Profit Blog
The Profit Pillar is a crucial part of the study of psychology in the fashion industry, it highlights the importance of commerce and economics in the industry. An interesting part of this pillar is the relation between Creativity and Commerce, including the supplying, the retailing, the business model and the brands identity all leading to profit.
1.53 trillion US dollars were estimated to be the market’s total revenue globally. However this estimate is predicted to increase rapidly in the coming years due to the rise of retail capitalism influencing society’s daily spending habits (Smith,2023).
Discount and luxury brands outperformed the general market in 2020 despite a decline in margins, but the midmarket was still under pressure (Mckinsey, 2022). During much of 2021 and 2022, the global fashion sector saw a fast recovery. However, hopes of a sustained rebound can swiftly change in today’s unstable market. The majority of fashion executives are pessimistic about the coming year and believe that a variety of issues would severely affect their companies and clients (Amed,2023).
Brands need to establish multiple key skills and actions to remain competitive in these currently uncertain economic times. These skills represent establishing a strong brand identity and including a developed brand anatomy which englobes product, story, community, retail and digital. Technology is becoming so present in today’s industry it is now required to grow as a brand to include end to end technologies, digital supply chains, as well as understanding consumer focused technologies and the back end needs to be digital (Berg, 2022).
The gap between creativity and commerce highlights where a brand needs to invest in its true artistic identity to lead to profit, but is that want for creativity truly sincere or is it only focused on profit? An important part of this are the creative directors, they manage the creative design process as well as their teams. Creative directors have a vision and their team is present to accomplish that vision but that vision needs to generate revenue which is how superiors will evaluate the creative directors performance. They bridge the gap between creativity and commerce by highlighting a responsibility for artistic processes and visions that need to result in economic success, which can be challenging (Mitterfellner, 2023).
Overall profit is a key part of the fashion industry but in some cases it is becoming the principal driving factor of brands which takes away any creative expression thus reducing the fashion industry to its capitalist form rather than a way to explore creativity and art.
References
Amed, I. (2023). The State of Fashion 2023. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/retail/our%20insights/state%20of%20fashion/2023/the-state-of-fashion-2023-holding-onto-growth-as-global-clouds-gathers-vf.pdf
Berg, A. (2022, June 23). How current global trends are disrupting the fashion industry | McKinsey. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-current-global-trends-are-disrupting-the-fashion-industry
McKinsey. (2022, November 29). The State of Fashion 2023: Holding onto growth as global clouds gather. McKinsey; McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/state-of-fashion
Mitterfellner, O. (2023) Luxury Fashion Brand Management and sustainability: Unifying fashion with sustainability. New York: Routledge.
e-book: https://libsearch.arts.ac.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac- detail.pl?biblionumber=1546849&query_desc=kw%2Cwrdl%3A%20Mitterfellner
Smith, P. (2023, August 31). Global apparel market – statistics & facts. Statista. https://www.statista.com/topics/5091/apparel-market-worldwide/#topicOverview