Japanese fashion vs. European
 

Hi

I am currently writing an essay about an European clothing store entering the Japanese fashion market. Do you have any benefits or disadvantages to consider? I am quite stuck!

Thank you!

Please help!

I'm a Westerner and never heard of those brands....

EDIT... Oops... I don't know why I read Westerner

bleh i hate Gap.>.> cheap sell outs.
I heard about that and i think its stupid, why do you need to write an essa on that junk?

H&M is ok the gap i dont know but theres topshop and others the clothes are ok for mass market nothing wrong with them

Things are generally mass produced but not always. You could say that mass production is a good thing because it brings down the price, however it can decrease the quality and originality of the product. It depends on what is most important to you. Mass produced items are stuff you'd find in Primark and one off designer things you'd find in Harvey Nichs. So really there is stuff to cater for everyone.

Fashion?What's that?

Thank you for the replies.

I am writing this essay as a part of my management course. I am attempting to find out wheter or not it is beneficial for an European company to expand to Japan. Do you guys have any ideas?

I think one disadvantage to mass production companies, not just clothing, is that as time goes on, people come to rely solely on these companies for their needs, and over time our society has lost many skills. The majority of people these days don't know how to sew for themselves, or really do or make anything for themselves for that matter, and if they ever lost those companies that they rely so heavily on, they will be at a loss as to what to do.

In my personal opinion, I think that our over-dependance on companies for our daily needs is a degeneration of our society. I mean, hardly anyone can do anything for themselves anymore. Take Mapquest and GPS for example. More and more people are relying entirely on turn-by-turn instructions, and you know that at some point these things will be standard in cars. But what will happen in the years to come, when there are only as many people that understand how to use a map and compass as there are people today that can sew?

Don't get me wrong, I love technologic innovations, but I don't think that they should cause us to loose our skills in self sufficiency. Because of people's utter reliance on these companies, the gap between producer and consumer is steadily growing larger.

Another thing. While mass-produced clothing is cheap, making them yourself is even cheaper, and if you become decent, you can usually have better quality clothing that fits better than store-bought clothing.

Yet another thing. Even in the days when everyone still sewed their own clothing, there were still fashion trends. But even in that instance, because you could make your own pieces, each outfit had the potential to be one of a kind, and uniquely your own. These days, there are hundreds if not thousands of the exact same shirt being produced ever day, meaning that if you buy something from a store like Gap, it is virtually impossible to call yourself completely unique. You may have your own unique way of mixing pieces of your outfit to get your own look, but somewhere, someone else is wearing the same shirt.

Sorry, sort of went off on a tangent there ^_^;

....None. I dislike H&M, Gap, Zara, Old Navy, Kohal's, and others etc. =/

I gotta say I doubt if you have done enough research on your end. Why even ask us about H&M, Gap, and Zara now? They are all already here in Japan and are doing rather well.

A lot of other European brands are also already here in Japan and more will be coming. Why? Because Japan is where you can sell fashion products for the highest prices in the world. If you succeed in Japan, you have it made in the fashion industry. Right now, the Yen is the currency that you want to be making your profits in.

I used to be in the fashion industry myself (non-clothing, though.). The sales manager of one world-renoun giant French company used to keep telling me how important the Japanese market was to them. He said his company sold about 30% of its products in Japan, which was much more than it sold in France or the U.S. or even those two combined! What's more, if they only calculated the profits instead of the sales, that figure (30%) rose up to nearly 50%. 50% of your profits means......half your existence!
I won't name this company here but people in the European fashion industry know it. That's why they try hard to penetrate the Japanese market.