The fashion industry is an industry of making and selling clothes. Some people distinguish between the fashion industry and the apparel industry but in the 1970s those distinguish between them had vanished. Fashion’s simple and best definition is style or styles of clothing accessories. There are so many expensive accessories around the world. The fashion industry makes those designs, manufacturing it, distributing it, marketing, advertising and retailing and also promoting it according to the market demand. The fashion industry promotes all types of men’s, women’s and also children’s clothing which were made by their designer according to the market’s demand. The fashion industry is upgrading day by day. In the 19th century, clothing was handmade and individuals but in the 20th-century clothing became a fashion and nowadays clothing is made by using modern technology such as sewing machines and other updated machines. In this global capitalism, arena fashion industries developed their factories for making more and more products of clothing. The departmental store is also increasing day by day and clothing becomes the priority for people. The fashion industry developed first in America and Europe. An American Fashion industry might find fabrics in China and manufacture them in Vietnam but now they can be designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold in another or world-wide. The fashion industry has the largest employers in the United States.
The fashion industry has four sectors:
Fashion design and production: Fashion designing is the first and most important part of the fashion industry. Fashion design is now a subject to study in the whole world. Textiles industry design and made most of the fashions. Using the automation of the spinning and weaving of wool, cotton, and other natural fibers was the first accomplishment of the 18th century’s Industrial Revolution. Before the 18th-century fashion design was like making clothes and fixing their size but in the 21st-century fashion design is highly rated and made from highly animated and high-speed machines that are controlled by computer devices.
Production is a process after making a design of the cloth. The production team uses cotton to make fabrics and produce cloth according to the design and blueprint. Fabrics are produced from the effects of dyeing, weaving, printing, and other manufacturing and finishing processes.
Textile manufacturers produce the apparel production cycle in advance to create fabrics with colors, textures, and other qualities according to the customer demand. The production team designs the fabric embroidery on the fabrics and also uses printing to look the fabric good, well designed, and attractive.
Design and manufacturing: Manufacturing is a process to complete the cloth-making process according to the design. This process starts with design, cutting, and stitching. After making the design, the manufacturing team starts laying the fabrics, marking it and cutting it according to the size. Then the final process starts with stitching. Stitching the fabrics give it a perfect shape and size. After stitching the manufacturing team adds some extra processes to it, like ironing, packing, and cartooning.
Before the 18th century, manufacturing was like cutting, and sewing but in the 21st-century manufacturing is the most important process in fashion designing. Fashion Industries add a manufacturing process to make the clothes look more attractive, well designed, and well packed so that the customer can easily choose those products.
Retailing, Marketing, and merchandising: When the cloth is manufactured, it needs to be sold. But how are clothes taken from the manufacturing team and delivered to the customer? Retail is known as buying clothes from manufacturers and selling them to customers. Retailers make purchases for products before three to six months. Customers can buy the clothes from-store.
Marketing is a process of merchandise the product design to the customer. This process starts with customers’ demand and maximizes the product demand and profits. The production team has so many marketers whose work is to provide data about market flow and customer’s attraction towards a designed product. Once he understands the flow he immediately reports it to the designer team and the team uses the data and makes some exceptional products according to the given data and launches it to the market.
Fashion Shows: Fashion designers not only promote their design only to the buyer but also promote it through social media, ads, and fashion shows on television. In the 19th century, Paris used to show their design to their client privately in a house. But 21st century not only garments but also retailer shops also show their fashion to the clients with professional models, where they used to show it to their clients, media, and buyers directly. In 20th and 21st-century fashion shows became more and more open for all people and also added a large venue and a runway for models wearing designer clothes. Some fashion shows used to call singers, who sing songs on the runway, and the models used to show the design to the gathering. In the 21st century, fashion shows became a regular part of the fashion calendar. This show is held in many countries including Bangladesh. The fashion shows are held twice a year. One in summer and another in winter. Summer and winter shows used to show their summer collection of men, women, and both children’s. The models used to wear specific outfits that were ordered or bought by the clients and walk on the rampage to show it to the media.
Media marketing: Using media as a tool of marketing is the best process to sell the products. Using television advertising, posting on social media, website upload and print on newspaper are the main parts of media marketing. Ready to wear cloth, sewing machine tools, and departmental stores also play an important role in media marketing. In the 20th-century photographs printed in the media play an important role in marketing. Now in the 21st century, social media plays the most significant role in media marketing. Sometimes most of the marketing can be done by using cinema or movie advertising. People of this generation used to watch movies like an addiction and they have their types of favorite heroes and heroines. So some fashion industries used to offer their design cloth to the movie production and the production team used those designed clothes to shoot the movie and the fanbase of that movie actor or actress buy those types of designed cloth. That’s how the fashion industry gains profits. Sometimes the industry paid an actor to become a model for the industry and make advertisements with them. For that, the fanbase of that celebrity likes to buy the same designed cloth, and the company gains profits.
The fashion system: The fashion industry is a part of the largest fashion system, which is not only business but also art and craft of fashion, not only production but also consumption. The fashion system is a mother of all processes of fashion change. Some factors are the inner part of the fashion and some are the external part of the fashion. The fashion industry is strong enough to gratify any buyer’s desire to accept or reject fashionability, however, that term might be defined.