Patterns of Fashion Business Success

Fashion retailers looking to compete with online warehouses need to consider playing up their hometown appeal. In Paraguay, a bank capitalized on local pride in a song about the country's Ypacaral Lake. During its 70th anniversary, the bank invited people to play the song on an installation of giant wind pipes. Visitors crowded around as soon as the display opened.

     Even though Rob Bowhan's "August" shop in a college town carries international streetwear for students from around the world, he hosts occasional performances by local hip hop musicians, hangs paintings by local artists, and features student models and musicians wearing the shop's clothes in his promotions.

     At age 17, when the British founder of House of CB, Conna Walker, launched her successful business, she hounded celebrities with emails asking them to wear her clothes and offering the outfits for free, if they managed to credit photos of them wearing her designs. Ms. Walker knew she wanted to dress curvy women who craved figure-hugging, covered but sexy clothes, often with revealing cutouts. Working with a neutral, not flashy, color palette and quality textiles, her bodysuits and clingy clothes manage to help women project a classy, not cheap, vibe. This House of CB titan knew she was lucky to find manufacturers willing to convert her drawings and explanations into technical directions and patterns. To spur future growth, she brings out new items every Monday, the way subscription cosmetic companies do. And she plans to open more stores and expand into an entire lifestyle brand with her own cosmetics and items for the home.

     Instead of hounding celebrities to wear his clothes, Daymond John of TV Shark Tank fame badgered rappers to wear his FUBU brand. His growth plan led him to invest in other startups, to write motivational books, and to share his life lessons on the lecture circuit.

Launch A Creative Career Search

 I've been noticing job opportunities while reading magazines (and a book) in a variety of fields.

In November's Vogue magazine, editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, wrote about the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and awards to new American design talent. If you are a young designer in need of money, mentoring, and magic, look into the qualifications for the fund's competition.

     Actually, all career hunters should get to know the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) now found at cfda.gov. This is a government listing of all the federal programs, services, and activities that assist the U.S. public.

     Vogue's November issue also had an item about non-profit, New Story (newstorycharity.org/careers), founded by Alexandria Lafoi in San Francisco. This is the organization involved in using 3D printers to build low cost concrete homes in places, such as Mexico, Haiti,       El Salvador, and Bolivia.

     The small print at the end of an article in The Economist (Nov. 17, 2018) invited promising and would-be journalists to apply for a three to six month internship in The Economist's New York bureau. To apply, send a cover letter and 500-word article on economics, business, or finance to:
deaneinternny@economist.com by December 14, 2018.

     Large print in The Economist advertised for an "intellectually curious adventurer" with foreign language skills and a desire to live and work for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency abroad.

     Isthmus, our free local paper in Madison, Wisconsin, runs ads for those interested in teaching English in China. Just use "teaching in China" as a keyword, and you will find a full array of information on that opportunity.

     In the book I just read, Storming the Heavens, the author, Gerald Horne, wrote more than a description of the early aviation history of African Americans. His account inspires blacks and young people of all colors to follow the pioneering pilots who found career opportunities when they ventured to Africa. Those motivated to accept a similar challenge should get to know and benefit from the advice offered at facebook.com/smallstarter.

     For positions back home in the U.S., check out promotion and sales positions in Advertising Age.

       

   

     

Vietnam and U.S. Demonstrate the Value of Short Memories

Chances are, looking back on your life, you remember having an enemy who later became your friend. Kids also go through those off and on enemy-friend relationships, as do countries. Turning Germany into a friend after World War II proved far better than trying to condemn the country forever following World War I.

     In the U.S. we learned at Senator John McCain's funeral service on September 1, 2018 last Saturday, even though he was captured and tortured for over five years in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese now recognize him as someone who helped bring about the reconciliation of the United States and Vietnam.

     Haiphong harbor, once mined by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, now is valued as an import/export hub needed to handle U.S. trade pulling out of China. In February, 2019, President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un chose Vietnam for their meeting to discuss demilitarization of the Korean peninsula and lifting the crippling economic sanctions that keep North Korea from enjoying the prosperity South Korea and Vietnam now enjoy.

