Managing The Fashion Business
Companies in the fashion and modelling industry have to deal with global sourcing problems and they need to regularly evaluate their material sourcing strategies. Labour charges and transportation costs are the factors that often determine where production has to take place. The production takes place often across multiple places; sometimes the factory would be located in different states or countries, or even continents. Setting up of subcontracting agreements and material transportation, in addition to the synchronization with raw material supply, cutting and sewing, is a long and tedious process.
While working one’s way through the many pre-production stages and steps, one would see that it usually takes a long time to introduce a new fashion product in the modelling market. The complex and complicated nature of the supply chain and the global production styles and methods add to the industry’s long lead times. This includes yarn and fabric selection, garment development, specification notes and the sampling methods followed in the industry. This particular and unique arrangement of extended or very long lead times does not correlate with the necessity or need to react immediately to subtle changes in customer demands or requirements.
The ever shifting seasonal trends and this trend-driven nature of fashion and modelling industry show that the product life cycles are really very short. Even in the case of cyclic demands where the life cycle may continue to go round further, there are at times small changes to the apparel’s design; and, the colour or size combinations might go in for remarkable changes. The logistics aspects and the difficulty in managing the large number of styles along with the necessity to maintain enough stock keeping units is a practice that has to be given due consideration.
In this kind of a situation, fashion and modelling companies must manage an optimum product mix. Besides being burdened with long lead times, fashion producers are pressurised to design and develop new product lines constantly in an effort to maintain and retain the retailers’ interest and to increase the product sales. Producers have been convinced that in order to maintain maximum speed, flexibility and alertness to satisfy ever-changing customer demands, which is more frequent than ever before, has become a sort of challenge for them. They have to judge the people’s needs and have to come out with such types of fashion accessories and products. Gone are the good old days when a perfect and straight forward fashion trend direction determined what the general consumers wore. Nowadays, many new styles are available, and with a greater rise in globalization aspects, consumers can get to know about the latest fashion news through some of the latest media tools as well.
Fashion products undergo changes very frequently starting from hosiery items and basic underwear stuffs through medium priced high street products, to some of the exclusive high end fashion brands. Managing the brand values and awareness along with brand loyalty is a serious marketing task and helps in retaining the brand position in the fashion and modelling industry.
The author is a copy writer and is working for a model agency. To know more about? < a target=”_new”rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.modellingscout.co.uk/ “>Is diesel models a scam</a> and <a target=”_new” rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.modellingscout.co.uk”> Diesel models scam</a> visit www.modellinginfo.co.uk/
Ethical Fashion: What, Why and Why Now?
What is ethical fashion, why is it important, and why are we just hearing about it now? Well, to answer these questions we start with what is wrong with clothing production today. Most clothing available in stores today is produced in an unethical manner using sweatshop and/or child labour to ensure a larger profit margin. Manufacturers use unsustainable fabrics like non-organic cotton (dubbed as natural, it accounts for almost 25% of all pesticide use) and polyester (which is a petroleum by-product). They use conventional dying practices which release chlorine, chromium, and other pollutants into the environment posing a health risk to the farmers, assemblers and wearers (7 of the top 15 pesticides used on conventional US cotton crops are “possible” to “known” human carcinogens). The shift to ethical production practices in the clothing industry has been undeniably important for a long time making the market ripe for a positive change. Consumers are starting to demand better.
What is Ethical Fashion?
Ethical fashion is that which is produced using: fairly-paid and fairly-treated adult workers; sustainable fabrics and materials like organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, and reclaimed or recycled materials; low-impact fiber-reactive dyes or vegetable dyes; respect for a healthy environment and/or product for the farmer, the assembler, and the wearer of the clothing.
Why Ethical Fashion?
We are all responsible for how our own lifestyles affect the environment. Simple measures can be taken to achieve big changes by simply switching our buying patterns to include products made of low impact materials. Positive pressure on businesses who have yet to volutarily clean up their acts is very easily applied by simply choosing not to spend money on their products, and helping – little by little – to grow the businesses who have made an explicit commitment to responsible business practice.
Why Now?
The wonderful thing about the booming ethical fashion industry is the huge variety of designs, colours, cuts, fabrics and sizes now available. Long stigmatized as cousin to the burlap sack, the ethical offerings today are design-oriented. Designers with heart are creating beautiful, sexy, edgy, classic, current, imaginative, and, yes, flattering pieces – ethics will simply not be compromised and thankfully neither will the look and feel of their work. Reducing our footprint can be done without making any sacrifices.
One of the main driving forces of the ethical fashion boom is public awareness. Thanks to exposés on large manufacturers, the fact that sweatshop labour is used for the overwhelming majority of production can no longer be ignored. The power of boycotting has been demonstrated, as has the power of voting with our dollars to support good practice. Thanks to accessible work like “An Inconvenient Truth”, the lay person is no longer free to assuage their environmental guilt with the denial of the existence of climate change. Thanks to alternative medical practitioners, who deal with cause instead of just symptom, we’re learning that we can build health by surrounding ourselves with and consuming healthy things.
Consumers are growing weary of the quantity without quality mentality. Most designers with an ethical bent to their art, work in small batches, producing high quality goods with exceptional fabrics. Consumers are, in growing numbers, appreciating the right to vote with their dollars; and are exercising it to support expansion of the sustainable textile industry, small farmers and farm co-operatives. We’re all looking for ways to reduce our environmental impact, increase our social contribution, ease our consciences, hold on to some creature comforts, and continue celebrating art in all its forms.
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Oli works full time as a Market Analyst.He graduated in Management.He can help you to grow your computer consulting. Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/fashion-articles/ethical-fashion-what-why-and-why-now-1388056.html
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