Last week, hosts Shimona Mehta, Shopify’s managing director, EMEA, and Robin Mellery-Pratt, BoF senior director, brought together executives from Gucci, Valentino, Prada, Bulgari, Massimo Alba, Pitti Immagine, Brunello Cucinelli, CD Network, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and the Italian Trade Agency to discuss the key areas of consideration and innovation to protect the legacy of “Made in Italy”.

In addition to underpinning the brand positioning of a number of billion-dollar Italian brands, Italian manufacturing is a pillar of the luxury industry’s supply chain. According to McKinsey & Co., Italy contributes more than 40 percent of luxury goods production. In the context of the re-emergent popularity of Europe with international tourists, the “Made in Italy” industry is primed to respond to shifting customer sentiment and purchasing priorities.

However, to truly future-proof competitive advantage, Italian brands and manufacturers should consider streamlining manufacturing processes to be more responsive, and move to meet customers in the spaces and channels in which they are spending time.

With millions of merchants utilising its core platform to sell online, Shopify is expertly positioned to share insight on the importance of customer-centric strategies to generate sell-through and foster brand loyalty. “We are seeing the growth rates of traditional brick-and-mortar retail and direct-to-consumer converging again,” says Shopify’s Mehta.

“We believe this next wave of retail is what we call ‘connect to consumer’. Truly and deeply understanding your customers — using data to build long-term relationships — is going to be paramount,” she shared.

Held at the Fioraio Bianchi Caffè in Milan, the discussion was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, which precludes the attribution of statements made by specific individuals or companies, allowing attendees to share freely and openly with their peers.

Below, BoF shares condensed, anonymised insights from the intimate discussion to provide actionable insights for our global community.

Vertical Integration Is Impacting ‘Made in Italy’ Culture

“‘Made in Italy’ has historically had a lot to do with a certain mindset — one of loyalty, of responsible practise and small runs of product,” were some of the opening remarks made at the executive forum. “It was always primed to support small business — until now. The new reality is that the system is being monopolised by big business.”

We are facing a new ‘Made in Italy’, which has much to do with scale and power. The biggest players [...] become the priority and it is inherently changing the cultural meaning of our system.

Other attendees also noted the impact of the industry’s biggest players and conglomerates buying up Italian factories to dominate the “Made in Italy” market. “We are facing a new ‘Made in Italy’, which has much to do with scale and power,” said another guest. “The biggest players, who are working with huge volumes, become the priority and it is inherently changing the cultural meaning of our system.”

“Some brands are becoming less capable of producing in Italy, partly because of the downward pressure that comes from bigger brands who are dominating the space — and this can trickle down to retail,” said an attendee. “North America is a cautionary tale — you have a landscape where 70 to 80 percent of the market is dominated by big stores that cater to big patrons.”

Italian Factories Must Be Better Utilised

“We are losing a lot of opportunities in not [promoting] factories as just as important to the ‘Made in Italy’ narrative as hand-crafted goods,” said one guest, in relation to best-in-class manufacturing processes. “As a system, we need to pass on the message that these factories and automated work [are] excellent.”

“We often have feedback from major editors or fashion [critics] that our ready-to-wear collection looks like haute couture,” agreed another attendee. “We tell them it’s made by the greatest of Italian factories.”

Brands Must Reignite Interest in Becoming a Maker

The forum unanimously agreed that helping to drive renewed interest from young people in manufacturing in Italy would be critical in order to protect “Made in Italy” systems and processes.

“Nobody wants to be a maker anymore — everyone wants to open a brand, sell a brand and move on,” were one attendee’s initial remarks. “The future of the [industry] depends on us collectively embracing the beauty of making things.”

We are great at storytelling as an industry — we need to harness that to [reignite] interest for making things again.

“There has to be a way to foster renewed understanding that there is a way of marrying the art of manufacturing and the appeal of commerce and success in the fashion industry,” added one attendee.

“As brands and businesses — all of us — we must create campaigns that indicate why staying in a factory and producing product is sexy,” shared another executive. “We are great at storytelling as an industry — we need to harness that to [reignite] interest for making things again.”

Relinquish Creative Control to Connect ‘Made in Italy’ with Gen-Z

Forum attendees recognised the collective need to reject the traditional “top down” marketing approach of luxury brands when it comes to authentically connecting with Gen-Z customers.

“From our perspective, we approach the Gen-Z customer in an entirely different way to our communication with millennials,” said one guest. “Previously we would tightly hone our own narrative and image. When it comes to Gen-Z, it’s better to relinquish control to these creative consumers, and to leverage their narrative and their interpretation of our brand.”

“Historically, we have all focused on tight curation and control,” added another executive. “A lot of these new environments — TikTok, Discord, Snapchat — all involve relinquishing some control over to these communities. It’s challenging, but necessary for heritage brands to hand over your product to creators and creatives within these communities.”

The forum went on to discuss the need to litmus-test channels and platforms to get closer to their customer.

When it comes to Gen-Z, it’s better to relinquish control to these creative consumers, and to leverage their narrative.

“We are in the early stages of exploring Web3 — we are tiptoeing in — and we are learning so much about community,” said an attendee. “You see groups who are so active and passionate and they want to engage in fashion. They are expressing it in ways that you wouldn’t have expected before. It doesn’t work to go in with set expectations. You have to learn as we go along.”

Others, however, felt approaching with caution was more appropriate. “When it comes to platforms like TikTok, we need to study and understand a little more and not feel pressured to have an immediate presence,” said a guest. “When you are focusing on producing what’s right for, or in tune with, your brand… that’s better than just following the narrative. Be brave [enough] to say if something isn’t the right fit.”

“We very much have a ‘test-and-learn’ approach,” said another executive. “‘Made in Italy’ is one of our brand values, but others relate to creativity, community and inclusivity. So, we are going to [explore] initiatives that are authentically linked to those values.”

Leverage ‘Made in Italy’ as a Value Differentiator

The conversation turned to the ways in which the Internet had democratised access to product — and the impact that has on the cultural capital of different brands and businesses.

“Millions of people can now interact with every brand,” noted one executive. “Look at Supreme’s journey from [scarcity] to one of mass collaboration. We begin to see consumers — these important micro-communities — begin to care less about that brand.”

“In this democratised space where everyone has access to everything, you can argue that the pendulum is swinging back towards heritage and craft,” agreed another guest. “‘Made In Italy’ can become a real value differentiator.”

Internal Education Is a National Imperative

“As all our companies explore new [digital] frontiers, and as data becomes increasingly critical, we need institutions — high schools — to formalise education on these topics,” said one guest, as the forum posited the need for internal education to upskill its workforce.

“We don’t have the right education in this field,” agreed another attendee. “We need data and we need data analysts. And college is too late — we should be equipping school children to understand the metaverse, to be able to humanise data — these are qualities that are just as critical as craft and the Italian savoir faire.”

“There needs to be financial incentives too — we need to [socialise] the reality that a head tailor that learns the craft in Italy can make $120 - 150,000 US dollars a year,” added another guest. “We need to get young people to dream about these jobs again.”

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Shopify as part of a BoF partnership.

This week, BoF and Mailchimp hosted an intimate dinner at Maison Estelle in London’s Mayfair, celebrating the fashion capital’s design community by bringing together the next generation of entrepreneurial talent and creative leaders.

