A few weeks ago, I was guest speaker during RBC exclusive expert call. Richard Chamberlain and myself discussed about supply chain disruptions and constraints, sustainability, casualization or retail transformation. Last week, Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets published European General Retail primer; the strong to get stronger, a report that presents latest market trends, financial … More Apparel Brands Report 2021
A few words with Nina Brener-Hellmund, Founder & CEO of Cult Mia Nina Brener-Hellmund (Nina): Raised between Mexico, Texas, and Switzerland, I was a global nomad growing up, always feeling like I could adapt to anything. I’ve always been happiest in environments that foster diversity and value an international perspective. Now 29 years-old and a … More A few words with Nina Brener-Hellmund, founder of Cult Mia
Last week, I listened to an interesting podcast from Business of Fashion: 10 Retail Archetypes of the Future featuring Dough Stephens. Stephens is a Canadian futurist, keynote speaker, author and business advisor on the future of retailing and consumerism. He also founded Retail Prophet. These are some compelling insights from the podcast: SHORT VERSUS LONG TERM Last year, during the … More Retailtainment and Enterprise Ecosystems
FASHION SUSTAINABILITY IS THE NEW COOL Last week, during a talk with investors, suppliers and retailers, I was asked if Fast Fashion can really be sustainable. We could include other business segments like luxury in this question. Fashion sustainability is the New Cool and is going mainstream, but some brands are still destroying products as a … More How Cool is Sustainability in Fashion
I’m thrilled to announce the publication of my second book: Fashion Goes Tech: How Technology is empowering retail businesses 2020 was a difficult year for many of us. We all lived different situations and realities, During 2020, in the middle of the lockdown in Spain, I became a father for the second time, making it … More My New Book! FASHION GOES TECH
I enjoy analyzing patterns of motivation, connecting the dots that will impact on new trends. Where are we coming from? Having the ability to track and analyse will prevent the next black swan effect. Last December, Streetwear was declared dead by Virgil Abloh but it’s not. These are some of the factors that shaped this … More Who said Streetwear is dead
Digital era, the long tail, streetwear, social media, pure players, business platforms, influencers, liquid design… these are some of the ingredients for cooking this article… Global volatility, from geopolitics to social instability, is the new normal. Companies in all industries need to adapt the way they manage their businesses in an ever changing landscape. Agility … More Influencer Brands
Coronavirus is impacting our democracies, our economies, our individual and social behaviors… When it comes to fashion, the virus is showing how difficult is to manage a seasonal business in such volatile and uncertain environment. Covid is killing cash flows in one of the most inventory-intensive businesses. Values-led collaborations in the sustainable era When it … More Values-led collaborations in fashion
A few months ago, TFR commented on how a few companies are redefining the way we shop. I meant the “What” but also the “How” and feel it’s totally aligned to the shift from a product-centric approach to a customer-centric one. In the first case, the “What” is not only brand-new products but second hand … More From product to experience
Last March, I described how fashion retail will change its store format strategy. As an example, I explained how grocery retailers where segmenting their store formats (hypermarket, supermarket and neighborhood stores) to respond to different shopping occasions. In grocery, shopping area and assortment are aligned, from a wide and deep assortment in large stores, to … More New Retail: Curated Fashion Boutiques
Following last post about Inditex 2018 financial results, the aim of this post is understanding the leading fashion retailer performance in a deepest level. Retail Physical Footprint If we analyse the chart below we can make two deductions: Inditex is reducing its physical footprint growth from an average of +5% to approximately 0% from the … More Inditex 2018 Financial Results (2)
Inditex is one of the world’s largest fashion retailers. It has eight retail formats or brands (Zara & Zara Home, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho and Uterqüe) which sell their collections in 202 markets over an integrated offline-online store network. As of year-end 2018, it had a network of 7,490 stores and was selling … More Inditex 2018 Financial Results (1)
