Cass Creative Report:

Cass Creatives Report:

Looking for the New Black

Thursday 17 June, 7pm

Cass BusinessSchool, Bunhill Row, London EC1

 

Panel

• Gity Monsef – Creative Director, Fashion & TextileMuseum (Chair)

• Helen Keegan – Managing Director, Beep Marketing

• Suzanne Lee – Senior Research Fellow, Central Saint Martins

• Natalie Massenet – Founder and Chairman, Net-a-porter.com

• Ed Saper – Managing Director, Discoo.co.uk

 

Aim of debate

 

To assess how the UK fashion industry might best utilise new technologies such as ‘smart’ fabrics, mobile marketing and retailing over the internet. How might the UK fashion industry best compete in the digital age, and what opportunities and threats do new media bring? To conclude, what are the key critical success factors for UK fashion in the 21st century?

 

Summary

 

Gity – I see myself as a techno-luddite….how are e-tailing and the Internet proposing to replace my trip to Harrods?

 

Natalie – It’s important to see things in context. We may think department stores are the only way to shop, but these stores have only been in existence for the past 100 years or so. Before this, women made their clothes themselves using Vogue Patterns, or had their clothes made up. In the future, people will see Internet shopping as something they want to do. It will even be something to aspire to.

 

Ed – E-tailing should be seen very much as complimentary to the High Street shopping experience. The Internet will not replace stores like Harrods. It will be a matter of personal choice.

 

Natalie – I’d like to add that customer care is becoming a 24 hour service. And, in the future, people will want the brands to come to them. Harrods will have to adapt to this, but yes, the celebration of shopping, going out to Harrods, will continue.

 

Suzanne – It’s true that shops are going to have to evolve. Stores will be much hotter, much more experimental. There will be fashion shows in store, shopping will be entertainment. We can already see that happening – look at Selfridges with their current Brazil promotion.

 

Natalie – The US trends forecaster, Faith Popcorn, was predicting the end of the shop ten years ago…it seems it’s finally starting to happen…now we’ll want flame throwers, Marc Jacobs delivering his latest collection…

 

 

Helen – I’ve spent ten years working with bricks and mortar retailers and I have to say that working on the shopfloor can be a truly dull experience. It’s a challenge to get the staff to be more than just pleasant. It’s also important to remember that not everyone has access to a computer; and people want to touch fabrics – you can’t do that online…

 

Natalie – But you can do that once you get the goods delivered. One of the things we’ve tried to do with the Net-a-porter website is recreate that sensual experience of shopping: for example, where images of clothes come cascading through and you can pick out the pink one…

 

Gity – I’m moved by big ideas…what are the big ideas behind your projects?

 

Ed – Our site, Discoo, is just six months old just. Celebrity endorsement is incredibly important to us. Our market is very fickle. We’re currently showcasing the Mickey Mouse diamante t-shirt worn by Victoria Beckham recently. But we’re also promoting products from the Ily brand – simply because they’re very well made.

 

Gity – How do you define your target market?

 

Ed – Predominantly young women, 16-24. We offer 20 to 30 different styles at a time, and customers can call up and put forward suggestions. Our site is very customer-focused.

 

Natalie – I come from an editorial, magazine background. You see store buyers working off spreadsheets looking at what sold well the year before. My idea was to exploit the great opportunity of the Internet and the global nature of brands, to create one destination which would merge media with marketing. We aim to focus on the designer brands that fashion magazines are telling people to buy, such as Zac Posen, that you generally can’t get in the shops. We’ve worked with major brands – Jimmy Choo, Carl Hindmarch, Jade Jaggger – from launch because we’ve had an established industry connection. We’re not a dotcom just setting up with no knowledge. One of the greatest barriers for Boo.com was its lack of established relationships with brands.

 

Gity – How is mobile marketing changing retailers’ relationship with their customers?

