Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

Future of Fashion

The following post is from Sara Wu ’17, a Butler Venture Accelerator team member.

Future of Fashion

Future of Fashion

As part of Babson’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, the Fashion Entrepreneurial Initiative hosted a panel: The Future of Fashion. The panelists included Jay Adams, Co-Founder and CEO of BRASS, Dan Marques, Director of Online Marketing at Talbots, Aman Advani, CEO of Ministry Apparel and Heather Jones, Director of Sales and Merchandising at Bloomingdales.

The panelists talked about they differentiate their own company in a highly, technologically competitive market. According to the panelists, it is extremely important to know who your customers are where these customers are located and willing to go. This information is obtained through heavy analytics and revision of the results of marketing (Facebook advertising, content marketing, third-party free style bloggers), therefore having a thoughtful, methodological marketing approach is crucial and since there are so many different approaches, picking the one methodology that applies to your company changes the game. Having said this, it is possible to manage more than one marketing vehicle, but here is the question on hand: to which degree are you using this specific marketing vehicle? Can you afford to have extra ones? And ultimately, how can you create a personalized experience for your customers through such marketing vehicles?

Apart from that, the fashion industry is becoming more and more environmentally conscious. Customer nowadays are smarter. They have access to more knowledge and information about the products they are purchasing. The challenge now is to think, how can I make my products better? The trend now is to create a more sustainable and conscious closet. When talking about sustainability, it is not just about using sustainable fabric, but also using leftover fabric to test out new products or use materials that are typically not used. However, is it important to notice the difference between ethics and sustainability since not all ethical decisions are sustainable. An example is the use of bamboo as fabric. Bamboo is not difficult to obtain but it does not hold up for a long time, which makes it an unsustainable fabric. The general goal right no, for the fashion industry is to make less “garbage,” to increase the life cycle of a piece of cloth, ensure the quality of a piece, and the commitment to recycle packaging materials.

Key takeaways:

  • Be smart with the way you gather data/info about your customer!
  • Carefully select the methodology you want to use for marketing so it fits your company’s profile and general strategy
  • Try to be as sustainable as possible!