8 Things Your Fashion Business Does & Doesn’t Have To Do ...

Fashion Business ... To Do & not To Do ...

Macala Wright , Interactive Marketing Strategist & Social Influencer

5 Things You Must Do:

1. Have A Reputable Website: There’s a growing trend that I’ve been seeing among fashion business professionals. Agencies, retail consultants and individual company figure heads are abandoning the traditional professional calling card that is the foundation of every business:  their website.

Retail, Apparel and Fashion business service providers are abandoning their websites for Posterous, Tumblr and free Blogger or WordPress powered sites. Does living in a real-time, social media, web 2.0 world give professionals the right to abandon or create alternative solutions to the portal that once explained who they are, what they do and what work they’ve done? The answer is, “NO.”  If you want to be taken seriously, you have to have a professional web presence — PERIOD. Uses your social properties to show your subject matter expertise, but always have a professional site.

2. Manage Client Expectations: Whether you are a consultancy of one or a firm of 40, your clients are the life’s blood of your business; you need them in order to thrive. This year, the biggest lesson I learned about those who put the roof over my head is to manage their expectations. I am a doer and always strive to go above and beyond the call of duty for my clients. While this is good, it can also set false — unrealistic — expectations of just what we can do and the time in which we can do them in. The first thing you should do when you acquire a new client or project is to create a plan of action regarding what exactly can reasonably be achieved in a given amount of time.

3. Set Boundaries: This ties into managing client expectations. No matter what, you’ve got to keep scheduled hours. If you get into the habit of answering your emails at 2AM and on the weekends, your clients are going to expect you to do this. It’s not such a great thing when you need a weekend of R&R.

4.Toot Your Own Horn: When you do something well and it’s successful, you have to talk about it. It’s hard to talk about ourselves, but we have to. It not only showcases our abilities for future clients and perspective partners, it also shows how our business grows and develops. By tastefully tooting your own horn, you bring in new business and open new doors for yourself.

5. A Litte PR Is Good For Everyone: As we must toot our horn, it’s always good to have the spotlight shined on us once in awhile. At least once every 4-8 weeks, I speak on a panel, lend an expert opinion or I guest blog for another website. This not only shows my expertise in fashion and retail, it also establishes credibility to my clients, allowing them to treat me as a business adviser, not just a marketer. This perception is crucial for building long-lasting, fruitful relationships with clients and partners.

3 Things You Don’t Have To Do:

1. Deal With Abusive Clients: I am going to be the first person to tell you that you don’t have to accept abuse from your clients. If you have a client who is verbally abusive to you or your staff or makes demands and doesn’t expect to pay for the time required to make those demands happen, nip that problem in the bud quickly. If the problem persists, you may have to divorce the client.

2. Chase New Business: I’ve made a policy this year that when it comes to new business proposals; after an initial phonecall or in person meeting, I provide a proposal for the requested services. In my proposals, I will not lay out any of my ideas (they are my intellectual property and that’s what you’re paying me for). If a client can’t make up their mind as to the proposal I’ve provided, I have them put me on retainer in order to continue assessing their needs. I believe that professionals spend too much time chasing new business. Keep this process streamlined.

3. Publish Your Client List: Publishing your current client list is like telling all your direct and indirect competitors to go solicit your clients. You don’t have to do it, that’s what case studies are for!

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MarC JacobS - ''NY FashioN ShowS'' Fall 2011 .... LovE MJ

'' Marc Jacobs ''

There are a few components vital to a Marc Jacobs show that everyone likes to analyze intently. First is the set. Designed by Stefan Beckman, this season's looked like a French boudoir, with padded columns lit pink, mirrored floors, and violin music in the background. When the show began, the columns turned a bright and shiny white.

Next, you need celebrities. This year's front-row set included Martha Stewart; Josh Duhamel and his wife, Fergie; Leighton Meester; and one of the designer's muses and best friends, Sofia Coppola (who looked amazing in a maroon, short-sleeve knit sweater, slim black pants, and the Louis Vuitton shoes she designed herself in a collaboration with Jacobs). It was not the usual big parade of stars, but Jacobs was competing with the Grammys and the BAFTAs. Then there is the music: Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" blared on repeat as the models stomped down the runway and Josh Duhamel bobbed his head and sang along enthusiastically.

