Tailoring Solution Software Helps Fashion Brands Move Towards Digitally Sustainable Trend
With the beginning of the new year, the fashion industry wants to recalibrate its retail footprint as it plans to reinstall its buyers believes that it cares for nature and wants to do more to strengthen its bottom line and generate profits. 2022 must mark itself as the flag bearer of environmental, social, and digital revolutions in the fashion sector as many of its superpower brands continue to experiment with new-age technology that balances these three critical aspects. On a similar background, the custom tailoring software helps brands successfully venture into an unknown domain, drastically revamp their business model, and digitally increase customer participation while safeguarding nature. The tool provides customization solutions that allow brands to tackle problems with a simple business strategy and accelerate sales.
Tailoring Design Software Helps Fashion Houses Balance Sustainability and Digital Innovation
Last year, everybody saw the inception of a metaverse in the fashion industry, and it is gaining more attention among buyers as many see it as the best way to control the climate crisis and bring the apparel industry back on track. Several experts believe that this year will be full of legislation, forcing the sector to take responsibility for its actions. And as governments across the globe are tightening their grip over brands’ and retailers’ practices and operational styles, they will have to be accountable for their unsustainable practices that will come with legal and financial consequences. Therefore, clothing brands and retailers are increasingly moving towards digital solutions that enable them to smoothly function amid the uncertainties and eradicate the unethical practices that bring humiliation to the sector.
In hindsight, the climate crisis is compelling the fashion industry to swerve to an environmentally conscious mindset that has been the essence of luxury and high-quality products. The term “sustainable” has been doing the rounds in the industry, but it was not associated with luxury fashion for a long time. However, sustainability in its true sense implies the quality of being able to exist over a continued period, and it is somewhat similar to any creative piece of art or luxury fashion to embody, that is, eternity. Our Earth and humanity are facing a planetary emergency that involves a multitude of interrelated issues, such as climate crisis, pollution, biodiversity loss, land degradation, human rights violations, inequality, and the pandemic. The recent surge in the new pandemic variant is compelling people to go back to their digital world for shopping as the new period is a testament to changing landscape in the fashion domain. Against this backdrop, a transition to slow fashion and a circular economy become conceivable.
The fashion department drives a significant part of the global economy as it is believed to be a US$2.4 trillion industry, responsible for an estimated 2 to 8 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, up to 20 per cent of industrial wastewater and 24 per cent of insecticides. Consequently, the industry significantly impacts biodiversity, climate, and nature. Despite the industry being far from achieving environmental sustainability and carbon neutrality, it focuses on other critical aspects and emerging as a key contributor to attain the 2030 Agenda with linkage to all Sustainable Development Goals. The sector needs to introspect and think of strategies that bring people and nature to the forefront, striving for ecosystem regeneration, waste minimization, circularity, responsible production and consumption, and innovation.
In the current blog, we shall explain how technology can play a pivotal part in being a part of the solution and bring a positive change in the industry:
1. Metaverse Becomes a Household Name
NFTs and the metaverse had already reached their peak last summer as Facebook scaled up its game in October when it rebranded to become metaverse company, Meta. Several fashion and beauty brands had already entered the space, and customers, too, were eager to spend money to personalize the virtual avatars. Several clothing companies have tested the digital spaces by collaborating with gaming, social, and metaverse platforms. One of the early adopters of the trend was Gucci which had joined forces with numerous gaming platforms and made a temporary space on Roblox where its bags were resold digitally among the community more than the brick-and-mortar stores. Likewise, Balenciaga tapped into Fortnite, and Ralph Lauren revived the 1990s on Roblox. Gucci and Ralph Lauren have also appeared in Zepeto and raised $150 million. As NFTs became mainstream from obscure, Gucci was the first luxury brand to ta on the technology and entered to make an art film. Since then, there has been no turning back for NFTs and metaverse. Gradually, many leading luxury brands evolved strategies to reward their loyal customers and create VIP membership to promote the new-age technology in the fashion sector, especially among the new buyers. Burberry combined NFTs with gaming by selling NFTs through Blankos Block Party, where Burberry characters ultimately resold for eight times their original price in the game. Thus, it wouldn’t be incorrect to say that several leading and budding apparel brands see a meaningful opportunity in the metaverse, but they have to be patient with their strategies to succeed.
Fashion is essentially a fantasy world where people feel comfortable expressing themselves creatively, and with the help of digital solutions, clothing brands and retailers have a better chance to experiment with their business strategies and expand their business. The new-age solutions offer an unpredictable arc, but we need to figure out how to experiment with them.
