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"A pioneer of rental fashion is Rent the Runway- the first American company that started offering subscription-based fashion services in 2009. In a short time, the company grew rapidly by catering to the growing needs of a new consumer segment. It is currently valued at about $800 million and offers everything from eCommerce apparels to high-end, luxury clothing"
Just as companies like Lyft, Uber and Airbnb have popularised the concept of car rentals across the world, the concept of rentable fashion is also becoming popular in the apparel market. The CGS 2019 Future of Fashion & Retail Consumer Survey notes, around 72 per cent of global consumers today prefer to rent their clothes rather buying them. They are even willing to pay $50 or more to rent apparels on a monthly basis. This rising affinity for apparel renting has broadened consumer’s access to clothes that earlier faced limited choices.
Other reasons that have lead to a rise in rental fashion include increase in the number of formal occasions such as weddings or black-tie events, an opportunity to explore new trends and accessibility luxury or premium brands that would be otherwise be inaccessible. A recent research from Nottingham Trent University reveals, subscription and rental businesses work exceptionally well for such occasions as most consumers still spend on a few staple items instead of exploring the fast fashion trend.
Pioneers of rental fashion
The traditional fashion and apparel industry segregated consumer segments based on their economic status. However, the sharing economy blurs these lines by attracting a variety of customer profiles. It enables middle-income consumers to indulge themselves and satisfy their gratification for luxury goods. These consumers can now own high-end couture either for a special occasion or for even weeks of months. 
A pioneer of rental fashion is Rent the Runway- the first American company that started offering subscription-based fashion services in 2009. In a short time, the company grew rapidly by catering to the growing needs of a new consumer segment. It is currently valued at about $800 million and offers everything from eCommerce apparels to high-end, luxury clothing. Other companies like Le Tote, Gwynnie Bee, Tulerie and Armoire too have jumped on the rental bandwagon, though with a slightly different philosophy.
For instance, Tulerie allows users to rent clothes, shoes and accessories amongst themselves through an app. The company first interviews its prospective participants and then allows them to list products from a predetermined designer list. This list includes established brands such as Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and upcoming trendy brands like Monse, Tibi and Zimmerman.
The advantages of such subscription-based services extend beyond cost. They enable consumers to express greater individualism and explore emerging non-commercial trends. This leads to enhanced support and patronage to boutique labels and designers, which improves the health of the industry overall.
A guilt-free shopping experience
A recent survey ‘CGS 2019 Retail and Sustainability’ revealed, around 68 consumers emphasise on sustainability in their products while purchasing them. The sharing economy will help these consumers in making their decisions as subscription-based models offer customers greater choice besides reducing the impact of the industry on the environment. They also foster a circular model which enables brands to provide fashion-conscious youngsters a guilt-free shopping trip.
The global denim jeans market is adopting organic cotton in a big way. Denim is on a sustainable journey that touches on every step from fiber and dyes, to finishes and trims. In 2019, mills turned their attention to developing indigo-dyed fabrics that consume less natural resources and use efficient finishing technology. Italian denim mill Berto introduced Sky, a new indigo cast that uses pre-reduced indigo, allowing brands to wash down to a lighter shade while using less water and chemicals. And Prosperity Textile was among the mills that dabbled in indigo-free denim with authentic wash-downs. The mill’s collection features a proprietary eco dyeing technology that is aniline-free, hydrosulfite-free and saves 60 per cent water.
Interest in non-traditional colors also widened the playing field for more sustainable dye techniques. Maritas Denim from Turkey showcased a product line made with clay-based pigments. The resulting earth-hued fabrics use 80 per cent less water, 35 per cent less energy and fewer chemicals than traditional dyeing systems. Tonello debuted a 100 per cent eco-sustainable dyeing system that uses only organic and compostable raw materials. The process uses plant and vegetable waste such as flowers, berries and roots, which are dried and infused with no chemical additives.
Authentic Brands Group has purchased Barneys three months after Barneys filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Luxury retailer Barneys has nearly a century-long history and has enjoyed a position of prestige as a provider of the finest luxury apparel. However, Barneys has not been immune to market conditions. Barneys has stopped e-commerce transactions on its websites.
Changes are happening in the US luxury retail space. LVMH has reached an arrangement to purchase Tiffany. The transaction is forecasted to close in the middle of next year. LVMH has amassed a sizable luxury brand portfolio in various retail sectors, from perfume to fashion. Its famous brands include Dom Perignon, Moët & Chandon, Louis Vuitton and Givenchy. Last year, the global jewelry market rose seven per cent. Tiffany is one of the biggest jewelers in the world. LVMH is looking to develop this brand with dedication and commitment.
