Globalization

Globalization

Fast Fashion and Haute couture

A contemporary term used by retailers of fashion to identify the potential designs that are introduced in catwalk and move them to stores in the fastest time to capture and keep up with the current market trends is called Fast fashion. It consists of the trendiest fashion, which is usually presented in the fashion week of autumn and spring ever year. The manufacturing and designing of these dresses is done maintaining low cost and less time to launch, the idea behind fast fashion is to give advantage to customers for adopting latest fashion at a cheaper price. There are a lot of retailers working on this philosophy of manufacturing at cheaper cost such as Peacocks, Zara, Top-shop and H&M.

The word “Haute couture” is a French word used exclusively for high Fashion, high dressmaking or high sewing. It is a creation consisting of custom fitted clothes that are stitched exclusively for a person. It is usually created on order, expensive and high quality fabric is used. The stitching is done with great detail and the finishing task is assigned to the most capable and experienced seamstresses. The techniques used in this dresses are hand executed which is very time consuming but the end product is exquisite. In English, “Couture” refers to sewing, needlework and dress making, and Haute means high or elegant. It is common used with the abbreviation of haute couture which means same thing in spirit. The haute couture dresses are stitched on the body stance and specifications of the purchaser.

The changing geography of the clothing industry

A good example of the affects of industrial response to globalization on the local economic geographies is the clothing industry. During the 19th century, the majority contributor of clothes were the metropolitan areas of the core countries, there were small firms established that used cheap labors who were usually immigrant or migrants. The clothing industry started to modernize in the 1st half of the 20th century. There was a domination of larger firms as they were emerging and fast and they were producing in bulk for mass market. In the national markets there was exploitation of the principles of spatial organization.

Since the 1950's, the industry of global textile and apparel has gone through several changes on the basis of production. In the year 1950 and early 1960, the first shift of production was witnessed by Western Europe and North America to Japan, the clothing and textile production of west was affected because of increase in imports from Japan. In the 2nd shift there was a relative increase in importing countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea, these countries dominated the clothing industry of the world in the 1970's and 1980's. During the late 1980's and 1990's a 3rd migration took place, other developing countries also became part of the shift such as China particularly, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Philippines. By the year 1990, Mexico and India were also included, the fifth largest contributor at ...