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Redefining Retail: Slow Fashion Aligns Purpose with Product

How will this movement change the retail store of the future?

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The apparel industry at large, like the brick-and-mortar-store, is trying to address its significant environmental impact. Companies are grappling with a big question: stay on the fast-fashion trajectory or shift course and embrace the growing slow-fashion movement?

Slow fashion, a movement author Kate Fletcher introduced a decade ago, links pleasure with environmental responsibility within the apparel industry. This movement takes steps toward educating consumers on responsible product sourcing and manufacturing, allowing them to feel more connected to their local and global communities. Slow fashion in the consumer sense looks at the ways products are designed, produced, consumed and used in everyday life in order to last longer, as in, slowing down their lifecycles.

Millennials and Gen Z’s values of environmental and social sustainability are a driving force in this transition toward slow fashion. Just last week in my retail design studio at The Ohio State University, I asked my students: What would you do if you received $1000? A decade ago, the response would be to go on a shopping spree or buy a new TV. Today, unanimously, they said they would save it (50 percent or more of the total amount). They also said they would use it to pay rent, buy food, or put it toward their student loans — all necessities.

It’s not entirely surprising, considering that the average student is working a part-time job and is paying for his or her own education and expenses. After all, most are the children of parents who were affected by the ’08 recession (many of them were in middle school at the time). Knowing what we do about this generation’s consumption behaviors, what was slightly surprising was their answer to my follow-up question: If you had to spend some of the money on a product, what would you buy? Their response was a new pair of boots or jeans, something they sort of needed, and they’d spend more to buy a quality product that lasts longer. Enter the slow fashion movement.

For slow fashion brands, fostering a strong and nurturing relationship between consumer and producer (brand and manufacturer) is invaluable, however, few of these retailers capture that connection within their retail experience. If this transition really takes off, like we’re already seeing in Europe, how will that change the store? How can store design play an active role in educating and enticing consumers toward sustainable consumption?

Recently, while attending the PLATE (Product Lifetimes and the Environment) Conference last November in The Netherlands, I presented Levi’s as one of a series of case studies which effectively fosters this relationship between consumer and producer. My paper, “Slow Fashion in Retail Environments: Why storytelling is critical for product longevity,” discussed the importance of the retail space to connect people (consumers) to the product and the brand’s sustainable purpose. Levi’s is just one example of how the store’s programmatic components expand to integrate physical moments, which realize Fletcher’s notion of customization to facilitate slow consumption. For Levi’s, it’s their brand’s “Made of Progress” philosophy that targets four key areas: materials, process, people and the environment. Case in point, their London stores, from the flagship on Regent Street to the smaller Covent Garden store, integrate a “tailor shop” which not only lets customers personalize their denim with patches, but they can also hem, taper and repair your favorite pair of jeans.

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Redefining Retail: Slow Fashion Aligns Purpose with Product
Photography: Rebekah Matheny, Columbus, Ohio

If you want to choose exactly how your pair fits and looks, head over to the Regent Street shop, but make an appointment to meet with a master tailor at their Lot No. 1 first. This massive shop-in-shop on the lower level, which can be seen through the space’s glass elevator, houses bolts of denim, racks of vintage patterns, cutting tables, a collection of sewing machines, and a wide selection of finishing details, all so you can design your custom piece. A smaller tailor shop is located on the main floor where an embroidery machine makes your jacket uniquely yours. The store also features a bespoke T-shirt printing station, which gets a lot of traction during events like Pride London, for example. 

Redefining Retail: Slow Fashion Aligns Purpose with Product
Photography: Rebekah Matheny, Columbus, Ohio

The Covent Garden store illustrates that you don’t need as much space as the flagship to make a big impact. Their tailor is nestled in a 4-by-3-foot space alongside the cashwrap. Though working in tight quarters, their tailor, a local fashion design student, makes the best of the space.  

Redefining Retail: Slow Fashion Aligns Purpose with Product
Photography: Rebekah Matheny, Columbus, Ohio

After leaving London and heading to The Netherlands for the PLATE Conference, participating in research presentations and workshops ( where slow fashion was a prevailing topic with fashion, textile, and product designers), I was surprised that I was the only retail/interior designer discussing the role of the retail store within this movement. If this sustainable movement is here to stay, which I hope it is, then retailers need to evaluate their store’s environment in order to connect to customers’ ideals to tell the authentic/transparent brand story.

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Designers should encourage retailers with innovative solutions that consider how the slow fashion movement impacts the retail store’s design, and possibly even alters the purpose of the store entirely. This is just one of the many questions my studio, sponsored by VMSD, will be tackling this semester! Check back throughout the year for my “Redefining Retail” series to see how our students address this and other issues this generation cares most about.

Rebekah L. Matheny is the assistant professor of interior design at The Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio), where she teaches courses in interior finish materials, lighting design and design studios that integrate a retail brand strategy process. Matheny’s research investigates the sensory perception of interior finish materials and their application in retail design to create an emotional connection between the customer and the brand. Through her research and teaching she strives to pave a path to a more environmentally and socially sustainable retail culture.

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