over 5 years ago
Following our previous article: Do not underestimate Fashion, Part1, here is another aspect of fashion and its industry we should not forget: Fashion is business.
As previously mentioned, fashion is one of the most important and profitable industries in the world. Not only thanks to the £32bn, the sector added to the economy last year but also thanks to its workers.
900,000 people are working for the UK fashion industry, and when we talk about workers, it covers a lot more positions than you think.
Firstly, let's talk about the most famous of all - Models.
Yes obviously, Fashion is all about its models and their catwalk, but it also means hairdressers and makeup artists, photographers and journalists specialising in fashion. All of them greeted by an event team which is part of an agency or part of the brand head office.
If we all know about fashion, it's also thanks to marketing and communication teams, working alongside PR teams and financial teams.
Then designers' work is available for you, in your shops.
Marketing and communication teams will promote the designer's work so you will want to come and see what's the new trend. As soon as you arrive, you will be charmed by the merchandising team's work, listen to a sale assistant's wise advise and try on some products. Those products are made by pattern cutters, garment technologists but also buyers, account managers and more.
The fashion industry is not only about sparkles and show but solid teamwork. More than ever, fashion is creating new jobs. Social media is so important in our everyday life; fashion needed to be part of it.
Being a fashion marketer or expert in social media in fashion became a random job.
And, because social media is generating a lot of money and fashion brands are always setting trends, another kind of role has been creating. Welcome to the magical world of influencers.
Starting with people loving fashion or makeup and sharing their point of view, tips and passion; it turned into people being paid to promote products through their personal experience.
To make sure influencers get the best deals, they work with agencies which deal with contracts for them. Agencies negotiate everything before you see it on your phone screen. Not only there to protect influencers, they also find brand and product to promote.
It can come across as pointless but social media is a huge market.
As our dependence on social media grows, and it becomes more integrated into our lives, we’re becoming more influenced by what we see online than ever before — especially when it comes to fashion.
For example Instagram, the platform gets 800 million users with 500 million people using the app every day and sharing 250 million contents every day. Instagram is now a natural showcase for the fashion world.
No longer do fashionistas rely on the latest issue of Vogue to tell them what’s hot this season. On the whole, millennials are thought to be less trusting of traditional forms of advertising, often perceived to be over-planned and misleading. Marketing needed to change, and fashion has been the first to use new tools.
Globally #fashion is mentioned 13 million times a month and #ootd (outfit of the day) is featuring in 140 million posts to date.
New technology also means new jobs. Nowadays, people are more likely to make an online purchase which means brands need a website to promote their themselves but also an e-shop to allow customers to purchase. Your delivery arrived thanks to a web designer, a web developer, an e-commerce team following a web marketing and e-commerce strategy. Then, their great work will be sent to a warehouse where stock controllers and their team will dispatch your orders.
All in all, fashion is doing a lot of business. Many people are working in the industry directly or not. As it is one of the most active sectors, it will keep being part of our everyday life into the future.
As futile as people think fashion is it is actually a well organised and innovative sector.