     Today, both the United States and Vietnam continue to contest China's claim to "indisputable sovereignty" over the Spratly Islands and their adjacent waters in the South China Sea. After declaring in 2015 no intention of militarizing its artificial islands there, China now has radar installations, reinforced concrete bunkers, and missiles on three Spratly Islands west of the Philippines, a compliant challenger dependent on Chinese investment. China also has landed bombers in the Parcel Islands disputed with Vietnam.

   Vietnam, nonetheless, with its powerful military force, successfully prevented China from locating an oil exploration rig in its waters. At home, Vietnam has experienced anti-Chinese protests. Meanwhile, in its ongoing challenge to excessive maritime claims by all countries violating the international Law of the Sea Convention, a U.S. destroyer's Freedom of Navigation Operation sailed within 12 miles of one of China's seven artificial islands in May, 2018. Then, the US canceled an invitation to China to participate in annual naval drills off Hawaii and invited Vietnam instead.

     Vietnam also has challenged China's claims in the South China Sea by building two of its own artificial islands on the Nanhua Reef in the Spratly Island chain. According to China, the reef where Vietnam built is only above water at low tide, and typhoon "Jasmine" washed away much of the reclaimed land dredged up from the ocean floor. China also was proud to add Vietnam used a technique inferior to the way China sucks up sand for its taller islands.

     Both low tech and high tech industries benefit from Vietnam's and the US's short memories. Check clothes labels, and you probably will see a number of items were made in Vietnam. At the same time, the oncology treatment IBM's Watson chose at Phu Tho General Hospital enabled a patient to move and eliminate the need for painkilling medication. Google Brain and technology experts also applaud Vietnamese Dr. Le Viet Quoc's effort to make deep learning a reality and to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into advertising research.

     At "Age of AI and Vietnamese Enterprises," a Hanoi summit on July 25, 2018, more than 400 AI, economists, and financial experts and delegates from Vietnam's leading firms heard Harvard's James Furman urge private-government cooperation on AI research and applications. Vietnam's own Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment told the summit's older generation to eliminate obstacles preventing companies from making full use of younger employees with math skills and an interest in new technology.

     Modeled on Silicon Valley, California, Vingroup JSC, a Vietnamese conglomerate worth about $3 billion, intends to consolidate its diversified businesses in VinTech City, where the focus will be technology development (including development of new generation materials), applications, manufacturing, and services. A sub-unit will house the Big Data Institution and Vin Hi-Tech Institution.Vietnam finds the key to using Big Data effectively is creating teams that include Big Data technology experts and those with a full understanding of the industry using the data. Working together, technology and industry partners are best able to incorporate unstructured data about customer activities, such as internet use and applications, with structured and semi-structured industry data in order to develop new digital products and services. Just like in the United States, Vietnam knows data found to have great long-term value for a company, needs to be protected from nearby and distant competitors, even if they are friends.

Back to the Fashion Future

Want to wear the latest fashion? Head to Pyongyang or Tbilisi.

 Back in 1970, when composer Lenny Bernstein hosted an Upper East Side New York City gathering of guests invited from high society and the leather-clad Black Panther U.S. revolutionaries, recently deceased author, Tom Wolfe, termed the unconventional party mix, RADICAL CHIC. "Radical Chic" could resurface with a new application to the back-to-the-future fashionistas strutting streets in Pyongyang and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

The couple who skated for North Korea in the Winter Olympics wore outfits indistinguishable from those worn by contestants from other countries. At home in Pyongyang, women who enjoy the perks of close association with Kim Jong Un's government also find tailors with pre-communist roots who are willing to stitch up unique designs, sometimes from customer sketches, unlike the dark, loose fitting clothes available for the masses. Rather than local fabrics, the fashion savvy even look for clothes made from Chinese and, occasionally, Western textiles.

Over in Tbilisi, the latest fashion is a downscale look. Georgians discovered Demna Gvasalia, a local designer who made good when he escaped and set up a fashion house, Vetements, in Zurich, Switzerland. Other local designers followed his lead, but stayed at home. Just as North Korea's communist style clothing is boring, before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the local "fashion" industry in Georgia, the dominant look also was dull and drab. The current trend may not be drab, but it is basic, jeans, T-shirts, tote bags, and the like, at couture prices.

