In the past year, there’s been a growing trend towards “disposable” fashion trends and attitudes among young people ages 13-24-years-old, whereby young people are shopping more often in what “High Street” shops for the latest fashion styles. High Street shops offer trendy items at low costs and shift their inventory to new fashion styles extremely quickly. They are appealing to young people who want fashionable items to update their looks frequently, but at very low costs. Young people who rank these stores as their favorite stores to shop in are willing to forego more popular brand names and wear the “store” brand name, i.e. H&M, to achieve a particular look or style, which they can buy and update frequently.
The ripple effects, however, have also spawned new importance for having a few special pieces of coveted glamour that are expensive, but worth saving for to buy, particularly for denim jeans, sports shoes, and key accessories, which now also include electronics such as iPods. While point-of-purchase data won’t tell you this, and neither will the latest fashion trends from Paris catwalks, our European Youth Culture Study ’04 does by connecting the flow of how young people think. And they’re thinking faster.
As young people continue to gain access to the Internet and are influenced by cultures outside of their own, the interconnectedness of youth culture grows stronger meaning that trends shift and move faster across cultures than ever before. By tracing local inspiration, ingenuity, and trends across cultures, you can see that while disposable shopping patterns are increasing, at the same time so too is the desire for something unique and individual. Where the two trends head indicate opportunities for new markets.
Disposable Fashion Trends were the featured topic in the August, 02004 Label Lab Newsletter. To subscribe to the Label Lab Newsletter, contact us at info@labelnetworks.com.
