Influencing the Fashion Industry

Influencing the Fashion Industry

What is the best way for consumers to influence the fashion industry?

Buying power is king. Even though some designers believe that they are capable of dictating the market, the reality is that the market is dictated by purchases.

Consumer demand is what ultimately influences fashion designers & the garment industry in general.  Although designers wish to produce clothing based on their own vision, they can not stay in business if they are not pleasing consumers.

Although actual purchases are a primary influencing mechanism, future garment design & styles are guided by other factors as well.  Consumers voice their opinion with their wallets, but they also provide feedback in other ways.  Today many ecommerce platforms allow for consumer comment & consumer reviews.  Buyer reviews and direct communication with fashion retailers are helpful tools for consumers to make their voice heard.

In addition to direct consumers, journalism also helps influence the clothing industry.  News articles, fashion blogs, and social media play a strong role.  Author comments about brands, designers, or fashion products does have an effect on the industry.

Now a days, anyone can become a fashion blogger, use Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram to express their opinions. If used properly, utilizing such online tools can trickle up to fashion designers and effect future design decisions. If you are a fashion blogger, journalist, or social media manager, we hope that you are using your power in a wise and responsible manner.

Learn about influencing fashion consumers and peer-to-peer influences on fashion.

Return to Influence Fashion.

Learn more about influential fashion concepts.

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The Feedback Signals a Brand Actually Watches

Buying power is the loudest signal, but it arrives in more detail than a simple sold-or-not. Sell-through speed tells a retailer which styles to reorder while the season still has weeks to run. Return rates say the opposite of what a sales figure alone suggests: a garment bought and returned for fit or quality reasons is a vote against its pattern block or its fabric, recorded at the buyer's expense. Size curves — which sizes sell out first and which are left at markdown — quietly reshape the next season's size range and fit decisions.

Reviews add the words to those numbers. A cluster of comments about a tight armhole, a see-through fabric or a zipper that fails is specific enough for a product team to act on, which is why detailed reviews influence design more than star ratings do. Direct messages, fit questions and customer-service complaints reach the same teams through a different door. A shopper who wants to be heard by the industry does the most good by being concrete: what was bought, what was wrong or right, and what would have made it better.

Journalism and social media operate at the level of direction rather than detail. A critic's review, a blogger's sustained argument for slower fashion, or a viral complaint about quality can shift what a whole category attempts next season. Their power is real but blunt — it changes priorities, not patterns. The designers who use it best treat public commentary as weather reporting: useful for deciding what to prepare for, never a substitute for knowing their own customer.

Put together, the consumer's influence is strongest exactly where this page says it is: in the purchase, honestly reviewed. Every other channel amplifies that one.