The event was attended by designers including Simone Rocha, Bianca Saunders, Priya Ahluwalia and Saul Nash as well as Chet Lo, Steven Stokey-Daley and Emilia Wickstead. They were joined by leading creatives and entrepreneurs like Isamaya Ffrench, Josephine Philips, founder of Sojo, and Machine-A’s Stavros Karelis.

In recent seasons, the global industry and its creative talent have faced a myriad of challenges, from evolving consumer expectations on speed-to-market and sustainability, supply chain bottlenecks, a pandemic and looming recession. For on-schedule London designers, they faced renewed disruption with this season’s schedule conflicting with a national period of mourning, and the State Funeral, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Today, emerging designers must navigate consistent disruption with agility. Susanna Lau wrote of this season: “There were some dropouts and schedule shifts. But by and large, London Fashion Week forged ahead [...] and the raw creativity that makes Britain’s fashion scene unique shone through, particularly from designers making their debuts.”

The dinner was co-hosted by Mailchimp, whose marketing services are intended to “level the small business playing field” for its 12 million active user-base across 190 countries. At the event, BoF asked attendees about their key learnings from the continued disruption, as well as advice for upcoming talent in the spirit of co-opetition and creative support for the next generation of designers.

Below, BoF shares some of their reflections and insights from the dinner.

Steven Stokey-Daley, menswear designer and founder of SS Daley

How did you find this season?

It was my first show outside of the BFC space, so it felt like a lot more pressure, but it was good. We had a lot to contend with, with the shifting scenario with the [State Funeral]. I was scheduled for Saturday, but the entire theme of our show was like a piss up and a party, so we had to change that whole thing [...] and the tone [of the show].

What is your hope for the future of London’s fashion design scene?

If some of the British houses came back and showed on schedule for like one mega season, it would be exciting and pull everyone to London. [...] I think it’d be great if [men’s and women’s shows] were combined because it would bring more of a livelier vibe to London, but it just wouldn’t work with the sales schedule.

What advice would you share with upcoming talent?

Don’t leave it to the last minute — I learn that lesson every season and then forget it as well.

And don’t try and please everyone around you. It’s very easy to listen to the advice of ten or 15 people who support you, and I do think it’s going back to how you consider yourself. So, focus on your message and your beliefs.

Priya Ahluwalia, creative director and founder of Alhuwalia

What is a key lesson you learnt this past season?

I was lucky in the way that we weren’t presenting on schedule in September, so we didn’t have the same level of disruption. But I think, what I learnt watching fashion week, is that the designers are very resilient and able to react to the zeitgeist and things that are happening in real time. It was amazing to see the way the designers pivoted and in reflection, there’s so much space for creativity in times of turmoil. I think Covid has prepared us all for pivoting at the flip of a coin.

What is your hope for the future of London’s fashion design scene?

I hope it continues to bring really amazing, raw creative talent. I think London is one of the best [cities] at celebrating emerging talent, but [...] it would be great for some big houses to come back to London, or to test out showing in London, as it gives everyone else more opportunities.

What advice would you share with upcoming talent?

Figure out what you want to say. Be true to that vision, and get a really good team around you. So whether that’s where you’ve started with your internal team, or whether it’s who you work with on photography or styling, really focusing on getting a team of creatives who can help you make your vision even better than you ever imagined.

Rosh Mahtani, jewellery designer and founder of Alighieri

What is a key lesson you learnt this past season?

I’m definitely taking fewer risks, but [...] I’m going back to my gut instincts. Over the last 18 months, we brought in a lot of consultants and experts, but I think we maybe jumped a little too fast and made a lot of decisions that actually, in retrospect, I wouldn’t have made if I just trusted my gut. I think I’ve learnt a really big lesson there, and just in the nick of time.

What is the next focus for your business?

We are launching silk scarves, thinking about expanding the [Alighieri] universe, thinking about pieces that felt like they could be handed down through generations. I’ve been wanting to do [scarves] for ages and I was just waiting to find the right people to work with. We found this amazing atelier in Macclesfield, which is the silk hub centre of the UK. [...] I’m also really looking to retail next. I think it’s the missing [piece] in our armour.

What advice would you share with upcoming talent?

Don’t rely on other people if you can do it yourself. And actually, the best things you can do are the things you do on a low budget sometimes. [...] The things that really worked well for us was me, in my kitchen, shooting still life or sending pasta to [our community] during lockdown. It’s not necessarily the big names that are going to get you that amplification. For us, it all goes back to meaning. What’s the point in doing what we are doing?

I’ve almost gone back to really early days when I had literally £20 in my pocket and I’m like, okay, with this £20, what am I going to do that’s going to bring me the best use of that money?

Bianca Saunders, menswear designer and founder of Bianca Saunders

What is a key lesson you learnt last season?

I feel like next season will be more about reduction. Last season [in June], I did like 30 looks [and 82 pieces], and I realised I don’t need that many.

I just want to get back to the creative side of things, to try some things out — basically remembering who I was at the beginning.

What is the next focus for your business?

My main focus is my core pieces and just not losing the storyline. [For those starting out,] focus on the design process and less on social media in the beginning.

What is your hope for the future of London’s fashion design scene?

More men’s! It’s controversial to say but I think it’s exciting to have something every four months [rather than] twice a year.

Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault, co-founders of KNWLS

How did you find this season?

CK: We had such a good time — we haven’t done a show for a season, [so] it was quite refreshing to jump back into it again and have that adrenaline rush of the backstage, having everyone together as a team.

AA: We just wanted to do things that we feel are important to us. I think that we are interested in not trying to conceptualise or think too much about it, but just do things that we’re excited about. This season was the same — we had a more positive perspective on things. It was more about hope and what is to come.

What advice would you share with upcoming talent?

CK: We always say just don’t try and do it on your own because I can’t imagine doing it without Alex, without having a bit of a support system.

AA: There’s no shame in not starting your brand straight away. A lot of the fashion schools make you think you have to go out of school and start a brand to be successful [but] there’s tons of benefits in learning about the industry, meeting people [by] working for a brand and seeing how it works.

What is your hope for the future of London’s fashion design scene?

AA: The industry still feels a bit chaotic at the moment. I hope that things settle down and people start being a bit more [...] understanding. I feel like every brand went out and did something amazing [this season, but] there was still bits of negativity here and there, and I’m a bit tired of this. I wish, every moment, to just try to uplift everyone and be positive. It’s not easy to have a brand, so try to support a project instead of criticising them.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Mailchimp as part of a BoF partnership.

Over the last 40 years, Informa Markets Fashion’s advanced contemporary and contemporary womenswear, accessories and footwear event Coterie New York has established itself as a key player in the market’s growth, helping launch, relaunch and scale brands from Helmut Lang to Alice and Olivia.

Pre-pandemic, the rise of direct-to-consumer saw the prioritisation of wholesale wane, but now, retailers and brands alike are bolstering its comeback. Following the e-commerce boom during Covid-19, large luxury department stores in the US have seen an uptick in foot traffic and brick-and-mortar sales.

An evolving landscape, the wholesale industry is shaped by supply chain disruption, pioneering technologies and demands for improved sustainability. As a result, fashion brands and retailers must adapt at pace to meet shareholder and stakeholder expectations. For instance, in the BoF & McKinsey State of Fashion 2022 report, 43 percent of fashion executives said they plan to reduce product development lead times to avoid overstock — although on average, large publicly traded apparel retailers’ inventory levels were 27 percent higher in June 2021 than a year prior.

