Are Fashion Parades Disconnected from What Common People Want?

If you’ve ever watched a fashion show and wondered if you can wear some of their clothes, you’re not alone. Some of the clothes on display have ridiculous designs and can leave you wondering if the common man can ever buy them after the show. It would seem like there is a disconnect from what common people want.

First, let’s consider the purpose of fashion shows. The purpose of these shows is to allow exposure to new designs so you’ll be able to buy them in stores. So, it absolutely makes sense that the clothes are wearable and fashionable. However, this is not the case and most clothes you see in fashion parades are weird-looking and unwearable.

This disconnect is why most people look to smaller fashion brands when shopping for wearable fashion. One place where you can certainly get wearable fashion is Walk London. If you’re interested, you can always read Walk London shoes reviews to learn more about. If you want to expand your options of where to purchase, you can read reviews about shops.

While this may seem like a terrible idea for big fashion brands, there are several reasons behind it. First of all, it means something awful for the Fashion industry as it underlines its terrible inability to communicate with consumers. Obviously, there are reasons why some of the pieces that are showcased on the runway look so weird (and yes, you’re right, they ARE indeed unwearable). But the Fashion world is so closed, so secret it is very complicated for outsiders to guess why!

We are talking about High, Creative Fashion here, made by designers and usually marketed as luxury goods, not casual and everyday-life fashion from H&M, Zara, Nike and other mass-market brands. Every brand, every designer intends to sell. No brand could survive if it were only manufacturing unwearable clothes, especially considering the budget and effort it takes to organise a show.

Actually, those bizarre pieces you see on the runway will never end up in boutiques and department stores. But why are they showcased then and why are we spending so much on showing something that must, by any logic, be completely unprofitable.

The point with a lot of these ideas is to get people talking and build brand awareness, whatever a particular brand’s ideal image may be. Think of it as a performance. You might personally like ballet more than someone breakdancing on a sidewalk, but a performance is a performance, and both dancers want you to watch, despite what you (the viewer) may perceive as a difference in quality.

The core purpose of industry exposure remains, but now that brands have more access to the consumer and more incentive to do so, they really want you to pay attention…and click, and share, and buy.

From an economic standpoint, fashion week generates a huge amount of peripheral revenues in the cities in which it is hosted. In August 2011, the Fordham Consulting Group and Fordham University Graduate School of Business released an economic impact study outlining the effects of NYFW on the immediate surrounding areas within a 10-block radius of Lincoln Center.

The study suggested that the total economic impact exceeded $20.9 million, taking into account spending by staff, crew, vendors, visitors, designers and sponsors. It also found that the twice-yearly event brings in an annual $9 million to area restaurants, $6 million to local hotels, $6.8 million in retail revenue and $11 million to venues

The British Fashion Council estimates that over £100 million worth of orders are placed during LFW each season, with media coverage that equals or exceeds most major news and international sporting events. Given that New York and London stage the smaller of the big four schedules, one can only imagine the monetary benefits experienced by Paris and Milan. Not to mention increasingly well attended events in Florence, Sydney, Sao Paulo and Hong Kong.