MELBOURNE: The fashion industry received a bracing wake up call this morning as expert speakers took to the stage for the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival Herald Sun Marketing Breakfast.
Taking the theme "When times get tough, the tough get creative", author, columnist and KPMG business advisor Bernard Salt, and worldwide creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi Bob Isherwood provided insights into how economic down turn and media proliferation will affect the fashion industry of the future.
Looking at psychographic trends, Salt claimed the recent era of conspicuous consumption was likely to be replaced by an opposing movement of "virtuous consumerism", just as the hippie era of the '70s had been replaced by the "English provincial chic" of the '80s.
He also posited that the new economic landscape would see the primacy of London, New York and Paris decline, to be replaced by the rising cities of Asia, leading to a more Asian influenced aesthetic, particularly in Australasia.
Meanwhile Isherwood claimed the fashion industry sorely needed to re-invent itself, particularly in terms of how brands disseminated their message to the world.
The old "aspirational" paradigm typified by luxury brands – which created distance from the consumer through their imagery – was on the way out, he said. Instead, the emergence of new media had placed consumers in the power position, meaning brands needed to work harder to create an emotional connection with their market.
The fashion industry was "woefully behind" the times in terms of capitalising on the internet to achieve this.
"Many brands are simply missing out on 'the cool factor' and the chance to engage with consumers that the internet offers."
"Having a presence on the internet is not just a case of doing a press shoot and uploading a brochure onto the web," he said, adding many brands still failed to capture vital information about their most loyal customers.
"I want to be able to shop online and to know that the store has my credit card details, my contact details, my size, my colour preference. It's not that hard to do."
Brands that effectively and directly interacted with their consumers had the strongest chance of success, he said.