The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Paid advertising on Google, Facebook and other social media no longer provides the obvious path to growth it once did for direct-to-consumer brands. Fashion entrepreneurs need a new playbook to launch, scale and differentiate their brands, as they face new regulations and rising costs of performance marketing. Brands like Gymshark, Hodinkee, Mejuri and Parade show market share can be captured by finding a niche positioning and focusing on brand-building basics.
“We’ve seen a complete paradigm shift around brands … it’s about building something with the same emotional range and values as an actual person,” said Cami Téllez, chief executive, founder and creative director of inclusive underwear start-up Parade.
Téllez and Ben Clymer, founder of watch blog-turned-marketplace Hodinkee, join BoF’s Cathaleen Chen on the heels of releasing her case study “Building a DTC Challenger Brand,” to discuss how they leveraged community, content and data to build their brands.
In London, where independent labels have been hit hard by the implosion of key stockist Matches, brands like Clio Peppiatt, Marfa Stance and Completedworks have grown direct-to-consumer businesses that peers can learn from.
Apparel start-ups founded on the promise of offering men the perfect T-shirt are proving resilient in an otherwise dreary DTC sector rampant with fire sales, bankruptcies and steep revenue declines.
Apparel brands Knot Standard and Billy Reid are teaming up in a move investors say we may see more of as fashion start-ups seek alternative funding routes to grow their businesses.
Warby Parker, Everlane and other brands are partnering with small, but buzzy fashion labels as an inexpensive way to find new customers, and regain some status with shoppers who have moved on.