Sale season!

The status quo never dies

We entered the sale season and the entire industry, including the sustainability supporters, jumped into hard-discounting mode.

While it’s understandable that Covid impacted the market by leaving high inventories, it seems clear that the status quo wins.
The push to leave things as they are, keeping up with the usual producing and selling patterns, is stronger than the will to change.

The interests of the industry operators act intentionally to maintain the status quo. And the game is notorious: massive overproduction that corresponds to an omnipresent, gigantic distribution.

In order to sustain this system, mark-ups have gotten higher and higher.

Even those who launched “Rewiring fashion” did it following an outdated pattern, simply postponing delivery dates or sale seasons.
Is that the solution? Really?

Perhaps this means that nothing has to change.
Covid was not a lesson to learn but just an obstacle along the path. Rather than learning the lesson and changing strategy, they would prefer to sell all the stocked goods to any alien species. And maybe exploit a whole galaxy too.

Producing goods for the sale season

Producing goods to be sold during the sale season is the blind strategy of a sick market. A short-term solution that passes all the costs on to workers – by creating new slaves – and exploiting the planet.

If sustainability includes ethical work, giving a proper wage to those who make our clothes, then the sales aren’t sustainable.

Prices are often inflated to start with in order to accommodate the expected sales. No sales – means more realistic prices during the season, and therefore more affordable items.

We aim to see operators in the fashion field getting in touch to find new strategies to avoid sales. Connecting and collaborating in order to give value to the products, setting up a viable long-term strategy.

Furthermore, if they all talk about sustainability, they should also make it happen.

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Timeless: a mindful buying approach

Why now?

Timeless is a concept that has become quite popular in fashion nowadays. Why? And most of all, why now? Let’s dig deeper into this.

Timeless fashion – just as timeless design in general – refers to classic pieces: items conceived and made to last. But it also includes those pieces that feature such an innovative design that even after many years, they are still forward, always relevant. Evergreen, indeed. Those pieces end up being copied by other brands who feed themselves on the creativity of more advanced designers. And, if your eyes are a little bit trained, you can see where the inspiration of these items comes from.

Timeless fashion

Why now?
Now that the system has collapsed, we seek out ways to survive. Timeless is a good strategy because it gives worth back to clothing and its production system. Also, it opens us up to a more thoughtful way of consumption.

Timeless tells you to buy less but better. It is the opposite of disposable clothing, and the opposite of fast fashion.

However, we always promoted a vision of style that was more than consuming fashion trends quickly. And we did this from the very beginning of suite123, about fifteen years ago.
We mainly selected clothes having a certain stylistic content, never banal, with a good design, and made from beautiful materials. In fact, that is the essence of timelessness: items you can wear forever.

Now we are even more concentrated on this approach. Given the situation we are in, we firmly believe it is a mindful and appropriate choice.

The investment is higher, but it’s the only way to have clothes that last for a long time. A very long time if you treat them carefully. Timeless fashion is one of the steps we need to take to reduce our impact on the planet.

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The expiry date: fashion or mortadella?

Fashion communication – verbal, written and visual – has contributed to undermining the industry.
In a world where fast fashion became a synonym of luxury and other similar absurdities, we always feel the need to define what we say. Somehow, we need to restore the meaning in a state of general confusion.

Hysteric mass production led us to a broken industry incapable of selling all the tons of items they produce. Indeed, the surplus is burned, making room for the next manifestation of this insanity.

So, why do niche brands or even high-end designers subscribe to these practices? Why do they feel the need to hard-discount merchandise just a few months after its delivery to the stores, devaluing both products and the brand?

“This item is new now, but it’s going to be old in three months or less.” There is no consistency in that.

A devaluing communication

The poor language to attract consumers does not focus on worth but discounts or influencers:

PRE-SALE! – SALE! – Heavy discounts! – Black Friday! -60% -70%
Who offers less?!

“Today, with the influencers bad taste is everywhere.” – said Mr Valentino to “Il Messaggero”.

Herein lies a huge mistake in terms of communication, in the messaging of our industry.

