Tag: fashion

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Issue 22

The Runway of Inclusivity And Diversity In Indian Fashion

Like most other industries, the fashion industry came out of the  COVID-19 pandemic with impacted functioning and the need to champion new trends. Inclusivity and diversity are a few trends that stand out, especially at Fashion Week showcases, which dictate trends for current and upcoming seasons. The pandemic forced everyone to reassess their priorities and values, with consumers becoming more aware of what they were purchasing, what the brands they shopped from stood for and tried to shift towards more sustainable ways of living. Consumer demands forced brands to reevaluate their strategies to retain their target markets, and inclusivity and diversity went from being trends to a necessity in the face of crisis. 

The fashion industry has been called out for racism and its lack of representation for decades. In a 2021 U.K. study, 90% of respondents believed that fashion industry images did not show a range of bodies and identities, and 87.5% felt they were not represented in fashion industry advertisements or on the catwalk. The reemergence of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement in the west in the early pandemic days served as a final wake up call for fashion. The Spring 2022 Fashion Month was the most racially diverse fashion season yet, with 48% of appearances made by models of colour. Yet, behind the scenes, people of colour remain temporarily employed, with not enough non-white designers, proving that the illusion of diversity doesn’t equal a diverse industry. In terms of size inclusivity, body positivity seems to be a trend that oscillates back and forth, with the number of plus-size models fluctuating each season.

While the west continues to move forward with conversations of inclusivity and diversity, it is vital to keep track of where India’s fashion industry stands. With the end of FDCI X Lakmé Fashion Week 2022, several designers attempted to move toward these trends suggesting that India is moving towards a more progressive fashion industry. It is also essential to identify what inclusivity looks like in India. With such a diverse culture and heritage, India’s need for diversity should be necessary. Whether it’s celebrating Indian ethnic textiles and handweaving or showcasing real Indian women of all shapes and ethnicities, emerging into our roots will pave the way for diversity and inclusivity. Ritu Kumar’s photo series ‘Equally Beautiful’ features ethnically diverse models to highlight India’s diverse cultural landscape and champion the notion of plurality. 

aLL: The Plus Size Store is India’s first plus-size brand. Their ‘The Big Bold Fashion‘ showcase at fashion week celebrated plus size ready-to-wear women’s and men’s clothing on the runway. One saw models that weren’t just the typical lean body type. Ashutosh Sharma, one of India’s first plus-size models with hearing and speech impairments, was a model for the show. Despite the few plus-size models who walked at fashion week, our size chart is our biggest disservice in size inclusivity. The Ministry of Textiles had promised an Indian specific standardised size chart by 2021, which has still not come. National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), New Delhi, has taken on the project under the ministry to conduct a national sizing survey to create a database of Indian measurements that genuinely represent our population. Designers such as Manish Malhotra and Leena Singh expressed their support for the project, explaining how they are forced to look at international sizing charts such as EU, UK or US measurements in the absence of such a sizing chart instead. According to Statista, on average, Indian women are bigger-bodied, with approximately half the consumers fitting into the plus-size category, yet this size-inclusive clothing segment remains largely ignored. Using a sizing chart based on our proportions allows for more inclusive clothing and solves the problems Indian women face when finding their sizes.

Designer Gaurav Gupta, who has styled many Bollywood celebrities, says post-pandemic fashion will be more inclusive and accessible. He also said that the fashion community would have to change course and adapt with new buzzwords such as “vocal for local” and “sustainable”. Gupta has been a frontrunner in the creation of inclusive clothing. He launched his ‘Name is Love’ campaign and held a seminar on inclusivity called the ‘The Love Festival’ to share the stories of a diverse group of models and their struggles and triumphs with their different gender identities. The show featured trans, non-binary, and plus-sized models and same-sex couples wearing clothes with non-traditional embroidery and voluminous ruffles to show the fluidity of the couture. The narrative emphasised love for oneself and inclusivity and all genders, body types, ethnicities, and sexualities.

