Fashion Designer Collaboration

In a fashion world of more, faster, now, and copycat competition; a handful of online retailers follow a different pathway to succeed as, designer, marketer and collaborator. The way forward is not to compete for customers, but to cooperate with them.

To this end we need to determine consumer needs and action the most direct economical means of delivering. This means working collaboratively with fashion designers which separates customer a couple degrees from the source, and, six degrees of separation? It’s a proven philosophy, work it out. What do customers seek first? Service, the product becomes second.

You can spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder watching what you competitors are planning and less time on your own strategy. The danger is you will end up focusing more energy concerning competition. It can be overwhelming. Turn it around, develop a workable strategy and seek competitor collaboration, and, then you will see how your competitors react to your actions. This puts you in the driving seat.

Be innovative, don’t just do because this is the way it has always been done, to change is to improve, remember, business either grows or dies, there is no point on the scale that says you have made it. Complacency is the beginning of decline.

Cooperation blows in the face of traditional competition.

Competition is built on protectionism

Collaboration is built on working together, its part of Asian culture, why did Japan rebuild so rapidly of complete destruction? Why is China overwhelming the west in mass production and innovation? They are united in their cause and willingly share their intellectual capitol and work cooperatively.

Working in fashion, research and looking forward is critical, at front line retail sales we can learn what customers are demanding, but this information is useless if not put to use. So if we are wise enough and collaborate with designers, then vital real time research can be analysed and fed back to the creators of style.

Retailer, designer and customer become united and the gap between all parties is narrowed. Best of all the universal philosophy of supply and demand are being adhered to.

We don’t just give lip service to these philosophies, they are part of our strategy, more over, we believe in them, and this concludes in right attitude. Our belief is, if you have the right attitude you will succeed, however, success is not just measured in dollars, it comes down to principles unbroken. There are many dependants otherwise, such as being in the right place and the right time, and in retail, having the right product at the right time.

One example is a silk tie design concept we have been working on. After trialling a number of styles we know from consumer response which styles are in demand. So we base our future designs conclusively. A concept should be thematic, these two factors are the essence and regardless of changes will carry the product through many fashion fluctuations, why? Because style is constant (the essence) and the product is right and so is the time. Without giving away the secret, our theme goes back to 1920; it was a raging success then, but ironically never repeated. So we are in the driving seat.

It's a bit like building an engine. No matter how much logic and research is applied during constructing you really don't know how well it is going to work until the ignition is turned on. A bit of test driving will identify the bugs.

Now the engine is built, its being put through the paces, and, lap by lap, we learn and improve. Our ideas have been contained in a powerful vehicle, which is fully gassed and set on semi automatic pilot. Every ten laps it’s in the pits, do a little more refining and back into the race.

We have been attempting to do the same with cufflink designs, but based on consumer response have not got it right, so there is a bit of work to do on the jewellery design. Further in the wings are leather wallets and bags. With a totally new kind of mini man bag in very early concept phase. It takes about three years to develop thematic, test the market, refine, manufacture and sell.

Do achieve all of the above economically and harmoniously requires collaboration.