Wholesale is still a critical channel for branding strategies, increasing market awareness and diversifying revenue streams for emerging and established brands. This season, womenswear label Silk Laundry, denim brand HNST and activewear line Magnlens were among the showcasing exhibitors incorporating wholesale into their retail strategies

To discover how leaders are optimising their wholesale strategies for success, BoF hosted Reece Rackley, CEO of Silk Laundry, Kate Linstrom, design director of Magnlens, and Lander Desmedt, co-founder and CEO of HNST, on stage at Coterie New York’s September 2022 edition to hear how they are overcoming nuanced and complex challenges to drive growth.

Below, BoF shares key takeaways from the event.

Diversify operations to protect revenue stream

RR: We need to embrace flexibility. When our stores closed [due to Covid], wholesale really dropped off. It’s [about] not having a single focus but to disperse risk, looking at the opportunities they present — be aware of risk and make pragmatic decisions. Just be flexible — we have best laid plans but ultimately, you can’t foresee it all the time.

We started out as a small direct-to-consumer business online only but moved into wholesale [...]. For us, it’s meeting new markets. We’ve been in Australia for the last seven years building a business and we’re starting to get more presence in America, we’re also in Canada a little bit. That’s what we’re excited about, to bring what we do to these other markets and see where that wholesale goes.

Guide wholesale strategy with D2C insights

KL: It’s great to see how things are selling in our store. One of the best pieces was a modular jumpsuit that [...] we thought was maybe too avant-garde, but it ended up selling out, so that’s exciting as we can better sell them into our wholesale accounts because we can kind of tell them that we have proof that it’s doing well.

It’s about how our consumers react to specific messages and what translates back into sales.

Our consumers, online and in-store, ask a lot of questions. They really care where their products are coming from, they really care about sustainability, and that helps us on the design team know that we need to be able to produce for them and make it truly a great product that is sustainable and be able to answer those questions.

LD: We directly see what kind of colours work well, what kind of fit works well, but also, it’s about how [our consumers] react to specific messages and what translates back into sales, which is the most important. [...] Sometimes, we reach out to our community and ask what [they think] is missing in action — what we should make to help convince you to wear circular denim.

We also try to leverage technology to see what kind of messages correspond best with the consumers. [...] For example, explaining that the amount of water used for making a pair of jeans is the same as showering for 19 hours. We use that to explain to retailers in our onboarding on the topic.

Extend ethical, sustainable practices to wholesale

KL: The main thing that we do is produce less and be very tight with our orders, and we get to oversee the whole process from beginning to end [as a vertically integrated company].

I think that, both within our personal wardrobes we don’t need as much as we have [...] and then also within the design process, again quality over quantity. Don’t make a tonne of samples — throw them against the wall and see what sticks. Be very mindful in what you make and then also in the production, be very mindful of how much you’re making.

As a community, [Coterie] is bringing us together to really try to find the best way to move forward in fashion.

RR: Very few things are truly sustainable. There’s always an impact — there’s energy use in whatever production you use, and solving every single piece of the puzzle is a huge, monumental task. So I think the important thing for us is that we are conscious of what we’re doing and we’re always looking for ways to do better across the business.

My wife Katie [Kolodinski], who is the designer [of Silk Laundry], is very passionate about animal welfare. She comes up with prints that represent endangered species, but it’s not something we broadcast to the world. We build it into who we are.

LD: I would always start from the design. If you design your products to be recycled, you will automatically see where your circular design programme benefits. Then, it is a step-by-step process to overcome any circular design mistakes.

One piece of advice in implementing more sustainable fabrics and more sustainable patterns — don’t start to combine natural substances like cotton and polyester as today, we can’t recycle them. In the future we will, and while it might [seem to] be a more sustainable product, in the end, we don’t have the tools or materials [to recycle it yet].

Optimise a wholesale strategy through co-opetition

KL: For this community, I think just sharing the information we find is what’s most important for all of us. I’m learning every day. Here, as a community, [Coterie] is bringing us together to really try to find the best way to move forward in fashion and do the least amount of harm on the environment. I look forward to working with other like-minded individuals.

LD: We force ourselves to be transparent on every step that you take in the process. [...] We share everything that is good but also force ourselves to share where we fail, which we call our Hall of Fail — where we share our fuck ups, to be honest. Those have to be shared as well, so as a company, as you force yourself to be transparent and the things that you do, you will always keep that mission that was there from the very beginning — you keep that promise.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Coterie as part of a BoF partnership.

Disclaimer: the interviews with these London Fashion Week designers took place before the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

London Fashion Week (LFW) returned this week with emerging and established designers presenting their spring/summer 2023 collection from September 16 to 20, 2022. After 2 years of disruption following the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, London Fashion Week’s on-schedule designers faced renewed challenges with the event coinciding with a national period of mourning in the United Kingdom following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Industry heavyweights like Burberry and Raf Simons, who was due to make his LFW debut, announced show cancellations and plans to reschedule. But for emerging talent, who typically lack the flexibility gained from big budgets and large teams, the displacement of shows offers a new hurdle for the season.

As BoF recently reported, the British Fashion Council — London Fashion Week’s organising body — directed attendees to still frequent the scheduled shows “to support designers both in attendance of shows and in coverage of shows in the context of business, creativity, and the stories of the designers behind the businesses who have experienced a period of extreme adversity, facing into more challenging times to come.”

Indeed, in recent seasons, designers have had to adeptly navigate consumer expectations on speed-to-market, supply chain blockages, a climate crisis, a pandemic — all with the backdrop of a bleak economic outlook.

Despite such challenges, emerging design talent have been “punching well above their weight”, as Susie Bubble wrote on BoF following the February shows. An incubator of talent, spearheaded by the likes of the New Gen showroom and Lulu Kennedy’s Fashion East, London consistently produces new names to know — but the challenges they face in launching a business continue to grow.

Here, BoF sits down with design talent from the fashion capital to better understand how they are overcoming market challenges and evolving for success to make their fashion brand work today.

SS Daley

LVMH Prize 2022 winner Steven Stokey-Daley founded his menswear brand, which utilises deadstock fabrics, after graduating from the Westminster Fashion Design BA in 2020. After working in menswear at Alexander McQueen and Tom Ford, his graduate collection was featured in Harry Styles’ music video Golden and in titles such as British Vogue and i-D. SS Daley is sold through the likes of MatchesFashion and Ssense.

How has your business model evolved?

Shortly after my graduate collection, I found myself at home in Liverpool, starting the brand, just using what was around me. My grandma had a cupboard full of embroidered linens and curtains, which we made into shirts. We floated them online, to see if there was any reception for them, and they were super popular. Today, we upcycle tea towels into shirts, which we showed in February and will go into stores next month.

Already, we’ve been on a fast track. I studied a design degree and I had to quickly chameleon into being a business person. We have been focussing on building a wholesale model in the last couple of seasons, which is a huge opportunity to develop the community. From winning the LVMH Prize, what we wanted to invest in was our platform with customers, so we’re starting this process of reinvestment.

What does London Fashion Week mean to you?