Shubhika Davda, founder of the brand Papa Don’t Preach, says that inclusivity exists in twofold in the Indian fashion industry, with queerness at the forefront behind the scenes but a lacking inclusive image in front of the camera with brands sticking to standards that commercially sell. Her ‘Zsa Zsa Zsa’ campaign launched with a truly inclusive cast of real Indian women and a queer couple. Her label also dropped the word ‘womenswear’ to make it open for all to wear. For years, androgynous clothing has been a staple in the west, and it is now dominating the Indian runway. Many brands such as Heumn, The Pot Plant, Bloni, and Chola the Label made successful attempts at gender fluid clothing. If one is to look back at Indian history, Indian men have always worn gender-neutral clothing, from kings who sported dhotis and layered jewellery to salwar-kurtas worn at weddings. In response to being asked if gender-fluid clothing is a trend, Shyma Shetty, the co-founder of Huemn, says that fashion imagery is much more inclusive now, with open conversations about body diversity, identity, and self-acceptance reflecting her generation’s mindset. 

The Indian fashion industry is attempting to create diverse visual imagery and moving away from standard or European notions of beauty. While every effort counts, true inclusivity means ensuring diversity and representation offstage, such as by ensuring that larger sizes are available on the floor shop itself and bigger bodies are used to showcase clothing on websites. Consumers must note how brands interact with them in real-time to ensure that their inclusivity is not just a gimmick. Modelling agencies should also bring in more diverse models to ensure that they are not a minority. The ultimate goal is that size, inclusivity and diversity are so inherently a part of a brand that the conversations around their work don’t revolve around these topics. There is still a long way to go, and a lot of education is left to ensure that inclusivity permeates the industry at every level, rather than just at a few catwalks, but those conversations have been started.  

Reya Daya is a third-year student studying psychology and media studies at Ashoka University. Her other interests include writing, photography and music.

Picture credits: Heumn

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

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Issue 12

Delineating the Consumption of Luxury Goods in a COVID-hit World

For its 100th  year celebration in 2021, GUCCI under the creative direction of Alessandro Michele, rolled out its ‘Beloved’ campaign, strategically designed to strengthen the sales of their bags. Initiated on 22nd April 2021, the campaign featured four of GUCCI’s globally beloved bags namely Dionysus, the GG Marmont, Jackie 1961 and the GUCCI Horsebit 1955. The campaign, designed in the form of a late night talk show, had a star-studded lineup which included James Cordon, Dakota Johnson, Harry Styles, Awkwafina, Serena Williams, Sienna Miller and Diane Keaton. The campaign creates a nostalgic talk-show feeling of the 90s where the stars of the show were GUCCI’s four all-time iconic bags themselves.

Luxury brands like Yves Saint Laurent, Cartier, IWC, GUCCI saw a staggering fall in their sales, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus first hit China, spreading to Italy and other European nations (home to many luxury labels). This resulted in a steep fall in the sales of luxury goods, due to Chinese customers accounting for a 35%  share in luxury purchases globally. With the pandemic hitting the luxury goods industry all around the world, the impact is expected to be long lasting.

The sales for GUCCI specifically were amongst the worst hit by the virus outbreak due to closure of stores, since China serves as a big market for the luxury brand. In the first quarter of the outbreak in 2020, the sales for the fashion label fell by 23.2%, which makes up for the major revenue for Kering, causing a total fall in its overall sales by 15.4%. However, with its strategic launch of the ‘Beloved’ campaign at the time of ‘unlock’ in Europe, the fashion label is looking to rebound its sales in 2021. 

The year 2021 was expected to bring many more opportunities for these luxury labels in terms of rebounding their sales and launching limited seasonal collections. However, the national lockdowns in the UK and other European nations like Germany, Italy and France during the Spring/Easter season, which brings in a plethora of customers for these luxury brands, continued to create anxiety around the sales of goods. Compared to 2020, these luxury brands were better braced to tackle the 2021 lockdown, due to sales and purchases moving to digital platforms. The lockdown also cut down tourist shoppers that contributed massively towards the sales revenue. Moreover, as per VOGUE Business, these international tourists are not expected to return before mid 2022, and the latest lockdowns do not show any improvements in these forecasts. 

Empty Via Montenapoleone (Milan’s largest luxury shopping street) in Italy
Image Courtesy: Bloomberg Quint

Since the outset of the pandemic last year, there have also been dramatic and accelerating changes in consumer behaviour and consumption in regards to luxury shopping. Simultaneously, as a result, fashion labels have had to customize products and campaigns to keep up with the market trends and consumer behavior catering to the needs of their loyal clientele.

