasions.

Maternity wear is generally designed using a loose, suitable cut that includes elastic, tabs, stretchable fabric such as elastane, and spandex that allows the consumer extra-comfort in her gestating days. After pregnancy, many women also wear maternity clothes until they have lost the weight of pregnancy and can fit back into normal clothing. This is a major reason why the demand for such a segment is prominent for a mother even after her maternity term.

The outerwear category held a major share in the market and is expected to witness significant growth due to rising demand for formal wear among pregnant working women population across major cities in developed and emerging countries such as France, India, and Argentina. Companies such as Gap and H&M have a reserved section for maternity wear that provide t-shirts, camis, jeans, and sweatpants with the classic, clean lines for women of all sizes.

With emergence of online shopping sites and availability of easy delivery options, demand for maternity clothing is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period. The online channel is projected to exhibit positive growth in this category over the forecast period owing to easy payment methods and rise in digitalization across different channels. For instance, e-commerce websites such as Myntra and Jabong provide consumers with a wide range of maternity wear products including intimate wear.

Product Insights

On the basis of products, the maternity wear market is categorized into outerwear, innerwear, and night wear. The outerwear category held the largest market share in 2018 owing to a wide variety of sub-segments such as tops, tunics, overalls, jeans, and dresses available under various brands. For instance, First Cry's maternity segment provides affordable clothing for new mothers through social media campaigning across the APAC market.

Additionally, the innerwear segment in the maternity section has been growing substantially over the years as it caters to the needs of pregnant women undergoing several bodily changes during and also, after their pregnancy. Camisoles are a popular product under the innerwear category apart from . For instance, Marks and Spencer launched their Spring Collection 2019, catering to the demands of the millennial mothers across the globe.

The nightwear category is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.5% over the forecast period. This segment growth is attributed to growing need for easy mobility and pleasant fit that such clothes with extra stretchable fabric provide. Spandex is commonly used in such apparels where size alteration is an issue. Clothing such as pajamas and night shirts from brands like Zara and Mom Store have been a popular choice amongst new moms and women who are telecommuting after a month or two of their deliveries.

In countries like France, U.S., and Ireland where the fashion consciousness among women is high, demand for formal and fashion wear is bound to increase in spite of the designation of the woman. Moreover, countries such as Brazil, India, and Saudi Arabia where the number of pregnant women is high, the market is projected to witness significant growth in the next few years.

Distribution Channels Insights

Store-based channels such as supermarkets and hypermarkets and exclusive specialty stores held the largest share of 67.0% in 2018. A wide variety of brands and products are available in the store-based leading to a majority of purchases from here itself. Maternity apparels are a trending category under various brands such as Seraphine and Thyme Maternity across North America and hence, augmenting the growth of the overall market in this region.

Online stores and apps such as Myntra and Ebay are expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.9% during 2019 to 2025. Rise in the number of internet users, 24/7 availability, discounts and offers, and ease of access are the major factors driving the market sales through online channel. For instance, Asos provides a range of trendy and reasonable maternity clothing catering to the contemporary needs of new moms to be. In addition, it provides boutique brands such as Mamalicious and New Look Maternity. The idea behind this association is to feature its own in-house label with specialty-size collections for both petite and tall moms-to-be.

Regional Insights

In terms of value, North America held the largest share of 28.6% in 2018 and is anticipated to witness significant growth over the forecast period. The growth is attributed to increasing celebrity influence over social media such as Instagram and Facebook, along with the presence of big labels such as Seraphine and Thyme Maternity operating exclusively to cater to the needs of pregnant women across this region. Hence, an increase in the demand for plus sizes in formal wear under the outerwear section is a major factor contributing to the market growth.

Growing popularity of fashionable maternity apparels due to Kate Middleton's pregnancy is expected to boost the maternity sales, especially in European countries such as the U.K. and France. Additionally, many celebrities and bloggers such as Kayla Itsines are documenting their pregnancies through workout videos and posts via social media to market a specific brand of maternity wear.

Asia Pacific is expected to exhibit significant growth over the forecast period due to increasing spending by new mothers to be over their first pregnancy photo-shoots, accompanied by growing purchasing capacity of women in this region. The number of births per woman in developing countries such as India, China, and Argentina is comparatively higher than other countries as per the report by World Bank in 2018. This is anticipated to augment the demand for maternity clothing in these countries over the anticipated period.

Rising popularity of fashion clothing due to increased disposable income in Middle Eastern countries such as Dubai and Saudi Arabia is likely to increase the demand for maternity wear in this region over the forecast period. For instance, Noon and Destination Maternity are the two popular brands in UAE offering exclusive maternity apparel range as per the preference of women in the country.

Maternity Wear Market Share Insights

The global market is moderately fragmented with the presence of major players such as Seraphine, Firstcry, Amoralia, Arcadia Group, Gap, Mothercare, and Isabella Oliver.Companies, apart from introducing new products, are increasingly launching their online sites to cater to the large customer base and provide convenient shopping experience. For instance, some of the popular online maternity wear stores are Maternity Old Navy, Stitch Fix, and Mom's the World.

Segments Covered in the Report

This report forecasts revenue growth at the global, regional, and country levels and provides an analysis of the latest industry trends in each of the sub-segments from 2015 to 2025. For the purpose of this study, Grand View Research has segmented the global maternity wear market report on the basis of product, distribution channel, and region:

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maternity wear market - global maternity wear industry size

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Maternity Wear Market Size Share | Global Industry Trends Report, 2025

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The global maternity wear market size was valued at USD 18.3 billion in 2018, and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 4.3% from 2019 to 2025. The market growth is attributed to increasing focus on pregnancy fashion and growing pregnant working women population in developing and emerging countries

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Employers in the dark ages over recruitment of pregnant women and new mothers

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'We should all know very well that it is against the law not to appoint a woman because she is pregnant or might become pregnant. Yet we also know that women routinely get asked questions around family planning in interviews.

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Virgin Start Up Loans - Support and Advice to Start Your Own Business

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Business plan: How to write a customer profile
Figuring out who your customers are, how you'll reach them, and ultimately how you'll convince them to spend money on your product is at the heart of the business plan.
A useful way to get a handle on who your customers are is to create a customer profile - think about your typical customer and make them real. When you have an image in your head of your typical customer and what their life is like you can keep referring back to it when developing your product or service, when marketing it, when making decisions.

For example, VSU-funded entrepreneur Tessa Holladay of SAINT LUKE, has a customer profile that she calls Luke. "Luke is 32 years old. He likes being on the beach; he loves sailing, travelling, culture, and surfing. He wears stylish brands like Ray Ban, Sebago and Orlebar Brown - he's good-looking, entrepreneurial, affluent, socially conscious, multi-lingual and adventurous," she told Virgin.com.

Watch the video and read the points below to learn how to develop a cracking customer profile.

Building a profile

Elements commonly considered in a customer profile include:

Age - How old is your typical customer?

Income - How much disposable income do your customers have? Are they teens with pocket money, affluent young professionals, or those on low income looking to maximise value?

Media - What newspapers, magazines and TV shows do they watch? What websites do they regularly visit? Are they fans of Guardian thinkpieces, regular watchers of Coronation Street, big Facebook fans?

Interests - Think about what your customers like to do in their spare time. Do they prefer video games to getting outside? What do they like to eat, what relaxes them, what makes them happy?

Location -Where do they live? Is it urban, suburban, in the middle of nowhere - and how does this impact their buying decisions?

Lifestyle - Think about their daily routine. What do they do for a living, and what sort of hours do they work? Who do they live with - children, spouse, housemates, alone? Where do they like to go on holiday? Where do they shop?

Think about why they're your customers

When you've built up an image of your typical customer, think about why they'd be interested in what you're selling. You're either solving a problem for them, or making their life better. But what makes them likely to choose you over the competition? How does your product fit into the life you've imagined for them, and how can you make it especially attractive to them?

Target them

Because you've already thought about and researched the media they consume and the way they spend their time, you can use this information to decide on what channels you'll used to market at them. You wouldn't market a product aimed at teenagers in the same way as you would a product aimed at pensioners, for example. Savvy social media campaigns are great, if your customers are regular Twitter users, but if they're not then you might see better results from advertising in print, or through handing out flyers. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, creating profiles allows you to personalise the way you interact with your customers.

Think about ideas for targeting them - discounts, campaigns, etc - and consider how you can do these things differently to your competitors.

Now you have knowledge of who your customers are and ideas for how to target them, think about the specific activities you need to do to make it happen. Whether it's setting up a Facebook page, a Twitter account, giving out flyers or an event, be specific about the steps you'll need to take. You can then identify the costs associated with these activities. How much will it all cost? Put these costs together, and you've turned a customer profile into an actionable plan.

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Business plan: How to write a customer profile

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Figuring out who your customers are, how you'll reach them, and ultimately how you'll convince them to spend money on your product is at the heart of the business plan. A useful way to get a handle on who your customers are is to create a customer profile - think about your typical customer and make them real.

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Seraphine owner market before their brand joined

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Seraphine owner market before their brand joined

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What do the Duchess of Cambridge, Angelina Jolie, and Gwen Stefani all have in common? At different points in time, they have all worn clothing from the Seraphine fashion range.

But Seraphine is no normal fashion label - this is a brand that specialises in maternity clothing.

In its 16-year history, it has become a household name among mothers around the world, and is the favourite maternity brand for the likes of Kate Middleton.

She might be the founder of a fashion empire, but I'm somewhat taken aback by how humble Cecile Reinaud seems, particularly for someone who is accustomed to dressing celebrities. In fact, she only name-drops a few famous people when I ask her to.

That's not to say she isn't assertive. Pre-Seraphine, she worked in the UK advertising industry, so she's no stranger to building a strong brand.

Mumentous mothers

The Paris-born chief executive - whose accent is laced with French intonations - stresses the importance of celebrity endorsement. "Most of our business is online, so people don't always get the chance to touch and see items before they buy them.

"So when celebrities wear our clothes, it gives our brand credibility, and breaks that online fear that the quality of the clothing might not be as good as the pictures."

With most of the dresses priced at around £60, Seraphine sits in that mid-market range. While the clothing is not prohibitively expensive, the trick is proving that the product is well-made, which is why the support of high-profile names is so valuable.

"Customers are unlikely to be familiar with us before they've been pregnant, so new customers don't know what to expect; the fact that celebrities wear us gives them the confidence that the clothes are good quality."

As life gets increasingly tough for retailers, celebrity endorsement has become a powerful way for fashion brands to prosper. Just look at Meghan Markle's ability to single-handedly turn a small designer into a global brand overnight, simply by wearing an item of clothing once.

Pregnant and professional

It's fair to say that before Seraphine launched, the maternity fashion market in the UK was pretty barren. Pregnant women would have a choice between baggy clothes or... baggy clothes.

And in fact, when Reinaud worked for marketing giant J Walter Thompson, her pregnant colleagues would complain about the lack of choice, and often jokingly asked whether the fashion-lover (who designed clothes as a hobby) would create some flattering maternity outfits for them to wear.

"They were frustrated. And it wasn't just office clothes - it was everything. I see it as a form of sexism that the big companies never addressed that market. People think 'pregnancy is just a phase, so you just have to make do', but I think it's the most important phase in a woman's life."

The chief executive says she even perfected some of the cuts on the clothing herself when she was pregnant with her second child, adding: "I think nothing beats experiencing it yourself to understand what women want."

While most of the big retailers now have their own maternity ranges, she says many still won't have the full spectrum, with the professional wardrobe being particularly scarce.

As more women are working while having children, it's surprising to hear how slow the fashion industry is to change.

I even half-jokingly ask about catwalks for pregnant women, but Reinaud is serious when she says we should be questioning why there isn't any form of representation of pregnant women at this stage. "I wanted it to happen at London Fashion Week, but the British Fashion Council don't seem to be particularly interested. It is discriminatory I think. They will wake up to it, but it's very slow."

Fashion cravings

While Seraphine's core markets are the UK, the US, Germany and France, the business ships to around 40 countries on a daily basis, which proves just how hungry pregnant women worldwide are for clothes that suit their personal sense of style - whether that's royal elegance, rock-star glamour, or anything in between.

As well as the vast online business, there are a number of Seraphine stores dotted around the world, including the UK, Paris, New York, Dubai and Hong Kong.

The business also supplies to department stores, with Debenhams and John Lewis being the company's main partners in the UK.

But this comes with its own demands, because these stores want to book collections in line with other womenswear fashion, which means Seraphine has to follow the "traditional" - and rather clunky - fashion cycle.

"In the next few months, we are going to start the buying season for summer 2019, so we need to have our collections ready."

Aside from its work with department stores, Seraphine centres largely around the fast fashion model, meaning it is adaptable. So if a piece is selling well, the team can be reactive and create more of the same collection. And unlike most high-street retailers, it also means the company doesn't have the overheads of hundreds of stores.

"We are resilient against the struggles going on in the market," Reinaud tells me. "This is partly because we intervene when women need new clothes - it's not a treat."

Obviously, not everyone has lots of babies, so when I ask how Seraphine retains clients, she admits that this is the challenge with her business model. "We are renewing our clientele all the time, so we need to seduce them every time with a marketing proposal. But the positive flipside of that is we benefit from word of mouth and brand recommendation.

"We come at such a crucial point in women's lives, and they feel like we've saved their lives, so they will talk about the brand among their friends a lot more than they would some other brands, which helps us gain the next batch of customers."

Nature nurture

Seraphine has come a long way since 2002, when Reinaud took a leap of faith and opened her first store behind Kensington Palace (which was pretty bullish given she had to commit to a 15-year lease).

She admits that at the time she didn't even remotely consider the significance of the location of that first store. "It's one of these things when you think fate is a little bit written," she smiles.

With grandparents who had worked in the fashion industry, it seems like Reinaud was born to run an uber successful fashion business.

But one thing is certain: this entrepreneur's love for what she does has nurtured this business from its humble beginnings into the international fashion brand of today. She has tailored her own luck.

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We talk to the founder of maternity fashion brand Seraphine about sexism and style - CityAM

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What do the Duchess of Cambridge, Angelina Jolie, and Gwen Stefani all have in common? At different points in time, they have all worn clothing from the Seraphine fashion range. But Seraphine is no normal fashion label - this is a brand that specialises in maternity clothing.

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When you think about online shoppers, you probably think of a young urban hipster in a minimalist office scrolling through Amazon reviews on some sort of Apple technology. But maybe you should be picturing a mum. As Forbes has reported, mothers control 85% of household purchases , and in 2017 had a total spending power of $2.4 trillion US. When you combine the massive purchasing power of mothers with the millions of millennial women becoming parents every year, a different picture of your average online shopper emerges. She's probably a young mother (millennial women now account for 82% of US births ) and you need to find ways to reach her!

Know your customer

In spite of their crucial importance to the economy, mothers around the world still complain that they are misunderstood by the brands targeting them . One of mothers' greatest frustrations with marketing and the media has been the fact that they're usually placed into one of two boxes: working mums and stay at home mums. No one likes to be placed in a box and slapped with a broad label, and millennial mothers in particular place a great deal of importance on identity and Feminist issues. An easy way to annoy them is to relate to them as a stereotype. Brands have the tools to learn about their consumers as individuals, and shape their marketing around a mother's hobbies, concerns, wants, and needs. It's time to start using them.

It is possible to become too close to your consumers. Big data allows you to predict who will become pregnant with frightening accuracy . But targeting the newly pregnant has turned off as many customers as it has attracted. And sending email offers to women who might not be aware they're pregnant or have recently miscarried could become a PR nightmare . We'd recommend you focus on using data to tailoring content to a mum's hobbies and passions, showing them that you value and respect their choices and lifestyle.

Get Online If You Want That First Purchase

Millennials currently make up 30% of all online shoppers, and millennial spending is projected to reach $1.4 trillion in the US by 2020. Millennial consumers have proven to be channel agnostic, they'll follow the best deals and experiences wherever that may lead them. But millennial parents are keen on shopping online and looking for product reviews and information on the internet. 72% of millennial parents say they use Youtube to make better purchases and 75% say they're open to watching branded content when seeking guidance on parenting topics.

With parents viewing the internet as a precious resource for guidance and advice, brands would be wise to invest in online parenting platforms. Some observers credit "Mom Blogs" with creating the influencer paradigm , and as one successful blogger has written, mothers " now execute complex content marketing campaigns, seamlessly weaving brand messaging into their own relatable voices." China (and Alibaba) is once again ahead of the curve here, with Babytree (a parenting platform backed by the tech giant) attracting 200 million monthly active users . The platform has raised $731 million in funding and currently has a market valuation of $2.2 billion. As more and more millennials become parents, look for a boom in online parenting platforms.

If you're looking to get new parents to try your product, creating shoppable content is a must. New parents are generally overwhelmed by a lack of sleep and a host of new responsibilities. They're also looking online for solutions to the problems they're encountering. If you can become a trusted source of information, or reach them through a channel they trust, you'll create interest in your product. Shoppable videos and emails will allow them to buy what you're selling and spare them a time-wasting, headache-inducing trip to the shops with a crying baby. No one will appreciate a smooth path to that crucial first purchase more than a new mother!

Fewer Trips to the Supermarket

We've written about the " Replenishment Economy " before. Certain products are ideal for online replenishment through smart speakers, dash buttons, or shoppable packaging. These items have predictable demand, customers are loyal to their preferred brand, and they're bulky and annoying to carry around. Items like pet food , laundry detergent, nappies, and baby wipes offer replenishment and loyalty potential unmatched by most other FMCG products. Once a tech-savvy millennial customer has found a product they like in these categories, they're increasingly likely to keep re-ordering it online.

Why is this important for brands targeting mums? It identifies a factor that will be just as crucial for future success as that first purchase: offering a convenient way to replenish when supplies run low.

What's The Best Way To Replenish?

Subscription services such as Dollar Shave Club and Amazon Subscribe and Save have been growing, but they're facing a major challenge: Consumers HATE subscriptions. Whether it's fear of commitment, waste, hidden fees or something intangible, McKinsey has noted that the requirement to sign up for a recurring purchase dampens demand . But consumers also crave the convenience of easy product replenishment, and financial incentives are the leading reason why they sign up for replenishment subscriptions.

If your brand can find a way to offer similar levels of convenience and savings, without locking mums into a long-term commitment, you'll receive both gratitude and money. The best options for this are by coupling voice shopping with a logistics network that can make quick deliveries. Adimo's add to basket technology allows users to order your product from the retailer of their choice with a simple voice command. With many UK supermarkets offering same-day delivery, you can spare new mothers a time-wasting, energy-sapping trip to the supermarket. By offering convenience and personalized rewards, you'll demonstrate that you are committed to becoming a long-term part of a mother's journey.

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Marketing to Mums: Making the First Purchase Count - Adimo

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Millennials now account for 82% of births in the United States, and the way these new mothers shop is changing rapidly. Here's how brands can make the most of their engagements with new mothers and build brand loyalty that lasts in a digital world.

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How Influencers Have Transformed Modern Marketing | Rachel David | TEDxVancouver

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Drapers Connects: Talking retail, rental and sustainability with Jane Shepherdson

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TED TALK - ENGAGING WITH ETHICAL FASHION 

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TED TALK - ENGAGING WITH ETHICAL FASHION 

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How to Engage with Ethical Fashion | Clara Vuletich | TEDxSydney

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Can fashion ever be sustainable? | BBC Ideas

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Customer Experience Impacting businesses 

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Customer Experience Impacting businesses 

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Poor customer experience is estimated to cost companies $1.6 trillion. We look at how better customer service and good online strategy improves company's revenue during this Customer Service Week.

Also, Ethiopian Airline continues to defy the odds and fly into more profits while staying on course with expansion plans.

And, Nigeria presents a record $33.8 billion budget as the country struggles with her inability to boost non-oil revenue.

Hudheifa Aden presents this episode of BBC Money Daily.

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BBC World Service TV - Money Daily, How customer experience impacts business

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Poor customer experience is estimated to cost companies $1.6 trillion. We look at how better customer service and good online strategy improves company's revenue during this Customer Service Week. Also, Ethiopian Airline continues to defy the odds and fly into more profits while staying on course with expansion plans.

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Influencer marketing is now a mainstream form of online marketing. It has been a buzzword for a while now, and the mainstream media regularly refers to it. Yet, there are still people who don't really understand what influencer marketing is all about. Indeed, some people come across the phrase for the first time and instantly ponder, "What is influencer marketing?"

The Influencer Marketing Hub is now an established website with hundreds of articles explaining the intricacies of influencer marketing, along with other types of online marketing. The original version of this post was the first article we wrote for the site. We know, however, that there are still people who come here for the first time, wondering what influencer marketing is. So, we have updated this article to focus on the basics of influencer marketing in 2021, heading towards 2022.

What does Influencer Marketing look like in 2021:

Influencer Marketing is a hybrid of old and new marketing tools. It takes the idea of celebrity endorsement and places it into a modern-day content-driven marketing campaign. The main differentiator in the case of influencer marketing is that the results of the campaign are collaborations between brands and influencers.

But influencer marketing doesn't just involve celebrities. Instead, it revolves around influencers, many of whom would never consider themselves famous in an offline setting.

In our article, What is an Influencer we defined an influencer as being someone who has:

the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience

a following in a distinct niche, with whom he or she actively engages. The size of the following depends on the size of his/her topic of the niche.

One of the biggest mistakes that traditional media makes is a failure to see the difference between celebrities and online influencers.

It is also important to realize that most influencers have systematically built a keen and enthusiastic audience. It is not accidental that these people follow influencers rather than a brand. The audience doesn't really care less about your brand. They only care about the opinions of the influencers. Don't try to foist rules and business practices onto your influencers. The audience is theirs, and they can simply walk away, taking their followers with them.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services. Some influencer marketing collaborations are less tangible than that - brands simply work with influencers to improve brand recognition.

An early example of influencer marketing involved YouTube celebrity PewDiePie. He teamed up with the makers of a horror film set in the French catacombs under Paris, creating a series of videos in which he underwent challenges in the catacombs. It was pitch-perfect content for PewDiePie's 27 million subscribers and received nearly double the views as the movie's trailer. Everybody won.

That's a simple example. It's easy to imagine a celebrity teaming with a company to pitch a product-even if the pitch is a series of 10-minute videos instead of a 30-second television ad.

But people wouldn't be talking about influencer marketing-you wouldn't be at a website called the Influencer Marketing Hub reading about it, either-if it didn't have a much broader set of applications. And the key is in that word, influencer .

Influencers, unlike celebrities, can be anywhere. They can be anyone. What makes them influential is their large followings on the web and social media. An influencer can be a popular fashion photographer on Instagram, or a well-read cybersecurity blogger who tweets, or a respected marketing executive on LinkedIn. Within any industry, there are influential people-you just have to find them. Some will have hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of followers. But many will seem more like ordinary people. They may only have 10,000 followers, less in some cases. Yet, they will have developed a reputation for being the experts in their field. They are the go-to people who provide the answers to people's questions. Depending on their sphere of expertise, they are the people who make the most engaging social posts on their specialist topics. They share the best pictures, make the most entertaining videos, and run the most informative online discussions.

Influencer Marketing Statistics

Influencer marketing is expected to grow to be worth $13.8 billion in 2021.

Businesses are making $5.78 ROI for every $1 spent on influencer marketing.

There has been a 465% increase in searches for the phrase "influencer marketing" on Google alone since 2016.

90% of survey respondents believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing.

67% of brands use Instagram for influencer marketing.

1360 Influencer marketing focused platforms and agencies entered the market in the last 5 years alone.

See all stats in our latest Benchmark Report
What works in Influencer Marketing
Carefully consider your approach to influencer marketing

Be organized, put together a strategy, plan, and budget, spend time on research

Decide on your approach to finding influencers - find them organically, subscribe to a platform, or work through an agency

Be patient and be human - people talking to people, not companies talking to companies

Develop a schedule

Does the influencer prefer monthly/quarterly/biannual calls or newsletters?

Integrate with your PR schedule, product release schedule, etc.

Send emails on behalf of key executives. Plan travel schedules for executives and arrange face-to-face meetings

What Influencer Marketing is Not

Influencer marketing isn't just about finding someone with an audience and offering them money or exposure so they can say good things about you. That's what viral celebrities are for. Influencers are people who've spent time building their own brand and cultivating their audience; they will be naturally protective of their reputation and the people who trust them. They're people who have the patience and focus to succeed in social media, one organic follower at a time-people like this aren't interested in doing influencer marketing solely for the money.

Influencer Marketing is also not about quick results. It's the same kind of slow-and-steady approach as Social Media and Content Marketing, where your campaign isn't about directly selling your wares. Instead, it's about demonstrating your authority, credibility, and thought leadership within your industry. It's about becoming synonymous with whatever it is that you offer, like when people say they're going to Xerox a document instead of photocopying it, or to Hoover the floor, rather than vacuuming it.

With Social Media Marketing, it's a slow game of acquiring the kind of followers who are going to be loyal and engaged. So it's tempting to think that joining forces with an influencer is going to be an easy way into the hearts and minds of his or her followers-it's not that simple, though. Because to ally yourself with influencers, you've got to earn their trust and respect. But how?

What doesn't work in Influencer Marketing

Generalizing your approach to finding and making use of different influencers. One size doesn't fit all influencers: tailor your approach to the specific influencer

Simply looking at the popularity of the influencer. Influence does not only mean popularity. Remember that your goal is to elicit a particular action from your customers. Don't automatically assume that the people with the most followers are the influencers of a niche.

One Simple Rule: Influencer Marketing is Marketing to Influencers

With traditional social media marketing, a brand can set up its identity on whatever platform it chooses, and as time passes and its follower bases grow, it can see who its brand champions are. These are the customers who like and share content or mention the brand itself in a post. Followers like these can be further nurtured through personal attention and as part of a highly segmented group of all the brand champions. Efforts to market to this group focus on ways to keep them spreading the word.

One problem with this approach is that some of a brand's followers just don't have enough followers themselves to make much impact. In fact, most ordinary people on social networks don't. Most people have a small network of maybe a few hundred friends and associates representing all kinds of tastes and preferences. Meanwhile, brands struggle to curate and create content that they hope will resonate with their followers in some meaningful way while staying engaged with day-to-day interactions.

This scattershot approach to social marketing yields predictably erratic results. Instead of blindly trying to grab likes and followers or throwing various bits of content out to see what sticks, influencer marketing tells us that our time is better spent marketing directly to influential people whose likes and dislikes we already know - they align well with our own. This means engaging with these people across social accounts-not just following and liking but commenting and demonstrating knowledge and a personality. It can also mean curating or creating content that's hand-picked to get the attention of influencers. So, while it's the influencer's audience that's the ultimate prize, the target market for brands includes the influencers themselves.

This scattershot approach to social marketing yields predictably erratic results. Instead of blindly trying to grab likes and followers or throwing various bits of content out to see what sticks, influencer marketing tells us that our time is better spent marketing directly to influential people whose likes and dislikes we already know - they align well with our own. This means engaging with these people across social accounts-not just following and liking but commenting and demonstrating knowledge and a personality. It can also mean curating or creating content that's hand-picked to get the attention of influencers. So, while it's the influencer's audience that's the ultimate prize, the target market for brands includes the influencers themselves.
By laying this groundwork, you can achieve two things as a brand:
The first is that by merely interacting in positive and constructive ways on influencers' social pages, you gain early access to their followers. You're not promoting anything to them; you're showing your face as a member of their community, adding to your credibility down the line.

The second achievement is that, eventually, when you do propose some kind of influencer marketing collaboration, they'll already know you. Influencers aren't celebrities, per se, but their online life can look a lot like a famous person's real-world one: lots of interruptions from people they don't know, wanting a piece of their time, either to praise them or to pitch them. You need to be able to stand out from the noise of attention they get in the form of emails and tweets. This means that when you finally reach out to them, they'll already know what you're about, and they'll know whether you're a good fit for their audience.

The Remarkable Rise of Influencer Marketing

Each year we conduct an online survey to help us understand how companies see the state of influencer marketing. The results are definitely optimistic, indicating that influencer marketing is genuinely mainstream now, on an upwards trajectory as a preferred marketing method.

Here are the key results from our Influencer Marketing Hub 2021 Study and a few other relevant recent statistics.

1. Sizable Increase in Searches for "Influencer Marketing"

There has been a 465% increase in searches for the phrase "influencer marketing" on Google alone since 2016. Clearly, it is now a hot topic, leading to more people wanting to educate themselves about influencer marketing and find influencer marketing platforms and agencies. The period leading up to 2019 was particularly frantic, with a 1500% increase in searches for "influencer marketing" between 2016 and 2019. Searches have slowed slightly since then, however, with influencer marketing now mainstream to many.

2. Influencer Marketing Expected to Grow to be Worth $13.8 Billion in 2021

Coronavirus accelerated the growth of influencer marketing in 2020, and this is estimated to continue in 2021. From a mere $1.7 billion in 2016, influencer marketing is estimated to have grown to a market size of $9.7 billion in 2020 and is expected to jump further to $13.8 billion in 2021.

3. Influencer Marketing Focused Platforms and Agencies have more than Doubled in Two Years

Influencer marketing has become sufficiently mainstream that companies are continually setting up platforms to help the influencer search and selection process, as well as making the system more transparent and easier for both brands and influencers. Quite a few agencies have now opened that specialize in providing influencer marketing services. Not wishing to lose clients, quite a few traditional agencies have added influencer marketing to the services they offer. There have been 240 new influencer marketing-focused platforms and agencies entering the market over the last 12 months, on top of 380 doing so in the previous year.

4. High Average Earned Media Value per $1 Spent on Influencer Marketing

While we didn't have updated figures on earned media value (EMV) in our 2021 Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report, we did have new figures in 2020. Businesses earn an average of $5.78 promotional publicity for each $1 they spend on influencer marketing. Some companies gain up to $18 EMV for every influencer dollar spent, although 25% either lose money or just break even.

5. Many Firms Now Budget for both Influencer Marketing and Content Marketing

Content marketing is now so firmly established that 59% of marketers have stand-alone budgets for it. This figure is in some ways lower than expected, as HubSpot reports that 70% of their respondents use content marketing. Some firms who use content market clearly fund it from a centralized marketing budget.

Influencer marketing is sufficiently mainstream that 75% of our survey respondents indicated that they would be dedicating a budget to influencer marketing in 2021. This rate is up substantially from the 37% who claimed they would allocate a budget to it in 2017.

6. The Majority of Firms Intend to Increase their Influencer Marketing Budget

Companies clearly see influencer marketing as a direction where they intend to head, with 62% of those respondents already budgeting for influencer marketing planning to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2021. Only 7% of firms declared they would decrease their influencer marketing budgets or move away from it.

7. Most Marketers Judge Influencer Marketing to be Effective

Marketers and brands clearly believe in the effectiveness of influencer marketing, and this has led to an explosion of new content created over the last year. 90% of our survey respondents believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing. This statistic has stayed relatively static since 2017, and the signs are clear that this positivity towards influencer marketing will continue into the future.

Instagram Insights

1. Huge Numbers of Photos, Videos, and Likes on Instagram Every Day

Instagram has seen an explosion of use over the last few years. The idea that its users post 95 million photos and videos and like 4.2 billion posts every day is mind-boggling. Photo posts now make up 64.4% of all Instagram main feed posts, followed by carousel posts (18.8%) and video posts (16.8%).

2. Instagram has Seen Huge Growth in Support Over the Last Four Years

Instagram has certainly not suffered from being bought by Facebook. There has been a massive increase in Instagram users during the Facebook era, with over 1.074 billion active users currently. Stories are also highly popular, with 500 million people using Instagram Stories every day.

3. Influencer #Followers Vary Greatly by Niche on Instagram

There is a surprising variation in the number of followers that Instagram influencers have. A few niches, such as modeling and beauty, have some extremely popular influencers with up to 20 million followers each. Other niches, such as lifestyle and music, have fewer "superstars," leading to lower average influencer followings.

4. Instagram Influencer Marketing Spending Growing at a Rapid Rate

The overall increase in influencer marketing, and the growing importance of Instagram as a highly visible social media channel, has led to a significant increase in brands spending money on influencers operating there. 55% of marketers intended to use Instagram for influencer marketing in 2021, second only to YouTube. In comparison, 43% signposted using online ads, 35% TikTok, 29% tv ads, 20% OOH ads, and 20% Twitch. Marketers expect this trend to continue into 2022.

5. Number Of Brand-Sponsored Influencer Posts Growing Almost Exponentially

With increased brand awareness of influencer marketing and tighter regulations regarding advertising transparency, we have seen phenomenal growth in sponsored influencer posts. These posts trebled between 2015 and 2017 to 2.68 million posts. These were further expected to rise substantially to 6.12 million sponsored posts in 2020. With the increase in influencer marketing since the advent of COVID-19, this figure is undoubtedly higher now.

6. Instagram Engagement Rates Much Higher than those on Twitter, But Lower than those on TikTok

Possibly because an Instagram post sticks around for a while, yet a tweet can quickly vanish into a user's feed, Instagram posts tend to give higher engagement rates than tweets. With both social media channels, influencers with fewer followers find it easier to build up a high engagement rate than those with more followers. Influencers with fewer than 1,000 followers average 7.2% engagement on Instagram, 1.4% on Twitter, and 9.38% on TikTok. For mega- influencers with over 100,000 followers, average engagement rates are 1.1% on Instagram, 0.3% on Twitter, and 5.3% on TikTok.

An Influencer Marketing Campaign: Case Study

The PewDiePie example referred to earlier might have given you an idea of what an influencer marketing campaign can look like. Still, it's probably tough to see how that kind of strategy can work its way into some of the less sexy areas of the business world. With that criterion in mind, let's look at an - a campaign to drive attendance and awareness of the Content Marketing World conference. A more traditional approach might have focused solely on SEO and Google Ads, as well as some promoted content on Twitter and LinkedIn. Perhaps a blog piece would have been written, something shareable that's insightful and gets the word out.

Instead, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) worked with Top Rank Marketing to develop an influencer marketing campaign to spread its message. To be fair, the Content Marketing Institute already has quite an extensive network of influencers they work with; identifying potential collaborators was as easy as looking at who'd be speaking at the conference they were promoting. This is precisely what they did, asking speakers to contribute some thoughts or advice around Content Marketing. The feedback was compiled, along with other educational materials, into four separate eBooks, each with its own unique topic relevant to the programming at CMI's conference. They made each eBook available to view at SlideShare, or as a downloadable PDF, with links pushed out across social media by CMI, Top Rank, and the influencers themselves. The whole initiative was underwritten by Curata, a software developer specializing in Content Curation and Management Platforms. That's a lot of players around one campaign, but look how everyone gets something out of it:

This win/win/win/win situation is part of what makes IM such a compelling strategy

There are no advertising tricks used in these campaigns, no disingenuous celebrities smiling over a product you know they've never used. Think about it this way: the CMI conference campaign was a straight-up content marketing play, commissioned by the people who wrote the book on content marketing and aimed at other campaign marketers. These are all people who know the "tricks of the trade," but the campaign worked. And that's because, in this case, the trick is that there is no trick.

The target audience, those being recruited for attendance at the conference, got free, entertaining, and valuable information of personal relevance to them. Over 230,000 people viewed the eBooks on SlideShare, while another 4,000 downloaded the PDFs.

The influencers who participated used the platform to drive attendance to their sessions at the conference. Sharing out the eBooks gave them more opportunities to make people aware they were speaking, all of which added to their personae as credible and respected people in their field.

CMI got the attendance they were looking for and another notch in their belt by putting on (and pulling off) another large conference with them at the center of it all.

Curata, who paid for this all to happen, got over 1,000 new leads to whom they could market.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing involves brands collaborating with online influencers to market products or services. Some influencer marketing collaborations are less tangible than that - brands simply work with influencers to improve brand recognition. The important thing here is that the online collaborators are genuinely influential. They have to influence the type of people with whom a brand wishes to establish a touchpoint. Influencer marketing is much more than finding someone with an audience and offering them money or exposure to say good things about you.

The best social marketing works because it's nothing more than a natural social interaction.

The best content marketing works because the information is genuinely helpful.

And the best influencer marketing works because it relies on both social and content marketing tools, where credibility and genuine authority are already established in the minds of the audience.

What does influencer marketing mean?

Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that involves endorsements and product placements from influencers. These influencers have established a reputation for having an expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. This is often misunderstood, with some people mistakenly equating influencer marketing with celebrity marketing. There may be some overlap, but somebody purportedly being famous is not sufficient to make for effective influencer marketing. Many influencers have built huge communities to whom they promote an agreed product or activity.

What is influencer marketing, and why does it matter?

As we have stated in this article, influencer marketing involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services. In all cases, genuine influencers will have developed a reputation for being experts in their field. They are the go-to people that provide the answers to people's questions. If you select the right influencer for your brand, you will access many potential customers you would have otherwise been unable to reach.

How effective is influencer marketing?

We saw in our State of Influencer Marketing 2020: Benchmark Report that influencer marketing can be a highly effective way of promoting your product. The industry was predicted to be worth $7.7 billion in 2020. The average earned media value was $5.78 per dollar spent on influencer marketing in 2019. This means that, on average, a dollar spent on influencer marketing can generate $5.78 worth of publicity for your business. 91% of our respondents believed influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing.

How do you measure influencer marketing?

Areas of measurement will be very dependent on your goals. Many will be irrelevant to your influencer marketing campaign. Some of the most common areas of measurement include:
1. Audience Reach
2. Impressions
3. Engagement (Comments, Likes, Shares)
4. Sentiment
5. High-Quality Content
6. Conversions:
- Growth in Your Followers
- Brand Mentioning
- Traffic to a Specific Landing Page / Website
- Form Completions
- Signups to a Newsletter / Subscription
- Growth in Users of Your Product / Service
- Increased Sales

How do I run an influencer program?

The first step of any influencer program is to define your goals. Understand WHY you are carrying out an influencer campaign. Then define the target audience for your campaign, keeping your goal in mind. For influencer marketing to be successful, you need to work with influencers who influence your target audience. From that, define the best type of influencer for your brand. Search for these influencers, either manually, with a platform, or with an agency. Make contact with these influencers and then contract them.

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What is Influencer Marketing? An in Depth Look at Marketing's Next Big Thing

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Influencer Marketing is a hybrid of old and new marketing tools, taking the idea of the celebrity endorsement and placing it into a modern day content-driven marketing campaign. The main differentiator in the case of influencer marketing is that the results of the campaign are collaborations between brands and influencers.

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The race to own customer experience is on! Companies are recognizing the importance of delivering an experience that makes them stand out from their competition. Some are learning the hard way. Last year United Airlines had a brand crisis, in which $1.4 billion in value was wiped out overnight when a passenger's experience went viral on social media. And, you may not have heard about Juicero, but it fell victim to brand crisis when it was discovered the proprietary juice packets needed for its $699 juicer weren't so proprietary, resulting in the company dropping the price of the juicer to $200, and then ultimately going out of business.

Be it customer service, product quality or just the way the customers feel about the companies they do business with, customer experience rises to the top of whether or not the customer will decide to keep doing business with a brand.

Today, 89% of companies compete primarily on the basis of customer experience - up from just 36% in 2010. But while 80% of companies believe they deliver "super experiences," only 8% of customers agree. In other words, companies have a long way to go. And, that means there is tremendous opportunity to disrupt a competitor or gain market share in an industry. Everything a brand does - the way it does its marketing, research, advertising and more - all play a role in shaping the customer's experience. Focusing on customer experience management (CXM) may be the single most important investment a brand can make in today's competitive business climate.

It used to be that customers could communicate with companies in only three ways. They could visit the business in person, write a letter or call customer support. Then came faxing, and then email. Today there are even more ways customers connect. They use Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and more. And, when customers do connect with you, they expect to be known and served "on demand" regardless of the channel they are using.

And, there are some customers who, when they don't get the service they feel they deserve, complain. But, not to you. To the rest of the world on the aforementioned social channels. The good news is that some of the customers who are happy will share that across the social channels, too.

With so many channels through which customers communicate, it seems like creating a powerful and memorable customer experience is more complicated than ever. Technically, that's true. But, on the surface, customers want the same things they've always wanted, and that is to be taken care of. They may be more demanding. They may want problems resolved faster. But that's understandable because technology has given us the tools to provide that kind of speed.

And, here is something very important to consider. Customers don't care if you claim you have omni-channel or multi-channel capabilities. They only care that they can connect with you, the way they want to connect with you, and when they want to connect with you. They go through the channel that's easiest and most convenient for them. It could be a phone, a desktop computer, a tablet - whatever communication method they are most comfortable with.

I've written about this in previous articles. Jeff Nicholson at Pegasystems calls this "Channel-less Support," meaning the customers have no idea how many channels a brand offers, and really don't care. They just want to communicate on the one that's most convenient for them.

I recently connected with some friends at Sprinklr, a company that has created what it refers to as a CXM (Customer Experience Management) platform to unify all these different channels into one. Its solutions enable customer support centers to unify 25 different communication channels, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. They shared some insights for every type of company to consider when it comes to improving CX.

All interactions and data need to be in one place: The customer may reach out to a company for support over live chat. The next time it's on the phone. And the time after that, the customer uses instant message to connect with the company. Even though the interactions came across different channels, the person currently interacting with the customer must see them as one long conversation.

To the customer, it's all one big team: Customers don't care which department they talk to when they need help. They just want to get their questions answered and their problems resolved. A company may have different teams, but the customer doesn't care. As mentioned above, the solution is to bring all interactions and data into one place. When technology doesn't work together, neither can teams. When teams can't work together, they can't give a personalized customer experience. This frustrates both customers and employees.

Create consistency in your processes to create consistency for the customer: When companies get big, they often have multiple teams with multiple processes. This can become painfully frustrating for customers who end up talking to different people in different departments. There could be conflicting information and explanations. That leads to confusion, and often a loss of confidence. Ultimately, that can lead to lost business.

The company may define its brand promise, but it is the customer who decides whether or not the company delivered on its promise. There's a lot riding on delivering a positive customer experience. You hire and train good people, but you must also give them the tools they need to deliver a CX that not only meets the customers' expectations but makes them want to come back. Be there for them - no matter how they reach out to you - be consistent, and build your brand through satisfied customers.

... Read More

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Be it customer service, product quality or just the way the customers feel about the companies they do business with, customer experience rises to the top of whether or not the customer will decide to keep doing business with a brand.

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Would you buy a pair of shoes because someone on Instagram said they were great? Or choose a new phone based on the recommendation of a top YouTuber?

If so, you are proof of the effectiveness of influencer marketing. On this week's Tech Tent podcast, we explore the phenomenon.

Influencers - social media stars with big followings - have been under the spotlight this week for two reasons.

First, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority revealed that 16 influencers had promised to be far more transparent when paid to promote a product.

The regulator has taken a dim view of celebrities posting images of themselves with an "awesome" product, without mentioning that the "fabulous" company behind it has paid them a tidy sum to be quite so enthusiastic.

They will now be encouraged to use hashtags such as #ad, #sponsored or #freebie to give their fans a clearer picture of what's going on, otherwise they could land up in court.

But this week also saw the release of two documentaries about the disastrous Fyre Festival, which appeared to be the apotheosis of influencer marketing. It showed the power of the influencers. Kendall Jenner was reportedly paid $250,000 (£190,000) for one Instagram post promoting tickets that rapidly sold out.

It raised questions about the ethics of this form of marketing. The supermodels and other celebrities were happy enough to take money from the Fyre Festival organisers. But when the whole event turned into a fiasco, they faced no consequences for taking part in a very dishonest marketing campaign.

"We can see how precarious that is in terms of the legitimacy of those campaigns," says Dr Mariann Hardey, associate professor in marketing at Durham University.

She is a sceptic about influencer marketing and tells us it is really just another form of that age-old advertising technique, the celebrity endorsement.

"I don't think this is the holy grail. Influencers simply amplify traditional marketing methods and strategies," she says.

Brand awareness

But Werner Geyser, founder of the Influencer Marketing Hub, which helps connect influencers with brands, disagrees and tells us he has numbers to back up his argument.

"Recently we conducted a survey and we analysed 2,000 campaigns from influencers. And what the research displayed was that there was an average earned media value of $5.20 per dollar spent," he says.

That earned media value turns out to include something as nebulous as "increasing brand awareness", but Mr Geyser insists companies do see real returns in the form of extra sales.

He says we should not underestimate the power of these influencers or the bond between them and their followers.

"These audiences are following them for a reason. They share common interests so they almost act as a media outlet themselves. They have massive, massive reach."

