Has Fashion Lost the Plot? The Industry Feels Tired, Repetitive and Out of Step
“Fashion is no longer fashionable.” It sounds absurd, I know, but the thought came to me recently and I haven’t been able to shake it off. It started during the pandemic. I had this deep sense of unease. Fashion was no longer fulfilling. Flipping through luxury magazines, walking through luxury malls. I could not understand what was happening or what had happened. I’ve loved fashion as long as I can remember. So what changed?
The fashion industry has pushed to reclaim its cultural momentum, but what was once dynamic now feels increasingly out of sync. Luxury appears fatigued, mainstream fashion is stuck in a loop, and the industry’s creative engine is sputtering under the strain of relentless speed. Add to that the dissonant marketing strategies deployed around global events like the Olympics, and the result is an industry that looks more tone-deaf than trend-setting.
Post-Pandemic Luxury: A Shadow of Its Former Self
Luxury fashion emerged from the pandemic bruised but defiant. As soon as lockdowns lifted, brands doubled down on exclusivity and escapism, offering fantasy wardrobes to a world still reckoning with social upheaval and economic instability. Initially, there was an appetite for a return to glamour. But in 2025, the façade is starting to crack.
What was once aspirational now often feels absurd. The repetitive roll-out of archival reissues, the crazy number of collections, and eye-watering price hikes have tested consumer loyalty. Brand collaborations are no longer novel; they’re just noise. Many of fashion’s marquee names are surviving on heritage and logo power rather than innovation. Quiet luxury, once heralded as the post-pandemic antidote to flash, has become the new uniform of sameness, another sign of an industry relying on surface over substance.
SKIMS Nike collaboration is a case in point. Social listening revealed mixed reviews skewing towards the negative, with many commenting on how this was rehashing Kanye West’s Yeezy tropes. Given fashion’s recent distancing from the musician-maverick for his alleged racist comments. It's a double whammy.
As Gen Z and millennial audiences grow increasingly values-driven, the traditional language of luxury, for status, excess, and inaccessibility, feels increasingly stale. Without a radical shift in approach, luxury risks alienating the very audiences it needs to future-proof itself.
The Olympics and the Tone-Deaf Marketing Problem
If the fashion industry needed a recent case study in misjudged branding, the 2024 Olympics delivered.
From high-end brands outfitting athletes in ill-conceived uniforms to promotional campaigns that seemed more focused on spectacle than authenticity, fashion’s role in the Olympic narrative felt off-key. Brands sought to capitalise on the global visibility, but few considered the actual values of sport, community, resilience, the hard work and natural skills of the athletes and how those might intersect meaningfully with fashion’s current priorities.
Instead, the campaigns reeked of surface-level storytelling. Athletes were cast as props rather than protagonists. Diverse voices and bodies were present in marketing visuals, but absent from real decision-making or product development. For an industry that claims to champion inclusion and progressive values, the Olympics exposed just how far there is still to go.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the current backlash was not helped by the tone deaf and some ways, distasteful opening ceremony. Marketing dollars spent on performative content often failed to translate into authentic brand engagement or long-term loyalty. A certain brand’s logos splashed all over the place was the final case in point. The lesson? Visibility without relevance is just expensive noise
The Creative Drought: A Repetition Problem
Fashion has always relied on cycles, but the current repetition feels less like clever referencing and more like creative exhaustion. Archival revivals dominate the runways. The 90s have been rehashed, the Y2K era mined to the point of depletion. The result is a landscape of déjà vu where collections look like echoes of each other and risk-taking is increasingly rare.
This isn’t simply an aesthetic problem. It’s systemic. The industry’s over-reliance on star creative directors, endless seasonal calendars, and performance-driven KPIs leaves little space for experimentation or failure. Emerging designers are often absorbed into mega-groups or commercialised too early. Meanwhile, legacy houses stick with what sells, even if it means artistic stagnation.
Audiences notice. Cultural capital is harder to earn, especially in an era where online communities drive micro-trends faster than brands can respond. TikTok virality has a shorter shelf life than seasonal retail drops. In such an environment, authenticity and originality should be fashion’s most precious currencies, yet too often, we see the same silhouettes, colour palettes, and “inspired by” narratives recycled across collections. Pundits went as far as branding New York Fashion Week boring.
Too Fast, Too Much
Perhaps the most urgent issue facing the industry is its addiction to speed.
The churn of pre-collections, main collections, collaborations, resort, couture, and menswear shows multiplied by influencer content and social media-driven trend cycles has become unsustainable. Designers are burning out. Supply chains are overstretched. And the audience, bombarded with constant drops, has become desensitised. Warnings from industry stalwarts such as Elbaz, McQueen, Galliano, Gaultier even forecaster Li Edelkoort have disappeared into the ether of marketing noise.
Fast fashion continues to set a blistering pace that high fashion has tried to keep pace with. Even luxury brands now feel compelled to produce more, faster, and cheaper. But this accelerated model undermines the very foundations of quality, creativity, and sustainability that fashion claims to care about.