 

Helen – If customers like your brand, it’s very easy to ask if they want you to contact them again. At [my previous company], Zagme, we worked with 85,000 customers at Bluewater and Lakeside. Customers opted in to receive messages, and could opt out at any time. This was in 2000. Even though it was a computer sending messages, people would still say thank you. People were passionate about the service. We had a record dedicated to Zagme on Capital FM – even Cocacola don’t get that! Some Zagme campaigns got 30 per cent plus response rates; cold lists usually get around six per cent.

 

 

 

 

Currently, people get a discount if they show an SMS message, or they are kept informed of offers and availability: ‘you can have this – this afternoon – by courier’ etc. And mobile marketing will be easier as mms and broadband come online. Mobile is immediate, it’s in your pocket. Very good for impulse buys.

 

It’s really exciting that FCUK are setting up a community based around mobile;[1] it’s great they’ve bothered to do something different. So much better than basic campaigns like ‘text and win’. FCUK are opting to learn more about their audience. They’ll still need to focus on website and point of sale. They’ll also need to ensure that sales staff know about the campaigns; it’s not enough just to rely on press.

 

Gity – Would you use mobile marketing, Ed and Natalie?

 

Ed – We call people on their mobiles to tell them their order has arrived. But we’re considering using sms as well. Our core customer base all have at least one mobile. Our focus right now is getting the website up to scratch. I have to say, I don’t see people buying clothes off a mobile phone. In the past they’ve tried to sell books etc by phone – Amazon had a Wap website, for example – but it didn’t work.

 

Natalie – We have 1,000-strong waiting lists for certain products, eg: the Chloe green perfumed bag that’s in the press now. We could well have 600 people buying this, at £650 a pop. Our site is four years old, and it seems like two minutes ago that people said no-one would buy online. A while back we ran a campaign, itspixies, with Nokia – where consumers had to press ‘yes’ to buy. To be honest, the success of any campaign depends on how hot the product is. And mobile is perfect for an impulse buy – which in turn has scarey implications for consumer credit.

 

Helen – I’d disagree that mobile retailing can’t work. Argos run a text and take home service – last Christmas they had thousands of parents texting stores for toys. And there have been very successful cases of books and CDs selling via mobile – Amazon didn’t do well because they were late to the game.

 

Gity – How about the impact of technology on the textiles themselves? I’m wary of buying stockings with caffeine in them to help me lose weight…

 

Suzanne – There’s been a huge gulf since the 1960s: back then, Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin were looking at what NASA was doing for astronauts; they were experimenting with molding and designs without seams. The relationship between fashion and new technologies seems to have almost gone backwards since. My own references involve picking up on stuff that’s been written in Wired or in newspapers. There was a collaboration between Levi’s and Phillips a few years ago that incorporated a mobile phone and an mp3 player. The jacket was based on pockets –

 

you couldn’t throw it in the washing machine. It created a huge storm of interest, but was way too early. Burton are the most recent manufacturers to have done this – they’ve produced a premium, snowboarding designer garment with mp3 player sewn in. In the next generation of development, instead of wires and cables, we’ll actually have the fabric itself conducting the signal.

 

Gity – If it’s mass market, it needs to feel like cotton. Will we be wearing any of these futuristic fabrics in the next ten years?

 

Suzanne – Micro-encapsulation is happening now: Marks & Spencers are already selling underwear with vitamins embedded. Other fabrics currently on the market include Luminex – a fibre-optic cloth made by Luminex in Italy, which lights up. International Fashion Machines (IFM) in Boston can print fabrics with electro-chromic inks which makes patterns glow. These fabrics use electric currents at present: they could change colour to suit your mood, or illuminate in the rain, or at night. 5050 in New York have developed a bag that illuminates when its programming recognises other bags of the same make…

 

Natalie – The ultimate in brand recognition: ‘Oh my God, you’re wearing Chloe too!’

 

Suzanne – Another very recent innovation in textiles is a fibre that can change its form in response to an electric current – incorporating an alloy that can remember shapes, so it could go from a soft draped shapes to a ‘50s prom dress, for example. This is already used in bra under-wiring. At a polymer level, it might have physical benefits – tightening around muscle, or putting pressure on a wound.

