Visionary Fashion Brands: Play to Win
Have you ever been asked to sell (or buy) raffle tickets for an organization you are involved with? I was approached last week and tried to say no, but then the seller stated, “If you don’t play, you can’t win.” And that comment made me think of the current state of the fashion industry (and buy some tickets).
During his presentation, “Beyond the Data: the Future of Fashion,” Marshall Cohen of NPD Group, Inc.:
Retail as we know it is broken.
Consumers are scared and have been trained to wait for sales; retailers are carrying some of the lowest levels of inventory ever seen; manufacturers have cut so many jobs that the quality of service of many, many companies has declined.
That said, I believe that now is the time to play. Now is the perfect time for the next great fashion company to emerge. Why? Customers are looking for innovation, connections and the best quality in class.
Today’s fashion start-ups are run by passionate visionaries, tired of a broken model, a dull job in a cubicle and a homogenous marketplace. The fashion companies being launched in this economy know what drives their customer and how to interact with their customers.
If you are a fashion visionary, congratulations on taking the first step. For those of you sitting on the sidelines considering the risk of launching your own fashion brand, economic forecasts show that now is a great time to seize the opportunity. Remember, if you don’t play, you can’t win.
