People

People play a vital role in the fashion industry, from setting trends, influencing changes in the market and through social media. Therefore it’s important for fashion businesses to have a large focus on their consumers in order to maximise their success. With changing generations, and therefore changing experiences and mind sets, the fashion industry has to adapt to this and respond to the changing needs and wants of their consumers. Gen Z care more about making a difference primarily through their social and environmental consciousness. With 94% of Gen Z advocating that ‘companies have a responsibility to make the world a better place’ (Novelli, n.d.). Consumers have become more vocal on the environmental issues that the fashion industry has largely contributed towards. This influence leading to UK politicians calling out the government to do more so that businesses would have to comply with environmental and social standards and tackle issues such as forced labour (The Independent, 2019). Therefore you can see that businesses listening people, in this case through adopting these standards, will benefit in their success as it is what consumers currently value in a business. 

With Gen Z being hyper connected and more prevalent in social media as the ‘first generation to grow up with internet as part of daily life’ (McKinsey, 2023). Individuality and self-expression has become important for consumers, with more being open minded and welcoming to new ideas, brands need to set themselves apart and provide something that is new and exciting to entice Gen Z. Being hyper connected also means that its easier for people from different cultures to communicate and share experiences and thoughts. Gen Z recognises the values of diversity, and how authenticity is the greatest strength as mentioned in a lecture with Caryn Franklin. Diversity in fashion is about creating clothes that cater to different groups, such as through sizing, race and religion (Nizzoli, 2022). Brands such Nike have increasingly focused on promoting diversity and actively work towards representation of women with a target of ‘50% of global corporate workforce to be women by 2050’ (Global data, n.d.), and also focusing on empowerment of different racial groups, promoting this mainly through their advertisements. In 2018 Nike launched the first sports hijab, which opened the doors for businesses to be creating more modest clothing and being more inclusive to muslims through this. It’s evident that people have a large part in influencing brands through Gen Z having strong opinions and ‘favouring brands that are aligned with their values and avoiding those that don’t’ (Amed et al, 2019) therefore brands should respond to this by integrating people’s values and responding to changing consumer needs effectively to be successful.  

‌Giada Nizzoli (2022). Diversity in Fashion: Are Ethical Brands Doing Enough? | Sustainable Fashion Blog| Project Cece. [online] Available at: https://www.projectcece.co.uk/blog/548/diversity-in-fashion-for-ethical-brands/.

‌Global Data (n.d.). ShieldSquare Captcha. [online] Available at: https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/consumer/nike-diversity-in-workforce-2095670/.

Imran Amed, Anita Balchandani, Marco Beltrami, Achim Berg, Saskia Hedrich, and Felix Rölkens (2019). The influence of Gen Z on fashion | McKinsey. [online] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/the-influence-of-woke-consumers-on-fashion#:~:text=Younger%20consumers%20are%20seriously%20concerned.

McKinsey (2023). What is Gen Z? | McKinsey. [online] www.mckinsey.com. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-gen-z.

‌ Novelli, P. (n.d.). Gen Z: The Next Conscious Group of Consumers. [online] www.3blmedia.com. Available at: https://www.3blmedia.com/news/gen-z-next-conscious-group-consumers.

The Independent. (2019). Government rejects calls for companies to fight environmental impact of fast fashion. [online] Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/fast-fashion-government-environmental-audit-committee-labour-waste-a8963226.html#