<\/p>\n
\n\tMental health is set to play a bigger role in what shoppers decide will earn their purchase in 2027.<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to Pacsun\u2018s second annual Youth Report released in September, 59 percent of Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers named being mentally healthy as a primary life goal by age 35. That goal is reshaping how shoppers plan, discover and choose, as they opt to make more purchases with intense purpose, putting community, comfort and credibility ahead of novelty.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt a panel discussion at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit on Oct. 28, Pacsun CEO Brieane Olson said the mental health finding \u2014 which ranked above physical well-being among wellness aspirations \u2014 has forced the lifestyle apparel retailer to rethink its strategies in connecting with consumers.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe have to change our programming,\u201d Olson said. \u201cWe have to change the way that we lead this next generation, and we have to think about how they are discovering products.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAs the product discovery process becomes more fragmented, with social commerce growing while physical retail draws shoppers back, Olson said friends and family have become the number-one influence on how a person chooses what to wear.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat community test is where Elyse Cohen, chief impact officer of cosmetics label Rare Beauty, said a brand either holds together or comes apart.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cPeople come for the products, and they learn and stay for a lot of the brand mission,\u201d Cohen said during the panel, hosted by Sourcing Journal\u2019s climate and labor editor Jasmin Malik Chua. \u201cThe brand\u2019s mission was built into the business and our DNA since Day One.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCohen said founder Selena Gomez put the mission front and center by committing 1 percent of all company sales to the Rare Impact Fund, the nonprofit supporting mental health and self-acceptance by increasing access to youth mental health services and education globally.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn February, Rare Beauty launched a partnership with Ulta Beauty, Cohen said, marking the latter\u2019s first brand charity partnership, with money supporting both the Rare Impact Fund and Ulta\u2019s charitable foundation through checkout.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Ulta partnership complemented the Rare Impact Fund\u2019s existing collaboration with Pacsun, which launched in 2024 with the debut of the Rare DNM Edit collection. Over the last three years, the two brands have raised a combined $2 million as part of the fund\u2019s wider $100 million goal.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a partnership that we set out to do because of a celebrity status, and that\u2019s really important,\u201d said Olson. \u201cIt was set out because it is important to address mental health and the crisis that we face in the U.S. and globally. And so, I think the shared purpose isn\u2019t for having a really amazing marketing campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCohen highlighted that the companies have more opportunities to connect with consumers and generate funding, whether via the Rare DNM Edit, as well as through Pacsun\u2019s option to enable \u201croundup\u201d donations at e-commerce checkout.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOur customers get really excited about it. They wait for the next Rare DNM launch,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cThey wait to see how much we\u2019ve raised together. They wait to see where that money is going. They care about that story, and they feel more connected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCotton Incorporated has sought to better understand the consumer\u2019s mindset, with its team surveying 60,000 consumers across generations and countries earlier in October.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe asked consumers, \u2018What do they value the most right now?\u2019 and for Gen Z, we see health rose to the top of that,\u201d said Cotton Inc.\u2019s director of market insights Melissa Bastos.<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to Bastos, eight in 10 Gen Z respondents said clothing impacts their health and well-being, with 59 percent pointing to comfort and 51 percent attributing it to how clothing feels, including breathability. About a third said looking good helped their health by lifting confidence, she said.<\/p>\n
\n\tMore than one-third said they had felt they were wearing \u201cunhealthy\u201d clothing, because of poor fit, because it did not feel right or because they were unsure what fibers were in the materials. When asked what would make the clothing healthier, 30 percent said natural fibers and 15 percent said breathability, followed by looser fits and comfort.<\/p>\n
\n\tOne such concern Cotton Incorporated wants to mitigate involves the prevalence of microplastics within apparel production chains.<\/p>\n
\n\tCiting joint research conducted with Sourcing Journal surveying more than 200 textile industry professionals in the first quarter, Bastos said about two-thirds were taking actions against microplastics.<\/p>\n
\n\tAbout 43 percent of respondents said they were acting now, while one-quarter had plans but had not started. Roughly one-third were doing nothing because they believed customers had not asked for it.<\/p>\n
\n\tOf the possible actions, two-thirds said they are cutting back on plastic packaging. Coming in second, nearly half (48 percent) of industry professionals were trying to switch synthetics into natural fibers.<\/p>\n
\n\tConsumers, by and large, appear to be on board with the moves, according to Bastos. Two-thirds of consumers said cutting packaging was important, with 65 percent said saying the same for making the move to natural fibers.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cQuite frankly, I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s much of a gap there because the industry sees an issue and the consumers agree with them,\u201d Bastos said. \u201cIn past research we\u2019ve done, we see a big gap in that the industry tends to speak a completely different language than what their customer wants. This is one where they\u2019re aligning pretty closely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBastos identified a major concern that still exists among consumers, noting that 77 percent of consumers say that they are motivated to take action to help with sustainability efforts, but they do not always know what to do.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThey didn\u2019t understand what was available to them. They also said there\u2019s a lot of conflicting messages out there, and they don\u2019t know what to believe,\u201d Bastos observed. \u201cWe see some saying that it\u2019s too inconvenient or too expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAsked for one mindset retail leaders should adopt, Bastos pointed back to health and wellness as an overarching theme, including in sustainability, where shoppers link sustainable clothing to feeling healthier.<\/p>\n
\n\tOlson\u2019s answer turned to who gets a say in the first place.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAt Pacsun, I think the most important thing that we can do is to continue to fight the stereotypes and the stigmas around both Gen Z and Gen Alpha, by giving them an actual seat at the table,\u201d Olson said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing that through the Youth Council, we\u2019re doing that through the Youth Report and the research and the power of co-creation.\u201d<\/p>\n
#Mental #Health #Shape #Gen #Gen #Alpha #Shoppers #Buy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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