The question is how they use that influence. Too many Fyre Festivals and they may tarnish their own brands, making them less attractive to advertisers.

But even if the current social media stars fade, more will come along and brands will be eager to use them to connect to young people who live their media lives on YouTube and Instagram.

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Would you buy a pair of shoes because someone on Instagram said they were great? Or choose a new phone based on the recommendation of a top YouTuber? If so, you are proof of the effectiveness of influencer marketing. On this week's Tech Tent podcast, we explore the phenomenon.

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Here's are the Instagram Mums to follow now - those who capture motherhood beautifully via Instagram. See Vogue's round-up of the Instagram Mums to start following.

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When you've changed more nappies than you thought was humanly possible where do you head to for some light relief? We think Instagram might be the perfect place to find mum-influencers who will make you feel like you're not alone!

Forget pristine and curated Instagram feeds full of kale smoothies and bedtime routines, we are talking honest and frank discussions about motherhood, fashion inspo to fight the badly dressed mum stereotype and tips on post-baby body confidence.

Whether you need an inspiring quote to spur you on or advice on hair trends these accounts are wonderfully varied and funny.

Check out our definitive list of the best UK mum-influencers to follow.

The best mum-influencers to follow:
Now read: The Mum List 2019 winners!
Any missing from the list? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter!
Make sure you're following Mother & Baby on Instagram for relatable memes, inspiring stories and parenting hacks.
Join the club! Introducing our brand, spankin' new Facebook group called #mumtribe. Simply search '#mumtribe' into the search bar and meet like-minded mums, win gorgeous goodies and have some fun!

Have approx 60 seconds to spare? Why not join thousands of mums-to-be and start your very own Amazon baby wish list! They're absolutely free to create and perfect to send to the friends, aunties and your mum to make sure you're getting the baby products you really need... Click here!

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The best mum-influencers to follow on Instagram

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When you've changed more nappies than you thought was humanly possible where do you head to for some light relief? We think Instagram might be the perfect place to find mum-influencers who will make you feel like you're not alone!

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In recent years the world of blogging has exploded. Seemingly everyone and their dog has a platform online to post their thoughts and feelings.

Blogging has been particularly popular amongst parents, with the mummy blogger becoming an increasingly big part of it.

However, with the sheer amount of blogs online, how on earth do you filter through them to discover the good from the bad?

Thankfully, we've gone through the trouble for you to pick out 50 of the best mummy bloggers to follow in 2020.

Multi award-winning blogger and blogger Vicki setup Honest Mum back in 2010 and it has gone from strength to strength, since its magazine approach makes it really accessible.
2. Mum In The Mad House
Jen Walshaw is a mum of two boys who loves to write about gifts, arts & crafts, children's activities and lots more.
3. Tigerlilly Quinn
Multi award-winning blogger Tigerlilly covers every lifestyle topic a young modern mother wants to read about, from fashion to travel and everything in between.
4. You Baby Me Mummy
As well as providing great posts for women looking to have children later in life, there's also blogging coaching and courses to try on this blog.
5. What The Redhead Said
Fiery-haired and married mum of two Donna covers everything from product reviews to handling brother and sister relationships.
6. Once Upon A Time - Susan K. Mann
Based in Scotland, Susan is a working mother of two little girls who blogs about recipes, travel, parenting advice, reviews and more.
7. Actually Mummy
Helen initially started writing this blog via the voice of her daughter's diary, however, she now expresses her own tips and advice on being the parent of a young daughter.
8. Slummy Single Mummy
Mother of two Jo discusses everything from her experiences of teenage pregnancy to travel, food to fashion and much more.
9. Who's The Mummy?
Sally works full time in social media and is a single parent to daughter Flea. The main focus of her posts centre on travel, tech and lifestyle.
10. The Oliver's Madhouse
Stay at home mum Jamie shares her tips on looking after her sons, travel, technology and how to keep fit as a parent.
11. Mummy, Daddy, Me
Katie started writing during maternity leave for her first child, she now has three and posts great stuff about interiors, travel, photography and more.
12. Boo Roo and Tigger Too
Sarah lives in Norfolk with her family, and started penning her thoughts on all things family related back in 2011 while on maternity leave, and now works on it full time!
13. In The Play Room
Anna is a stay at home mum with three boys and a baby girl living in London. She shares her ideas on family days out, toys, food and more.
14. Laura's Lovely Blog
Married with two children, Laura covers lots on this great blog from lifestyle to toy reviews. Her husband Ben also contributes with fitness and fatherhood guest posts.
15. Emmys Mummy
Clare lives in Essex with her husband, daughter and son. As a former nanny, she has lots of great experiences with children to share.
16. What Katy Said
On her award-nominated blog, Katy discusses lifestyle tips from her family of five, such as cooking for big numbers, travel and home organising.
17. Zena's Suitcase
Zena has three daughters ranging from an 18-year-old to a 2-year-old and loves to talk about their days out and travelling adventures.
18. Not Another Mummy Blog
Alison is a freelance magazine editor living in London who has turned her hand to lifestyle blogging since the birth of her daughter. Expect travel, style, politics, feminism and more.
19. Verily Victoria Vocalises
Victoria is mother to a nine-year-old who covers all the classic mummy blogger topics as well as posting her own poetry, photography and a vlog series.
20. Amy Treasure (recipes)
Living with her husband and three kids, Amy covers lots of lifestyle topics and really excels with her recipes and photography. Perfect for the foodies out there.
21. Toby & Roo
As not only a parent, but also someone who has worked for a children's retailer for years, Harriet certainly knows her stuff when it comes to giving advice to other parents.
22. Super Busy Mum
Debs is a mother of five living in Northern Ireland. Debs and her husband love tech, making this a great family and lifestyle blog for those with similar interests.
23. Rainy Day Mum
Parenting doesn't stop when it rains, and if you live in the UK, it rains fairly often. Cerys Parker writes about all the wonderful things you can do with your chidren, come rain or shine.
24. All Baby Advice
Mirka is a mother of two girls and loves to travel. While they live in England, she is from the Czech Republic, meaning travel and multiculturalism really are at the heart of this family.
25. Cuddle Fairy
Becky is a wife and mum of three living in Ireland. She is very proactive and covers everything from recipes, toy reviews and blogging tips. Her videos are a particular highlight.
26. The Reading Residence
Living with her husband and two kids, Jocelyn blogs about lots of different topics including family days out and gardening.
27. Sparkles & Stretchmarks
Hayley is the proud mother of three young boys and writes about family life, travel they enjoy and mental health and wellbeing which parents will find particularly interesting.
28. Lulastic and the Hippyshake
Lucy is a self-confessed modern hippy. Expect posts about co-sleeping, breastfeeding, nappy free babies and more!
29. U, Me and the Kids
Rachel covers all the usual topics, but look out for her toy reviews and giveaways as well as her money saving posts which are great for any parent!
30. Science Sparks
Emma writes about lots of brilliant experiments you can do with children from preschool up to Key Stage Two, making learning at home extremely fun!
31. Pinkoddy
Joy and her husband are proud parents of four boys. She covers every aspect of parenting with particular emphasis on autism and sensory processing disorder.
32. Missing Sleep
Blogger and vlogger Karen focuses her efforts on great posts about family activities, crafts and baking and also hosts plenty of fun competitions for readers.
33. Kids Craft Room
Creative Emma is bursting with arts and crafts ideas to help you keep the kids busy and happy on even the most miserable of days!
34. Tattooed Tealady
Sophia began writing as a beauty blogger way before she became pregnant with her first child in 2016. She now combines great posts about both of her favourite things.
35. Crafts on Sea
Kate is a mum of two and lives by the sea in Cornwall. She loves sharing her craft ideas for both adults and children which are perfect for anyone to try.
36. Over 40 and a Mum to One
Mary has a 7-year-old son and together they love to play and explore. Find plenty of informative toy reviews, days out advice and plenty of great photographs.
37. Baby Budgeting (Money)
Becky covers all angles in her blog but with an extra focus on creative ways to save money and raise extra cash for your family to enjoy.
38. Learning and Exploring Through Play
Amy is very passionate about the way in which play can help educate our children. So, for inspirational and educational games, crafts and activities, this is the place to visit.
39. Yorkshire Tots to Teens (Days Out)
Originally from the US, Erin now calls Yorkshire her home. Here you can find info on all the family events and fun to be had in West Yorkshire as well as reviews and competitions.
40. Mudpie Fridays
Clare is a mum of two and manages to balance her fast-paced corporate work life with caring for her kids. A great blog for any parents who juggle home and a profession.
41. Here Come the Girls
Rebecca has three young girls, making this a particularly excellent blog for anyone with a similar family. She covers everything from recipes to toy reviews and days out to arts and crafts.
42. Amy Antoinette
Self-titled free spirit Amy has two children and recently moved from the UK to the US. As well as great lifestyle posts, she also discusses the premature loss of her two other children which will resonate with many parents who have been through the same.
43. Learning Escapes
Italian expat Marta lives in Ireland with her family and dedicates her blog to fun and informative family travel guides to help you find a great break to enjoy with your kids.
44. The Frenchie Mummy
This blog is a refreshing and relatable take on being a mother, written by Cécile, who moved to the UK in 2008 to be a language assistant for a year, but has stayed and raised a lovely little family instead.
45. Twin Mummy and Daddy
If you've ever wondered what it's like to raise twins, thought about trying to move towards a zero waste lifestyle, or just love a good book review, then this blog is well worth a follow.
46. Le Coin de Mel
Mel and her husband are parents to four children. She is a food obsessive and creates delicious recipes of all kinds for parents to create for their kids.
47. Old Socks & Lollipops
Jenni lives with her three-year-old daughter and Danish husband in the Midlands. As well as writing all about the roller coaster of parenthood, she also blogs about her struggles with fibromyalgia and how it affects her life.
48. Twinderelmo
Perfect for those parents who have the unique challenge of handling twins. Beth has a son and twin girls which makes this blog insightful and funny in equal measure.
49. The Gingerbread House
Mother of two, Jenny is very creative and doesn't just fill her blog with the usual lifestyle posts, but also with personalised home interior tips and craft ideas to keep your children busy.
50. Ickle Pickle's Life
Kaz has four children but writes the majority of this blog from the perspective of her youngest. Follow the weekly adventures of Pickle while also enjoying posts on teens, reviews, travel and more.

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50 Of The Best Mummy Blogs To Follow In 2020 | Play Like Mum

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In recent years the world of blogging has exploded. Seemingly everyone and their dog has a platform online to post their thoughts and feelings. Blogging has been particularly popular amongst parents, with the mummy blogger becoming an increasingly big part of it. However, with the sheer amount of blogs online, how on earth do you [...]Read More...

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H&M stands for Hennes & Mauritz, but it took several years until the final name evolved. The company was founded by Erling Pedersson, who opened his first fashion retail store in 1947 in Västerås, Sweden. At that time, it was called Hennes, which is the Swedish word for "hers". As the name suggests, this retail format specialized in women's fashion. After acquiring the hunting apparel and equipment retailer Mauritz Wildforss, the company name was changed to Hennes & Mauritz and men's fashion was included in the product range.

In 2018, the group's total sales amounted to around 23 billion U.S. dollars, of which roughly 928 million U.S. dollars were generated in Sweden. This is the highest sales value achieved by the group in the Nordic region. The highest revenue generated in a single country amounted to 3.6 billion U.S. dollars in Germany, ahead of the United States, where the H&M Group gained a total of 2.7 billion U.S. dollars.

The H&M Group is continuously growing and counted a total of 5,076 stores worldwide in 2019. The three countries with the highest number of stores are the United States, China and Germany.
The brand with the most physical stores is H&M. It is present on 71 markets, while its online business is established in more than 47 countries. COS stores reach 41 markets; Monki has conquered 16 markets with brick and mortar stores, and 19 markets its online shops.

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H&M stands for Hennes & Mauritz, but it took several years until the final name evolved. The company was founded by Erling Pedersson, who opened his first fashion retail store in 1947 in Västerås, Sweden. At that time, it was called Hennes, which is the Swedish word for "hers".

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For Spring/Summer '18, true to the COS aesthetic, expect plenty of organic shapes and natural materials that will allude to the past, present and the imagined future. The result? Cool contemporary classics, that can be constructed/deconstructed with other pieces. For the summer season paper and it's quality is at the center of the collection - quite literally, from the pattern cutting through to the paper draping and 3D work; when presented in a clothing form it offers purity that merges the statement with the subtlety.

COS, whose Creative Director, Karin Gustafsson is joined by new Head of Womenswear design, Nicole Bischofer and she returns to the company having spent four years with Maison Margiela in Paris.
What is the COS aesthetic to you?
KG: The COS aesthetic is modern and minimal, what we love to do is revisit and reinvent classic pieces, like the iconic white shirt or black dress. Give the item a subtle design edge while the garment remains functional and can be worn in any situation.

NB: The COS aesthetic is timeless design offered in a contemporary way with a focus on quality.
COS has a built-up cult-like following, why do you think that is? Who is the COS customer in your eyes?
KG: That's very nice of you to say, thank you. We are constantly humbled by the response we have received in all our markets. We think our customers are not defined demographically by age or location but by mind-set and through their cultural attitudes. We believe that they are interested and inspired by the same things as we are so hopefully they connect with the collections and appreciate the quality fabrics, store design, art collaborations and functional designs.

NB: I think that our customers know that they can come to COS and feel a sense of familiarity whilst always finding something new. I don't like to prescribe a specific customer, though I think the COS customer is someone who looks for quality and shares our interest and appreciation in art and design across all aspects.
What is your design ethos? Do you have design rules that you stick to?
NB: I like to be able to see the design and shape of a garment immediately so prefer to work directly on the form. This also allows us to play with our inspirations and develop these directly into our products.

KG: One of the great things about working in the design studio at COS is that we very much have our own individual approach. Personally, I work most on the dress stand, draping fabrics and creating silhouettes organically. In terms of design 'rules' I would say the feeling of timelessness in our collection is something we are known for and I feel strongly about, it allows our customers to have pieces in their wardrobes that can last for many seasons and mix with anything.
Modern classics seems to be a theme that runs across all the collections, are there any other signature themes/concepts?
NB: We draw a lot of inspiration from architecture which can often be seen throughout our collections. Either from the color palette or the way pieces are draped and crafted into clean lines and structures.

KG: We often look to art and design for inspiration, both the visual output but also the working methods and creative approaches of the various inspirations we find. I believe this combination provides a rich source of inspiration for us to interpret through our designs. We hope that ultimately customers can see these inspirations in the final garments and the brand identity, whether this be through interesting tactile fabrics, modern silhouettes or the functional details.
Describe the Spring/Summer 2018 collection...
NB: The SS18 collection is very modular, we've created pieces that are designed to be paired and layered together in a unique and eclectic way, evolved proportions allow volume to be played with throughout the collection. We kept a neutral color palette of pure white, organic paper and wood tones to leaf green, mint and red clay.

KG: This season we have a focus on organic shapes and natural materials, executed in a clean and precise way. We have reimagined casual essential pieces such as chinos, the trench coat and t-shirts giving them new proportions and shapes. I also think there is a subtle hint of retro sportswear references, such as the mesh fabrics, ribs and elasticated details that create gathering and texture.
Do you have a favorite piece in the line?
NB: It's difficult to say, however the one element that I'm drawn to this season is the asymmetry and draping; examples of this can be seen in our tops, dresses and even outerwear in the collection.

KG: I really love the modern twist on the white shirt that we have, the exaggerated sleeves and large statement pocket feel very modern and chic.
How do you tend to style your COS look?
NB: I like mixing different textures and shapes together to create a look. I enjoy seeing the tactility within an outfit and how the different fabrics complement each other.

KG: I tend to keep it simple and pretty understated. At this time of year my day to day uniform is a simple cashmere sweater and jeans with lace up flat brogues, for the evening I would switch to a heel, a clutch and a great statement piece of jewelry.
What's in store for 2018?
KG: For the collection, we are always looking ahead as we are working on collections about 18 months before they hit the store, but of course we also want to keep offering our customers great quality wardrobe essentials. We are excited to continue working closely with our production teams to use more modern techniques and new fabrics.
www.cosstores.com
... Read More

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For Spring/Summer '18, true to the COS aesthetic, expect plenty of organic shapes and natural materials that will allude to the past, present and the imagined future. The result? Cool contemporary classics, that can be constructed/deconstructed with other pieces.

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Swedish fashion brand Cos-which is known for its minimalist styles and commitment to ethical fashion-has launched a new collection of sustainable jewelry as one of its latest endeavors towards a more environmentally responsible future in fashion. According to an announcement from the H&M-owned brand, this is its first collection featuring recycled sterling silver.

The process for the Cos' sustainable pieces involves taking salvaged second-hand silver products, which are sourced from around the world. The silver in each piece is refined until its purity is brought back to 99.9 percent. Then, it is reworked into new, design-driven pieces.

The recycled sterling silver collection is available in Cos stores-including all of its Los Angeles locations-as well as on the brand's online retail site.

Images: Courtesy of Cos
Looking for a job at Cos Stores in the UK, click here. Jobs at Cos Stores in the USA can be searched here.

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Cos launches new jewelry collection featuring recycled silver

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Swedish fashion brand Cos-which is known for its minimalist styles and commitment to ethical fashion-has launched a new collection of sustainable jewelry as one of its latest endeavors towards a more environmentally responsible future in fashion. According to an announcement from the H&M-owned brand, this is its first collection featuring recycled sterling silver.

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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - H&M (), the world's second-biggest fashion group, said on Friday its brand COS had teamed up with Chinese subscription rental platform YCloset to try renting out clothes in the country as environmentally conscious consumers rein in purchases.

With the three-month trial, H&M follows others in the fashion industry, such as Banana Republic of Gap Inc. () and Bloomingdale's (), that are lending out their clothing for a monthly rental rate as consumers become increasingly aware of the environmental impacts of fast fashion.

H&M last week launched its first-ever in-house rental service of a limited range of festive gowns, with a fee per item, alongside the opening of a revamped central Stockholm store in Sweden.

H&M has in recent years launched a number of independent brands such as COS and Arket, although its core budget H&M chain still accounts for the bulk of revenues.

It said in a statement that the higher-end COS brand's trial with YCloset would allow it to explore customer demand, the business model, potential to scale and sustainability factors.

"Subscription rental has been on our radar for some time and we feel this is a very relevant model for us to explore," it said.

"It is important for us to try new approaches - testing and collaborating to achieve the best outcome for our customer and community - as well as the future of our business," COS managing director Marie Honda said in the statement.

H&M said YCloset is China's largest fashion rental platform with 15 million registered users. Users pay a monthly subscription rather than a per item fee and are able to buy the clothing after they have rented it.

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H&M's brand COS to test clothing rentals in China with YCloset

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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - H&M (), the world's second-biggest fashion group, said on Friday its brand COS had teamed up with Chinese subscription rental platform YCloset to try renting out clothes in the country as environmentally conscious consumers rein in purchases. With the three-month trial, H&M follows others in the fashion industry, such as Banana Republic of Gap Inc.

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Do you like your dresses big, your accessories minimal and your colour palette offbeat? Then you're probably a COS girl like quite a few of our fashion friends in the industry. It's where you can pick up directional, simplistic designs that you'd normally find at much higher price points or from very niche Scandi labels. The fabrics are always top quality, and we still own COS items from the very first season when the brand debuted in the UK. Yep-its wares have stood the test of time and still look mint today.

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Are You a COS Girl? Then You Need to See These 7 Other Minimalist Brands

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Do you like your dresses big, your accessories minimal and your colour palette offbeat? Then you're probably a COS girl like quite a few of our fashion friends in the industry. It's where you can pick up directional, simplistic designs that you'd normally find at much higher price points or from very niche Scandi labels.

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Trial for COS Collaborating with Rental  

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Trial for COS Collaborating with Rental  

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To test out renting attire as eco-conscious shoppers rein in their purchases, said its COS brand has collaborated with the Chinese subscription rental platform YCloset to trial clothing rentals. The world's second-largest fashion group follows in the footsteps of other fashion industry players like Bloomingdale's and Banana Republic of Gap Inc. that are lending their attire for a monthly rate, reported.

H&M has rolled out many independent brands like Arket and COS in recent years. Its core budget H&M chain, however, still reportedly accounts for the large share of revenues. The company noted in a statement that the three-month trial would let it look into the business model, customer demand, potential to scale and sustainability.

COS Managing Director Marie Honda said in a statement, according to the report, "It is important for us to try new approaches - testing and collaborating to achieve the best outcome for our customer and community - as well as the future of our business." The company also said per the outlet that subscription rental "has been on our radar for some time and we feel this is a very relevant model for us to explore."

In a separate development, news surfaced in October that H&M Group had taken a majority stake in Sellpy - a move that follows the fashion retailer's efforts to become fully circular and support its global expansion. The group began investing in the re-commerce business in 2015 and has invested approximately US$5.07m (SEK50m) via its CO:LAB investment arm.

Sellpy CEO Michael Annör said, according to a report, "We are excited to continue to work even closer with H&M Group to empower everyone to live circular, regardless if they live in Sweden or elsewhere. With the support of H&M Group we can continue to innovate and drive awareness and adoption of re-commerce."

Founded in 2014, Sellpy could grow its current offering "into a complete platform for second-hand fashion" per the report. It is now gearing up for global growth starting with Germany.

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H&M's COS Brand, YCloset Pilot Clothing Rentals | PYMNTS.com

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To test out renting attire as eco-conscious shoppers rein in their purchases, said its COS brand has collaborated with the Chinese subscription rental platform YCloset to trial clothing rentals. The world's second-largest fashion group follows in the footsteps of other fashion industry players like Bloomingdale's and Banana Republic of Gap Inc.

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Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M plans to open four stores for its brand Cos across Mumbai and Delhi, launch H&M Home in India, and could bring other clothing brands to India in the future.

H&M could soon bring its higher-priced Cos brand to India - Cos- Facebook

H&M plans to bring its mid-range clothing brand Cos to India following a swift brick-and-mortar expansion in the country and recent sales growth, three sources told ET Bureau.

"They are planning to open two [Cos outlets] each in Delhi region and in Mumbai starting next year," an anonymous source told the Economic Times.

"They are also exploring to bring a couple of their other fashion brands."

H&M also plans to introduce its homeware brand H&M Home to the Indian market. The brand had already started planning to bring H&M Home to India last year and plans to focus on home furnishings and décor and open dedicated stores for H&M Home.

H&M runs a range of clothing brands including Monki, Araket, and Weekday. H&M's Cos brand, which stands for 'Collection of Style' is currently present in 44 countries globally with a total of 290 stores.

H&M entered India in October 2015 and currently has 46 stores in the country. The brand plans to continue its brick-and-mortar expansion and reach a target of 100 stores in India.

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H&M plans to bring Cos brand, H&M Home to India

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Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M plans to open four stores for its brand Cos across Mumbai and Delhi, launch H&M Home in India, and could bring other clothing brands to India in the future. H&M plans to bring its mid-range clothing brand Cos to India following a swift brick-and-mortar expansion in the country and recent sales growth, three sources told ET Bureau.

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Fashion brand COS has created a 13-piece collection of clothing and accessories commemorating the Bauhaus movement and its affiliated artists and architects.

The release celebrates a century since the design school's founding in Weimar and exemplifies its enduring impact on creative disciplines today, as explored in Dezeen's Bauhaus 100 series.

Six menswear and six womenswear items as well as one accessory were picked out from the COS archives to form the brand's inaugural Archive Editions collection.

Each was originally fashioned according to Bauhaus principles, with the design team making minor tweaks to modernise the fits and cuts.

"Bauhaus as a school combines crafts and the fine arts, and the idea of creating a Gesamtkunstwerk - meaning total artwork - in which all the arts would eventually be brought together," the brand's creative director Karin Gustafsson told Dezeen.

"For COS, we have always looked to the arts for inspiration as we believe that is where trends and innovations start."

In terms of this collection, that meant taking heed of the idea that form follows function - which although widespread in design and architecture, often evades fashion.

Textiles by artists Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl revived for Bauhaus' 100th anniversary

"With our research and designs, we draw inspiration from far and wide and then seek to distil these inspirations into a modern, functional garment that is designed to last and transcend seasons," said Gustafsson.

"We incorporated rectangular and circular shapes, reminiscent of the designs often explored within the movement, and the colour palette is essential and monochrome, reminiscent of the school's building itself."

Ergonomics were a key consideration when it came to menswear, Gustafsson explained, as epitomised in the collarless wool coat: "the construction is minimalist, and the hidden functionality can be seen through the fastenings and discreet pockets, a design function often associated with Bauhaus and its artists."

For the womenswear pieces meanwhile, the designers rely heavily on sculptural folding and darting, a technique which helps flat fabric shape to the body.

"The column-like asymmetric tube dress explores functionality through the adjustable strap details," said Gustafsson. "It's an elegant silhouette reworked through classic design drawing from the original Bauhaus techniques."

The collection is the latest in a series of projects and events celebrating the Bauhaus centenary this year, with two new museums opening for the occasion - one in Dessau and one in Weimar - alongside a flurry of high-profile exhibitions including Beyond Bauhaus at the Royal Institute of British Architects.

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COS unveils fashion collection based on Bauhaus design principles

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Fashion brand COS has created a 13-piece collection of clothing and accessories commemorating the Bauhaus movement and its affiliated artists and architects. The release celebrates a century since the design school's founding in Weimar and exemplifies its enduring impact on creative disciplines today, as explored in Dezeen's Bauhaus 100 series.

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H&M Group's label Cos introduced its first line of sustainable activewear. The fashion brand's new collection for women is made from recycled materials like nylon and polyester.

Sold online to start, the collection contains more than a dozen pieces including socks, leggings, sports bras, underwear, outerwear, and tops. The items range from $45 to $190, according to WWD.

Nicole Bischofer, head of women's wear design at Cos, told WWD that the whole collection is made using fabrics such as organic cottons and recycled polyesters, nylons, and polyamides. Durability is also a factor. "Every piece should have a long lifespan," she said.

The company has plans to offer the women's activewear in some Cos stores later in the year, the outlet reported.

Cos was founded in London in 2007 as a fashion brand for men and women. Since then, H&M said that the store has opened 290 stores in 44 markets around the world. After launching its online store in 2011, the brand is now available in 23 online markets.

By 2030 at the latest, Cos aims to reach 100% recycled, repurposed, or more sustainably sourced materials. All cotton is either organic, recycled, or sourced through the Better Cotton Initiative, the company said. Currently the brand uses repurposed cotton, wool, and cashmere as well as recycled nylon, polyester, Tencel lyocell, plant-based Cupro, and organic cotton. The company also uses recycled glass and silver for its jewelry. This week they added a swimwear collection made from recycled polyamide.

Parent company H&M made headlines earlier this year by forming a partnership with Sydney-based brand P.E. Nation to create a line of athletic wear made using more sustainable fabrics such as organic cotton and recycled polyester. In February H&M Group placed third in the Sustainable Cotton Ranking 2020.

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H&M's Cos Brand Introduces First Sustainable Activewear Line

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H&M Group's label Cos introduced its first line of sustainable activewear. The fashion brand's new collection for women is made from recycled materials like nylon and polyester. Sold online to start, the collection contains more than a dozen pieces including socks, leggings, sports bras, underwear, outerwear, and tops.

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If you're a fan of minimalist and modern clothes, you'll want to have these ten sites on your radar.

When Scandinavian fashion brand, COS launched in London in 2007 it changed the landscape of the UK high-street. COS offers a distinctive design-led, minimalist style that felt modern, Scandi and very different from the rest of our British wardrobes. From the same stable as H&M, yet COS couldn't feel more different. With the tagline 'modern, functional, considered', the cooler older sister brings a Jil Sandler meets Helmut Lang aesthetic to the premium-end of the high street.

Offering seasonal collections for women, men and the sometimes overlooked childrenswear range, COS is known for its modernist silhouettes in beautiful cool neutrals, or rich organic hues (think rust, cobalt blue, rubber plant green this SS19). COS fans love the focus on natural fibres - silk, leather, raffia, linen and wool - with design details that elevate it from the high-street, such as a-symmetric hems, oversized proportions and statement sleeves - accessorised with sculptural jewellery and simple leather accessories.

If you're already a fan of the COS aesthetic, we've picked out some other British and International brands you might want to check out that offer the same modern minimal look, this summer:

WEEKDAY

There are many brands like Weekday, but there is a lot to love about this member of the H&M brood, Swedish womenswear and menswear label Weekday carries a similar aesthetic to COS, with a hint of street style. Minimal 90s inspired silhouettes in sustainable fabrics such as organic cotton and tencel lyocell. Their swimwear range is made from recycled fabric, too. Worth taking a look at this season is their jewellery range - organic shape statement metals, semi-precious stones and modern luxe designs that looks far more expensive than their price tag. You'll find high street prices at their best here.

WHISTLES

Amidst the bold prints and the graphic tees, Whistles has some of the best modern tailoring on the high-street. It is great for oversized blazers, colour-block workwear and great minimal linen dresses this season. Also of note are their bags - well-made structural shapes that look high-end. If you're looking for something a little bit extra special, check out their limited-edition collection of small-run designs in luxurious fabrics, all with a modern twist.

MASSIMO DUTTI

Quietly stylish - with no need for slavish trends or loud print - Spanish brand, Massimo Dutti offers timeless styling in neutral shades that would slot straight into the 'wear forever' section of your wardrobe. Great for shirt dresses and beautiful reworking of 70s style feminine tailoring. Still in search of inspiration? The editorial section of the website reads like a good glossy. It is full of beautiful shoots that are sure to give you style ideas aplenty.

TOAST

Globally inspired Toast keeps in line with COS' modern luxury feel - from Scottish-spun yarns to Japanese indigo and Indian kantha quilting - offering simple silhouettes in rich natural hues. With every design Toast manages to balance volume with simplicity and an expert cut that offers something both flattering, yet distinctly different. This season look out for their fluid jumpsuits and high-waisted cotton canvas trousers - worn rolled up at the ankle with sustainable plimsoll brand, Novesta and a boxy, boat-neck tee. A timeless, relaxed summer look.

KIN BY JOHN LEWIS

Inspired by Japanese simplicity and Scandinavian clean design, Kin by John Lewis offers a great size range from 8-20 in womenswear, shoes and accessories. Six years old, the contemporary range is designed to offer 'beautifully cut separates that transcend seasons'. With a Scandi, sports luxe feel - Kin's range of wide-legged trousers and oversize shirts would make great wardrobe additions for any 'modern minimal' fan who is looking for something 'a bit different' on the British high-street.

THE WHITE COMPANY

Unlike COS' Scandi cool, The White Company offers a very British aesthetic - yet the similarities in neutral colour palette, timeless and wearable design make them easy wardrobe companions. If you thought TWC was all about bedlinen and home accessories, you'd be missing a trick - their womenswear range offers simple shapes in beautiful fabrics, all easy to shop in bite-size edits by trend or occasion. Quality, everyday items you'll wear to death - from cool resortwear, to cosy cashmere knits come winter.

ME + EM

Me + Em has the uncanny knack of creating the pieces you didn't realise your wardrobe was lacking until you've added them to your cart, bought them and wondered what you did without them. Offering luxe staples that won't date and you'll want to keep in your wardrobe all-year-round. The focus is on fluid shapes, without fussy detailing; simple lines and beautiful fabrics - from satin maxi dresses to coloured denim utility boiler suits and great quality wardrobe basic tees.

ARKET

Nordic modern minimal brand, Arket offers a core collection of design basics - created sustainably and with longevity and wearability in mind. Far from 'practical and boring', they have the foundations of your wardrobe nailed. Offering great summer workwear such as city shorts, paperbag trousers and silk shirts alongside more casual simple t-shirt dresses and midi tunics - all elevated out of 'run-of-the-mill high-street fodder' by their attention to design detail for a contemporary Scandi look.

UNIQLO

Japanese functional fashion brand, Uniqlo echoes COS' simple silhouettes in its design ethos. Known for their quality basics in high-tech fabrics (Heat Tec for winter and Airism for summer) - they're great for oversized cashmere jumpers, white shirts and androgynous chinos. Look out for diffusion collections each season from the likes of Alexander Wang and Ines de Fressange, for a designer spin on Uniqlo's simplistic signature look. This summer shop Alexander Wang's range of minimal tees for a cut above your standard wardrobe basics.

PLUMO

North-London based independent brand, Plumo have made a name for themselves creating modern minimal designs that marry comfort with individuality. Who says you have to suffer for fashion? Plumo's signature unstructured look relies on texture and a play on proportions to create an artistic collection of beautiful clothes with no compromise on style OR function. This season shop for easy linen dresses and separates in cool neutrals.

READ MORE:

May 2019

By Lydia Mansi

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Ten Brands Like Cos | The Good Web Guide

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If you're a fan of minimalist and modern clothes, you'll want to have these ten sites on your radar. When Scandinavian fashion brand, COS launched in London in 2007 it changed the landscape of the UK high-street. COS offers a distinctive design-led, minimalist style that felt modern, Scandi and very different from the rest of our British wardrobes.

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We went to H&M’s sister store and saw why it’s become a secret weapon for the struggling company

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Cos, an H&M sister store, focuses on minimalist basics. We went to the store to see what it was like to shop there.

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For mums to find and recommend classes, groups, clubs, days out and products for children in the Brentwood area. No general sales please. Sorry no advertising unrelated to children ie trades,...

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Thank you for taking the time to complete this short survey. Please note this is anonymous.

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This week we saw a serious influx of style as designers, models and fashionistas from all corners of the globe flocked to the capital for London Fashion Week! Based at the brand new venues in and around Soho (right by the Seraphine head office!), the capital played host to some of the most stylish people on the planet.

One such stylista was British model and Vogue presenter Jade Parfitt, who we spotted rocking one of our new season maternity dresses as she dashed between fashion shows, and another was singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor who was stunning in one of our LUXE maternity gowns at the WilliamVintage Dinner!

Jade styled our Cerise Dot Maternity Dress with a long line black blazer, delicate silver necklace and a cute embellished clutch; completing the perfect pregnancy look with a pair of smart winkle-pickers - ideal for a full day of fashion shows.

Sophie made a show-stopping entrance at the annual WilliamVintage Dinner in our Navy Silk & Lace Maternity Evening Gown! Hosted by The Vintage King himself William Banks-Blaney, the WilliamVintage Dinner brings together luminaries from the fields of fashion, film & music to celebrate the legacy of haute couture fashion. Styled in silk and lace, Sophie looked right at home among the classic vintage gowns.

What a glamorous week!

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London Fashion Week: Vogue Loves Seraphine Maternity

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This week we saw a serious influx of style as designers, models and fashionistas from all corners of the globe flocked to the capital for London Fashion Week! Based at the brand new venues in and around Soho (right by the Seraphine head office!), the capital played host to some of the most stylish people on the planet.

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Key takeaways:

Brands are pointing to mainland China, where they hope shoppers that would otherwise be travelling might be convinced to spend more on luxury at home.

Given concerns about visiting stores are likely to linger, e-commerce and digital platforms are more key than ever to luxury brands.

Speaking with analysts in April after the company's first-quarter financial results for 2020 were announced, Moncler chief executive Remo Ruffini said the first few months of 2020 "will be remembered as the watershed between the before and the after".

Despite the current turmoil, investors are still confident about the prospect of the leading luxury names in the after. Share prices for LVMH and Kering have been on the up since mid-March, while Hermès is trading just marginally below where it was at the beginning of the year. That is in spite of notable sales declines in Q1, with the expectation those drops will accelerate during Q2.

The big names in luxury are expected to rebound, just as they have after previous recessions. But long-term change for the industry is inevitable.

A lot is left open ended and uncertain as luxury regains its footing. What we do know now is that demand will grow in mainland China, sales will swing significantly toward e-commerce and unsold inventory will be a mounting and persistent challenge for brands. How fashion companies big and small respond to these near-term trends is likely to set the tone for a significantly changed post-Covid-19 world.

Brands point towards mainland China

Luxury giants were bullish during Q1 presentations about the prospects of recovery in mainland China. LVMH spoke of 50 per cent year-on-year increases for some of its big brands, while Kering also said the less affected parts of the country were now recovering at a quicker pace. Having been the first country to shut down, mainland China is now driving close to 100 per cent of luxury sales, says Francesca DiPasquantonio, managing director for equity research at Deutsche Bank.

The downside of this news is that domestic spending in China has to increase significantly to match sales lost abroad. Around 75 per cent of luxury spending by Chinese nationals takes place outside of the nation's borders, per McKinsey, with the most popular destinations typically neighbouring jurisdictions like Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea where the goods on offer could be purchased at a discount on mainland prices.

A recent Bain & Company study revealed the firm's worst-case scenario for the luxury industry, a sales decline of 30 to 35 per cent, would take place if intra-Asian travel did not pick up at all by the end of the year. But the Chinese government has been ramping up efforts to domesticate more luxury spend by cutting taxes on luxury goods; the events of this year are likely to be accelerating that trend.

"The overriding message is: the structural desire for the Chinese luxury consumer to spend is still absolutely there," says Louise Singlehurst, managing director of European equity research at Goldman Sachs.

Some luxury brands are ready for Chinese consumer spend to shift to the mainland. Kering outlined an expansion strategy last year to open more stores in up-and-coming urban centres. The laggards, without as much of a presence in the country, may have to partner with local marketplaces to catch up and make the most of these shifts. Last week Alibaba announced it was launching a luxury outlet platform to help overstocked brands shift inventory.

"Brands will want to reconsider their perennial reluctance to go on to those websites," says Guillaume Gauvillé, sell-side analyst - vice president at Credit Suisse.

Neglect e-commerce at your peril

Up until when stores began opening in Germany and Austria in the last couple of weeks, the only place European shoppers could make luxury purchases was via desktop or mobile. That remains true in most American states and many other countries around the world.

DiPasquantonio says that some luxury brands have been seeing triple-digit increases in online sales, albeit from a low base, adding that brands that have invested and expanded their e-commerce networks are inevitably going to be the best protected by this online shift. This includes for some brands a presence on e-tailers like Farfetch and Net-a-Porter, where consumers are going to get the experience closest to what they had when going out on shopping trips. "Multibrand proposals can substitute window shopping," she says.

Consumers remain shaken by Covid-19. A poll conducted at the end of April by Ipsos Mori showed that nearly half of British consumers said they would not feel comfortable going to shops once the lockdown restrictions are lifted. A significant proportion of the public in most major economies worldwide remain uneasy about the economy reopening. It is far too early to tell if these effects will be long-lasting, but a survey conducted in March by Vogue Business in China showed that consumers said the channel they were most likely to use to buy luxury goods post-lockdown was brands' flagship e-commerce portals.

Ensuring discoverability of inventory on online portals is likely to become even more critical in this new age of retail. Singlehurst says the anecdotes so far from reopening countries suggest high-conversion in stores with less traffic and very limited browsing time.

The end of seasonality?

Covid-19 has highlighted the fragility of the seasonal model. A massive amount of SS20 inventory is likely to remain unsold, leaving brands with a dilemma about how to best distribute it. Wholesale has been the main target of some of this criticism, with bigger brands keen to take further control of their distribution and smaller players considering ramping up their own direct-to-consumer operations.

One tactic that some brands look to be using to deal with their excess inventory is to extend full-price sales through August, when Autumn/Winter collections would typically be hitting stores, says Singlehurst.

Gauvillé says that the traditional calendar has been to some degree eroded in recent years through product drops, but that the crisis may trigger more significant changes, with stock going on sale when consumers actually want to buy it. "We could be moving towards a calendar that is actually following spring, summer, fall and winter," he says.

Analysts have already said that the shift is prompting brands to consider increasing their collection of cross-seasonal products as they offer greater protection from shifts in demand as that inventory can be brought back into store once consumers want to buy again.

That will likely have to be balanced with a demand for newness, which has been of greater importance to fashion consumers than seasons for some time now, says DiPasquantonio. There have already been calls for brands to use this time off to find ways to make their supply chains more nimble. "Quick time to market from a creative phase to... having the products delivered to customers is going to continue to create winners and losers."

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More from this author: Trend forecasters predict a more trendless future Data analysis shows Jacquemus as fashion's top breakout brand Despite risks, independent designers see a silver lining in lockdown

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The pandemic's lasting effects on luxury fashion

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Key takeaways: Brands are pointing to mainland China, where they hope shoppers that would otherwise be travelling might be convinced to spend more on luxury at home. Given concerns about visiting stores are likely to linger, e-commerce and digital platforms are more key than ever to luxury brands.

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With the possibility of social distancing becoming a long-term measure, brands are turning their attention to creating a comprehensive digital experience.

Digitisation of fashion has become a necessity, not an option, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. With the possibility of social distancing becoming a long-term measure, brands can only reliably count on digital means to engage with customers over the next 12 months.

Steve Sacks, customer director at Selfridges, feels that even when customers can return to stores, his strategy will be about catering to different mindsets. "There is no one model for the next six to 12 months. Many of our customers can't wait to get back in store. But for many others, they have said that even when they can, they would prefer to stay with their digital experience for a while."

The digital experience is now essential, especially for luxury brands, but it has sometimes been an afterthought. Maria Prados, vice president of global retail at Worldpay, says that for an industry that is highly invested in the top of the funnel, user experience within checkout is often forgotten, despite it being the place where brands make their money.

"With fashion retailers unable to rely on customers being - and wanting to be - in physical stores this year, it's even more important that the end of the digital payment process fits into the end-to-end omnichannel brand experience, and that the online sales actually happen," Prados says.

Abandoned baskets are also symptomatic of this era, with Gen Z leading on indecisiveness. The 18-24 demographic, which is set to make up 35 per cent of luxury consumption by 2035 according to Bain and Company, is already the most contradictory generation on record. While they are the most likely to be within a digital brand's reach thanks to social media, they are often the least likely to buy. Sacks says that Gen Z's thought leadership around mindful shopping and sustainability is now accelerating due to the pandemic.

Fashion's wallets

Online fashion consumers have particular payment needs and are driving broader payment trends for e-commerce, one of which is digital wallets. Half of fashion e-commerce consumers within Worldpay's Global territories use digital wallets, with Gen Z and millennials leading the way.

According to Worldpay's Retail Global Payments Report, online fashion consumers within EMEA and APAC are 4 per cent and 7 per cent more likely, respectively, to shop online using digital wallets than consumers from other regions within overall e-commerce. The Wunderman Thompson Intelligence 2020 survey also confirms the Gen Z bias in APAC, reporting that 97 per cent of Gen Z's in nine Asian markets (including China, Japan and Thailand) prefer to make payments using a digital wallet.

Worldpay's payment data shows that fashion consumers within the UK and France also lead on digital wallets by 5 and 8 per cent respectively. Meanwhile, Australia's uptake of digital wallets is being led by fashion consumers who are swapping out cards for wallets, with Australia's online fashion consumers 6 per cent more likely to use digital wallets than its overall online retail spenders.

Most importantly is China, where 5 per cent more payments are made by digital wallet within fashion and footwear e-commerce than overall online retail. Prados says this is an early indicator of a global market trend. Where older generations within other global markets are still using long-form checkout methods, such as credit card or even bank transfer, Prados says Gen Z consumers in China are heading for digital wallets because they've skipped a technology generation - having not first experienced e-commerce via a computer. "They've just jumped straight into mobile. For Gen Z here, there isn't a legacy of shopping online any other way."

Debut customers in emerging markets

As Visa, Mastercard and other international digital wallet brands battle for market share in existing markets, Worldpay is also providing the gateway for online fashion and luxury retailers looking to access unbanked populations and those first-time online fashion consumers.

Six per cent of Worldpay's global regions are currently paying for fashion and footwear via unbanked means, driven by Latin America where 16 per cent of consumers are doing so. With just under 10 per cent of fashion and footwear purchases being paid via cash on delivery, Worldpay is working with Postpay in countries like Brazil where it enables cash payment via Boleto Bancario, and online shoppers take a receipt into a 7-Eleven and pay with cash.

Cash on delivery is declining almost everywhere. It won't captivate new, younger unbanked audiences who will go straight to digital wallets but it can serve older, more traditional customers. Some luxury brands, including Bottega Veneta, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, offer cash on delivery on-site, with Italy remaining one of the biggest users of shopping online and paying cash in-store. (And that's factoring in Japan, where cash is still very much king.) However, cash on delivery and Postpay is not an entirely ideal option for unbanked customers, as refunds are only possible via wire transfer.

For fashion, focusing not on the current pool of statistics but looking to the future shows promise in terms of new customers. There are 1.7 billion unbanked consumers in the world, and most of them are women, according to the World Bank Global Findex.