More and more shoppers have been turning to online shopping in place of in-person visits to physical stores, given the perturbations of contracting the virus. Moreover, according to the Boston Consulting Group, the pandemic has made apparent the deep economic and social inequalities that exist within the society, making less people comfortable with the show of conspicuous affluence and resources, thereby altering their shopping patterns and habits.

Though the pandemic has affected the sales of all luxury brands, certain categories of goods have not seen any decline but rather a spike in their sales. The classic and signature timepieces from luxury labels have been continuing to sell out. This can also be attested by the fact that GUCCI decided to dedicate an entire star-studded campaign to advertise its four all-time classic handbags, that have contributed massively to the label’s revenue. 

The increased sales in signature and classic goods can also be credited to the surge in digital shopping which has made these goods accessible to people globally without having to travel. Moreover, these goods are also perceived as great profitable economic investments, with specific products like Hermes Birkin Bags having a 34% Return on Investment as of 2020. Consumers of luxury products are now buying them more with the purpose of investment than mere consumption. 

To ensure rebound in sales, luxury brands like Dior, GUCCI, Chanel, YSL have also launched makeup and skincare lines, especially for Spring 2021. This is because makeup and skincare are the two categories of products that have a consistent demand all throughout the year and are more than often remain uninfluenced by seasons and/or holidays.

Looking at the volatile nature of the market given the pandemic, luxury brands will have to globally revamp and strategise the products they plan to release. The few trends that companies will have to look into are sustainable and vegan products, subtle and simple designer wear with less emphasis on gaudy embellishments and logos, inculcating more culturally inclusive and diverse designs and designers in their products as well as in the workforce respectively. 

The pandemic, in many ways, has shook luxury brands from their comfort zones, breaking their bubble of consistent revenue and loyal clientele. It has not only challenged them economically but also culturally and socially to produce and create goods by keeping up with the trends in time. Although the pandemic in 2020 might have impacted these luxury brands negatively – especially their revenue and financial stability, it has also pushed them to create more and more culturally inclusive products. 

Image Courtesy: GUCCI

Muskaan Kanodia is a junior at Ashoka University, double majoring in English and Sociology. When she is not drowning in books, you can find her drawing and smiling at strangers on the ghats of Benaras.

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 9

Where Fashion Trends Come From and Why You Should Care

My father, a physicist, once proudly told me that he doesn’t care about fashion. “I don’t think about these unimportant things,” he said. “My focus is on my work.” On most days he wears t-shirts or button downs with neutral tone pants, and he might add a jacket for special occasions. While not the most unusual, he still has a distinct sense of style and it has evolved over the years. I asked him why he didn’t wear the same thing all the time, or just throw on a potato sack and call it a day. He said, “Oh, because I like my clothes. I think they look nice.” Several others like him see fashion as a waste of time, but are involved in the fashion process nonetheless. No matter how far we may try to stay from fashion, due to the nature of the world we live in most of us are forced to make choices regarding clothing everyday. It is simply these choices that make us active participants in the fashion process, knowingly or not. 

Many choose to follow trends in order to fit in and feel a sense of belonging. While some may go out of their way to dress in un-trendy ways, and distance themselves from those they see as ‘imitators’, philosopher Georg Simmel saw these people as engaging in an inverse form of imitation, ultimately becoming part of a group of others like them. Then there are people like my dad, who don’t see themselves as part of the fashion world at all. Unfortunately for him, as a modern consumer he is just as affected by fashion trends as anyone else. Since all clothes retailers are influenced by the fashion world, when he buys their clothes he is adopting their interpretation of any given trend. 

As a multibillion dollar industry, fashion phenomena have attracted attention from sociologists, philosophers and market scientists. However, there is still no formalized theory of fashion, both due to a lack of research as well as the sheer volume of data and variables. After all, everyone wears clothes. Runway shows put on by designers provide an excellent jumping off point for learning about fashion, as the themes espoused by top brands both reflect and inform the choices of the larger fashion industry. 

