fashion brand DNA Archives | FASHION CROSS FUNCTIONAL

February 20, 2018

SUCCESS STORY – 2 Unusual Ways To Break Into The Fashion Industry

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Hi Guys,
Today we are going to go through unusual strategies used by two now thriving fashion companies to break out in the fashion business.

The two examples selected are no classic profiles. They did not graduate from a facny fashion school. They did not launch with an insanely glamorous fashion show. They did not have a massive budget to spend on advertising. They are both very different. Each company has its own personality. One is from France, the other is from the US. But they both leveraged the power of social media in a smart AND organic way: we are talking about French brand Le Slip Français and US platform The Red Dress Boutique.

BRAND N°1 – LE SLIP FRANCAIS

For those of you who do not speak French, Le Slip Français litteraly means “The French underpants”. And in French, this word “slip” is not the nice sexy version. Nope! In French the word slip is the ugly old fashioned version of underpants. Today the founder who originally worked in an organic store chain is one of the favorite success stories in France.
The story tells that the founder Guillaume Gibault made a bet with his friend that he would make underpants fashionable.

He ordered 600 underpants and started the adventure.

The brand signature is: French made and audacity – audacity which is also a trait French people are famous for. The waistband has the colours of the French flag. And all the products are made in France, which is also a guarantee of quality;
The big breakout occurred in 2012 on French election. One of the candidate had a catchphrase that said “The change is for now”. The brand le slip français twisted the message with a video “The change of underpants is for now”. (I will let you watch it in the replay of our live video on top of this post – it starts at 05:33).
Needless to say that this campaign made a massive organic hit on social media. People shared it because it was bold and funny. And audacious.
It was worth sharing.
Besides he always stayed cohesive with the identity of the brand. For example, he also gave typically French or even Gaul nicknames to each product, like names that you would have read in this French comic book: Asterix the Gaul – “The Intrepid” “The valiant”…

Here are the best lessons that you can take out of this

#1 – Know who you are

The usual and favorite Fashion FXF advice: have a strong DNA. For that, you don’t have to have a necessarily complicated identity. On the constrary – Stay simple but true to who you are. In this case they Chose Underpants French Audacity. That’s it. And everything is aligned to that: design, production, tone of voice used in communication.

#2 – Use or twist something that is trending right now

Then you know what people are eager to share and talk about right now – You can go on websites such as Medium to see what’s trending – And use that for your communication. Of course, you have to be careful of the potential complaints. In this case, none of the candidates complained about the twist
Also be careful to not use any kind of news. Just use the ones that make sense for your brand and that can speak to your target audience. In this case, it made sense because it was the French elections and let’s admit it: the candidate’s message was just perfect for an audacious joke!

#3 – Share messages that are worth sharing

Lots of brands just dump posts on their audience…
Honestly have you wondered, how you change people’s life? Have you thought about the people at the other end? How will your product change their lives?
So from now on, what you need to do is to think of ways how your product can contribute to your audience’s life and lifestyle.
Inspire. Teach something. Make people feel something.
In this case it was funny but it doesn’t have to be funny. It can be comforting, motivating, whichever feels right for your brand identity and your audience.

Contribute to your audience’s life and well being.

BRAND N°2 – THE RED DRESS BOUTIQUE

The Red Dress boutique is an online e-commerce website and brick and mortar shop that sell cute and affordable clothing for women. They are from Georgia in the US. The company was founded by Diana Harbour.
At the beginning, she targeted students of the University of Georgia.
She got people’s attention by keeping her audience updated about upcoming items and re-stocks. It was the beginning of Facebook…and no other retail store was doing that.

And here is the trick (which still works today
She constantly asked for customer feedback. Her engagement is very high. So for example when she is on her buying trips to curate new items, she asks for feedback from her target audience to know if they’d like it or not. And depending on the answers obtained, she adjusts the quantity of items to buy. So she only gets the most wanted items in, which also decreases the need for markdown. Smart, right?
The same goes with the pictures she posts – She worked with students who posed for her pictures. But for example if the picture did not get much engagement, she changed it a little bit and posted the one that got most engagement.
To finish, the identity of the red dress boutique can be summarized in one word: caring. The founder genuinely cares about her customers. She cares about their opinion but she also cares about their life. She thinks of them – each package is wrapped like a gift and there is a handwritten note. Here is what you can read when you go on the website:
“I also wanted to create this place that would bring color and confidence and happiness to a woman’s day. Sometimes just having that one fantastic new outfit is all a woman needs to turn a bad day into a good one, to give a woman the confidence she needs going into an interview or to give that stay at home mom a reason to smile after that rare moment she treats herself. So I started handwriting all the thank you cards that went in our orders, packing it up like the present that it was and sending it off in hopes that it brought a smile to the woman it went to.”

