
The Secret World of Fast Fashion - imjk
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/secret-world-slow-road-korea-los-angeles-behind-fast-fashion-73956/?Src=longreads
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jamespitts
Before we fully fire up our value judgement engines (labeling this fast fash
phenomenon a race to the bottom, lacking in real progress, etc.) consider the
possibility that this article describes the very dynamic of economic progress.

Some attributes of this dynamic: Acceleration of efficiency via new forms of
risk-offsetting. Improvement of manufacturing process and distribution.
Finding edge through creativity and understanding the needs of who's buying.

And the progress is clear: a more sophisticated cultural environment that can
be enjoyed by more people than before.

Of course there are trade-offs; progress does not arrive on your doorstep
without some nasty side-effects. In the case of fast fashion, apparently: IP
theft. Environmental damage. Widening gap between the classes.

So why should this corner of the economy be judged any differently than the
layers of hyper-competitive tech companies in SF and SV, reacting to trends,
improving their manufacturing process, and pushing design new limits?

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _consider the possibility that this article describes the very dynamic of
> economic progress._

I agree. I'd even say that this article describes the point where economic
progress starts diverging from the reasons we want to have it.

> _Of course there are trade-offs; progress does not arrive on your doorstep
> without some nasty side-effects._

There's a moment when we should stop and ask ourselves if the side effects are
worth it, 'lest we humans get optimized out of the economy, which will
continue to run by itself on automation, without us being present, or alive.

> _So why should this corner of the economy be judged any differently than the
> layers of hyper-competitive tech companies in SF and SV, reacting to trends,
> improving their manufacturing process, and pushing design new limits?_

I don't think it shouldn't; SV nowdays is a fashion-driven industry after all
;).

------
nchlswu
What I find interesting is the forces that enabled this explosion are
potentially the same or similar forces that has enabled the development of
fashion that isn't necessarily "fast fashion" in a F21 or Inditex sense.

The sense of aesthetic, style consciousness and 'agility' makes it much easier
for startups like Frank & Oak or Everlane to exist. Arguably, you could
consider these companies Fast Fashion too. And then you get a company like
John Elliot + Co, a company that would be seen as a luxury line that says:

> “We can pull the trigger at a moment’s notice and get the wheels turning so
> that we can produce garments that are needed at a relatively quick
> turnaround time. That gives us a tremendous advantage.” [1]

Although garment manufacturing has by and large moved off shore, there's been
a little bit of a trend to bring things back here. Even if it is a race to the
bottom, there are still opportunities.

[1] [http://www.businessoffashion.com/2014/08/cult-menswear-
brand...](http://www.businessoffashion.com/2014/08/cult-menswear-brand-john-
elliott-co-growing-terms.html)

~~~
chiph
I've bought a few items from American Giant[1]. Their sizes are somewhere
between skinny and vanity, so the fit is usually pretty good. They're made in
the US, and the fabric is typically substantial (no thin cloth at inflated
prices).

My only beef is that they offer limited-editions a few times a year and I
receive the email notice too late to get one.

[1] [http://www.american-giant.com/](http://www.american-giant.com/)

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electromagnetic
Fascinating, but the loss of the three month production cycle really isn't a
sign of something good.

The TLDR here is that an explosion in low cost labour (Korean immigrant
garment makers) destroyed the established system by providing higher quality
goods for cheaper prices, but essentially in limited stock.

It's basically like Discount Flooring. I can buy Hardwood flooring for $6 a
sqft and I'm guaranteed I can buy enough to floor my whole house, better yet
I'm guaranteed I can come back in 6 months and get more. So I can buy enough
for my main floor and come back later for my second floor. This is how
clothing used to be. You could find a pair of jeans that fit you perfect and 6
months from now you could find the same pair.

Or I could go to a discount floorer, I get it at an amazing price $1.25 a
sqft. That's fucking phenomenal... max 150 sqft because that's their entire
stock. I can't floor my living room with 150 sqft. So to floor my entire house
I'm going to have 8 different styles of hardwood? No. But that's what my damn
dresser is. I've got jeans that are a dozen different styles and a dozen
different fits.

I've sworn off retailers because I can't wear their jeans for certain
activities. I've got a pair that I should have thrown out two years ago
because they fit great, but whenever I go to crouch it feels like I'm going to
hulk them because they're poorly tailored. So as long as I remain standing in
them, I'm golden.

It's even worse in shirts. I have a long torso for my height, which means I
can't let anyone buy me tshirts as gifts. My mum sent me a shirt for my
birthday, it hits my bellybutton.

The new trend of fast fashion isn't an improvement, it's turned it into a race
to the bottom. Gone are the days you could get quality clothing from any store
at any time. Now it's bargain hunting in big box stores. You have to get lucky
to even find anything worthy of paying that double discounted price.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
The stuff is all lower quality, not higher quality. It's junk that
disintegrates after three washes.

------
pm90
I sense a great amount of negativity in most of the comments here, with some
lamenting the demise of the 3 month production cycle, denouncing "cheap
immigrant labor" etc. Personally, I think this is a VERY positive change. Not
only does a fast production cycle mean lots of different designs, but lots of
different designs in limited numbers. So, we don't have the whole country
wearing the same shirt/jeans.

One thing I am concerned about is that the predominance of Koreans in the
market will keep other nationalities/races out. But I think the article
addresses this as well: the children of the immigrants, future leaders of that
industry, are pretty 'Americanized' and perhaps won't be so cliquey.