Our first experience with fashion week paved the way for what we do now. My partner studied dance, which he stopped doing commercially due to lockdown. Then, I’m lucky enough to have had a business that started and grew exponentially in that same period — it was two completely different realities of that time.

If hundreds of people are travelling in from different countries, how do we make that worthwhile in the context of today?

So, our first show was about the beauty of a British live event, for which we partnered with the National Youth Theatre. From that moment onwards, it’s been about what a live event means for SS Daley, what does theatre mean in the fashion context. It’s also about asking why we need a live event. If hundreds of people are travelling in from different countries, how do we make that worthwhile in the context of today?

We have had conversations about the schedule recently and if that works for us, and we’re planning to shift into our own idea of what the schedule looks like next year. Up until now, we haven’t had a chance to do in-person events other than the Fashion Week shows, and then that feels limited to the group of editors and journalists who are invited. So, we’re organising a few physical, in-person, almost pop-up events for the beginning of 2023.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

Sustainability with scalability — it’s important to keep those two things moving, and there’s few resources right now which offer deadstock fabrics in much larger quantities. We have tackled that by offering garments ordered by one retailer as exclusive colourways for them.

For the first time, we are talking about the brand in an international context. Recently, we have seen a surge in sales in Japan. All of our Japanese retailers sold out the last collection within the first day of the drop, with a queue of people waiting round one of the shops, and we had no idea. So, I’m going to Japan for the first time in October.

Nensi Dojaka

Dojaka established her eponymous brand after graduating from Central Saint Martins, with her experience in lingerie identifiable in her mini-dresses and intimates. In 2021, she won the LVMH Prize, with her signature black mini dress ranking in Lyst’s Top 10 Hottest Products. Nensi Dojaka stockists include Farfetch, MatchesFashion and Luisaviaroma.

What does London Fashion Week mean to you?

London is the only place that really spotlights and gives a chance to upcoming brands. I’m lucky to be here for that reason. It’s nurturing. People connect with the brand better when they see things on Instagram, on models — it’s easier for people to want to buy something or want to engage with something when they see it on other people.

How has your business model evolved?

At the start, it was a much smaller scale and I was working only at the studio. Now, I work with a factory in Italy and much of the development is done there. I do the designs, the drapes and everything, and then they will create the first prototypes. So, there are more people involved and it’s just a different way of working.

[For] the development part, I still do a lot on the mannequin, but then [...] all the patterns before production are digitised and all the grading and everything is done digitally. It makes things quicker and more accurate, and now that the production is bigger, [technology] is essential.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

Covid started just after I established the brand, so that was a difficult period. Then there was Covid mixed with Brexit, and now we have inflation. As a young brand, you can’t really increase prices as easily. [However,] the main problem for me is counterfeits — there are a lot of them — but that is just going to happen.

KNWLS

Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault first founded their label in 2017 after meeting at Central Saint Martins. The brand has expanded its offering from underwear and corsetry to include womenswear, accessories and footwear, and rebranded from ‘Charlotte Knowles’ to KNWLS in 2021. The brand first showed at London Fashion Week in 2018 as a part of Fashion East, and counts Ssense and Farfetch as stockists.

What key challenges and opportunities have arisen for your business?

AA: We decided to trademark quite early on in the brand, and we encountered problems with trademarking in America. We had to rethink how the brand was going and if we wanted it to be just about Charlotte’s name. The team is as important as us, so we didn’t want it to just be about Charlotte or [me].

CK: I also didn’t realise, when we started the brand, what it would be to have an eponymous brand, to have your full name attached to something that has the potential to grow quite big. We were super scared to change the name, as we didn’t know what effect it might have on the business and on the brand, but it ended up being a good thing.

AA: In the last couple of seasons, production was [also] a nightmare, and like always, brands and designers are taken advantage of or misunderstood. Stores don’t understand why you are delivering late: they want to cancel orders; they don’t want to accept late products. The factories are telling you they are going to increase their prices. We’re now trying to move quite a few production processes to Portugal for price and sustainability, because the quality and their environmental perspective is quite ahead.

How has your business evolved in recent years?

AA: It has evolved quite a lot since we started the brand, maturing and understanding our customer, understanding where the world is going, trying to differentiate ourselves. The brand started off inspired visually by underwear and we have expanded the range, every season adding a new category. Everyone is doing underwear now, which is still core to the brand, but we don’t want the brand to be stuck in this movement.

What does London Fashion Week mean to you?

CK: It’s a culmination, a celebration and a closure to that season, and it’s an amazing way to promote the clothes in person. With a fashion show, you build up this energy and people are excited about it, and more likely to post about it after.

AA: We’ve done photo shoots twice now and it’s just not the same. You never have the same impact or the same closure. People can see it in person and there’s just a better interaction on social media — there’s so many brands, so much noise, on social media.

Chet Lo

Lo is a 2020 graduate of Central Saint Martins BA Knitwear course and former intern at Proenza Schouler and Maison Margiela. Showcasing this season through the New Gen showroom, Lo’s work has featured in Vogue, L’Officiel, W, Dazed and more. He recently won the Perfect Emerging Fashion Award by Perfect Magazine.

What does London Fashion Week mean to you?

It’s kind of everything at the moment. I wish I didn’t have to show on-schedule because it’s so fast-paced — I feel like I have barely been able to finish last season — but it’s important from a business perspective. All these young designers need the exposure physically, not just online, to have the showrooms, the buyers and press see your stuff. It’s a boost for big and small companies.

I’m excited to show and create this collection — it is well-rounded. The spikes were fun and everything, but I can’t really imagine a girl wearing it to go grocery shopping. I’m trying to fit the needs of my client and create garments so they can wear them not just at a party but to fulfil every aspect of their life.

How has your business model evolved?

I started off making everything myself in my bedroom. I’d go to a knitting studio, knit the panels, bring them back home, stitch them all up — it was chaotic but I think it was the happiest time of my life.

We all learnt how to do things ourselves — you shoot the clothes yourself, you market yourself. I graduated, and no one was hiring, so I decided to just do it myself.

The pandemic was rough but I think we all learnt how to do things ourselves — you shoot the clothes yourself, you market yourself. I graduated, and no one was hiring, so I decided to just do it myself. I made a bunch of jumpers, put them on Instagram to pay rent, and it took off from there. We got offered this beautiful residency at The Standard, and now, it’s a studio.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

It was a cute idea to start a business and really scary to actually make it. All of a sudden, I needed to register my company, create a business account, get a bookkeeper, create cash flow projections every month. Production is a nightmare, especially with lockdowns in China. I want to order yarn and [the store] hasn’t received the raw materials from China. I have five stores waiting for this product.

I make my fabric myself. I constantly feel behind. But I realised I have to relinquish control. If I can’t meet the deadline, I can’t meet the deadline and it will not be my fault because I will push as hard as I can. That’s all I can do. It’s about learning to think on your feet and adjusting how to make stuff, but it’s been really fun.

Chopova Lowena

Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena met at Central Saint Martins in 2011, and began collaborating on a joint master’s course in 2015. The designers launched the brand in 2018, inspired by Chopova’s Bulgarian and Lowena’s English heritage. The brand seeks to modernise traditional textiles and crafts, and employs female artisans in Bulgaria. With sustainability at its core, the label is carried by stores like Browns and Farfetch.

How has your business model evolved?