APAC's current number for unbanked fashion consumers may be a low figure percentage overall, driven by existing unbanked consumers migrating at rapid speed to digital wallets in China. The figure is expected to rise, as more than a quarter of the world's smartphones are in China (780 million in 2020), more Chinese Gen Z are coming of age, and China's rising middle class is approaching 550 million in the next three years, according to McKinsey.

According to Worldpay's Global Retail Report, there are currently pockets of highly unbanked populations from emerging markets within Southeast Asia. One highlight is Thailand, with 30 per cent of online fashion purchases being made by unbanked means. With a $577 million fashion market set to grow annually by 12.3 per cent until 2024, the pipeline for future appetite and future customers is strong.

Blockchain and crypto

Fashion's supply chain is opaque. In-house global blockchain currencies created by fashion brands and retailers can provide anti-fraud authentication against fakes and record an item's ethical footprint as it travels from factory to checkout.

With the fashion resale market set to grow to $11 billion by 2022 according to Cowen and Company, Prados says a blockchain solution is particularly good for providing cleaner payment systems for circular economy partnerships, as set up by The RealReal and Burberry in 2019, where customers and multiple fashion retailers need to process a lot of back-and-forth payments. Prados says it would work by gathering all the information in a smart contract and avoiding having to make and receive a big number of different payments from the same parties.

Spanning 146 countries, Worldpay's card-to-crypto technology is leveraging Mastercard and Visa's worldwide networks, and creating crypto exchanges where consumers can make cross-border transfers local via seamless transactions. The future arrival of a Chanel coin or the Tiffany & Co. "dollar", travelling through one such exchange, is a valid imagining.

One blockchain digital currency already being explored by luxury retail is Facebook's Libra. José Neves, CEO and co-chairman of Farfetch, whose company has reportedly invested a minimum of $10 million in Libra, is a founding member of The Libra Association. Of the cryptocurrency, Neves says, "Libra will enable global, frictionless e-commerce for hundreds of millions of people around the world." Similarly, at Viva Technology in Paris in May 2019, Louis Vuitton announced the launch of Aura, its in-house blockchain currency that authenticates its luxury items.

Social commerce transplants

Fashion consumers are already shopping globally, largely thanks to social media.

No other fashion consumer is more social-first than China's netizens. Prados believes that China being the largest social media market in the world is the rationale for China being the leading fashion market in the world for wallets, with a staggering 76 per cent of fashion payments happening there (compared to 71 per cent within wider online retail purchases). An indication of fashion's younger audiences is the decline of bank transfers and credit cards in smaller numbers in fashion than in retail.

The main driver for fashion's success within Chinese social commerce is the integrated nature of Chinese super apps, which include Tencent's 1.2 billion-user-strong WeChat, a place where consumers bank, shop and socialise. "WeChat has a wide range of features including Red Envelope and WePay, making it very convenient for brands and retailers to convert social interaction with consumers into sales," says Vogue Business in China's managing editor Yiling Pan.

Biometric "selfies"

In July 2019, Alipay, the Alibaba wallet that plugs into social platform Weibo, launched selfie payments, complete with a beauty filter that has fashion consumers looking "selfie-ready" while paying. The rise in biometric payments is happening fast in China. TechCrunch reported that 60 per cent of goods are already being paid for via fingerprints or facial recognition on Singles' Day, the world's largest shopping event, which in 2019 drove $38 billion in sales according to Forbes.

Most of Gen Z are fans of surreal filters, opening up opportunities for in-app social payments in Western markets to eventually get more creative via payment "selfie" filters. However, the acceptance for biometric play could vary from region to region. Despite internal consumer research reporting that global consumers are interested in biometric payments, a recent Worldpay FIS Report in December 2019 details trust issues around biometric technology local to countries where consumers are still playing cultural catch-up, with 54 per cent of UK customers thinking passwords are safer than biometric payments when it comes to online fraud.

Gaming payments in AR & VR

This year's Mac Cosmetics lipstick collaboration with Tencent's mobile game Honor of Kings (which boasts 200 million players) was hosted on WeChat app as an in-app AR gaming and checkout experience. Gaming already has 9 per cent of Gen Z's wallet (up from 8 per cent in 2019, according to Piper Jaffray's 2020 survey of American teenagers), and with apparel giant Nike in the esports space, the future of fashion and beauty payments will increasingly sit within an AR or VR mobile gaming experience.

Worldpay's seamless technology won't require future VR or AR gamers to leave the experience to checkout and buy something like a piece of virtual clothing or a real eye shadow. Dovetailed with voice commerce, where players speak their commands and talk through their outfit choices with other players in the game, Prados says brands and retailers will have access to a host of shopping conversations that sales assistants wouldn't have been privy to.

Buy now, crave later?

EMEA is the leading market for buy now, pay later (BNPL). Within the context of the broader retail market as outlined in Worldpay's Retail Global Global Report, fashion is driving the growth of BNPL within the UK and Italy, with the service making up 8.5 per cent of fashion and footwear payments in EMEA (compared to 7.7 per cent within wider online retail). Concentrated in EMEA, BNPL is still seen as a local-hero payment solution, driven by Sweden, where Klarna is headquartered, and spreading to the Netherlands and Germany.

Leading UK fast fashion brands Topshop, Asos and River Island offer Klarna as a payment option. Klarna is used as a sales and marketing tool: H&M uses aspirational language to brand the payment option to customers as H&M x Klarna as if it were a design collaboration. Meanwhile, Kylie Jenner (the biggest Gen Z influencer, according to Piper Jaffray) enthusiastically announced on her own Facebook fan page that her beauty brand Kylie Cosmetics would be partnering with Afterpay to her 22 million followers.

For debt-averse consumers in Germany, where BNPL is popular, it is perceived as a financial planning tool. Prados says companies like Klarna are a strategic answer to the problem of returns and the constant in-out cycle of refunds. Rather than go through the motions of processing an online order, fulfilling it, then receiving a return and processing a refund, customers would only make a payment once receiving something and deciding to keep it, she says.

Global successes and opportunities

BNPL is also rising in popularity in Australia and Malaysia; in Australia, one-fifth of all fashion payments are now facilitated by BNPL brands such as Afterpay and Zip Pay.

BNPL has less traction in China and the US, having 0.1 per cent and 1.4 per cent penetration respectively within wider online retail within these large population bases. BNPL represents a growth opportunity for the US, where Klarna raised $460 million in 2019 to expand its presence. However, BNPL would need to be facilitated by a Chinese payment company due to local government restrictions.

BNPL also continues to be largely irrelevant for fashion consumers in countries like Argentina, Brazil and Hong Kong who are being offered payment instalments and discounts by credit card companies and governments that are looking to attract unbanked populations. Credit cards offering BNPL benefits have a particularly strong hold on the fashion market, accounting for 53 per cent for Brazil's online retail market compared to overall e-commerce.

This article was sponsored by Worldpay from FIS.

To join Vogue Business's series of webinars with Worldpay from FIS looking at 'How shoppers want to pay in 2020', register here.

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The now and next in digitally native fashion payments

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With the possibility of social distancing becoming a long-term measure, brands are turning their attention to creating a comprehensive digital experience.

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How quickly do fashion materials biodegrade?

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4 per cent of worldwide waste came from the fashion industry in 2015 and more clothes crafted with man-made fibres will add to that.

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Consumers are looking for ethical seals of approval on clothing, prompting retailers to promote sustainability right on the tags.

Key takeaways:

Net-a-Porter and Selfridges are among retailers looking to promote the sustainable attributes of items they carry with proprietary labels.

Most of the labels are based on already-established initiatives, like Fairtrade and the EU Ecolabel, but critics claim financial agendas complicate transparency.

Research shows consumers want to know more about garments' manufacturing history and materials, but trust in labelling is evasive.

Clothing labels bear a new responsibility as concern for sustainability takes up more space in fashion consumers' consciousnesses.

"Ecolabels" - a voluntary label to qualify a product as ethically friendly - list a brand's sustainability credentials directly on its garments. Organisations like the Fairtrade Foundation, the Global Organic Textile Standard and OEKO-Tex work with brands and manufacturers to disclose information on labels concerning environmental impact and ethical issues like workers' rights. As consumers increasingly want to know where their clothes come from and how they're made, in addition to what they're made of, they're looking for ethical seals of approval. Including that information on clothing tags is meant to clear up these questions.

But confusion abounds. The definition of what constitutes "ethical" clothing manufacturing has been subjected to interpretation from many different viewpoints, obfuscating industry-wide standards. The sheer number of ethical labels circulating the industry complicates who and what to trust: the Ecolabel Index, an independent global directory of ecolabels and environmental certification schemes, counts 463 ecolabels across 25 different industry sectors.

In a report last year assessing different ethical labelling schemes, the Changing Markets Foundation wrote that "despite the proliferation of different initiatives, there is no overarching scheme that satisfactorily addresses sustainability performance across the whole supply chain." One of the authors, campaigns director Nusa Urbanic, says the foundation found significant issues with many of the voluntary initiatives that clothing manufacturers use. "Certification has lost its way. A lot of labels should be abolished," she says.

But customers want clearly defined labels, and retailers are incentivised to respond. According to research conducted by Selfridges, 72 per cent of customers wanted more sustainability information to be available, and 69 per cent of those shoppers wanted that information to be displayed on individual products.

Ethical labels provide a quick and easy visual cue to customers hoping to shop sustainably. But as the practice gains traction, a lack of clearly defined standards could diminish trust and erode progress.

Responding to customer demand, retailers are promoting more sustainably and responsibly made items. In 2017, Selfridges introduced a "Buying Better" labelling scheme that assigned colour-coded tags to indicate sustainable production practices: peach tags denote vegan beauty products, while grey labels mark products with sustainably sourced leather, for instance, and the scheme was expanded this year. Net-a-Porter launched its Net Sustain edit earlier this year to spotlight clothing that checked off five sustainability attributes, such as made locally or reduced waste. Sales of items featured in Net-a-Porter's ethical Net Sustain collection nearly tripled on the day of the launch, per a source close to the matter.

Any manufacturer, technically, can design its own ecolabel; what these labels actually signify varies. Some companies, like H&M and Asos, identify clothing collections that follow better production practices, named the "Conscious Collection" and "Eco Edit" respectively. Outside of designated collections, companies can call out particular practices, like a piece of clothing that is constructed out of a certain proportion of recycled fabric or organic cotton.

Only one out of five consumers say they would trust information given by the company itself, per an Ipsos Mori survey of 7,000 consumers across seven markets for the Changing Markets Foundation in October last year. The results showed a general lack of trust in the information that companies communicate about their sustainability practices. A majority of respondents thought that clothing brands should disclose the environmental impact of their clothing and details about their supply chain. Third-party authentication came top as the most trustworthy way of ensuring that a product was meeting ethical standards.

Establishing a reputation

Building a reliable reputation, then, is difficult but crucial if the label is to carry any weight. The Fairtrade Foundation, founded 27 years ago, is one of the successful examples. Built from the principle that workers deserve to earn a fair wage for the goods they produce, the Fairtrade Foundation is most closely associated with the food industry, but it does offer certification to textiles companies. The gold sourced by Kering, for example, is recognised as Fairtrade.

Julia Nicoara, director of public engagement at the foundation, says that independent certification is key to ensuring consumer trust. "It's a real benefit from a consumer point of view - the credibility and authenticity you get from a business carrying that label." Nine out of 10 people in the UK surveyed by YouGov over the last year were familiar with Fairtrade, and two-thirds of those people supported it.

Nicoara worries that the rise of in-house schemes like those created by Selfridges and Net-a-Porter could cause confusion for shoppers and increase the risk of "overclaiming". This would include, for example, unaudited claims about the environmental practices of a brand that cannot be proven.

Alex McIntosh, a long-term sustainability consultant to Selfridges, says via email that all brands stocked by the store conform to the department store's ethical trading requirements. These requirements stipulate that no child or forced labour can occur, that workers be paid a living wage and that basic animal welfare standards are upheld. Vendors are trusted to self-assess, but Selfridges has access to supply chain reports through data-sharing platform Sedex. Any Sedex member that fails to comply with the rules then Selfridges may view that as a breach of contract.

Setting up a proprietary labelling process, McIntosh believes, will promote broader industry change. "We believe that spotlighting brands and products that are going above and beyond will inspire all our brand and product partners," he says.

A source close to the Net Sustain labelling process at Net-a-Porter, meanwhile, said that in-depth assessments were carried out, as well as risk checks to make sure that the information being shared was accurate. The source did not provide additional detail on what exactly these safeguarding steps involved. Like Selfridges, most of the Net Sustain labels are based on existing standards, meaning that some of those risk checks are outsourced. Telephone interviews and written requests for information are needed for labels, such as Selfridges's Saving Water, which are based on parameters set by the department store itself.

Rigorous standards enforce better industry practices, but there remains a lack of clarity over the specific criteria required in both Net-a-Porter's and Selfridges' schemes and how they are validated. Ilishio Lovejoy, project manager for policy and research at campaign group Fashion Revolution, says that the retailers should publish that information. "Labelling is data, and it's only useful if it is accurate and transparent."

Determining industry standards

Without one set of universal standards for sustainability in fashion, concerns remain that clothing deemed ethical by one organisation will fail an assessment by another. Some Oeko-Tex standards, for instance, ensure both environmental management and protection of the workforce, but the best-known standard, the Oeko-Tex 100, primarily ensures no harmful chemicals are involved in the manufacturing of the garment.

"You can't tick the box on everything," says Dr Patsy Perry, senior lecturer in fashion marketing at Manchester University.

The answer may lie in replacing labelling schemes, whose simplicity can limit scope, for a scoring system that considers multiple factors, such as the one produced by Australian firm Good On You. The organisation uses publicly available information about a brand to produce a verdict on its ethical credentials through clearly defined ratings and individual scores tallied by measuring the impact an item will have on people, the planet and animals. The initiative's goal is to rate the production practices of 10,000 brands by the end of 2020.

"As more issues are uncovered in fashion, more standards and certifications emerge," says Good On You co-founder Sandra Capponi. "The information needs to be easy to understand."

A list of over 40 established ethical standards, including Fairtrade and the Better Cotton Initiative, are referenced in drawing up a ranking. These ranks have challenged brands that have built reputations on the grounds of being eco-friendly. Allbirds, for instance, landed the middling ranking "It's a start" due to an alleged lack of disclosure around chemical usage and the wages workers are paid. The site has also proven to be a potential partner for retailers looking to outsource sustainable credibility: online luxury marketplace Farfetch collaborated with Good On You for the launch of its sustainable collection, using its scoring system to select brands that would be included in the collection.

Scoring systems have their limitations: Good On You shares everything that its rankings are based upon, but does not share how that weighting gets converted into the final score. Capponi says that it is based upon extensive consultation with sustainability experts to prioritise the most pressing issues in the industry. Still, the lack of disclosure around brands' performance in individual parameters makes it unclear the extent to which it can fully be trusted.

Governments have been called upon to serve as an overseeing body of fragmented sustainability standards but to little effect. France adopted a due diligence law in 2018, with fashion companies now required to audit and disclose the environmental and social impact of their supply chains. The Environmental Audit Committee in the UK recommended mandatory environmental targets for larger fashion companies in a report earlier this year, although these suggestions were rejected.

In its Green Deal policy proposal announced on Wednesday, the European Commission said that they "will step up its regulatory and non-regulatory efforts to tackle false green claims" and that all claims of environmental benefit should be tested against a standard methodology.

Government involvement could help to level the playing field, ensuring that clothing is rated fairly in comparison to others. Lovejoy says that, like the independent label schemes that exist already, these standards would be subject to robust debate and criticism, though "to start somewhere would be a good thing".

Inconsistencies in ecolabelling are exacerbated by brands unwilling to disclose production practices for fear of scrutiny, even if progress is being made. A brand working to fix its supply chain may be unfairly shunned by consumers for not having fully transformed it. Retailer size and scale should also be considered. H&M received the "It's a start" ranking from Good On You, but it's also the world's second largest buyer of organic cotton.

Nicoara believes that spotlighting works in progress is necessary to understanding transparent global practices, and such nuances can't be disclosed on a label. "If you just show the positive, you run the risk of telling people that the problem has been solved, and there's no more issue."

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More from this author: The evolution of luxury's digital marketing playbook How quickly do fashion materials biodegrade? Louis Vuitton has raised prices in China. Other brands could follow

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What the rise of 'ecolabelling' means for retailers

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Consumers are looking for ethical seals of approval on clothing, prompting retailers to promote sustainability right on the tags.

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Deadstock fabric and unsold inventory are weighing down the fashion industry, which is responsible for 10 per cent of the world's carbon emissions.

Companies looking to solve this problem are collecting unused fabric and finding places to sell excess inventory.

Brands can avoid overproduction altogether by using smarter trend prediction and fabric cutting tools.

In the 18 months since Burberry faced public outrage for burning $37 million worth of excess product in 2017, overproduction remains one of fashion's costliest and most environmentally damaging open secrets.

In an effort to clear inventory without markdowns, other brands, including H&M, Nike and Louis Vuitton, have destroyed excess merchandise. Deadstock, a term used to describe merchandise that is never sold to consumers, is compounded by the amount of fabric left in factories after a production or style cancellation, as well as rampant returns.

The fashion industry, responsible for 10 per cent of the world's carbon emissions, is facing broader pressure to reduce its environmental impact, and brands are recognising the need to find more sustainable solutions for unsold items. (Burberry, for its part, banned the burning of excess goods in 2018.)

Alternatives are slowly taking shape. Businesses have launched that help brands change their approach to excess material and inventory, while new fashion brands are changing industry standards by building business models that incorporate used or leftover fabric into new collections, reducing reliance on raw resources. The success of these efforts, however, will ultimately depend on expanding brand buy-in.

The problem with unsold inventory

A key issue driving overproduction is the potential risk of inventory shortages, which would result in lost sales and frustrated customers. Until recently, brands faced no scrutiny over what they did with the items that didn't sell. But as consumers demand more sustainable fashion - and as the e-commerce market inundates retailers with product returns, many of which go straight to landfill - the opportunity for businesses to swoop in offering solutions has surged.

Parker Lane Group, a UK-based company that works with clients to handle excess inventory and customer returns, helps brands find markets for unsold clothing and recycles items that can't be resold. (This ranges from off-price retailers to buyers in conservative countries that like discounted modest swimsuits unsold in markets where bikinis are popular.) The company's goal is to find the most efficient use for each item. "All waste has value if you know how to handle it," says chief executive Raffy Kassardjian. The company, launched in 2010, currently has secondary markets established in more than 60 countries, its own sorting facility in Poland and a recycling centre in Tunisia.

Brands are incentivised to work with Parker Lane for the economic savings. Without disclosing specifics, Kassardjian says one of the company's biggest clients reported between a 30 to 40 per cent increase in value monetised from unsold inventory since working with Parker Lane, compared with processing it independently. "We focus on returning value to brands. We want to generate as much value as we can," Kassardjian says. The company has plans in the works to expand into consumer-facing operations with retailers, coordinating where excess inventory is resold.

US-based Optoro offers brands a similar service for dealing with unsold goods. Using AI and machine-learning software, its platform processes millions of items a year, marking each for resale or donation. According to the company's head of sustainability Ann Starodaj, the majority of items are put up for resale, meaning the product could go to several different channels, including the brands' outlet platforms, Amazon, Ebay and Optoro's resale site, Blinq.

Both companies accommodate brands that don't want products with logos or trademarked items being resold in discount markets, but Optoro and Parker Lane primarily work with high-volume activewear or high street brands, not image-sensitive luxury brands. One of Optoro's goals is to show luxury brands the potential value of remarketing unsold items. While lower volume, luxury brands still contend with unsold products, as Burberry demonstrated. The brand now donates excess fabric to a women's cooperative in Italy, working with organisations to recycle waste and exploring ways to repurpose raw materials and some unsold finished products. Burberry claims to be the only luxury brand committed to not destroying unsold items; Kering and LVMH did not respond for comment.

New fashion from old fabric

Some fashion designers see new opportunity in excess fabric in the supply chain. In 2013, designer Rachel Faller started the ethically made women's clothing and accessory line Tonlé, made from textiles cast off by factories in Cambodia, where she lived for five years. These materials include end-of-season excess and fabric pieces leftover during the cutting process, the result of factories optimising for saving time rather than minimising fabric waste, says Faller.

Using whatever materials are available as a starting point in a design process can be limiting, but that's a cost Faller sees as necessary. "The earth's resources are already beyond tapped. We believe that restraint is the way of the future, and we have grounded our business model in these practices."

New York label Paskho was founded by former Giorgio Armani and Perry Ellis executive Patrick Robinson with a similar goal to use up waste found in apparel factories, which costs between 20 to 38 per cent less than new fabric. If the brand, which sells men's and women's travel wear, does source new material, it's approved by Bluesign, a sustainable textile certification scheme. Robinson says none of the material goes to waste, a commitment made possible by a computerised factory process that optimises smart fabric cutting.

Deadstock can be an efficient way for other brands to experiment. About 15 per cent of Reformation's products are made with deadstock, which it uses as a source of novelty and speciality fabrics. "If we want to try something different, deadstock allows us to do that without developing new fabrics or ordering a minimum amount," vice president of sustainability Kathleen Talbot writes in an email. She says that in most cases, Reformation looks for materials to fit a specific need, such as embellished fabrics and faux fur, but the company also uses what mills tell it is available when it's a good fit.

Quantities of these unused fabrics are vast enough that entrepreneurs have also started creating systematic ways to funnel them into the hands of those who will use them. New York City-based Queen of Raw operates an online marketplace that buys and sells unused fabric waste. "It's in mint condition. It just sits in warehouses collecting dust. It didn't make sense for the planet, and it also didn't make sense for businesses," says co-founder Stephanie Benedetto.

She says brands can recoup up to 15 per cent of their bottom line by letting Queen of Raw sell their unused fabric stocks. In the last year, the company has grown 110 per cent year-on-year and has over 100,000 users that include fast fashion brands and luxury houses. But according to Benedetto and her team's calculations, $120 billion worth of fabric ends up in the landfill every year, meaning there's still much room left to grow.

Targeting a different segment of the supply chain, FabScrap collects 6,000 pounds of fabric scraps weekly from corporate fashion offices, factories and cutting rooms in New York City. It then sells those online and in its physical shop near the Fashion Institute of Technology to a clientele that ranges from sewing hobbyists to emerging designers focused on sustainability. Founder Jessica Schreiber says her company provides an annual report to the 400-plus brands it works with detailing how each brand's materials were used and the resulting environmental benefits.

For brands just dipping their toes into sustainability, she says, it's a measurable place to start that doesn't create reputational risk, as materials are not identifiable by brand.

Solving for overproduction

While convincing brands to funnel unsold inventory into secondary markets extends the life of products, and using deadstock fabric helps eliminate waste, neither solution helps to eliminate overproduction. Overproduction is a result of seasonal inventory and miscalculated demand predictions, while excess inventory can stem from failed quality control and pulled production.

ZigZag Global, which manages customer return logistics for brands, analyses data from returned items and provides it to clients to optimise production levels. This helps brands better predict what sizes and colours to stock for which markets. Managing director Patrick Eve says that brands typically overproduce by about 40 per cent. "What we want to do is help the retailer produce the right number of goods."

Francois Souchet, who leads the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Make Fashion Circular initiative, believes that tackling the overproduction problem at its source will require fundamental changes in how the industry approaches garment design and plans for production. The ubiquity of large order minimums - for final products as well as in earlier manufacturing stages, such as fabric sourcing - builds waste into every step of production, something that can be avoided. Souchet points to Zara, which has faced criticism for propelling the wasteful fast fashion model but tests new products in markets before ramping up production, helping it to avoid wasted inventory.

Faller's hope is for production and design to be integrated. "Designers are usually working in a box that is totally isolated from the production constraints. Another team typically figures out how to get everything made, cost-effectively, after the design team hands it over," she says. But as long as most brands don't own their production, progress will be difficult. "The incentives aren't aligned to reduce waste or find creative ways to use their own waste - never mind take care of garment makers or the environment."
To receive the Vogue Business Sustainability Edit, sign up here. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author:
Fashion's biodiversity problem (part 1)

Fashion is belatedly trying to save Earth's biodiversity (part 2)
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Fashion has a waste problem. These companies want to fix it

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Deadstock fabric and unsold inventory are weighing down the fashion industry, which is responsible for 10 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. Companies looking to solve this problem are collecting unused fabric and finding places to sell excess inventory. Brands can avoid overproduction altogether by using smarter trend prediction and fabric cutting tools.

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Problems with Sustainable Capsule Collections

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Problems with Sustainable Capsule Collections

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Retailers like H&M and Levi's test sustainable practices through "eco-friendly" capsule collections that represent small pieces of overall business.

Critics say such limited product lines don't go far enough to address problems like carbon footprint, and that messaging may be misleading to customers.

Executed correctly, these collections can represent longer-lead progress in areas like supply chain practices and material sourcing.

As a fast-fashion behemoth, H&M's sustainability practices are subject to criticism. Environmentalists claim that H&M's attempts to go greener, particularly with its Conscious collection, are nothing more than greenwashing. The most common complaint is that for a retailer that brought in $24 billion in 2019, the fraction of business that "consciously" made clothes represents is a meagre response to the scale of the climate crisis and doesn't touch the issue of labour conditions.

According to Pascal Brun, H&M's head of sustainability, the criteria for Conscious products is that they're made with 50 per cent "sustainable" - such as organic or recycled - materials, or 20 per cent recycled materials in the case of cotton, because of technical limitations. Conscious products are marked by green hang tags, while H&M's Conscious Exclusive collection, through which it experiments with new materials and practices, is released twice annually. The company wouldn't share sales figures or how much of H&M's total business it represents.

"Conscious", "eco-friendly" and "sustainable" capsule collections are popular among retailers whose main collections aren't made following such practices. They've become common but are not exclusive to fast-fashion companies: Asos, Zara and Mango are among the brands that, in addition to H&M, put out special collections they label eco-friendly.

Retailers test sustainability in limited product runs in part because of the added costs that can come with implementing sustainability measures. But beyond that, material supply may not be available yet, the suppliers themselves may not be equipped or, in the case of new technologies, they may not have been scaled yet. A company might also be divided, internally, on the best ways to push sustainability forward - or whether to prioritise it at all.

While these collections may get called out for not doing enough to drive meaningful change, a number of industry experts argue that they can be useful for companies to build up sustainable practices by testing out new materials, processes or sourcing strategies. But there needs to be a viable plan for a company to scale the progress; and messaging matters.

"Consumers would care if marketing teams did a better job to make them care," Ayesha Barenblat, founder of the California nonprofit Remake, says.

Capsules as experiments

Starting small has allowed Levi's to expand both its "Water<Less" technology, which cuts the amount of water used in its denim manufacturing by up to 95 per cent, and its "cottonised hemp", a proprietary fabric with a smaller carbon footprint than traditional cotton. Over three seasons, Levi's had to figure out how to spin and weave the cotton-hemp blend, dye it and finish the fabric, improving the processes along the way before expanding them to other products over time.

"A small fashion capsule is useful because you can test or validate good or bad ideas at a scale that's safe," says Paul Dillinger, VP of global product innovation at Levi's. "The last thing that the cause of sustainability in fashion needs is a big failure to cause everyone in the C-suite or the top-floor offices to question whether we should be doing it at all."

Humble beginnings allow brands to work out kinks. When Reebok rolled out a sneaker made with cotton and corn-based fibres, president Matt O'Toole says they were able to integrate consumer feedback on comfort and performance when designing the next generations of the shoe; those releases have expanded in variety and in quantity over time.

Similar ripple effects imply small-scale or limited-edition efforts can have outsized influence. The North Face first used recycled material for a jacket pocket lining before rolling it out to other products. New Balance expanded its use of chrome-free leather after its Reformation collaboration last year required it to first establish that supply.

H&M's first Conscious Exclusive collection used some recycled polyester; today, 30 per cent of the company's total polyester is recycled. (Recycled polyester, which is actually made from plastic, has its flaws. H&M says it's involved in several projects to develop and commercialise recycling polyester back into fabric, including Worn Again Technologies and Ambercycle.)

"The sustainable collection helps us to bring to scale some innovations that we have just started. You need those collections to reach future impact," says Brun. He adds each time H&M launches a new material, the goal is to expand it however small the initial use might seem. Several new materials are currently in the pipeline.

Capsules as marketing

Maxine Bédat, founder and director of the nonprofit New Standard Institute, says H&M is making changes that can influence the broader market, like shifting to organic cotton. But it's not enough, she says, and she finds the company's language particularly problematic.

There are few regulations for making claims like "sustainable" and "ethical" clothing, and it's hard to tell when shopping H&M how the retailer decided on the criteria for products to qualify for the Conscious collection. Specific details are hard to come by, and details matter. Some Conscious clothes are made with lyocell, a cellulosic material; H&M says it "mainly" uses Tencel, a brand that claims to source it responsibly - but other lyocell production, which H&M would not put a percentage to, is heavily associated with deforestation.

"They are doing [positive] things," Bédat says. "It's just that the marketing of what they're doing is far outpacing what they're doing."

The H&M website says, for example, "By choosing Conscious products, you help us make the fashion industry more sustainable" and the company described a recycled polyester made from plastic shoreline waste as a "revolutionary sustainable material" in 2017. Critics disagree with the notion that it is, or was then, revolutionary.

Far beyond any one brand, Bédat says consumers are entitled to - and hungry for - nuance in what companies tell them about their sustainability efforts, which would include disclosing details around what a company is working on, where they're making progress and where they still need to improve. Otherwise, it's hard to tell what a company's main objective is. "What are we trying to do here? Are we trying to sell to a new customer or are we trying to solve climate change?" she says.

The very claim of "sustainability" for a brand or product should probably disappear altogether, she argues, because it's not actually applicable in the context of consumption. "We're not planting trees here," she says.

Value versus cost

In some cases, brands will be able to adjust how they make a product without increasing costs, whether because the change isn't more expensive or because a brand can find ways to offset the expense elsewhere. Tim Bantle, global GM of urban exploration and mountain lifestyle at The North Face, says simplifying garment design can cut down sewing time and costs enough to use a lower-impact but more expensive material, for example.

But higher prices may be something brands and consumers alike need to come to terms with, says Rebecca Burgess, founder and director of Fibershed, a California nonprofit that focuses on regional textile production. This, for her, is the key function of a sustainable capsule collection.

During manufacturing, many clothing brands contaminate water supplies and cause other environmental impacts considered to be externalised costs that the brand doesn't have to pay for. Responsible production often requires brands to pay for the tools that will reduce the negative impacts - and taking on those costs probably means needing to raise consumer prices. Often through capsules, "brands are determining if the customer can tolerate that," says Burgess. "We can be passing the buck all day. But... [a brand's] business model is based on sales, they need to be able to sell product. And if consumers are not going to be able to spend more on a product, everything falls pretty flat right there."

Raising prices can work if brands tell the story well; Burgess says all the brands that Fibershed has worked with to source climate-beneficial wool, including Coyuchi, Elizabeth Suzann and The North Face, have increased their sourcing of the material once their limited collections established consumers would buy it. These brands, however, have the advantage of a customer base able to pay premiums; fast fashion brands, whose business models are predicated on cheap, disposable clothing, don't.

Rachel Faller, founder of Tonlé, a line of women's clothing and accessories made from waste materials, says brands that avoid increasing prices of more sustainable products may do so by subsidising them with profits from other parts of the company. She points to "Fair Trade certified" jeans at Target as a potential example. "Knowing how denim is made, there's no way that you can make a pair of Fair Trade jeans for $30 with a traditional retail markup," she says. (Faller does not have any connection to Target or its operations.) Doing so sends the message to customers that it's possible to produce goods fairly and sustainably and still keep costs low. A subsidised collection also likely means a brand is perpetuating status-quo practices in the rest of its products, Faller adds. "They use sustainability to get people in the door, but ultimately end up selling more unsustainable products." (A Target spokesperson said in response, "Universal Thread Fair Trade Certified denim is a growing and profitable area of our apparel assortment.")

Another metric that could help people to gauge the sincerity of a brand in its capsule efforts is its evolution - or lack thereof - over time. Is it growing in size or broadening its use of different materials or technologies? "You can never tell by looking at one just season of the capsule," says Dillinger of Levi's. "It is the right question to be asking: is it greenwashing or is this practising for the new normal?"

Ultimately, Bédat advocates for recognising progress where it's happening, without losing sight of the scale of the problem and the need for more than incremental progress to solve it.

"We need to be moving away from this black-and-white language of sustainable fashion versus non-sustainable fashion, and toward a more nuanced and realistic understanding of how we reduce impact with the understanding that we're never reducing it to zero," she says.

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More from this author: As fashion churns out more 'sustainable' goods, why is so much made from plastic? What the food industry can teach fashion about sustainability The UN set 17 sustainability goals. It needs fashion's help meeting them

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The impact of fashion's 'sustainable' capsule collections

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Retailers like H&M and Levi's test sustainable practices through "eco-friendly" capsule collections that represent small pieces of overall business. Critics say such limited product lines don't go far enough to address problems like carbon footprint, and that messaging may be misleading to customers.

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Sustainability commitments are in jeopardy as brands scramble. But a market standstill could open the door to circular practices.

Key takeaways:

Lifestyle brand Outerknown has set an ambitious goal to be 100 per cent circular by 2030, a process that requires considerable operational overhauls.

Circularity is an emerging goal...

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Sustainability commitments are in jeopardy as brands scramble. But a market standstill could open the door to circular practices. Key takeaways: Lifestyle brand Outerknown has set an ambitious goal to be 100 per cent circular by 2030, a process that requires considerable operational overhauls. Circularity is an emerging goal...

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Jeans Redesign, an initiative launched by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation last year, is recruiting brands to change the way they manufacture denim.

Denim manufacturing is one of the most destructive in fashion, using enormous amounts of water and energy as well as harsh chemicals.

Both brands and suppliers participate in the initiative to reach the end goal of not just cleaner denim, but circular denim.

Modern denim manufacturing is one of the fashion industry's most chemical- and water-intensive sectors. Between the pressure to minimise costs and the processes that give denim the styles that designers and consumers want, it's not easy to eliminate those impacts. Piecemeal efforts have been made - some brands have changed the dyeing process, others are using organic or recycled materials - but they make little more than a dent.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched its Jeans Redesign initiative last summer as a way to unite those efforts and propel the industry toward its goal of circularity. "The more organisations start to make jeans circular, the easier it would be across the industry," says Francois Souchet, who leads the Make Fashion Circular initiative. Denim, with its enormous water and energy use and harmful chemicals that have caused extensive water pollution, alongside its staying power in fashion around the world, is in need of the attention of a dedicated initiative.

Changing an entire sector is challenging, as risk-averse brands use materials and processes that are known quantities - often trying to reduce impacts by, say, testing one new dyeing technique at a time. Jeans Redesign is trying to help the industry over the hump of inertia by bringing different brands and suppliers together to work towards a set of shared criteria that a group of more than 80 experts helped to lay out.

Jeans Redesign launched with brands including Gap, H&M and Tommy Hilfiger as well as Mud Jeans, Outerknown and Reformation. Last month alone, 17 more companies joined, including Banana Republic, Wrangler and Icicle. The base of suppliers is growing as well, with two new garment manufacturers and seven new fabric mills and laundries. That's crucial - it's impossible to make a product circular without everyone in its supply chain being on board.

Each has a role to play in transforming how denim is made: brands need to design differently, manufacturers need to use different finishing chemicals and construct garments differently, fabric suppliers need to source, weave and dye differently. Souchet says participating brands are not pausing their efforts because of the pandemic - adding that some are already starting to apply the redesign guidelines to other products - and instead the crisis makes the project all the more important.

"As we emerge from this pandemic we will face a choice: to rebuild the fashion industry as it was before - wasteful, polluting and fragile - or to redesign it, and to create an industry that can thrive in the long term."

How to redesign jeans

To participate in the project, a company must develop a plan to meet its four main criteria around durability, recyclability, traceability and material health.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has to then approve of each company's plan. To meet the durability criteria, for example, jeans must be able to withstand at least 30 rounds of home laundry. Brands must also communicate best-care practices to customers. For materials, fibres must be grown on organic, regenerative or transitioning farms, and cannot be processed using a number of standard practices, such as stone finishing or sandblasting, or certain chemicals, which harm the environment and workers while compromising durability. Finally, the company must commit to releasing a report in one year on its progress.

It's not an accident that each of the criteria is a major challenge for the industry to achieve. Souchet says that's how the criteria were chosen: they are the areas where the industry has the most work to do.

"There was some scepticism from the designers [during initial conversations with brands], but once they started to play with those guidelines and understand what they meant, they managed to find quite a lot of creative freedom," says Souchet. That's because the criteria involve restrictions during production and outcomes for final products, but they don't specify how companies should comply with them, allowing brands and suppliers alike to do their own experimentation to chart new paths forward. "It's great to see that many brands are looking at how to do things differently."

Designing for circularity

For brands to be involved, meeting the criteria is a matter of design - minimising the number of rivets, for example, is a style choice, and one way that designers can plan garments that maximise durability and then, at the end of their life, be more easily disassembled. The criteria may also mean, at least temporarily, potentially limiting the style of jeans a brand can offer under the project.

"It might be difficult to do a more stretchy piece [with eco-friendly fabrics] - hence more difficult to make a slim fit," says Amos Zhang, spokesperson for Shanghai-based brand Icicle.

That's not a major issue for Icicle, which specialises in looser-fitting garments and has used more natural fabrics from the start, but there's a learning curve nonetheless. "The design team has to learn more about what fabrics are more eco-friendly and sustainable, why they should limit the usage of metal rivets to a minimum, why they should not use sandblasting, etcetera," he says. "It systematically educates our designers to think about what and how they are going to design in a more comprehensive way."

A key barrier to recycling clothing, including denim, is that much of it is made from blended materials, which are hard for current technologies to deal with. By requiring 98 per cent natural fibres - the remaining two per cent is mainly to allow room for things like elastane, which allows jeans to stretch - the project eliminates the ubiquitous cotton-polyester blend. It also effectively prohibits the use of polyester, a material the denim industry has been increasing its reliance on for years but which has a range of implications for the environment. It's used mainly because it's cheaper, but it also adds durability.

Abhishek Bansal, head of sustainability at India-based manufacturer Arvind, says boosting durability without polyester will be one of the obstacles - but the real challenge is in meeting all the criteria at once. In the past, he says, working on a "sustainable" collection meant changing one aspect of production - using organic cotton or a different washing method. "But this is more complex because you are trying to change several things at once," he says.

As Sri Lanka-based supplier Hirdaramani works on fabric development to comply with the criteria, it's thinking about what happens to the fabric at the end-of-life stage - a new element for a materials designer to consider, but one that is crucial for designing waste out of the product's lifecycle, a central tenet of circularity.

For any of it to be successful, though, everyone in the supply chain needs to buy in, the brands in particular. "We can't, as a manufacturer alone, say we are going to make 500,000 pairs of jeans that are circular," says Hirdaramani chief operating officer Thusitha Cooray. "If there is no demand from the side of the brand, even if we have everything in place, we won't be able to produce jeans that are circular."

Navigating challenges

Making all of the changes necessary to meet the criteria will require investment - and solutions for logistical challenges, like collecting garments for recycling when they've reached their end of life with consumers.

The suppliers Vogue Business interviewed say it's their responsibility to do the research and development needed on the supply side, such as making fabrics more durable; brands' costs will likely increase in the goods themselves. Bansal adds, though, that progress is slow - and investment, whether from brands or investors or others, would speed everything along. "We have limited availability to invest from the manufacturing or supply side. Progress will always be slow," he says. "[With more investment], this progress towards a better industry will be much more accelerated."

Overall, the goal for Jeans Redesign is to build collaboration and expedite the industry's progress towards circularity. That will involve some mistakes and steep learning curves, which is why brands aren't being asked to convert their entire product lines to this model right away, but rather to start with what is reasonable. Blue of a Kind is working to develop four to six styles under the project; Bansal says Arvind plans to come up with 10 to 20 designs that meet the guidelines and that brands can sell, and then expand gradually from there.

"For us, this is very much a learning journey and a starting point," says Souchet, explaining that's the reasoning for the short timeline - to learn quickly and then build on those learnings to create larger-scale shifts. "The way we approach the Jeans Redesign is, 'How can we start the learning process of what does it mean to create circular products?'"

More than anything else, brands and suppliers say the real value proposition of the project is that it brings everyone together to rise above isolated efforts like more sustainable fabrics or reduced water use at a single facility, and to instead ask big, challenging questions that will change the industry landscape in fundamental ways.

"Right now, we're still in a market where the consumer is led by price rather than what is within the product itself," says Blue of a Kind founder and CEO Fabrizio Consoli. "The idea is to create a critical mass to become stronger and stronger together and along with this, trying to take a new way of doing business to the world."

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More from this author:
Where fashion's transparency falls short The reality behind fashion's sustainability certifications and coalitions Circular fashion's timely opportunity

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The fight for clean and recyclable denim

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Jeans Redesign, an initiative launched by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation last year, is recruiting brands to change the way they manufacture denim. Denim manufacturing is one of the most destructive in fashion, using enormous amounts of water and energy as well as harsh chemicals.

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Google Tracking Sustainable Raw Materials 

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Google Tracking Sustainable Raw Materials 

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Sourcing raw materials and tracking their sustainability is set to become easier with a new partnership between Google and WWF Sweden.

The partnership will analyse more than 20 commonly used raw materials, including synthetics and natural products, via a dashboard being built specifically to help fashion brands. The two organisations will score each material and sourcing location on details such as water scarcity and air pollution and will estimate impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, building on an earlier project tracking of cotton and viscose.

Fashion is racing to solve its sustainability problem: the World Bank estimates that the fashion industry accounts for up to 20 per cent of wastewater and up to 8 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to Quantis and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Much of fashion's carbon footprint comes from its raw materials, although little is tracked.

The aim is to combine Google's machine learning capabilities with WWF's knowledge of the environmental impact of a product's lifetime (from working with Ikea), to help brands make better decisions on which raw materials and suppliers. Google declined to name brand partners, although it worked with Stella McCartney on the test pilot and says that multiple luxury, denim and athletic brands have signed on to participate.

By giving brands access to details such as the amount of air pollution in a region or the amount of waste created in production, they can ultimately make more sustainable sourcing decisions, says Google head of luxury fashion Maria McClay.

WWF Sweden will provide data on risk, life-cycle assessment (an estimate of the environmental impact in a product's lifetime) and the strength of sustainability solutions for raw materials. It will also provide the framework for calculating and processing each type of data. Google is providing access to Google Earth Engine data, such as satellite imagery, and computing power that is able to derive insights from complex data sets.

The platform will also help with risk mitigation, McClay explains. For example, if a brand is used to working with certain localities, they can take specific actions with that community to mitigate some of the negative environmental impacts. The data will reflect regional and seasonal differences, rather than outdated global averages. It is also designed to automatically update data as much as possible so that the platform has longevity, she adds.

While brands have increasingly conducted life-cycle assessments to help estimate the direct impact of the product, they are not "end all be all", says Claire Bergkamp, who is Stella McCartney's worldwide sustainability and innovation director and who advised on the project. She says that the ability for the data to be updated regularly is important to reflect changes in conditions because growing cycles can change in as little as two years. Brands can also use the tool to compare the same materials based on source, rather than comparing separate materials such as conventional cotton versus organic cotton.

To broaden the scope of the project, WWF and Google plan to align with other existing efforts to calculate environmental impacts in fashion. Laila Petrie, the project's technical lead working with WWF and CEO of environmental consultancy 2050, points to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition's materials sustainability index, which is focused on life-cycle assessment, and the Textile Exchange's raw materials assessment, which assesses fibres as possible collaborators. Additionally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is working on responsible supply chains in the garment and footwear sectors, Petrie says, though it does not provide data.

Liesl Truscott, director of European and materials strategy at the Textile Exchange, says that this tool will help "build out data gaps" in the effort to create more resilient, transparent supply chains. "We haven't got there in terms of regionalities and geographies and the risks, and tech is starting to help join that all together," Truscott says. "Tools like this will help equip companies for that journey. It has not been done yet, but it is certainly now on the radar."

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More on this topic: The reality behind fashion's sustainability certifications and coalitions Fashion's biodiversity problem Where fashion's transparency falls short

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Google is tracking sustainable raw materials. Will fashion buy in?

