In order to evaluate this news in terms of how to merchandise and promote your department, you need also a firm grasp of the dynamics of fashion. You need to know what fashion is, how it moves, and how to forecast the effect of its course upon your department.
The broad outlines of the fashion story for a given season are usually spelled out for you, as they apply to your store, by your own management, or by your merchandise manager, or by the store's fashion coordinator. But in working out the opportunities within your own department, your touch will be surer if you understand fashion in addition to appreciating it. You will grasp the reasons why some fashions are selected by your store for enthusiastic presentation, and why others are handled cautiously or ignored.
What Fashion Is
The classic definition of fashion equates it with the style of dress currently accepted by a substantial group of people at any given time and place.
In retail terminology, fashion is the "in" look, the look the store's or department's customers will buy. There can be more than one look at one time, for a number of reasons:
- A gradual fashion change. The new evolves slowly from the old and often both exist at the same time. For example, when mini-skirts were at their ‘shonesi,’ in the late 1960's, a longer look was already edging its way into the fashion picture, by way of city pants, evening pajamas, long coats over short skirts, and, finally, long skirts.
- Our segmented society. We may not have a class society, in the sense that classes existed in feudal times, but we do have many different segments within our society, and each expresses its way of life in the fashions it adopts.
- Consider the fad-conscious dress of teenagers, the anti-establishment costumes of some young adults, the conservative style of dress followed by many career women during working hours, the relaxed clothes worn for suburban living. With a discerning eye, one can almost blueprint a woman's age and activities by examining her wardrobe.
- The average woman lives a many-faceted life and adopts a different look for each activity. For example, compare backyard casual with dining-out elegance, both of which are likely to be found in the wardrobe of almost any suburban matron.
For example, a dressy trend may catch hold promptly in a down town store and in some of its suburban branches, yet other branches may serve people whose ways are so extremely casual that they will require another season or two to adjust to the new look.
The Life Cycle of a Fashion
At its own pace, each fashion goes through a definite life cycle. Understanding the cycle makes it easier to anticipate the growth and falling-off of demand for a given look, and to merchandise to that rise and fall in acceptance.
The life cycle includes:
- introduction, or acceptance by the first few customers who try the fashion
- rise, or acceptance by a broadening body of customers
- culmination, or peak acceptance
- decline - usually at a rate more rapid than the rise
- obsolescence.
Fashions in the rise and culmination stages are susceptible to mass merchandising. Producers and retailers serving customers who buy at this stage usually wait for a fashion to prove itself before they take a strong position on it. They move out of it when they see signs of decline setting in.
At decline, strong price appeal is needed to sell the fashion. Producers and retailers dump what they have. Only the lowest priced manufacturers continue to produce it; only bargain outlets continue to feature it.
Price is not a major factor in the acceptance of a new look. There are experimenters at every social and income level who will sample a new look that can be produced at prices within their means. Buyers who do vertical buying (for all price lines of a given classification in their stores) find that any important new look must be represented at all levels.