EC: In a way, it’s very much the same and completely different. We have a great factory that is solely dedicated to our brand, and everything is thought through and made nicely. We feel like it’s important to look back, to improve the core product — the skirt — to make sure it is well-made, that it is going to last. I do that every season at the factory.

An important part of the way that we want to do business is introducing categories slowly, when we feel it’s right and there is a space and a need for them. We also like to listen to the feedback from buyers and we have had a few mentor-like figures on the buying side.

LL: [At] Saint Martins, you have the freedom to do whatever you want and you are encouraged that the crazier, the better. [But] it has to be wearable and it has to last. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it? It is a hard reality check, figuring out how to balance that. But it is a challenge we enjoy, and we still design crazy things.

What key challenges and opportunities have arisen for your business?

EC: Sustainability is our biggest core value. It’s harder as you scale, but we still try to do it with every new thing we introduce. We think about ethical production and [...] upcycling, using recycled fabric, cutting down on shipping. We try to get recycled fibre textiles from Europe, from Turkey, from places close to Bulgaria to have some chance at making something which is actually sustainable.

What does London Fashion Week mean to you?

LL: We have done a couple of shoots, lookbooks and videos, but the chance to bring everyone together in one space and actually see the clothes is going to have a completely different feel. Our show also gives us the opportunity to do the pieces which aren’t super wearable but that we really want to do.

EC: Our home is London [and] it has definitely defined the aesthetic of the brand as well. [Fashion Week] is more about your business and the way that your brand is perceived. It brings us on to a different kind of platform, and to show people [our work] in a more personal way.

Of course, I care about what’s going to come out of fashion week. But I think that, constantly, every single day, you care about everyone else and what everyone’s going to like. We have both wanted a fashion show our entire lives, and now we get to have one, I want it to be exactly what we want.

Richard Quinn

Quinn worked at Christian Dior and Savile Row before launching his eponymous womenswear label, specialising in printed textiles and innovative fabrications, in late 2017. Quinn won the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design in 2018. His brand is stocked at MatchesFashion and Farfetch.

What does London Fashion Week mean to you?

I always like the atmosphere and the moment of the show. We obviously do the shows as they look beautiful online and offline, but it’s trying to [create] that live experience, whether it’s a set, a smell, the lighting — an emotional type of thing.

I also love seeing the clothes go from a show to the red carpet. The reach of that overarcs any show we have done before, especially in America or Asia. If an iconic person [wears the brand] that many people look up to, people suddenly become obsessed with you. Like Cardi B — if she wears anything, you will have a huge traction of people stampeding into our pages.

How has your business model evolved?

Initially, it started with me setting up the textile side of the company. We still consult for other people and print production runs and samples — we do big houses in London like JW Anderson and Burberry, and we do a print service for anyone who wants it.

We sourced all this great technology from Epsom, with state-of-the-art machines that you tend to only get in the textile districts of Italy. We can do things so quickly, like strike off onto fabric in 10 or 15 minutes. You don’t have to wait weeks for samples to come back and forth. To test things and react quickly is quite a luxury.

This was basically the set up for my own company. We were utilising every inch of the space that we had, as well as creating all these collections, and it grew from there. Then the wholesale, and our collaborations, grew alongside the print side and they run in tandem now.

The brand hits many different types of people — some will contact us who want a bespoke sofa or homeware, or they come for our bespoke made-to-measure service as well. Then, our private client business is a huge market for us — dresses that people would never know we have made are out there, especially in the Middle East. There’s a huge market there that we’re trying to cater to, and in the future, there’s perfumes. The overall goal at the end — the lifestyle.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

You have all the buzzwords, especially in the pandemic, with people trying to figure out how people are going to live their lives. [...] We adapted, did new product categories.

We have just moved to a new space with separate departments, which is much bigger, so it’s easier to develop ideas without having to pack them away every day. So now, we are equipped to tackle all the opportunities that we have had before, [like] our own online e-comm. We want to do it right and I feel like we are nearly there with that.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Mailchimp as part of a BoF partnership.

In a bid to improve support and exposure of Black-owned fashion brands and businesses, the Black in Fashion Council (BIFC) — co-founded by The Cut editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples and communications consultant Sandrine Charles — launched its Discovery Showroom at New York Fashion Week: The Shows in 2020, spotlighting established and emerging fashion designers from the US fashion market.

Just 4 percent of Black-owned businesses are still in operation after three and a half years, compared with an average of 55.5 percent for all businesses, according to a 2021 McKinsey & Company report. Some 41 percent of Black small business owners are more likely to seek additional financing to address business challenges versus the average 32 percent of small business owners, according to a JP Morgan Chase survey this year.

In helping to diversify the talent on the New York Fashion Week schedule, the Discovery Showroom is also helping the US fashion industry better meet consumer expectations. Some 45 percent of consumers in the US agree that companies should pledge to support Black-owned brands, suppliers and vendors, with 68 percent saying their social values shape their shopping choices, according to McKinsey’s The Black Unicorn report.

This year, the Discovery Showroom has returned in partnership with Mailchimp and IMG, who also launch the NYFW: The Shows Capsule Collection presented by Mailchimp. Now, BoF meets with the designers of five showcasing brands — Izayla, Sammy B., Kwame Adusei, Muehleder, and Atelier Ndigo — to better understand how they are growing their businesses effectively in a challenging market and an imbalanced industry.

Izayla

I’sha Dunston, Fashion Institute of Design Merchandising graduate, founded Izayla in 2017 as an advanced contemporary womenswear brand in Los Angeles. The brand’s mission focuses on three areas: representation, women empowerment and integrity. The brand is sold at Saks Fifth Avenue and through its own online presence.

What does New York Fashion Week mean to you?

I believe showing at New York Fashion Week means that Izayla has been discovered. Being selected to showcase my brand on this huge platform is a great introduction to the world and, most importantly, builds more visibility, brand awareness and connections with people, consumers and designers.

How do you grow your community on and offline?

In the past, pop-ups and engaging with our consumers via social media has helped create a long-lasting relationship and genuine connection. We are human at the end of the day, and curating that approach is helping build the community. Social media is helping us perfect our customer profile, giving us a deep dive into what our customer needs and not just what she wants.

This will also be our third season with Saks Fifth Avenue, and I’m excited to keep cultivating that relationship and then also establish more wholesale partnerships. The Saks Fifth Avenue woman loves our signature tie-dye jumpsuit, and staff keep reordering it, which allows me to know there is a customer base that likes what we’re doing.

How has your business model evolved?

My business model hasn’t drastically changed, but I have added new elements. I have stayed true to our made-to-order process and kept the majority of our goods made locally in Los Angeles in 2020. We have partnered with a company in New York, which also creates some products in the Dominican Republic.

Challenges are non-stop in the fashion industry. As a Black designer, my top challenges have been financing, marketing and visibility.

I don’t stock anything here unless it is a signature silhouette, like our signature tie-dye jumpsuit. I’m big on “less is more.” There’s no need to have so much inventory, so much fabrication, because we don’t know where things are going to go. I’m still a small business and I’m just working on keeping things efficient and sustainable.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

Challenges are non-stop in the fashion industry, and I have accepted that there is never a stop to this. As a Black designer, my top challenges have been financing, marketing and visibility. I founded the brand in 2017, but I didn’t start making sales until 2019, and then the pandemic happened, so it was a lot of shifting and changing into what I wanted to do.

