sales

Understanding The Fashion System

/ Leave a Comment

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?

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.
Excess inventory drives up retail prices because high 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 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.

Understanding The Fashion System Read More »

When will you start sales? Never!

/ Leave a Comment

Sales and sustainability don’t play well together. Here’s why!

When people ask: when will you start sales? – We reply: never. No sales here! Buy less but better over the season!
And it’s easy to understand the point. Other than an illusory short-term fix, sales don’t solve any problem. Intentionally neglecting the big picture, they contribute to exacerbating the exploitative system.

The need to change seems a shared belief. And it’s interesting to hear people in the fashion industry and consumers, too, talking about the urgency of it.

After all, it’s nice to keep playing the same game expecting something to change! Isn’t it?

The un-sustainability of sales

We all participate in the exploitation game traced by an economic system that led the world to destruction. But we just prefer to ignore it.

Flooded by overproduction, the market is exploding. And the majority of these garments are made by people who cannot afford to cover their basic needs. Fashion production is so excessive that it has a tremendous impact on the planet in terms of carbon emissions, waste and labour abuse. Retailers, for their part, inflate prices to get ready for the question: “When will you start sales?”
This is not sustainable. So it’s time to make different choices, even if unpopular.

The sustainable solution

If everyone had a proper wage, we wouldn’t feel the need to lower prices more and more. A practice that wiped out quality standards. Clothing and accessories would have a more reasonable price range throughout the year. “Less but better” would be the solution. Sustainable fashion, indeed!

But the news says retailers are optimistic. Optimistic? For what? Is a bargain worth a burning planet?

As a small retailer operating for over 17 years, we don’t want to be part of this global exploitation. Indeed we chose to cut the quantity we used to buy. Our fashion selection is essential, in a limited number of pieces, plus a made-to-order service. That is to grant unicity and be as much as possible sustainable.

There’s a brilliant quote we found on the web:

“We ignore truths for temporary happiness.”

Unknown

Sales are a way to ignore the truth. But difficult moments need radical choices.
So why don’t you stop being part of this game?

When will you start sales? Never! Read More »

The anachronism of sales in a collapsing world

/ Leave a Comment

Markdowns, sales and sustainability

In a collapsing world, the anachronism of sales, expression of a system of overproduction and excessive waste, should raise eyebrows. Indeed markdowns are a short-term win inadequate to the current situation. In the view of making fashion a sustainable industry, aggressive discounts and sales aren’t a consistent plan.

Overproduction is the cause. Producing too many clothes doesn’t make sense anymore. Furthermore, a system that needs constant discounts to push people to purchase more than they need is a rotten system. Overproduction and overconsumption: one triggers the other. But if we want to make fashion sustainable, we should break this pattern.

Sales for high-income

They still rely on overconsumption and also markdowns to satisfy their need for novelty. In fact, they have learned nothing from the latest events. Therefore, the conclusion is that they simply don’t care about the impact their actions have on the planet. So, fashion brands throw the bait, and those people buy whatever comes out to show their higher status.

Low-income consumers

For lower-income consumers, the matter is different, but the push to overconsume is the same. Indeed, affordable prices give the illusion of richness. And rather than shopping for quality vintage or “less but better” clothing, they shop for discounted items. Feeding up the throwaway culture that thrives thanks to unaware people.

Most importantly, there is an excessive supply, too much of everything, so high and low spenders don’t value the craft work anymore, the art of making quality clothes. There’s no understanding of this process. Therefore the masses think garments should be cheap and disposable.

The anachronism of sales

It’s impossible to match what needs to be done to keep the planet habitable and what the economic system (capitalism) needs to preserve itself. The choice is one or the other.

Although sales are an anachronistic expression of a system that failed, the cycle restarts happily season by season. No matter if the world is on the brink of collapse.

Fashion brands, retailers and consumers are not interested in having a positive impact and making a change. If the fashion industry doesn’t change, most consumers aren’t interested in doing so either.

So people, enjoy your winter sales! Your temporary illusion of joy is served this season again!

The anachronism of sales in a collapsing world Read More »

NO SALES

The ultimate sustainable strategy

It’s the second year of our NO SALES resolution. If you come across our activity by chance, you may discover now that we do not participate in sales or promotions anymore.

What is the reason?

The market is hyper-saturated. Full to the brim of disposable clothing. Heavy discounts and obsessive promotions are indicators of a sick system. In fact, they reflect an economy whose basic assumption is overproduction. And compel the unceasing construction of fake needs for blind consumers. In other words, people are manipulated and induced to buy any discounted item.

Therefore, sales are not a sustainable strategy. The selling price should take into account creativity, quality and labour. Which also means fair wages for the production chain. We already discussed the trick of modern-day slavery in our previous posts.

Once we have realized the whole economic system is corrupted, as a consequence, we have reduced the quantity we order. And by refining our selection, we opted for a capsule wardrobe focused only on meaningful items.

This is what:

1 – we don’t need quantity anymore
2 – we choose quality and good design
3 – we select items made to last

NO SALES

Quantity is not the answer, so we invite you to buy less.
Indeed, we suggest you buy intentionally and choose only thoughtful products.

We are here to make something different. To change for the better. And educate ourselves for slower consumption.
If the status quo is what you still want to promote, just look around. It surrounds you everywhere. You don’t need us.
But if you have lost that frenzy and search for value instead, we are here for you.

NO SALES

It’s the ultimate sustainable economic model for a long-term approach. That supports creativity, quality, and fair wages.

No sales mean less stuff, more meaning. It’s a radical and conscious lifestyle choice #formodernhumans

NO SALES Read More »

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.

Sale season! Read More »