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Sourcing raw materials and tracking their sustainability is set to become easier with a new partnership between Google and WWF Sweden. The partnership will analyse more than 20 commonly used raw materials, including synthetics and natural products, via a dashboard being built specifically to help fashion brands.

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Viscose has a supply chain problem. Campaigners have identified the semi-synthetic textile, once labelled a sustainable choice, as a troubling reason for global deforestation as well as toxic chemical pollution.

But a new vision for man-made cellulosic fibres such as viscose is laid out in an ambitious report released last week by Textile Exchange and Forum for the Future, two global non-profits, in collaboration with leading industry players.

The man-made cellulosic fibre category, dominated by viscose (also known as rayon), includes modal, cupro, lyocell and acetate - all together they are the third-most common fibre used globally. The new report is a roadmap for addressing the environmental impacts of their production, but it also symbolises an important emerging shift in sustainability efforts - away from a focus on negative impacts, towards generating positive ones.

The big concern is deforestation and the associated decline in biodiversity. Destruction of ecosystems by human activity is thought to be the root cause of the Covid-19 pandemic - which scientists say is just a taste of what continued forest and biodiversity loss could mean for people and the planet.

Canopy, a Vancouver-based non-profit, has worked since 2013 with fashion companies including Kering, Stella McCartney and Eileen Fisher to shift their sourcing of viscose and other wood-based materials, used for everything from dresses to scarves to socks. Supporters say the campaign, called CanopyStyle, has made a significant dent in the destruction of endangered rainforest for viscose sourcing. A similar campaign has targeted the intensive chemical process used to transform the wood pulp into fibre.

But these environmental campaigns have existed in isolation, with no connective tissue between them or guiding vision to ensure that in solving one problem, the industry doesn't create another. The new report, Envisioning the Future of Man-made Cellulosic Fibres, aims to provide both.

"Bits of the jigsaw are working really well," says Sally Uren, Forum for the Future CEO who worked on the report. "But they need to be joined up."

Recognising the communities along the viscose supply chain

The term man-made cellulosics is a clunky way to differentiate the materials from cotton, by far the world's most common cellulose-based fibre, and to account for the intensive and man-made chemical process that dissolves and then regenerates the cellulose from wood pulp into fibre. It's not an efficient process - one ton of viscose uses up to 4.5 tons of trees - and its production relies on a host of chemicals including carbon disulfide, a toxic solvent that is harmful to human health.

What might stand out most in the report is its push for the cellulosics sector to address social factors, including poverty. The authors argue that the industry needs to provide better market access for smallholders. Some research has found that when people have a path out of poverty, deforestation in the region declines. "You can't look at commodities in isolation, and you can't look at commodities without looking at communities because you can't have one without the other," says Uren.

"I hope people come back from the current situation that we are in, and they consider timelines, [and] respect that things can take a little longer if you want to do things better."

American designer Eileen Fisher has worked with suppliers of cotton and wool to ensure decent wages and working conditions and to provide support for those adopting more sustainable practices. However, the same strategies don't apply to suppliers of wood-based materials, says Inka Apter, who leads fabric research and development for the brand. The report could fill that gap. "With the cotton farmers, it's a little bit easier to understand the implications [of adopting better farming practices] and what the burdens may be - getting the seed or growing organic or working with cooperatives," Apter says. "But with the wood, it gets a little bit more opaque."

For starters, it can come from so many different regions and types of sources, from tree plantations to managed forests to illegally logged trees. While cotton is an annual crop, trees have much longer and more variable timelines. Tracking the impacts of that sourcing on communities is much more complex.

Apter is impressed with the scope of the report but says implementation will be the real challenge. If it's successful, it could transform the entire viscose sector. Efforts to reduce chemical pollution, for example, have focused on limiting the release of carbon disulfide, a key solvent in viscose production. But Apter and advocates for the environment and health would rather see it eliminated. That would require different chemistry. The other solvents that do exist produce alternatives to viscose, but viscose is what brands and designers most want because of its unique versatility - it can mimic a range of other materials, from linen to silk.

Planning for a circular economy

LaRhea Pepper, managing director of Textile Exchange, recognises that for the report's vision to be realised, business models need to change. "It's a huge challenge in the current business model," says Pepper, explaining that companies need to replace their price-based paradigm with one that values ecological and social benefits. She points out that this shift is already underway at some of the most forward-thinking fashion businesses. Luxury group Kering, for example, has been applauded for its Environmental Profit and Loss methodology and report.

The shift can also include operating with longer timelines. Stella McCartney has found that crucial to her brand's sustainability efforts. "We are working three, four years in advance in order to grow the crops sustainably, without the use of harmful pesticides... and ship everything on a boat rather than air travel, for example, which all takes time," she says. "I hope people come back from the current situation that we are in, and they consider timelines, [and] respect that things can take a little longer if you want to do things better."

The report also covers the need for increased technological capacity for producing fibres from waste materials rather than wood; that includes both recycled fabrics as well as things like agricultural wastes. Such a focus could help the industry progress toward a circular economy, which involves clothes being used more, manufactured from safe and renewable materials and turned into future generations of clothing, says Francois Souchet, lead of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation 's Make Fashion Circular initiative. "To end the wasteful and polluting 'take, make, waste' model in the fashion industry, we need to create a circular economy," he says. "Man-made cellulosic fibres have an important role to play in that transformation."

"There are layers of work that need to happen with man-made cellulosics," says Pepper. "We're trying to get brands to engage with their supply chains and to know where their man-made cellulosics are coming from - just like they're doing with cotton and wool."

Ultimately, the hope is that the 2030 vision, which was developed in collaboration with industry players, will spur a shift toward addressing what the planet and people need to thrive - rather than the industry-centric approach of simply reducing its harm. "What we're trying to promote is a race to the top," says Pepper.

Key takeaway: Fashion's demand for viscose contributes to deforestation, but an important new report suggests a way forward that is more sustainable.

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Fashion's steep climb to sustainable viscose

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Viscose has a supply chain problem. Campaigners have identified the semi-synthetic textile, once labelled a sustainable choice, as a troubling reason for global deforestation as well as toxic chemical pollution. But a new vision for man-made cellulosic fibres such as viscose is laid out in an ambitious report released last week by Textile Exchange and Forum for the Future, two global non-profits, in collaboration with leading industry players.

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Transparency across the supply chain is a growing focus for the luxury fashion industry. But leather - a key luxury material - has been overlooked.

The cruelties of the long-distance transport of cows are revealed in a new investigation shared with Vogue Business by filmmaker Manfred Karremann and animal rights organisation Peta. Leather production involves so many stages that it's exceptionally difficult for fashion brands to know if their products are connected to the live export trade or not. The current best-case scenario involves tracing leather back to the slaughterhouse - and even that is rare. When brands know how their leather is processed, they can take actions like reducing the use of harmful chemicals in tanning. But the inability to trace beyond the slaughterhouse means they know nothing about how the cows are treated while they're alive.

"I was surprised when I found out the extent of how little we know about leather," says Leonardo Bonanni, founder and CEO of Sourcemap, a platform that develops technology for mapping supply chain information, including animal welfare practices and zero-deforestation commitments. "We don't always know where the cows are actually being raised, and we don't know how they're live transported."

The precise extent to which live transport is used within the leather industry is unclear, but the global figures for live animal transport are staggering - some two billion animals annually, according to a recent report in The Guardian. Footwear is the predominant market for the world's leather, an industry worth an estimated $80 billion and growing. Nathalie Walker, tropical forests and agriculture director for the nonprofit US-based National Wildlife Federation, who has worked with Gucci on a leather certification project, says the US, Australia, France and Italy collectively transport over $1 billion per year worth of live animals.

Uncovering practices

Peta says that its investigation documents animals enduring weeks-long journeys, by ship and by truck, from Europe and South America to Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and other countries where they are killed. Live export is not a new practice, but has been on the rise worldwide for the last decade, says Johanna Fuoß, Peta Germany's campaign manager.

Through his past work, Karremann has helped document practices - like the use of cat and dog skin in leather from China - that brands themselves say they weren't aware of. Based on decades of research, he describes inhumane practices in the live animal trade, like crammed ship holds, broken legs and the disposal of dead animals into the ocean. He also notes that the softest leather on the market is derived from unborn baby cows. "Often the most expensive things and the most fine leather contain the most cruelty," Karremann says.

The live animal trade is driven mainly by the importing countries' demand for meat. But Turkey's growing leather industry is a supplier for the fashion industry - including for the coveted Made in Italy label, which refers to the final step of product manufacture, regardless of where the cow comes from or where the leather was tanned. Finished and semi-finished leather products are a multi-million-dollar export trade for Turkey; Italy is a key player in that market.

Walker says she's seen progress in the leather industry in recent years, enabled partially by certification standards with traceability components such as CSCB in Brazil, ICEC in Europe and the Leather Working Group. Also on her radar is leather that originates from ranches associated with recent deforestation - a tough challenge to trace. "It is necessary to either trace each hide all the way from birthing farm or to encourage meatpackers to adopt full supply chain traceability and deforestation monitoring."

The Leather Working Group, the most widely used certification scheme, says it is exploring ways to expand traceability beyond the slaughterhouse.​ "In some countries, it will be possible to trace further back to the farm level," says operations manager Christina Trautmann. "There will be limitations on this though, especially for some countries where they do not have slaughterhouses or even farms as we might view them in the developed world. In the countries where it could be possible to trace back to the farm level, our work would need to be in close collaboration with the meat industry, who are the drivers of this industry."

Signs of hope from Kering and Timberland

Traceability can be achieved, experts claim, with significant industry commitment. Fashion is behind other industries by about five to 10 years, says Bonanni of Sourcemap.

Signs of progress have emerged from the likes of luxury group Kering, regarded by many as a leader in supply chain traceability with a goal of achieving 100 per cent traceability for leather to the farm by 2025.

Timberland has also launched a pilot project with Other Half Processing. The goal, explains sustainability director Colleen Vien, is to "connect early-adopter regenerative ranches with our large-scale tannery partners to build out a regenerative leather supply chain - not just for our own brand, but looking ahead for the broader footwear and apparel industry".

She says the programme has enabled hides - 6,000 to date - to be tagged and traced back to the network of farms they originated from. That leather will debut this autumn in several new footwear styles, and the company plans to scale the programme rapidly. It's a significantly different approach from the company's previous sourcing, which Vien says was mostly through mass aggregate purchases with little insight into farm practices. "Working with OHP gives us hide traceability and confidence in positive outcomes for the cattle and the environment - well beyond anything we've been able to achieve in the past."

It is necessary to either trace each hide all the way from birthing farm or to encourage meatpackers to adopt full supply chain traceability and deforestation monitoring

Collaboration with the meat industry is the next step. "A real systemic solution to this problem would involve the beef companies working with the footwear companies," says Bonnani. Kering has started to do just that, a spokesperson said, and wants to see data that the meat industry is required to collect being shared with the fashion industry to enable traceability back to the farm.

Peta is asking customers to consider synthetic leather - which can have environmental issues of its own - or plant-based alternatives like cork or pineapple leather. But as long as leather consumption is likely to stick around, independent consultant Anna Heaton wants to see incentives to improve the welfare of the animals that are used by the industry. She has been working on the Leather Impact Accelerator with Textile Exchange to provide steps for brands to take in the meantime. Until full traceability is possible, she says, brands will be able to buy credits to support farms that use better practices - even if they aren't actually sourcing from them. The programme is expected to launch early next year. What that does is provide the market signal for more farmers to adopt better environmental and animal welfare practices.

"The intent over time is that those direct links will increase," she says. If all brands demand rigorous standards from the program and buy credits through it, she says, "that starts to send quite a strong message."

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Is footwear funding the burning of the Amazon? Most fashion designers never meet their suppliers. They should Fashion's steep climb to sustainable viscose

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Leather is transparency's next big target

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Transparency across the supply chain is a growing focus for the luxury fashion industry. But leather - a key luxury material - has been overlooked. The cruelties of the long-distance transport of cows are revealed in a new investigation shared with Vogue Business by filmmaker Manfred Karremann and animal rights organisation Peta.

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Fashion Designers never meeting suppliers

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Fashion Designers never meeting suppliers

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Ayesha Barenblat's organisation Remake, founded in 2016 in San Francisco, leads trips to manufacturing countries to help student designers understand what goes into making clothing and "bear witness to fashion's impact on people and our planet". Barenblat calls them "immersive journeys", and the impact on young designers can be profound.

"There was something about that experience that left them altered," says Yvonne Watson, associate dean for curriculum and learning at Parsons School of Design. Her students were thinking and talking about fashion differently when they returned from one such trip.

This kind of immersive learning has the potential to be more than a device for college students' education. Sending designers to learn more about how their suppliers operate, including the pressures on factory workers, could transform the way they design - and, ultimately, lead to a more sustainable and ethically driven supply chain process.

"Most people graduating from these prestigious schools have never seen a dyehouse - the chemical smells, walking through the vats," says Barenblat. Being able to talk to the owner, she explains, opens up a dialogue about how certain dyes are more polluting than others and what that means for water resources locally or for workers' health.

Immersive learning for brands

Some brands are beginning to understand the potential of immersive learning. The North Face, Coyuchi and Prana have sent design teams to work with The Renewal Workshop, which helps brands restore clothing to like-new condition. Designers have learned about product repair and circular design principles - and, crucially, the immersive residency offers a model for thinking differently about problem-solving. A goal of these residencies is to improve designers' understanding about how their products wear over time. A more sophisticated appreciation as to how a garment tears or succumbs to abrasion leads to better designs - and products that last longer.

While closer cooperation with suppliers can help resolve practical design studio issues, it can also help to engender a clearer appreciation of social and environmental challenges in the manufacturing process. A number of brands are leading the way by partnering with sourcing communities more directly, such as shoe brand Veja or Kate Spade's on purpose programme in Rwanda. An underlying philosophy is to push aside the "out of sight, out of mind" way of thinking pervasive throughout the fashion industry. Progressive brands want to understand the human and environmental costs and ethical challenges of their supply chains, not look away from them.

Immersive visits support the fundamental process of building personal relationships with the workers at the beginning of the supply chain. Designers learn to appreciate more fully the human repercussions of every decision they make. As former sourcing executive Roger Anglin told Vogue Business for our June story on combating racism in the supply chain, "The supply chain is about people. You have to think about [suppliers] as people who live around the corner."

Small design choices can have big impacts

Ioli Tzouka, senior designer and director of sustainability at State Bags, was one of the Parsons students to visit suppliers in Sri Lanka with Remake in 2017. There, she saw the significant ripple effects of seemingly minor design choices. Scraps piled up when fabric had to be cut to accommodate even slight design embellishments. Workers had to spend extra time to keep up with extra details on each order. "When you want to make a little tiny pocket of leather, you don't really think of the impacts, like how much material you need to throw away," she says. "Or this type of pants requires three types of stitches, how long is it going to take?"

Tzouka now tries to keep waste to a minimum while designing and considers what every detail of a product order might mean for the makers involved in its production. For example, the choice of a nontoxic material might have a double benefit - reducing environmental contamination, she says, and being healthier for the people who work with the material every day.

She thinks, too, about the human cost of manufacturing deadlines. Tzouka heard from women in Sri Lanka worried about finishing an order of thousands of jackets to meet a tight one-month deadline, with pay deducted for minor mistakes. "How can I go and demand for something to be made in less than a month?" she says.

Brands such as Eileen Fisher and Stella McCartney have identified clear benefits from allowing more time for all the steps involved in fashion production, from fabric samples to shipping. It is often crucial for reducing environmental impacts and can alleviate the stress and labour burdens placed on suppliers.

All brands could benefit from slowing down and thinking about the potential consequences of even minor requests, says Yvonne Watson of Parsons. "Every time a designer makes a change, even if it's a quick change, it causes more work, more overtime. Sometimes it means unpaid overtime."

For Tzouka, another lasting impression from her trip to Sri Lanka came from talking with people in the factory offices responsible for communicating with brands. She learned they often are aspiring designers themselves, and have smart ideas about the designs they're being tasked with producing. That experience has since informed how she engages with the factory in her role at State. "I always ask their opinion on things. They will tell me, 'This is how you design it here. It's not going to work, or it's going to take too much material, or it's going to take a lot of time, maybe we can suggest this.'"

That might sound like common sense, but it remains an atypical approach in an industry that operates mostly through one-direction communication between brands and suppliers. This one-way dynamic has been highlighted during the Covid-19 pandemic, with many brands cancelling orders rather than engaging in dialogue and finding ways to share the pain with their suppliers.

Ethical best practice is invariably linked to brands that have close relationships with their suppliers or own their own factories and employ the people who make their products, rather than outsource the labour to the cheapest source.

Immersive learning trips might help signpost a way forward for brands, says Watson. The immersive process can kickstart a shift in attitude towards their relationship with suppliers.

For designers such as Ioli Tzouka, that shift cannot come too soon: "Since the beginning of colonialism, we have treated the rest of the world as a giant factory and as a provider of stuff that we get for next to nothing, and we don't provide anything in exchange."

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More from this author:
Fashion's steep climb to sustainable viscose Fashion's most interesting sustainability efforts can also help fight racism Sustainability in fashion relies on embracing diversity

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Most fashion designers never meet their suppliers. They should

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Ayesha Barenblat's organisation Remake, founded in 2016 in San Francisco, leads trips to manufacturing countries to help student designers understand what goes into making clothing and "bear witness to fashion's impact on people and our planet". Barenblat calls them "immersive journeys", and the impact on young designers can be profound.

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Taylor's team found that they spent as much time on creating an extended sizing range as they did on creating a new style, so the designer invested in expanding the technical design team, hiring employees with specific expertise in the plus-size category. In the long run, this cut costs since return rates were kept low due to the true-to-size fits developed.

Having developed a strong relationship with her size 4 fit model over the years, Taylor initially struggled to find a plus-size model who could represent the brand in the same way. "A lot of the [plus-size] models we saw had fit for swimwear or denim brands before, but there wasn't an understanding of how to fit for soft, feminine, silk-crepe dresses," she explains.

Taylor also tapped on the model for insights on the desires of the plus-size customer. For instance, she learned that the brand didn't need to lengthen hemlines or use different fabrics for the same style.
Share intel with retailers
There is limited information about plus-size retail trends, so sharing information with stores, which have much more access to data than solo brands, helps. "Saks would say, 'We'd be able to sell out a size 16 if you made it,' and then I would ask them to show me what style they thought would be most likely to succeed," says Taylor, who consulted with the US retailer regularly before launch. She also often checks in with 11 Honoré, the size-inclusive retailer that has worked with brands like Brandon Maxwell, Prabal Gurung and Tome on exclusive pieces.
Don't include a "fat tax"
Brands should avoid putting the extra costs on the final consumer - the so-called "fat tax" that can add from 15 to 30 per cent to the purchase price. As Taylor notes, "The difference between a size 0 and a size 12 yield is meaningful and your margin changes between them" but brands don't charge more for a size 12. Doing so for sizes above 12 might also damage a brand's image. When British retailers New Look and Boohoo were caught charging up to 30 per cent more for clothing above a UK size 16, they faced heavy backlash on social media.

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Nearly 70 per cent of women in the US take a size 14 or above, a fact that has played out well for American label Tanya Taylor, which introduced extended sizing two years ago. The designer shares her insights with Vogue Business.

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How a responsible Business is being built 

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How a responsible Business is being built 

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As part of our latest Special Edition, BoF has produced a series of video articles with entrepreneurs and business owners on how to build a responsible business. Hear from The Rebel, The Upcycler, The Anti-Consumptionist, The Manufacturer and The Social Good Brand and explore the Special Edition here.
TORONTO, Canada - For brands, it has always been cool to be charitable. Amid a global health crisis, launching philanthropic initiatives has become an industry-wide imperative. But few businesses can say that their charitable commitments have boosted the bottom line.

Canadian basics brand Kotn, based in Toronto, is one of them. "Being a responsible business, if anything, has given us an advantage through this," said Rami Helali, co-founder and chief executive.

The certified B Corp's charitable initiatives include building schools for its cotton farmers' children in Egypt. "It's given us a purpose [and] a cause to rally around, both from our internal team's perspective and our customer's perspective," Helali told BoF over a Zoom call.

According to Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer Mackenzie Yeates, Kotn's close relationship with - and granular knowledge of - the brand's suppliers in Egypt proved invaluable as other brands' convoluted supply chains ground to a halt. "It's been easy to make decisions about supporting those communities and putting our money towards that," Yeates said.

For Kotn, the pandemic has highlighted the ethical and financial value of decisions that would, for many, otherwise seem bad for business. Here's what the team has learned during the crisis.

Your business can only be as strong as your team. Helali's first priority when the situation worsened was to protect Kotn's employees and partners in Canada and Egypt - managing the latter was the brand's biggest challenge. "They don't really have the luxury of working from home. There is no safety net built in by the government. There is no infrastructure to support that," he told BoF. "So we've had to work on a case by case basis with every facility."

Purpose can't be an afterthought. The crisis has forced Kotn to focus on its core, transparency, which in turn enabled it to adapt fast. "Having a completely transparent supply chain and the ability to contact every single person in our supply chain within 24 hours of [the news] breaking meant we had no ambiguity, no uncertainty," Yeates said. Years of long-term investment into building and developing those direct supplier relationships had paid off. "We make sure that [our suppliers and the environment are] not an add-on to decision-making. [They're] part of the decision-making matrix," said Helali.

Purpose puts things in perspective. Helali estimated that it may take a year to 18 months before Kotn sees any true normalisation in physical retail, which it shut down early. "It wasn't an easy decision but it was an easy decision to choose the wellbeing of our team over any potential harm," he said. Though Quebec's lockdown was controversially lifted on May 11 as infections climbed, the team decided to stay shut and err on the side of caution.

Purpose-driven companies shouldn't shy away from growth. "You have to make it a real business," said Kotn's Co-Founder and Chief Digital Officer Benjamin Sehl. The team knew that its north star - to change the way garments are made across the industry - can't happen without growth and impact. While Kotn remains a small business, impact won't always be down to sales. In November H&M flew the trio to Sweden to meet with its sustainability team. "What we can signal to the market... is greater than what we can do in absolute," Sehl said.

What doesn't seem rational or profitable at first glance can generate goodwill, build capability and enable greater scale down the road. One percent of Kotn's revenues and one-off campaigns have gone into its education programme - last year for Black Friday, 100 percent of the company's sales ($80,000) went towards the cause. Subsidies, agricultural consultants and guaranteed pricing for farming partners have also added up over the years. "A number of the things that we do don't give us profits today, but they do help build community and show that we're putting our money where our mouth is," said Sehl.

Empathetic marketing exists. Yeates knew from the get-go that it wouldn't be business as usual for Kotn's followers. "We know that a lot of customers aren't doing masks and drinking green juice in big mansions... our customers are potentially struggling through this time," she said. Kotn opted for marketing campaigns that would provide silver linings for homebound followers and foster goodwill, from a DIY natural dye walk-through to allowing followers to gift a product to two friends - Kotn's way of shedding inventory without discounting.

Small can be powerful. "We were set up for success in this sort of situation because problem-solving mode is our natural state," said Yeates. "We're always getting scrappy with the money that we have and we were able to pivot on short notice and start coming up with new ideas and just make those things happen on our own."
BoF Professional Special Edition: Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? As the world grapples with an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, exposing deep-rooted social inequality as a climate emergency looms, the fashion industry must learn to respect both people and the planet. It's time for fashion to build a more responsible business model. Explore the full special edition here.
1. Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act?
2. Will Fashion Ever Be Good for the World? Its Future May Depend on It
3. How to Avoid the Greenwashing Trap
4. Luxury Brands Have a 'Respect Deficit' with Indian Artisans
5. Investing in the Sustainability Sisterhood
6. Why Luxury Came to the Rescue
7. The BoF Podcast | Jochen Zeitz on the Power of Fashion to Drive Sustainable Change
and more.
The BoF Professional Summit: How To Build a Responsible Fashion Business
On June 17 2020, we will gather leading global experts, entrepreneurs and activists in sustainability, ethical supply chains and workers' rights for a half-day programme of interactive conversations, panel discussions and workshops on building a responsible business, led by BoF's expert editors and correspondents. Space is limited. Register now to reserve your spot.

If you are not a member, you can take advantage of our 30-day trial to experience all of the benefits of a BoF Professional membership.

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How I Am Building a Responsible Business: Kotn's Rami Helali, Mackenzie Yeates and Benjamin Sehl

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As part of our latest Special Edition, BoF has produced a series of video articles with entrepreneurs and business owners on how to build a responsible business. Hear from The Rebel, The Upcycler, The Anti-Consumptionist, The Manufacturer and The Social Good Brand and explore the Special Edition here.

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LONDON, United Kingdom - What does it take to shift the entire supply chain for three quarters of your raw materials in the space of three years? Everlane is about to find out.

By 2023, the company is committing to ensure all of its cotton comes from certified organic sources. Later this month, the company will relaunch a selection of its core T-shirt styles - the first products to transition over to Global Organic Textile Standard, or GOTS, certified organic cotton, a widely-respected and stringent standard that requires all products contain a minimum of 95 percent certified organic fibres.

The move is part of an ongoing evolution in the brand's high-profile commitment to radical transparency. When Everlane first launched in 2011, its focus was on communicating quality and value through price transparency - at the time a radical break from fashion's traditional model of extreme secrecy. But as political and cultural narratives have shifted over the last decade, the brand has found itself under pressure to keep evolving too.

In 2018, the company said it would eliminate virgin plastic in its supply chain by 2021, but it's been slow to come out with more public targets or provide updates on progress on its website. Behind the scenes, the company said it has replaced 75 percent of the virgin plastic in its product line with recycled materials and is transitioning from recycled plastic poly bags to paper ones, among other things.

The cotton commitment "is definitely a long time coming," said Everlane CEO Michael Preysman. But over the coming year, the company is planning to continue rolling out more information about its efforts to tackle its environmental impact. It's working on setting science-based emissions targets and has invested in analysis to get a more accurate gauge on the footprint of its items. With polyester and cotton the two most widely-used textile fibres globally, Preysman said the company was starting by "trying to target the two biggest issues."

The shift to organic cotton comes as a growing number of brands are zeroing in on the materials they use in an effort to reduce their negative environmental and social impact. Cotton, one of fashion's most-used materials, is also among its most problematic. Conventional cotton is generally grown using high volumes of pesticides and insecticides; it's a water-intensive crop that's coming under mounting scrutiny as climate concerns become more mainstream.

"The brands are getting there's a sense of urgency around the delivery; we have a decade to deliver," said La Rhea Pepper, managing director at nonprofit Textile Exchange. "Everyone's talking about more sustainable practises, more efficient use of water, integrated pest management."

But shifting to organic isn't easy. Less than 1 percent of global cotton supply is grown organically, according to Textile Exchange. The fibre's complex and murky supply chain adds additional challenges for brands who want certainty that they really are getting organic products. Robust certifications like GOTS come with additional expense and stringent requirements across the supply chain.

Most large brands' commitments to shift to more sustainable cotton currently rely heavily on the Better Cotton Initiative, a programme that has been highly effective in swiftly ramping up volumes and providing access to cotton produced using more sustainable farming practises. However, under the standard, farmers can still use pesticides and genetically-modified seeds.

That falls short of the holy grail of organic and regenerative cotton farming.

"GOTS certified organic is the gold standard," said Preysman. "Step one is go organic, step two is go regenerative."

But even to simply shift some of Everlane's T-shirt production hasn't been simple. It took around a year for the company to get its sourcing process verified in line with GOTS' environmental and social standards.

"We had to completely change the entire supply chain," said Kimberly Smith, Everlane's chief supply chain officer. That meant rethinking sourcing from the farm level right up to Everlane's distribution centre. To meet GOTS standards, organic products need to be kept in quarantine to avoid contamination.

It's a financial commitment too. The premium to shift from conventional cotton to GOTS certified can range from 2 percent to 20 percent, depending on the quality of the cotton desired, Smith said. On the flipside, as Everlane grows, it's hoping greater scale should allow it to offset higher potential sourcing costs. The company will launch its first GOTS-certified T-shirts on March 24 with no change in the $18 price tag.

This is just the beginning. Everlane will source 1,420 metric tons of cotton this year. It works with 130 different cotton qualities across its clothing line, and is still trying to figure out if it will be possible to replicate all of them using organic fibres.

"This is one program and one so far. We have 100 more to go," Smith said. "It's a long journey."
Related Articles: What Goes Into Making Everlane's Earth-Friendly $68 Jeans Stella McCartney and Google Have a Plan to Fix Fashion's Environmental Data Gap Gore-Tex. Lycra. Could Fashion's Next Major Fabric Brand be Green?

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Everlane Teases New Climate Goals with Organic Cotton Commitment

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LONDON, United Kingdom - What does it take to shift the entire supply chain for three quarters of your raw materials in the space of three years? Everlane is about to find out. By 2023, the company is committing to ensure all of its cotton comes from certified organic sources.

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By Reuters September 14, 2018 14:54

LONDON, United Kingdom - London Fashion Week kicked off on Friday, declaring itself fur-free for the first time as an increasing number of designers seek to burnish their ethical credentials.

The five-day trade event, the second leg of the month-long Spring/Summer 2019 catwalk season, has fewer big names than New York, Milan and Paris but draws buyers, journalists and bloggers from around the world for its emerging talent and established brands such as , Christopher Kane and .

According to a survey by the British Fashion Council (BFC), no animal fur will feature on the London catwalks or in designer presentations this season.

"We ask every season whether fur will be represented on the catwalk or in presentations ... This is the first time that designers have said that there will be 100 percent no fur on the catwalk," BFC chief executive Caroline Rush told Reuters.

"I think it just reflects a change in their creative choices and the power of the consumer and really thinking about the images that they're putting out through fashion week."

This is the first time that designers have said that there will be 100 percent no fur on the catwalk.

Burberry last week said it would no longer use real fur, the latest fashion house to ditch animal skin amid growing pressure from animal rights groups and younger clients' changing tastes. Other labels turning their back on fur include Italian luxury labels Versace and Gucci.

"Of the big four [fashion capitals], [London] is certainly the first that can say that we'll be 100 percent fur free this time," Rush added.

Outside the main catwalk venue, a small group from animal rights group PETA celebrated the news with five women dressed as cats holding signs reading "fur-free catwalk."

The women's clothing market grew by 3.2 percent to £28.4 billion ($37.26 billion) last year in Britain, according to market research firm Mintel, and sales are forecast to increase to £33.5 billion in 2022.
Chunky Boots
Getting the ball rolling with a bold and colourful show, designer Richard Malone chose hot pink, mustard yellow and sharp blues and greens for his edgy collection which appeared to draw on 1960s-1980s influences.

Models wore light jackets with exaggerated shoulders, tasselled mini-skirts and slim over-the-knee shorts with chunky boots. Printed tops featured the face of a stranger in a crowd, according to show notes. Asked to describe the line, Malone said it was "bossy and fun."

Turkish designer Bora Aksu said he was inspired by Romani poetess Bronislawa Wajs, known as Papusza, for his spring line rich in floral prints, and embroidery.

Layered dresses in organza and tulle bore soft, romantic touches such as cut out lace patterns. While there was plenty of white and blue, Aksu also chose purple, coral and hot pink for his looks which were accessorised with flowery headpieces.

"It was almost like a romantic folk collection because of my muse and because of also my style," he told Reuters backstage.

Among the highlights this season is Victoria Beckham who is celebrating 10 years in fashion by bringing her catwalk show to London from New York, and the first collection by Burberry's new chief creative officer Riccardo Tisci.
By Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Jayson Mansaray; additional reporting by Saskia O'Donoghue; writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Alison Williams. Related Articles: Burberry Stops Destroying Product and Bans Real Fur Gucci Bans Fur: 'It's Not Modern'

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By Reuters September 14, 2018 14:54 LONDON, United Kingdom - London Fashion Week kicked off on Friday, declaring itself fur-free for the first time as an increasing number of designers seek to burnish their ethical credentials.

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NEW YORK, United States - Earlier this summer as I was packing - at midnight, predictably - for a 7 am flight the next morning to a sunny seaside getaway, I realised, with (a beauty editor's) horror, that we were dangerously low on sunscreen. In a panic, in pajamas, I dashed out to the 24-hour drug store on the corner and stood in front of the wall of Neutrogena, Coppertone and Banana Boat, reading glasses on.

Options from pricier brands like La Roche-Posay, Vichy and Avène were tucked on shelves elsewhere, so I toggled back and fourth between the two sections, arms full, comparing ingredients, skin care benefits, SPF levels and price. It could have been easier. Had mini, travel-size essentials been displayed nearby, I would have spontaneously tossed a few of those in my basket for good measure, too, because - as anyone in Manhattan buying waterproof SPF 80 would be - I was going on a trip. Instead, it was money left on the table.

There is both an art and a science to merchandising. It's what leads us instinctively through a store and helps us find what we need (or didn't realise we need), persuades us to purchase and, in the best cases, keeps us coming back. It requires studying the past while peering into the future, combining statistics and psychology with a dash of creative license.

Retail is certainly in a state of flux, and, in some cases, crisis, but the beauty customer is still buying in physical stores. In 2017, 80.7 percent of global beauty sales - $375 billion worth of purchases - were made in brick-and-mortar stores, while 7.9 percent - $36.6 billion - were made online, according to Euromonitor.

And while retail may indeed be in turmoil, "the shopper is not," said Wendy Liebmann, chief executive of WSL Retail Strategy, a consulting firm. "To see the future," said Liebmann, "follow the shopper. She, or he, is the true north."

Capturing and keeping today's consumer requires understanding not only where she is headed, but how - in ways both subtle and sweeping - she has changed. Here's what retailers need to know in order to optimise their merchandising strategies for the new consumer.
1. Purchasing decisions are made long before she steps into the store.
It used to be that, at mass especially, the majority of buying decisions were made at the shelf. P&G referred to this as "the first moment of truth," said Liebmann, and it was estimated that at least 70 percent of decisions were made this way.

Today, people do much of their research before even setting foot inside a store. According to Liebmann's annual How America Shops study, seven out of 10 people "do some kind of pre-shopping to inform their decisions." Monica Arnaudo, senior vice president of merchandising at Ulta, puts the number for beauty-obsessed millennials at over 90 percent.

This shopping pre-game consists of everything from looking up ingredients and reading product reviews online to watching TV commercials, searching out promotions, cruising Instagram and YouTube for ideas and trusted endorsements, and hearing about something from a friend.

To see the future, follow the shopper. She, or he, is the true north.

As a result, customers are making decisions faster once they're in the store, and thus the nature of their trips are morphing from leisurely discovery and browsing expeditions to "quick, get it off the list trips," explained Liebmann. The merchandiser's first moment of truth is evolving into a "zero moment of truth," and that, said Liebmann, "is changing everything."
2. To engage consumers in a physical space, reconsider its role.
While online platforms may be a retailer's most valuable back-up dancer, and have proven to play a role in bringing people to stores, what are the elements that only a store experience can provide?

Cos Bar, which started as a family run boutique in Aspen 42 years ago, and now operates 20 freestanding stores across the United States, has built a reputation for knowledgeable specialists who take luxury clients through the store as dedicated beauty tour guides. As chief executive David Olsen said, "You can go online and learn everything, but how do you learn what's best for you? That's the one thing the internet hasn't cracked."

Less-intimate-by-nature stores are focused on personalising service too, creating elevated experiences previously found primarily in specialty and department stores. Target has installed beauty counters and now offers consultations with brand-agnostic beauty concierges during which consumers can try products, get colour-matched and receive advice - not to mention samples.

At Target, they've paid close attention to lighting, added feature tables and considered how impactful presentation promotes the things that bring in their consumer in the first place: "replenishment - the items you know you want every day - and discovery," said Christina Hennington, the company's senior vice president of Beauty and Essentials
3. Designing in-store experiences for one type of person doesn't work.
Old assumptions about who is shopping your stores, and your brands, no longer hold. Understanding today's beauty customer is about understanding that she may be many different customers in one. For example, the same woman who buys a $6 Maybelline mascara may save up for a $60 lipstick, just like the woman who buys a designer jacket may couple it with a Uniqlo T-shirt. Ulta saw the potential back in 1990, when they pioneered the idea of a store that offered both mass and prestige under one roof. And, indeed, nearly 80 percent of Ulta's customers cross-pollinate, dipping across categories for their purchases, said Arnaudo.
4. Focus on how the customer wants to shop.
"If you're not giving a nod to the fact that she shops high and she shops low,"noted Liebmann, "There's a chance you will lose her, because you don't understand her."

A good place to start, said Liebmann, is by figuring out what kind of trip she (or he) is on, which may change with every person who walks through the door. "Often," she said, "retailers are not good enough at recognising who she is at that moment and accommodating. Even if the trip is just about 'me,' it's a question of how much time do you have? Can we spoil you or do we have to get you in and out fast?"

Service is the name of the game - whether you're a drug store or a specialty store, where people tend to linger longer. But the key is knowing when to give it, and how much. "If you don't have time - if you've got the kids with you and all you want is your Sonia Kashuk lip gloss - you don't care that there's a beauty concierge in Target," said Liebmann.

And what is the most comfortable way for consumers to find the things they are seeking? "We look at the order in which the customer makes decisions - is it by brand, or by category - and merchandise accordingly," said Hennington. Most of the time, she noted, customers seek out a brand first and then look within that brand of choice for options. The same holds true at Cos Bar's niche boutiques. "People are still loyal to brands and want to learn about brands even though everything in that brand isn't right for them," said Olsen. "Combing through 20 different moisturisers is not the way people shop today. They'd rather say, 'I know La Mer; tell me about their three best moisturisers.'"
5. Recognise that no matter how brand-loyal a shopper is, she's still shopping multi-brand.
Target recognised that guys - historically a somewhat shier beauty customer - might benefit from a separate moment of their own, and when they gave it to them, it immediately started paying dividends. Hennington described the men's section as "a world designed for them," a shop-in-shop with special fixtures and lighting, where men can find everything from skin care and fragrance to shave products, minis to encourage experimentation and zones where they can interact with grooming devices. "We're trying to see how likely men are to browse and spend time investigating categories they might not have before," said Hennington. "We're on our third version now, and each one is a bigger version of the prior and delivering better results."

Olsen attributes part of Cos Bar's recent success - their sales are up 27 percent this year - to the fact that one salesperson learns the customer's concerns and preferences and leads her through the store to cherry-pick a regimen. Conversely, the department store's Achilles heel continues to be the fact that to learn about five different brands, a customer must visit five different (hard-selling, commission-based) advisors at five different counters and start her story over each time. These days, who has the time, or the inclination, to shop like that?
6. Pay attention to traffic.
At Target, Hennington understood that people with an affinity for products with natural ingredients wanted to shop for them in a dedicated Naturals section, separate from the traditional skin care, cosmetics and bath & body aisles. Merchandising these products within a "lifestyle section" has been a hit with virtually everything - except hair, which Hennington quickly learned customers want to see in one overarching section, regardless of ingredients and positioning.

Traffic is all about considering how you want a customer to move through a space, studying what she does when she gets there and making adjustments based on those learnings.

When designing store layouts and imagining flow, a certain number of logistical considerations come in to play: not only do you want to create a logical roadmap - sort of like a life-size Chutes & Ladders board where customers instinctively follow a path, encounter different experiences, and hopefully end up at the cash register feeling like winners - but you need to account for seemingly meaningless trivia like the fact that most people are right-handed. This means that people tend to look, and move, instinctively to the right (important when designing the entrance) and grab things that are on the right (important when creating prominence on a table or wall). And remember that, in 2018, most of us have a phone permanently glued to one hand. "If I only have one hand free, I'm only picking up one or two things," said Liebmann. Her solution: remind people to take a basket or cart, or find some other way to "create a space for the phone."

Ulta begins storytelling at the entrance - trending brands and exclusives up front - and leads the customer all the way to the back (so she is effectively traversing the entire store twice) with the lure of salon services and the accompanying hair product assortment.
7. Embrace agility.
Cos Bar engaged Retail Next, a firm that counts its traffic, studies where people go, and dwell, and looks at which windows are bringing them in. "Understanding traffic patterns has been huge and we're seeing traffic increase as a result," said Olsen. He learned that where you put the cash register matters, as it creates the flow and closes the loop on the journey. "Looking at the data from different stores, I think the middle of the store has been our best bet to date, but I don't think we've cracked it yet," he added. The wall behind the register is often a "dead zone" - "so we have nothing there now, just a Cos Bar sign," he said - but the area surrounding the register, populated by the "candy" - KNC lip masks, 8Greens tablets, Beautyblenders - where one impulsively adds on an extra, inexpensive item while waiting in line, is retail gold.

At Cos Bar, evaluating traffic has allowed them to quickly asses what's moving and what's not; their flexible new store designs facilitate moving segments and making strategic tweaks "on the fly," said Olsen. "If products aren't moving, there's a reason for that, and you need to find a new home for them." Even if a floor plan is working, "you've got to constantly change the stores, too, for customer experience," he adds.
8. Be a storyteller.
Refreshing customer experience includes merchandising according to what's new and what she's interested in, now. That requires keeping up with her life (what is everyone suddenly talking, and posting, about?) and reacting with speed. Ideally, a store's feature tables, end-caps, product and brand spotlights should be a mirror of her thoughts, questions and desires. Consider it retail ESP.

Merchandising is storytelling. Tell stories with your product assortment. Whether you are big or small, luxury or mass, edit, curate and organise in ways that tell the stories of your brands, your products, their ingredients and benefits, buzzy trends, seasonal spotlights and need-spaces.

While curation has been shown to encourage browsing and discovery, stores should keep the focus tight.

Ulta merchandises products by brand (and by category within brands,) but when Arnaudo sees an opportunity to bring products from multiple lines together in one spot to tell a story she knows may interest her customer, she jumps on it.

It's about laser-focusing a customer's attention, and it works. Ulta Beauty pulled out "new & notable" hero products in prestige skin (where she knows her client is looking for innovation,) and created a dry shampoo end-cap once she noticed that women weren't washing their hair as much. As masking hit fever pitch, Arnaudo brought sheet masks together from all across the store in dedicated spaces within both prestige and mass. "We saw such a great increase on the mass side - double-digit, if not triple-digit growth - we doubled the space in the section, and the category continued to trend," she said. When she created a single Sun section - in response to customer feedback last year - blending products from across mass and prestige, sales increased by double digits. The category has continued to surge, yielding double digit on top of double-digit growth this year, she reported.

And while curation has been shown to encourage browsing and discovery, stores should keep the focus tight. "What we've learned that doesn't work," said Arnaudo, "is if we try to do too many things at the same time - too many stories, too much product, too many added fixtures and additional signage. Over the holiday season, we were trying to do a little too much, and that can be sensory overload. There is a balance."
9. Take cues from digital - and use it to your advantage.
Also, tell the story of your customer. I.e., figure out her story. What is she buying, where is she going? And what else might she need? "It's the part of the job a true merchant really loves: anticipating what makes the most sense to bring together for our guest," said Arnaudo. The lesson is to get inside the customer's mind-set: a smart merchant will remind her of her narrative and what she needs - or plant the seed and tell her. That's curation, but it's also storytelling.

Not only does digital drive people to stores and help them once they're there - phone in hand, looking up a review, recalling an Instagram post they favourited or a product they bookmarked - there is much brick-and-mortar inspiration that can be taken from the online space.

Liebmann likens Sephora's "best-of" micro-curations - an end-cap touting The 5 Best Mascaras, for example - to an IRL internet search. "I Google X and get the top five options," she said. This type of messaging is smart, too, because it reinforces Sephora's position as experts, their authority to tell the customer what is best.

The digital world provides a living, breathing mood board of the looks, shades and trending application techniques (and the attendant products and tools) that have captured a customer's imagination. It's also a hunting ground for new brands that can set a retailer apart, build credibility and win an audience. Arnaudo looks to platforms like YouTube - which 70 percent of her customers are on - to help determine what's coming in to Ulta's assortment. She recently brought on Morphe and Colourpop, two digitally native brands with enormous social followings and influencer ties. "They're driving traffic into the store because the consumer couldn't see or test the product until we had it," said Arnaudo. "It's a piece we all have to stay on top of, and it moves so fast."

