NYC Fashion Industry 2010

Many of you may no be aware, but recently Mayor Michael Bloomberg and fashion heavyweights from all genres gathered together at Macy’s to discuss the future of fashion. They recognized the importance of our industry to the national economy and with about 200k local employees as the second largest industry in the city; which is huge to the New York economy. The usual fashion big shots where there: Anna Wintour for Vogue, The President of Hearst Magazines, the CEO of Saks, the director of the CFDA, and of course political and government officials.  Interestingly, this meeting included a fewer lesser recognized perspectives. The founder of the Gilt Group was there to represent online shopping, apparel company presidents were in attendance including the large (as in taking over every other apparel company) Li & Fung.

Some topics discussed were: how to spread fashion throughout all five boroughs, using fashion to increase tourism, the 2nd annual Fashion’s Night Out project, making Fashion Week more accessible to the public, pop-up shops, and incorporating technology into the industry and more. For the most part the meeting was a success and we are thrilled to see fashion on the city’s agenda. However, there were a few areas of concern for us. First, we would have loved more attention to Saving the Garment Center and supporting domestic production and area small businesses. Second, one of the topics debated was how to shorten the buying cycle, so stores can sell more “wear-now” clothes to be on trend faster.

As consumers, sure it would be great to see an item on the runway or magazine and have it be in my local shop the next week. However, as designers we know that the fashion calendar is already so tight that working conditions suffer. It is so tight, that creativity gets burned out in favor of quicker turn around. It is so tight, that “fast fashion” is already common place. It is so tight, that many companies have resorted to simply knocking of existing styles and sending samples directly to overseas factories that work 24 days to get garments out to retailers asap. It is so tight, that consumers are already complaining that goods are less innovative and made of lesser quality then in the past, and part of the reason why is our designers being overworked for faster fashion. If you haven’t read any of our posts on how designers at many apparel companies work, please check out this post and this one. Now imagine the cycle becoming even shorter, what would happen to people making your clothing? What would happen to the already fading creativity in everyday clothing? Hopefully, these fashion industry veterans can find a way to make everyone happy, but until then we are skeptical that this will push an already overtaxed industry over the edge.

Original post created by: 39th and Broadway