The fashion industry can be a cruel mistress; look no further than The Devil Wears Prada for proof. Joking aside, the Anne Hathaway/Meryl Streep vehicle is a surprisingly accurate reflection of fashion journalism and industry, despite its send-ups and satire.
As an entrepreneur with the fashion bug, The Devil Wears Prada may be more incentive than a cautionary tale for you. In the UK, the fashion industry is regarded as the largest creative industry, representing £26 billion in value and 800,000 jobs to boot – making your decision to start a fashion business a shrewd one. But how can you ensure that your new enterprise is a success?
Market Research and Business Plan
As with the creation of any new business, your new fashion business will need to start with an airtight business plan. Put simply, what is it that you want to achieve, and how soon are you hoping to start achieving it? Your plan should be buttressed by some comprehensive market research and industry analysis too, to properly understand the fashion industry landscape and your potential place within it.
For structure, consider starting your business plan with a back-of-napkin concept, and then extrapolating that concept to a one-side A4 ‘treatment’. After this, use SWOT analysis to justify the shape of your business and consumer analysis to justify your projected figures – then lay out your six-month, 12-month, and five-year plans. This document will be indispensable in securing you additional funding to make your business possible.
Brand Development and Product Design
Your brand needs to be the strongest part of your business, whether to help you make a name for yourself in early days or to compete against larger fashion houses as you continue to develop. This means having a strong sense of brand identity and a stronger sense of taste, which you can use to instruct creatives in your team.
Here, there is an elephant in the room concerning brand and fashion designs: copyright. Consulting with expert legal counsel is a vital step in building your brand, particularly where protecting your new intellectual property from bootleggers and large-scale high-street institutions is concerned.
Marketing and Sales Strategies
The final step in creating a resilient fashion business is to devote some time and energy to designing your marketing and sales strategies. The brand does not stop with the logo; your advertising needs to breathe your brand too. You can also make use of numerous social media avenues to create buzz around your brand, with influencer marketing being particularly lucrative for maximizing your reach.