When will fashion operators understand we are conceiving, producing, selling and communicating products born out of creativity. The moment we rediscover the value of that process, we’ll acknowledge the mistakes we made.

To deal with those products like they are milk or mortadella, treating them as products with a fast expiration date is not a brilliant idea.

We love mortadella, and we also believe it has a higher value than the majority of fashion products currently in stores. But, we think the actual value of the whole creative process has to be rediscovered and protected in making and communicating fashion. Like it is something meaningful, timeless, not something to get rid of as soon as possible.

What can we do to change?

Brands have to produce less, taking extreme care of the whole process.
Heavy discounts should disappear. They are not a healthy, long-term strategy.
People should consume less but better.

Let fast fashion do its work for what is cheap, for people who chose not to see. At the same time, let’s protect and celebrate the timeless value of creativity, quality, and craftsmanship. By using proper language to this end.

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Awareness, sustainability and style

How they are connected

Awareness, sustainability and style are somehow connected.

Creating awareness through style is the way we pursue sustainability and make a change. When you become self-aware, you dress in a specific way and pay attention to what you buy, how you act. Indeed, through your style, you communicate a message.

We mainly refer to fashion, although this concept applies to any activity that involves design: technology, furniture, lighting, pottery, architecture, art and all layers of our lifestyle.

You may have seen that sustainable brands are now blooming everywhere, so much that you have the impression of living in a wonderful world. In fact, the attention to this topic is so huge. The sense of caring stands out. But let’s dig deeper into what happens for real.

Sustainable brands

The majority of sustainable brands start their new projects simply to match the current marketing requests. Perhaps they wouldn’t sell or get attention without that magic label.
But there’s no regulation on this matter. And even if some certificates provided by the suppliers may exist, it’s easy to imagine what would happen.

Anyhow, by selecting only one eco-friendly material, they enter the universe of sustainable brands. For sure, someone will applaud them. By the way, the game is so easy that it’s worth giving it a try.

The result is a brand labelled as sustainable that, to be honest, is everything but sustainable. The umpteenth brand on the market, on an overcrowded, overpopulated, almost exploding panorama.

And so, creating awareness through style we can understand more about sustainability.

Now let’s be clear, the best way of being sustainable for a brand that shows a poor design, and doesn’t communicate any concept or any added value, is not doing it. That’s it.

Please, don’t do it. We don’t need more brands. We need better brands.

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Where do we find value?

In a world full of empty marketing claims, unclear production regulations and massive greenwashing, if you want to buy a product, it’s very hard to differentiate between what is worthy and what is not.

In this jungle, where do we find value?

Thoughtful design and quality

First, we need to define value; Thoughtful design, fine quality standards expressed through good materials and skilled manufacturing, together with ethical production.
Respect for people and the planet is the essence of modern evolved worth.

That said, we are perfectly aware it’s complicated to identify it. Here and there in our globalized jungle, we can see some lights.

Value: where do we find it?

We find the real value in small artisanal brands that feature a creative approach mixed with skilled craftsmanship and the selection of extra-fine quality materials.

We find value in up and coming or unconventional designers who show a high dose of creativity and innovation but talk to a limited audience because people see nothing but famous brands.
A good rule of thumb says the higher worth usually resides in the less popular brands or products.
The brands that everyone recognizes are rarely the best.

Those elevated products target a niche that has become smaller and smaller because the mainstream offers cheap products or top brands. In full disclosure, the state of some top brands is nothing exciting.
Advertising is doing a good job creating automatons that don’t even raise their eyes, manifesting a minimum level of curiosity.

Although we cannot imagine a world made of sublime products only, the opposite trend is tangible so far. If we analyze the state of culture, we can see that lowering the bar is the main trend. In fact, culture is not in good shape at all.

On the other hand, some individuals are different, never stopped reading or searching for unique things. They still think for themselves.
Being out of the mainstream, maybe people like us cannot invert the trend, not in the short run, at least. But, we should join and raise our voices in support of value because it’s time to stop celebrating mediocrity.

If we cannot invert the trend, we can still make a difference.

Where do we find value? Read More »