Sammy B.

Samantha Black graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in design, producing a women’s ready-to-wear line titled Sammy B. Worn by the likes of Beyoncé, Lizzo, Yara Shahidi, Nicki Minaj, Sammy B. is stocked by Nordstrom and sold through the Sammy B. website.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

Once you have a certain level of exposure, you have to be able to act quickly, which is hard when I don’t have production yet. But exposure means opportunities, and as I started to grow, when opportunities present themselves, you don’t say “no, I can’t” — you figure it out.

Social media is also obviously massive for everyone, and it can look like we are all on the same playing field, but we don’t all have the same tools to play. We didn’t come in here with all the same gear. We try to use it in organic ways, which makes the most sense for us so we are not necessarily competing with the really big brands.

What does New York Fashion Week mean to you?

As an independent designer, I don’t have any backing. So, the Discovery Showroom allows for my brand to be seen by people who might not have known about my brand or, if they have heard about it, they might not have seen it in person. Especially being a Black designer as well, it means a lot to have this platform.

Through time, so much has changed in fashion and the way we view fashion. But fashion week is one of those iconic things — it has a nostalgia to it. As a designer, that moment where you see your designs, all the hard work on that platform, means so much.

How has your business model evolved?

We’re operating two different businesses today: stocking in Nordstrom is very different from stocking our website. Now it’s more seamless and we have combined what we can, but it was a learning curve and took a lot of restructuring and hiring more people.

We have also started a summer series in a partnership with Jamaican restaurant Omar’s Kitchen in Lower Manhattan (as my roots are Jamaican) inviting editors, fashion and beauty influencers to come and experience my culture in New York City. I want our customer to get to know me, my love for my brand and the environment which inspires me, building my community one person at a time.

Kwame Adusei

With over 10 years of luxury fashion designing experience in Ghana, Kwame Adusei launched his eponymous gender-neutral fashion brand in LA in 2021, with an emphasis on quality, story and ethics.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

Just like any other person starting a business, you’re going through a ton of challenges, like managing your spending and just trying to do everything that you want to do in terms of ideas and reacting to what people like.

I’m also very conscious about where my fabrics come from — in Ghana, there are these big landfills filled with old fabrics and clothing, which get dumped there. As a result, there’s a place in downtown LA from which we only buy deadstock fabrics from fashion houses. I’m just trying to slow down in that respect.

How has your business model evolved in that time?

Back in fashion school, I didn’t have money to finish school, so I would make clothes for my sisters and get paid for that, so I could buy fabric and continue. So, my first brand that I started, which I named after my mom while in Ghana, started with my family, just making clothes for my sisters and then my sisters’ friends, and that’s how it started spreading.

Starting ten years ago as a ready-to-wear brand in Ghana — and the first, as I believe it, to introduce custom ready-to-wear in Ghana full time. I had to change my strategy and think about how to build a community rather than build a brand. Now, I have a brand and store space in downtown Los Angeles.

What does New York Fashion Week mean to you?

We are based out on the West Coast, in Downtown LA, and in our store space, we organise fashion events, like parties or meet-and-greets, so many things that are community-based. I feel like New York would really open us up — we are focused on building a community rather than building a brand.

Muehleder

Larissa Muehleder attended Fashion Institute of Technology for fashion marketing before launching her namesake womenswear brand. Neoprene is the staple fabric of the fashion brand, which is sold direct-to-consumer on the Muehleder website.

How do you grow your community on and offline?

You are nothing if you are not building out your email list and continuing the conversation with your followers on social. But Instagram is another major challenge — I did so well in 2019, even 2020 because of the Buy Black movement, but it’s tanking due to the algorithm. I have 100,000 followers on Instagram, maybe 2,000 followers on Pinterest, but the amount of impressions a week on Pinterest is like 3 million and on Instagram, it’s about 200,000.

Offline, we invite clients to come in to see them try on items so I can get a real-life perspective of how they fit on different body shapes. We like to highlight strong women, like targeting women that are influential in their communities, from a real estate agent to an influencer who is a mum of three, just sharing their story with our audience.

What does New York Fashion Week mean to you?

Fashion week has always been the pinnacle of where you are supposed to be if you are a designer and a brand, so just to be a part of that, to be recognised in that space, is astronomical. It’s also going to take us in the right direction with wholesale. Our biggest opportunity would definitely be strengthening relationships with stylists and boutique owners, and scaling that.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

I got into a showroom, but it ended up being toxic — they would tell me that I should use a white model, that buyers don’t like brands to show too much of an identity. I was not telling my story authentically. To me, it’s not about it being a black or a white brand — it’s about people seeing through a fake image. So I left, pivoted to direct-to-consumer, and it was the best decision. I scaled my following and my brand by being authentic and by just being me.

How has your business model evolved?

After years of pushing my designs, a store owner in New York said he would buy the dress design I was wearing and asked if I had made it. I said, “Of course, how many do you want?” The dress was a high street label, and that was my big break — being a big fat liar. But I went to the garment district in Midtown, stumbled upon neoprene and created a similar style. The dress did amazingly well and I started getting into more stores.

Fashion week has always been the pinnacle of where you are supposed to be if you are a designer and a brand, so just to be a part of that, to be recognised in that space, is astronomical.

That very first dress that I made, that launched my career in wholesale, I made in three colours. It was then copied by another brand but in 30 colours, and the designer would sell it back to my retailers on consignment. It was out of my control, especially as I don’t have the money to compete, and that’s when wholesale tanked for me.

In the future, I do want to go back into wholesale, and some major retailers have reached out, but I will need to start manufacturing overseas, which I don’t want to do. I’ve always manufactured in New York, but now I’m competing with the likes of Alexander Wang and Area who are manufacturing more in the US with time constraints and logistical challenges.

Atelier Ndigo

Founded by stylist and costume designer Waina Chancy in 2021, Ndigo takes inspiration from the colour “indigo”, using vibrant fabrics and structured forms inspired by architecture and design. The brand is sold through its e-commerce website.

How has your business model evolved?

I initially started Ngido during the pandemic last year with a partner, although we have since parted ways. We are both from Haiti, and it was important to add our colours and our culture to the brand, which is why everything is so colourful and vibrant.

We started working on the samples and launched in February last year. The brand’s growth has since come about through word of mouth and Instagram — I have done most of my sales through Instagram, and we are shifting from made-to-order to focus on a wholesale strategy.

As a costume designer and stylist, I work with different women, different body types, which has helped me to better understand the female body and know what works as a designer. Finding something that works for my body type and for a different body type is important to me and I was able to translate that into my collection.

What key challenges and opportunities have recently arisen for your business?

At first, it was just me doing everything during the pandemic and we were of course not sure if it was going to work out, or how people were going to react to it, but we have received a really positive reaction.

We have had challenges — like we didn’t know much about production, how to get into it, or trying to find resources. I’m learning every day, on my own. But I think that’s the best part of it, because I learn as I go and I enjoy the process. I’m still a very small brand, and right now I’m doing everything on my own. So being able to add more people in my team, I feel like I’m helping with jobs and learning, but it’s helping me to grow the company.

What does New York Fashion Week mean to you?