Physical stores, from Tom Ford to Target, have incorporated e-commerce's virtual try-on AR technology to speed up the product selection process too. "It's a step forward in acknowledging the expectations of the consumer," said Hennington.
Related Articles: How to Build a Beauty Brand in the Digital Age Sephora vs Ulta: The Battle of Beauty's Retail Giants 6 Beauty Disruptors Changing the Way Consumers Shop
Savvy merchandising is an ongoing work in progress. And there are many different customers to think about, not just the millennial. "We have 30 million consumers who walk through the doors each week," said Hennington, "so how do you stay relevant with a broad base?" The ability to pivot quickly opens the door for experimentation and innovation. "I'd rather be out there trying and learning than perfecting something on a spreadsheet," she continued. "Of course we make mistakes; it's about what we do with that information next that matters."

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9 Tips For Mastering the In-Store Experience

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NEW YORK, United States - Earlier this summer as I was packing - at midnight, predictably - for a 7 am flight the next morning to a sunny seaside getaway, I realised, with (a beauty editor's) horror, that we were dangerously low on sunscreen.

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NEW YORK, United States - When Apiece Apart opened its first pop-up in 2015, the plan was to keep the store open for three months. That turned into six months, and then a year, as customers flocked to Soho to try on - and buy - the brand's earthy utilitarian pieces.

The small shop remains open today, on a year-by-year lease, and has expanded to showcase items from other vendors.

This trajectory from pop-up to permanent storefront is not uncommon. Retailers have closed tens of thousands of stores in recent years as they face digital disruption. In this uncertain environment, brands that still want to open stores - a mix of online start-ups and wholesale labels looking to build direct-to-consumer businesses - often want to test the waters with a short lease.

Some landlords stuck with high numbers of vacant storefronts are happy to comply (it helps that many tenants, like Apiece Apart, wind up staying in their pop-ups much longer than planned). Those that don't, retailers and brands say, will continue to lose out on cash, while leases progressively get shorter. Average apparel store leases fell to about four years in 2019, down from five-and-a-half years in 2017, according to real estate research firm Co-Star. Even giant brands like Nike and are incorporating pop-ups into their strategies, finding that it's an effective way to create hype and acquire new customers.

A pop-up used to be an activation... but what's happening today is the multiplier effect.

"A pop-up used to be an activation that was to drive a sales or excite people to come to a location but what's happening today is the multiplier effect," said Joshua Schulman, chief executive of -owned Coach, which opened 130 pop-ups last year and is planning dozens more this year. "When we do these simultaneously and in different locations staged over time, the excitement tends to build [on social media] and often the second set of footsteps are people who were influenced by their friends."

An entire economy has emerged around the pop-up shop concept, allowing landlords struggling to find tenants for long-term leases to bring in revenue on a more consistent, if less predictable, basis. Start-ups like Appear Here and Splacer tout one-click solutions to pair landlords with brands looking to rent temporary spaces. Naked Retail fills empty storefronts with wares from multiple brands, and will trick out pop-ups with Millennial- and Gen Z-friendly design trends.

Even some traditional property managers are embracing the concept. Brookfield, which has long used pop-ups to fill temporarily vacant spaces in its malls, is testing dedicated short-term spots in certain properties. Short-term leases have become "a very serious part" of the company's strategy, said Brookfield Senior Vice President Melinda Holland.

We don't need to be occupied 365 days a year.

For landlords, the case for short-term leasing can be made because the price-per-square-foot for pop-ups is often much higher. For instance, Appear Here advertises a 1,500-square-foot theatre space in Soho for $2,543 a day, which equates to an annual rate of $619 per square foot - or nearly double the average for that area, according to real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.

"It's lower occupancy but higher calibre," said Stephanie Blake, chief executive of Skylight Studios, a real estate firm that leases marquee properties like the Ferry Building in San Francisco and sublets the spaces for pop-ups and one-off events. "We don't need to be occupied 365 days a year."
Short-Term Becomes Long-Term
, an womenswear label based in New York, recently opened a pop-up space on Madison Avenue, around the corner from Barneys New York. The designer, who has three permanent stores in New York, said she opened the temporary store to sell extra merchandise she had produced for Barneys before the chain filed for bankruptcy.

Lotan, whose line is known for its unfussy luxe basics, said sales have been so strong that, if they hold up, she'll sign a long-term lease. The new store has attracted many first-time customers, she said. Even so, she had to call three landlords before finding one willing to allow a short-term lease, even though that stretch of Madison Avenue has plenty of vacant stores.

"Some of these landlords have not faced reality," she said. "It's better to take a tenant short term than have no tenant at all."

The designer has been opening pop-ups for five years, using them to put her clothes in front of new customers and test potential new store locations.

"As a long-term strategy, we could open one, close another and so on," she said. "We can tour different neighborhoods."

Appear Here says one in five tenants end up leasing their temporary spaces long-term, and the start-up has added a product to help find longer leases in addition to pop-up spots.

When industries are being disrupted, so often people put their heads in the sand and pretend it's not happening.

Pop-up specialists like Appear Here grew rapidly in part because traditional brokers and landlords were unwilling to accept that short-term leases were becoming a permanent part of the real-estate market. Some have come around; Simon Properties, the biggest US mall operator, has invested in Appear Here, which counts brands such as Apple and Net-a-Porter as clients.

"When I started [Appear Here], every landlord told me to get lost," said Ross Bailey, the app's founder. "So often people put their heads in the sand and pretend it's not happening."

Not every landlord is ready to turn over their space to short-term customers, however.

"Even today, there are some landlords that don't get it yet," said Bailey. "They want that tenant that signs a 10-year lease... But really, that doesn't exist. The industry of retail doesn't support that anymore."
Permanent Marketing Strategy
Many brands are investing in pop-ups in addition to permanent stores, rather than replacing them. is the latest major brand to open a series of global pop-up stores, focusing on regions where the Kering-owned luxury giant lacks an existing physical footprint, such as São Paulo, Bangkok, Moscow and Chengdu.

Dubbed "Gucci Pin," the plan is for the pop-ups to remain open for an average five weeks, with some shops opening and closing over the course of a year in the same city.

Coach, too, has opened and closed pop-ups repeatedly in the past year. The Tapestry-owned brand has four types of pop-ups: while some are standalone locations, others are inside or near existing stores. The brand sees its pop-up strategy as complementary to its existing network of stores, working with property owners ranging from Hudson Yards developer Related Companies to mall landlord Taubman Properties.

Coach's highest-profile pop-ups are "experiential activations," where no products are sold but guests go through a "total brand immersion." The Life Coach pop-up concept for instance is more art installation than retail shop, where attendees walk through a set of themed and thoroughly decorated rooms: one is a forest of "self-discovery," another a simulated subway station.

"We believe in a mix of different ways to engage the customer, whether it is traditional retail or shorter-term innovations that pop up around the world, or of course, through our digital channels," Schulman said. "And increasingly you want a symbiotic relationship between all those channels."

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Saving America's Most Illustrious Stretch of Retail Real Estate The Start-Ups Behind New York's Retail Reawakening Op-Ed | The Pop-Up Has Grown Up

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How Temporary Pop-Ups Became a Permanent Strategy

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NEW YORK, United States - When Apiece Apart opened its first pop-up in 2015, the plan was to keep the store open for three months. That turned into six months, and then a year, as customers flocked to Soho to try on - and buy - the brand's earthy utilitarian pieces.

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NEW YORK, United States - Neiman Marcus had been planning a gradual rollout of its customer service app, called Connect, which allows employees to recommend products and offer style tips directly to shoppers, even when they aren't in stores. Starting in March, a handful of sales associates would begin a limited trial.

But a pandemic is no time for beta testing. In March, Connect went live to over 4,000 store employees. Even after stores began to reopen, Connect proved a vital way to keep in touch with customers.

For companies like Neiman Marcus, many of the tools and marketing tricks hastily introduced during the lockdowns are becoming permanent fixtures in the retail arsenal. The reason: many consumers aren't interested in stepping inside a clothing store until Covid-19 is under control. Though foot traffic has bounced back from the lows seen this spring, some analysts predict store visits will level off at well below pre-pandemic levels.

Brands also see reaching customers who can't or won't visit stores as essential to weathering the pandemic.

Reaching those millions of missing customers is a priority. But it won't be easy. The customers avoiding stores tend to be older, and therefore less likely to shop online or use social media. A survey of US consumers in May by Fast, an e-commerce checkout platform, found that 29 percent weren't sure if they'd ever be as comfortable walking into stores as they were before the pandemic, a figure that rose to 42 percent among people aged 55 to 64.

E-commerce has boomed during the pandemic, with some brands reporting double the online sales they saw before March. But older consumers have been slower to switch to shopping online: a survey by discount aggregator CouponFollow found 47 percent of Baby Boomers had increased their online shopping during the pandemic, compared with 63 percent of Millennials.

Retailers say there's no special trick to winning older customers' dollars; many of the same tactics that draw Millennials will work on their parents. But brands also see reaching customers of all ages who can't or won't visit stores as essential to weathering the pandemic, especially as a new surge in Covid-19 cases in the US is threatening to reverse progress in lifting lockdowns. Doing so means recreating key aspects of the in-store experience online for those not used to, or not comfortable, shopping on the internet, and inventing new ways to cement a brand in consumers' minds.

"You've got a group of people who want to be looked after and pampered," said David Sinclair, director of the International Longevity Centre UK, an advocacy group for the elderly. "You need to find a way in delivering that service."
That Personal Touch
Neiman's app is designed to recreate the serendipity that comes from an encounter with a helpful salesperson on the shop floor. Retailers need to create this sort of goodwill because where a smartly run store can lure customers back again and again (and spending more on each visit), even the best-designed websites tend to feel interchangeable.

Many department stores, from Neiman Marcus and Saks to France's Galeries Lafayette, invested in virtual personal shoppers and other remote interactions between customers and employees during the pandemic.

Retailers are also pitching their personal shopping experiences to a broader audience, knowing that it's a service that will appeal not just to the customers who routinely spend tens of thousands of dollars and know their favourite sales associates by name.

"The customer who buys one tube of lipstick or one face cream via Connect, that doesn't mean they don't need help with this tube of lipstick or face cream," said Katie Mullen, chief innovation officer at Neiman Marcus.

That applies beyond the luxury space as well. Evereve, a women's clothing chain with 95 stores, mostly in the Midwest, introduced a "dressing room to go" service during the pandemic, where sales associates select 15 items for customers to try on at home.

Employees of different ages and body types also model clothes on social media. That's crucial for Evereve's target customer, including women in their 30s and 40s.

"That has compelled our customer to be comfortable buying online," said Co-Chief Executive Mike Tamte. "They can see the product on their bodies."

Brick-and-mortar was relevant before the pandemic and will be relevant after the pandemic.

Whether the customer is young or old, the goal with these encounters should be to make customers feel like they're making the right decision when they select an item to buy.

"Everybody... just want[s] to be told they're doing a good job," said Allison Bornstein, a stylist whose clients include Katie Holmes. "They really just want that reassurance that they're doing well and that they... have good taste. It makes them want to be smarter when they do consume."
Operators Are Standing By
At Saks, one of the most popular new services during the pandemic was a concierge email, where customers could ask representatives for help navigating how to shop in the strange new pandemic era.

Employees could direct customers on how to set up virtual shopping appointments or arrange curbside pickup for their online orders. But the most common questions also tended to be the most basic, such as where to find a particular pair of shoes, said Emily Essner, chief marketing officer at Saks.

"Which is fascinating when you think about it - why wouldn't you just search for that online?" Essner said. "There is something about still having that one-on-one interaction that matters."

Sinclair, with the International Longevity Centre, said with older consumers, the ability to speak with a live representative by phone has proven crucial. In the UK, some supermarkets have begun accepting telephone orders during the pandemic, to serve seniors as well as low-income customers who lack reliable internet access.

"The ability to phone someone up and talk to someone seems to be one of the key things," Sinclair said.
Stores Still Matter
Neiman's Mullen said innovations developed during the pandemic are an excuse to "lean into channel blur," or not view customers as purely shopping online or in stores. The view at Saks is much the same.

"[The pandemic] is going to really fundamentally change a lot of the ways that customers want to interact with brands," Essner said. "You want to make sure every interaction is strengthening the relationship with the customer and making her more loyal. We try to be channel agnostic."

But retailers with dozens or hundreds of stores want to find a good use for them, and shipping out online orders alone won't justify the rent. Many of the services introduced in the last few months have built-in bridges designed to nudge customers back to stores when they're ready: Saks' email concierges can set up private appointments at newly reopened stores and help customers arrange curbside pickup, for example.

At Evereve, online sales doubled during the lockdowns. But most of the brand's in-store customers had stopped spending with them. To coax these reluctant shoppers back, Evereve introduced a rewards programme that gave customers who spent at least $100 while stores were closed a 10 percent discount for the rest of the year. Over 40,000 customers took them up on the offer.

The brand saw this as a way to incentivise customers to shop online - and to come back to stores when they were ready, Tamte said.

"I cringe when I read or see or hear [about] the end of brick-and-mortar," Tamte said. "It's just not accurate. Brick-and-mortar was relevant before the pandemic and will be relevant after the pandemic."
Related Articles: How the Rich Are Shopping Right Now Coronavirus Is Already Changing How People Shop. Here's How. Luxury Braces for $43 Billion in Losses as Coronavirus Panic Goes Global

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How to Reach Customers Who Still Don't Like Shopping for Clothes Online

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NEW YORK, United States - Neiman Marcus had been planning a gradual rollout of its customer service app, called Connect, which allows employees to recommend products and offer style tips directly to shoppers, even when they aren't in stores. Starting in March, a handful of sales associates would begin a limited trial.

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LONDON, United Kingdom

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How to Build a Sustainable Brand Like Patagonia on a Budget

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For small and medium-sized fashion brands, implementing a sustainability programme that works can be a challenge. BoF boils down four tips to help get any business get started.

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NEW YORK, United States - Jill Wenger, founder of cult New York-based boutique Totokaelo, used to find shopping at her own store a challenge.

"I would select approximately 2,400 styles each season for Totokaelo. Out of those, around a dozen would fit me without alterations," said Wenger. "My weight fluctuates between a size 14 to 16. I'm a designer customer. Outside of the off chance I can find an oversize style by Celine or Dries that fits, there isn't much in the market for me."

Wenger sold Totokaelo in 2016 and started Roucha, her "size inclusive" clothing line, the following year. A brand designed to fit women of all body types from size 0 to size 20, Wenger devised her own sizing chart that focuses in on offering clothing "in varied lengths and widths" (a size C, for example, fits a woman sized 10 to 14 and taller than 5 foot 4, while a CC fits women smaller than 5 foot 4).

A growing number of brands that traditionally focused on straight sizes are now selling clothing to plus-size customers too, from retail chains like Loft and Madewell, to start-ups like Reformation and Tanya Taylor. These lines typically extend beyond a US 12 (a UK 16) and run up to sizes 20 and above, where options for stylish apparel are relatively sparse.

Retailers are scrambling to figure out how to serve this suddenly very visible group of women.

Certainly, the plus size market opportunity is an attractive one. In 2017 it was worth £6.5 billion ($9.2 billion) in the UK and $23.1 billion in the US, and, by 2022, is expected to grow 10.7 percent and 22.9 percent respectively, according to GlobalData.

"Brands that have never considered plus before are starting to pay attention," says Katie Sturino, founder of plus-size blog 12ishStyle and personal-care brand Megababe. "Major retailers who have ignored the plus size audience for years are scrambling to figure out how to serve this suddenly very visible group of women."

But offering an expanded size range brings its own challenges, from higher costs to nailing the fit in larger sizes. "There's an entire set of rules that go with this part of the market ... It's quite a different animal," explains Alex Waldman, who co-founded plus-size native brand Universal Standard with her partner Polina Veksler in September 2015.

So, how does a brand go about expanding beyond straight sizing?
Style comes first
Traditionally, the product offering in the plus space has been limited, making it harder to find stylish clothes. The new crop of "size inclusive" brands say they're trying to rectify that.

At Roucha, Wenger aims to design clothes that appeal to women of all body types (her best-selling size is actually an AA, made for women sized 0 to 2 and taller than 5 foot 4. This is closely followed by a C, which fits a 10 to 14 taller than 5 foot 4.) That can mean designing clothes that don't rely on fitting the waist in a specific way or adding a drawstring to give people the option to wear pants on their waist or hips.

Size is "one of the many choices we make when defining a unique, expressive personal style," she says."There's no right answer. It's a matter of taste."

For some brands, housing straight sizes and plus sizes together is an important part of this. Tanya Taylor - who extended her namesake brand up to a size 22 in June 2017 - chose to integrate the larger sizes into her website's existing product pages, while denim brand Good American - which spans sizes 00 to 24 - only works with retailers that will take their full size range and display the clothes in one space.

"We make absolutely no compromises," says Good American co-founder Emma Grede. Currently, the brand is stocked at Selfridges in the UK and in the US, as well as some Bloomingdale's locations.
Find the right manufacturing partner
Not all manufacturers are equipped to produce plus size clothing, while some are not willing to take on what can be a complex assignment.

Universal Standard's Waldman and Veksler said some factories told them they didn't have looms big enough to produce the brand's largest sizes, which run up from a 10 right up to a 28. However, "a factory that's forward thinking and wants to partner with you, they will make the investment in the fit mannequins and in the technology," says Veksler. This year, the company has plans to grow its size offering to span 6 to 32.

Tanya Taylor found the factories she works with were very supportive when she moved into the plus segment. "They've bought dress forms that fit our size 16 so they can accurately drape and show us the process, which I think shows a commitment on their end," she said.
Flat pricing is a given
Creating new patterns and using more fabric is going to be more expensive. Charging more for the final product, however, is not an option.

"We made a decision out of the gate that we would do flat pricing and that we'd make it work," explains Laura Jacobs, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Loft, which launched its Plus line this February. "We didn't want this customer to feel any different than a existing customer or the customer we had been serving."

Taylor says her brand margins on extended sizes are "benefitted by being [focused on] direct to consumer, versus the rest of our brand is 90 percent wholesale." (In addition to the Tanya Taylor site, extended sizes are also stocked on Rent the Runway and 11 Honoré.) While plus sizes currently account for 15 percent of the brand's e-commerce inventory, they drive 30 percent of online sales, she says.

Universal Standard's Veksler says acquiring new customers helps make up for lower margins. "You cannot charge differently for those garments," she says. "Because you'll be getting and serving so many additional customers, you will make up the money by additional sales."
To get the fit right, ditch the formula
When it comes to the plus segment, one fit model does not work for all sizes. As the body changes dramatically from size to size within the higher double digits, the grading rules used for straight sizes don't apply to plus sizes.

12ishStyle's Sturino says it's easy to tell when a brand hasn't adjusted accordingly. "So often I find that I am disappointed by a brand's attempt to be size inclusive when I try on their offerings and find I have to size up four times than what I'd usually wear," she says.

Wenger does all the grading for Roucha herself, and recommends bringing a grader in-house and making a sample in every size. Universal Standard uses multiple fit models, fit their clothes across body types and developed its own micro-grading system for pattern creation.

The design changes within that size range. The garment looks exactly the same, but the pattern is made dependent on the size.

Good American's Grede agrees using multiple fit models is integral to getting a good fit across the size range. "In any one garment we have either two or three patterns," she says. "The design actually changes within that size range. The garment looks exactly the same, but the pattern is made dependent on the size."

Finding a design team with the right technical know-how, however, was a challenge. "There's definitely a shortage in people with the expertise at this end of the size spectrum," she adds.
Plus-focused retail partners can help you get started
Another way to approach expanding a size range is to partner with a retailer who already has the expertise and know-how.

11 Honoré is a luxury e-commerce site that sells runway looks in sizes 10 to 24. Founded by tech veteran Patrick Herning and former Vogue editor Kathryn Retzer, the site launched last August and has raised $11.5 million in funding to date. Brandon Maxwell and Michael Kors are among the designers currently stocked, while names like and Derek Lam will join the mix this fall.

The platform works exclusively with a consulting company that specialises in pattern-making to provide partner brands with expertise on managing the fit and design of larger sizes. "[It] takes all the heavy lifting off their shoulders," explains Herning.

Additionally, 11 Honoré cover any upcharges in production to ensure pricing is kept flat across size ranges. "It can be at times more expensive to produce these pieces, but Patrick and I are very committed to making sure that our customer never pays a price differrence," says Retzer.

Similarly, CoEdition - a new multi-brand marketplace selling contemporary plus-size clothing that launched in March this year and has raised $4 million Seed funding - is looking to do something similar. Currently, the platform only works with brands that already exist in the plus space, but in time, it hopes to do collaborations and capsule collections with brands that don't yet cater to the plus market in the future. "As we grow and collect more data and analytics, we can share that with partners to help educate them in how to service this woman," explains co-founder Brooke Cundiff.
Related Articles: Plus-Size Lingerie Turns Into Rare Growth Market in US Apparel 11 Honoré Targets Plus-Size Opportunity Gwyneth Paltrow and Natalie Massenet Invest in 'Size-Inclusive' Brand Universal Standard

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NEW YORK, United States - Jill Wenger, founder of cult New York-based boutique Totokaelo, used to find shopping at her own store a challenge. "I would select approximately 2,400 styles each season for Totokaelo. Out of those, around a dozen would fit me without alterations," said Wenger.

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Banana Republic design studio | Source: Gap Inc. media library

By Bloomberg September 18, 2019 17:30

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Banana Republic, the preppy apparel retailer that's mired in a sales slump, has identified one of its key strategic errors: The demographic it targets is too narrow.

"Banana Republic has historically been known as a skinny brand," said Art Peck, chief executive of Inc., which owns the chain - a perception that keeps some potential customers away. Meanwhile, a diversity council that works to weed out bias in the design process flagged another issue to management: The range of colours on apparel items meant to match skin tones was too limited.

These observations have led the retailer to expand both the sizes it offers as well as its palette. The changes are "absolutely about inviting a customer that hasn't probably shopped at that brand to come in," Peck said in an interview.

The chain, which has posted three straight quarters of declining same-store sales, is under increasing pressure to turn itself around as Gap prepares to split from the discount chain. Banana Republic will join Gap's namesake brand, sportswear retailer and a handful of other names in a company that will trade separately from Old Navy. Gap shares have lost about 30 percent this year, compared with a gain of about 20 percent for the S&P 500.
True Hues
Early results are positive for the line of skin-toned body suits and shoes known as True Hues. With more colours such as espresso and biscotti, the assortment has outpaced sales expectations "by double digits," according to a company spokesman Mark Snyder. The products are available on Banana Republic's website and will arrive at flagship stores in New York, San Francisco and Chicago in February.

The True Hues line follows a zeitgeist that's been taking hold in some corners of the fashion industry. In recent years, some brands like shoemaker Christian Louboutin and 's Fenty Beauty have expanded their collection of skin tones to better reflect the population. Historically, "nude" offerings were often limited to beige - with the effect of excluding non-white consumers.

At Banana Republic and other brands, teams of merchandisers and other employees known as the Color Proud Council help to sketch more diverse products. The Gap brand may also expand its skin-tone inclusive products for its GapBody line of intimates, while Old Navy is working on camisoles and flip flops that reflect different skin tones.
'Grossly Under-indexed'
Gap Inc. sees a market opportunity for more inclusive sizing, with Peck noting in a presentation to investors that 70 percent of women in the US buy a pants size 14 or above. Right now, the company only sells up to size 16 in its stores. "We've grossly under-indexed in this space," he said.

Both Banana Republic and Gap offer up to a size 20 in some styles online. The company is also looking to extend that up to a size 26, and plans to bring the bigger sizes into physical locations.

The retailer has also been making a broader push to improve the quality of its product and attract a younger customer base.

"The industry is overdue to really embrace the communities in a representative way that we all do business in," Peck said.
By Jordyn Holman, with assistance from Lisa Wolfson; editors: Anne Riley Moffat, Jonathan Roeder and Rebecca Greenfield.

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Banana Republic Looks to Skin Tone and Size Inclusivity for Turnaround

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Banana Republic design studio | Source: Gap Inc. media library By Bloomberg September 18, 2019 17:30 SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Banana Republic, the preppy apparel retailer that's mired in a sales slump, has identified one of its key strategic errors: The demographic it targets is too narrow.

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This article appeared first in The State of Fashion 2020, an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company. To learn more and download a copy of the report, click here.
LONDON, United Kingdom - For many years, "diversity" in fashion meant occasionally putting a non-white face on a magazine cover. Diversity was often more about visual impact than being representative. Today, these token nods to diversity are beginning to give way to real inclusivity as the industry moves from eye-catching imagery towards meaningful change in the workforce. This is motivated by consumers demanding that companies' values reflect their own, and by employees and stakeholders clamouring for change.

We expect companies will start to broadcast their diversity credentials loudly and proudly, with chief diversity and inclusion officers becoming the rule rather than the exception. Customers will keep a keen eye on whether these initiatives are style over substance, rewarding those who embed change throughout their organisations and calling out, shaming or boycotting those who don't.

In consumer-facing aspects of the business, representation is finally improving. There were more than twice as many models of colour on the runways of the autumn 2019 fashion shows as there were for spring 2015 - up from 17 percent to almost 40 percent. One powerful example was Gen-Z superstar 's collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger, which used only black models at its Paris launch - 59 of them, of different sizes and ages. 's diverse show for her lingerie line Savage x Fenty was lauded by the industry as a riposte to competitor Victoria's Secret long-projected homogeneous view of beauty. capsule collections are also visibly embracing diversity: Asos has released three collaboration collections with GLAAD, giving the LGBTQ acceptance organisation 100 percent of profits.

In an industry that has often fallen back on "artistic licence" to justify its choice of homogeneous visual imagery, that is no longer an excuse that works. Consumers today increasingly express their disdain if diversity is not represented or considered. Victoria's Secret's long refusal, until recently, to use transgender models because, to quote the chief marketing officer "the show is a fantasy," is one well-known example. Consumer backlash can be swift and brutal, often resulting in changes to corporate policies. After the PR crisis related to 's "blackface" jumper, for example, the brand invested $10 million into a programme that aims to encourage internal diversity and inclusion.

The impact of mistakes and misjudgements in this area is not just felt on social media. Almost two-thirds of consumers are self-proclaimed "belief-driven buyers" who will choose, switch, avoid or boycott a brand based on its stand on societal issues - a statistic that holds broadly true across markets as diverse as China, Brazil, the US and Germany. And it's not just what they buy, it's where they buy it: more than half of 21-to-27-year-olds in the US believe that retailers have a responsibility to address wider social issues with regards to diversity.

Beyond its workforce, the ultimate visible expression of a company's commitment to diversity and inclusion is its products. Challenger brands are already launching products that cater to underserved demographics, from adaptive fashion brands such as IZ Adaptive, to Good American, which offers jeans in a wide range of tailored sizes; from the growing number of modest clothing brands aimed at Muslim women to trans-friendly lingerie brands such as London-based Carmen Liu Lingerie.

Some incumbent brands are recognising that these companies are carving out profitable niches and are responding accordingly. Anthropologie, for example, has launched Anthropologie in sizes from 00P to 26W, while Tommy Hilfiger launched a line of adaptive clothing for children with disabilities and later added adult apparel. With the adaptive-clothing market estimated to reach almost $400 billion by 2026, more high-street brands are launching adaptive-clothing ranges, including Zappos and Target.

If further motivation is needed, while society certainly expects greater representation of difference, there is also a strong economic case for diversity (which, as we'll see later holds true within companies too). In the US, for example, the buying power of people of colour is growing significantly faster than that of the white population. The implication for fashion players is that sales rise significantly as more customers feel visibly represented and aligned to the brand in terms of shared values.

Almost two-thirds of consumers are self-proclaimed 'belief-driven buyers.'

However, if companies are to parade their diversity credentials, they need to make sure they are genuine and deep-rooted. In other words, the fashion industry needs to live the message, not just parrot it. That means putting as much if not more focus on the internal organisation as on their models' skin colour.

There is substantial room for improvement. A New York Times article recently called out Adidas, whose employees criticised the company for a lack of diversity when they realised that less than 5 percent of the workforce at its US headquarters identified as black. Nike is among others who have also now come under fire. "Examine fashion's underlying power structure, what you find is male, cis-gendered whitewashing," wrote Jason Campbell in an op-ed for The Business of Fashion . "Data is limited, but a close look at the executive committees at major fashion companies shows that they are packed with white men."

Some companies are taking positive action. LVMH has pledged equal gender representation for executives by 2020, while claims it has achieved equal pay for employees of all genders and races and is close to approaching equal representation. Public announcements of such initiatives may seem self-aggrandising, but today's belief-driven customers look beyond the glossy imagery to decide if a brand's values match their own.

Some of the industry's most recognised players, such as , Gucci and H&M, have hired executives devoted to diversity to show their commitment, but employee training and full integration across functions still lags across the industry. A 2019 US fashion industry report revealed that only 56 percent of respondents said they had taken a professional class or workshop related to inclusion and diversity.

Making diversity the norm, rather than a special initiative, will ultimately have the biggest impact on corporate culture. Consider gender and ethnic representation in leadership positions. Women are overrepresented in the industry with more than two-thirds of fashion house employees being women in 2018, yet once you move up to the C-suite, this number drops to less than a third. This is still well above the global average of 14 percent, but parity seems a distant dream.

Similarly, there are only a handful of black creative directors, like Olivier Rousteing and Virgil Abloh, at the helm of high-profile luxury fashion houses, and there are scant few C-suite executives of colour to be found anywhere in the industry. It is evident that while there is some progress across the industry, there remain bastions where progress is slow, particularly in creative leadership, decision-making and technical roles, from creative directors and business unit heads to chief operating officers and chief technology officers.

"If industry leaders need motivation beyond the moral imperative and the positive impact on creativity, our research has built the business case for diversity," says Vivian Hunt DBE, managing partner for McKinsey in the UK and Ireland. "Diversity is correlated with superior company economic performance, a finding which is reinforced year-on-year." Recent McKinsey research into the impact of diversity on organisations shows that companies ranked in the top quartile for gender diversity in their executive teams were 21 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile, but also 27 percent more likely to have industry-leading performance on longer-term value creation. For ethnic and racial diversity, top quartile companies were 33 percent more likely to outperform national industry peers. "Combining an inclusion and diversity strategy with the core imperatives of a business means that inclusive leadership really does lead to inclusive growth," continues Hunt.

In 2020, visible expressions and public statements of diversity and inclusion will be more frequent, and companies will not be shy about sharing them. But they will also be vocal about their broader commitment to diversity and will be held to account by employees and customers. Fashion players should articulate their own business case for diversity while having a clear understanding of how much better diverse teams are across functions, from customer insight and product innovation, to marketing and digital. Chief diversity officers will become more common, better resourced and further empowered, laying out ambitious roadmaps for initiatives such as workforce training, strategies to improve diversity in key creative and corporate roles, and improving inclusion-related indicators.

The core business must own the diversity and inclusion agenda beyond the chief diversity officer, with inequality in the workforce addressed by efforts to de-bias recruitment and advancement processes, provide sponsorship and leadership development programmes for diverse talent, ensure the workplace caters for employees of all genders, races and abilities, and by promoting equal pay and opportunities. In a female-dominated industry, average representation will be insufficient as a target; businesses should use cascade targets to increase representation in specific areas of the business, with managers held to account while being supported in meeting these targets. Overall, companies should consider how to transform their organisations to create a truly inclusive culture for employees and consumers, eschewing a skin-deep veneer of change for profound and lasting reform.

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The Year Ahead: The Business of Inclusivity

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This article appeared first in The State of Fashion 2020, an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company. To learn more and download a copy of the report, click here. LONDON, United Kingdom - For many years, "diversity" in fashion meant occasionally putting a non-white face on a magazine cover.

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NEW YORK, United States - For its latest campaign, Bandier tapped Julie Sariñana, an influencer known to her 5.5 million Instagram followers as Sincerely Jules.

The fashion blogger's ability to sell California-inspired tank tops and dresses was only part of her appeal to the fitness retailer. What sealed the deal was the fact that Sariñana styles, shoots and edits her own post - no small thing for Bandier, which is trying to keep costs low while its stores are closed.

"You want people who can drive awareness and revenue, but you're also looking for a robust skillset," said chief marketing officer Natalie McGrath. "Because the old way of doing high-end shoots, where there was a volume of people keeping it on the tracks, has gone out the window."

Many brands, hit by plunging sales during the pandemic, have halted the social media marketing campaigns that once funded lavish lifestyles for thousands of Instagram stars. Sponsored content in April was down 85 percent on Instagram, according to Shareablee, a marketing analytics company.

The global death toll from Covid-19 and the record level of unemployment in the US has created a different mood for consumers on social media - one that doesn't include the sort of glamorous content that brands like Revolve or Dior lean on. Vacation shoots have been replaced by "relatable" quarantine content. Sponsored posts these days more closely resemble ads, complete with prominent click-to-shop buttons, rather than magazine spreads.

Sariñana, who has spent a decade building her following and fine-tuning her behind-the-scenes skills, is well-positioned to survive a shakeout in the influencer economy.

"Now, during this time, budgets have been cut tremendously and I've had to cut my rates, but I'm lucky that I'm a storyteller and that has set me apart," said Sariñana. "I think there's still opportunity, but it's about how hard you are willing to work."

Many of her fellow fashion influencers - particularly those with few skills beyond posing for the camera - are in for a rude awakening. Beca Alexander, founder and president of influencer agency Socialyte, said some of her fashion clients haven't booked a deal in three months.

I don't think a lot of them are going to come out of this. The world can't handle millions of fashion influencers posting about stay-at-home smoothies.

Some have predicted that Covid-19 will mean the end of the influencer industry. That's unlikely. But experts note the industry is experiencing swift and likely permanent shifts. Influencers can expect pay cuts and fewer deals - particularly in fashion - and the ones who will come out of the global crisis on top are the ones who are pivoting their content and diversifying their businesses.

"A lot of influencers were trying to mimic what was doing well for someone else, and they started to look the same," Alexander said. "I don't think a lot of them are going to come out of this. The world can't handle millions of fashion influencers posting about stay-at-home smoothies."
A Long Time Coming
In 2019, brands spent $8.5 billion on influencers, according to MediaKix. But there were signs of trouble even then. Costs were rising as more brands came to rely on Instagram to find new customers. So were the number of influencers - Hypr, a marketing platform, claims to track over 12 million of them.

Influencers charged "astronomical" amounts for sponsorship deals, said McGrath. Meanwhile, brands struggled to connect the money spent dressing influencers and flying them to exotic locations with real sales.

The industry was scaling at such a rapid pace that there wasn't deep analytical thinking about what all the spending was getting you.

"The industry was scaling at such a rapid pace that there wasn't deep analytical thinking about what all the spending was getting you," McGrath said.

That made influencer marketing an easy line item to cut when the pandemic forced brands to reduce spending. Influencers should be prepared to drop their rates. Socialyte has seen a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in prices for sponsored content it booked, Alexander said.
Sales Come First
Brands are focusing more on posts geared toward selling products, rather than boosting visibility. Influencers who can prove their posts lead directly to sales have a leg up.

"Brands used to want influencer content that was beautiful and it was ok if the sales weren't there," said Raina Penchansky, chief executive of influencer agency Digital Brand Architects. "Now it's about ROI."

Direct-to-consumer skin-care brand Tula relies on about 400 influencers to sell its products, said chief executive Savannah Sachs. Influencers drove more sales than other channels in April.

"Our average customer is 32, her favourite platform is Instagram and she's turning to her content creators for advice," Sachs said.

That may mean brands narrow the number of influencers they work with, "similar to the way brands choose celebrities as the face of their brands," said Jen Powell, an influencer manager.

Even before the pandemic, many brands were pivoting to working with people who had small but devoted followings, rather than paying top dollar for a mega-influencer.

There's this misconception that influencers should be heroes or celebrities, but people want to feel like they are their best friend.

"There's this misconception that influencers should be heroes or celebrities, but people want to feel like they are their best friend," said Amber Venz Box, founder of the influencer marketing company RewardStyle. "Influencers with 30,000 followers can drive an entire business."

James Nord wrote in a recent Instagram post that his agency, Fohr, will only work with "influencers who want to build long term relationships, who don't want to work with ten fragrance brands in a month, but one that they really, truly love."
Trying On New Personas
Between shrinking marketing budgets and health concerns, the days of lavish influencer trips are likely over. More relatable content is on the rise.

"People don't care about luxury purchases or expensive trips to Tulum now," Alexander said. "Influencers who can make their audiences feel like they are quarantining with them are the ones engaging with followers. They are the ones brands will turn to."

Some influencers are leaning into categories where sales - and sponsored posts - have surged, including fitness, wellness and home goods. Leandra Medine, influencer and founder of the fashion lifestyle site Man Repeller who typically posts sponsored content for Kate Spade, Mango and MatchesFashion, recently partnered with kitchen appliance company Thermomix.

Influencers who can make their audiences feel like they are quarantining with them are the ones engaging with followers.

Influencer twins Reese and Molly Blutstein, who have worked with and , have been doing campaigns with the bedding company Brooklinen. Eric Goldie, a real estate agent and men's fashion influencer said he's booked more deals than ever during the pandemic because he's leaned into grooming and wellness.

"The talent with the most success are the ones who are willing to try something new," said Max Stein, founder of the influencer management company Brigade Talent.

That can mean getting more creative than pivoting to wellness like everyone else, according to Danya Klein, vice president of brand relations and partnerships at Preen.Me, a social marketing company. "Education apps, telemedicine, delivery apps are all products people are turning to now," she said.

Penchansky of DBA recommends influencers have conversations with followers about what they want to see, so they don't alienate audiences. She also said influencers should still produce fashion content, to keep their existing followers happy.
Leave the Instagram Bubble
Some Insta-famous influencers are finding success on up-and-coming platforms like TikTok.

Tezza Barton, a photographer with sponsored Instagram deals from Chloe, Dior and Mango now makes TikToks about photography and Amazon deals. Her follower count there is smaller - 207,000, as opposed to 867,000 on Instagram - but brands are already reaching out.

"TikTok is intimidating because it's trial and error, and there are a lot of younger girls on it who get big with the dances and challenges," said Barton. "But I'm finding that sharing fast stories, tips kills it."

@tezzaDreamy backyard photoshoot idea ? ##photomagic ##ticktokdiy ##photography101♬ original sound - menlovetools

Luxury brands like Prada and Celine have already swooped in by working with TikTok stars and the beauty industry has found that it's where products can swiftly go viral.

"TikTok is just starting to get used in global marketing budgets," Klein said. "With the amount of people who've joined since Covid, TikTok is ageing up more than any other platform."
Be Your Own Boss
For many influencers, the goal has always been to parlay social media fame into building out their own product lines. That way, their careers aren't dependent on brands' marketing plans.

Adriana Suarez, a marketing professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, said influencers could also be selling e-courses and other virtual events.

There's so much being consumed in the digital space. You can position your talent to be appealing to audiences.

"Be innovative and think of novel ways of how you can position your skills," she said. "There's nothing novel to audiences right now about landing partnerships with J.Crew. But there's so much being consumed in the digital space. You can position your talent to be appealing to audiences."

Fashion influencer Chriselle Lim went even further afield. She recently launched Bümo, a virtual school for young children.

"Initially I was worried my followers wouldn't think of me as niche [fashion] anymore," Lim said. "But I'm glad I did it ... you can't have your eggs in one basket."
We're tracking the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on the global fashion business. Visit our live blog for everything you need to know. Related Articles: What Brands Are Doing Instead of Influencer Campaigns Influencers Have a Captive Audience During the Pandemic. But Can They Capitalise on It? When Pandemic Marketing Goes Too Far: How to Avoid #COVIDwashing

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NEW YORK, United States - For its latest campaign, Bandier tapped Julie Sariñana, an influencer known to her 5.5 million Instagram followers as Sincerely Jules. The fashion blogger's ability to sell California-inspired tank tops and dresses was only part of her appeal to the fitness retailer.

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Marylebone High Street | Source: Shutterstock

By Reuters April 20, 2020 16:06

LONDON, United Kingdom - Britain's commercial tenants and landlords have the asked the government for rental support, saying the coronavirus pandemic makes it impossible for thousands of retailers to pay their rents.

The scale of the crisis facing the retail sector is grave and businesses are now at risk of administration due to the impact of the virus, trade bodies British Retail Consortium and British Property Federation wrote in a letter to the government on Friday.

The letter proposed a Furloughed Space Grant Scheme (FSGS) that would mirror similar schemes being introduced in other European countries, with the state supporting the fixed costs of businesses that have experienced dramatic falls in turnover due to the coronavirus outbreak.

While sales may have increased in certain sectors such as food retailing and household items, these are temporary and the majority of business are experiencing dramatic falls in turnover of up to 100 percent, the trade bodies wrote.

British retail property owners and tenants are becoming increasingly weary as they work together to defer rent payments and find other ways for shops, businesses and landlords to cope with a countrywide shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Mall operator Intu said last month it received only 29 percent of rent in the March quarter and requested its banks to waive its borrowing terms.

"Unless further action is taken, we will see many otherwise viable companies file for administration, with the consequent loss of jobs, devastating impact on communities and high streets, and increased cost burden on public funds, not to mention threats to the income generation for pension funds, amongst others," the letter said.

The government has already taken steps to prevent hardships for retailers, by passing a law last month to prevent landlords from evicting commercial tenants who cannot pay rents.

Department store chain Debenhams and fashion brands Oasis and Warehouse are among the well-known British high street businesses to have fallen into financial difficulties in the past couple of weeks due to inability to pay rent for the period during the lockdown.

Separately, the BRC said on Monday that the number of British people leaving their homes to go shopping has slumped by 83 percent since the government closed non-essential retail outlets last month to slow the spread of Covid-19.
By Samantha Machado; editor: Supriya Kurane.

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Britain's High Street Seeks Government Rent Support

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Marylebone High Street | Source: Shutterstock By Reuters April 20, 2020 16:06 LONDON, United Kingdom - Britain's commercial tenants and landlords have the asked the government for rental support, saying the coronavirus pandemic makes it impossible for thousands of retailers to pay their rents.

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By BoF Team June 27, 2019 14:00

In Partnership With

NEW YORK, United States - BoF and brought together executives from leading industry companies to discuss how fashion can adopt connected consumer strategies to create competitive advantage. Leaders from Kering, Grailed, Estée Lauder, Ralph Lauren, Mansur Gavriel, Hudson's Bay Company, , Sotheby's and Armarium gathered at the NoMad hotel in New York to share their experiences in innovating their consumers' journeys to purchase, guided by data insights.

Co-hosted by BoF and Affirm founder and chief executive Max Levchin, who co-founded Paypal, the discussion began by acknowledging that the relationship between consumers and some companies has evolved from episodic transactions to one of continuous connection.

A number of key themes emerged from the discussion conducted under Chatham house rules - which precludes the attribution of statements made to specific individuals or companies.
Connecting With Consumers Earlier
The conversation began by acknowledging the shifting consumer profiles of fashion's newest generation of customers. This month, Bain & Company reported that Millennials will control 50 percent of luxury spending by 2025. Companies willing to pivot not only their product ranges and communications strategies, but also their relationship building, distribution and engagement tactics in entry-level transactions can build competitive advantage.

It's about being authentic in forming a two-way conversation.

In the context of connected consumer strategies and the formation of relationships with longevity, how and when brands first connect with consumers was recognised as increasingly important. The talk continued to discuss how some brands are tapping technology to identify individuals they believe will bring lifetime value to their businesses and connect with them earlier.

One participant stressed that as the accuracy of the data improves identifying such individuals, arguments for investing in strategies that optimise first-time connections with customers and build communities of younger consumers are growing.
Nurturing Customer Behaviour With and Without Content
While the group raised that fact that the most successful brands benefit from high levels of emotional connection with their consumers, creating the potential for strong engagement with customer outreach strategies, it accepted that there were distinct challenges for the luxury industry.

Gifting was raised as a potential avenue for engaging consumers in automatic execution strategies, such as those adopted by Stitch Fix, in which consumers delegate responsibility for selecting clothes to an algorithm trained to meet their needs. However, the group did not settle on a solution for luxury brands and retailers to convincingly replicate the more regular use case advantage of other sectors, including grocery businesses like Hello Fresh or ride-services such as Uber.

Discussion then turned to lessons that could be learned from the beauty industry. Skilled at seeding user-generated content at a fraction of the cost of traditional fashion campaigns, the beauty industry has successfully tapped into its consumers desire to build communities and share their identities.

However, it was consumer interaction independent of any created or curated content that had the most impact on attendees. By adopting messaging strategies built around relevant push notifications of curated product, brands have the potential to maintain connection with consumers independent of the need to create or curate costly content. Though requiring significant investment in product and community development, its potential was notably appreciated by a number of participants.
Balancing Consumer Insight and Brand Identity
Attendees later deliberated on how best to use those insights in a balanced manner, enabling companies to reflect emerging consumer preferences in their product and service offerings without sacrificing brand identity.

