Chapter 9

Customer profile

I am designing 2 final garments for my Final Major Project which will shown at the end of year fashion show. Before designing, I have created a customer profile so the brand focuses on my customer's needs and hopefully fulfill their needs. I have designed my collection around my customer profile aged 24 years old and upwards. 

My customer profile is structured for my target audience and her name is Priscilla. She is 35 years old and graduated from London College fashion studying BA Hons Fashion Buying. She is now working for as a stylist for Burberry in London. She has bought her own flat and also loves going on a sunny beach holidays.She has alot of disposable income and loves to splurge on herself, she shops alot in the high designers shops around London.

I have chosen this target market as I would like to be designing for a high quality purposes. The quality and effort that has been put into garment should be valued at a high price because of all the hard work, preparations and planning that went towards it. This would be made to fit a client so it would be one of a kind which the value should increase. 

Evaluation

In the duration of studying Fashion Marketing, I personally enjoyed learning the basics of marketing. I was introduced into new job possibilities that I thought never existed in the industry. One of my favourite unit of marketing was looking at the marketing environmental effects. I enjoyed researching and learning new laws in fashion industry especially when it came to the legal matter. I have also learnt research needs to be dug a little deeper to avoid plagiarism and a big chaos about moral issues. Overall, I developed and gained more knowledge about the industry before studying this unit. This has laid a foundation brick which will help in future. 

Chapter 8

Fashion Marketing Environment

Ethics

In the Fashion industry, laws are set by the government to be followed by so the workers are paid fairly and treated well and rights of consumers. Lately, there is a big issue about the this legal matter, as one of the biggest company Sports Direct has been in news lately about these topics. Dispatches Channel 4 has investigated Sports Direct, the truth behind the discounted shops. I found the documentary which I attached below:

After this has been aired, even politician such as Edward Miliband raised awareness in the his labour party speech that he would banish the 0 hours contract as it is a 'Victorian style practices in a 21st century which is wrong". He would change these into permanent contracts for workers who work the same hours each week. This ensure the employees for a job security and the conditions would be much better if there is a contract.

On dispatches, another point that has been highlighted was misleading a consumer is morally wrong and it is against the law to misconception a consumer's thinking before purchasing a product. Sport Direct deliberately swaps there price tag that shows RRP price and the discounted price. There was an example on a hidden camera that a New product of Nike trainers has been launched on the same day a woman wanted to purchase them, however in her surprise it was already on sale. There is a written law that a new product should be on the shelf within 28 days before changing and discounting the price. In my opinion, Sport Direct are originally selling the products on a discounted prices however labelling them with the original RRP with a massive cross and replacing it with a huge discount. Consumers would think that they are getting a bargain. Also, the psychology of retail consumer behaviour, people are more likely to spend on products that are unnecessary because they are cheap.

Law

There are recent news about Versace ripping off a London designer called Kesh. Kesh designed a shirt for American Apparel back in 2013 which Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn both worn after the release of 'Face le New'. She sold her t shirts for £50 on American Apparel.  In March 2015, Versace is seen with a similar styles, silhouettes and colour palette on the selfridges website asking price £440 for a t shirt. Kesh plans to legally pursue this issue as this is plagiarism.

In my opinion, I think she had every right to sue Versace, even though it is a well know fashion brand.  This is because an artist design should not be ignored and uncredited for, especially all that work and research and development for making that shirt for nothing. 

Chapter 7

High end street Vs Designer 

Chapter 6

Trickle Up and Trickle Down

 

The trickle down effects all relies on the hierarchy of the fashion industry. The haute couture designers are the one who sets the trend that is shown on the catwalk, It then tickles down to highstreet shops that would sell similar style, silhouettes and colour palette with a lesser price tag. The trickle up effect are fashion that are innovated from the the streets. This has been adapted usually by lower income groups that becomes popular, For example, back in the 1950's the tennagers were inspired by the teddy boys look which was never seen before on catwalks. However, the style of the teddy boys was very popular.

Chapter 5

Marketing Mix 

What is a Marketing Mix

Businesses use Marketing mix to highlight the considered points when designing a product and marketing the brand. To have a successful product, there are 10 points to acknowledge such as the quality?, purpose? and safety. All these points are very important as they all represent the product however a product would not be successful without a main target market/audience. In my opinion this is a crucial step as without a target audience, a brand identity would not be establish. Finding a type of customer that fits the criteria- such as customer's wants, needs and how much disposable income can they spend on a product. 

Pricing strategy has 2 approach called skimming and penetration. Price skimming focuses more on maximizing profits by charging the consumers a higher price, the effect of this, is that the product can be priced higher to see if it sales but it doesn't, the company can always lower the price to fit the consumer's need. Penetration pricing strategy, when a company launches a low priced product with a goal of securing market share. Companies uses the technique take a penny off, so the consumer thinks its cheaper than it actually is. An example of this, is a price of a  bag cost £50 not alot of people buy it but if the was shown as £49.99, consumers think they are spending less than £50. The psychology of this is making consumers believe the product is cheap, this is a subtle way to boost sales up.

Business uses the push and pull technique when it comes to promoting a product. The push strategy involves taking the product directly to the customer to encourage them to be aware of your brand before purchasing. The pull strategy is motivating customers to come and seek your brand. Some pull tactics can include word of mouth, sales promotions and discount and mass media production. 

A product/brand could never be successful if the geographic location is not in the right place for it chosen target market as the sales would be significantly affected. For example, if the target audience is for customers that shops in high end designer brands , the shop would not be located in a mass product clothing shops such as primark.

The 4P's has shown me that a product and brand cannot be successful without these main points. It has also widen my eye as the marketing industry is more complex and I realised without the 4P's the company would not thrive for success.
Here is a quick video explaining more about the 4P's

Chapter 4

Fashion Calendar

A Fashion Calendar that listed every major fashion events a year ahead. The website gives you a choose to view it monthly with much more details about the events or a year that gives you a summary, I found this calendar on http://www.britishfashioncouncil.co.uk/. 

Chapter 3

Trend Prediction

A job role of a fashion forecasters has to foresees the upcoming trends and advise companies for the next season's best sellers. They do this by researching and observing the consumer's behaviors, looking at market conditions and they often assess haute couture collections. Fashion forecasters has to be aware and have some knowledge of the seasonal trend colour themes and fashion silhouettes. Trend Predictors has to be vigilant about their targeted customers when forecasting a brand as they need to know what they want and what they need. 

Where do they get this information from?

Trend forecasters collect these trends from reading fashion related articles or the current news, fashion shows, trade shows, fashion related television and even observing celebrities that could influence fashion trends in the future. They are always 3/4 years ahead of fashion trends as there are so much preparations behind the scenes such as communicating with designers the next trends, which they can put their own interpretation on their collections. Huge companies would invest on a fashion
forecaster for them to create moodboards and design colour palettes, patterns and key styles.


A Day in the Life of a Trend Forecaster by SynapticDigital

In my course, we use trend books to inspire us for our projects. In the libary there are wide range of trend books that is available to view such as Tank and Next Look. Whilst looking through them, there were alot of moodboards that a trend forecaster companies have created. It really made a feel of the theme, as it shouted out the colours and the key styles for each particular seasons. Learning more about being a fashion forecaster has really opened by mind as I never thought It was an actual career in the fashion industry. Also, after knowing the fact that they are 3/4 years ahead of fashion made me realise there are so much organising and planning just before a certain trend hit that annual year. This made me more interested about this particular area of fashion and even looked at our job roles that are quite similar to this and found more opportunities that I never knew existed.