New York Fashion Week is every designer’s dream. We participated in Black in Fashion Council last season, and it has really helped with visibility. Since then, we have been interviewed by some of the biggest people in the industry, and I’m humbled and grateful because this opportunity has opened many doors. I’m just ready to spread my wings and see where it goes.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Mailchimp as part of a BoF partnership.

Coterie New York, an Informa Markets Fashion contemporary women’s fashion event, returns this September for another season, to facilitate digital and in-person discovery between global brands, buyers and retailers.

Launched in the 1980s as an intimate, invite-only event with 25 brands at the Plaza Hotel, the concept was to connect industry members and offer a curated assortment of contemporary clothing. In the last 40 years, Coterie has established itself as a key player in the contemporary market’s growth, helping launch, relaunch and scale brands from Helmut Lang to Alice and Olivia, while upholding its original principles of curation and connection among the tens of thousands of guests it welcomes each edition.

Alongside its curated edit of premier women’s apparel, footwear and accessories, industry insights, networking opportunities and trend research — the Coterie event is now honing in on its key pillars: sustainability, technology and immersive experiences. This year brings a new look through updated branding and new creative approaches to onsite activations.

Responding to the new expectations and shifting sentiment and behaviour of end-consumers and “working backwards,” Coterie seeks to support brands through education and innovation — through partnerships with the likes of WGSN, offering real-time trend insights, and Hey Social Good, which provides verification on social practice to highlight efforts in environmental and social governance.

In addition to sharing educational resources around technological innovations in fashion, from the Metaverse and Web3 to 3D merchandising, Coterie is also evolving its strategy to account for the growing resale market and the increase in buyers at their events representing this space. After all, in 2020, resale accounted for 10 percent of all US retail sales, up from 5 percent in 2016. BoF Insights data estimates the US second-hand fashion market could reach $57 billion by 2025.

Now, BoF sits down with Kelly Helfman, president of Informa Markets Fashion, to better understand how Coterie is evolving its approach to wholesale to enable digital and sustainable successes.

What is driving the evolution of Coterie?

We are making sure that consumer demand is reflected in the evolution of Coterie — it’s not just what brands or buyers are asking for, but what the end consumer wants, and addressing it backwards. That’s how we approach our strategy for Coterie.

The world has changed, the global fashion landscape has changed and the ecosystem has changed. So, moving forward, we are making sure that we are evolving Coterie to reflect all those different changes. We have had decades of powering the contemporary market, but it’s looking at the new evolving categories within fashion that we need to focus on, from using refills to supporting brands that champion inclusive sizing or minority-owned businesses.

How is Coterie evolving to meet the needs of brands and retailers today?

It’s about that discovery. We want to bring value through more immersive experiences, better focused on our pillars: technology and the digitalisation of the business; sustainability through experiences, education and resources; and then highlighting emerging brands.

It is about being selective and intentional in our curation, making sure we’re bringing the right buyers, the right brands, and connecting them in a meaningful way.

Digital is a big part of it and being able to evolve from a technology and digital standpoint. We give people resources through digital platforms and partnerships — for instance, we were able to provide our attendees with a digital platform where they could participate, even when they were unable to be physically present.

What underpins Coterie’s strategy for success?

It is about being selective and intentional in our curation, making sure we’re bringing the right buyers, the right brands, and connecting them in a meaningful way. We love our legacy anchor brands, but we also understand that buyers are looking to connect with new and emerging brands. We provide the area for discovery.

Over the years, Coterie has evolved to make sure we had a great representation of international brands, to this curated assortment of more advanced contemporary collections, whether it was apparel, accessories and footwear. We began in the eighties, representing just 25 brands in a hotel, and went on to launch a variety of premium brands. We are all about connecting and discovery.

How is Coterie implementing digital developments into its offering?

Fashion is tactile. You have to touch and feel it, and Coterie is such a huge opportunity to discover the new, so you have to make sure somebody is physically there. But digital, it really serves a purpose in that on-going discovery and on-going access to resources, whether it’s through our partnerships or our own content that we’re producing constantly to support the ever-changing business that we are in.

As a result, we are investing in our digital platforms both online and for our show apps, for increased discovery all-year round. We have to think about being digital first, and then physical events are the icing on the cake to bring the industry together. We then give people access to so many different resources to be able to support them moving forward.

People are also looking to us for educational resources, so it’s really important that we’re presenting those. We are paying attention to things like the Metaverse, Web3, 3D merchandising, and the technology that’s available to brands and retailers.

How is Coterie working towards a more sustainable future for fashion?

For us, sustainability is firstly about showcasing the sustainable brands in this advanced contemporary assortment. We are working with a company called Hey Social Good, which verifies a portion of the brands at Coterie and gives them an assessment as to where they are in the process of social good. This is something that our buyers are asking for — they want to know and make sure that they’re working with brands and carrying collections in their stores that are actually doing good.

People are also looking to us for educational resources, so it’s really important that we’re presenting those. We are paying attention to things like the Metaverse, Web3 and 3D merchandising.

Secondly, it’s about practising what we preach as a leader in the event space and as event organisers. We have to do our part to be more sustainable, so we’re trying to be more mindful as to how we are producing these events moving forward. We are looking to celebrate brands’ achievements in their journey to sustainability — it’s not about calling anyone out or shaming them but celebrating their progress, even if they are just starting out.

How do you support your community in their journeys to sustainable practices?

We have a large community and connections to different associations all over the world to help people diversify where they are producing, to look at different fashion technology providers and sustainable fabrics.

We also host an extensive sourcing show which gives our attendees access to thousands of different suppliers and manufactures. These businesses come from all over the world and we work closely with international associations and governments to be able to provide this to our attendees. We have the opportunity to connect the Coterie brands with these suppliers can support them by matching them with businesses that fit their brand.

We don’t treat it like a one size fits all show — it’s important that we look at the needs of the different Coterie collections, what they’re looking for, and appropriately match with them for any resources that we have.

What role is resale playing at an event like Coterie?

Resale is a big part of the evolution of Coterie. As this industry is changing, brands have to be thinking about resale as well as sustainability, about direct-to-consumer as well as wholesale.

A tonne of our buyers are not just your traditional multi-brand stores anymore, but also resale and rental buyers. We also have a lot of vintage brands on the show floor, which do incredibly well selling one-of-a-kind luxury designer handbags, for example, the Ritz-Carlton is one buyer that loves to purchase those bags.

We have also partnered with different organisations that could help them with upcycling, such as companies like Fabscrap. Different partners we work with take the scraps and then reproduce and recycle them.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Coterie as part of a BoF partnership.

Last week, the Copenhagen International Fashion Fair (CIFF) — one of Europe’s longest-established tradeshows — welcomed more than 500 brands to its exhibition space in the Danish capital, connecting them to a global community of buyers. Spanning the 3-day event was a roster of panels, presentations and workshop sessions hosted by experts and designed to inform and empower brands with solutions-oriented insights.

In one such presentation, Technology and Innovation for A New Era in Wholesale, BoF’s Robin Mellery-Pratt and Alice Gividen explored the disruptive new technologies poised to provide the greatest opportunities for the global CIFF community as the industry experiences an inventory glut. Indeed, analytics firm Edited reported the return of deep discounting. Across men’s, women’s and children’s apparel in the UK, it found more than 71 percent of products were marked down as of July 17, compared to 22 percent last year and 47 percent in 2019.