"If we let the customer influence us too much, all brands would become the same thing," said one participant. Another shared that at their business, any action taken as a result of customer feedback and data insight, no matter how potentially profitable, had to be monitored and assessed to ensure short term positioning did chip away at brand equity over time.

However, while the need for caution was stressed, the potential to tap valuable consumer demographics such as "HENRYs," a marketing term which stands for High Earners Not Rich Yet, who can be encouraged to invest in higher quality products if their value is clearly communicated, was identified.
Remove the Transactional Nature of Reengagement Strategies
Comments on varying reengagement strategies to create more interactions with consumers post purchase stressed the importance of authentic personalisation, and an increasing awareness that consumer engagement should not always be rooted in interactions with potential transactional value. "It's about being authentic in forming a two-way conversation," another attendee said. "Everybody knows we are doing this. Why not ask them? Have a dialogue. Build a relationship. The conversation might evolve into a sales opportunity, but it can't be the focus," they continued.

You have to speak to the consumer throughout the journey, not only when you get to a place of need.

Nike, which benefits from the inherent performance-element of its products' wear-occasions, was introduced as an innovator in the space due to its successful integration into its customers' exercise habits. Nike offers trainers that electronically monitor workouts, sharing data to be analysed by software the company developed and a digitally connected community enabling its customers to share progress, receive advice and be connected to revenue generating products.

In the absence of brand engagement arising through customers' lifestyles, the need for a consistent output of high-quality and relevant content was stressed. "Continuing to engage the consumer with relevant content throughout their journey really works when you do it right. But you cannot welcome a consumer to a brand with great pomp and circumstance before entering radio silence, followed by a [sales focused] desperate email when you need them. You have to speak to the consumer throughout the journey, not only when you get to a place of need," said another attendee.
The Availability of Accurate Attribution
One of the participants enquired as to the ability of the group to identify the true start of a consumer journey in an omnichannel world, where discovery can occur on and offline. In response, another shared that in their experience, the tools and services currently available to retail businesses did not accurately attribute the first step made in a specific purchase journey.

"Everyone is looking for the holy grail of attribution tools, that nobody has created yet," an attendee said. "There are some players in the market, and we have tested some tools, but to be honest we have not found any solutions where you can attribute accurately where a journey is beginning and ending. Our very simple solution to that is that we are sort of agnostic. We treat it all as one brand and one experience. Anything we have tested so far we have not been able to prove that it is any more accurate than what we are doing already."

Others shared their interest in emerging technology that may make this attribution possible. "Authenticating who customers are when they cross the threshold of a store location and connecting that back to the online experience is still in its very nascent stages and I think there is a lot more to come in that."
Impact of Privacy Laws
Additionally, the likely impact of new privacy laws in the United States, as well as the existing legislation already in place in Europe, were identified as potential challenges to overcome and adapt were raised.

"On the one hand privacy [laws] are certainly driving us all to think, I have to offer you all the same vanilla experience, on the flipside the whole point of these privacy laws is identifying that the customer is special and unique and that the conversation is between just the individual and the brand," an attendee said.

On that note, the conversation came to a close with one attendee sharing their excitement at the potential for a more genuine connection between company and customer due to the introduction of new technologies and greater understanding. "I'm looking forward to getting back to a real conversation between us and consumers, not using wider trends or shared traits, but real connections. That is increasingly possible and I find it exciting."
This is a sponsored feature paid for by Affirm as part of a BoF partnership. To learn more about Affirm, please click here.

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How Can Fashion Adopt Connected Consumer Strategies?

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By BoF Team June 27, 2019 14:00 In Partnership With NEW YORK, United States - BoF and brought together executives from leading industry companies to discuss how fashion can adopt connected consumer strategies to create competitive advantage.

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By BoF Team October 4, 2019 13:30

In Partnership With

PARIS, France - Over the past decade, social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram have transformed how consumers discover products and interact with brands. Today, Facebook believes that before they purchase an item, 85 percent of consumers have already come into contact with the products on Facebook or Instagram.

Indeed, the influence of social media in consumer purchasing journeys is rising. According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), social media played a role in just 11 percent of purchases in 2013. In 2018, the number of purchase decisions impacted by social media had risen to over 40 percent of total transactions.

However, consumer behaviour on social media platforms is changing rapidly. Engaging with "evolved consumers" requires new ways of thinking, as preferences and aspirational identities align with a new generation's perspective. To hear actionable insights on how brands can engage with "evolved consumers," BoF sits down with Morin Oluwole, Facebook's global head of luxury.
What is the most important shift in consumer behaviour you have seen on Facebook and Instagram?
Consumers adapt new technologies first and fastest. That's our competitive advantage. In 2012, we had a big mobile shift that happened across the Facebook platforms. Now, we're leading the charge in the shift to video, stories and messaging. When you look at the content that's been produced and the way that brands are communicating, it's still very much in the traditional sense.

The evolved consumer is born with a mobile phone in hand. From a consumption point of view, we have more than 8 billion videos watched each day on Facebook and about 75 percent of those on mobile. We're really seeing video transform from a consumer behavioural point of view. People are spending more and more time on video across Facebook, across Instagram notably, where we're seeing the growth of video viewing for about 80 percent year-over-year.

We also essentially consider Stories to be a new visual language and that is rapidly being adopted throughout the world. On Facebook and Instagram, 300 million and 500 million individuals use the Stories function per day respectively, as well as 450 million on Whatsapp.
How should brands best engage with an "evolved" consumer?
Evolved consumers - Millennial consumers - are seeking more transparency and more authenticity. We know that sustainability is a really key and important topic for luxury. Brands need to think about what their positioning is and how they can communicate and showcase the work that they do on these subjects in a creative way.

Understanding attribution between on and offline sales is where the value proposition of Facebook and Instagram becomes really powerful.

According to the data, this is playing directly into consumers' decisions around which brands they wish to associate. The BCG True Luxury Consumer Report 2019 reports that 59 percent of total luxury consumers are influenced in their purchasing decisions by a brand's position on sustainability. Over half of consumers investigate a brand's social responsibility and would be more likely to purchase from them on the back of that.

So, how does this translate to Facebook and Instagram? It translates in terms of visual communication. Concretely, how can brands take advantage of the tools like Stories, Instagram's feed or Explore page, to make sure that customers understand their point of view on major global issues.
How do you believe businesses should approach integrating on and offline sales channels?
Understanding attribution between on and offline sales is where the value proposition of Facebook and Instagram becomes really powerful. We have 2.7 billion people who are using the entirety of our applications around the world, meaning Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. If the customer wants to purchase in store, did they see an ad? Or did they see content on Facebook and Instagram?

To measure the contribution of Facebook and Instagram to a consumer's decision to purchase, we completed a number of studies with brands like Louis Vuitton and Bottega Veneta. Last Christmas, Louis Vuitton was one of the first luxury houses to employ new store visits measurement solutions that enable our partners to attribute physical store visits to the impact of online communications strategies. Using a variety of signals, the test enabled Louis Vuitton to understand how many people were exposed to one of their ads on Facebook or Instagram to which they could attribute a later visit to one of their physical stores in Italy.

Our challenge and opportunity is to build a great business by giving people more control over their information.

Similarly, Bottega Veneta used customer relations management integration solutions on Facebook and Instagram to measure the audience that had viewed ads on both platforms and later visited stores, resulting in a 68 percent incremental lift in sales, both online and in-store.
How do you believe data protection considerations will evolve in the luxury space?
We strongly believe that data protection concerns all advertising industries and not just luxury. If growth depends on making ads more relevant, delivering strong ROI, and offering people a secure and personalised experience, we won't have a business if we don't address and build fit for purpose data protection solutions for both consumers and advertisers. Our challenge and opportunity is to build a great business by giving people more control over their information, but also making sure that this is not just a single Facebook-specific responsibility, but that this also applies to the industry as a whole.
How will Facebook and Instagram play a part in the growing fashion conversation around diversity and inclusivity?
The first thing is being able to support the conversation and feel the conversation. If we think about the numbers that use Facebook and Instagram every month, 1 billion people use Instagram every month and over 2.4 billion use Facebook every month.

What we hope for the future is that brands share more information about the initiatives that they've taken on and we are able to continue giving them the platform and connections to do so. We know that we are dealing with a highly informed and involved consumer. The more they feel connected with the brand, the more that they are able to get more visibility and transparency into how the brand is evolving, and what actions they are taking, could be very impactful, not only for the businesses but for us all.
This is a sponsored feature paid for by Facebook - a supporting partner of the BoF500 2019.

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By BoF Team October 4, 2019 13:30 In Partnership With PARIS, France - Over the past decade, social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram have transformed how consumers discover products and interact with brands. Today, Facebook believes that before they purchase an item, 85 percent of consumers have already come into contact with the products on Facebook or Instagram.

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Importance of a Successful Collaboration

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Importance of a Successful Collaboration

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LONDON, United Kingdom - It seems that barely a day goes by without news of a brand collaboration.

The past two weeks have been no exception. Alongside Beyoncé's Ivy Park x Adidas release and Louis Vuitton's custom NBA trophy case, announced via Instagram a new partnership with Gen-Z brand du jour Telfar, while Dior Men finally set an April 2020 launch date for its much-hyped capsule collection with Air Jordan.

Collaborations are now often a blip in a wider marketing strategy rather than a significant moment. They are "very easy to produce, very easy to drop and they spice up the existing collection," said Gachoucha Kretz, an affiliate professor in marketing and brand management at HEC Paris. "Luxury is supposedly more timeless... [but a collaboration] brings novelty and freshness."

But with ubiquity comes the question of value. Nearly two decades after they became a regular occurrence, are brand collaborations still worth the effort? BoF outlines how to engineer a successful alliance between two brands in this new era:
Find a Partner That Makes Sense
"A good collaboration is actually two spouses that get along together and are healthy," Kretz said. "Two people who are happy to commit and get along in their own lives."

But it should be more than just a mutually beneficial transaction. A savvy consumer will smell a hook-up based on convenience from a mile off.

A good collaboration is actually two spouses that get along together.

The news that Gap and Telfar were working together generated considerable social media buzz and press coverage. Running concurrent to growing conversation about its popular "Shopping" tote, Telfar offers Gap something it craves: relevance, loyal customers and a sense of American "cool" - all things the basics giant has lost over the years.

"I'm looking at [the collaboration] as a creative strategy," said Gap Head of Design John Caruso. "We've existed for 51 years... for those who grew up with the brand they [know] why we existed and continue to exist and be relevant, but for those younger consumers who don't know about the brand, this will allow us to connect [with] them."

Telfar stands to benefit from the broad exposure Gap can provide without appearing a sellout to its loyal customer base. Its brand DNA preaches inclusivity and accessibility, an idea wholly compatible with the democratising force of a multinational retailer.

"The idea of availability, it normalises any way of living," said Founder Telfar Clemens in a video posted to Gap's Instagram. "It's going to be a wider message that we get to spread, it's going to be more meaningful because it means more to more people."
Leverage Brand Equity
The expectations, goals and outcomes of a collaboration can vary. Smaller brands are incentivised to combine with large industry players to gain mainstream exposure, access to production resources, and what Marc Beckman, founding partner and chief executive of veteran collaboration brokers DMA United, calls "broad global footprint."

But those smaller brands, with their cultural credibility and young fan base, may have more bargaining power than they realise.

Stephen Sidkin, a fashion and commercial law partner at London-based firm Fox Williams, noted that many smaller or emerging designers view collaborations simply as a way to increase brand awareness and credibility rather than a commercial arrangement. "It adds to the designer's marketability going forwards," he said.

However, in a shifting industry that champions agility and strong brand storytelling, market share and deep pockets aren't everything. For smaller brands, this can realistically translate into a healthy chunk of revenue. Upfront payments are often over $1 million and sometimes significantly more, depending on how much the bigger brand is relying on the cooler one.

"Now what we're seeing is a consumer that has changed [their] shopping habits and consumption-of-media habits to the point where these collaborations... actually impact the bottom line," argued Beckman.

Kretz has noticed a similar shift: "Before, you would do collaborations specifically for image, [but] today's collaborations contribute to [return on investment] because they are short-term, volumes are... quite high, and the collections are developed to maximise the margins."
Don't Alienate Your Core Customer
While the purpose of a collaboration is to reach and acquire new consumers, brand alignment and messaging still needs to be consistent.

"Keep in mind that the core customer represents the brand's tribe," said Beckman. "Theoretically, that tribe is staying with the brand and is going to participate in all of the social commentary [surrounding] the brand."

Social media is still key, but in 2020 brands will have to adapt beyond typical modes of social marketing.

Thanks to the dominance of social media as a marketing platform, brands are forced to use the same channels of communication to acquire customers and engage existing ones. Old-school mediums allowed for a more fragmented customer base, such as a billboard for an affordable collection aimed at fast-fashion shoppers rather than avid brand devotees. But in the age of digital marketing, Instagram is the great equaliser.

Social media is still key, but in 2020 brands will have to push beyond typical modes of social marketing. As engagement with influencer-made and sponsored content wanes, thoughtful marketing matters more now than ever. There's more to publicising a collaboration than a self-explanatory hashtag and unilateral press release.

Telfar, for example, hasn't compromised its on-brand online presence in promoting its Gap collaboration, instead using its Instagram account to post complementary, rather than overlapping, video content about the partnership.

But even if you have diversified content, it's still going to be hard to grab an overstimulated consumer's attention. Static product images (or influencers wearing your product) may not cut it anymore, but telling a nuanced story could and should work.
Go Beyond Merch
Collaboration king Virgil Abloh may have declared streetwear dead, but the reality is that T-shirts, sweatshirts, jeans and sneakers now make up the base of most wardrobes. That means luxury brands need to keep selling those things.

"The consumer is in charge today," said NPD analyst Matt Powell. "It's the brand's responsibility to reap what that consumer wants and get them that product [and what they want] is a streetwear sensibility."

What is on the way out, however, is "merch" as a fashion item, as the demand for logo-ed product begins to slow. For instance, Adidas x Prada's collection of white bags and sneakers emblazoned with both brands' logos helped the German sportswear label increase its overall earned media value (a metric that estimates the value of publicity, engagement and mentions online) to $26.9 million in November 2019, up 10 percent from the month prior, according to analytics firm Tribe Dynamics. However, Prada's declined by 1 percent to $13.8 million.

It makes sense that Adidas benefited from the collaboration, which included a pricier collectable version of its classic Superstar sneaker. But Prada failed to capture the imagination of either its regular consumer base or new customers with what was ostensibly a limited take on an established sportswear staple. While Highsnobiety's Chris Danforth said he found the combination of quality and timelessness " pretty appealing," many on Instagram panned the two-piece collection for being "lazy" and lacking in thoughtful design.

Compare this to Dior Men and Nike's Air Jordan collaboration, which not only complements designer ' aesthetic and the narrative of previous collaborations he has spearheaded - such as with Supreme when at Louis Vuitton - but also adds legitimacy to Dior's expansion into the sneaker space.

Some critics deemed the shoe design boring and unimaginative, on a par with Prada's Adidas Superstars, but responses were otherwise largely positive. In December 2019, the month it was first announced, the promotional hashtag #AirDior directly generated $84,200 in earned media value (EMV) for Nike and $159,700 for Dior. Nike's total EMV of $67.2 million for December, however, marked a 9 percent decline from the month prior, whereas Dior's grew 20 percent to $36.4 million, according to data from Tribe Dynamics.

While it may not have done much for the Nike brand immediately, a partnership with Dior benefits Air Jordan in the long run by offering "the lustre of a luxury brand" and allowing Nike to "go for a premium category... and a premium price," said Kretz. Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that the sportswear brand announced last week that the collaboration would extend to ready-to-wear.

Ultimately, a collaboration's designs need to feel like more than commodities themselves, and therefore worth the expense.

The collection also capitalises on the influencer potential of sports personalities beyond traditional performance wear. French footballer Kylian Mbappé posted a video unboxing the Air Dior Jordan to his 38 million Instagram followers.

"Consumers are watching what their favourite athletes are wearing... before and after the game," Powell said. In a similar vein, Louis Vuitton's partnership with the NBA "has opened up the doors to these kinds of collaborations," he said. "[Basketball] is one of the most popular sports in the world, I think luxury brands want to get under that halo."
Make It Feel 'Worth It'
Quality and longevity are growing concerns for consumers, particularly those who are looking to re-sell their purchase further down the line. "The consumer today is looking for products that are going to hold their value," said Powell. Ultimately, a collaboration's designs need to feel like more than commodities, and therefore worth the expense.
Related Articles: High-Low Collaborations Democratised Fashion. But What Did They Do For the Designers? Why It's So Hard to Adopt the Moncler Genius Model Peak Collaboration? Not for Virgil Abloh Palace Breaks Silence on Polo Ralph Lauren Collaboration

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What Makes a Collaboration Successful in 2020?

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LONDON, United Kingdom - It seems that barely a day goes by without news of a brand collaboration. The past two weeks have been no exception. Alongside Beyoncé's Ivy Park x Adidas release and Louis Vuitton's custom NBA trophy case, announced via Instagram a new partnership with Gen-Z brand du jour Telfar, while Dior Men finally set an April 2020 launch date for its much-hyped capsule collection with Air Jordan.

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Importance of Experience over product- Relevant for Marketing 

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Importance of Experience over product- Relevant for Marketing 

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NEW YORK, United States - Forget about fidget spinners. At least for a moment. The real key to unlocking the mystery of Gen-Z is sodium tetraborate... and a bit of white glue. No, these are not the makings of a DIY smoke bomb (or something more sinister). Instead, when mixed together, these two ingredients - and a few droplets of food colouring, if you are so inclined - bloom into a slime: a stretchy, sticky glob that kids aged six to 16 (okay, maybe 15) happily obsess over.

Search for "slime" on YouTube and you'll generate 16.6 million results. One three-minute "basics" video, posted by 14-year-old influencer JoJo Siwa (3.4 million followers), generated more than 7 million views in a week. Another, posted by the unicorn-loving Gillian Bower (1.5 million followers), promising a candy-coloured swirl of "fluffy" slime, attracted more than 19 million views in just four months. Apparently, the next big thing is sand slime.

Every generation gloms onto a fad-or three-in its youth. For nineties kids, it was slap bracelets; in the aughts, there were Pokémon cards. The fact that Gen-Z is into something so personal, which costs almost nothing to make, speaks volumes about their values.

The generation preceding these slime slingers is nearly as mysterious. To better understand the hive mind of Milliennials, derided as much for their moniker as they are for their preference for rainbow-coloured food, simply ask one of them if he or she maintains a Finstagram - a private, secret-to-most account where the owner can post scenes from "real" life, including unflattering selfies, ice-luge contests and sloppy dinner choices that may be out of line with their personal brands. The challenge, of course, is toggling between Finstagram and Instagram after one-too-many jello shots.

Who. Are. These. People? No, really?

The Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., at one point defined the Millennial generation as those born between 1980 and 1996; Gen-Z starts in 1997 and ends in 2010. Dare to dig deeper and the lines between generations begin to blur. Does the Millennial generation, once called Gen-Y, begin at 1980 or 1981? Is Gen-Z still being born? What's universally accepted is that, collectively, these two groups represent a powerful force, set to shape the trajectory of consumer culture for years to come in the world's largest markets, from the US to China, which has its own "post-80s" and "post-90s" generations with mindsets and patterns of behaviour that can vary wildly from their Western counterparts.

About 58 percent of global Millennials live in Asia, including 385 million in India alone. In absolute terms, India, China, the US, Indonesia and Brazil have the world's largest Millennial populations. But size isn't everything. For brands seeking to capitalise on the buying power of large Millennial populations, now largely in the workforce, the most important way to measure the scale of the opportunity is a combination of two factors: proportion of Millennials relative to the market's total population and whether or not these Millennials have good economic prospects. Vietnam, the Philippines, Egypt, South Africa, Iran and India are among the markets which could generate huge potential upside if they can create employment opportunities for their swelling Millennial populations. A.T. Kearney, a management consulting firm, calls them the "Millennial Majors."

Millennials, Post-Millennials, Gen-Y, Gen-Z... without losing sight of their specific traits, let's collectively refer to these demographic cohorts as "Generation Next." Taken together, they are expected to account for 45 percent of the global market for personal luxury goods by 2025, according to Bain & Company. So how can the fashion industry best position itself to capture the contents of their wallets?
America's Next Generation
The United States, still the world's largest consumer market, is a good place to start. Right now, the luxury brands doing business in the US rely heavily on the Baby Boomer generation, now in their 50s, 60s and 70s, for the majority of spending. For instance, the average age of those who shop at American luxury department store Neiman Marcus is 51. "Peak spending on luxury is typically in the early-to-mid-50s. In the upper 50s and 60s, you start spending less on products in general," says Steven P Dennis, a retail consultant. "If your customers are aging out, you've got to replace them."

But with whom? In the US, Gen-X, the roughly 81 million Americans who were born before Generation Next, have already slowed their luxury consumption, perhaps due to shifting values; perhaps due to a mindset shaped by three major recessions: one in the early 1990s, another after the dot-com crash, and finally, the Great Recession of the late aughts, which irrevocably changed the way many spend money. For Generation Next, who were children, college students or early-career professionals when the recession hit, a sense of financial instability still pervades their thinking.

Why? Generation Next is the first generation in recent American history to be poorer than their parents. In fact, according to the US Census Bureau, about a third of Americans aged 18 to 34 still live at home. In the US, this is less socially acceptable than elsewhere and often considered a last resort and an indication of failure. And yet, for the first time since 1880, a larger slice of young Americans is living with parents than living alone, with roommates or with a partner. And while home ownership has fallen across the board in the US, it's falling fastest in the 18-to-34 year-old age group, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

"I would fucking love to buy a home and be like, 'This is where I'm going to die,'" says Crissy Milazzo, a 26-year-old copywriter based in Los Angeles who moonlights penning features for the likes of Vice and Refinery29. "My debt is surmountable at this point because it's credit card debt, but I just don't foresee myself having enough to put a down payment on something for like... five years. If I had money, I would be down."

Some believe that a shift in priorities, not just macro-economic trends, is part of the reason young people like Milazzo can't afford to buy a home. An Australian real estate mogul - who just so happens to be a Millennial himself - famously took a potshot at his own generation in May 2017 on the country's version of "60 Minutes." "When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each," said Tim Gurner, a 35-year-old based in Melbourne, Australia. Gurner is in a better position than most of his fellow Millennials - his family loaned him $34,000 to start his own business - but there is a ring of truth to his comment.

Generation Next are also digital natives, which can be empowering. With the internet at their fingertips, they tend to be highly informed and naturally sceptical. As a result, they are more likely to look up to the makeup tutorials of YouTube stars than traditional beauty advertising. Gen-Z, in particular, prefers advertising that is funny, has good music or tells a story, according to a January 2017 report released by market research firm Kantar Millward Brown, which called the group "highly discriminating" and "more averse" to advertising.

They also prefer to spend money on experiences over possessions. "Spending money on food feels like nothing to me," says Milazzo, whose current salary is in the mid-five figures. "Even when I was broke I would spend more money than I had eating out, because there's a social aspect. I do think the thing about Millennials valuing experiences over possessions is true."

In many ways, Milazzo is the ideal entry-level luxury consumer, a university-educated woman living in LA's hip and high-rent Silverlake neighbourhood, interested in culture, design and wellbeing. And yet the most expensive piece of clothing she says she owns is a coordinated top and bottom from Revolve that she got as a press gift. "I haven't bought clothes in so long," she says. "It's just not valuable. What's a valuable thing that actually lasts? A T-shirt is a dumb-ass thing to get from a luxury brand. I could understand designer shoes - they last longer - but there is no justifiable reason to buy a luxury brand's T-shirt or a luxury brand's dress." On the other hand, Milazzo's live-in boyfriend, a 24-year-old stand-up comedian named Brandon Wardell, would be happy to wear upmarket labels if he could only afford them. "I would buy A.P.C. if I was rich," says Wardell, whose fast rise on the national comedy scene has been punctuated by drops of his very own "merch", which has been worn by the likes of Justin Bieber and sold out almost immediately. "When I did the shirts, I hadn't even been on a TV show and it was pink before 'Millennial Pink'... Gatekeepers, people that put their thumbs up or thumbs down, matter less," Wardell adds. "The internet democratises everything."

All of this may not bode particularly well for the fashion industry, which profits from the conspicuous consumption of expensive goods in a world where displaying social status is becoming more about the accumulation of (Instagrammable) experiences and less about the accumulation of objects. According to fresh data collected in a bespoke July 2017 survey of 769 predominantly female consumers aged 13-34, conducted by Los Angeles-based youth publisher and marketing agency Galore in partnership with The Business of Fashion, 74 percent said they would rather spend their discretionary income on experiences than luxury goods. And yet, while only 54 percent considered owning a luxury brand a marker of success, 85 percent consider craftsmanship to be important and 85 percent see purchasing a luxury item as an investment they can pass down to the next generation.

When it comes to which luxury brands resonate most, young Americans aren't all that different to their predecessors. In the Galore/BoF survey , Saint Laurent, and Dior earned top ratings. Balenciaga, Balmain, Prada and Hermès registered as average, while Ferragamo and underperformed. When slicing the results by Millennials and Gen-Z, there were some notable differences. Hermès resonated far more with Millennials, while Gucci scored higher with Gen-Z.
China's Post-80s and 90s Generation
No-one can discount the major opportunities for traditional luxury brands in China, whose citizens remain the world's largest driver of luxury growth. "If we look at emerging-market consumers - let's say in a country like China - it is 20 times the growth in consumption of that of European Millennials," said McKinsey senior partner Richard Dobbs in December at VOICES, BoF's annual gathering for big thinkers.

The way that the Chinese define their younger demographic cohorts, however, highlights a very important point that should give fashion brands pause for thought. The Millennial and Gen-Z concepts popular in the West don't always translate here.

No-one can discount the major opportunities for traditional luxury brands in China, whose citizens remain the world's largest driver of luxury growth.

According to Martin Guo, editor-in-chief of Kantar China Insights, Millennials and Gen-Z are roughly equivalent to the combination of China's post-80s generation and its post-90s generation. But citing the profound and rapid socio-economic progress brought about by China's reform policies over the past 30 years, along with the one-child policy, which has given rise to the "Little Emperor Syndrome", where only children are the beneficiaries of increased attention and spending from parents and grandparents, Guo believes China's youth have experiences, mindsets and patterns of behaviour that can be very different to their Western counterparts, especially when it comes to finances. For one, they are not typically saddled with student loans and few have high rent or mortgage expenses thanks to property owned or subsidised by family.

While there are many similarities between China's post-80s and post-90s generations, there are some aspects where the two diverge significantly, especially when it comes to attitudes towards brands. Guo suggests that the '80s generation has a higher level of brand loyalty than the '90s generation and that the '80s generation is more willing to pay a premium for original and unique brands because they see brands as essential to their identity, whereas the '90s generation isn't as committed to that idea.

Yet young Chinese do tend to be less sensitive to price than their Western counterparts, equating expense with high value. According to Daxue Consulting, 48 percent of young Chinese consumers said that they "always pay for the most expensive and best product" within their price range.

But Vogue China editor-in-chief Angelica Cheung cautions that China's younger generations are not to be taken for granted. Much like their Western counterparts, as they invest more and more in experiences and learning, personal improvement and healthy lifestyles, the fashion industry has to work that much harder to attract and sustain their interest. "These are not consumers that are easily influenced by preaching, [so] the way I do Vogue and the way I do Vogue Me is totally different. At Vogue, it's basically, 'I speak, you listen.' And they will listen. That kind of attitude. And with Vogue Me, they speak, I listen, then I try to digest and talk to them in a way that they can understand," said Cheung at BoF's VOICES, referring to a younger edition of the title specifically designed to capture the relatively high spending power of Chinese youth. "It's a totally different generation. You need to know how their mind works and how you influence them and who influences them. It's the 'Me Generation.' It's about my identity, it's about my feelings, it's about how I see the world. They're not just a younger version [of the existing consumer]."

Like many of their counterparts across the world, China's youth also tend to be what older generations might call oversharers, thanks to their love for social media. But beyond WeChat and Weibo, it's worth considering the impact of Meitu Inc., a Chinese company whose global mobile internet platform makes personal beauty-focused selfie apps that have been installed on over 1.1 billion unique mobile devices around the world.

Meitu's December 2016 initial public offering made Chinese founders Cai Wensheng and Wu Xinhong billionaires. And the success of the company speaks to several qualities shared by members of Generation Next across the globe. Within one month of releasing a new feature on its "Meitu" face-tuner app, the company saw a 480 percent increase in new users outside of China. To be sure, some of the qualities associated with Meitu's selfie apps include an obsession with vanity and a desire to conjure a mirage of a perfect life for all the world to see.

Of course, Generation Next is no more perfect - or consistent - than their predecessors, even if their carefully curated social media brands convey they are. Milazzo's attitude towards fast fashion, at once a saviour and a killjoy for a generation of careful spenders who say they also care about social and envi- ronmental responsibility, sums it up nicely. "I don't buy stuff at Forever 21 anymore," she says. "But I still shop at Asos. Those are probably the same thing, right?"
This article appears in BoF's latest special print edition: "Generation Next". The issue is available for purchase at shop.businessoffashion.com and at select retailers around the world. Did you know that BoF Professionals receive our print issues first? Annual BoF Professional memberships also include unlimited access to articles, exclusive analysis, invitations to networking events and the members-only app. Not a BoF Professional? Subscribe here. Related Articles: Luxury's Generation Gap Op-Ed | What You Don't Know About American Millennials Tapping Generation Z

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NEW YORK, United States - Forget about fidget spinners. At least for a moment. The real key to unlocking the mystery of Gen-Z is sodium tetraborate... and a bit of white glue. No, these are not the makings of a DIY smoke bomb (or something more sinister).

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SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Katie Moynihan Gray, a mother of three who lives in Indianapolis, has a Google doc of tips that she shares with pregnant friends. At the top of the list, before what diaper pail she recommends or what baby carrier she liked best, is this suggestion: rent maternity clothing from Le Tote.

The 37-year-old was pregnant with her third child when she discovered the San Francisco-based clothing rental service, which delivers a "tote" of apparel and accessories for a monthly subscription fee.

"I was so sick and tired of my maternity clothes," she said. Moynihan Gray used it primarily for workwear, took a break from the service after having a baby and then started using it again when she returned to her job in life-science technology commercialization at Indiana University. "I was not yet the size I wanted to be and I did not want to buy a lot of clothes," Moynihan Gray said.

I was not yet the size I wanted to be and I did not want to buy a lot of clothes.

Renting clothing is no longer solely the purview of millennials looking for a dress to wear to a wedding. Today, an array of consumers see these services as a wardrobe hack to outfit their everyday lives. Clothing rental is especially useful, they say, for life's transitions or for sudden, even temporary wardrobe changes, like a job change, a move or a vacation abroad. Increasingly rental companies are offering options tailored to specific segments of the apparel market, like plus-size, maternity and kids clothing.

At Le Tote, maternity wear makes up 12 percent of rentals. Rent the Runway, the dominant player in the space, offers maternity clothing, recently launched kids rental and has plans in the works to offer home goods. Newer companies include By:Fashionaholic, a Chicago-based firm that rents very high-end designer pieces (think: bags and dresses) and Tulerie, the New York-startup that aims to be the AirBnb of clothing rental, facilitating fashion-savvy folks to rent pieces from one another.

The proliferation of rental options speaks to the growth potential. Rather than challenge the dominance of Rent the Runway, many newcomers see a chance to offer a differentiated assortment and reach a new customer.

It helps that in recent years there has been a significant shift in consumer mindset around the practice, as the stigma of not owning something has been replaced by a pride in the sustainability and sensibility of renting it.

Maybe they can't spend $6,000 on a dress, but they can spend $600 to rent it.

Avid users of these platforms say it has dramatically changed their shopping habits, helping them cut down on impulse purchasing or buying into trends. But it has also upped their personal style by allowing them to experiment with fashion and try new or more expensive brands. Regular renters don't claim a real cost savings by renting rather than owning, saying the subscription fees are likely the same or more than what they might spend themselves in an average month. But there's a feeling that it's a smart, and more fun, allocation of resources.

Much like online shopping, renting gives shoppers access to stores beyond what's available locally. Katy Jones, a 29-year-old who works in healthcare marketing in Des Moines, Iowa, finds the lack of plus-size clothing in her nearby stores frustrating, as well as the absence of a major upscale department store.

When Jones rented through Gwynnie Bee, a clothing rental company that offers sizes 0 to 32, she expanded her wardrobe with more fashion-forward pieces, like a draped cardigan with pieces of faux leather on the arms. "I got so many compliments on it," she says. Jones remembered a blue sequin dress, which she rented through Rent the Runway, with a similar fondness: "It was not something I would ever buy for myself."

Although special occasion introduced many women to renting, By:Fashionaholic spotted remaining white space. The Chicago startup, which launched in May 2018, rents high-end designer clothing and accessories, everything one might need to attend a black tie gala or a charity luncheon. It buys its inventory from retail boutiques and pays retail prices. About half of its customers are headed to a special event. "They need something extraordinary," Founder Janet Mandell said. "Maybe they can't spend $6,000 on a Valentino dress, but they can spend $600 to rent it."

I can dress for the job I want and the person I want to be.

The market game changer has been a shift from occasional rentals to total wardrobe replacement. Take Rachel Pustejovsky. She lives near Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois but says her closet is five miles south at the Rent the Runway boutique downtown. The 25-year-old was an early adopter of the company's unlimited service, which allows users to have four pieces at a time for a monthly subscription fee of $159.

Pustejovsky cycles through most of her "slots" quickly, renting as many as 30 pieces a month. Once she picked up a yellow Kate Spade bag at the Rent the Runway store, carried it to brunch, and returned it immediately after. "I can dress for the job I want and the person I want to be," she said.

Beyond satisfying a fashion craving, rental customers say it's a solution to their problems. Lynne Jansons left New York last fall after 14 years to move for a two-year stint in St. Petersburg, Fla. Rent the Runway helped ease the transition to her new home, while offering flexibility for trips back to New York.

"When I'm down here it's all sundresses and beach cover-ups," said Jansons, who works in marketing consulting. "Whereas when I'm in the city it's dark colours and heavier fabrics." What's more, renting has completely changed the 35-year-old's purchasing mindset. "Going to the mall and going shopping is kind of torturous," she said. "How do I commit to an item of clothing forever?" Her purchases are primarily basics, like jeans, and workout clothes at Lululemon.

Kids are constantly growing and renting is really a perfect and sustainable solution for getting kids dressed.

Now companies are hoping to better serve existing customers, and lure new ones, with an expanded assortment. Rent the Runway, where the average subscriber is 33 years old, will begin a home goods partnership with West Elm this summer. Last month, it launched kids clothing, allowing one-off rentals as well as existing unlimited customers to use one or all of their "slots" at any given time on it. (The company also added the possibility extra slots for an additional $39 a piece, in case you don't want to share.)

"Kids are constantly growing and renting is really a perfect and sustainable solution for getting kids dressed," said Maureen Sullivan, the company's chief operating officer. When asked if these tiny fashionistas might be hard on the clothing, Sullivan laughs. In terms of wear-and-tear, they've already seen it all. "The most valuable employees in our company are our seamstresses and our stain removers," said Sullivan.

The kid's collection grew out of Rent the Runway's maternity offering. In addition to a selection of maternity-specific styles, the site offers up non-maternity clothing that could work during pregnancy, and even offers photos of how a style might accommodate a bump.

Indeed, style hang-ups or potential dressing pain points like pregnancy, when options are limited, needs are temporary and sizing is tricky, are prime times for a shopper to turn to clothing rental.

The hardest part about it is when I sit down at the end of the month, I don't have anything physical to account for.

But niche markets are, by definition, a smaller slice of the population and pose unique challenges. Take pregnancy, where "the first part of month seven is not the same as the second half of month seven, or the beginning month eight," said Le Tote Co-Founder and Chief Executive Rakesh Tondon.

The idea for the company, which launched with workwear in 2014, came during Tondon's wife's second pregnancy. But Le Tote didn't offer maternity until the fall of 2015 because it needed to help its algorithm, which takes the first pass on compiling a tote, learn the disproportionate sizing changes, Tondon said.

Today the average Le Tote customer is between the ages of 28 and 45; 85 percent are looking to add variety into the work wardrobe. The company is actively looking for new markets and hopes to launch plus size options, Tondon said.

Is renting rather than buying a fad or a new reality? Diana Chiavetta, a 27-year-old New Yorker who wears Rent the Runway pieces as many as five times a week, says it's a satisfying confidence boost to wear new clothing all the time. But she isn't sure how much longer she will keep it up. "The hardest part about it is when I sit down at the end of the month, I don't have anything physical to account for," she said. "I have beautiful photographs of beautiful dresses, but I don't have anything."

Tulerie hopes you won't have to choose. The New York startup wants people to feel better about their purchases by offering the ability to rent said purchases - the company prefers the term "borrow" - directly from the item's owner. Founders Merri Smith and Violet Gross see renting as a way to rationalize buying. "If I loan out this Gucci, I can buy my next one a lot more quickly," Gross said. Tulerie reported a spike in usage during the recent spring break season. One woman took seven pieces, worth an estimated $10,000, Smith says, with her to Miami but spent under $1,000 to do so.

Before Tulerie allows you to join its platform, the founders require a FaceTime interview. They also strongly encourage the owners to participate in the borrowing, and vice versa, to add accountability to the equation. "The platform will only work as well as the user," said Smith.
Related Articles: The Year Ahead: End of Ownership Rent the Runway CEO on Underestimating the Fashion Rental Market Mall Brands Are Entering the Rental Market. Can the Model Work?

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The Clothing Rental Market's Broadening Appeal

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SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Katie Moynihan Gray, a mother of three who lives in Indianapolis, has a Google doc of tips that she shares with pregnant friends. At the top of the list, before what diaper pail she recommends or what baby carrier she liked best, is this suggestion: rent maternity clothing from Le Tote.

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Mothercare Store | Source: Flickr/IndiSamarajiva

By Reuters April 4, 2019 07:19

WATFORD, United Kingdom - The pace of falls in like-for-like store sales at baby products retailer Mothercare Plc eased slightly in the final quarter of its 2019 fiscal year, but the company said British and international market conditions remained challenging.

UK like-for-like sales fell 8.8 percent in the 12 weeks to March 30 and were down 10.8 percent for the full-year, the company said. That compared with declines of more than 11 percent for the third quarter and the first half year.

Excluding the impact of currency fluctuations international retail sales fell 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to a 1.1 percent fall in the third quarter.

Mothercare's main UK business has been losing money for more than a decade as its traditional place on the UK high street collapses in the face of a new generation of online players, forcing the company to unveil a survival plan in July that closed over a third of its UK stores.

"The UK store closure programme has been completed ahead of schedule and we now have 80 stores in operation, down from 137 stores a year ago," chief executive Mark Newton-Jones said in a trading update on Thursday.

He said "disruptions" from its cost-saving initiatives are now largely behind it, that it has cleared a lot of unsold stock and is on track to deliver on previous expectations for the full year.

Mothercare's combined credit score, which measures on a scale of 100 to 1 how likely a company is to default on its debts in the next year, was "1" as of Thursday, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, indicating it was expected to default.

The company had in March said it was aiming to be debt free by the end of this year, with proceeds from the sale of its educational toy brand ELC, helping it alleviate some of that.
By Sangameswaran S and Pushkala Aripaka; editor: Arun Koyyur.

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Mothercare UK Sales Slide Slows in Fourth Quarter

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Mothercare Store | Source: Flickr/IndiSamarajiva By Reuters April 4, 2019 07:19 WATFORD, United Kingdom - The pace of falls in like-for-like store sales at baby products retailer Mothercare Plc eased slightly in the final quarter of its 2019 fiscal year, but the company said British and international market conditions remained challenging.

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Consumer Shift On more of a Sustainable Products 

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Consumer Shift On more of a Sustainable Products 

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This article appeared first in The State of Fashion 2020, an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company. To learn more and download a copy of the report, click here.
LONDON, United Kingdom - When it comes to the environment, the fashion industry's record is well documented. Fashion accounts for 20 to 35 percent of microplastic flows into the ocean and outweighs the carbon footprint of international flights and shopping combined. It is no wonder, then, that campaigners who target the industry as part of Extinction Rebellion describe the industry's potential future impact as "catastrophic".

Demand for change is being led by the young. Activists such as 16-year-old Greta Thunberg attract global headlines, bringing forward a call to action to address environmental sustainability, adding to the lexicon on the subject by using "crisis" and "emergency" over "change" and "warming." Thunberg says, "It's 2019. Can we all now call it what it is: climate breakdown, climate crisis, climate emergency, ecological breakdown, ecological crisis and ecological emergency?" More than 7.6 million were inspired to participate in the Global Climate Strike in September.

In the fashion industry, scrutiny has been building. Environmental protests at London Fashion Week in September generated significant press. Commentators have been increasingly shedding light on the industry, from the mainstream press to publications like Dana Thomas' Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes.

These activist movements are making consumers increasingly aware of the environmental impact of fashion. Some 66 percent of respondents to a McKinsey US cohort survey (and 75 percent of millennial respondents) say they consider sustainability when making a luxury purchase. Still, consumers do not always back words with actions. Only a minority are willing to pay more for sustainable products - only 31 percent of Gen-Z and just 12 percent of baby boomers.

Consumers are unsure what 'sustainability' means or how to identify sustainable brands.

It is well-known that even consumers' stated willingness to vote with their wallets does not translate to the same degree in actual purchases of sustainable fashion. Closing this gap and changing consumer behaviour is made even more difficult because of a lack of clear information and tools for the consumer. Consumers are unsure what "sustainability" means or how to identify sustainable brands. A survey of corporate representatives across over 100 European firms shows consumers are often swayed by misinformation or lack of information. Still, as awareness has grown, so has the quest for knowledge. Internet searches for "sustainable fashion" tripled between 2016 and 2019.

"Nothing is black and white, unfortunately... It's huge shades of green, really. That makes it very difficult because it lends itself very easily to greenwashing and misunderstanding... that can be quite confusing for the consumer," concedes Nina Marenzi, founder and director of The Sustainable Angle, an organisation that stages the London-based Future Fabrics Expo. Industrial, governmental and international bodies are increasingly on the front foot to close this gap for consumers. In early 2019, ten UN organisations launched the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion. In June, France, a global leader in luxury fashion, introduced a ban on the destruction of unsold fashion goods (to be implemented by 2023), with manufacturers and retailers obliged to donate, reuse or recycle. The move was the first of its kind in the world on a national level.

The German government in September unveiled the Green Button - the world's first government sustainable textile label. The EU's Circular Economy action plan, meanwhile, aims to ensure products can be repaired or recycled, with textiles as a key priority.

All this activity is having an impact in now bringing the environmental agenda to centre-stage. At the G7 summit in August, Kering chief executive François-Henri Pinault spearheaded French President Emmanuel Macron's new Fashion Pact, aimed at reducing environmental impact. Mr Macron said roughly 150 brands had joined that weekend, with a further hundred joining since then.

Brands are taking action on other fronts too. Many are making efforts to increase sustainable options for consumers, or even make it the new normal in the future. this year pledged to use 100 percent sustainable fabrics by 2025, joining H&M which earlier committed to using 100 percent recycled or sustainable materials by 2030, among a host of broader sustainability commitments by the company. Adidas has committed to phasing out virgin polyester by 2024. LVMH announced its own series of commitments for the environment and biodiversity during Paris Fashion Week in September, including an Animal-based Raw Materials Sourcing Charter; the Charter among other initiatives specifies a target of 70 percent of the groups leather to be sourced in Leather Working Group (LWG) certified tanneries, up from 48 currently.

Despite all this activity, the industry has a long way to go before achieving transformative change.

There is also increasing response to consumer demand for newer business models which tackle overconsumption, such as rental
and resale, as predicted in last year's report ("End of Ownership"). We expect this will continue, admittedly still accounting for a low share of the total market in 2020.

Digitally native brands are taking different approaches. Everlane has committed to "radical transparency" through its supply chain. On its website it posts photographs of shop floors in its supplier factories, gives a voice to factory workers and shares price breakdowns. Reformation made its first clothes exclusively from deadstock materials, and on its website runs the tagline "Being naked is the #1 most sustainable option - we're #2."