 

Looking further in the future, there is a process known as rapid-prototyping. Researchers are experimenting with taking the data from a 3D body-scan and using it to print a couture garment. And, finally, I wanted to mention the merging of biotechnology with fashion: this is illustrated in tissue engineering – if you wanted to, you could use samples of human bone to create a wedding ring…

 

Gity – Uggh! But what will happen to traditional textiles?

 

Suzanne – Most of what I’ve shown is in the development stage, these are indications of future directions but some may not be ‘in the shops’ for another 20 years! I don’t want to mislead or confuse people into thinking we’ll be seeing these next year, which tends to be what people hunger for – I hate tech hype, it can be massively damaging to the creative process.

 

Gity – OK, let’s open this up to questions from the floor.

 

Francesca Forcolini (Labour of Love) – I’d like to know how Natalie goes about managing stock levels? Will you have 1000 Chloe bags ‘ready to go’?

 

Natalie – We focus on high margin, low volume goods and our customers are those who want to be first. Yes, we buy stuff in. We take that risk. But I’d like to add that we’ve shown a profit this year for the first time.

 

 

Francesca – Can the website and stores work together?

 

Natalie – There’s no reason why Net-a-porter can’t be the online rep for all stores and brands. We’re a marketing and fulfilment machine. We’d like to work in partnership with stores as much as we do with brands.

 

Janet Awe (Awesome Communications) – In theory, prices would come down as you wouldn’t need to keep so much produce in stock on site. Would this amount to stores becoming more like showrooms?

 

Natalie – Pre-ordering could really work for brands like Gap or M&S: customers could view basics online, and pre-order six months in advance. Great for those stores – they would know what their customers wanted before they bought – no risk.

 

Ed – We’re opening a Discoo shop with an Internet café so customers can buy online within the store. The advantage is that you can carry far more stuff online than you can in store. We generally try to stock as little as possible, and buy as much as we can on credit. A lot of games sites don’t buy goods from the manufacturer until they’ve already sold them. Customers don’t like it if item is not in within three days, but be honest – tell them you’ve screwed up, give them a voucher. Make sure they come back. Keep them informed.

 

Janet – Do you think the Internet will eventually cut out the middleman all together?

 

Natalie – Through innovations such as Bodymetrics,[2] it might be possible. I can see Marc Jacobs designing a little pink prawn dress and having the customer say, ‘I’d like that in blue’. Wonderful couture tailoring could return through the back door. In the future, we’ll all want to stand out from the crowd so much – the customer will be prepared to take the risk.

 

Craig Spellar (Harriet’s Muse) – As a new generation designer, what can the Internet offer me?

 

Natalie – We’re always looking for new brands to help grow. We can offer a global audience, so we’re a valid showcase for new generation designers. It’s in your best interests to get your brand online as soon as possible. The only risk is watching out that people don’t copy you.

 

Romek Szczesniak (Spiky Black Cat Records) – I have a specific set of measurements, I don’t change. I want speed, delivery and quality. I want a white t-shirt. How will you come to me?

 

 

Ed – I wouldn’t, because you’re not a fashion buyer.

 

Natalie – That’s how eBay started. You plug in what you want, then Harvey Nicholls et al can come to you. Most other types of product have been online for the past six years – fashion’s backward in that respect.

 

Gity – Clothes and shoes are such a personal concept, it seems strange to me that people would want to buy them online…

 

Mishka Edmonstone (Damage Control Productions) – I can get on the Internet, text message, use new media…but I don’t want designer shoes, so why don’t you start a website for people who want no logo clothes?

 

Natalie – It all sounds great. It’ll be hot. It’ll be on our website…!

 

Andy Jaggernauth (Newham College) – This all reminds me of catalogue shopping – socks in one brand isn’t the same in another. How do you know you’re getting the quality you want?

 

Helen – I never was a catalogue shopper, because I never trusted Freeman’s as a brand, but I’ll go online and buy. There are brands there – Next, Gap, M&S, Netaporter – that I do trust.

 

Gity – Is it a matter of psychology? Maybe once you’ve learnt who’s selling the Chloe cuffs you want? I’m not sure yet, but I believe that, considering I work 6am until 10pm, I may well buy online for brands I have an association with.

