Fast Fashion
Brianna Hill
Summary by Annick Gouin
Briana Hill spoke about the quick fashion cycles in today’s market and the retailers who sell trendy merchandise. Two companies that offer hip, trendy, cheap clothing to customers shortly after the designs are seen on the runway are H&M and Zara. H&M, a Swedish company, offers newly designed merchandise every week in their busier stores. The Spanish company Zara also operates in a quick response manner by monitoring what sells and by getting new merchandise out as quickly as possible. Zara uses the retailing strategy of distribution dominance to avoid warehouse costs and to keep overhead costs down. Briana mentioned the teen market as a huge consumer of fast fashion. Because fast fashion companies can imitate designer apparel so quickly and because people are not ashamed to mix high-end clothing with cheaper clothing, fast fashion retailers pose a threat to some luxury companies.