That’s how much she cares about her audience and from all the engagement she gets from people and the way she keeps listening to what her audience has to say, it is so sincere that she made a business model out of it.
So what kind of lessons can you take from this?

#4 – Care about your customers

Start bonding with them. We have a fantastic opportunity with social media, stop ruining it by dumping your products on people.
Ask their opinion. Find out how they live, give a damn about what they are going through and how your product makes them feel.

Today you cannot just dump your posts on people: you have to engage. So start engaging.
And I am not only talking about putting green hearts and emojis on people’s posts. (ughhh…I have that account on Instagram that keeps posting that same green heart over and over again).
Share something useful that could enlighten that person’s day. Because guess what they are going to do once you care a little bit about them: they are going to check your profile and interact with you. Tadaaaa.
Plus social media totally loves and favors posts that engage.

#5 – Test until it works

It is applicable for the photos you use on social media but also for your posts. You need to find that tone and content that your audience best reacts to.

#6 – Ask for customer feedback

A lot of designers out there stay in their bubble and do not engage. with their audience. But how are you going to know what works if you stay in your bubble? You have to go out there and ask what they think about your product. How they like it, where they wear it, how it went, how it makes them feel.
Because all this is information that you will be able to fuel back into your marketing.

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November 28, 2017

CASH & FUNDING: The 3 Basics To Prepare Before Working On Your Fashion Business Plan

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Hey guys,

I wrote the fashion business plan book from the moment I started working for fashion designers. Originally though, I come from the auditing and finance sector. I have audited many companies across the globe. I actually practiced this for large international listed corporates, in the industrial and banking field. Especially in the banking industry, my job was to evaluate loan applications from companies. So my role was to review the applications and to decide if the applicant companies should be granted the loan…So writing or reviewing business plans finally became something that I got pretty much accustomed to.

What makes a business plan different in the fashion industry

And to be perfectly honest, when I was asked to do it, in the fashion industry I encountered some difficulties at the beginning. In fact usually, when you write a business plan, it’s important to think about a gap in the market and how your product is going to change that. So it means that in classic business plans, you need to have a gap and your product would be a solution. In most of the books that exist today it is recommended to start your business plan by identifying an unfulfilled need (this gap). In most books on the subject, you will read that it is necessary to identify the gap, a need from the start, and to present a solution which will be discussed in the business plan. And yet fashion cannot be considered like that.
If we are being completely honest, we don’t need another brand because it’s a saturated market already. So presenting fashion from the classic angle of a solution offered to fulfill a need does not work for a fashion product. So designers who start in this industry need to get that it is vital to your business to go beyond the need. In fashion, instead of a need, it’s important to create a strong impact from the beginning. Because when you make a strong impact, you create a desire.
You have to make people want your brand.

You have to create emotions, you have to really move people. But that’s not enough. You have to build a whole business model, based on this desire. So it means that the fashion concept has to last in time. And if the fashion concept does not last, if the emotion you create is just temporary, you have no valid foundation for a fashion business. This became clear to me when working with fashion brands. I observed that the fashion business plan was very different from what was done in other industries and that’s where I started thinking about a method to generate it.

Reminder: what is a business plan and do you need one?

So before we move on to the basics, let’s clarify what is a business plan. A business plan is a document that helps you explain a project, the strategy that you will apply to make a business out of your concept, with the related financial projections. As you may guess, this is quite a massive work. So the question some of you may have is: do you really need to go through all that fuss? Some of you for example tell me that you are planning something quite simple and you don’t plan to apply for a loan or find investors. So you don’t understand why you would need to go through a business plan.
And I always answer that it is always good to have a business plan, even a simplified one. Even if you are not going to look for funding. Why? Because, at least when you do one, even something simplified, you know where it is going and you have an idea of how many of the dresses you made it will take you to break even. This is also an interesting info, even for you personally. You probably want to know when you will be able to earn your first salary because it’s fine and good to sell fabulous outfits but you also need to earn a living out of it. Otherwise it won’t last! So that is one reason to start drafting a business plan.
And in the case where you look for funding or even look for serious business partners to collaborate with, it’s good to have a business plan to show that you are not completely clueless and you know what you are talking about. This is actually one of the pre-conceptions that people from finance have in their mind when thinking of fashion creatives. And you don’t want to prove them right from the first meeting. I am not telling you to lie about who you are but at least have a down to earth approach that indicates that you know your market and the steps to follow to get your collection sold. It doesn’t mean that you are doomed if you don’t do exactly what’s in the business plan. But it’s a way to communicate with other parties, a courtesy, the least you can do when you ask for someone’s money. I’ve seen people get angry about having to do all this financial estimates. Presenting a business plan, especially a valid one means that you have a plan. Nobody will blame you if you don’t do exactly what’s written there. But it says that you have a plan and when people lend you money, you need to show that you have an idea of how you are going to use it.
It’s the equivalent of a resume when you apply for a job.