 

Vasileios Ginopoulos (MSc Student, CityUniversity) – With regard to all this recent discussion in the press of whether ‘made in the EU’ is a valid label, do the panel value ‘Made in Italy’ or ‘Not made in the UK’?

 

Natalie – A Marc Jacobs jacket is made in the US in the finest fabric available, but you can get virtually the same in Zara. Ultimately, I don’t think the consumer cares where a product is made; I think the brand is more important.

 

Suzanne – A small designer in UK is struggling to make 40 per cent profit with clothing made here. Unless you’re retailing direct to the consumer, it’s difficult.

 

Tia Raj (BBC) – What does the panel think about the eBay concept of re-selling? Couldn’t that work for unwanted designer clothes?

 

Natalie – At present, we’re focusing on a high level of service – same day delivery in London, overnight in Manhattan. Once we’ve established this, we’ll move on. Yoox and some other sites already focus on last season’s fashions.

 

Ed – Check out eBay, why don’t you?

 

Gity – Uggh, it’s like a car boot sale…

 

 

 

Ed – Before you go on, we actually have our own eBay store. There’s a massive audience out there. People are outbidding each other, paying £40-50 for something maybe worth half that amount.

 

Jennifer Coyle (RDF Media) – How different is Discoo from other [e-tailers of celebrity endorsed-goods, such as] ASOS and iwantoneofthose.com?

 

Ed – It was annoying to see ASOS launch. But we’re doing our buying a bit differently, moving away from pure fashion and into lifestyle. We’re about to launch our first online game, Agent Kitten and the Intergalactic Fashion Disaster.[3] And we’re developing Discoo as a place to go and chat, with a ‘girls night out’ feel to it. We’ll be launching a forum in a few weeks.

 

Lynne Hammond (Kent Institute of Art and Design) – How do e-tailers cope with today’s consumer being so much more knowledgeable?

 

Natalie – When we send out the clothes, we have a tag attached to each item that first time buyers can’t remove. Once that’s cut off, the buyer can’t return it.

 

Ed – We’ve exactly the same problem in Top Shop. There’s always the odd difficult customer who goes through five returns. But it’s an annoyance more than a  problem.

 

Suzanne – Maybe someone could develop the technology to enable clothes to flash ‘liar, liar’ if you’re planning to return…

 

Kapriel Kasbarian (Cass BusinessSchool) – With all this technology driving development, how will the existing environment be protected, and what will the impact be on production processes?

 

Suzanne – I’ve seen stuff came back from Sri Lanka where the machinists had stitched through the wires. To be honest, the designs from these new textiles don’t need to be produced thousands of miles away. Once you’ve got someone’s measurements, those can be sent electronically across the world. There is a vision that all garments can be created locally. All that will be shipped is the data. But there’ll be brands interested in suppressing this research.

 

Gity – Time for one last question. What’s the key Critical Success Factor for fashion businesses of the future?

 

Ed – Good customer service.

 

Natalie – Good customer service – and offering the right product.

 

Helen – Better communication with the customer.

 

 

Suzanne – Less dictating to the consumer, and more listening to demand. Ed was talking about bidding for measurements…I can see that happening.

 

 

Conclusions

 

• High Street stores will become entertainment centres, with shows, attractions and diversions, in order to compete with online retailing

• A shift of public perception is needed, but mass take up of e-tailing will happen

• Stores will need to hold less stock as customers pre-order online, shifting financial risk from the manufacturer/retailer towards the consumer

• Personalisation and two-way communication between customers, retailers and designers will increase substantially

• We may be experiencing a return to interest in future fabrics that has not been part of the cultural zeitgeist since the ‘60s

• The consumer’s desire for individuality may well lead to a return to couture and lovingly hand-made clothes 

• Heightened emphasis on customer service is the key to future success

 

 

Next debate

Our Autumn term debate will take place on Wednesday 13 October and focus on branding in the digital age. Please email any suggestions for issues, speakers, as well as any general feedback to us:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
. All comments welcome.