Fashion Week starts: How does fashion get back into fashion?

With the Fashion Week, a trade fair starts today whose industry had anything but easy in the past Corona months. The pandemic has accelerated many (fashion) trends.

In the corona pandemic, a lot has literally gone out of style – for example, shopping for clothes. Inevitably, because many shops had to close. In some cases, the drop in sales was therefore 60 percent, says Tanja Croonen from the German Fashion Association. Around 350 mainly medium-sized manufacturers such as Bugatti, MarcCain or Olymp are organized in the association. “Manufacturers in the suits, shirts and evening wear segment were particularly hard hit because at the time many occasions were dropped, such as weddings, graduation balls and confirmations,” says Croonen. “And because clothing has already changed a lot as a result of the home office and short-time work.” The jogging pants send their regards.

The pandemic is accelerating some developments

However, the pandemic also mercilessly exposed the deficits of the companies that existed before but were not so obvious – for example, oversleeping new developments such as e-commerce or too close cooperation with department stores, says Christoph Schalast from the Frankfurt School of Finance and management. “This is represented by names such as Escada, Esprit or Picard. But there are also traders like Adler or Hallhuber. There were different causes for all of them, but these causes always arose before the pandemic and were intensified by it.”

However, competitive pressure from the Far East has also increased. Chinese mega-platforms such as Shein offer jeans, tops and blouses at dumping prices via app for less than ten euros. And Shein can produce collections within just one week – some also say, copy them – and thus react very quickly to trends, for example when an actress wears a chic dress. This is called “ultra fast fashion”. No business model for the domestic manufacturing industry, explains fashion association spokeswoman Croonen: “We do not compare ourselves to ‘ultra fast fashion’ companies and we will not implement it this way, collections within a week to bring the market. ” The industry is taking a closer look: “We want to deliver fashion to our end consumers that is just permanent. Sustainable, valuable, and things need a little more time.”

Sustainably and / or scores online

Speaking of sustainable: Companies that do not care about their CO2 emissions or social factors will continue to fall behind in customer favor in the future, predicts financial expert Schalast. “Environmental awareness, but also social responsibility – keyword: child labor, minimum wages – and overall good corporate governance – keyword corruption – are a megatrend, and this trend was intensified by the crisis.”

The prices of fashion companies that rely almost or entirely on Internet trading are doing particularly well on the stock market; for example Zalando. The IPO of the online fashion retailer About You from Hamburg in mid-June also exceeded the expectations of most stock exchange traders. The shares of the Adler fashion company, which was badly hit before the pandemic, are only a penny stock, despite the rescue by the Berlin logistics company Zeitfracht. But there is also one exception to the rule: Hugo Boss shares have more than doubled since their low in October 2020.