September and February are usually the months where brands and fashion houses host fashion shows portraying their spring/summer and autumn/winter collections respectively, for the upcoming seasons. These shows take place in various “fashion weeks” around the world (one week per city), with London, Milan, Paris, and New York attracting the most attention. However, like everything else since last March, the Autumn/Winter 2021 shows were different this time. Most designers showcased their collections virtually, while some chose not to show at all. 

While discussing their Menswear Autumn/Winter 21 collection, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons of Prada insisted that they wanted the collection to feel like an emotional response to everything the world has been through in the past year. Each look was built off the foundation of a bodysuit, to represent the body and symbolize vulnerability and a need for intimacy. Fashion has often been seen as a response to the events shaping society and the world outside. This ‘response’ attitude was evident in many of the fall/winter collections shown in February as well as the spring/summer shows from last September, when the mood was perhaps even more subdued. On the other hand the Prada womenswear collection that came out a month after the menswear show struck a more optimistic note, perhaps reflecting a turning point in the pandemic with the launch of vaccines and the tangible hope in the air. 

Prada and Simons’ descriptions of their collections would fit into the external or exogenous model of the fashion process presented by sociologists, which says that changes in clothing simply reflect changes in the cultural values of society at large. While designers might well be inspired by the world around them as well as their lived experience, this model falls short when discussing the adoption of certain trends by different social groups. Cultural changes might affect the popularity of certain trends, but they cannot explain the different times at which trends are adopted by different groups, thus failing to predict future trends. Internal models can address these questions while looking at the fashion process as a self-contained phenomenon, influenced more by internal changes than external, cultural events. Simmel suggests that changes in clothing styles are the result of a ‘trickle down effect’, with trends being steadily adopted by successive social classes, starting with the upper class. 

According to William Reynolds, a marketing professor from Chicago, trends may be either horizontal or vertical. A horizontal trend is one which spreads far, but does not change much during this time, while vertical trends remain restricted to a small group but change rapidly. Most fashion trends embody both these attributes to some degree. For example, low rise jeans in the 2000s became more popular as the waists got lower. When fashion trends die out or reach a turning point, it could be due to functional or cultural barriers to further movement in the same direction. In the late nineteenth century, hoop-skirts or crinolines were extremely popular and were made wider and wider until movement became virtually impossible. They then gave way to the smaller crinolette or bustle. 

Within a small time period trends also often show a strong resurgence, exemplified by the wild popularity of nineties trends in the past few years. Rachel Green from the nineties show Friends was a cultural icon then and still is to this day, with her style recently becoming the focus of dozens of fashion articles and blogs. Trends may exhibit this cyclical nature due to the same technological and cultural barriers, becoming more and more extreme in one direction, ultimately reaching a peak and moving to the other extreme. For example, the long ‘tunic’ tops that were popular in the late 2000s and the short crop tops that they were replaced by soon after.

Rachel Green from the nineties show, Friends.

In an eighteenth century essay on fashion, philosopher Christian Garve cited the innate human desire for change as one of the reasons for changing fashion trends. In all aspects of life, humans seek novelty and variation, sometimes even if it worsens their position. Whether fashion trends come from influential designers or cultural revolutions, or trickle down from the rich, they feed our desire for change and our craving for aesthetic beauty. Fashion remains an important way for human beings to define and express their identity, and to relate to those around them. 

Rujuta Singh is a student of political science, international relations and media studies at Ashoka University. Some of her other interests are fashion, music and writing. 

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 9

Where Fashion Trends Come from and Why You Should Care

My father, a physicist, once proudly told me that he doesn’t care about fashion. “I don’t think about these unimportant things,” he said. “My focus is on my work.” On most days he wears t-shirts or button downs with neutral tone pants, and he might add a jacket for special occasions. While not the most unusual, he still has a distinct sense of style and it has evolved over the years. I asked him why he didn’t wear the same thing all the time, or just throw on a potato sack and call it a day. He said, “Oh, because I like my clothes. I think they look nice.” Several others like him see fashion as a waste of time, but are involved in the fashion process nonetheless. No matter how far we may try to stay from fashion, due to the nature of the world we live in most of us are forced to make choices regarding clothing everyday. It is simply these choices that make us active participants in the fashion process, knowingly or not. 