What makes Georgia's everyday items worth the price is their rare origin from a place only jet setters have the funds and time to visit. For the same reason, North Korea's new headlines might motivate the fashion oneupsmanship that attracts wealthy tourists who have been everywhere else in the world.

So You Want a Career in Fashion. Do It!

Don't let all the talk about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics scare you into another field. Who knows, outfits for robots may be the next new thing? In any case, you only need to watch the "Project Runway" TV show to realize interest in fashion is as global as interest in the Internet of Things. Designers on "Project Runway" are male, female, and other; Japanese-American, African-American, and Muslim. In fact, the Muslim designer's long, modest fashion won the show's second competition. And this season, "Project Runway" also requires designers to create stylish clothes for women who take every size up to and including size 22.

     But "Project Runway" is not the only one breaking the traditional fashion mold. Fashion magazines, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle, have responded to competition from the international fashion reach of Facebook and Google. Where consumers and advertisers want products in local languages tailored to cultural dress codes, political policies, and local designers, models, and icons, there are separate editions, such as Vogue Arabia, Vogue Latin America, Vogue Poland, Vogue Czech Republic and Vogue Ukraine. Naomi Campbell, among others, supports the idea of launching Vogue Africa. When it is possible to create editorial content compatible with international interests and brands and using international celebrities, the same major campaign can run in as many as 25, 32, or 46 separate editions.

     Based on consumer interests and advertising trends, David Carey, president of Harper's Bazaar's Hearst publisher, expects local content to shrink somewhat as global content increases in future years.



   

Keep Closet Rejects Out of Landfills and Oceans

At a middle school reunion we were passing around pictures, when I saw one of me wearing a vest I had made out of an outgrown skirt. For a time, the landfill was spared. Schools where students wear uniforms spare landfills and parents' expenses by hosting back-to-school exchanges to recycle outgrown uniforms to younger classmates. Besides outgrowing clothes and shoes, there are plenty of reasons to get rid of old clothes. Styles change, moths eat sweaters, washing at the wrong heat setting shrinks pants.

In addition to recycling clothes at yard sales or donating them to thrift stores, retailers, such as H&M, are offering new options. Stores have bins and exchange discount coupons for used clothing customers bring in for donations to charities. Some Nike and Converse stores have Reuse-A-Shoe programs that collect any brand of athletic shoes (none with spikes or cleats and no sandals, flip-flops, dress shoes, or boots, however). At facilities in Memphis, Tennessee, or Meerhout, Belgium (whichever is closest), shoes are ground into raw material and used for sport and playground surfaces, apparel, and new footwear. More information about Nike's recycling program is available at nikegrind.com.

There are efforts to keep discarded clothing out of landfills by unraveling sweaters to reuse wool and by turning cotton items into cleaning cloths, insulation, bedding, and home furnishings.

Synthetic fibers are a worse problem, since washing clothes made from textiles, such as polyester and acrylic, with detergents releases micro plastic fibers that slip through wastewater treatment plants and into waterways, where they become "food" for aquatic organisms, such as plankton, and fish. A single fleece jacket can release as many as a million synthetic fibers in a single washing, especially if washed with powdered, rather than liquid, detergent. Fabric softener has been shown to reduce shedding, as does using a short, gentle wash cycle and cool water. Research also has shown coatings like chitosan, a finish derived from crustacean shells, have helped reduce fiber loss. Washing machine devices that trap the synthetic fibers from clothes held in mesh bags and balls that attract fibers also are being tried. When synthetic materials end up in landfills, they can take from 20 to 200 years to decompose.

Overall, the subject of fabric pollution has been slow to attract financing for research and development of recycling processes and ways to reduce fabric pollution. Reducing clothing purchases is one way consumers can instantly help solve the problem.    

Country Conversation Starters

Some students who go away to college wear the silhouettes of their home states on the front of their
T-shirts. It's a good way to meet and strike up a conversation with other students from the same area. When my daughter was young, I always tried to find shirts with sayings that could encourage adults to strike up a conversation with her so that she wouldn't be shy about interacting with people we knew. Wearing clothing with the silhouette of a country provides a similar opportunity to exchange a few words with others.

