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.

Has DON'T Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Gone Too Far?

The absence of other customers in a store, where I was shopping, this week caused me to realize the growing number of options for NOT doing-it-yourself (DIY). Enter information about your style and size on an app, and you'll receive a selection of clothes. Decide what you want to eat and a meal to help you lose weight, a pizza, or the ingredients you need to prepare your own meal will turn up at your door. If you are willing to at least drive to a store, you can email your food, toys, or discount store shopping lists and the store will gather what you need/want and have your package ready for pick-up.

     It's not just a matter of creating apps-platforms to engage attention, technology has decided how we manage our lives. Now, there even are apps telling us to stop using apps. It doesn't take a smartphone to ask young people:

• Where would you like to travel?
• What would you like to eat?
• What is your favorite outfit? 
• What world problem would you like to solve?
• How much would you like to weigh?
• What sport do you like to play?
• What kind of song would you like to hear?
• What GPA would you like to have?
• What kind of movie would you like to see? 

Then, have young people decide how to "solve" any of these questions and begin their DIY solution. Decide on a time for them to show-off their solution (on a platform?). Or, invite original thinkers to communicate and publish their DIY ideas in a zine, hand drawn (some in the form of comics) and written (possibly as music). Also, look for a local library that has a section devoted to zines or a Zinefest, where other original thinkers share their zines.