Many choose to follow trends in order to fit in and feel a sense of belonging. While some may go out of their way to dress in un-trendy ways, and distance themselves from those they see as ‘imitators’, philosopher Georg Simmel saw these people as engaging in an inverse form of imitation, ultimately becoming part of a group of others like them. Then there are people like my dad, who don’t see themselves as part of the fashion world at all. Unfortunately for him, as a modern consumer he is just as affected by fashion trends as anyone else. Since all clothes retailers are influenced by the fashion world, when he buys their clothes he is adopting their interpretation of any given trend. 

As a multibillion dollar industry, fashion phenomena have attracted attention from sociologists, philosophers and market scientists. However, there is still no formalized theory of fashion, both due to a lack of research as well as the sheer volume of data and variables. After all, everyone wears clothes. Runway shows put on by designers provide an excellent jumping off point for learning about fashion, as the themes espoused by top brands both reflect and inform the choices of the larger fashion industry. 

September and February are usually the months where brands and fashion houses host fashion shows portraying their spring/summer and autumn/winter collections respectively, for the upcoming seasons. These shows take place in various “fashion weeks” around the world (one week per city), with London, Milan, Paris, and New York attracting the most attention. However, like everything else since last March, the Autumn/Winter 2021 shows were different this time. Most designers showcased their collections virtually, while some chose not to show at all. 

While discussing their Menswear Autumn/Winter 21 collection, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons of Prada insisted that they wanted the collection to feel like an emotional response to everything the world has been through in the past year. Each look was built off the foundation of a bodysuit, to represent the body and symbolize vulnerability and a need for intimacy. Fashion has often been seen as a response to the events shaping society and the world outside. This ‘response’ attitude was evident in many of the fall/winter collections shown in February as well as the spring/summer shows from last September, when the mood was perhaps even more subdued. On the other hand the Prada womenswear collection that came out a month after the menswear show struck a more optimistic note, perhaps reflecting a turning point in the pandemic with the launch of vaccines and the tangible hope in the air. 

Prada and Simons’ descriptions of their collections would fit into the external or exogenous model of the fashion process presented by sociologists, which says that changes in clothing simply reflect changes in the cultural values of society at large. While designers might well be inspired by the world around them as well as their lived experience, this model falls short when discussing the adoption of certain trends by different social groups. Cultural changes might affect the popularity of certain trends, but they cannot explain the different times at which trends are adopted by different groups, thus failing to predict future trends. Internal models can address these questions while looking at the fashion process as a self-contained phenomenon, influenced more by internal changes than external, cultural events. Simmel suggests that changes in clothing styles are the result of a ‘trickle down effect’, with trends being steadily adopted by successive social classes, starting with the upper class. 

According to William Reynolds, a marketing professor from Chicago, trends may be either horizontal or vertical. A horizontal trend is one which spreads far, but does not change much during this time, while vertical trends remain restricted to a small group but change rapidly. Most fashion trends embody both these attributes to some degree. For example, low rise jeans in the 2000s became more popular as the waists got lower. When fashion trends die out or reach a turning point, it could be due to functional or cultural barriers to further movement in the same direction. In the late nineteenth century, hoop-skirts or crinolines were extremely popular and were made wider and wider until movement became virtually impossible. They then gave way to the smaller crinolette or bustle. 

Within a small time period trends also often show a strong resurgence, exemplified by the wild popularity of nineties trends in the past few years. Rachel Green from the nineties show Friends was a cultural icon then and still is to this day, with her style recently becoming the focus of dozens of fashion articles and blogs. Trends may exhibit this cyclical nature due to the same technological and cultural barriers, becoming more and more extreme in one direction, ultimately reaching a peak and moving to the other extreme. For example, the long ‘tunic’ tops that were popular in the late 2000s and the short crop tops that they were replaced by soon after.

In an eighteenth century essay on fashion, philosopher Christian Garve cited the innate human desire for change as one of the reasons for changing fashion trends. In all aspects of life, humans seek novelty and variation, sometimes even if it worsens their position. Whether fashion trends come from influential designers or cultural revolutions, or trickle down from the rich, they feed our desire for change and our craving for aesthetic beauty. Fashion remains an important way for human beings to define and express their identity, and to relate to those around them. 

Rujuta Singh is a student of political science, international relations and media studies at Ashoka University. Some of her other interests are fashion, music and writing. 

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).