E-commerce luxury reseller The Real Real went in for an initial public offering earlier this year. The company priced its shares above a target range. Used footwear, clothing and accessories represent a $10 billion market in the United States. At the same time, interest from young consumers who are conscious about sustainability has provided an opportunity for the industry.
Brands are experimenting with blockchain platforms. Blockchain is a decentralized database. This means it doesn’t live on any one computer. The digital ledger technology is designed to be immutable, rendering it nearly impossible to tamper with without leaving a trace. This is a critical milestone in the movement toward verifying where raw materials come from and how they are produced.
Some of retail’s and tech’s biggest names are trying to figure out how blockchain can get their supply chains under control. Alibaba is looking into how blockchain can work with other technologies, like cloud and Internet of Things, to create an industrial brain and facilitate the flow of cross-border goods, while Target is also investigating distributed ledger technology for use in its sprawling supply networks. Cellulose fiber producer Lenzing has undertaken a blockchain-based traceability pilot that monitors the journey of the Austrian firm’s tree-based raw materials from source to store. Apparel and footwear customers have successfully been tracing their goods with German blockchain startup Retraced’s platform.
Consumers are demanding greater transparency into the products they wear and are driving fashion brands to focus on assuring shoppers of an item’s ethical origin. Less than five per cent of the top 250 apparel brands can track their garments back to the fiber origin.
Reebok’s maternity collection offers options for an active lifestyle, including hitting the gym or running errands. To start with, the collection will include leggings and tank tops in sizes XS to XL, with high-stretch fabric. The core products, the Lux Maternity Tight and the Seamless Maternity Tank, are both built with softness, comfort and support in mind. The collection debuted with black and navy, but the company intends to offer more color choices soon. The goal was to create comfortable, supportive apparel for the active woman at every stage of her life. The collection is aimed at keeping moms-to-be feeling empowered and confident during any activity, whether they're at the gym or at work.
Maternity segment of the women’s market has traditionally been underserved. Maternity wear has become trendy, stylish, form-fitting, and designed to highlight a woman’s curves during pregnancy. The Asia-Pacific region is showing the strongest growth. Finding decent maternity wear is a challenge. As well as a perceived lack of glamour, many brands are reluctant to give headspace to maternity ranges, knowing that most women won’t spend much on clothes they will only wear briefly. But savvy brands are creating investment pieces designed to live long beyond pregnancy – and be worn by people who are not pregnant at all.
ICFIM (International Conference on Fashion Industry and Management) will be held in Thailand, February 3 to 4, 2020. ICFIM aims at bringing together leading academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of the fashion industry and management. It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of fashion industry and management. Prospective authors contribute to and help shape the conference through submissions of their research abstracts, papers and e-posters. The event will feature high quality research contributions describing original and unpublished results of conceptual, constructive, empirical, experimental, or theoretical work in all areas of fashion and management. Abstracts, papers and e-posters will address themes and topics of the conference, including figures, tables and references of novel research materials.
The International Research Conference is a federated organization dedicated to bringing together a significant number of diverse scholarly events for presentation within the conference program. Events will run over a span of time during the conference depending on the number and length of the presentations. With its high quality, it provides an exceptional value for students, academics and industry researchers.
The Israeli textile digital printing company Kornit has doubled its market cap. Looking for revenue growth, Kornit launched new products, expanded geographically, and expanded its workforce and its production capacity.
Kornit produces digital printing systems for printing on textiles (both the printers and the ink). Its share price has doubled in the past year. Kornit offers fashion and textile industry players the possibility of producing on-demand when they receive orders, and not according to forecasts, in a sustainable way, without waste or water. Its systems create no pollution. Even at the level of volatile organic compounds, it wants to reach a level of zero emissions. Kornit’s aim is to take a two per cent share of a market consisting of fifteen billion printings annually (mainly on shirts and trousers). This acceleration is based on the launch of new products with new applications and bringing new customers. This has taken Kornit into the fast growing field of printing on polyester. In addition the company has expanded its activity in Asia and Europe, and switched to direct management in the US. Another factor is the company’s entry into the brands market. All major brands use Kornit’s technology, whether through direct purchases of systems or through third parties.
GTE (Garment Technology Expo) will be held in New Delhi, January 10 to 13, 2020. This is India’s largest and most comprehensive exhibition on apparel and knitting technology. It is one of the most trusted brands as far as exhibitions related to garment technology are concerned. The biggest industry show in South Asia, it aims at offering a complete sourcing platform to apparel manufacturers. The exhibition will focus on a wide range of garment machinery, accessories and support services from India and different parts of the world. GTE provides a unique world-class B2B platform to its participants.
Initiated in 2001, this strategically structured industry platform has seen a journey of progressive growth and patronage. For this edition the show will focus on the latest technology, live demonstrations, and new product launches. The show is going to be environment-friendly with minimum use of plastic material and wastage.
