Coronavirus may have led to fundamental shifts after exposing industry’s outdated business models
Store closures, grounded flights, shuttered factories, employment insecurity. The first half of 2020 was, as Jean-Jacques Guiony of the world’s largest luxury brands conglomerate LVMH, said, “a perfectly negative alignment of planets” for the fashion industry. The cancellation of events, weddings and parties in every market created an economic, logistical and cultural worst-case scenario for fashion.
Even a strong bounce back in China in the second half of the year has not come close to helping the balance sheet. A recent report by the Business of Fashion website and the management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company marks 2020 as the worst year on record for the fashion industry, forecasting a 90% decline in profits and a 15-30% fall in sales, compared with 2019.
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