Over the past 25 years, I’ve seen the fashion industry blossom in many ways and grow to enormous heights of wealth and cultural preeminence.  As Gabi Asfour said to me some years ago, ‘Fashion is in Fashion’.

At the same time, we now find ourselves unhealthy and bloated.  As if waking up sick after an indulgent night out, our businesses are fatigued and directionless.

The quarantining and consequent quartering of our businesses provides us with the opportunity to reflect on how we got here and where we ought to be going.  We did not get here by accident, and we can certainly get out of here with purpose.

The COVID-19 pandemic not only makes us think about our personal health, but has forced us to look at the health of our businesses.  As everyone rushes to apply for the many loans and grants offered by the government and various charitable organizations, we must ask ourselves – how do we not have sufficient resources (individually and in business) to weather a storm?

I’d like to share some thoughts on what I have recognized over the past decade:

Accounting

A lot of people don’t do it. If they do, they don’t look at it – or may not understand it.  Accounting can help us to “take the pulse” of our business, and make decisions accordingly.  Do  we need to do a fashion show or presentation?  Do we need to fly to Paris to sell?  Do we need everyone on our staff – or can we do more with less?  Start to let go of the things that weigh you down.  No need to do it all at once, but rather work towards slowly cutting out some of the unhealthy behaviors.

Sampling

There is superfluous innovation, which leads to over-sampling, which dominos into lavish marketing to obscure the fact that nothing, in fact, had the time to be fully developed. Over-sampling, either by virtue of show augmentation or season expansion, is another way to drive one’s factory partners out of business while consistently confusing one’s buyers and customers alike.  Like the saying goes about packing for a trip, place everything you need on the bed and cut that in half.

Product & Margins

We clog our systems with an unnecessary volume of product, which we feed to customers by virtue of discounting and margin destruction. When thinking about product margin, do we even  know what this is?  Are all the elements that contribute to it being added in?  Hint, if you’re not using an ERP system, they’re not.

When we sell our product, what are the ways we have voluntarily wronged ourselves and placed our companies in a state of unhealth? There are many ways to achieve correct gross margin, but they entail a deep understanding of the unsexy.  By that, I mean duties, freight, logistics, yields, sourcing, planning – – none of the stuff they teach in fashion or business school.

Marketing

The typical emerging fashion brand has very poor return on investment in its marketing exercises.  Following the same schedule of reveals and paying a premium for these, marketing may be the number one killer of emerging brands.  It’s not simply show production, but rather distortions they produce within collections, rendering (at times) over 50% unwearable to anyone – including the designer themselves.

We can’t continue on the same thread. Let’s take a moment to realize that while we’re stuck, our planet is getting healthier.  Carbon pollution is down significantly; China saw an 18%  drop this quarter.   Scientists will soon show us the impact we have on our shared and finite resources using our global quarantine as a marker.

This is an opportunity to look are our health – that of our individual business, of the collective industry and of the planet – and make important decisions on who we want to be and how we want to get there.  It’s easy to have gotten lost in the rigmarole of setting up one’s adult life and our respective businesses.  And it’s been a slippery road since. But we’ve now been afforded the time to stop and reflect. This is an opportunity to have our businesses start to reflect our values.