Status Quo Bias Has Led to Crisis in the Fashion Industry

Businesses are already building the new syste

For a few decades, the business model of fashion brands has been unnervingly similar. With only a few layers to the cake, entry into the fashion industry has been expensive and, by design, exclusive. There has been a lot of power in the hands of very few for a long long time. These gatekeepers take the form of luxury conglomerates, magazine editors, buyers, and, more recently, influencers.

Pop Magazine Spring Summer 2016, Model Natalia Vodianova, Photographer Harley Weir

Status quo bias

It is understandable that a strong status quo bias pervades throughout the fashion industry. The changes that need to happen are truly transformational. Businesses are reluctant to make internal changes that will upset their relationships within the system. Relying excessively on the system within which they operate, businesses are impeded from change unless the whole system transforms along with them.

The result is a deadlock: Companies that are baked in the fashion cake have a harder time stepping out on their own. It is even scary to suggest you might try a new way.

It is not surprising that, as John Hammond et al write in their 1998 HBR article “The Hidden Traps in Decision Making:” the more power one has, the more likely their decisions will be in support…