Hailey Cho: The Change I Want To See
How can Asian Gen Z’s post-pandemic Lifestyle shape eco-friendly Luxury Fashion Events?
Luxury consumers in China increasingly expect brands to serve immersive and unique experiences to create meaningful connections beyond material items.
Here are some of my related working experiences.
I have worked as an event account during Covid-19 in China. My main work content is to prepare luxury fashion events with design and production teams. Work for luxury brands in China made me realised how fast speeding is the event industry and how much waste it brings up every year.
Smith cites the sensorial changes during the past few years: isolation and changing work patterns make people more affected by outdoor and street lights, and people speak louder when wearing masks etc. ‘Handshaking habits, high fives are gone. Outside of families, hugs, kisses have all been lost with the fear of infection.’ (Smith, 2020) In the light of the swift actions governments around the world took in response to the pandemic, consumers are now expecting a similar level of drive in response to the climate crisis. They are also adopting a more frugal mindset, appreciating the smaller things, and living more mindfully.
After two years of pandemic life, everyone is seeking for outdoor activities and craving a different lifestyle. Study what are the popular Gen Z’s lifestyles to help the industry to create more eco-friendly and less waste future luxury fashion events. At 1.8 billion strong, Gen Z is on all retailers’ minds. The children of an environmentally and socially conscious generation, the values-driven conversation has been part of the fabric of their daily lives since day one. With brands clamouring for their attention with quirky aesthetics and sustainability-centred credos, this report explores how to stand out and attract their spend.
With restrictions on global travel bringing Chinese luxury purchases closer to home, luxury spend in China has experienced strong growth throughout 2020 and into 2021. China has surpassed Japan as the leading personal luxury goods market in Asia Pacific, according to Euromonitor International’s Luxury Goods 2021 report and is forecasted to make up 41% of luxury sales in the region by 2025. (WGSN) This growing demand for immersive, branded experiences means luxury labels need to look beyond product desirability alone to cultivate brand loyalty. Engaging with Chinese luxury consumers needs to move beyond the transactional; the product is just one touchpoint.
Building in-person experiences, such as personalised interactions, multisensory engagement and omnichannel storytelling, are central to standing out among a sea of sameness, cultivating cultural literacy and exclusivity for the Chinese luxury consumer. With spending on additional in-game content now accounting for the largest stream of revenue in the $200bn global gaming industry, we explore how brands and retailers are tapping into this growing virtual market. (WGSN) Brands and retailers are looking to capitalise on emerging consumer desire to buy real-life products that have a virtual in-game equivalent.
In 2019, London College of Fashion live streamed their MA graduate collection via the HoloMe app. A specially selected global audience was able to view the AR runway experience in real time. Amid growing environmental concerns in the fashion industry, new technologies can offer a sustainable solution by transforming wasteful systems and encouraging digital-only consumption. Digital fashion house Neuro Studio created its second 3D collection, Solventus 2019, with a zero-waste system.
In the light of the swift actions governments around the world took in response to the pandemic, consumers are now expecting a similar level of drive in response to the climate crisis. They are also adopting a more frugal mindset, appreciating the smaller things, and living more mindfully. “We’ve made our own sustainability action plan, not just as our own target but because we wanted to inspire other fashion weeks and organisations to do the same and to collaborate with us on our requirements system. So it’s something that we’re offering to other companies. It’s one thing having it as a strategic target, but the beautiful thing is that we’ve actually been approached by a lot of fashion weeks and organisations. The biggest trade fair in Denmark – CIFF – also signed up to our requirements system, so when we launched it, it was something that would affect roughly 30 to 40 show brands, and now it’s 1,500 exhibitors. So it’s gaining volume, and volume is crucial for generating impact.” (Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO, Copenhagen Fashion Week)
In summary, the change i want to see is to link physical and digital methods to create eco-friendly events and to satisfy the younger consumers. At the same time these consumers will also be a part of the change makers to the environment.