There is movement among e-commerce players too. Multi-brand retailer Asos and Global Fashion Group's The Iconic earlier this year introduced search filters for recycled fabrics. 's Conscious Edit targets sustainable products, and has expanded its sustainable offering.

While the absolute number of mass market products made from sustainable materials remains low, there has been a five-fold increase over the past two years. In some corners a materials revolution is under way, with recycled and lab-created textiles to the fore. [See next theme, Materials Revolution.]

"There is no sustainable material, per se, because for everything you need a resource," says Marenzi. "It's a matter of how [long] the resource can stay in the [user] cycle, with the least amount of impact [from] extracting and processing, with end-of-life then being as easy as possible - going back into the soil or being used again for another purpose."

"It is very complex [but] having a much more vertical, integrated supply chain approach [means] you are in full control of your materials; the more vertical you are, the more you can mitigate [...] your impact on the oceans and
climate and biodiversity."

According to Lidewij (Li) Edelkoort, a trend forecaster and dean of hybrid studies at Parsons School of Design in New York, "material innovation is only one stitch in the complex rebirth of fashion. Slowing down, streamlining production and editing collections are the most important guidelines."

A number of industry leaders have voiced their commitment to sustainable offerings across their product ranges, which will likely catalyse a virtuous circle of awareness, considered spending and progress. Mass-market players, meanwhile, are continuing to work on reducing prices of sustainable options which have traditionally been priced at a premium. This will help a broader range of consumers make more sustainable choices.

Despite all this activity, the industry has a long way to go before achieving transformative change. In fact, Global Fashion Agenda 's Pulse 2019 Update reveals progress slowed in the past year, with most of the industry still not engaged. There remains a pervasive lack of consumer trust, amid accusations in some quarters of fashion industry greenwashing using sustainability as a marketing strategy without a significant positive impact on the environment. One controversial activity is carbon offsetting, by which brands pay a third party to either capture carbon or avoid emitting, without reducing their own carbon footprint. While an important step in accelerating decarbonisation, the practice in isolation is viewed by some as an excuse to take the easy route.

Regulators are set to push harder in 2020, and in some cases are already doing so. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) warned vegan fashion brand Matt & Nat over exaggeration of its use of recycled materials. The Norwegian Consumer Authority (CA) prompted H&M to more clearly communicate to consumers about the pollution it creates.

Looking ahead, we expect in 2020 to see regulators continuing to raise standards and impose new rules and consequences. In addition, we anticipate the media to increasingly take a role in better educating and encouraging the conscious consumer. Emboldened by these forces, better-informed and more confident consumers will seek out sustainable brands and develop their awareness. Apps like Good On You and Buycott are becoming a major part of the consumer's purchasing journey, and sources like the Sustainable Apparel Coalition's HIGG index, which allows fashion players to assess their own sustainability, will be available to consumers.

Finally, some imperatives for brands. Their primary focus should be on helping customers consume fewer resources. One area they can target is overproduction. Reduced supply, combined with an ambition to reduce discounting, can even have a positive impact on the bottom line. Fashion players should consider fresh ways to tackle transparency, both at point of sale and across other touchpoints, understanding the need both to educate and emotionally engage. While a revolutionary notion for some, brands at the forefront should also invest in the circular economy, breaking the link between production and revenue, back recycling and embrace sustainable materials and technologies. One of the most immediately important things they need to do is take action to track and reduce environmental impact, moving beyond transparency (one of our 2019 themes) to real action. That means setting concrete (ambitious, but achievable) targets and publishing roadmaps so consumers and investors can hold them to account if targets are not met. This would be a strong step towards one day seeing collaborative sustainability roadmaps for the entire industry, providing clarity to the innovators and suppliers on the prerogatives for the future. None of these imperatives are easy, but taken together, they may finally tip the scale in favour of making more environmentally sustainable fashion a reality.

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The Year Ahead: Sustainability Takes Centre Stage

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This article appeared first in The State of Fashion 2020, an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company. To learn more and download a copy of the report, click here. LONDON, United Kingdom - When it comes to the environment, the fashion industry's record is well documented.

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Dana Thomas speaks during #BoFVOICES | Source: Getty Images for The Business of Fashion

By BoF Team January 17, 2020 16:46

To subscribe to the BoF Podcast, please follow this link.

OXFORDSHIRE, United Kingdom - "Pollution is the cheapest way to do business," acclaimed fashion journalist Dana Thomas declared at BoF VOICES 2019. The author of Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes spotlighted the pioneers who are addressing the climate crisis head on.

It was only when Thomas started writing her book in 2016 - a seething account of the burgeoning consumer demand that fuels fast fashion's unsustainable growth - that she realised "the majority of change makers were and are women." During her research, Thomas met a number of women who guided her to the conclusion that the fashion industry must embrace four key principles: wisdom, courage, moderation and justice.

To illustrate her message, Thomas shared her encounter with Sarah Bellos, founder of Stony Creek Colors - a Goodlettsville, Tennessee-based natural indigo company that works with the likes of Cone Denim and Patagonia. Bellos told Thomas she hoped more brands would phase out synthetic indigo usage in denim dyeing, which she says includes harmful chemicals such as cyanide and formaldehyde.

Thomas also spotlighted the inventive work of Evrnu Founder Stacy Flynn, who has created a fibre made from old cotton garments that uses 98 percent less water than virgin cotton in its development process, and also boasts an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to commonly used synthetic fibres such as elastane and polyester.

"Every single woman in this book who had a great idea was told, 'You're crazy, it'll never work,'" Thomas said. "And yet, they didn't stop."

That courageousness is also embodied by labour rights activist Kalpona Akter - a former VOICES speaker who also featured on the cover of BoF 500 2018 print edition. Akter, founder of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, often puts herself in harm's way to advocate for better working conditions and fair pay, a cause she has been championing for a quarter of a century.
To learn more about VOICES, BoF's annual gathering for big thinkers, visit our VOICES website, where you can find all the details on our invitation-only global gathering. to BoF Professional for unlimited access to BoF articles, plus exclusive benefits for members. For a limited time, enjoy a 25 percent discount on the first year of an annual membership, exclusively for podcast listeners. Simply, click here To contact The Business of Fashion with comments, questions, or speaker ideas please e-mail podcast@businessoffashion.com. , select the Annual Package and use code PODCASTPRO at the checkout.

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The BoF Podcast: Women Are at the Forefront of the Sustainable Fashion Revolution

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Dana Thomas speaks during #BoFVOICES | Source: Getty Images for The Business of Fashion By BoF Team January 17, 2020 16:46 To subscribe to the BoF Podcast, please follow this link. OXFORDSHIRE, United Kingdom - "Pollution is the cheapest way to do business," acclaimed fashion journalist Dana Thomas declared at BoF VOICES 2019.

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LONDON, United Kingdom - During Nina Marenzi's masters in sustainable agriculture and rural development at Imperial College in London 15 years ago, she began researching organic cotton in an era of nascent sustainable development. As part of her research, she interviewed numerous fashion designers, textile industry representatives and NGOs. During that period, Marenzi became convinced that the "woolly image" of lower impact materials was preventing the wider adoption of the materials in the fashion industry.

Having been exposed to a number of innovative low environmental impact materials in her research, as a new-graduate she sought to create a way of showcasing the fabrics and the mills and individuals who made them to the fashion and luxury industries. This lead to the launch of The Sustainable Angle, a London-based not-for-profit organisation, in 2010, and its main initiative - the Future Fabrics Expo.

Now the largest dedicated showcase of innovative and sustainable material solutions, the Future Fabrics Expo has over 5000 materials from more than 150 suppliers exhibited every year.

BoF sits down with the founder of The Sustainable Angle to hear how she built her career in the nascent field of sustainable fabrics, and what advice she has for others seeking more sustainable career paths in fashion.
How did your work in sustainability in fashion begin?
I did a Master's in sustainable agriculture at Imperial College and I chose organic cotton as my dissertation topic, which was basically the only fibre that could be traced [to source] at the time. I interviewed a lot of designers and mills that were working with organic cotton during my research and I discovered so many other fibres. I had no experience of the fashion supply chain but it was really all based on the fact that I tried to see the problem through the eyes of a designer - that there were not enough readily available, suitable sustainable. That's really how it started 15 years ago.
How did the idea of the Future Fabrics Expo come about?
I'm a fixer and I felt all the designers that I had interviewed would want to know [about the other sustainable materials out there] but it was clear there wasn't a place to see them. I did research into trade fairs, like every designer does, and I was frustrated and baffled that there were no materials out there and if there were, it was a horrible quality.

Over 80 percent of a product's environmental impact is decided upon at the design stage

I could tell designers all thought organic cotton automatically meant bad dyes and rough textures, but that wasn't true then and it's certainly not true now. I thought, we have to pull this together into a curated showcase, to try and change the bad, woolly image these sustainable materials had attached to them. But trade fairs I spoke to said, "nobody really wants it, so it doesn't make economic sense for us to give them a floor space and [implement] the work needed to curate it."
How did you self drive your career development in an emerging field?
I read a lot of books on the subject and I interviewed some leading lights. For example, Professor Dilys Williams, the director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, was a very important person in my research. Amanda Johnston also joined the centre quite soon after I had my dissertation idea and she wrote a book called Fabric for Fashion: The Swatch Book. Together, we worked with London College of Fashion and worked on the criteria for fabric mills showing at the Future Fabrics Expo.

While it was only a Masters, and I would never call myself an expert because textiles is a vast field so I am careful not to position myself like that, all that understanding I received from an agriculture postgraduate course has helped me see what is important - like soil, for example, which is a carbon sink. It helped us formulate our criteria. We didn't want to compromise on biodiversity because otherwise, it would just be greenwashing. But ten years ago, nobody talked about it and if you have a sense of agriculture and of certain fibres, you will find intensive, monocultural systems that compromise biodiversity immediately. That meant, implicitly, that we would not work with quite a few fabrics out there.
What insight would you share with fashion talent seeking to be more sustainable in their practice?
Over 80 percent of a product's environmental impact is decided upon at the design stage, so the designer, be it a product or fashion designer, has all the power in their hands to make a product that has a lower impact. If you design a product well, you can make it last for a long time, be reparable and made with materials that will not break down. Now, you also want it to be made in a way that is not polluting the planet; to travel as little as possible; be made with renewable energy; and you don't want to package it in polyester and petrochemical-based materials.

Sustainability is like a Pandora's Box - once you start looking at it properly to understand the issue, you realise it applies to everything we do and all the adjacent industries to fashion have exactly the same problem. Whether it's fashion, kitchen products or automotive, we're designing things in the wrong way, overusing natural resources and creating waste in the process.
What advice would you share with talent seeking to build a fashion career in sustainability?
Today, the industry is so thirsty for young talent that has an understanding [of sustainability] and has learnt the tools to create this product completely. There are not enough people like it, so they get hired quickly and immediately have a lot of say in the company because they are knowledgeable on issues across different disciplines.

I think it's a wise decision to take a degree in fashion design with sustainability at the core - you can't really be a more sustainable designer if you don't know what the impacts are of the different materials. London College of Fashion, Central Saint Martins and Parsons New School are all looking at [sustainability] on specific degrees, but a lot of universities are still lacking up-to-date tools.

Everything is developing so fast, you have to be plugged into every news outlet on sustainability in textiles and fashion.

But don't rely only on your university degree - you have to do a lot of research yourself because even the university degrees that you can take in sustainability are three, four years behind. Everything is developing so fast in sustainability that you have to be on it yourself and plugged into every news outlet on sustainability in textiles and fashion.

Good research resources include Cradle to Cradle for sure. Kate Fletcher is a very good author, as well as Dana Thomas's Fashionopolis. Then, Clare Press's The Wardrobe Crisis is one of the best podcasts. I would also go on Twitter and follow some journalists - too many students rely on Instagram for research and that of course doesn't go into depth.

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How I Became... A Sustainable Fabrics Entrepreneur

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LONDON, United Kingdom - During Nina Marenzi's masters in sustainable agriculture and rural development at Imperial College in London 15 years ago, she began researching organic cotton in an era of nascent sustainable development. As part of her research, she interviewed numerous fashion designers, textile industry representatives and NGOs.

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By Sarah Kent January 28, 2020 05:20

LONDON, United Kingdom - Copenhagen is rethinking fashion week.

The Danish capital has emerged as an unlikely fashion hub, thanks to the surge in popularity of Scandi-chic brands like Ganni and Saks Potts. But while fashion capitals duke it out for design domination in an increasingly competitive market, Copenhagen is looking to differentiate itself on a different level.

Copenhagen Fashion Week is rethinking its role, setting an agenda to drive industry change, not just showcase the status quo. As the event opens on Tuesday, it is launching a three-year sustainability action plan. Alongside goals to cut its own footprint - including a 50 percent reduction in emissions and a zero-waste target - the event is putting brands on notice that they have three years to meet tough new sustainability requirements, or they won't be eligible to show at all.

"It's an immense ambition of a fashion week, because we're going from being a traditional event to being a platform for advocacy," said Copenhagen Fashion Week Chief Executive Cecilie Thorsmark. "It's a very radical new way of thinking about fashion week without actually ditching the existing format."

It's a very radical new way of thinking about fashion week.

Although fashion weeks represent a fraction of the industry's overall environmental impact, they are facing mounting flak for their high-visibility excess. Last year, environmental activist collective Extinction Rebellion called to cancel London Fashion Week, upstaging many of the shows in September with photogenic protests. But this is the first time any fashion week has taken a hard stance on participating brands' sustainability performance.

It's a savvy move for an event that wants to differentiate itself within an increasingly saturated space, with even fashion's first-tier cities scrambling to maintain relevance.

The rise of social media and the internet have raised questions about the seasonal events' role. Consumers want clothes immediately, not on a pre-ordained seasonal schedule. Editors and buyers have the convenience of online and virtual showrooms, making the biannual fashion week circuit less of a necessity. Both London and New York have lost high-profile designers to Paris, which remains the hub where buyers source their final seasonal edits.

Copenhagen plays into growing consumer demand for ethical and responsible clothes that are also fuelling buyers' interest. Many of fashion's biggest retailers have launched special sustainable edits in recent years. Copenhagen is planting a flag as the place to come to source these brands.

Its new strategy is a long-term bet that sustainability will remain a key issue for the fashion industry, and carving out a leadership role will continue to entice buyers and press for years to come.

"Right now the DNA of Copenhagen Fashion Week is very much focused on Scandinavian fashion," Thorsmark said. "But I think no matter how you look at it, at some point sustainability is going to be more important for the press to write about and buyers to buy into than Scandinavian fashion."

But it's not without risk. For instance, down the line, it will mean higher fees for participants to cover the cost of offsetting their emissions. It's also a bold decision to filter brands based on their sustainability strategies. The industry as a whole is sorely lagging on climate issues and efforts to improve worker conditions.

The new strategy is a long-term bet that sustainability will remain a key issue.

Copenhagen's new requirements set out a baseline of 17 standards that brands must meet by 2023 in order to qualify to participate. For instance, brands will be disqualified if they destroy unsold clothes or can't demonstrate that at least 50 percent of their garments are made with more sustainable materials.

On top of this, brands will be expected to show they are taking additional steps to build sustainability into their strategies, design, workplace conditions, material choices, marketing and show design in order to score enough points to qualify. Copenhagen Fashion Week will conduct a pilot this year to establish the baseline score. The range of focus areas is intended to account for the fact that fashion brands have a varied approach to sustainability issues.

"We need to set ambitious goals, but we also need to not set overwhelming targets that are impossible to reach," Thorsmark said. "Then we'll lose the support of the industry, and then we'll have absolutely no impact."

Copenhagen is well positioned to take this bet, because its industry is already highly engaged with the issue of sustainability. The city plays home to the Global Fashion Agenda, an industry forum and advocacy group that has emerged as one of the most high-profile voices on the subject within the sector. Many of Denmark's top brands have already put in place strategies to improve their environmental footprint.

"Sustainable business practises are going to be more important," Thorsmark said. "There's a bigger risk in not dealing with sustainability and there's a bigger risk in not being ambitious."
Related Articles:
Glitz, Glamour & Garbage: Why Fashion Week Needs to Clean Up Its Act
Fashion Week's Latest Experiment: Charging for Admission

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How Copenhagen Became Fashion's Sustainability Capital

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By Sarah Kent January 28, 2020 05:20 LONDON, United Kingdom - Copenhagen is rethinking fashion week. The Danish capital has emerged as an unlikely fashion hub, thanks to the surge in popularity of Scandi-chic brands like Ganni and Saks Potts.

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LONDON, United Kingdom - Actor Jameela Jamil is a feminist; model Amber Valletta an over-sharer; they want you to join them and choose a label of your own.

So goes the new tongue-in-cheek campaign launched by Mother of Pearl designer and sustainability advocate Amy Powney to raise awareness and drive action on fashion's environmental and social problems.

The concept is simple and light-hearted: pick one of nine pledges - commit to renting as a rent girl, buying vintage as an OAP (Old Age Purchaser), or you could "over share" images of the same outfits - post on social, and nominate someone else to follow suit. The campaign marks the launch of Fashion Our Future, a nonprofit platform Powney is aiming to build into a powerful advocacy tool for more sustainable fashion.

The tone is somewhere between Fashion Revolution and Man Repeller. The ambition is much grander: talk about the environmental and ethical issues that plague fashion's supply chain in a way that makes ordinary people - who may find the issue off-putting, elitist or only engage with it in a superficial manner - listen.

"How do we get this quite complex, slightly boring message about supply chains out there?" Powney told BoF. "It's complex, it's gritty, it's not sexy, so how do we get everyone to engage?"

While more and more brands and consumers are talking about the need for more responsible fashion, it's becoming less and less easy to decipher what that actually means. "Sustainable" collections are a dime a dozen these days, but so are overblown and confusing claims about ethical sourcing and reduced environmental impact. Greenwashing, or marketing something as sustainable when it's not, is a growing problem as more brands appeal to consumer demand for responsible fashion without putting in the work to actually manufacture responsibly.

Activists fear consumers, confronted with too much disinformation, will just tune out. However, the issues dogging the fashion industry don't fit neatly into a sound bite. Driving change means educating both those inside and outside the industry about the issues and their potential solutions.

It's complex, it's gritty, it's not sexy, so how do we get everyone to engage?

Powney is among a wave of activists turning to more accessible approaches aimed at breaking through the noise. Their efforts range from star-studded Instagram campaigns to more sober efforts to publicise easy-to-digest data and events for shoppers and industry insiders who want to do their own research.

"People care, there just aren't yet enough stories connecting what is happening," said Maxine Bédat, who co-founded the sustainability-focused fashion company Zady before launching the New Standard Institute, a database and innovation hub focused on providing access to credible facts, research and reports on fashion's impact. "They need to be informed about what an ethical company actually is and what a sustainable company really is."

Designer and advocate Céline Semaan runs the Slow Factory, which works with brands on research and impact-focused sustainability initiatives. Alongside that work, she and her team run Study Hall, a series of free conferences to provide broader access to the information, with seminars on everything from landfills to life-cycle analyses.

While such initiatives aren't new, social media means it's never been easier to connect with a broad audience and swiftly build support behind a movement. Meanwhile the swift rise in prominence of climate campaigners like Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion means the public is primed for engagement on topics related to environmental and social issues. And as more young brands build business models based around responsible manufacturing and sourcing, it's becoming easier to point consumers in the direction of products that tick the box on sustainability and desirability.

Still, it's an uphill battle. Though consumer surveys regularly find that particularly young shoppers would prefer to buy from brands that are producing clothes in a socially and environmentally responsible way, style and price will still usually trump conscience at the point of purchase.

Fashion Revolution's "Who Made My Clothes" hashtag launched in 2015 and has been posted more than half a million times on Instagram, helping to up the pressure on brands to provide more information about the conditions for labourers in their supply chain. Real change has been tangible, but slow. The average score for brands assessed in the nonprofit's annual Fashion Transparency Index still comes in at just 21 percent, reflecting the deep levels of opacity that persist across much of the industry.

Greenwashing, or marketing something as sustainable when it's not, is a growing problem.

These campaigns are also competing for eyeballs with brands that have millions of dollars to spend on marketing. Even companies looking to improve their social and environmental impact are still devoting hefty resources to selling more of their product without addressing broader problems.

Brands "all come to us because they're afraid of being called out for greenwashing, and we're like, 'Where is the money going?' And it's all marketing. So how the hell do you not want the public to think its greenwashing? That's greenwashing guys!" Slow Factory's Semaan said. "We have to stop funding fucking marketing."

To compete, fashion's activists and advocates are looking for ways to make sustainability as compelling as an ad for a new bag. That means finding ways to make tough, and sometimes depressing messages, engaging, exciting and accessible.

Model and environmentalist Arizona Muse has grappled with the problem first-hand. She has more than 250,000 followers on Instagram and will regularly garner thousands of likes on a single post, but when she started posting comments about the environment alongside more standard content, engagement would drop off.

"I decided I don't care anymore what people think of my Instagram; I'm an environmentalist and that's what I'm going to share," Muse said. "I'm not trying to be a model or please my fashion crowd."

With more dedicated content, she said she's found strong interest and more rapid growth, and she's experimenting with different ways to engage her community. In January, she started posting pictures of her outfits, posing with both hands on her head, and giving them a score out of four. Clothes get a positive mark if they're made out of more sustainable materials, have been well-loved or pre-loved or rented, and a negative point for virgin synthetic materials. She posted the first picture with the hashtag #AWearNess just over a month ago. Wider uptake has been slow, but her reach is still significant.

"I thought, what can I do that's fun, and works with pictures, and tells people what they need to know," Muse said. "I wanted it to be silly and lighthearted."

Muse and her contemporaries acknowledge a hashtag won't change the world. But by making the issue more accessible and engaging, they hope to build wider support and awareness that can then help to drive change around topics governments and companies have failed to tackle.

Powney only started thinking about establishing Fashion Our Future after the UK government rejected proposals to toughen regulation on the industry last year.

For inspiration, she looked to Jamil's I Weigh campaign, which has exploded from a single Instagram post in 2018 into a platform for activism and radical inclusivity. Initially an accidental viral movement in which people posted images of themselves stating how they weighed the value of their lives and not their weight on the scales, I Weigh is now a community with 1 million followers that has helped change global policies at Facebook and Instagram on how diet and detox products are presented to minors. It says it is currently campaigning for two bills to reach the Senate.

To build momentum beyond Fashion Our Future's initial nine pledges, Powney is looking to stage an ongoing series of events and partnerships. Among other things, she's looking to host "conscious uncoupling" clothes swaps, and partner with celebrities and influencers to spotlight specific issues in a fun and engaging way.

Fashion Our Future launched late last week. By Monday evening, it had garnered a little over 2,000 followers.

"The goal would be to be completely international and huge," Powney said. "If it doesn't go off as we want, we can tweak it... it's not like it has to be everything by the end of the week."
Related Articles: These Designers Want to Fight Climate Change. Just Don't Call Them 'Sustainable' It's Cool to be Sustainable. But It's Not Easy. Building a Sustainable Brand: How to Get Started

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Can Fashion's New Activists Make Sustainability Sexy?

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LONDON, United Kingdom - Actor Jameela Jamil is a feminist; model Amber Valletta an over-sharer; they want you to join them and choose a label of your own.

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This article i s part of BoF's special edition, Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? Click here to learn more.
NEW YORK, United States - In January, fast fashion behemoth H&M released a merch collection with pop star of the moment Billie Eilish. The capsule collection was "made from materials sourced in a more sustainable way," according to the brand's press release, language that publications ranging from Women's Wear Daily to Refinery29 were quick to repeat in their reporting about the drop.

In addition to its "conscious collections," H&M, through its parent company's foundation, awards its Global Change prize to innovators in the sustainable fashion space. In April, the Swedish retailer topped Fashion Revolution's list of most transparent brands for sharing information related to its supply chain and its green and social initiatives.

The public commitments to sustainability, however, failed to resonate with some consumers and advocates who recognise a fundamental discord between fast fashion and sustainability.

H&M releases [two] 'conscious collections' a year and calls themselves sustainable... how about you make all your clothes sustainable (and properly disclose how they're even sustainable). How about you pay your workers liveable wages and give them good working conditions.

One Twitter user wrote, "H&M releases [two] 'conscious collections' a year and calls themselves sustainable... how about you make all your clothes sustainable (and properly disclose how they're even sustainable). How about you pay your workers liveable wages and give them good working conditions." Another user asked, "in order to be labelled 'conscious,' H&M requires products be made of at least 50 [percent] sustainable materials. Are you claiming that all of this merch exceeds that standard, even though only two items are labelled as conscious online? What about this 100 [percent] acrylic hat?"

"From our perspective, neither H&M nor its 'conscious collections' cuts it," said Ayesha Barenblat, founder and CEO of nonprofit Remake. "[H&M] puts out a lot of volume of product, which is built for rapid obsolescence, which has a terrible impact on climate justice and on women. So, there's just no way with some percentage of recycled materials to become a 'conscious collection,' given...how tiny the capsule collection is compared to the core business."

The disjoint illustrates how easily consumers today sniff out the shortcomings between what brands are able to deliver - in terms of their communications but more importantly, in their environmental and social operations and standards - and the reality of the business.

In a statement to BoF, H&M outlined the brand's sustainability initiatives, acknowledging the need "to do even more," and attributed the marketing of the Billie Eilish collection to a technical error on the website.

"Our size and global reach enables us to take the most promising sustainable innovations to scale and help create the transformation our industry needs," a spokesperson for the company said.

Without discussing the volume of products the company produces, H&M said it aims to be 100% circular and renewable, to use 100% renewable energy, and "to achieve a climate-positive value chain - a value chain that creates a net positive impact on the climate - by 2040."

To be sure, it's not only H&M that has fallen into the greenwashing trap. In April, direct-to-consumer brand Everlane garnered headlines over allegations of union-busting practices, which resulted in more than 40 layoffs at the company. The coronavirus also exposed a garment worker crisis in Bangladesh, in which Western brands - and Primark among them - initially failed to pay suppliers and cancelled orders as the global fashion supply chain came to a halt (on this front, brands including H&M and Nike made public commitments to honour existing purchase orders).
What is Greenwashing?
"When you build your reputation on being radically transparent, your customer base really trusts you," said Barenblat. "But when you shatter that trust, it's amazing how quickly the pitchforks come."

Greenwashing - when a brand's marketing around sustainability runs counter to its business practices - is rampant in fashion. Buzzwords like "eco-friendly" and "conscious" litter marketing messages and advertisements while offering no practical meaning to consumers. The fashion industry's attempt to gloss over its biggest problem has made it such that brands whose essence is rooted in sustainability are starting to reject the term altogether. As Carrie Ellen Phillips, whose communications and brand consultancy firm BPCM launched its sustainability division in 2019 to advise clients how to incorporate sustainability into their messaging but also their operations, put it, "I hate the word 'sustainability.'"

To be fair, there isn't a universally agreed-upon definition of sustainability, leaving room for brands to either fall into the greenwashing trap or exploit the vagueness surrounding it. It also allows brands to tout red herrings as progress while concealing problem areas.

But without a truly comprehensive approach to impact that includes environmental, labour and social change, the marketing itself rings hollow.

"A lot of brands will trump the environmental claims, but will be very slim when it comes to their social and labour side of things, and we really look at the two things as hand-in-hand," said Barenblat. "To be a truly sustainable brand, you have to think about people and the planet."

There are many ways that brands fall prey to greenwashing, however well-intentioned they may be. In some of the more insidious cases, brands might attempt to beguile consumers with misleading or unverifiable claims, if not altogether obfuscating their supply chain practices. But without a truly comprehensive approach to impact that includes environmental, labour and social change, the marketing itself rings hollow.

While brands face a litany of compromises on the path towards sustainability, it's how they deal with them that determines how consumers and activists will judge them in kind.

Greenwashing in fashion isn't a new phenomenon, although it spreads more quickly by virtue of the internet and its many social media platforms.
A Fashion Reset
In 2007, the group TerraChoice published the Six Sins of Greenwashing, most of which are still applicable today: The Sin of Vagueness, in which a brand is purposely non-specific about its operations or materials; The Sin of Lesser Evils, in which a do-good label is slapped onto an inherently environmentally-unfriendly product (like, "sustainable denim," where denim is among the most resource-intensive garments to produce); or The Sin of Irrelevance, where a company may claim to avoid using a material or practice that is already illegal or non-standard.

Insiders have long called for a reset in fashion, but the coronavirus pandemic accelerated the conversation around some aspects of sustainability.

According to McKinsey & Company, 70 percent of fashion stakeholders see closer partnerships with suppliers increasing, and more than 60 percent believe that sustainable materials will become mainstream. Meanwhile, for consumers, the feelings around eco-friendly purchases have intensified in tandem. In a late April survey, Forrester Research found that 41 percent of US online adults said they would prefer to buy products that are environmentally friendly after the pandemic.

At the crux of the greenwashing trap is a question of credibility: is the data the brand is publishing factual? How can consumers verify claims? The consequences of greenwashing run deeper than misleading consumers. Not only does it dilute the value of any genuine progress that a brand might be making elsewhere, it also dilutes the accomplishments of real impact-focused brands, thereby creating doubt over claims that any company is doing good.

Protecting factory workers and working with ethical suppliers is as important, if not more important, as the amount of water used to produce a pair of jeans.

"When [brands] claim that 'we are the most sustainable,' or 'the most responsible' or 'we are the most transparent,' those need to be looked into with scrutiny because when brands are self-congratulating themselves in that fashion, that means that they probably have spent a lot of money on the message but very little money on actual certification," said Céline Semaan, founder of Slow Factory Foundation, a fashion and social impact nonprofit.

Another coil in the greenwashing trap is the idea that brands only address their materials or packaging, neglecting the human element central to any question of whether a brand is sustainable. Protecting factory workers and working with ethical suppliers is as important, if not more important, as the amount of water used to produce a pair of jeans.

"The opportunity in this moment is to ensure that brands are not purpose-washing, not just looking at where their product or service intersects with a culture or with the conversation of the moment, but to really look internally inside of their businesses to understand how their operations or their practices are impacting their stakeholders," said B Lab co-CEO for the US & Canada Anthea Kelsick.
1. Before the email blasts are sent out, look within
Gone are the days where spin reigns supreme: an honest business begets honest marketing. Read on as we break down how to avoid the greenwashing trap (spoiler: long-term commitments required).

For brands that want to get in front of any greenwashing accusations, begin by looking within. A firm's mindset over "sustainability" must go beyond external actions or consumer-facing products and services. What does your own team look like internally? Are you treating your own employees fairly? Where does your supply chain become problematic? (Hint: You'll have to look beyond your tier one suppliers.)

"Where you see a lot of mistakes happen is when sustainability is an afterthought," said Erica Cerulo, one-part of the duo brand consultancy Claire and Erica. "It becomes this sort of marketing or social media initiative, not a business initiative."

First, there needs to be either an individual or a team tasked with taking a look at a brand's impact. Vestiaire Collective, the designer resale platform, recently hired its first Chief Sustainability Officer, while luxury giant Kering has had their sustainability chief in place since 2012. Eileen Fisher, the longtime sustainable contemporary brand, has a dedicated supply chain transparency specialist on its team.
2. Work with the right strategic partners and stakeholder groups
Kelsick, whose company is best known for the third-party certification it offers for businesses that meet its social and environmental impact standards, said fashion brands need to improve most when it comes to issues around their supply chain and workers.

To build credibility in the sustainability space, brands must also identify the right strategic partners and stakeholders, whether they are suppliers, complementary businesses or advocacy groups. For example, Vestiaire Collective partnered with eco-minded The Laundress, Restory, and The Steamery, companies that each focus on extending a garment's lifetime.

Among the nonprofit sustainability partners focused on the fashion industry are The New Standard Institute and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, though there are countless others with which brands can work, or at the very least, refer to for educational resources. For its part, The New Standard Institute is launching an open-source information platform this summer that will host reputable data that brands can use to educate themselves, rather than relying on Google searches, said founder Maxine Bédat. Meanwhile, fashion sustainability nonprofit Remake has its free Sustainability Criteria tool for brands to evaluate their operations.

New York-based Mara Hoffman, for example, lists 12 nonprofit and sustainability groups with which the brand partners on its impact initiatives on its website. But it's important that brands that seek nonprofit partnerships do so earnestly, rather than simply ticking boxes off a list. Ethical Fashion Initiative - which works to connect marginalised artisans with fashion brands and suppliers like Brother Vellies and luxury textile manufacturer Ratti - does not work with brands on merely a collection or two, said founder Simone Cipriani.
3. Create an impact report supported by verifiable information and data
Another tool in impact marketing is donation-based partnerships with a nonprofit. Brands considering this approach should think first about whether they are simply trying to buy a seal of approval, a common criticism against this kind of initiative, not to mention whether the brand's values are at odds with the nonprofit itself, a subject Semaan's Slow Factory Foundation outlines in its Impact Marketing Guide.

One of the most valuable assets a brand can have when it comes to making the case that it's moving towards real sustainability is an impact report. Some brands like Nike publish theirs annually, while others like Reformation publish theirs quarterly. Impact reports should include both information about a brand's environmental footprint, as well as its commitments to social responsibility, though reports shouldn't necessarily be rigid in their structure.

Still, Bédat said that while plenty of brands publish impact reports, few, if any, include the kind of data that actually matter, including information related to greenhouse gas emissions and wage levels relative to the standard living wage in the workers' country.

"Because there is no standard in the fashion industry on what those reports are supposed to include, brands just cherry-pick [data]," Bédat said. It's not enough.

And while brands can share impact reports with consumers, the question then becomes: Who's fact-checking the claims? Here, third-party certifications become valuable to brands eager to avoid the greenwashing trap.

Eco-Age, a sustainability consultancy, has a system for evaluating brands on the basis of 12 different areas related to impact, which culminates in brand sustainability "report cards." B Corp offers a free impact assessment to brands interested in earning B Corp certification. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition has its proprietary Higg Index to measure a company's sustainability performance.
4. Go the distance with plain old honesty
Third-party certifications offer an objective benchmark by which consumers can evaluate and compare brands while reducing the likelihood of greenwashing, said Katherine White, the academic director of the Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business.

In early 2018, the menswear brand Noah published a blog about sustainability to its brand website, though it wasn't at all the kind of self-congratulatory message consumers are used to hearing from brands.

"We need to set the record straight: Noah is not a sustainable company," the brand published to its blog. "Although we're very flattered that the press and our supporters frequently complement our engagement on environmental issues, the way we operate isn't even close to sustainable. There's really no such thing as a sustainable clothing company." From a marketing perspective, the counter-programming was genius, but simple: While consumers are used to environmental activists preaching about the problems in fashion, rarely does a fashion brand itself position itself at the centre of the problem.

The injection of humility serves as an example to other brands. "In this new world of sustainability and transparency, the most important thing is humility," said BPCM's Phillips. "It is okay to say, 'with all of the information that is now available to us, we now want to make better decisions, because it is clear that we can. Here are the first steps we are taking. Please join us on this journey and if you can, if you can do that.'"

There are other instances in which a brand's radical transparency around the nuances of sustainability can foster goodwill with consumers. , the leather goods brand whose slogan is "fewer, better things," told BoF that their struggle comes not from reconfiguring their supply chain, a common entanglement for brands retroactively fitting sustainability into their business model, but in communicating the kind of tradeoffs that regularly challenge their fundamental values. Is it better to use 100 percent organic cotton, a biodegradable "that's easier to market," but isn't as durable as a garment that uses some plastic, all the while requiring a third of the water to produce? Shilpa Shah, Cuyana co-founder wondered.

"A lot of times, what people do is they don't actually talk about the nuances or the trade-offs - because there are some times where we have to make a trade-off more for longevity which we feel will have a longer sustainable impact," said Shah. "People currently just treat this as very black and white, and we try to say that there are shades of grey in between."

In this way, it's important to level with consumers and other stakeholders about the compromises brands often have to make between material use and customer satisfaction. Being honest about using plastic or some other non-biodegradable material is preferable to misrepresenting a garments' materials, even if it means admitting the brand isn't perfect.
5. Be clear about commitments
Conversely, peacocking around sustainability is among the biggest tip-offs to greenwashing. Superlatives around being the best or doing the most - as well as promoting a big campaign around Earth Day - are an alert for watchdogs and consumers alike, said Erin Allweiss, co-founder of communications firm No. 29, which represents brands whose businesses are impact-focused.

Another surefire way to attract criticism over a brand's marketing is to republish false or unverified information (like the oft-cited claim that fashion is the second-most polluting industry). Phillips advises brands to "go to the source," citing scientists, white papers, and government data as the best way to avoid encountering dubious information.

Equally important is the language used to describe a brand's initiatives. Words like "eco-friendly" are convenient, but ultimately have no legal meaning or grounding for consumers to understand them.

"The usual go-to buzzwords have zero impact at best. In fact, they can even have a negative impact," said Alex Protopapas, chief content officer at Persado, an AI marketing platform. "Saying nothing at all is often - and with statistical significance - more effective, in terms of inspiring effective customer experiences that lead to actual purchases, than saying what everyone else is saying."

Protopapas said there should be an education component to every marketing message around sustainability. "'Here's how this was made' or 'This is why we're changing our production values'...[these are] examples of ways you can introduce actual meaningful information and, by doing so, show you're a brand that cares as opposed to a brand that's trying to check off the 'woke' box."

Allweiss has noticed that some of her clients are leaning into more scientific language like "biodynamic" with demonstrative definitions to explain their practices. In 2019, "carbon neutral" became a popular designation for everything from Gabriela Hearst 's fashion show to individual products, though that identifier is contentious. The more complicated the term used in a marketing message, the deeper the explanation should be to consumers about what it means in relation to a specific brand. (Allweiss acknowledged the difficulty in balancing traditional marketing with substantive language, noting that a brand's advertisement, limited in its details simply by its format, might point consumers towards a brand's website where more detailed information is available.)

As it turns out, marketing professionals feel much the same about the word "authentic" as they do "sustainable," namely that its meaning has been so diluted that it has become something of a nothingburger. Still, the best thing a brand can do is represent itself in the sustainability conversation as much in line with its brand codes as possible.

For example, when Econyl - a proprietary fabric that the Italian firm Aquaphil manufactures from throwaway fishing nets and other waste - became the material-du-jour for fashion brands looking for a leg up on the environmental impact front, it found itself used frequently in swimwear (every brand using it eager to espouse their contribution towards saving the ocean.) But arguably Prada's approach felt more authentic when it reissued its brand-defining Nylon bags in 2019, using Econyl to lean into the latest in materials innovation while paying homage to its brand's heritage.
BoF Professional Special Edition: Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? As the world grapples with an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, exposing deep-rooted social inequality as a climate emergency looms, the fashion industry must learn to respect both people and the planet. It's time for fashion to build a more responsible business model. Explore the full special edition here.
Ultimately, the worst thing a brand can do is underestimate its consumer, either with fuzzy language or flat-out deception around its business.
The BoF Professional Summit: How To Build a Responsible Fashion Business
1. Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act?
2. Will Fashion Ever Be Good for the World? Its Future May Depend on It
3. How to Avoid the Greenwashing Trap
4. Luxury Brands Have a 'Respect Deficit' with Indian Artisans
5. Investing in the Sustainability Sisterhood
6. Why Luxury Came to the Rescue
7. The BoF Podcast | Jochen Zeitz on the Power of Fashion to Drive Sustainable Change
and more.

On June 17 2020, we will gather leading global experts, entrepreneurs and activists in sustainability, ethical supply chains and workers' rights for a half-day programme of interactive conversations, panel discussions and workshops on building a responsible business, led by BoF's expert editors and correspondents. Space is limited. Register now to reserve your spot.

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This article i s part of BoF's special edition, Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? Click here to learn more. NEW YORK, United States - In January, fast fashion behemoth H&M released a merch collection with pop star of the moment Billie Eilish.

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By Rachel Deeley June 19, 2020 05:20

Presented By

LONDON, United Kingdom - The events of the last six months have underscored the far-reaching implications of how the fashion industry does business. Forest fires in Australia made the climate crisis an unavoidable reality, not just a distant problem. The coronavirus pandemic unleashed an unprecedented global health and economic crisis, calling into question fashion's commitment to fair labour and vulnerable business models. Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the police have laid bare the underrepresentation and mistreatment of black people in the industry. Like the rest of the world, fashion has significant work to do to dismantle systemic racism.

On June 17, BoF sought to address these issues and more at the inaugural BoF Professional Summit, presented by Shopify Plus, through a range of presentations, panel discussions and workshops featuring industry voices from around the world. Speakers included slow-fashion heavyweights Eileen Fisher and Gabriela Hearst; Levi Strauss & Co.'s Chief Executive ; Kalpona Akter, founder and executive director of Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity; Fashion Revolution Global Policy Director Sarah Ditty; Aniyia Williams of Black & Brown Founders and Zebras Unite and more.

Across the talks and panels, a recurring theme emerged: recent events - including the pandemic and the anti-racism protests - have sped up changes that were already underway but long overdue.

"We find ourselves now in the midst of another global crisis and at an inflection point that can really spur global change," said Amina Razvi, executive director of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. "The moment presents us with such a unique opportunity to rebuild the industry better than it was before."
Responsible Business Leadership
Traditionally, companies have pursued maximum profit and shareholder value at the expense of other stakeholders such as employees, suppliers, consumers, local communities and even the planet. "Being a CEO today is no longer about shareholder capitalism; it's about stakeholder capitalism," Bergh said.

Building or scaling a business to serve the interests of all stakeholders while addressing sweeping environmental and social injustices can be overwhelming, which is why Plus Head of EMEA Shimona Mehta recommended clearly defining your mission first. "Start with something most relevant to you where you feel your brand can move the needle, or you feel passionately about," she said, citing Shopify clients Mara Hoffman, who shifted away from selling to stores that didn't align with her values, and Kotn, which sources its cotton from family-run farms in the Nile Delta.

Defining a brand's values is all the more important in times of adversity. "Every crisis and every world-changing event provides an obligation for introspection as a brand and to ask yourself about your role and responsibility in this situation," said August Bard-Bringéus, co-founder of Swedish menswear label Asket. "You need to consider your why: why are you doing what you are doing, what's your raison d'être, why do you exist?"

For entrepreneurs, Bergh shared two key pieces of advice. "Number one: decide what your moral compass is and write it down, be concrete about it," he said. "Values are the thing, when you're in the grey area when you have a tough decision to make, that can guide you to do the right thing."

"The second thing is, it's one thing to write it down and say it. It's another thing to actually live it," he added. "You have to live your values and be consistent with them once you declare them."
Tackling Institutional Racism
The growing prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement has forced fashion companies to take stock of their own role in perpetuating racism and focus on making structural changes in addition to one-off donations and public statements of solidarity.

"Racism is this country's biggest sin and greatest crime - it's been going on not for the last couple of months, but for four centuries," said Bergh. "When you look at the brutal facts, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and I have to be honest: I feel like I've failed... I feel like I've let the black community down."

But racism is a global issue, manifesting itself in the way businesses across the industry operate, both internally and externally.

We find ourselves now in the midst of another global crisis and at an inflection point that can really spur global change. The moment presents us with such a unique opportunity to rebuild the industry better than it was before.

"We are experiencing a reckoning right now, and something has got to give," said Aniyia Williams, founder and director of Black & Brown Founders, a resource and education network for black and Latinx entrepreneurs, as she delivered a talk on how to confront and dismantle systemic racism in the workplace and wider world of business.

Williams said it's crucial for those in positions of power and privilege to step outside their comfort zones and challenge preconceptions that perpetuate of white supremacy, such as defensiveness and fear of open conflict, valuing civility over uncomfortable truths, the myth of objectivity and binary thinking, and the culture of individualism in business, which "creates a lack of accountability... [and a] willingness to engage with the consequences of the decisions that we're making."

While the need for positive change should be underpinned by a sense of urgency, Williams said that dismantling structural racism is always a work in progress. "The biggest commitment you can make is a lifetime of practice," said Williams. "Be curious, be open, be flexible, and be willing to admit when you're wrong. You're not going to get things right every time. None of us do."
The Sustainability Imperative
The sheer volume of product created on a seasonal basis - or, in the case of fast fashion, even more frequently - shows that the fashion industry is a wholly "linear" economy, where the majority of items are bought and end up in landfill, with little or no effort to squeeze as much value as possible out of the product.

"The whole notion of a circular economy, buying quality that's going to last, is going to become much more important from a consumer standpoint," said Levi's Bergh.

