Fast Fashion Bites Fast Fashion

It looks like Fast Fashion may be finally catching up with the Fast Fashion pioneers. Companies like H&M and Zara have famously been able to keep up with catwalk styles through innovative production and sourcing technologies that allow them to to produce clothes faster and cheaper
than most designers. They have been so successful that tastemakers now mix their shopping at places like Selfridges with their bargain buys at Top Shop.

The NY Times reports that H&M has been a thorn in the side of the fashion
industry since the company expanded into the United States in 2000. But now, the practice that H&M helped create is snapping at their tails.

Last month, This Is London reports, H&M issued a writ in the High
Court claiming Primark copied a series of its designs and motifs. H&M!?

Is the modern fashion industry flooded with plagiarism, or has an age-old industry habit of borrowing inspiration been exaggerated through technology? Today designers and buyers have a combination of technology and modern insight tools to ensure their collections are ‘on trend’. Buyers at fast fashion stores have a number of ways to gain inspiration in a single lunchtime on Oxford Street: amongst other things, they could just pop into a local competitor with a digital camera and snap away in the changing rooms at an item they should copy; or they could just munch through their sandwich from Mash whilst flicking through the near real-time shots of the latest catwalks beamed courtesy of WGSN.com.

Where does this leave Fashion? When PSFK asked one up and coming bespoke British shoe designer about the challenges created by Fast Fashion, he told us, "I used to think that I could hand make about two or three high quality beautiful pair of shoes a week and live off the income. The problem is that someone sees the design on my site and they get a similar pair made for $3 in China and sells them for £300 less. I realised I can’t compete. And I don’t think the customer really cares."

This Is London
New York Times