      What country might a child wear and how could a country silhouette be put on a shirt, skirt, pant, or cap?

     The country where a child lives, and the countries where the child and/or the child's parents/grandparents were born are obvious choices. Many schools have projects where students research and report on countries around the world. In kindergarten, my daughter wore a white shirt and red skirt and sang "Oh, Canada" in just such a production. She could have worn a map of Canada on her top or skirt. Encouraging children to think about countries they would like to visit could lead to another silhouette choice.

     Find a country map online and enlarge it to the size that would best fit a piece of clothing. You could cut out the country, trace around it on a shirt, etc, and color it in with puffy paints or markets that won't wash off. There's also the method of transferring an image used in the Middle Ages. The picture to be transferred was placed over a surface below, and an outline was made by piercing tiny holes around the picture. If a country map were placed over iron-on material used for patching clothes, pin holes could transfer an outline of the country to the material. Cut around the outline simply use an iron to press the country shape to any piece of clothing, and let the conversation begin.



   

Let's Talk Fashion

Rules provide fashion guidance according to the new book, Ametora (the Japanese slang abbreviation for American style tradition). With that in mind, I put together the following guidance for boys and girls with an aptitude and interest in fashion.

     Fashion is one of the easiest industries to enter.
The winner of the new "Fashion Runway Jr." TV program in the US is 14 years old. Even younger kids sell their beaded jewelry at craft fairs. Whip up a bow tie on a sewing machine or print a graphic T-shirt and take it to the investors on "Shark Tank," to the etsy.com website, or to your own yard sale.

     Customers look for both the new and the old, when it comes to fashion.
Wearable watches, health wristbands, and other electronics all have created demand for the devices that Sangtae Kim at MIT is designing to convert energy from walking and running into power for new wearables. At the same time other consumers are creating a demand for the designers making clothes and accessories made from recycled materials and for the designers modifying styles from the past: Ivy league/preppy, hippie, military, Hawaiian, hip hop/rapper, heavy-duty-rugged-outdoor-lifestyle, health-conscious-surfer-skateboarding-outdoor-lifestyle, gangster/rebel/delinquent, vintage, and, of course, the standard uniform for men (dark suit, white dress shirt, black plain toe shoes).

     Customers look for both luxury and mass market brands.
Globalization has made it possible to carve out a niche for expensive, limited-edition goods among the superwealthy in countries throughout the world. It helps to keep an eye on markets in the shifting countries that have the strongest currencies. Or, you can create the new hoodie or infinity scarf to sell everywhere: in department and discount stores, on TV, over the internet, in direct mail catalogs, or in open air markets.

     Customers demand authentic fashion and imitations.
While some customers want items only from the country that originated them, like jeans from the USA, others are satisfied wearing mandarin collars, Nehru jackets, Indonesian shirts, or hijab head scarves that are made anywhere.

     Girls and boys with an interest in fashion are not limited to being designers.
They can become fashion illustrators and photographers or write the background stories some customers want along with their purchases. New styles can originate in the cartoons kids draw, what they wear in their garage bands, the costumes they design for school plays, and in how they express themselves in streetwear, that is, what they put together to wear when they walk down the street.

     Fashion is a field that thrives on what's new.
Even the color that's in today can be out tomorrow. Anywhere in the world, a youngster could be thinking up the next new fashion trend.





   

What Are You Wearing in the New Year?

As celebrities walk the red carpets at the Golden Globes, Oscars, and other award shows, reporters ask them who they are wearing, and designers look forward to the publicity they receive from their answers.

     I once heard that President Kennedy's wife Jackie answered the who-are-you-wearing question by saying, "Mine." At every age, we all do say something about ourselves when we get dressed. Think about it. Pictures and sayings on T-shirts might tell what comic book or TV show characters a child likes. These shirts can proclaim, "Future Scientist" or "Daddy's Little Girl."

     Clothes also can be uniforms that show students attend certain schools, march in bands, or play on various teams. The earlier post, "Recess Differs Around the World," shows uniforms worn by students at various schools around the world.

