Investing in Fashion

Popular trends of daily life style in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, body, or furniture are commonly known as fashion. Since ancient times, in majority of the cultures (around the world) these life style trends also indicate the social status achieved by the members of the society.

Historical evidence tells that influential men and women of the society used valuables like gold, pearls, diamonds in their clothing and accessories. Ancient Greeks used gold embroidery on their wearable’s as well as they wore girdles at the waist in gold. These ancient trends were followed by the influential people throughout the history.

In fashion industry trends from the time before the 1920s are referred as antique, while trends from the 1920’s to 20 years back are known as vintage. Producing vintage style becomes popular in fashion industry as designers copy the style of previous era and reproduced product (clothing or jewelry) is a fresh copy of older design or product. Also products look alike original vintage massively produced but one can judge that these just have casual resemblance to the original product.

Original vintage are considered assets in physical form just like other physical assets including commodities like gold and other precious metals, real estate or other financial assets but when it comes to the value factor vintage pieces has an advantage over other investments as the value increases as time goes on due to the fact that it is genuinely belongs to past era, unlike the gold prices, real estate prices or stock prices which are victim or market fluctuations because of demand and supply contributions.

According to a vintage specialist business is expanding at a pace of 20 to 30 per cent. As for investment point of view vintage pieces does not depreciate over the time, if someone buys any vintage product to wear, can sell it in market for profit in a few years’ time. A vintage collector received an offer of twice the price she invested for her “Gabrielle Chanel” (1924 hand beaded ribbon dress) just after 18 month of her purchase but she turned down the offer from Chanel to buy back.

Fashion products produced recently are usually called modern or contemporary fashion.  In recent times due to rapid advancement in technology fashion industry is getting plenty of attraction. It becomes the most dynamic business because what’s trending now could also be obsolete tomorrow, before one even realizes.

Advances in technology with the help of growth in e-Commerce enabled introduction of latest trends seen on the catwalk and on celebrities in a short space of time to the customers and this also helps customers to get what they want more quickly. This efficient process is known as ‘fast fashion’, and it requires an impressive command in supply chain. There is an argument by the critics that the fast fashion produces low-quality products which are highly disposable. But the retailers who can master their supply chains achieving success and the kind of turnaround they are getting suggest that fast fashion is what many customers ultimately want.

Beside vintage or fast fashion, market place is still alive for luxury fashion whether its clothes, accessories or jewelry. Over the years luxury fashion has seen many highs and lows for the demand in Gold (the yellow metal), the two decade of the past century was its popularity boom, but then white gold and platinum become more popular as gold prices shot higher to historical levels. In latest trends of fashion industry has noticed that in last couple of years once again gold is trying to regain its supremacy. As gold prices are tilting down usage of gold in luxury fashion is in demand. Everything including jewelry and clothing is in yellow gold as it looks royal, sophisticated and luxurious.

Since the historical times everyone understand the importance of precious metals (including Gold, Silver, Platinum) and precious stones including (Diamonds, Sapphire’s, Ruby) in luxury fashion but recently investing in luxury fashion products which are waitlisted or limited edition is becoming very popular to get the most resale value in comparison with traditional investment pieces. Chanel Lego bag and Dior Tribal earrings were sold above the retail price because they very hard to find in stores while in the recent years the Hermes Birkin bag were considered even a better investment than Gold.  Classic luxury watches like Rolex and Cartier were always considered a good investment as they could be sold double the price in very short time of original purchase.

There are many new products which could be considered as a good investment pieces for future, for example in Watch Industry “Tudor Heritage Black Bay” “Breitling’s Navitimer” “TAG Heuer Silverstone Limited Edition” and “Patek Philippe” and In Bags “Hermes Kelly” “Chanel Classic Flap” “Chanel Boy Bag” and “The Louis Vuitton Neverfull” are making their way to beat the other investments.

Fashion industry provides good opportunities for investment either you are investing in to start your own fashion house or you are just looking to invest in luxury investment pieces and in vintage. If you are looking to kick off your own house than you need to keep in mind that many join this industry because they are attracted by the glamour associated to the style industry, but they end up facing cruel reality of this business which results failure. Only those entrepreneurs who are willing to give time and can keep themselves updated can make fortune with this dynamic industry.