Commentary
The most brilliant feature of the fashion clothing industry is that it exists at all. You cannot copyright clothing designs, so every seasonal runway experience is an invitation to piracy. Sometimes within a matter of months or even weeks, you can find knockoff items in discount retailers selling for a fraction of the price of the original.
And yet, the industry is worth perhaps $2 trillion globally. It’s the kind of industry that no intellectual could dream up and yet there it is, thriving for a century in a world in which clothing choice is not restricted by law and anyone can look like anyone else. That’s amazing and raises fundamental questions about the conventional thinking concerning intellectual property.
A main driver, of course, is branding and the proprietary trademarking of the designer. No one really wants a knockoff, much less a fake if you can have the real thing. The high markups are bound up with authenticity, but not only that. The consumer demand for fashion is all about staying with the times, where what is “in” rather than what is “out.”
Even more than wanting to look good, much less honor the occasion with what is proper, it’s social insecurity and the desire to fit in with the group that is the driving force behind the whole industry.
Everyone knows about this issue. It vexes us from the earliest years of school when you see the cool kids wearing a certain brand of shoe or pants and the loser kids wearing something else. We are naturally aspirational and are drawn to such symbols. Very early, then, we are acculturated to keep up with the newest thing and dread the old thing.
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3/30/2024
As you get older, there is an interesting twist to the game. It’s never enough to wear the newest thing. The goal is really to wear the next thing, to get ahead of the pack, to be the first adopter of the future. That’s where the real cache rests. That means that you do not have to wear what others are wearing; on the contrary, you can be alone in your fashion choice so long as you do it with conviction.
Therein lies the secret to success. No one knows for sure what is the next big thing. That is your opportunity. It means that you can wear almost anything of quality that looks nice (within limits described below). If anyone asks, you simply say “It’s coming back.” “It’s the newest thing.” “I’m getting ahead of the curve.” “Next season, everyone will be wearing this.”
With this little secret, you can shop eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and GoodWill to your heart’s content and to the great relief of your pocketbook. Add a dash of confidence and you are good to go.
How do I know this? I was in the industry for many years. I started as a department store cleanup man, moved to the returns desk, moved up to sales, changed stores and became a top salesperson, then a high-end men’s store manager, then a salesperson in a high-end women’s store, then finally a wholesale buyer at the industry’s seasonal showcases in Dallas, Texas. (I was even a runway model for a time.)
So, yes, you could say that I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen ties narrow, then widen, then narrow again. I saw paisley come and go and then come again. I was there for shoulder pads, soft shoulders, and then pads again. I saw cuffs, thin cuffs, no cuffs, then widened cuffs. I saw three button, two button, one button, and suddenly four button coats.
I saw corduroy go from pinwale to wide wale and back again. There was argyle and then argyle was out before it was back again. I’ve sold every length of skirt, every fabric, every color, and they change with the seasons, with the shifts infused by magazines, advertisements, runway extravaganzas, and mostly the elusive and indefinable thing we call fashion.
The buyer’s marketplace was where I found the secret to the industry. We had to pick the fall fashions in the dead of winter, the summer fashions in the fall, and so on. We had to buy them all before we could sell them and they all had to be put together in the factory.
Every merchant was hawking his wares, always pitched as the newest thing. You can believe them and make an egregious mistake, finding yourself with a store full of nonsense.
I had mentors in this racket so I wasn’t entirely on my own. There was a year when, for reasons unknown, it became fashionable in preppy circles to have little yellow ducks on one’s pants. I thought it was ridiculous but my mentor overrode my judgment. He ordered hundreds for our store in a full range of sizes. To my astonishment, they flew off the shelves. We did not have enough and could not obtain any more.
A few months later, WalMart was carrying a similar thing but with printed not embroidered ducks on pants. We made a killing on this item, much to my amazement. And that’s just this one product. We had to make similar decisions over suits, ties, shirts, shoes, and belts.
At least that market was somewhat comprehensible. In the buyer’s market for women’s clothing, it was utterly cacophonous and far trickier. My specialization was in outerwear so I was careful to follow trends in length, shoulder and collar size, and fabric, recalling the experience from last season with the hope of anticipating the new season.
What I gradually came to realize is that much of what we call fashion is really scripted and planned, not in a centralized way but by big players and big names in the marketplace. Because there is not some Hegelian plan to which everyone has access; we were all groping around in the dark for clues about what the marketplace would demand. Influencer culture was a major factor here but discernment and marketing also played a huge role.
Gradually, I came to the conclusion that while this market sector is utterly brilliant in many ways, most buyers were in fact complete suckers for nonsense. None of it meant anything really, and there is no objective, much less, stable definition of what is fashionable and what is not. It all comes down to the confidence of the wearer. That’s the telling and decisive point.
A man (or woman) without confidence in his or her clothing will not look good in anything. So often I’ve seen men suddenly adopt a fancier way of dressing and look stiff, uncomfortable, stodgy, and putting on airs. It does not look right. Men who do this really should practice by lounging around the house in a suit, going on walks, slouching in chairs, lounging on sofas – anything to make the outfit feel more normal and natural. Once that happens, it all works but it takes practice.
In truth, and all anxieties about fashion aside, you can pretty much wear anything of any style from the last century so long as it is a quality piece of clothing and honors and respects the venue and occasion. The industry does not want you to know this but it is true. Once you figure it out, you are free of the cage that fashion fears put you in.
To be sure, there is one major exception to this: the 1970s. It’s not entirely clear what went wrong but everyone for a full decade, men and women, looked ridiculous and terrible. The clothing choices were egregious, and they came and went with tremendous regret.
I do have a theory as to why this is. The electric washer and dryer was in every home, and the industry had discovered the economic advantage of synthetic fabrics. They seemed for a time like the right choice because wearers could throw everything in the wash and also be liberated from the iron and the dry cleaners.
Fashion adapted itself to wash-and-wear everything. The only problem: everyone looked terrible. Once the industry and people figured that out, everything from a full decade of fashion fell into full discredit. By 1982, no one looked anything like they did in 1976.
That decade is the exception but, apart from that, there are consistent standards for at least a century of what constitutes enduring and classic clothing. Stick with those, eschew all fashion trends, and you will come out on top. You can completely ignore all other trends, which come as quickly as they go.
Again, I say this as someone who has been there and done that, both as a consumer and a wholesale buyer for retail inventory. The industry wants you intimidated, weak, and so afraid of being unfashionable that you will go deep into debt just to keep up. They win but you lose. The winners walk away from the racket and embrace that which stands the test of time.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
