PROFIT
Traditionally, in a business sense, profit refers to the difference between total revenues and total costs -however, this differs from business to business as some businesses are not solely focused on profit making as a means to justify their success.
The fashion industry is a mass produced, saturated, and dynamic industry worth $1.5 trillion in 2021 with demand being very high (Smith, 2022). It is an industry that is made up of various sectors including textile design and production, fashion design and manufacturing, fashion retailing and merchandising, media and marketing (Fashion Academy, 2021). The pandemic in 2020 caused these disruptions to these sectors and forced fashion brands to alter the traditional cycle of production, manufacturing, distribution and retail. Many brick and mortar stores have seen a massive decline in sales due to their lack of an online presence and closure periods (fig.1) leading to their extinction such as Debenhams and Topshop. Although many consumers started to shop online, their demand was not caught up with some online retailers as they struggled to “keep pace”. The e-commerce sector risked lots of disruptions due to reduced staff, social distancing, site cleaning and much more (Baum et al, 2020) leading to consumers having to wait for long periods of time to receive their orders. Many fast fashion brands like Missguided and Pretty Little Thing experienced a ‘boom’ during the pandemic due to the rapid rise of microtrends on TikTok which consumers wanted to participate in.
Figure 1 -graph predicting companies that may face monetary challenges depending on closure periods
During uncertain times, such as the Covid-19 pandemic or current recession we are experiencing, it may be very difficult for brands to stay afloat and remain competitive especially when customer confidence is low. In order for fashion to stay competitive they may have to utilise social media to their advantage such as blogging. Blogging has become very popular in recent years and many businesses have started to notice the significance of blogging such as Vogue Magazine; fashion brands can seep many rewards when working with a blogger such as engagement, reach, and even a potential increase in seales (Mitterfellner, 2019).
For many people, bridging the gap between art and commerce can be seen as a challenge, however, in the fashion world it should not be seen as much of a challenge especially since fashion is art in a sense. When the two concepts (arts and commerce) combine together, many opportunities open as collaborators and businesses come together to create fashion products.
REFERENCES
Colleen Baum, Pamela Brown, Emily Gerstell, and Althea Peng, 2020 -‘Perspectives for North America’s Fashion industry in a time of crisis’
Fashion Academy, 2021 -’What is the fashion industry?’
Mitterfellner, 2019 -’Fashion Marketing and Communication: Theory and Practise Across the Fashion Industry’
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/reader.action?docID=5981798
Smith, 2022 -’Global apparel market -statistics and facts’
https://www.statista.com/topics/5091/apparel-market-worldwide/#topicHeader__wrapper