Sector Spotlight: Fast Fashion

If the economic downturn has accomplished anything positive, it’s a willingness of the American consumer to pursue her own muse, define her own fashion sense.

“High-end apparel used to drive this sector,” says Bess Anderson, director of visual strategy at Chute Gerdeman Retail (Columbus, Ohio). “But most people are trading down, prioritizing their purchases. And in the process, they’re finding their own personalities, mixing labels, adding vintage items.”

Anderson says it has become cool and chic to find bargains and brag about them. “People used to say, ‘Oh, I love that Gucci jacket you’re wearing. Is it from Barneys?’ ” says Anderson. “Now, the conversation is more likely to be, ‘How cute is that, where did you find it?’ And the answer – that it was purchased in a thrift store on The Bowery somewhere – is a badge not only of great shopping but also of great taste.”

Who’s benefiting from this trend? The names that keep bobbing up are H&M and Forever 21 – and not just because of their notoriously low prices. “They’re able to get goods quickly from the fashion runways into their stores,” says Lee Peterson, executive vp, creative services, at WD Partners (Dublin, Ohio). “Something that came out in Milan in May can be on their shelves in June, thus giving this kind of retail the name ‘fast fashion.’ ”

These aren’t the actual designer goods, of course. They’re clever copies of the original cuts, fabrics, colors and designs. But they’re close enough to the real thing, and offered at so tempting a price, that they become what Peterson calls “must-haves.”

“You see it in Forever 21 one day and you know you’ve got to buy it, right then!” he says. “It might not be there the next week, or even the next day. Or it might not be in another Forever 21 store you go into.”
In an economic environment in which most retailers are snoozing, the huge new Forever 21 flagship store in New York – a four-story, 91,000-square-foot megastore – has been pulsating with crowds until 2 a.m. nearly every day since it opened in Times Square in June, the largest retail venue in Manhattan devoted to a single brand.

Anderson attributes much of this to a viral social networking phenomenon that sends information ricocheting around the world. “Women get inspired by things they see on television – on ‘Gossip Girl’ or ‘What Not to Wear’ – then go out to the store, take pictures of themselves in the dressing rooms and send them to friends and post them on Facebook and Twitter. The responses are instant. And so the pressure is intense on retailers to keep that digital community interested.”

“The Internet mentality says I can find something good almost anywhere,” Peterson says. “After all, Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube.”

Apart from fast-fashion merchandising, many of those retailers are building interest through stepped-up visual programs. The Forever 21 store in Times Square is propped to the hilt, with big plasma screens and all kinds of New York references, such as a full taxicab parked on one of the floors.

“It’s a return to story-telling,” Anderson says. “It’s not just telling people, ‘This is what we have for sale in here.’ It’s a brand statement: ‘This is who we are. This is why we’re different.’ ”

Some fashion-trend impetus always comes from overseas. These days, says Anderson, it’s being supplied by the likes of Zara, arguably the original fast-fashion retailer, and Desigual, both from Spain; Osklen from Brazil; Topshop from the U.K.; and Britain’s AllSaints, perhaps the hottest new overseas arrival in years. The edgy 15-year-old British label has dipped its toe into the U.S. market with three carefully selected store locations – on Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles, on Lincoln Road in Miami’s South Beach and Broadway and Spring Street in New York’s SoHo – after a successful shop introduction in Bloomingdale’s.

“Because the economy is still slightly depressed, we’re signing into very competitive leases,” Paul McAdam, ceo of AllSaints North America, told Women’s Wear Daily last fall. But he said the company plans to open 30 to 50 stores in key cities across the U.S. over the next three to five years.

Immediate plans are for new stores at the Santa Monica Place shopping center in Los Angeles; the Aventura Mall in Miami; Union Square in San Francisco; Michigan Avenue in Chicago; Pine Street in Seattle; and in the new Cosmopolitan hotel and retail center in Las Vegas.

WWD characterized the AllSaints stores as “shabby chic, with a mix of wooden and polished steel floors, walls covered in vintage glazed tiles and quirky details such as old Singer sewing machines, rather than mannequins, in the windows.”

In the meantime, what else is happening up and down the specialty apparel spectrum? “Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom are reinforcing their messages of quality and service,” says Anderson, “and Barneys New York and Holt Renfrew in Canada are trying to make their stores even more fun places to shop than before.”

J. Crew is trying to diversify with sub-brands like Madewell, its casual line, and the J. Crew Collection, which it calls its “limited edition, seasonally updated, range of playfully chic creations.” It recently opened the J. Crew Collection flagship store on a tony Manhattan street corner at Madison Avenue and 79th Street. Abercrombie & Fitch has brought back its magalog in an attempt to recapture the excitement of past years.

“Retailers are reinventing themselves and expanding their assortment,” says Anderson. “You need to do that to stay ahead of the curve.” If you’re stuck in neutral, ask key questions such as: “Who’s our customer? And how do we get her back?”

Forever 21 seems to be having no such problem. Its New York store is estimated to be attracting 100,000 visitors a day, more than seven times the number of daily visitors at the Statue of Liberty. Of course, the Statue of Liberty hasn’t changed outfits in 124 years.