he signs that the global fashion market has sent, in the final trimester of last year and that have been intensifying during the first months of 2019, compel us to make a deep reflection about what is happening, but most of all, what may be yet to come.

The majority of brands are confronted with stagnation in consumption. Stores accumulate stocks and seem to be off-sync with the seasons, resorting to promotions and anticipating the sales period, seriously compromising the business margins. The explanation that consumption is migrating to the online is only partly valid, since the total sum of online and offline sales is not higher than those achieved in previous years. Likewise, climate change and sporadic events, such as the terrorist attacks in some European capitals or the gilet jaunes protests in Paris, might justify the consumers’ behavioural changes, but still come short.

Something is changing in the fashion business and, in a broader sense, there is no straightforward explanation for it. The brands themselves, in particular those with a global reach and that implemented “fast fashion” business models, seem to be drifting in this mutation process, although they have the notion that they are threatened and that changes are in order, not only to continue growing, but merely to survive.

There is something structural in all of this, and it must be faced. The Portuguese textile and clothing industry is already being affected by the phenomenon, and it must find arguments, not only resist, but, especially, to accompany the change and make the most of it. It is important to remember that we came late to globalization and to the opening of international markets, underestimating the impact that China would have on the fashion business worldwide. Many Portuguese companies paid the price for that distraction or inability to react and adapt.

Today something similar is happening.  The fashion industry will shrink, especially in the developed markets to which Portugal sells. The younger generations, more sensitive and committed to sustainability and social responsibility, will give priority to the broad use of clothing items, its reuse and recycling, undermining the foundations of what is today the driver of the fashion industry, the so-called fast fashion.

We are beginning a period of deceleration of fast cycles, production and consumption, a slowing down that will have everlasting impact in the productive systems created to serve models that are no longer sustainable. The fashion industry is slowing down and it shall continue to do so. We do not know what will happen next, but we do know that, in ten or fifteen years, none of the companies that reached success by creating disposable fashion will be relevant in the world that is upon us.

The Portuguese textile and clothing industry elected “fast fashion” as their reason of survival and development over the past decade, but it will have to shape itself for the world where “slow fashion”, digitalization, technology, circularity and sustainability are the reigning principles. Firstly, one needs to be aware of it and then work for it.