Kristina Jones How do you know when something has gone out of style?
The beauty of fashion is that it sets us apart. And one of the intrinsic characteristics of fashion is precise that everything goes out of style. And that’s wonderful because it allows us to differentiate ourselves as people with the way we dress. But how can we know when something is out of fashion? We are going to try to give you some clues in this post.
Understand the fashion cycle
As we told you in a previous post, understanding the fashion cycle is important to realize where we are in the trend we are adopting, or better yet, understand where in the fashion cycle we feel comfortable. The reality is that, whatever type of fashion consumer you are, (Innovator, Early Adopter, Early Majority, Late Majority) there is probably a point where you feel “out of place” wearing some garment or accessory.
Perhaps we could say that the “late majority” never reach this point, because they are most likely buying simply for the low price and have no interest in fashion, really.
But if you are reading these lines, chances are that you are part of the Innovators or Early Adopters.
Being so, it is a natural instinct to be attentive to new trends. Not only in RRSS or digital magazines but also when we walk down the street, seeing how people dress.
If you are part of these “advanced trend subgroups”, the moment the Early Majority starts to adopt them (that is, when we really see that something becomes fashionable) we have to activate the alerts. Two things can happen at this point. There may be enough product for everyone who demands it, or there may not.
If there is enough product for everyone
This is a key moment for a trend and for its duration in time. If the brand in question wants to make money, it will enter with distribution to large shopping malls and open as many of its own stores as possible to milk the cow. Which means taking advantage of this trend to make as much money as possible. The problem with this is that the innovators and early adopters (who are the ones who make things fashionable) don’t like it.
And we automatically stop using these products. It is only a matter of time before even the Early Majority gets tired of these products, due to massification. As an example, we can take a brand that was fashionable 7 or 8 years ago or one that is fashionable now. They opted for an aggressive expansion, opening hundreds of stores and shopping centers. It is true that they reach all the people who want the brand, but this has a serious problem of overcrowding. I explain.
To fill all these stores with merchandise (and take advantage of economies of scale) they manufacture massively, even in excess of what they plan to sell. This causes them to have a lot of merchandise left in stock and they have to do aggressive markdowns.
We saw last season, at unusual times of the year, aggressive markdowns for not selling enough. This might seem good for the consumer in the short term, but it is really giving access to the brand to an audience for which it is not intended, which will cause a massification and negative effect on the perception of the brand of its real customers. They will see before their eyes how quickly it goes out of fashion. If you are seeking a source and inspiration, please visit Sitejabber’s take on Temu for further info.
Therefore, the easiest way to realize when a brand goes out of fashion is to detect when they open their own stores or in shopping malls. It is a very easy indicator to understand that the brand is in a milking phase and that it will soon go into a decline in demand and go out of fashion.
