How Fashion Brands Can Build Resiliency During the Pandemic

The pandemic has tested the longevity of many fashion brands and retailers. Here’s several ways in which fashion brands, big or small, luxury or mass, can become more resilient.

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Accept and implement new technology

In the fashion industry, luxury brands in particular, haven’t been a great acceptor of technology. The world is changing, more rapidly than ever before, but luxury brands tend to be very traditional businesses that cling to their history and heritage. Although these are the very qualities that made the luxury brand what it is today, many have been lacking in adopting and embracing new technologies like other segments in the apparel industry have, primarily for the purposes of attracting Millennials and Generation Z. Marketing expert and author, Brandon Roe agrees, “they're going to have to now, because we don't know how long Covid-19 is going to last. It might just be that we're going to have wave after wave after wave until there is a viable vaccine. And if they want to stay in business, they're going to have to adapt to a consumer that they really, at this point, can reach consistently through digital means."


Adopt to a new kind of economy

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In the past, there was a focus on the age of automation and the economy of corporations, and there was an emphasis on economies of scale, cost, efficiency, and analysis. But brands are now faced with a new economy--wherein products and services are individualized with the help of data and digitization. According to Design Engagement Lead at SAP AppHaus, Dr. Niz Safrudin, “now we're really in the economy of people where thanks to this age of digitization, there is this opportunity for... mass personalization. But also companies are able to be more revenue resilient and [put] more... focus on being more design intensive." 


Become transparent about the value of luxury products

Luxury consumers are changing their priorities as we navigate through this pandemic. “The first wave of the change started, you know, five, six, seven years ago when we saw luxury consumers becoming really concerned about the value they are receiving for the dollars they were spending. You know they were still spending at very high levels," said Kevin Thompson, CMO of the Princess Grace Foundation and former CMO of Sotheby’s International. The luxury consumer will continue to spend at very high levels, but instead of placing more emphasis on designer labels and names, consumers are looking towards the luxury and quality of the products, as well as how they’re made. Thompson also added, “I still want the beautiful things that I've always wanted, but I'm thinking more now about what goes into making them. And am I willing to spend my hard-earned dollars with a brand that is not thinking the same way that I am?” This is a question consumers are considering more and more nowadays.

To listen to the interviews mentioned above, please click the links below:

Brandon Roe

Dr. Niz Safrudin

Kevin Thompson

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Written by Maria Soubbotina



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