Compete on Design in Apparel

Clothes are essentially protection, but beyond that they can do many things.

I’ve heard it said that tailoring and fashion are two different things.  Fashion is about the designer, tailoring is about the client.  Wearing fashionable clothes allies the client with the lifestyle being portrayed by the designer, in tailoring the tailor highlights the lifestyle of the client, and in so doing makes the client look as good as possible.

Clothes can communicate aspiration, and this is essentially what fashion is about.  Here people ally with a fashionable designer, like Ralph Lauren Polo, saying I aspire to the country squire life, or Tommy Bahama with its retired-to-a-Caribbean Island lifestyle.

Apparel can be utilitarian design, like Filson hunting clothes, or fashion utilitarian, like Obermeyer ski clothes.

Competing on design in apparel is about the aspirations of the customers.  Apparel designers offer to fulfill, to some degree, the aspirations of the clothes buyer.  This is difficult to achieve, but design is all the more critical.  This is also important in areas of design such as household products and fashion accesories like jewelry and scarves.

When competing on design in clothes and interior decoration and jewelry and such, if not utilitarian, then what you are selling is lifestyle, and you are offering a change in lifestyle.  The world is in upheavel right now, no better time to compete on design on apparel. To what do people aspire now?  That is where you find the lack that causes pain, where you design the solution to the problem.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post