By Jahnavi

• Fashion Design Faculty

Since the 1980s and the growth of the global economy, there has been massive growth in what Joanne Eicher has termed “world fashion.” Within the last ten years, globalization has become a huge part of the fashion industry. Globalization does take an effect on the fashion industry.

At the start of the twenty-first century, the preferred garments of young people of both sexes from around the world tend to be jeans, sweatshirts, T-shirts, and sneakers. These clothes are also representations of popular icons of western culture. The global youth wear the same clothing, a phenomenon made possible by the exploitative mechanisms of the globalization of clothing manufacture, distribution, and retailing and by new technologies, global commodity advertising of branded leisure clothing, and the cultural and political domination of the United States. The reasons for such a shift in trends (clothing) may vary, but they represent the youth, modernity, and an eagerness to belong to the newly globalized, open world.

The most important elements of fashion industry are textile, clothing or apparel and footwear industries. A distinguished feature of fashion industry is its ability to differentiate between different social segments or otherwise known as social differentiation. As observed in most of the other industries, the most high-end products are always very expensive and are only accessible by a tiny section of people at the top of society/ financial hierarchy. Which leaves the middle section of society with a mass produced edited version of the premium products. This means that, it’s necessary to produce the fashionable items in cheaper price in the fashion market to achieve the selling target and contribute to the larger population.

Globalization affects fashion industry through the production, distribution and marketing channels. Another significant impact of globalization is to keep the people informed and updated on each and every new trend in the fashion industry through old and new media like radio, television, newspapers, internet, mobile phones etc.

For centuries, textiles and clothing styles have been one of the most obvious and important indicators of cross-cultural interchange. With the rapid rise of globalization over the past several decades, the spread of fashion across global cultures has mirrored the changes in economy, culture, and daily life that globalization has brought. According to Leslie W. Rabine, globalization means an abundance of fashions sold by giant retailers who can update inventory, make transnational trade deals, and coordinate worldwide distribution of goods at the click of a computer. It means that what people are consuming is less the clothing itself than the corporate brand or logo.

Globalization has played a huge role in the fashion industry. In fact, the rapid change in this industry is arguably among the most significant effects of globalization. As a result of globalization, the fashion industry has indeed opened up to a variety of new styles, influences, and methods of production. Consequently, fashion trends have become more readily available to consumers all over the world. Globalization has thus changed both the way fashion trends are transmitted and the way the clothes are produced.