“The value of fashion in a world in motion” – that was the motto of the “Forum de la Mode” in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Industry experts and thought leaders gathered last week to explore the importance of fashion in three panel discussions. The first talk dealt with the “symbolic and intangible value of fashion”, the second asked about the “intrinsic value of fashion” and the topic of heritage and legacy, while the last discussed the topic of “fashion reassessment”.
Fashion that makes an impact
“I can tell you the value of fashion: it’s five euros, the price of a t-shirt on Shein,” said Yann Rivoallan, President of the Fédération du Prêt à Porter Féminin (FPPF), in his opening words. “It’s also, quite simply, five million. Five million people who visit Vinted every day. It can also be 500 million. 500 million well-preserved garments shipped to Africa every year. Or it can also be 50 billion, the number of videos that are on TikTok talking about Shein. All these numbers are numbers about fashion, in its digitization, in its image, in its distribution.”
Xavier Romatet, Director General of the Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), added these figures with words: “We are talking about a turnover of around 150 billion euros in the luxury goods industry in France. That’s 2.7 percent of France’s GDP, meaning the luxury goods industry accounts for more in France than the automotive and aerospace industries combined. So we are talking about an economic sector that is absolutely significant.”
The manager also recalled that the fashion industry is France’s second largest contributor to exports: 80 percent of the turnover of the 50 largest luxury companies is exported. “It is a heavyweight in the French economy, which gives us an important dimension to be able to influence developments that are absolutely necessary,” he explains.
“The volume of fashion, textile and clothing products is decreasing for the first time”
But the fashion industry is also in a crisis. The textile and clothing industry has an annual turnover of around 30 billion euros, and this development is declining. “This is good news and bad news,” explains the director of the IFM. Bad for the industry, but good in relation to the (environmental) problem of overproduction. The volume of fashion, textile and clothing products is falling for the first time, and at the same time, unfortunately, the value of the products sold is also decreasing.”
Today, the fashion industry in France is characterized by an hourglass silhouette. On the one hand, the development of premium brands with a luxury industry that is doing extremely well. On the other hand, there is ultra-fast fashion, which is driven by price pressure and a miserable price-performance ratio and has an extremely high growth rate. In between: the collapse of the middle class.
“In 2023 we have not yet reached the fashion sales that we had Covid. And I don’t think we’ll ever get to them again either,” he noted.
The future of fashion
When it comes to the future of fashion, it comes as no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) comes up. “Everything has changed with AI, and besides, this is just the beginning,” assures the President of the FPPF. “I think we’ve only seen the beginning so far. The artificial intelligence that is coming now will change everything.”
According to the managing director, “we also have to continue to innovate, for example with tracking.” He explained that you can see and measure where the cotton grows, who makes it and where it is sold. “With this traceability, you work on sustainability. Because you know where something comes from, you know how it was made. This is already possible. You can also measure what comes after: the value of the fashion when you sell it on Vinted. But you can also measure if it sells in the first, second, third, tenth hand and so also create a tiered price that can be done based on all those sales moments. And that creates the value of fashion because you manage to have clear parameters.”
consumer behavior
The social issues that shape fashion today were of course also considered further at the sixth edition of the “Forum de la Mode”. The lack of inclusivity, the responsibility for the environment or the production conditions are often the focus of criticism of the industry.
“Today we are in an economic system of values. We are dealing with new generations for whom buying a garment means buying a value that reflects who she or he is,” says Mélody Thomas, Fashion Director at Marie Claire. Through the issues of representativeness and inclusion, according to the expert, “the clothing acquires a symbolic value that goes beyond its actual composition, because it is worn by people who are aware of who they are and who have the desire to be so to underline.”
But apart from that, there is a big problem related to consumer behavior: the dilemma of being a citizen and a consumer at the same time. According to Xavier Romatet, “Citizens are demanding a strong new effort from government in the area of green consumption. But it is forgotten that the most important vote is not that of the ballot box, but that of the money that enables people to behave in an environmentally responsible manner every day and which is not used. We’re seeing the numbers of ultra fast fashion evolving tremendously.”
Clara Monzali, co-founder of the agency Paye ton influence, testifies to this trend towards overconsumption. “You can see on social media that the prevailing fantasy world and the narratives that are largely conveyed are ones of overconsumption. Buy to exist, so buy without a conscience.”
Despite this, the co-founder also notes a faint positive sign: the emergence of new trends that point to regenerative business models such as upcycling or second-hand. Finally, she finds that there is one thing “no longer works” in social networks: the encouragement of excessive consumption through aggressive marketing, such as new coupon codes every day. “These are things that annoy and drain the audience,” she explains.
In her opinion, influencers can be “a real solution, a phenomenal lever for the transition to sustainability” because they are just “personalities who enjoy the trust of the communities, one speaks of a parasocial relationship (…) So they have the ability to convey messages and move the imagination.” She cites them as an example of a new trend that’s gaining popularity on the social network TikTok: deinfluencing. This is a trend that encourages people not to consume. The statement: “Do not buy this product.”
“The Right to Fashion”
Before the end of the roundtable, Saveria Mandella, fashion critic and doctoral student at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, draws attention to a point that is often forgotten in the discourses on the state of fashion, the access to fashion. “To understand the value of fashion, you have to have a certain budget, and that’s not the case for everyone. And then there is physical access. We live in a time when many things are dematerialized, especially clothing. Young people today are exposed to Louis Vuitton clothing through photos, through the influencer they follow. You don’t experience it directly on your own body. And I think that’s also a barrier in the fashion industry. To know that a fashion item is of high quality, you have to experience it first hand, and not everyone can do that in the same way.”
“The luxury fashion object is only accessible to a few people,” confirms Adrian Kammarti, professor of fashion history and theory at the Institut Français de la Mode. “The positive thing about fast fashion is that it [Mode] made available to most people through copying. You have to be careful not to be contemptuous here. Of course you can criticize fast fashion because of the production conditions. However, what I believe has made it possible is what I call the right to fashion. We are in an ecologically and socially strained context, yet there are certain achievements that are not necessarily to be questioned, in particular this right and this accessibility to the fashion product, albeit in a devalued way, but nonetheless.”
The “Forum de la Mode” was organized by the Comité stratégie de la filière Mode et Luxe, the Fédération de Haute Couture et de la Mode, the Fédération Française du prêt-à-porter féminin and in collaboration with the Défi de Francéclat and the Comité Professionnel de Développement Économique de la filière Cuir, Chaussure, Maroquinerie, Gantanterie organized.
This article was published on FashionUnited.fr. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