Welcome back, and welcome to 2025.
How do you feel? What are you looking forward to? Have you worked on your goals, plans and objectives for the year ahead? What are you excited about? What are you creating? What’s important for you in this brand new year of 2025?
As fashion lovers, I’m sure we all look out at the beginning of the year with excitement for the new hero products, the beautiful collections, the changes in the consumer landscape and the outfits we’re going to create (either from what we already have or from pieces we purchase). For many of you, I’m sure you’ve also researched the future of fashion through articles you have read, including The Business of Fashion and McKinsey’s “The State of Fashion” as well as from your own ideas of market sentiment. Well, I’m going to look out from my own point of view of what I see for the coming year ahead.
From an astrological and spiritual perspective, this year of 2025 is a major year of transition. There are endings and new beginnings. Is this what we will experience in fashion? As I look to the year ahead from a personal perspective, I’m really excited. I have things I want to create and plans for new things, and existing things. Overall an experience of love for life, with lots of new opportunities, experiences and projects that I’m committed to realising. If I were to have a word for the year ahead, it would be responsibility, not in a heavy sense, but more like accountability in this year ahead; 2025 is a year where integrity, quality and authenticity are so important.
So let’s explore a bit more about that and the many factors contributing to why this year is all about integrity, quality and authenticity. Firstly, we are experiencing a luxury slowdown. It seems that consumers have got tired of spending on high-price items and continual price hikes in expensive brand names. Not to mention, the tremendous amount of jupes that have come onto the marketplace. Here, of course, we must address the “Walmart Birkin”. Whatever your view is on fashion brands, iconic bags and luxury goods, there does seem to be a drawing back of the curtain and showing that you can have really great items for a fraction of the cost; whether you choose to have that or not is an entirely personal choice. However, the consumer has a choice and this is the first of several areas where consumers can no longer be blindly led to buy expensive items. Economically, we face so many challenges in the world and whilst interest rates have come down (to an extent), there are still many uncertainties. We have wars, climate change challenges and impending impacts due to the increases in tariffs. It is all a bit unknown and rather a sense of impending doom, or at least uncertainty. It seems a good idea to hold onto our money rather than spending unnecessarily.
1. Luxury Slow-Down
So, of course, the luxury brands are very active in securing their positions as leaders in the space. This year of 2025, is the year where we see so many new creative directors at brands and some really big brands such as Chanel, Givenchy, Bottega Veneta and Celine. Many things are changing around those luxury goods companies and probably still more to come. How much this will change the landscape and encourage consumers to spend we really don’t know but as with fashion economics are also cyclical. We can’t expect the luxury goods industry to keep growing, It’s slowing down now and it will come back, but not immediately.
2. Too Much Stuff
The online, multi-brand marketplace environment has seen so much consolidation with lacklustre performances. The shares of these former powerhouses have dropped by 77%. It seems like every time I open my emails there are promotions from Net-a-Porter, MyTheresa and others. Have we just got to the point where there is just far too much out there and consumers are tired of buying more and more? Let’s get back to integrity and quality in authenticity. We don’t need everything there is out there. We just need some beautiful items and not everything has to be expensive, not everything has to be brand new, but they certainly need to be authentic. Has the consumer woken up to the value of familiarity, authenticity and comfort in what they’re wearing?
3. Shein IPO
I guess some have seen the importance of quality and authenticity, but a lot have not. Will 2025 be the year for the Sheen IPO? This IPO had some false starts and yet they are clearly committed to making this happen. Thirty percent of Gen Z customers say they’re addicted to fast fashion and this is where these customers are. The magical gamifying of buying low-price items has provided phenomenal results for the company and the platform. Yet, hampered by so many shadowy reports around human rights compliance and sustainability, among others, clearly, there are still a lot of people who don’t recognise the importance of sustainable fashion. In a world of financial insecurity, this often leads to consumers deprioritising sustainability and favouring cheap items. It certainly seems that sustainability and climate commitments have taken a back seat. Consumers seem less interested in this than earlier this decade, how this is addressed is unclear, especially in times when we are consistently experiencing freak storms, flooding, and the biggest weather stories we’ve ever known and yet people still buy cheap fashion. Maybe they just don’t know the impact it has or maybe they aren’t really understanding fully.
4. Sustainability Back Seat
The deceleration of the China economy and spending has considerably impacted the growth of specific brands, the luxury goods industry, and sportswear. We are no longer living in the unprecedented times of the pre-pandemic when Chinese luxury shoppers were everywhere, buying from Western brands and China was a very strong market for growth. Not only has the economy declined, but the focus is on local spending. Many Western brands are being replaced by Chinese brands. The sportswear industry has seen the move away from Nike, Adidas and other incumbents, towards Anta and Li-Ning. Anna’s revenue has surpassed Nike’s with a total revenue of 33.74 Billion RMB during the first half of 2024. Twenty percent more than Nike and 160% more than Adidas. Even Starbucks has seen tremendous competition from Luckin Coffee.
Clearly, there are other markets with great opportunities - India, Japan, Thailand and Indonesia. Yet, what is clear is the end of that era is here. Brands cannot expect to be able to have consumers endlessly shop their items. The drive for cultural alignment may speak to this or a national focus. Let’s see how this progresses.
However, one issue which is all about integrity, quality, and authenticity (or lack of it) in 2024, was the discovery of luxury sweatshops in Europe, found to be making Dior products, and probably other brands as well. I have a denim Dior Saddlebag and a Bucket hat, presumably both from said sweatshops. Seriously, both were expensive. The brands involved have issues with integrity - human rights conflicts, definitely authenticity - these products have been made in compromised conditions, which is not related to authenticity. The quality is probably not an issue, as the brand will have many measures (and penalties) in place to ensure this.
Yet this exposure is an opportunity for the consumer to see that these Brands are not as aspirational as they are presented.
4. Consumer Confidence
Why buy expensive brands when their ethics and quality are questionable?
The fashion year 2025 may have many challenges, but it is good in that it provides a levelling, revealing what is really going on in fashion. The curtain has been and will continue to be pulled back. Consumers are becoming more aware, being educated, and having choices. This may be the end of the illusion of the brands, but this is a good thing as those with integrity, quality, and authenticity will thrive. Here’s to that!
As always, have fun, love life, and enjoy fashion.
Kate xx
