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Fashion 2.0 | Published in the Financial Times
Today, the Financial Times published its regular Business of Fashion supplement, chock full of industry updates and in-depth articles on the issues that are shaping the industry. It really is a must-read for everyone in the fashion business, whether you are a creative or a corporate, or somewhere in between.
This time, we contributed an article, How to reach second base online, encouraging established luxury and fashion companies to start thinking about Internet as a communication tool, not just a tool for selling and advertising. In fact, if done cleverly, this can be used to re-establish the communication and relationships that Luxury Goods companies were once known for.
We would love to hear what you are thinking on Fashion 2.0 these days, and about any brands that you think are leading the way. The full PDF of the article is available here.
McQueen’s CEO thought it was “notable” that the brand’s fans understood so well the brand values? Duh! Here’s a crazy idea: let them into your fashion shows. Why are end consumers and fans kept at arms length? It costs near 1MM€ to put on a 15-minute défilé. And the closest the general public can get is looking at still photos on style.com It just seems like houses would get more bang for their buck if they interacted in the real world with their fans, clients and supporters. Online forums are nice and all. But don’t you want to see your end-consumer face to face? I don’t think they do. I think big houses worry only about seducing the buyers at Browns and editors at Italian Vogue. The general public…they can have a billboard and some advertising pages. Maybe a trunk show if they’re lucky. I think it’s backwards. I think the big houses *and* buyers are becoming more and more removed from the public they’re trying to serve.
@Gentry: Fashion shows are kept semi-private because the collections presented aren’t ready to be made public yet. They need to know how much they need to produce (from buyers) in order to deliver. They also want to keep the counterfeiters away, although now that’s not doing any good since photos and videos come out the day after the shows. It would be nice to strike a balance between giving what the public wants (a ticket to a fashion show) while still catering to the buyers and media outlets though.
@Gentry Lane, That is why companies such as Zara, H&M and Mango just produce the clothes and feed it to the piranhas. No pretense here. The majors are hurting big time. And those buyers you speak of will eventually end up ringing those sales up at these stores. “Come And Get It”.
@Gentry Lane, What you’re describing sounds like an haute couture show. Admitting the public works for haute couture because the number of clients is very small and because the client has to buy directly from the fashion house. Contrast that with ready to wear. How do you decide which customers would get to attend the show? The reason store buyers get to attend the shows is because they ARE the customer for brands which wholesale. Admittedly the end user is the boutique’s client, but I think store buyers would be suspicious of any moves by vendors which aim to forge a direct relationship with the consumer and cut out the “middle man”, particularly in this age of e-commerce.