Sadly, I believe that many marginal apparel retailers will simply not be able to re-open. Furthermore, I believe that apparel retailers will be one of hardest hit of all the retail categories. One of the key challenges apparel retailers will have is shopper demand. Even on the other side of COVID-19, many predict that consumer demand will be stunted for a significant period of time due to the high unemployment levels. Retailers can blow out last year’s apparel, but you need customers who are willing to buy, and I think that’s going to be the biggest challenge.

The fashion marketplace will shrink as a result of the pandemic. Some designer houses will not survive this event. Some may have to shrink first to survive and try to surge later. The demand for fashion will still be there on the other side of this but with few providers to start.

I just read an article in WWD that sales of fashion apparel online were up 55 percent globally over the last couple of weeks. Much was due to steep discounts, but there is also the glass-half-full point of view that there is a glimmer of some pent up purchasing and perhaps a little bounce back in store for the industry.

I completely agree that fashion will be the most distressed sector of retail as a result of this crisis. The segment went into this with a whole raft of problems which are now being exacerbated. The casualties will be enormously painful but, in some ways, necessary as overcapacity has haunted the sector for too long.

In terms of wholesale, any brand still relying on department stores to distribute product has clearly been out of touch for too long. The whole channel is a hot mess and the writing has been on the wall for many years.

I believe that off-price retailers are positioned well for life after COVID-19. Last season for them is not a problem and they should prosper once we can get people into stores again. Fashion brands face a serious dilemma. Do they pack away this year’s product for next, mark it down, or sell it to off-price? None of these choices are palatable but the retailers must do something to survive. Those that do will need to change their business model. They need to tighten up the supply chain, look to on- or near-shore sourcing options, move to BOPIS/ghost/dark store concepts and emphasize e-commerce to a greater extent to face down the pandemic challenge.

Beyond food and household products, most of the retail world is hurting greatly; fashion is no different. COVID-19 has set back – not just reset – the fashion marketplace. What do you do when there are not only no retail outlets open and selling, but there is such uncertainty in the market that new consumer spending is virtually nil? Take write-offs and hope for government bailouts? Discount inventory? Donate? There is no good answer.

Fashion as a mindset, as a vehicle for self expression, is certainly not an endangered species. Apparel retail however, is facing its most Darwinian moment ever. Some will survive in some evolved form and many will not. The proverbial meteor has hit and there are whole species that just won’t survive. Brands and retailers will re-examine how they manage risk. Supply chains will be challenged to the extreme to be more nimble and for calendars to be compressed. Who is going to be comfortable operating nine to 12 months out at this point? Vertical retailers and DTC brands will have an easier time of it. Wholesale brands will need a whole new model and a new operating relationship with brick and mortar retailers. They will need a much more “in real time” model versus the nine to 12 month out model. The ability to mine data from current selling and project that learning into future deliveries on a compressed calendar takes on heightened importance. The apparel business was always a combination of knowledge and guesswork.… Read more »

There are some events that change the landscape irrevocably. I wrote a piece where I discussed my mother, who lived through the Great Depression among other things, scrubbing a 30 year old toaster oven clean when she could have just bought a new one for $20. While Boomers and Gen X may return to some level of spending, I truly believe that Millennials and Gen Z (and Gen C – those born now) will have a very different ethos. Excess is out. I think fast fashion will likely be out, due to environmental concerns. What the final shape of fashion will be is unclear to me. Cheaper than luxury, but more durable than fast fashion for sure. But let’s be really clear. Between COVID-19, the deep recession/depression it will cause and climate change (as I sit here in Miami, the “feels like” temperature is 96 — about 30 to 45 days early) these young people have had some seriously jarring experiences in their lives. You don’t just “bounce back” from this. I don’t expect those… Read more »

I think there will be some fallout from the pandemic, but what I have seen in the interim is that a lot of smaller stores have started creating fashionable face masks — which is unique — and they are apparently selling.

I don’t think I’ve seen a more depressing piece about retail. I understand connecting dots can be necessary but the fascination with “how bad it can get and will be” has little balance these days. Hermes just reopened in China and had the biggest one-day sales ever. I get it, these are tough times. People are out of work. There’s a lot that is disconcerting but no one really knows exactly what the future holds and the more fear and anxiety created, the worse chances for anything else but fear and anxiety to take hold. Let me be clear: economies run on hope. Unless and until the narrative is changed to anything hopeful, the more these worst-case scenarios are likely to take hold.

Nobody has a crystal ball regarding the next month’s outlook, much less what the future looks like six months from now. The longer the “lockdown” continues (for the sake of public health, which is the highest priority), the tougher the short-term outcome for apparel sales. Those retailers who were already hanging by a thread are unlikely to stay in business. And the bounceback, whenever it begins, will favor retailers catering to those with disposable incomes. People who lost their jobs and ate into their savings are not going to buy that new pair of shorts or shoes, no matter how steep the discount, but there might be pent-up demand among those who were able to work from home in “office” jobs. Eventually, “need to buy” will provide some revival of the apparel business, and it might begin with Back to School. (After all, kids didn’t stop growing during the pandemic.) But the human losses are so huge that some “survivor guilt” will hang over most shoppers at least through the end of 2020. I don’t… Read more »

When you have everything you want, when you want it, and see other people with it, you think you need it.

When one realizes one can exist very well without fashion (or sports, or going out to dinner or attending the movies, etc…) needs get re-adjusted. I believe this phenomenon will have tremendous impact on excesses that used to be “needs.”

People will always want to express themselves through clothing, so the apparel sector isn’t at risk for going extinct. But only those capable of thinking and iterating fast will survive. For example, Lululemon and others are bulking up core assortments to avoid stock overages of seasonal merchandise. Levi’s is using 3-D tech to send product mockups to wholesalers, rather than samples.

We will definitely be witnessing a mix of desperation and creativity. Given the timing of the pandemic, fashion retailers are looking at three seasons worth of merchandise – winter clearance, spring and summer. The carrying costs and lack of cash flow will prevent retailers from packing it away and keeping it for next year. To make matters worse, once you introduce abnormally high discounts to customers, you train them to wait. So retailers will need to be creative with promotions. I’ve already seen some retailers discounting at a higher percentage than their normal deep discount, but adding a minimum quantity threshold. Off-pricers are well-positioned to win here with a potential influx of great merchandise.
Fashion won’t go away, but it will struggle for a while and the landscape will look different. Some retailers with strong and significant e-commerce operations are likely considering not opening their stores back up.

I don’t mean to sound negative about this, but I see this as a thinning of the herd that is necessary. If you make a great product, regardless of the seasonality, and the brand is well run and well positioned financially, then you ride this out. Too often the retailers I’ve been in that don’t have that brand loyalty and are “dime a dozen” get squeezed out naturally. For example – I’ve worn Ralph Lauren my whole life. They largely are a wholesaler to Macy’s and the like. They are a *brand* and not a retailer themselves, so I obviously don’t see them going anywhere. Same with Lulu and others. The challenge, which they had before, was relevance. COVID-19 doesn’t change that.