New Year'S Vision 2020 Determines Ten Themes Of The Global Fashion Agenda

The fashion industry is about to usher in a worrying year. The macroeconomic environment is very challenging, and fashion enterprises will realize that they need to create value or have unclear ways or need to rely on unacceptable input levels to achieve this.
This uncertainty is also reflected in the annual industry executives survey conducted by BoF and McKinsey. Surprisingly, only 9% of respondents believe that the industry will improve in 2020, compared with 49% last year. "Challenge", "uncertainty" and "subversive" are the most frequently used vocabularies in describing the industry environment; compared with last year, the words "change", "number" and "speed" are more neutral.
The percentage of American consumers willing to pay more for the purchase of certain products in 2019 (%). Picture source: BoF cartography
We also asked the respondents three questions to explore their most important concerns: in the last year's global fashion format report, which of the three trends had the most significant impact on their business today, what are the biggest challenges facing the fashion industry in the future? And what is the biggest opportunity for them in 2020? Their answers showed some consistent trends.
Sustainable development is the biggest challenge facing the fashion industry for the first time. Respondents also believe that it is one of the most important opportunities in the industry. The rise of the Extinction Rebellion campaign and the enormous influence of Greta Thunberg mobilized her entire generation have made sustainable development even more important.
Last year, we predicted that unicorns would appear in this field. In fact, the valuation of Rent the Runway and StockX broke through 1 billion dollars in early 2019, side by side with The RealReal, while the latter went public in 2019.
In addition to sustainable development and digitalization, our survey suggests that the third major opportunities for the fashion industry in 2020 lie in innovation. Taking into account the investment needed to meet these challenges, SMEs will be very concerned about the future situation.
We concluded that the ten major trends that affect the development of the fashion industry in 2020 are more urgent and grim compared with the obvious changes in previous years. Obviously, compared with any other time ago, enterprises now need to be able to adapt themselves to the environment in order to find a development path in the future, and to respond flexibly according to their circumstances. The best winners will remain the dominant industry, while others will have to redouble their efforts to keep pace with the times.
The following ten themes will determine the direction of the 2020 fashion agenda.
Maintain high alert
We suggest that enterprises continue to be cautious in the coming year because of the increasing potential turmoil that may disrupt the relationship between developed and emerging market economies. The risk indicators of economic recession are urging enterprises in various industries to formulate flexible strategies and plans to deal with other macro risks, such as geopolitical instability and intensified trade tensions.
Opportunities outside China
China will continue to provide anticipated development opportunities and play a leading role in the global fashion industry. But the fact shows that it is more difficult to develop the huge Chinese market than some brands expected. With some successful enterprises becoming overly dependent on the Chinese market, others are struggling. Fashion enterprises should consider expanding to other high growth areas to diversify risks.
The new generation of social media
The traditional interactive mode is difficult on the mature social media platform. Fashion companies need to rethink their strategies and find ways to maximize the return on marketing expenses. Eye catching content will be the key to the problem. Deploy such content on the appropriate platform in every market, use persuasive action call, and achieve seamless connection with payment as much as possible.
Layout community sales
Consumer demand for convenience and immediacy is urging smaller retail stores to supplement existing physical distribution networks to meet consumers' needs anytime and anywhere, and to reduce possible frictions on user journeys. Successful models need to provide store experience and localized product mix in the suburbs or communities outside the main shopping centres.
Sustainability priority
The global fashion industry is a serious industry that consumes energy, pollution and waste. Despite some progress, the fashion industry has yet to shoulder its environmental responsibilities. In 2020, fashion companies needed to face up to consumers' need for transformational change, while abandoning cliches and advertising rhetoric and taking meaningful actions and observing regulatory requirements.
Welcome material revolution
Fashion brands are exploring alternatives to standard materials. The main players are focusing on more sustainable alternative materials, including the latest popular materials in the near future, redesigned, and high-tech materials with aesthetic and functional properties. We expect that the relevant research and development will pay more and more attention to material science, so as to realize the large-scale use of new fibers, textiles, fabric finishing processes and other innovative materials.
Embrace the culture of inclusiveness
Consumers and employees are increasingly putting pressure on fashion companies to actively advocate diversity and inclusiveness. More companies will diversify and inclusiveness as a more important priority goal, integrate these two concepts into the entire corporate organization and employ leadership roles that focus on these concepts. And more and more people will monitor whether the initiatives of fashion companies are sincere enough and whether they can achieve results.
Confronting transnational challenges
As manufacturers and small and medium-sized enterprises begin to get rid of their traditional roles and directly sell products to the global consumers, veteran fashion brands and retailers will face increasingly fierce competition from New Asian rivals. It is expected that some of the enterprises that are still unknown from the Asian supply chain will lead a more intense competition. Such enterprises use cross border e-commerce platforms to design popular single products, which are relatively affordable for consumers.
Unconventional practices
Traditional trade fairs must accept new roles and adjust target audiences to deal with the phenomenon of increasing consumer activities, shorter fashion cycles and digitalization. To make itself more distinctive, or even just to survive, there will be more trade shows to choose to increase the B2C mode or to launch new services and experiences to improve the relationship between the B2B and the traditional business simultaneous interpreting models.
Digital recalibration
The valuation of digital fashion companies has reached an alarming level. Although a large number of highly anticipated listed companies and Private Companies have become unicorns, investors are losing their spirits. From the online single business retailers and trading platforms to consumers' brands and other digital priority business models, investors' concerns about the profitability of some digital businesses are growing.