The consequences are far-reaching. Environmental impact is increasing. Garment workers remain underpaid and overworked. And from a business perspective, the race to feed algorithms rather than cultivate artistry is eroding long-term brand value.
In short, the industry is moving too fast to think.
What Needs to Change?
Fashion is at a crossroads. To recover its cultural relevance and creative integrity, it must slow down, listen more, and rethink what value really means.
Luxury needs a reset. That means moving beyond logo fatigue and performative sustainability to offer truly innovative, value-driven propositions. Brands must engage with the shifting priorities of younger consumers whose status-flex looks very different to the previous generations’.
Marketing must evolve. Whether it’s the Olympics or any other platform, campaigns need depth, not just diversity in casting, but diversity in perspective and decision-making. Audiences can spot inauthenticity a mile away.
Creativity must be protected. That requires reimagining production timelines and KPIs to give designers the time and freedom to take risks, explore new ideas, and challenge norms.
The pace must be human. Slowing down production cycles is not a sacrifice; it’s an investment in long-term relevance and resilience. The future of fashion depends on finding a rhythm that sustains people and the planet, not just profits.
The world has changed. If fashion wants to remain a meaningful part of it, the industry must change too, not just in aesthetics, but in attitude.
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Image Credit: Giovanna P Sola
Improving Your Marketing Communications
The first mistake fashion brands make is they don’t have a single brand message - or what a marketer would describe as a reason why a consumer should buy their product over another brand. Unfortunately consumers are fickle and they are busy going about their daily lives. If you want them to take notice of your brand tell them what you offer and keep it simple. If you keep things simple, creative or intelligent and inspiring they may reward you with their attention.
If you solve a customer’s problem they will be even more likely to take notice. The first step of marketing communications is to have a single brand message that enough customers care about. Your brand message can be implicit (understood through strong visuals) or explicit (with a slogan that spells things out). Only after you have clarified your brand message, can you start thinking about marketing communication.
These days to cut through the noise your brand message has to be communicated 360 degrees at every consumer touch point. In the case of a brand like Nike, who’ve spent billions of dollars communicating their brand message - they have the budget to use print, store environment, TV, product placement, brand ambassadors, event sponsorship and more recently a plethora of online platforms. Whether like Nike you have a million dollar budget or you have a modest budget, before developing marketing communications first think about what you want your consumer to understand about your brand. Then choose the correct media to target your niche market and put your advertising dollars behind those identified platforms.
If customers are digitally savvy and spend time on social media deliver them a mixture of free content of value and branded paid for content. If they read fashion magazines and blogs, try to research the most cost effective way of advertising using these platforms. Whether it is free editorial coverage if you have something that is PR worthy and a friendly journalist is willing to cover your story or collaborate on a giveaway / competition. Magazines, especially the online editions may be open to such collaborations. Think of all the media your potential target market consumes, places they visit or platforms they interact with on a daily basis and plan an advertising strategy based on how far your budget will stretch.
Promotion encourages what is known as a ‘call to action’. These are tools to move your target market to take the first step towards either finding out more about the brand, visiting a store or website or making a purchase. Call to actions are often forgotten but are critical to success so that they should be given time and consideration.
Your promotional strategy should fit your brand positioning and brand message. For example, your customers may expect lots of discounts from an online store selling affordable fashion. Those same customers may become suspicious of a Social Enterprise that is always pushing discounts.
Why? Some people support social brands for altruistic purposes, they want to feel good by giving back, so hard sell discounts may not go down well with these customers. Instead, expertly timed discounts or promotions such as free shipping or gift with purchase, linked with special events or festivals would be more appropriate. Promotions that encourage customers to tell their friends, buy more than one product or try your product for the first time are also critical to your strategy’s success when you launch.
Branded Experiences Are Critical to Success….
Branded experiences are critical to a brand’s success, even in the era of digital marketing. These are real world events that can bring your brand to life by demonstrating your brand message in a tangible way. Giving customers a chance to interact with your company, not just from a product perspective but offering a chance to immerse themselves in your brand story in the physical world, can be a great opportunity for customers to experience and test merchandise and understand your brand values.
Joseph Pine and James Gilmore’s Experience Economy model is a framework that explains the different ways you can create memorable events for your customers that adds value to your brand. The dimensions include creating events that Educate, Entertain, or events that are Aesthetic or Escapist. Workshops, seminars, talks with experts, meet and greet sessions with brand ambassadors are all branded experiences that can help you connect with your customers. Of course these experiences should all leverage customers love of posting on Instagram so make sure
If you would like to know about creating an integrated marketing strategy for your brand get in touch! Our monthly workshops are budget friendly and suitable for new businesses testing the waters or one-to-one advice sessions can be arranged with a complimentary 20 minute online call.
Get in touch anisa@anisajohnny.com
Areas of expertise: Fashion Educator I Sustainability I Branding I Social Entrepreneurship
Podcast: Fashion Hub
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