While not quite on the same scale as Boxing Day and Cyber Monday, mid-season sales still account for a large amount of retail revenue. You may have visited your local shopping centre this (past) weekend and questioned why everything seems to be adorned with red. Sale banners have started to go up and the enticement for a deal has begun. It’s an exciting time for fashion conglomerates alike to clear out stock that didn’t sell or was part of a trend that’s come and gone. At face value, what brand wouldn’t take part in a sale? Well, we don’t and there are many slow fashion brands like ours who don’t. 

Last year we took a stand ~ A big one.

It has become increasingly difficult, especially as a small brand to break through the noise of sales. We completely shut down our online store for Black Friday & Cyber Monday. We decided it wasn’t enough to simply say we don’t do sales, we had to ensure our actions reflected our words. In the grand scheme of product for value or product for price, the latter seems to take centre stage during sale time. During these peak retail periods, brand narratives are rewritten to now read ‘buy our product because it’s cheap’ instead of ‘buy our product because of the value it will add to your life’.

Why we don’t go on sale

We’re big fans of our product. We create garments we love, and that we know our customers will love. To participate in sales that are associated with clearing stock, would devalue the knitwear we worked so hard to create. Each collection is inspired by everything from nature to colour and we avoid following trends. Instead, we focus on creating pieces that are designed to last in both quality and style. Sales encourage customers to buy more than what they need at a rate that cannot be sustained. We encourage our customers to buy less and choose well.

Our Brand Ethos

We are dedicated to environmental awareness and advocate mindful purchasing of high-quality, ethically made and long-lasting garments. We strive to lead by value and not by price. Creating our knitwear is an intricate process that is evident in every final garment and our pricing structure reflects this. We factor in everything, from paying employees in our own factory a fair wage to the cost of spinning the cashmere fibre within ethical compliance. Our garments aren’t priced with additional margins so they can be slashed at the end of the season. We want every customer to be comfortable purchasing any time of year and know that they won’t see that same garment on a sale rack in 2 weeks.

Sales encourage mass consumption at a rate that our planet cannot sustain. We don’t do sales because our brand values do not align with throw away culture and fast fashion. We don’t do sales because we value our product with an honest and transparent pricing structure.

 Simply put, we don’t do sales because then we wouldn’t be Mia Fratino.

A reminder