2. Online Platforms to Offer Digital Scrutiny
As the world gets hit with the third wave of the pandemic, many people are scared that new restrictions will be imposed; therefore, brands must ensure that when customers start online shopping, they should be able to do it without fear. In fact, new European rules will come into effect in 2022 to offer consumer protection for online shopping. These rules will take into account that when a customer purchases anything online, they are likely to buy a purchase that is manufactured outside of their country. Moreover, this calls for a more advanced protection system because the fashion sector is becoming more digital day by day. As a result, certain countries in Europe have started to provide a ‘legal guarantee’ that will be applied to products with a digital element, such as services and content.
Additionally, European Union (EU) has also paved the way for mandatory human rights, environmental, and good governance due diligence. According to the firm, fashion brands and retailers will have to face penalties if they cause harm by insufficient due diligence in their supply chains. Fashion houses have to ensure that there are child labourers, fair wages are given to workers, and the most important is that the environment is protected.
In May, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) launched investigations into approximately 70 companies in the clothing sector. These companies were being investigated for making misleading marketing claims about the sustainability of their products, otherwise known as greenwashing. For those found in breach of the competition watchdog’s rules, fines up to 900,000 euros or a proportion of company revenue were ordered. However, we have a better way to help apparel brands and retailers, which will ensure that they never find themselves involved in these dirty games. The tailoring software, a customization solution, can be easily installed on your company’s website and allow your buyers to design the clothes that fit them so well as they are designed to meet their specific requirements.
Moreover, it comes with digital features which further assures customers get the product they have designed because they can preview it before placing the order. Hence, it reduces the labor cost, no agents involved, and since it is digital and offers virtual prototypes, it also reduces harmful effects on nature by brands. In short, for all the problems, brands have a better fashion technology that will become their go-to solution whenever they face any difficulty in balancing nature and business.
3. Modern Technologies offer Better Solutions to Combat Fast Fashion
Technology seems to have solutions to every problem as it has the power of big data and analytics that play a crucial role in monitoring markets, identifying opportunities and threats, and informing and making sound and conscious business decisions. These can also be used to analyze the life cycle of materials and products that will further measure the company’s environmental footprints to boost the circular economy. Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to track inventory, manage warehouses and supply chains, forecast trends, and reduce overproduction and waste. With the help of digital technologies, customers can virtually try on outfits and reduce their carbon footprints as there will be lesser returns. Brands can also use blockchain technology that enhances transparency, allowing them to track raw materials, which in turn helps guarantee greater efficiency and responsible practices in the supply chain.
Fashion houses can also create eco-designs repurposed, reused, upcycled, or resold on digital platforms. They can manufacture clothing that is in harmony with nature, uses less water or energy, dumps lesser waste, plummets the stress on forest, land, and other resources. For example, Leading silk brand LilySilk has launched a recycling programme in partnership with TerraCycle to strengthen its commitment to zero waste. The LilySilk Recycling Programme allows consumers to recycle non-donatable LilySilk textiles, including bedding, apparel, and sleepwear made from silk and cashmere, for free across the US. It is easy for consumers to recycle LilySilk textiles; they need to sign up for the initiative on TerraCycle’s website, and then wash and package all textiles in an available box and mail the box in using a prepaid shipping label. Once collected, the LilySilk textiles will be recycled into shredded fibre and used as a filler for cushions, pillows, and linings.
Furthermore, fashion companies can run global social media campaigns that influence customer behavior and encourage them to become changemakers. These days social media is working as an effective tool to voice opinions and interact with like-minded people. Therefore, many emerging and leading apparel brands use these social platforms to connect with their audiences and share their plans and actions to tackle environmental and social problems. Social media is also a great platform for buyers to take a stand on critical issues, such as climate change, and brands and retailers will be forced to listen to these demands. Pivoting to a sustainable pathway is often a value-added process if purpose and action go hand in hand and stay coherent.
The Ball is in Your Court-
It seemed that the world was against the fashion for some time as scientists, organizations, governments, and civil societies have all agreed to avert the worst irreversible consequences of climate change. As a result, the whole fashion sector needs to act ambitiously today. And to help them attain this challenging task is the implementation of digital solutions.
By now, you must have understood the significance of digital technologies in the fashion industry as they serve as a powerful means to shift the ways the industry has been operating and pivot its attitude towards a more inclusive and environmentally conscious sector. These modern solutions also help brands satisfy their customers’ fashion needs and deepen their search for fairness towards the planet and people. They also help brands to remain loyal to their everlasting and ever-evolving vocation and identity while halting the anachronistic antithesis between fashion, luxury, and sustainability. The custom tailoring software by iDesigniBuy works on similar patterns and helps brands and retailers to adhere to the latest sustainable and digital trends in the market and ensures smooth incoming of revenue.
