Fashion managers handle daily design, merchandising, distribution, promotion, and sales of ephemeral products to first seduce fashion shoppers and thereby generate greater profitability. Some of these concepts related to fashion seem to fall in opposition though. In fact, how can firms elicit high profits when they must introduce and deal with products that change every week or month?
The fashion industry actually leverages this opposition constantly to develop its business beyond sequential changes. Developing the Business of the Ephemeral Fashion may be ubiquitous, but can anyone really appreciate its power? We first must ask ourselves what fashion represents. For most people, the term fashion designates clothes, but fashion also applies to a broad range of product categories, including mobile phones, cars, house decor, toys, music, and so on.
Consider toys as an example: Pokemon and all of its related materials were really crucial for children some years ago, but when all kinds of spinning tops entered the market, no one was trading Pokemon cards anymore. Similar trends are seen in music, vacation destinations, and cooking; in France, for example, foods served in glasses are very fashionable nowadays, whereas in the United States, fancy cupcakes are available seemingly on every corner.
As Coco Chanel realized, “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” 1 By acknowledging that fashion does not apply only to clothes, we can recognize how it intrigues many people and surrounds us in our daily lives.
However, to provide specific insights, I focus on fashion apparel 2 FASHION MARKETING and accessories. Fashion apparel consists of clothes for women, men, and children and accessories embody several product categories, such as shoes, glasses, hats, gloves, scarves, ties, belts, bags, jewelry, and watches.