     Judging from photos of men at conferences on climate change or G-7 meetings, world leaders in their dark power suits and white shirts also wear uniforms. Women leaders do too. An article about German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Time magazine's "Person of the Year," told how she presented then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, with a framed copy of a German newspaper with the headline, "Angela Merkel? Hillary Clinton?" The photo accompanying the article showed both women wearing blazers and black slacks. (Their heads were cropped off.) Now that Mrs. Clinton is running for President, she has adopted a new style that older women might begin to copy. Interesting collars and cuffs accent her longer jackets, and she wears pants that are the same color as her jackets.

     Some US school girls have begun wearing hijab head scarves in solidarity with their Muslim sisters. Italian design house, Dolce & Gabbana, has launched a new collection of fashionable hijabs and long abayas for its Muslim and other customers. When I saw Paul Ryan, the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives growing a beard, I thought he might be showing his solidarity with the billion-plus Muslims who are not terrorists, but I learned he was imitating Joseph Gurney Cannon, who was the last Speaker, over 100 years ago, who had a beard. (You can check out the beard of Cannon, Speaker from 1903 to 1911, on the Internet.)

     When students grow older, they may decide to protect animals by not wearing fur or to protect the environment by wearing graphic T-shirts that invite others to "Save the Arctic." (See the earlier post, "North Pole Flag.") A wide variety of the sustainable clothing options now being developed will be available to youngsters in the future. Leftover high-quality luxury yarn that is insufficient to produce a full line of clothes is already being combined into sweaters that can last a lifetime. Clothing manufacturers are exploring ways to make zero-waste garments from recycled materials (See the earlier posts, "The World of Fashion" and "Recycled Fashion Firsts.") and to create new disposal methods that do not add to landfills. Waste-reduction groups are urging consumers to treasure and repair their garments rather than throw them out.

     When I worked in retail, I used to tell customers, who couldn't seem to find anything they liked, that sometimes you need to shop in your closet. Babies, for example, often are baptized in outfits their parents, and even their grandparents, wore for their baptisms. What kids wear next year may be a combination of something they, or their parents, already own.

   
 

Fashion Forward

Before discounting fashion as a trivial subject, consider how exploring closets and underwear drawers can lead children to a map and to ask questions about why their clothes are made in certain countries. Checking labels and listing where clothes are made can lead to a worldwide map search for all the countries that manufacture a child's outfits and accessories.

     Kelsey Timmerman's interest in the economic conditions, wages, and working conditions in countries that produced his clothes motivated him to travel to Bangladesh, Cambodia, and China to see the factories where his underwear, jeans, and flip-flops were made. The record of his journey, Where Am I Wearing?, is a thoughtful discussion of the people and countries that depend on textile jobs and the options consumers have for buying these goods. In the aftermath of the clothing factory collapse that killed more than 1000 workers in Bangladesh, where 75% of the country's exports are textiles, ecouterre.com reminded customers not to boycott clothing produced in Bangladesh and listed some of the responsible companies operating there. After the April 24, 2013 factory collapse, ecouterre.com also reported that Abercrombie & Fitch and the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands signed an Accord on Fire & Building Safety in Bangladesh. Walmart, which announced it would fund a project to develop labor standards for the country, is among the retailers, including Target and Macy's, that have not signed the Accord.

     There are organizations that are devoted to distributing clothing and accessories produced by workers paid and treated fairly in developing countries. Although there is no third party fair trade certification program for apparel, Fair Indigo has several small shops that sell "sweatshop-free" clothing in the United States. Baby sleepers and baby clothing made of 100% pure organic cotton from a worker-owned cooperative in Lima, Peru, are available through Fair Indigo's catalog (800-520-1806 or fairindigo.com).

     SERRV is an organization that helps artisans in developing countries maximize profits from their crafts. Among the many items featured in the SERRV catalog (serrv.org) are knitted mittens, scarves, and hats from Nepal; headbands from Vietnam; and jewelry from Swaziland, Mali, the Philippines, Indonesia, Chile, and Peru.

     Museum gift shops are good sources of interesting alternatives to heavily advertised mall fashions. Locally, you might find a beaded ponytail band from South Africa, a handstitched story purse from Peru, or a woven backpack from Mexico that is the perfect present for a little girl who likes to start fashion trends.