Finally, it's time to look at the clothes. The models wore shiny, heavy boots with minimal makeup and super-sleek, straight ponytails. Sex (or sex clothes) is obviously on Jacobs's brain, at least according to his shoes: cordovan sex brogue, snuff suede snow boot, and snuff suede galosh. Jacobs played with fabrics — he made rubber look like sequins, sequins look like fur, and so forth. The clothes were body-conscious and ladylike (most of the pencil skirts went well past the knees) but retained the twisted glamour we've come to expect from Jacobs. Everything was tight and stiff, a far cry from last season's loose and flowing dresses. This Marc Jacobs woman, like many before her, is not sexy in an obvious or vulgar way; her clothes are tight, but they don't reveal much skin. It'll take time to process this show, but we're already dreaming about owning wide-legged polka-dot trousers made from thick, heavy navy wool, and amazing peplum jackets.

BACKSTAGE

COLLECTION

Vera Wang - ''NY FashioN ShowS'' Fall 2011 RTW

VERA WANG

Wang was a senior fashion editor for Vogue for sixteen years. In 1985, she left Vogue after being turned down for the editor-in-chief position currently filled by Anna Wintour and joined Ralph Lauren as a design director for two years. In 1990, she opened her own design salon in the Carlyle Hotel in New York that features her trademark bridal gowns.

Wang has made wedding gowns for many well-known public figures, such as Chelsea Clinton, Karenna Gore,Ivanka Trump and news reporter Campbell Brown. She has made wedding gowns for celebrities ranging from artists such as Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Victoria Beckham, Avril Lavigne, Jennifer Lopez to actresses such asJennifer Garner, Sharon Stone, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Hilary Duff, Uma Thurman, Holly Hunter, Kate Hudson, and among various other celebrities.

She has designed costumes for figure skaters, including Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan and Evan Lysacek. Silver medalist Nancy Kerrigan wore a unique design of Vera's for the 1994 Olympics. She designed the two-piece uniforms currently worn by the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders.

Wang's works have often been referenced in popular culture. In the Sex and the City TV series, Charlotte York found Wang's wedding dress to be the perfect wedding dress, and wore it for her wedding to Trey MacDougal. In the Sex and the City movie, Vera Wang was featured amongst the bridal gowns Carrie Bradshaw wore in her Vogue photo shoot. In the movie Bride Wars, Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson both wore custom-made Vera Wang gowns.Vera Wang's design was referenced in the NBC television show The West Wing in the episode, The Black Vera Wang.

Wang has expanded her brand name through her fragrance, jewelry, eyewear, shoe and houseware collections. On October 23, 2001, her book, Vera Wang on Weddings, was released. In June 2005, she won the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) Womenswear Designer of the Year. On May 27, 2006, Wang was awarded the André Leon TalleyLifetime Achievement Award from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

In 2002, Vera Wang began to enter the home fashion industry and launched The Vera Wang China and Crystal Collection, followed by the 2007 release of her diffusion line called Simply Vera, which are sold exclusively by Kohl's.

Wang was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2009, and was honored for her contribution to the sport as a costume designer.

Twenty years after opening her first bridal boutique, Wang was awarded the Leadership in the Arts Award by the Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Association. She accepted the award on April 17, 2010 at Identities, the Harvard association's annual charity fashion show.

RAD by RAD HOURANI - ''NY FashioN ShowS'' Fall 2011 RTW

RAD by RAD HOURANI

Rad Hourani is a fashion designer and visualist. He was born in 1982 in Jordan from a Jordanian father and a Syrian mother. When he was 16 years old, he moved with his family to Montreal (Canada) where he completed his high school studies. Shortly after his graduation, he started scouting for a modelling agency and eventually worked full time as a stylist. He moved to Paris in 2005, where he designed his first clothing collection. It is also in Paris that he launched his namesake label for a debut show on October 2007 at age 25.

While the Rad Hourani line functions as a laboratory, and experiments with new shapes and fabrics in a couture-like approach, the "RAD by Rad Hourani" collection focuses on styles and silhouettes of the same unisex signature look offered in different materials and a more casual transformable fit. Hourani forgoes the biannual, seasonal fashion calendar with collections identified only by their sequential number. Both unisex lines are sold in the same stores by retailers such as Seven New York, Podium (Moscow), Antonioli (Milan), Daily Projects (Seoul) Maria Luisa at Printemps (Paris), Luisa Via Roma (Florence), Midwest (Tokyo), Joyce, and I.T (Hong Kong).

Rad Hourani has been interviewed by Interview Magazine, French ELLE, Canadian ELLE, 160g Magazine, Lurve Magazine, Paper Magazine, AmericanELLE, and more. He also assisted in the curation of the N°11 edition of Prim Magazine along with A.F. Vandevorst, Ohne Titel, BLESS, Romain Kremer, and editor in chief Kristin Prim. Editorial credits include Dazed & Confused, WWD, Love Magazine, V Man, Mykromag, Vogue, S Magazine, and i-D Magazine.

Gender-agnosticism is the driving conceptual direction in Rad Hourani's work as all of his products are specifically designed to be unisex.