However, before calculating your revenues and costs, you need to know where you are heading to. It takes preparation, three basics we unveil hereafter.

Basic #1 – Be 100% cohesive.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the difference with business plans in other industries, is this necessity to make a strong impact from the beginning. This is a key element that you really need to understand. And it doesn’t matter if you are a sustainable brand, an ethnic brand or a fashion tech brand. A fashion product has to make strong impact from the beginning. And the way to achieve that impact is through the cohesion you achieve through your entire project.
So what does this means concretely?
Firstly you have to speak the language of fashion. Meaning you have to understand that in this industry, looks and visuals have to be perfectly polished. There is absolutely no excuse for that. I covered it already in many previous contents but I insist because lots of beginners in the industry do not understand that.

It’s like when you go to a phone company and you buy a smartphone. The salesperson will talk about the features of the smartphone and compare it to the competition. However no one will ever promote you a smartphone by telling you that it can call. This is a given. So it’s the same in fashion, excellent visuals (photos, videos, websites, lookbooks Instagram profiles) are a given. You have to do whatever it to takes to have a good presentation. One of my customers told me once that she didn’t have enough money to do good visuals. And I showed her websites of new designers who were penniless. Their pictures and websites still looked fabulous. They made it work. So why wouldn’t you?
So when you take a picture of your design, put a good lighting. Please don’t leave pictures with yellow light. Remove the clutter, choose a plain background or if it is cluttered, it has to be artistically interesting and sophisticated. Then the model’s posture and pause has to be highlight your design. Underline a silhouette.
Once you understand the language of fashion, you have to make sure that your entire brand is cohesive. It means that if you say you are a futuristic fashion brand for example, it has to show in your design. It has to show in the material you use. Maybe you’ll use tech fabric, mixed with metal. It also has to show in the cut you choose. Maybe the clothes you design will show geometric shapes.
Then in the way you market your products, you will distribute your clothes in the places that are more open to that kind of fashion. Asian markets (japan, china, south korea, maybe also London) could be a good fit.
Then if you do an event to promote the brand, you will make sure to collaborate with very futuristic DJs or tech companies to set the tone of your event.

Then in your communication, on top of the traditional fashion magazines, you could also maybe be featured in avant-garde magazines. Why? Because there is a good chance that people who like futuristic trends read those magazines.
And if you decide for example to give some of your profits to a charity, find one that shares your love for the futuristic world and helps to do advanced research in that field for example.
So focus on being 100% cohesive in your approach

Basic #2 – Be crystal-clear on your fashion brand DNA

IN order to be able to align your business and be totally cohesive, you need to know what to align to. Are you going to go 100% on the futuristic side? Or do you need to focus more on the classic style? How to know what exactly to align to?
Well you need to understand and define your fashion brand DNA first. But let’s clarify what is a fashion brand DNA first. Like a person’s DNA makes a person unique, A fashion brand DNA is what makes your fashion brand unique. It’s its identity card.

And before you draft your business plan, you have to be crystal-clear on yours. Why? Since number one criteria to make a fashion business fundable is the strength of its impact and since you achieve that by aligning everything, you need to know what to align it to. And this is why you need a fashion brand DNA. it will be the pillar to which you will align everything in your business.
At fashion FXF we have a 4 hour individual workshop to work on that matter. We go deep through your history, what inspires you in general and what inspired you to create the brand. We make a connection between your story, your inspirations (commercials, movies, ads, paintings, musique, books etc), your actual design, where you want to go, who you could target with your designs and we define exactly what the brand is about. We establish a pattern and find similarities between all the things you said and based on that, we define the identity card of your fashion brand: the physical traits that are always present in your design (and it‘s not only about the logo, it includes the cut, the silhouette etc), your brand personality, its culture, what people say when they wear it, what people think when they see it on someone else and how it interacts with people.
So the idea in the end is to really create a character with your brand. You have all the detailed steps in my book The fashion business plan, that includes a workbook so that you can immediately apply what you just learned on your own business.

Basic # 3 – Tailor your strategy to your fashion brand DNA

Third step to work on before crunching the numbers for your fashion brand is aligning the strategy to your fashion brand DNA.