India’s garment industry comprises over one lakh units and employs about six million workers, both directly and indirectly, in almost equal proportion. The indirect portion helps to sustain the direct production sector in the shape of items associated with garment industry production including sewing/embroidery threads, buttons, buckles, zippers, metal plates, cardboard sheets, plastic butterflies and packaging material.
Nike's sales have risen 13 per cent this quarter from 10 per cent in the previous quarter. The company notched accelerating sales gains heading into the holiday shopping season. Success was broad based, with an eight per cent spike in footwear sales helping to push revenue higher by five per cent in the core US market. In China, revenue jumped 23 per cent with continued spiking e-commerce demand. The strong topline growth was amplified by gross margin expansion and significant expense leverage.
Nike has been spending more cash in areas like technology and marketing to press its advantage in the industry. Yet management has also been cutting costs elsewhere, including by boosting efficiencies in manufacturing and its supply chain. Combined with healthy pricing trends, those successes allowed operating income to jump 25 per cent. A lower tax expense translated into a 35 per cent spike in earnings per share. E-commerce spiked 38 per cent. Consumers are increasingly choosing to buy directly from Nike rather than from one of its retailing partners. The bright spots for Nike are the Chinese market and the retailing apps. Nike made a few adjustments to its short-term outlook that, while seemingly negative at a glance, actually point to continued positive momentum through the holiday season.
Performance sportswear often overlapped with streetwear in the past 18 months. Luxury designers and brands collaborated with sportswear companies to introduce new trends and styles. A prominent example of this is Virgil Abloh the Creative Head of Louis Vuitton menswear section who collaborated with French football player Kylian Mbappe to design his football boots
Performance sportswear often overlapped with streetwear in the past 18 months. Luxury designers and brands collaborated with sportswear companies to introduce new trends and styles. A prominent example of this is Virgil Abloh the Creative Head of Louis Vuitton menswear section who collaborated with French football player Kylian Mbappe to design his football boots.
With comfortable, form-fitting pants being increasingly worn by women every day, athleisure trends dominated the beginning of this decade. Joggers began to be adapted from sportswear staples such as sweatpants, and featured an elastic cuff, swapping out cotton for more casual fabrics. As a survey by NPD reveals, Athleisure sales reached $48 billion in 2018 and will continue to grow throughout 2021.
Brands/designers launched new styles
American designer Kanye West, who quit Nike and joined adidas in 2014, launched the YEEZY range of sneakers in 2015 with countless original silhouettes and colors following. The brand has been able to keep the style relevant through continuous innovation in its design and style. West’s collaboration with the brand Adidas further inspired Nike’s collaboration with designer Virgil Abloh, which has till now launched 40 sneakers and several apparel collections. The collaboration has changed the scale at which brands and external collaborators work together.
Changing the concept of football jersery, Paris Saint-Germain and Jordan Brand’s strategic partnership led to the Parisian football club swapping out Nike’s Swoosh for the Jumpman logo on special Champions League jerseys in 2017. The styles immediately became a status symbol as were seen on by Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner,etc. The collaboration legitimised PSG as a lifestyle brand and gave Jordan Brand a way into an entire market.
London-based skateboard brand Palace collaborated with Adidas to launch a Palace x adidas Wimbledon collection, which was worn by women’s singles winner Angelique Kerber. The brand also outfitted Juventus as well as Cristiano Ronaldo with a special-edition jersey and matching training gear.
The Nigerian home jersey for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia almost overshadowed the nation’s performance at the tournament itself. The jersey’s announcement spread like wildfire online and the initial drop sold out almost everywhere, with some jerseys even being resold for absurd amounts.
Players at the recent NBA tournaments attempted to outshine each other with wilder outfits. These players soon became the walking billboards for brands and stylists and helped spawn social media accounts whose sole purpose is to chronicle NBA fits. The interest around what these players are wearing is currently at an all-time high which indicates their increasing prowess.
Luxury brands turn to streetwear
The transition of luxury fashion to casual sportswear and streetwear culminated in many new collaborations like Supreme’s collaboration with Louis Vuitton, Dior’s collaboration with the Jordan Brand and Prada’s collaboration with Adidas.
Chunking designs inspired by hiking and trail running became the biggest footwear trends in 2018. Outdoor brands such as Salomon or Hoka One stepped up their collaborations with celebrities with utility being at the center of this streetwear zeitgeist.
In an attempt to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon Nike also launched its Breaking2 project in 2016. The brand chose three elite runners – Eliud Kipchoge, Zersenay Tadese, and Lelisa Desisa – to run in a private race in Italy in 2017.