Though they don't always vote with their wallets, consumers are putting mounting pressure on brands to be more transparent and environmentally friendly in their business practices. However, the ambiguous language and misinformation surrounding sustainable fashion further complicates the ethos of responsible consumption. "There's a lot of claims to things being 100 percent sustainable," said Bard-Bringéus of Asket. "A product always has an impact and a footprint so how can that be 100 percent sustainable and what do you mean?"

Even for well-established players in the sustainable fashion space, comprehending the full scope of what it means to operate sustainably is "a never-ending journey," said Hearst, who founded her namesake luxury label in 2015. Fisher, who started her brand in the 1980s, had a similar experience. "It took me a while to understand that... materials, just because they are natural, [aren't] necessarily made sustainably," she said. Sustainability commitments today, compared to when she started her business over three decades ago "also [mean] thinking about our product in a circular way."

However, responsible production isn't always as simple as making less. A sustainable value chain also protects the rights and livelihoods of garment workers.

The biggest commitment you can make is a lifetime of practice. Be curious, be open, be flexible, and be willing to admit when you're wrong. You're not going to get things right every time. None of us do.

"The way that the industry is designed really incentivises short-term thinking and places profits above all else, and that means profits above people's lives and the health of our living planet," said Fashion Revolution's Ditty in a conversation with Akter and BoF Senior Correspondent Sarah Kent.

Already in vulnerable and precarious situations, those working in garment factories - many of which are situated in the global South - have borne the brunt of the economic fallout of Covid-19. In Bangladesh alone, where clothing makes up 80 percent of the country's exports, there have been an estimated $3 billion of cancelled or delayed orders as retailers braced themselves for plummeting consumer demand due to the coronavirus and consequent economic recession.

As a result, said Akter, some 1.6 million workers will lose their jobs. "[Women] who just started learning what economic freedom is, who just wanted to understand what [female] empowerment is," she said."This will push them back to the pavilion where they started their journey. All their dreams will be broken and they'll be starving, and will put them in other crises like domestic violence, trafficking. Many [bad] things are coming."

"Manufacturers who have been doing this business for three decades, they couldn't take responsibility for three months for our workers," Akter continued. "When they made [a] profit, they didn't share it with our workers. Why do our workers have to take responsibility for their losses?"

Akter's advice on how to enact change starts with consumers, who can put pressure on brands to treat their garment workers with dignity. But she also believes in high-level regulatory changes and enforcement, such as France's due diligence legislation that prevents multinationals from allowing human rights abuses in their supply chains. "If we don't learn from this pandemic," she said, "we can't make any changes in the future."
Related Articles: Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? Will Fashion Ever Be Good for the World? Its Future May Depend on It. Fashion's Growth-Focused Business Model Is Not Sustainable. What's the Solution? Can Levi's Corporate Values Survive a Crisis?

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The BoF Professional Summit Wrap-Up: How to Build a Responsible Fashion Business

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The climate crisis, Covid-19 and recent anti-racism protests have forced the fashion industry to recognise how it is failing to live up to its environmental and social responsibilities. Global experts at The BoF Professional Summit weighed in on where we go from here.

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LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - SEPTEMBER 15: Extinction Rebellion activists demonstrate outside the Foreign Office ahead of Victoria Beckham's show at the London Fashion Week on 15 September, 2019 in London, England. Protesters call for the British Fashion Council to cancel London Fashion Week until it can be sustainable in the face of climate crisis and ecological emergency. (Photo credit should read Wiktor Szymanowicz / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

By Sarah Kent May 19, 2020 06:00

LONDON, United Kingdom - The fashion industry is facing an existential crisis, but some see this as an opportunity to fix long-standing environmental and social issues within the system.

Industry advocacy group Global Fashion Agenda is calling on companies to use the aftermath of the current crisis to rebuild a more responsible fashion system.

"Sheer survival is the top priority for many. However, this crisis represents an opportunity for us to re-evaluate the lexicon of fashion and, by default, its entire system of operations," GFA Chief Executive said. "I urge fashion leaders to rethink and rebuild systems in a collective effort to ensure a just and resilient future post-pandemic."

The organisation, which is supported by many of the industry's biggest players, including Kering and H&M group, and lobbies for more sustainable practises, has outlined six focus areas for senior executives that represent "win-win" opportunities to drive change. Among them, the advocacy group called on executives to improve transparency and traceability in order to better measure negative environmental and social impact and build trust and brand loyalty.

In the wake of the pandemic - which has strained fashion's supply chain as brands cancelled billions of dollars worth of orders - companies should focus on deeper and more equal relationships with manufacturers and suppliers, the GFA said. At the same time, the overstock crisis already unfolding as a result of forced store closures and low consumer demand should encourage brands to address long-standing issues with overproduction and markdowns, and double down on efforts to digitise the industry through more efficient and predictive e-commerce operations and use of digital tools for showrooms and sampling.

With its updated CEO Agenda, GFA lends its voice to a growing chorus of industry watchers anxious to see fashion emerge from this crisis with a better model of operation than before.

Over the last few weeks, Saks Fifth Avenue announced it was in talks with more than 20 independent brands to only sell products in stores when seasonally appropriate. Last week, Dries van Noten and a consortium of mostly independent designers, executives and retailers announced a proposal to shift fashion's seasonal delivery schedule. A group of over 60 designers and executives have published a parallel proposal for resetting the fashion week calendar facilitated by BoF. The International Labour Organisation has convened a working group to find ways to protect garment workers from the immediate fallout of the pandemic and establish more robust social protection systems for the long term.

But even as some in the industry mobilise for change, the ongoing financial crisis caused by Covid-19's impact on retail is throwing up new challenges to action. While a growing body of research suggests that brands and companies that take steps to operate more responsibly will be better placed long term, many within the fashion industry are struggling to think beyond survival for the next few months.
Related Articles: Fashion's Sustainability Goals Threatened by the Crisis Will Fashion Ever be Good for the World? Its Future May Depend on It Fashion's Growth-Focused Business Model Is Not Sustainable. What's the Solution?

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Global Fashion Agenda Calls on Industry to Rebuild Sustainably

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LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - SEPTEMBER 15: Extinction Rebellion activists demonstrate outside the Foreign Office ahead of Victoria Beckham's show at the London Fashion Week on 15 September, 2019 in London, England. Protesters call for the British Fashion Council to cancel London Fashion Week until it can be sustainable in the face of climate crisis and ecological emergency.

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Greenwashing in Fashion and Changing Consumer Views

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Greenwashing in Fashion and Changing Consumer Views

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This article i s part of BoF's special edition, Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? Click here to learn more.
LONDON, United Kingdom - Jochen Zeitz has spent his career advocating, and sometimes agitating, for change to more responsible business practices.

While many see fashion as an excessive and flamboyant part of the problem when it comes to addressing global environmental and social ills, Zeitz has made a virtue of the industry's clout.

"Iconic brands have a tremendous opportunity to contribute to a change in consumer behaviour as a whole," Zeitz told BoF Editor-in-Chief Imran Amed, mounting a defence of consumer culture when managed responsibly. "Growing while reducing has to be the parameter of the future. We can grow, but we have to reduce our footprint over-proportionately to the impact we are having through our growth."

As Chief Executive of Puma, Zeitz brought the company back from the brink of bankruptcy, transforming it into one of the top three sporting goods brands in the world and driving a strong focus on positive social and environmental impact along the way.

He developed the environmental profit and loss account, which set a monetary value on the company's environmental footprint, allowing executives to effectively monitor and set strategy around reducing the company's impact. By this point, Puma was part of luxury conglomerate Kering, which adopted the accounting tool and still uses it to this day.

Iconic brands have a tremendous opportunity to contribute to a change in consumer behaviour as a whole.

A self-described "change agent," Zeitz went on to co-found The B Team with Richard Branson, a non-profit focused on sustainable business practices. As Zeitz takes on a new challenge as Chief Executive of motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, such issues seem more relevant than ever.

The coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the globe has thrown into sharp relief the negative impact of irresponsible business practices. The mass job loss resulting from global lockdowns, and the health risks key workers continue to take, have brought concerns about workers rights to the fore. Meanwhile, a sharp, if temporary, decline in global emissions have served as a powerful reminder of a significant potential source of the next major global crisis. A growing number of investors, consumers and regulators believe businesses that operate more responsibly will be more resilient in the long term.

"Now you can make the business case for the planet and you can say what we're experiencing now with the virus is just a fast way of experiencing climate change that will happen over decades," Zeitz said. "This virus is testament for a needed fast change in order to deal with a much bigger crisis that will be affecting all our lives around the world in 20, 30 years to come."

There's still a lot of greenwashing out there and a lot of lip service.

It's an issue that has particular resonance for the fashion industry, which, for the most part, continues to operate under an archaic and extractive business model. Clothes are made using processes that belch emissions into the atmosphere, spew out toxic chemicals and generate huge volumes of waste every year. Throughout the supply chain, workers face exploitation in unsafe conditions at minimal pay. The system is inefficient, wasteful and disproportionately benefits a small group of powerful players that sit at the top of the industry.

Efforts to change need to go deeper than they currently do. "There's still a lot of greenwashing out there and a lot of lip service," said Zeitz. "Really embedding it into the core of all of your products that's what needs to happen."

Already the crisis caused by Covid-19 has sparked vocal calls for change. Among other initiatives, a group of more than 60 designers and executives have published a proposal facilitated by BoF to reset the fashion week calendar. The International Labour Organisation has convened a working group to push forward efforts to protect garment workers from the crisis and establish more robust social protection systems for the long term. Outside of the industry, the UN has urged governments to use stimulus packages intended to restart economies reeling from coronavirus lockdowns to invest in green transitions and sustainable growth.
BoF Professional Special Edition: Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? As the world grapples with an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, exposing deep-rooted social inequality as a climate emergency looms, the fashion industry must learn to respect both people and the planet. It's time for fashion to build a more responsible business model. Explore the full special edition here.
"I look at every crisis as an opportunity... to look at your business and how you operate and say what can we really essentially change to adjust ourselves to the new normal," Zeitz said. "If businesses don't ask themselves that question, you will be part of history, rather than the future."
The BoF Professional Summit: How To Build a Responsible Fashion Business
1. Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act?
2. Will Fashion Ever Be Good for the World? Its Future May Depend on It
3. How to Avoid the Greenwashing Trap
4. Luxury Brands Have a 'Respect Deficit' with Indian Artisans
5. Investing in the Sustainability Sisterhood
6. Why Luxury Came to the Rescue
7. The BoF Podcast | Jochen Zeitz on the Power of Fashion to Drive Sustainable Change
and more.

On June 17 2020, we will gather leading global experts, entrepreneurs and activists in sustainability, ethical supply chains and workers' rights for a half-day programme of interactive conversations, panel discussions and workshops on building a responsible business, led by BoF's expert editors and correspondents. Space is limited. Register now to reserve your spot.

If you are not a member, you can take advantage of our 30-day trial to experience all of the benefits of a BoF Professional membership.

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The BoF Podcast | Jochen Zeitz on the Power of Fashion to Drive Sustainable Change

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This article i s part of BoF's special edition, Can Fashion Clean Up Its Act? Click here to learn more. LONDON, United Kingdom - Jochen Zeitz has spent his career advocating, and sometimes agitating, for change to more responsible business practices.

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Itsapark's Online Platform | Source: Itsapark.com

By M.C. Nanda April 3, 2019 22:17

NEW YORK, United States - H&M wants to be the Quora for fashion.

The fast-fashion retailer has launched a fashion advice forum where users can give and receive advice on a range of topics, from what to wear to a job interview to how to accessorise a look. A beta version of the site, called Itsapark, opened to the public on Wednesday.

As a growing share of fashion sales moves online, mass retailers are investing heavily in technology, from chatbots to social media platforms, to gather data and better understand changing consumer behaviour.

H&M, which is attempting to boost sluggish sales and wean itself from discounting, is no exception. Last year, H&M spent $20 million on a minority stake in , an online payment provider that allows shoppers to defer payment on purchases. Through its venture capital arm H&M CO:LAB, the retailer also invested $13 million in menswear e-commerce startup , which uses artificial intelligence to make product recommendations. H&M was also selected for the early stages of Instagram's in-app shopping feature.

A spokesperson said the project has been in development by H&M Group since late 2018 and described Itsapark as a "community driven digital fashion guide." Content is subject to "park rules" outlined on the website, which prohibits bullying, racism and other behaviour. The company could not confirm when the platform will officially launch.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvv44sbozZB

On Itsapark, each query features a photo or video generated by the answerer, as well as a shoppable list of products, including but not limited to H&M offerings. On recent posts, users list items from stores including Miss Selfridge, Asos and J. Crew. The site also features a discovery function that allows users to browse by trend, such as "romantic blouses" and boilersuits. The site is open to users who ask questions but content is created by assigned creators. Itsapark is based in Berlin.

In a quarterly financial report released earlier this week, the company said "continued investments in our tech foundation including scalable platforms ... enable faster development of various customer apps."

Stockholm-based Hennes & Mauritz AB is currently in the midst of a turnaround, facing declining profit margins and grappling with excess inventory as it competes with even faster-fashion e-commerce sites like Fashion Nova and Misguided, which excel at driving sales through Instagram.

Earlier this week, H&M reported first-quarter net sales in local currencies increased by 4 percent from a year earlier. However, inventories are once again on the rise, topping $4 billion including items from the current season.

Related Articles:
H&M Takes Stake in Swedish Fintech Firm Klarna H&M Shares Rise Despite Profits Falling How H&M Is Rethinking Its Flagships

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H&M Launches Online Fashion Advice Forum

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Itsapark's Online Platform | Source: Itsapark.com By M.C. Nanda April 3, 2019 22:17 NEW YORK, United States - H&M wants to be the Quora for fashion. The fast-fashion retailer has launched a fashion advice forum where users can give and receive advice on a range of topics, from what to wear to a job interview to how to accessorise a look.

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H&M store | Source: Shutterstock

By Bloomberg November 29, 2019 10:26

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Hennes & Mauritz AB is testing out a clothing rental service as the fashion industry faces mounting criticism for waste and pollution.

As of Friday, consumers can rent garments for 350 kronor ($37) a week in a refurbished flagship store on the Sergels Torg square in central Stockholm.

The Swedish retailer follows competitors Banana Republic and Urban Outfitters, which both launched similar services earlier this year to tap into a market that reached $1 billion in 2018. Websites such as Vinted and Hurr Collective are expanding in Europe, offering consumers a way to sell or rent used clothes.

H&M's rental model is limited to a collection of 50 garments offered to members of the company's loyalty programme. H&M will assess the trial in three months before expanding any further. The shop, which is testing new concepts, will also feature clothing repair services, a coffee shop and a beauty bar.

"We have a huge belief in rental, but we still want to test and learn quite a lot and do tweaks and changes," Daniel Claesson, H&M's head of business development, said in a presentation at the flagship.

Credit Suisse analyst Simon Irwin said he has doubts about the plan.

"I'd be surprised if you can really make it work as a business model," he said. "I can't see that the kind of labour cost involved in a rental model at those price points really makes sense."

The clothing industry has come under increasing scrutiny as it is responsible for as much as 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and consumes more energy than aviation and shipping combined, according to the United Nations. By 2040, H&M intends to reach the point that its greenhouse gas emissions go negative, meaning that it would offset more than it produces.

H&M shares fell as much as 0.4 percent Friday morning.
By Anton Wilen; editors: Eric Pfanner, Thomas Mulier and John Lauerman.

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H&M Tests Renting Clothes to Address Environment Concern

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H&M store | Source: Shutterstock By Bloomberg November 29, 2019 10:26 STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Hennes & Mauritz AB is testing out a clothing rental service as the fashion industry faces mounting criticism for waste and pollution. As of Friday, consumers can rent garments for 350 kronor ($37) a week in a refurbished flagship store on the Sergels Torg square in central Stockholm.

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LONDON, United Kingdom - After modest progress and some high-profile failures, the fashion industry has begun to realise that diversity and inclusion needs to be addressed at the C-level. Several companies have hired chief diversity officers, who handle internal matters like monitoring hiring practices and advancement while scrutinising public-facing representation across marketing and design.

Someone who can share first-hand experience on how diversity executives operate is Annie Wu, the first-ever global leader of diversity and inclusion at H&M Group. Wu was appointed to the position in early 2018 after H&M had a misstep of its own, receiving widespread criticism for choosing a young black model to pose in a "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle" sweatshirt. Her remit reflects the scale and complexity of the challenge ahead. Delivering real change through a unified strategy for eight different brands across a vast corporation that employs more than 120,000 people (FTE equivalent) and operates 4,900 stores across 73 international markets, is no easy feat.
BoF: What have been the hard lessons you've had to learn?
Annie Wu: The hardest one has been underestimating how hard change is, and especially change in people's behaviours. It's so easy to understand the topic, versus actually putting things into action. Having to change your behaviour is really, really hard for people. That's why I always say that this is a journey.
BoF: What have been the most effective ways you've been able to execute change?
AW: You always have to get personal. When you're talking about diversity, it can get very high-level and fluffy. But everyone has experienced exclusion in their life. This role is a lot [about] influencing people and their mindsets, and so making it personal to them has worked really well. You also need to be super analytical and can get into those numbers. Until you really have facts in front of you, for a basis of decision-making, it's really hard to get the message through.
BoF: What is the group's overall diversity and inclusion strategy look like?
AW: Our strategy has three pillars: people, business and community. For 'people'; we talk about everyone across our entire value chain, and that goes from suppliers [and] employees [to] our customers. 'Business' is how we actually form our teams and what products we present to the customers, and 'community' is the impact that we have, or hope to have, in the communities that we operate in.
BoF: But how do you implement the strategy across such a large company?
AW: It takes a lot of coordination between all the different functions. It's a lot of cross collaborative work. I try to make sure the topic of inclusion and diversity is embedded in our processes, in our decision making, in everything that we're doing. [Previously], there were so many different programmes and initiatives and policies going on across the organisation. We had a global [HR] policy, we had different countries working on very different things that relate to inclusion and diversity. We also had our sustainability department; working on what [went] into their pillar of fair and equal [rights] for being an employer and how we work with our supply chain. [So] it's really pulling all of these things together and making it intentional with one voice.
BoF: What about delivering consistency in terms of deploying the strategy across the group's eight different brands?
AW: What we've been doing this last year is meeting with each of the managing directors of all of our brands and making sure that this strategy is embedded in the DNA of [each] brand, and also the goals that they're trying to achieve.

BoF: Does the H&M Group have a specific definition for how it sees diversity?
AW: Our definition of diversity is that there is no definition of diversity. What diversity means to you [is] in your local context. If we're talking about a more homogeneous society, like Sweden, for example, then diversity is actually [focused more on] gender and not [as much] about race. Then you go to countries like South Africa, like the US, like the UK, where diversity is about race and ethnicity. So we try to cover as many of these perspectives as possible. There are lots of different definitions of diversity and we don't want to stick to just one specific one.

Our definition of diversity is that there is no definition of diversity. What diversity means to you [is] in your local context.

BoF: So your diversity goals vary by region?
AW: Yes. Because we are present in so many different markets around the world, we want to make sure that this resonates with everybody in their own way. In India, for example, we want to really push women in leadership roles [so our] Indian teams are looking at their demographics and seeing how to [achieve this in their] succession planning for the coming years. In South Africa, we know that youth unemployment is super high in the cities [where] we have our stores [so] we really sought out and collaborate now with [relevant] organisations since we know that we can hire a lot of them in our store.
BoF: Can you elaborate more on why it's important to break this down regionally, as opposed to globally?
AW: At the end of the day, we want to reflect, respect and relate to our customers everywhere around the globe. In order to do that, we need to recognise the way that someone shops or even dresses and looks at clothing [can be] very different in South Korea compared to Sweden, compared to South Africa. If we don't have the knowledge of where those decisions are being made, then we need to find it, and have them live it. We need to understand culture, history and diversity around the world. The broader we would like our customer base to be, the broader our products also have to be.

BoF: How do diversity initiatives work in terms of designing the actual product?
AW: We look into who are our designers [are], who makes up the teams that are designing these products, all the way from design to marketing to campaigns, to how we even set them up visually in our stores, either online or in store. It's really the make-up of the teams and looking at those demographics and baselines.
BoF: How can companies measure their progress on diversity?
AW: That's a burning question for all of us. It's really hard to measure, especially on a global aggregate level. Gender and age, I would say, are probably the only demographics that we can aggregate globally, because local laws play a lot into it. In Sweden, [for example] you're actually not allowed to capture ethnicity and race, and now in Europe, with GDPR [the European Union's data privacy regulation], getting demographics is getting harder and harder.
BoF: So how does the H&M Group measure its progress?
AW: We've put out some ambitions; one of them is 100 percent of our employees feel that they have an equal opportunity, and we hope to measure that through our employee engagement surveys. We're also working right now on community impact and perception. We're trying to see through our net promoter score our customers' perception of who we are. Net promoter scores are also very good at gauging where we stand in different markets.
BoF: But what are some concrete examples of company practices that ensure diverse hiring?
AW: Externally, we need to look broader and beyond. It could be schools that our interns are coming from, to different places that we're placing ads. There's so many different ways that we can recruit from a broader pool than what we've been doing, because like any company, I think a lot comes from referrals, which is great, but we need to also make sure that we are bringing in people that will challenge us.
How else do you think the fashion industry could be more diverse?
AW: We still have a long way to go; all the different aspects of diversity from body types, body shapes, to us bringing in more diversity from all over parts of the globe. Fashion is still very western driven.
BoF: You were born in Taiwan, moved to the US when you were six and grew up there. How did you land this role at the H&M Group?
AW: I started in our New York office almost seven years ago, as a labour employment attorney. I worked with a lot of labour and employment issues and then an opportunity came up for me to move to the Stockholm head office to work in our global HR department three years ago. I headed our group employee relations team, and that covered the inclusion and diversity piece worldwide. I assumed this position in January of last year.
BoF: What do you think it is about the fashion industry now that's finally galvanising change?
AW: We understand that the customers want us to change. They want to see themselves when they go into a store. We used to tell the customer what they wanted. [Now] it's the customer telling us what they want, and we have to listen.
This interview has been edited and condensed.

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H&M's Global Leader for Inclusion and Diversity on the Company's Next Steps

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LONDON, United Kingdom - After modest progress and some high-profile failures, the fashion industry has begun to realise that diversity and inclusion needs to be addressed at the C-level. Several companies have hired chief diversity officers, who handle internal matters like monitoring hiring practices and advancement while scrutinising public-facing representation across marketing and design.

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H&M store | Source: Shutterstock

By Reuters April 8, 2020 16:25

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - H&M, the world's second-biggest fashion retailer, said on Wednesday it had signed a €980 million ($1.1 billion) revolving credit facility to strengthen its liquidity buffer in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

H&M said in a statement the new 12-month bank facility with a 6-month extension option came in addition to an undrawn €700 million facility signed in 2017 and maturing 2024.

"The H&M group's liquidity remains good. The group is continuing its work to set up a combination of different financing solutions," the statement said.

H&M on April 3 unveiled plans to raise more cash amid other initiatives to mitigate effects from the spread of the coronavirus, as it warned it would make a loss for the first time in decades in its second quarter.

Bank SEB coordinated the new facility.
By Anna Ringstrom; editor: Bernadette Baum.

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H&M Borrows €980 Million to Boost Liquidity Buffer

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H&M store | Source: Shutterstock By Reuters April 8, 2020 16:25 STOCKHOLM, Sweden - H&M, the world's second-biggest fashion retailer, said on Wednesday it had signed a €980 million ($1.1 billion) revolving credit facility to strengthen its liquidity buffer in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

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H&M store interior | Source: Shutterstock

By Reuters June 15, 2020 11:45

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - H&M, the world's second biggest fashion retailer, on Monday reported a sharp but slightly smaller than expected drop in second-quarter sales as measures to slow the Covid-19 pandemic slammed the sector.

The Swedish company's net sales for the three months to May 31 fell 50 percent from a year earlier to 28.7 billion crowns ($3.1 billion). Analysts had on average forecast a fall to 27.5 billion, Refinitiv data shows. Online sales jumped 36 percent.

H&M, which began gradually reopening stores in late April after about 80 percent were shuttered by the pandemic, said local currency sales in the first 13 days of June were down 30 percent.

"The pace of the sales recovery varies largely between markets," it said.

H&M, which reports full quarterly earnings on June 26, said 18 percent of 5,058 stores remain closed temporarily.

RBC analyst Richard Chamberlain, with a "sector perform" rating on H&M, said he remained relatively cautious on the margin and inventory outlook, and predicted sales would keep recovering only gradually.

"In many markets we expect to see customers preferring to shop locally and more pressure on urban locations more reliant on tourism and people using public transport," he said.

H&Ms' biggest rival Inditex, the owner of , recorded a 44 percent sales drop for the February-April period, with constant-currency sales down 34 percent over June 2-8.

Shares in H&M, which has flagged its first loss in many decades for the second quarter, were down 2 percent in early trade and 26 percent so far this year.

Before the pandemic, H&M was well on its way to end a years-long rise in inventories after many stores struggled with digitalisation and tougher competition.

Chamberlain said inventory had been tightly controlled through the pandemic but he expected it to have risen in May as delayed products from China and Bangladesh arrived in stores.
By Anna Ringstrom with additional reporting by Colm Fulton; editors: Johannes Hellstrom, David Goodman and Kirsten Donovan

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H&M store interior | Source: Shutterstock By Reuters June 15, 2020 11:45 STOCKHOLM, Sweden - H&M, the world's second biggest fashion retailer, on Monday reported a sharp but slightly smaller than expected drop in second-quarter sales as measures to slow the Covid-19 pandemic slammed the sector.

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H&M store | Source: Shutterstock

By Reuters June 29, 2020 17:55

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Swedish online second-hand shop Sellpy, which is majority-owned by fashion giant H&M, has launched in Germany in a first step outside its home market as it bets on shoppers trending towards more sustainable consumption.

The start-up handles the entire sales process from picking up the goods from sellers' homes, to photographing, selling and shipping.

Sellpy announced in May that it would double its warehouse capacity in Sweden, to near eight million items annually, due to strong demand. Since Sellpy's foundation in 2014, more than six million items have been sold through the platform, it said.

The second-hand market is one of the fastest growing economic sectors within the fashion industry, Sellpy and H&M said in a joint statement on Monday.

H&M first invested in Sellpy in 2015 and now holds a 70 percent stake.

"We see that the awareness and demand from our customers for sustainable fashion is constantly growing and is now probably greater than ever," H&M Germany manager Thorsten Mindermann said.

"That's why we're particularly pleased to be able to offer a new sustainable way of buying and selling fashion, in collaboration with Sellpy," he added.

Seeking to improve its environmental credentials and tap into consumers' growing concerns about the environmental cost of fast fashion, H&M has in recent years launched trials such as vintage clothes sales and party dress rental.
By Anna Ringstrom; editor: Ed Osmond.

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H&M's Online Secondhand Shop Sellpy Launches Internationally

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H&M store | Source: Shutterstock By Reuters June 29, 2020 17:55 STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Swedish online second-hand shop Sellpy, which is majority-owned by fashion giant H&M, has launched in Germany in a first step outside its home market as it bets on shoppers trending towards more sustainable consumption.

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Cos store | Source: Shutterstock

By Sarah Kent January 22, 2020 05:45

LONDON, United Kingdom - H&M group's second-biggest brand is losing several top executives, according to internal emails viewed by The Business of Fashion , as the once high-flying minimalist brand struggles to maintain momentum.

The reshuffle at Cos represents some of the biggest leadership changes since the brand was launched in 2007. In addition to Managing Director Marie Honda - who has held her position for eight years - the brand's Head of Communications, Atul Pathak, and finance and operations director Michael Marth are also departing, the emails said.

Honda is shifting into a new role within the H&M group and will be replaced by Arket's Managing Director, Lea Rytz Goldman.

The fast-fashion giant confirmed the changes, describing Marth and Pathak's departure as part of normal, periodic turnover, and congratulating Honda for her eight-year tenure growing the business.

"We are very proud of all these achievements and Marie will now take all this experience to contribute across the wider group," the company said in a statement.

The changes come as Cos struggles to maintain momentum in a challenging market. The brand was the first to launch after H&M, and represented an important evolution for the fast-fashion giant. Based in London, it gave the company a toe-hold in one of fashion's capitals, and, with its elevated and more expensive designs , signalled ambitions to establish H&M group's credentials within the fashion world.

It was a savvy move that initially paid off; the brand's minimalist but chic selection earned Cos the moniker 'high-street Celine' in fashion circles. In 2018, the brand was available online in 21 markets and operated 270 stores across 41 countries. But more recently, the brand's star has faded, while newer additions to H&M group's stable of brands, like Arket, have begun to attract more attention.
Related Articles: Inside H&M's $4 Billion Inventory Challenge Quiet High-Street Rebel Cos Accelerates Global Expansion

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Cos store | Source: Shutterstock By Sarah Kent January 22, 2020 05:45 LONDON, United Kingdom - H&M group's second-biggest brand is losing several top executives, according to internal emails viewed by The Business of Fashion , as the once high-flying minimalist brand struggles to maintain momentum.

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LONDON, United Kingdom - In the midst of London Fashion Week in September 2017, hosted a blowout party at the National Gallery to celebrate a decade in business. Guests - including Olympic diver Tom Daley, model and designer Jasmine Guinness and wellness entrepreneur Jasmine Hemsley - sipped blackberry and apple martinis and bergamot negronis amid a neon forest light installation before enjoying a set by drum-and-bass group Rudimental.

The apparent success of the brand fashion insiders had dubbed "high street Céline" seemed a solid endorsement of Swedish owner H&M group's efforts to diversify away from its then struggling core fast-fashion business. But the party proved to be a high-water mark.

Less than three years later, COS has stalled and is facing new threats from the sudden shock caused by efforts to contain Covid-19. H&M group doesn't publicly break out financial data by brand, but the company as a whole reported its first quarterly loss in more than a decade as sales fell 50 percent in its second quarter. Though things improved last month, sales were still down 25 percent through June 24 compared to a year earlier. The company has scrapped its dividend and flagged the prospect of big layoffs earlier in the year. Its share price has fallen around 25 percent since January.

But even before the pandemic, the once-buzzy COS was suffering. In 2019, the brand generated just over €800 million ($917 million) in comparable sales, down 2 percent on the previous year, according to an internal financial overview seen by BoF. Though net sales hit €982 million, up nearly 7 percent compared to a year earlier, according to the document, that number has not dramatically increased from the last time the company publicly disclosed COS' turnover in 2018.

H&M group's ambitious goal to build its second-largest brand into a multi-billion-euro business by 2022 now looks unlikely. In January, BoF was first to report the departure of a trio of COS executives: long-time managing director Marie Honda moved to another role in H&M group, while the head of finance and operations and the head of communications also left the company earlier this year.

The underlying problems at COS raise questions about H&M group's ability to navigate today's fast-changing retail landscape beyond the Covid-19 crisis. The company - which itself disrupted the market with its cheap and chic offering, speedy production cycle and high-low collaborations - has long struggled to keep up with shifting consumer preferences and competition from even faster, cheaper digital players.

At the start of 2020, a years-long turnaround at H&M group looked like it was beginning to pay off, but the headline figures masked the performance of its number-two brand. The success of COS and the group's newer labels, like Arket and & Other Stories, have long been central to the company's growth ambitions.

Even before the pandemic, the once-buzzy COS was suffering.

"One of the key drivers of the five- to ten-year view of H&M group is that these businesses become more of a key contributor," said Citigroup analyst Adam Cochrane.

COS' challenges will sound familiar to many executives stewarding high-street fashion businesses in recent years: the brand rapidly expanded its retail footprint, increasing its inventory to meet demand that never materialised. It was also slow to build its e-commerce business and is still playing catch up with savvier digital competitors. At the same time, the brand's minimalist approach to design, once so exciting, fell out of sync with prevailing fashion trends.

Culturally, the brand was struggling too, according to accounts from 20 current and former employees, who for the most part spoke only on condition of anonymity for fear of damaging their careers. Like many others in the industry, its leadership failed to adapt to shifting expectations on workplace behaviour and diversity from employees and consumers alike.

Several pointed to the company's years-long failure to address allegations against one of its more senior employees as symbolic of the worst of the problems. Emails reviewed by BoF and first-hand accounts from multiple people described inappropriate behaviour they said long went unheeded by human resources and COS' top management.
What Happened to COS?
COS launched in 2007 as H&M was riding high on nearly a decade of growth, marking the company's first foray beyond its namesake brand.

It was the heyday of fast fashion's first generation; alongside brands like Topshop and , the Swedish retailer had helped revolutionise the apparel market with a cheap but chic offering that brought the latest trends from the runway to stores with unprecedented speed and frequency, at prices that radically undercut competitors.

Establishing its headquarters in cosmopolitan London instead of Stockholm, COS gave H&M group a toehold in one of the world's top-tier fashion capitals and introduced a more elevated and expensive offering intended to target a new customer segment.

It was a savvy move that initially paid off. With sleek designs at an affordable price point and stores that could only be found in Europe, it soon became a must-go shopping destination for American fashion editors during trips to London and Paris.

When COS made its US debut, American Vogue labelled it the most exciting trans-Atlantic arrival since French fashion-girl favourite Isabel Marant opened its first store there just a few years earlier. By 2017, COS' sales had reached around $1 billion, or nearly 5 percent of the group's total revenue, and it was expanding its retail network rapidly.

In some ways COS stuck closely to the traditional fast-fashion playbook.

In 2018, H&M group executives hailed COS as the first success in its new business division, a positive growth story that contrasted starkly with their core H&M brand's performance at the time. With the group's share price plummeting after it announced poor numbers for 2017, then COS Managing Director Marie Honda presented the brand to investors at the group's first-ever capital markets day.

"We see a huge potential many years ahead to grow that brand to something really amazing," then H&M group Chief Financial Officer Jyrki Tervonen told investors in February 2018. "[It's] already at a good profit level."

The presentation cemented COS' role as the group's second brand. "Looking ahead, we expect COS to grow at least 100 percent until 2022, compared to the year ending 2017," said Peter Ekeberg, then acting head of H&M group's new business division.

But while the brand has continued to grow into new markets and open new stores, comparable sales dipped last year and net turnover has not grown at the pace suggested in 2018, according to the financial overview seen by BoF. E-commerce has taken off, boosted by expansion into new regions. But on a comparable basis the significant growth in online sales last year was not sufficient to offset the decline in brick-and-mortar. Footfall was down, and across channels customers bought fewer items at lower prices. In June, H&M group said its core brand continues to generate around 90 percent of total sales, little changed from 2017 when it was responsible for 93 percent.
A Weak Digital Strategy
Though it was established to differentiate H&M group's offering on the high street, in some ways COS stuck closely to the traditional fast-fashion playbook. Like H&M, Forever 21 and other high-street giants, COS initially focused on physical stores, neglecting the e-commerce opportunity. Since 2015, COS has nearly doubled its retail footprint, hitting 291 stores last year. To stock its new locations, it ordered more units, leading to deep end-of-season discounting that undercut the brand's image.

Though H&M group has been upping its e-commerce game in a years-long strategic shift, the trickle through to COS has been slow. That has forced the company to adapt quickly at a time when online is the only viable sales channel in some markets.

Last year, around 12 percent of COS' total net sales were generated online, according to the financial review seen by BoF. In the same period, online made up 16 percent of H&M group's total sales and 14 percent of Zara-owner Inditex's. Inditex has said it expects online to make up more than 25 percent of total sales by next year, while H&M group said e-commerce surged to represent 28 percent of total sales in the first half of 2020, when many physical stores were closed for a period because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The fast-fashion giant's transition from a traditional retailer to an omnichannel player has been far from smooth. Across channels, COS still lacks basic capabilities that consumers are coming to expect. For instance, its inventory management system is limited, making it difficult to track stock levels across stores and digital channels.

"COS has a sizeable store footprint and as of now they have not connected the dots between the brand site and stores," said Supriya Jain, a principal at advisory and research firm Gartner. "We're seeing brands getting a lot more sophisticated with integrating in-store inventory real-time into on-site pages... when you look at the mid-sized really successful speciality retailers of 2019... that's a big part of their strategy."

COS ranked 95th out of 103 companies examined in Gartner's 2019 Digital IQ Index for specialty retail in the US, which ranks brands based on their digital performance. In the equivalent report for the UK, published in November 2018, it ranked 57th out of 60.

H&M group declined to comment on COS' financial performance, but highlighted the importance of the company's ongoing digital transformation. "We, as everybody in our industry, have to adapt to the ongoing changes in the retail landscape, and the corona crisis has accelerated the needs even further," the company said in an email. "We are confident that COS and the entire group handles the transformation in the best possible way and that we will come out of this well-positioned for the future."
A Fashion Victim
At the same time as the company's business practices fell behind the times, COS also failed to keep up with currents in fashion and culture.

When COS launched, its genius was to reference high-fashion shapes, colours and expensive materials rarely seen on the high street at the time and offer them at affordable prices. Under the creative direction of Rebekka Bay - a Danish trend forecaster and design consultant who went on to stints at , Everlane and Uniqlo - the brand tapped into the same aesthetic vein as high-end labels like Marni and Phoebe Philo 's Céline, and focused on architectural silhouettes in muted and classic colours that felt sophisticated. Editors and other fashion insiders loved it.

But as more competitors moved into the market for elevated basics, the uniqueness of the concept waned. Meanwhile, fashion's pendulum swung towards the maximalism of Alessandro Michele 's , buoyed in part by the rise of Instagram, where COS' understated aesthetic failed to pop. And yet, for years the label continued to stick rigidly to its core look.
Out of Touch
Worse, the brand also lost touch with the cultural zeitgeist. As diversity and inclusion became an increasingly pressing matter - and a trending topic on social media - in large markets like the US, many brands recognised both the shifting cultural imperatives and commercial opportunities. COS was slow to respond. For years, its communications remained homogeneous, featuring a cast of predominantly white and thin models.

COS - now a global brand, sold in stores in more than 40 markets - has gradually updated its approach, but the casting of more diverse talent remains a battle within the company, said current and former employees. Scroll back only a couple of years on the brand's Instagram account and the number of diverse faces drops off noticeably.

We're in central London and you have a team dominated by largely white Swedish people.

The company's external marketing reflected internal issues rooted in a largely monocultural team trying to serve an increasingly multi-cultural market.

When Grant Goulding joined the company in 2017, he said colleagues regularly responded to his comments by attributing his point of view to his Blackness. Though the remarks were sometimes intended as a joke, they were still offensive, he said. Goulding, who is British of Ghanaian heritage and worked at the brand until January 2019, acknowledged that things did improve during his tenure, particularly after the H&M group was confronted with a public scandal for an ad many criticised as racist.

In early 2018, H&M came under fire after putting a young Black model in a sweatshirt that read 'Coolest Monkey in the Jungle.' The company apologised for the incident and went on to hire a group-level head of diversity and inclusion to drive change across the organisation. After that, Goulding said colleagues were more careful about their behaviour, but corporate efforts like unconscious bias training felt like tick-box exercises rather than real change.

"We're in central London and you have a team dominated by largely white Swedish people," Goulding said. "It felt like it was just like, tick, done."

After COS posted on social media in support of anti-racist protests in the US last month, several users responded by accusing the company of failing to live up to the values it was claiming to hold. H&M group declined to comment on any individual allegations, but said it has "zero tolerance for discrimination, harassment, or any other improper conduct." In an Instagram post published in June, COS acknowledged it had received feedback that suggested the brand must do better and vowed to take steps to address the issues. Among other things, COS said it had established a working group to drive forward action internally and externally and would review its recruitment, development and retention processes, as well as the partners it works with.

"We need to look through everything; the people that work in our teams, the people we work together with, the creative people we work with, the photographers, models, and that we have role models that are diverse," new COS Managing Director Lea Rytz Goldman said in an interview. "That is a part of our whole journey within the new brand DNA, definitely."
A Failure of Process
The company's shortcomings on inclusivity were not the only example of a troubled workplace culture that management struggled to address. Like many in the fashion industry, it has stumbled not only in adapting to mounting awareness of systemic racism, but also in managing shifting standards of acceptable workplace behaviour in the wake of movements like #MeToo and the rise of a younger, more outspoken generation of employees. Even when such issues were flagged to management, it seemed unwilling or unable to address them.

Late on the night of COS' 10th-anniversary party, some of the team working that night gathered in a back room. As they worked, they were joined by a more senior employee. According to two people present and emails recounting the event, the employee approached a more junior member of staff, put one leg up on the sofa next to him and pretended to pour champagne over his head. For the junior employee, the incident was the final straw after he claims that he experienced months of unsolicited shoulder massages, ear nibbling and nuzzling. Half a dozen sources confirmed they witnessed this behaviour.

The junior employee, who was in the final weeks of his tenure at the company at the time of the 1oth anniversary party, went to HR, but the response was muted, he said. According to a report documenting the meeting, he was offered the opportunity to pursue the matter further through the company's official grievance policy but declined. The employee claimed he was explicit about the issues and was not made aware of the grievance procedure.

A few months after he left the company, he followed up with HR, claiming that he felt what he had experienced was "at best mildly-inappropriate, but at worst... a total abuse of [the senior employee's] power and verging on sexual harassment" in an email seen by BoF. In response, the junior employee was informed the individual had been provided with feedback and the company was considering "internally appropriate actions," according to an email seen by BoF. In reality, there seemed to be few actions taken in the aftermath of the incident.

Any type of harassment or inequality is totally unacceptable.

In May 2018, nearly a year after the incident, COS considered launching a formal investigation, apparently in response to concerns over legal action, according to an internal email viewed by BoF. Last spring, then Managing Director Marie Honda offered to meet with the junior employee directly after he posted a long account of his claims online. Eventually, he was referred to H&M group's global grievance team.

Last July, UK tabloid Metro ran an article in its online edition that addressed the allegations. Internally, it was a morale-sapping elephant in the room that was hardly acknowledged, according to four people who worked at the company at the time. Through a lawyer, the senior employee said he "entirely rejects the allegations as being false and defamatory of him and has indicated that that there are multiple sources to corroborate what he says." H&M group declined to comment on the individual matter. Honda did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

However, many of the employees who spoke with BoF claim they experienced or witnessed issues with bullying. They described the brand's executive culture as closed and nepotistic, despite its outwardly progressive and inclusive values like "one team" and "straightforward and open-minded."
Cleaning House
Parent company H&M group appears to be finally cleaning house with some of the recent changes; new leadership at the top could provide the refresh the brand needs. Lea Rytz Goldman, the former head of sister brand Arket, has stepped in to lead efforts to revamp COS, but re-energising the brand will be a challenging task.

Still, many people who spoke with BoF for this story were quick to praise the abilities of their colleagues in the trenches, suggesting the brand may still have the talent it needs to succeed. It helps, too, that COS can lean on the deep pockets and extensive infrastructure of its parent company to help its turnaround.

From a business perspective, "I think what we'll find with COS is an ability to try and redefine what it is isn't going to be so difficult," said Citigroup's Cochrane.

Goldman has extensive experience within the group, where she has previously run both Monki and Arket. Work has already begun to reinvigorate the brand and navigate through the current crisis.

Last month, she launched an internal workshop to plan out a new brand identity, aiming to modernise the company's look and feel while retaining its heritage. In an interview, Goldman said COS' digital transformation has accelerated as a result of store closures caused by Covid-19, but she is also betting on the company's network of physical stores to remain important points of contact and communication with customers.

According to retail data firm Edited, COS' online sales have picked up this year, with products selling out online in the UK faster than they did a year ago.

Changes and developments are needed in many parts of our business.

Meanwhile, Goldman said she's made creating a more inclusive culture one of her core areas of focus. COS has announced plans to establish a forum to allow employees to speak up on issues of racism or other forms of discrimination. It's establishing an internal working group to suggest and initiate further actions the company can take and reviewing its recruitment, development and retention processes.

"Any type of harassment or inequality is totally unacceptable," Goldman said. "Naturally we have policies and processes, and if they don't work, we have to reassess to really make it clear to the organisation and to act when or if things like this happen."

Whether these actions will prove more successful than previous diversity and inclusion initiatives will be a test of Goldman's leadership. The new managing director acknowledged that she will have to work to establish trust within the company.

"As a new leader, when you want to create an open environment and an inclusive culture, that takes time. And I, together with the leadership, have to create trust for people to be able to speak up," Goldman said. "I started in February and we are in a very challenging situation... I know changes and developments are needed in many parts of our business."
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