~~~
imjk
Though the article only briefly touches on it, the Koreans are far from having
a stronghold in the industry. With razor thin margins, the vast majority of
these businesses are in perpetually precarious situations. Many of these
businesses went belly up in the early 2000s as the industry became a race to
the bottom. This recent resurgence is the result of some of these family
businesses being able to win back some margin via the second generation being
able to acclimate themselves into American and overall high fashion society;
they're no longer just a commodity businesses but also the trend setters.
However, they're far from the only ones doing it. The chinese, in particular,
are starting to even outpace the Korean families.

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aaron695
Exciting stuff.

It's the kind of thing ultra smart, automated meta data collectors would be
looking at and predicting futures.

Will we see this sort of change across all industries and how will it effect
global markets.

I think people really underestimate the complete networks the internet makes
possible and how it will change global business.

How long before one month is too long.

------
dredmorbius
This isn't progress.

Increasingly, I'm seeing it as yet another form of market manipulation to try
to squeeze ever so much more money out of citizen's wallets.

Used to be I could identify a brand or style of clothing, find items which
fit, and return reliably to the same vendor repeatedly. This was my habit in
my teens, it remains my preferred mode in my 40s. And while I'm rarely accused
of being highly fashion conscious, I'm also not a slob (it really doesn't take
much to have a sense of style).

The first time I encountered a wholesale change in fashion was when the Gap
discontinued a line of jeans in the late 1980s. Being naturally gifted with
large thighs, an aviator cut worked exceptionally well for me (and yes, I also
miss parachute pants and Zoot Suits, thanks for asking).

After a bit of casting around, I turned up another store which carried a
consistent cut of jeans and wore those through the 1990s and most of the
2000s. For casual office wear, I'd discovered a few department and men's
clothing stores which carried reliable fits.

I had a line of black t-shirts with a nice cotton fabric and a subtly off-
black color which became a fave. Much as Steve Jobs bought a lifetime supply
of black mock-turtlenecks, I'd found my shirt for life (but failed to secure a
lifetime supply of them at the time, an error in judgment).

Pretty much all of that came to a crashing end in 2010. Numerous vendors
changed their sizes -- same brand and size which had previously fit (as
evidenced by what was in my wardrobe) now didn't, and in ridiculous fashion.
Virtually everything suddenly went "skinny", which is to say, less fabric, and
fabrics became very noticeably cheaper.

I first discovered this on one of my grab-and-dash shopping visits: walk into
store, pick up a few pair of jeans and shirts of proven reliable fit, pay,
head home (I'm pretty much the antithesis of a recreational shopper, malls are
torture palaces).

Pulling on the new duds for work the next morning I discovered I couldn't
breath. _Everything_ felt 2-3 sizes too small. I double-checked sizes, they
corresponded with what I'd bought in the past, pulled existing clothes out of
the closet, and returned to the store with my purchases for a full refund _as
they no longer produced items which fit me_.

It took over a dozen stops to find jeans and shirts which fit.

And given the "fast fashion" fad, I've got absolutely no assurance that I'll
be able to rely on those vendors in future.