As Coresight Research commented on July, Recommerce and thrift shopping are going mainstream as consumers increasingly seek out value (both economic and ethics-based), clothing that expresses individuality and that is Instagrammable. Consumers are on both sides of the transaction, donating and consigning as well as purchasing. The desire to simplify and de-clutter is contributing to … More Resale Fashion goes mainstream
On July, Custo Barcelona announced that will license its brand to Aeffe Group and move its activity to Italy. Custo was founded in the 80s as a result of an inspirational trip to USA by the Dalmau brothers. Two decades later, the company had revenues of 40 million euros and presented its collection during New … More Fashion Platforms and brands
See Rose Go founders, Erin Cavanaugh and Yi Zhou, have over 40 years combined global fashion industry experience including premium brands, Nordstrom, Nike, Converse and American Eagle. Our experience is rooted in customer service, quality product creation and an innovative design process. Erin most recently led global omni-channel apparel product marketing and insight strategies under Nike, … More A few words with See Rose Go founders
Extending the review of luxury organizations, niche players from the long tail in fashion and sustainable brands, it´s time to talk about leading “fast-fashion” retailers. Mass-market fashion retailers are localized at the bottom of the Maslow´s pyramid of needs. Those brands´ business models are based on high traffic, high volume and low margin. But some … More Mass-market fashion retailers
The Fashion Luxury Industry, like other industries, has seen the rise of big corporations such as LVMH or Kering. Some luxury goods conglomerates are more diversified than others. LVMH portfolio, for example, includes high-end brands in the categories of wines & spirits, fashion & leather goods, perfumes & cosmetics, watches & jewelry, selective retailing (e.g. Sephora) … More Luxury and Fashion Corporations
If you think about what retailers are “reinventing” the fashion retail business and also leading the omnichannel era, you will probably mention Zara, Nike, H&M… and a few niche players like Everlane, Bonobos, Goop or Rent the Runway. Some might mention Amazon, but Amazon Fashion has room for improvement yet… Those companies are going beyond … More Fashion Connect: Bonprix Omnichannel concept
Many fashion retailers define their strategy starting from their value proposition and key positioning levers (assortment, price, experience, speed, channels…) to differentiate themselves from competition. It’s part of their DNA but also define their purpose and business model. The segmentation of fashion brands is illustrated on a pyramid where the more expensive brands are on … More The Fashion Pyramid of brands
Politics comes from the word Polis (City in Greek), that means “affairs of the cities”. Historically, we can consider three types of political systems: Authoritarianism, Monarchy and Democracy. While sources of social power didn´t change much, the capacity to impact them has innovated drastically. Today, new players such as brands are participating in the political arena … More Fashion politics
The State of Global Fashion Retailers: analysis of the latest financial results of Inditex, H&M, Fast Retailing and GAP … More The State of Global Fashion Retailers
Cecilia Cano is Operations Manager at Brownie. 31, degree in Business Administration, fitness fan, fashion retail and cooking passionate. Cecilia started her professional career at Deloitte Audit Services, in finance, but switched to fashion retail and found her path. She spent 7 years at Oysho, Inditex, as a Buyer and Project & Product Manager for … More A few words with Brownie’s Head of Operations
Many brands have evolved into groups that focus on different customer profiles. On the one hand, we have companies such as GAP, H&M, Inditex, Mango, Armani…that are focus on many segments in order to respond to different income, gender, style (e.g. COS vs H&M), size (e.g. Violeta by Mango) or categories (e.g. beauty, homewear) profiles. … More Diversification and Segmentation in Fashion retail
Consultants like tables, diagrams and charts… Fashion is not a science (some might disagree…) but using this “figure” makes easier to understand and organize something so complex as “needs”. Maslow was an American psychologist and was best-known for creating in 1943 the hierarchy of needs, or Maslow’s pyramid. As I said, using a pyramid is … More Maslow, evolution and Luxury Fashion