quality over quantity

Understanding The Fashion System

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Reading Time: 4 minutes

The truth behind sales & markdowns


Understanding the fashion system involves exposing the hidden environmental costs of frequent fashion promotions and sales. Aiming for sustainability in the fashion industry is critical to saving the planet.

Sales used to occur at the end of the season only. But now, promotions and markdowns are frequent. What’s changed in the fashion industry? Since fashion became finance and brands became properties of corporations, profit has been the only logic guiding the fashion industry. Corporations use overproduction to maximise profit; sales are part of the game.

The negative impact of fashion sales


Sales apparently are a way to get a deal on clothing and other products. But, they contribute to a bigger problem in our society: the value of clothing and the labour that goes into making it is not recognised. In other words, sales devalued product quality and labour.

Sales perpetuate an unsustainable production cycle that harms our planet. To support this profit-driven system, they fuel impulsive buying, encouraging people to buy things they don’t need. Additionally, when brands play a pricing game with their products, it can call into question their credibility. On the one hand, brands praise the value of their products. But a month later, this value has halved. Who are they kidding?

However, overconsumption and overproduction are two faces of the same coin: capitalism, an economic system that values profits above all else. 

Despite the apparent fascination, thinking individuals should consider the detrimental impact of sales on the planet and people. With overproduction and fashion waste visible from space, the fashion industry significantly contributes to climate crises, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. In fact, the recent UN guidelines underscore the urgent need to combat unsustainable consumption patterns.

The call is clear: curbing overconsumption. To do so, we must acknowledge sales and frequent markdowns as symptoms of a profit-oriented system that harms our environment. But, to find solutions, first, we must grasp how the fashion system operates.

The fashion system: who does it work?


Understanding the fashion system means analysing the upstream negotiations. Brands pressure retailers to meet escalating budget demands each season (minimum amount or quantity). That leads to excessive purchasing beyond actual retailers’ demand. To ensure profits for brands, retailers buy more than they can sell, leading to overstock.
Excess inventory drives up retail prices because most quantities of merchandise are sold only during sales. So, higher prices throughout the season partially cover this loss.
Lastly, overstock forces retailers into a cycle of frequent discounts and promotions, aiming to encourage more purchases from end consumers.

This interconnected cycle of consumption and production cannot be rectified by addressing only one aspect without considering the other. In this context, we cannot trust brands who preach sustainable fashion.

Solutions: sustainable fashion practices


Sustainable fashion practices for retailers: Stop The Sales! 

• Reduce the quantities of clothing and accessories ordered per season. If brands do not accept lower orders, do not buy from them. By preventing overstock, retailers can maintain fair prices throughout the year. Both retailers and consumers would benefit from this.
• Refrain from excessive discount events like Black Fridays, promotions, and sales. Customers are no longer willing to buy at the true value of a garment.
• Educate consumers to prioritise quality over quantity, investing in durable, timeless pieces and understanding the value behind their purchases.

What Consumers Can Do: be agents of change!

• Don’t contribute to the climate crisis. Change the system: make conscious choices. 
• Buy less, much less during the season. Take only quality items that complement your existing wardrobe; reuse clothes.
• Avoid trendy items; embrace a timeless aesthetic that transcends fleeting fashion. Remember, quality endures – good design transcends trends. It doesn’t have an expiry date.

Ultimately, sales aren’t sustainable. Understanding the fashion system, how brands’ pressure on retailers drives over-purchasing, inflates retail prices, prompting endless discounts, and addressing both consumption and overproduction, is vital for impactful change.

At suite123, we prioritise good design, timeless fashion, and conscious consumption. And we care about people and the planet. Therefore, we do not endorse sales. 

Let’s make conscious decisions about what we consume, nurturing a sustainable world for generations to come.

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A Quiet Act of Rebellion

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

Our fashion story beyond the beaten path


Our stance at suite123 is a quiet act of rebellion against the fashion industry’s dominant business model.

The fashion system relies on relentless overproduction and manipulative marketing strategies. Despite mounting evidence of the industry’s devastation on the environment and despite the unmeasurable fashion waste, brands keep making large quantities of new clothes. And shops continue to order endless varieties of clothing from these brands. Likewise, people keep purchasing and discarding clothes. Nothing ever changes. The only thing that changes is labels. Now, garments are labeled as sustainable just to play with illusion.

Fashion rebellion #formodernhumans


So, at suite123, we rebel against corporations that talk the talk but fail to walk the walk.
And we rebel against the masses who follow the carnival barkers blindly, contributing to perpetuating a system that exploits workers. This system, in turn, depletes the masses’ rights, yet they refuse to see it. In fact, despite the information available, most people ignore it and keep supporting the very brands exploiting people and the planet.

We are not a big corporation. On the contrary, we are a tiny independent boutique that operates on a private shopping pattern. An experiment outside the norm in the fashion universe.

Thoughtful design, independent creators, limited productions


Our rebellion lies in endorsing thoughtful design, independent creators, and advocating for limited productions. Also, educating people and encouraging the choice of a select few quality pieces over mindless accumulation. In other words, we advocate for limited quantities of quality garments for a tiny niche of individuals who are free thinkers.

For the new year, our dedication persists in seeking creativity, good design and quality to curate a limited selection that encapsulates true essence. It’s about less, much less, but better. No gimmicks, no endless arrays of clothing, and no false claims of sustainability. Also, no carnival barkers to fill you with pointless stuff. Instead, a meticulous curation of meaningful garments, unwavering in its value.

Rather than conforming to a fashion system that screams, we thrive in quiet working. Being aware of how our model is somewhat revolutionary in an industry flattened by business logic, we persist with our quiet act of rebellion.