When you just start, there’s a chance that you are overwhelmed with information and you don’t know what to do. Plus you probably learn many new things. Strategy – as in the key method that you will use to sell first and be profitable in the end – strategy is key. So at the beginning you will maybe learn the elements of a well rounded fashion business strategy. So you will probably confirm the exact customer that you target, the price point of your products. Then you will decide what you will set to reach your target customer: which distribution strategy you will go for: full online, partly online partly offline with pop stores for example, trunk shows in department stores, Wholesale, online and/or offline multibrand, and so one. Then you will probably decide to promote your events and show your fashion line to your target customer. It is expected that you know where your target customer spends time, which brand and stores they like, what magazines they read, which facebook group they mostly follow, what hashtag they use on Instagram and so on. This approach is quite standard to any industry.
However in order to have a better chance to succeed in your fashion business, and to generate the impact we keep talking about, you absolutely need to adjust your strategy to the brand DNA that you defined earlier.
So for example I love what Dolce and Gabbana did these last years to remind people of its Sicilian influence. I was in Milan last year and I took photos of their amazing flagship windows via Montenapoleone. It was magical. They went a 100% on the Sicilian concept, made small reproductions of a market. The craft was impressive ad beautiful (well that’s actually no surprise because it’s a must). It was really worth looking at. It was worth going there. You have to understand what’s happening in today’s market. You know there are many ways to consume fashion these days. And since we have the comfort of internet, when you have a brick and mortar shop, you really have to go the extra mile and make it worthwhile for your audience. Why should they leave their couch and go there? You have to offer an experience offline that your customer would never have online and that your customer would never have at any other brand. You have to make them feel something. The only way to do that is to revisit your strategy using the angle of your brand DNA. You see the Sicilian influence everywhere. In the collections as well naturally and in the commercials. They kept that strong traditional and popular print in their recent fashion movies. So you will see some strong references there.
This is how you keep things cohesive. And once you know what kind of strategy you are going to apply and how you are going to tailor it to your fashion brand DNA, then only you can price what you are going to do.
In order to guide you into these steps for your own brand we also have it detailed in The fashion business plan book. The book gives a method to find and confirm your target audience with a dedicated workbook as well. Then in another chapter it summarizes a few strategic directions you can go for, knowing of course that you have to tailor it to your brand DNA afterwards. And there is a workbook for that strategy chapter as well, of course.

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Interested in writing your own fashion business plan?

Here is the tool you need to get for yourself. The fashion business plan provides you with a step-by-step approach to write it all down.

November 7, 2017

BRANDING: 6 Common Mistakes Designers Do When Defining Their Fashion Brand DNA

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Hello guys,

Fashion brand DNA: what makes a brand unique.
I’ve had some quite passionate discussions with some of you about the DNA of your fashion brand. Lots of the designers I exchange with now start understanding that this industry is not only about designing good looking pieces. Now you are more and more aware that the fashion brand DNA is a vital foundation of your business and that it is the number one thing you should start working on when you launch a fashion brand.
So some of you sent me their fashion brand DNA descriptions. Since I have been so swamped lately, I was not able to deliver you an individual feedback. So I did this live video yesterday with the common mistakes you guys do when defining your fashion brand DNA.
Historically the fashion brand DNA is not the core thing that I am known for in this business. What I am really known for is writing business plans for fashion businesses. After having drafted some fashion business plans for emerging brands, I have written a book about exactly that: Fashion business plans. I also teach fashion business planning at the ESMOD Paris fashion school.
However the reason why fashion brand DNA came up so frequently in the fashion FXF blog posts, our live videos and so on, is because I found out that it is the key ingredient of your success, even to get funding. And lots of fashion brands fail because they have not sufficiently worked on that part. In the framework of my work with fashion brands, I had opportunities to exchange with different actors of the fashion industry: fashion press experts, fashion buyers, fashion event managers and I found out that what actually made a fashion business interesting for all those people, even what made a fashion brand interesting to fund, was the impact that it delivered. Because impact means sales which increases your chances to make more profits. And the brands that delivered the strongest impact were those with a very well defined brand DNA. Maybe you have seen our last live when we talked about using Instagram to get featured in the fashion press: Sara who shared her expertise started her work by defining the brand DNA.

So starting from there and observing the successful brands, I came up with a method to generate a cohesive brand DNA for a fashion business. It is all in the book I wrote. And the good thing is that after discussions we had on that subject, you guys start giving it a thought from the beginning. I know it can be a tough exercise for many of you.
So here are the common mistakes designers do when describing their fashion brand DNA.