Combined with the geopolitical context of a “polycrisis” — various systemic crises occurring simultaneously and interacting with one another — there is pressing need for the industry to innovate to combat these challenges, implementing strategies across new manufacturing models, Augmented Reality (AR) tools and Web3-based connectivity.

Building on the theme of innovation in the wholesale sector, the panel, Finding Wholesale Growth in an Uncertain Market, examined the new strategic approaches to wholesale already being employed by market leaders, with a focus on operational innovation, community-building, and radical shifts in how brands produce and send their clothes to stores.

BoF was joined by three talents exploring these spaces via their businesses. Ellen Dixdotter, CEO of contemporary womenswear brand By Malene Birger, who took on the role in the summer of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and worked quickly to refine its wholesale network. She was joined by British design talent Bianca Saunders, founder and creative director of her eponymous luxury label. Having won the 32nd ANDAM Grand Prix Fashion Award in 2021, her global stockists include MatchesFashion, MachineA and Gr8, in Japan.

Finally, Gonçalo Cruz, co-founder and CEO of PlatformE, a made-to-order manufacturing platform completed the panel. Platform E’s services and technology insert digital fashion across the value chain, enabling fashion brands to create their items, sell them and only produce them after the point of purchase with constant and integrated access to their entire production chains.

Below, BoF shares the key takeaways.

Begin With Internal Collaboration

GC: “Fashion’s business model is fundamentally broken. In the US, more than 60 percent of products are marked down, and up to a third of them are marked down to a level where there’s actually no margin. One of the reasons for that is [that] big brands operate in silos. The number one goal of procurement and buying teams is to [minimise the] cost of production. To lower the average unit cost, suppliers will typically require [that] you [order] more [product]. [But by producing] more volume, you’re migrating the problem to your sales, merchandising and marketing [teams], saying, ‘It’s your challenge, you go and sell it.’

Fashion will have to adopt [to] not looking to lower the cost of production, but to optimise margins, meaning selling at a higher [or] full price. You [only] need to discount when you have excess inventory, so the ultimate goal is reaching the fine balance of what’s the right figure [of] finished product versus what I call ‘Demand Responsive Capacity’. If your products perform [well, and you have] a very close relationship with your suppliers, you can accelerate a just-in-time response. This is what we’re trying to do at PlatformE, receiving real-time market data.

ED: “When Covid hit the world [in 2020] and everything was disrupted, [...] we didn’t start with a wholesale strategy but rather we started within ourselves. We narrowed down the collections by 50 percent, brought back production to Europe from Asia, and increased the prices quite radically to be able to offer quality [and] sustainable alternatives in terms of fabric with a focus on full price.

[Then, we had] to revisit who we are partnering with. We have a lot of wholesalers around the world, but we scaled that down as well to make sure they can bear and deliver our message so [to] make sure that the end consumer meets us in the same way all over the world. We want to have the same values as [our] wholesalers.”

BS: “My main focus is to make sure that the main brand product grows more than it being [a facilitator of] collaborations, that can sometimes dilute how I expand. There is a lot of pressure on younger brands to implement lessons from and learn the mistakes of the past — and fix broken elements of how the [brand-retailer relationship] works while maintaining traditional processes.

[My wholesale partners] respect that and it’s really worked for their models too. I do listen to them and ask [which are my best] sellers — that’s how I grow the collection every season.”

Implement a “Pull” Model, Where Actual Demand Dictates Product Development

BS: “During my first season, I had small orders, so I was making product myself and sending it out to retailers. As the brand has developed — I’m now on my ninth season and I’ve learnt that certain products don’t translate well from the runway to the store; sometimes, they’re not profitable or worth the work or my team’s time. Now, I’m hugely focused on making sure that each store has the right amount of product — and the right product for their customer. For example, if MatchesFashion wants a particularly intricate and [expensive] item, then that decision is based on customer need. The [retailer] will carry the customer to the product — it will reach the right person, and makes sure that the profit margin is actually at a good point to justify its [creation].

GC: We started working with luxury brands [across] LVMH and Kering, and even those brands [rarely] own 100 percent of their workshops or factories. They rely on different suppliers, [and] on multi-brand boutiques to sell their products. Gucci, for example, [sees] more than 50 percent of sales come from external domains, so they need to connect markets and factories in order to be informed by consumer demand.

At Platforme, we connect the points of sale — the website, the store, the multi-brands marketplace — [and] inform the factory in real-time, saying, “this week you sold 100 dresses, so you need to produce [more] because you’re selling out of those specific dresses.” We want to democratise access to this technology — it shouldn’t be exclusive to luxury.”

Adopt a Customer-Centric Brand Mindset

BS: My relationship with retailers as my brand [grows] is changing slightly because I’m considering and prioritising exactly the different types of men that want to wear my brand and the size range they need too. There are also women that want to wear the brand without me expanding into a traditional womenswear space. It’s about organically expanding those sections of the brand that has been my massive growth focus point and it’s really worked. We’ve expanded into women’s without diluting the menswear brand model. I’m giving customers the option to buy into it the brand format and fit, regardless of [gender] or preference. It’s giving way to a slow and steady growth pace.

ED: For us, it always starts with the universe and the way you’re building a brand beyond just creating new garments. I think that’s also what our founder, Malene, had in her vision when she founded the brand. I’m drawn and attracted to interiors and antiques and believe that our customers are also very inspired by getting more than just product.

In our own brand homes — we have curated perfumes, art, ceramics and jewellery to give customers a holistic brand view. The results we have seen and the feedback, it’s amazing. Our fanbase is united in this idea of the lifestyle that we are creating for them. It’s a power.”

Futureproof by Starting Somewhere, Anywhere

GC: “A made-to-order manufacturing model is not an “all or nothing” exercise. We can start with one product or segment — the easiest silhouette — and try it out. The first step is reducing product development lead time. Working on a raw material basis rather than finished goods, and reinventing your design strategy to adapt to what the supplier can offer you.

The second step is trusting your suppliers. Fashion is one of the industries [with] the lowest confidence in the supply chain. The third step is the connection of data and production. If you own your data and inform your suppliers in real-time — “this product is selling much better than the other one,” [you can use that insight] in-season. This is the ultimate goal.”

BS: “The more individualised you make your brand, the more you [maintain] what the customer means to you. I’ve known from the beginning that once you have your small audience, it’ll grow into a bigger audience if you just keep those people content and not try to step on anyone else’s toes. That’s how I’ve kept it growing. I constantly ask my sales [partner, Tomorrow Group] where stockists and retailers are positioning my brand. That’s really important because it guides what sort of customer I want to attract. My brand is growing mostly because of how I present it — via fashion shows, the models, the price point and the comfort of the clothes.”

ED: “To not be stuck with overstock and overproduction, you need to [create] something that doesn’t feel old 6 months later. It’s the way the garments look, the quality, and of course, that the fabrics are sustainable.

The other part is certification. Our wholesale partners are, thankfully, also putting a lot of demand on us to have the right certifications and deliver something customers can be sure is a sustainable alternative. It goes both ways, we need to have an offer that they can sell at a good price, and they need to be able, along with us, to demand certifications, [verify] where [a product] is produced, [be dedicated to] transparency — it’s really a collaboration.”

This is a sponsored feature paid for by CIFF as part of a BoF partnership.