In a world of fashion noise, we choose the quiet revolution of mindful curation and quality over quantity.

We invite you to join us on this journey!

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Education To Value

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

How to survive in a world of destructive overproduction


Going from “fashion is dead” to a style rebirth as the reflection of a thoughtful lifestyle involves a renewed education to value. Which, in an era of devastating overproduction and immense confusion, takes time, a lot of time. Also, patience and humble work–getting rid of pointless stuff. And silence rather than loudness and obsessive presence. Because it can be ok to post on social media, but for instance, if designers’ voices speak louder than their product, they are not for us.

The paradox of sustainability


Paradoxically, because of sustainability, buzz increased, yet no change ever happened. Noise, just a lot of noise. Who’s the greenest one? The show is on, but the conversation is demeaning. Thanks to green capitalism, in fact, many individuals found new job opportunities even though it has nothing to do with being sustainable. It’s about making money, not making change. Apart from climate activists, sustainability and green capitalism turned out to be a profitable bandwagon.

Indeed, green brushstrokes seemed very cool. And what’s absurd is that most people buy into it.

Therefore, from the perspective of seeking value and offering value, favouring interactions in smaller communities seems more effective than social media screaming. More real, more human. Fake conversations lead nowhere.

Education to value: what does it mean?


How can you educate yourself to value?
Start by avoiding mass production, mass tourism, and intensive farming. Specifically, in fashion, rediscovering value means developing an understanding and appreciation of good design, as well as learning about quality and artisanal craftsmanship.
Respect workers’ rights and human rights, and care about whether workers receive fair wages.. Above all, it’s essential to work within the planet’s means.

It involves the need to eliminate the garbage that brands try to sell, and not wanting to be part of a system that wants to promote it. Rather than buying pointless stuff, buy nothing at all.

Break the moulds.
Escape marketing slogans,
Search for quality, not quantity.
Because education to value means learning that less is more, even if the rest of the world still follows another direction.

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Tailoring vs Mass Products

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

Valuing quality over novelties


Tailoring has nothing to do with mass products. Indeed, they are two worlds apart. Why is it important to make this point clear? Because what and how we buy, is connected to the change we want to make. In fact, it’s about promoting a cultural shift far from the novelty-obsessed fashion industry. To this end, changing the perspective of what we consider new is crucial.

Mass products: ready to wear and trendy items


With the term mass products, we identify the “production of large quantities of a standardised article by an automated mechanical process.” Specifically, in the fashion industry, we call it pret-a-porter or ready to wear. In other words, mass-produced clothing with an average price range. Both top brands and the “average market” garments are mass-produced.

You can call these garments new because they come from a new collection, a current season, or a new delivery. But that doesn’t imply specific quality standards. Nor anything significant in the context of climate change.

Ready to wear is trendy based, cheaper to manufacture and convenient for the consumer. But this business model has reached a tipping point. In fact, the impact it has on the planet is devastating and undeniable. Mass-produced clothing is the result of capitalism, an economic system based on the exploitation of people and the planet’s resources. Since this system believes in endless growth, it fosters overconsumption in the shape of trendy items pushing people towards novelty obsession.

Tailoring: quality over quantity


On another level, we find tailoring. Which means pieces manufactured by artisans, made by skilled hands. Therefore, clothing from ateliers or small realities. They would provide good quality in limited quantities reducing fashion waste.

While mass products change continuously, offering new items that last a breath of wind, tailored garments focus on quality and artisanal workings. In fact, their designs don’t change that much over time. You don’t buy them because they’re trendy, but because you’ll wear them for a lifetime.

Most importantly, tailoring brings an added value, mass products, instead, represent the perpetration of a destructive system.

What if what we call “new” is actually wrong?

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Quiet Luxury: Brands With No Logo

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

Tired of logomania?


Fashion style shifts towards quiet luxury, or brands showing no logo. Indeed, the world is flooded with exposed brand names, overwhelming communication, and excessive oversupply of clothing. It’s simply too much. And people end up seeing logos everywhere, to the point of making them feel sick. Perhaps this saturation is finally prompting some to change their perspective.

Logomania vs quiet luxury


The logomania represents the triumph of capitalism in the fashion system, which fostered a consumerist and shallow taste. Logos are easy to market because they are recognised easily, and people identify with them. Although these items still have a big market in the fashion industry, some people are getting tired. Indeed, logo-emblazoned pieces provide (fake) status symbols rather than true style. This has sparked a growing desire for understated luxury—one that moves away from the need to show off.

Quality over quantity


Since the pandemic shifted our perspective of the world, climate change has become a priority. Consequently, our approach to fashion evolved too. We are not involved in trends anymore, but this understated style resonates with us. In fact, it’s nothing new! It’s the vision of fashion we have promoted for years.
This conscious approach implies a dramatic reduction of consumption, refusing standardised clothing and mass production. However, to us, it’s not a way to sell more. On the contrary, it’s a radical choice that goes to the essential. It’s about quality over quantity, choosing good design, timeless pieces you’ll wear for a lifetime. In a few words it means: buy less, buy better.

Quiet luxury: style, not logos


Quiet luxury is a minimal chic style, but it doesn’t refer to basic garments only. Developed around the concept of less is more, this evolved luxury is about wardrobe staples with a strong sense of design. In other words, accurate silhouettes, quality fabrics, and exquisite tailoring, assembled to depict a sense of elegant ease.

Ultimately, quiet luxury is minimalistic, modern and timeless. Though one must have a trained eye to recognise these garments, logoless items are for people who have nothing to prove. However, the sense of effortless elegance reveals an incomparable style.

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