Mistake # 1: No Fashion Brand DNA

Not having a fashion brand DNA is a big mistake. I know a designer who had great intuition. He was doing high end street wear. He designed amazing pieces, he had lots of talent. He had a real gift in crafting a nice shape for women’s body. But he never took the time to do any introspection and understand what made his work so unique. Plus he had lots of imagination so his designs went all over the place. And he lost himself. And since he never took the time to understand what his signature was, the sales decreased, the success vanished.

So to avoid having that kind of one time success that you did not do intentionally, work on your DNA first.

Do things on purpose.

Mistake # 2: Defining a fashion brand DNA for the sake of defining one

It shows immediately: you see sentences that are there for no reason. This is not an exercise where you have to fill in the blanks. You are not telling a story just to tell a story. It has to really mean something and be perceptible for your audience.
For example I saw on one designer who wrote that “she did a cruise in the Caribbean island for some time”. Then I checked the designs and I did not see the Caribbean influence at all. Why do you put that there if there is no link with your design? If you add a sentence into your brand DNA, make it really mean something. What you say should really mean something to the aesthetic of your band and what you say in your fashion brand DNA should systematically be visible on your designs. If you say it is a conservative design with a discrete crazy twist, then each time you create something a bag, a scarf, a hat, trousers, antyhing, you should design something conservative and add that little crazy touch you talked about.
Your fashion DNA description is the promise that you deliver to your customer.

Mistake #3: Lack of personality

Some designers used generic words such as chic, elegant. I tend to grow allergic to those terms…

You have to go the extra mile and spice up the words you are using.
Add some personality to it. Is it “Bon chic bon genre?” is it daring? Is it conservative? Is it audacious? is it whimsical? Dig deep into yourself and make it sound exciting.
It is FASHION, you are here to dazzle and wow your audience.

And the way to do that is to do as if the brand was a person, with its personality traits, the little details and the flaw that makes its charming. Give some depth to your DNA.
Some designers are not inspired and have difficulties describing who they are. In the fashion business plan book, you have a workbook with all kinds of adjectives that you can use to qualify your brand. We use it in our individual workshops as well and the designers I worked with love it in the end because they can really see if they resonate with that.

Mistake #4: A gap between what you say you are, the design you show and your visuals

I guess some designers always dreamt of a certain image and once they start their own brand, they used the words they were dreaming to become one day.
For example, I had a streetwear brand calling its pieces timeless…

This does not go together! Timeless is a classic design. So it should not be used just because you like the sound of it.
One other mistake I saw is the use of symbols in the logo that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. The brand was selling women’s workwear made of wax fabric but there was an odd shoe in their logo. And they did not even sell any shoes! So why would you use shoes in a logo if your brand is not about shoes?
Another one gap I saw: one designer wrote he was selling luxury design. But the site did not deliver the luxury effect and the logo was not luxury at all. The font was very weird, in a weird blue color. Ideally the graphic design and the visuals should be done with professionals. But in doubt, use a very sleek font, a variation of Helvetica or Lato. But do not use complicated handwritten fonts for your logo.

Mistake #5: too technical descriptions

I see lots of sustainable businesses that do that mistake. They get too caught up in the technical details of what they do. They strongly believe in what they do, which is okay but they totally forget to make their customers dream.
A fashion piece should ALWAYS be desirable. Do not forget: your customers will buy from you firstly because they think the designs look good and your pieces make them feel something special. Of course, your beliefs and the ideas you defend are important. But saying that you are an activist against animal testing or waste should not make you forget about the style.

Style and personality should always come first.

Mistake #6: lack of cohesion

Sometimes designers put too many different adjectives together. As a result, the brand DNA description becomes incoherent and cofusing. Sometimes they are afraid to miss out on sales and they try to target everyone. So the fashion brand DNA becomes this mix of words that do not match.
But who are you? and what is your brand about?

In my fashion brand DNA workshop, I help designers generate a cohesive image. Since some designers do not necessarily have the words to express who they are, I offer individual workshops in which we go through styles but also a huge list of words that describe a personality. And they pick three of them that they feel most correspond to them. And during this exercise, it is sometimes difficult to get designers to focus because some of them want to talk to everyone.

One designer picked exuberant and sleek in the same brand DNA description. It does not go together. Is it exuberant or is it sleek?
Pick one. And preferably the one that corresponds to your design.

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Interested in seriously working on your fashion brand DNA?

Here is the tool you need to get for yourself. The fashion business plan starts with a workbook on the brand DNA and explains how the DNA can build up to a tailored strategy for your fashion business.