Fashion Marketing

Haggling with merchandisers, chasing seemingly impossible targets and above all, trying to catch the ever elusive pulse of fashion- that’s Fashion Marketing for you. In the words of Coco Chanel herself – Fashion is made to become unfashionable. But it is in this game of Cat and mouse that the fun lies.

For most of us when you talk fashion, an image of those ‘over the top’ impractical creations seen on the ramp, comes into the mind. The ones with those crazy feathers, twirls & curls. The ones in which you take one step outdoors & you’ll be laughed off as a clown, the ones which not even those anorexic FTV models can pull off. For the uninitiated, in the world of fashion, this is what is called as ‘Haute Couture’. What we actually see in the stores is ‘Pret a porter’ or ready-to-wear.

You see once the fashion designers have unleashed their deepest, darkest creative energies on these seemingly crazy dresses, they come down to the practical business of making money & that’s when the role of marketing really comes in. You see in prêt a porter you have to make what the customers want or else you are just like the cook who can make a flawless prawn-shrimp delicacy but when it comes down to the boiled egg he falters.

Fashion Marketing is a very tricky business for many reasons; the best marketers of the coveted FMCG or consumer goods Industry tend to lose their footing here. For one, when it comes to apparel there are rare product repeats. The customer will love your product but they won’t buy it again. Reason? “I’m bored of this style”, “it’s no longer in fashion”, “and I’ve become fat”… or even worse “just like that”. Here’s where all your Consumer behavior statistics fall flat on their face.

Moreover in fashion the consumer continuously seeks newness & variety – “Show me something different” and you’ll be left scratching your head. And the best part is the customer also does not know what they want to buy. And while this can lead to a lot of difficult choices while coming out with new collections but at the same time, it can also be used to their advantage by marketers. You can create fashion, you can create trends & you can help the consumer make the best decisions, with your own products of course!

Another very major difference between FMCG marketing & Fashion Marketing is that fashion changes every few months. While it took almost a century for consumers to start to transition from soap to liquid hand wash, your next door neighbor moved from bellbottoms to harem pants to capris to shorts to very short shorts every other season. But continuing on the lines of optimism, this is something that really can be exploited by the fashion marketers to their benefit. Because fashion changes so frequently, there is ever more scope for innovation. You see newcomers uprooting the most well established fashion houses in the industry. So while the obstacles to remain on the top are huge, so are the opportunities to

reach there. Moreover in apparels you need to recognize that each & every consumer is different in terms of fit, color, preference. You may design & market the best jeans – best fabric, finest detailing, trendy look, even prototype it on hundred odd people but ultimately it is each & every customers indiviual preference, body structure & body image that makes or breaks your product.

And let me not even get started on the importance of the retail store in your entire value chain. Well, you see the clothes don’t come in any fancy packaging, they just sit pretty on the racks, waiting to be picked up for their own innate qualities. So the retail store is like the packaging for the clothes & that s what tells the customer what the brand stands for. While some brands believe in minimalistic stores, so that they pass on the lower costs to the customers, others invest heavily in plush interiors creating a shopping ‘experience’ for the customer.

All in all, it’s a challenging & exciting field of marketing that has just about kick-started in India. With the onslaught of scores of International brands Zara, Promod , Esprit, FCUK etc, the age of Fashion Marketing has just begun..

But you know, they say in Fashion Marketing ‘All that glitters IS gold’! It is the world where market survey means walking the high streets or scouting college campuses for the street trends, business meetings take place in designers studios, industry review means reading fashion magazines like Vogue & Elle & the best part - industry summits are fashion shows in Paris, Milan & a fine holiday in Europe!