Oh, and for those of you suggesting online shopping: SRSLY? For clothes, which
you wear next to your skin, for which fit, cut, finish, and feel are
absolutely crucial? Thanks, but no. Worse, with present levels of quality
control (and I suspect: highly variable producer sourcing), it's not even
sufficient to find a style which fits and order a count of those: you've got
to individually try on and examine every last damned item.

The result is I've gone from being a reliable customer happy to return to a
store repeatedly to one who treats every encounter as a hostile and
frustrating experience for which I'm not likely to achieve anything remotely
resembling satisfaction.

I've considered custom tailoring, though I've not gone that route yet, for
shirts and slacks. Though as I mostly wear t-shirts and jeans, the additional
cost is tremendous. It's actually _not_ so bad for some tailors I've explored,
though the one I'd earmarked for future items appears to have gone out of
business, and of course, I'd have needed to first see what they'd produce
(with ~6 weeks turnaround) rather than simply buying something off the rack
and having it altered (which has worked in the past).

What I don't understand is why with all the supposed advances in
personalization, there isn't an _affordable_ and _readily accessible, brick-
and-mortar_ service by which people can specify the clothes they want, have
measurements taken, and receive (with a satisfaction guarantee) clothes which
actually fit. There've been some noises about this in past, and there are
"made to measure" (which is _not_ the same as bespoke) "pop-up" tailors such
as Indochino -- the one time I'd found them in real life it was an absolute
zoo with ~60 minute wait simply to get into the storefront for measurement.

I'm not sure this is "ripe for disruption", but it's certainly rife with
disappointment.

~~~
hkmurakami
I guess I'm lucky that the shirts from Uniqlo, one of the fast fashion giants,
fit me quite well (though I have to go to Japan to buy them since I've heard
that the US sizes differ from the Japan sizes, naturally).

That being said, I had large thighs from my soccer days, so I get to
experience the bad side of the situation as well. I still don't have a very
good solution for jeans :(

~~~
Theodores
I have a feeling that if you and I were to go to the same party we could end
up being in the same clothes...

+1 for Uniqlo - they are in the UK too and you can go in there and get things
you already own, as in shirts exactly like the ones in your wardrobe back home
but not as faded.

However they did change their jeans sizes a couple of years ago so the
waistline area is no longer quite right and the thighs are a bit tight.

Although there is this thing called fast fashion, it really is for women who
want others to think 'what is she wearing?' on a daily basis. It is an
entirely separate market to 'predictable'. 'Predictable' is well catered for
in the UK, there is the likes of Uniqlo, and, for an even older generation,
there is Marks and Spencer.

Maybe such a retailer needs to invest some effort into 'slow fashion', where
fit and finish is guaranteed, you can get 'replacement parts' for your
wardrobe and maybe even get emailed every year or two to be reminded that it
is time to refurbish the sock collection etc. With everything done online and
sizes determined by initial purchases the 'hell' of the High Street could be
avoided.

~~~
hkmurakami
>Maybe such a retailer needs to invest some effort into 'slow fashion', where
fit and finish is guaranteed, you can get 'replacement parts' for your
wardrobe and maybe even get emailed every year or two to be reminded that it
is time to refurbish the sock collection etc. With everything done online and
sizes determined by initial purchases the 'hell' of the High Street could be
avoided.

What immediately came to mind was high end leather shoes, where you can
replace the soles, maintain the leather, and have them last for 10+ years.
It's the polar opposite of fast fashion.

~~~
calinet6
I would love a fashion brand such as Patagonia is for the outdoor style...
Very high quality, consistent, and they even still carry some of their styles
from the 70's and 80's nearly unchanged.

Something that hasn't been said is that this fast fashion is absolutely
unsustainable from an environmental and energy perspective. Low quality
clothing that is designed to literally not last more than a couple wears;
versus a Patagonia jacket that not only is made well enough to last a decade,
but also carries a lifetime warranty and a recycling guarantee... I'll take
the latter, please.

~~~
dredmorbius
There were a few such stores I'd shopped at, but between multiple take-overs
and fashion changes, they ultimately stopped carrying old styles and cuts.

There _is_ L.L. Bean and Lands' End, both of which have been _very_ consistent
over time, though I've found quality and finish of their clothing to be
somewhat variable in recent years as well. The fact that it's mail
order/online also makes sizing an issue.

------
peter303
"Fashion" is ironical in a geek blog. Nerds wear their uniforms of jeans and
hoodies for years until they wear out. That may be ten generations of fast-
fashion.

