Please Knock Slowly

Consider the poor fashion designer.

In days gone by, like two years ago, s/he could roll into New York for the first of the seasonal fashion shows and dazzle the glitterati with fab fabrics, slick silhouettes, cool colors, and perky prints. S/he'd then have months to turn one-off runway protos into saleable merchandise; s/he could wait and see what "the buy" was like before committing to actually manufacturing merchandise. Like it? See you in the stores in February.

Not anymore.

Today, legions of lurkers sit online, watching sites like style.com, looking for items to knock-off and deliver to stores next month.

Whoops...welcome to the new world of fashion!

And, as you might imagine, designers are none too pleased. Today's NY Times front page article quotes designers like Anna Sui and Tory Burch complaining bitterly about this revoltin' development:

“For me, this is not simply about copying,” said Anna Sui, one of more than 20 designers who have filed lawsuits against Forever 21, one of the country’s fastest-growing clothing chains, for selling what they claim are copies of their apparel. “The issue is also timing. These copies are hitting the market before the original versions do.”

This is a huge dilemma for designers: the knock-off specialists can deliver their versions to stores faster than the designers can.

Huh? How can that be?

Well...if you need to wait to get orders before you manufacture goods, you can't start until the buyers "vote" on your line. Knock-off specialists just wait for the shows, see what like, read the reviews and pull the trigger. Their manufacturing partners are expert at producing merchandise right from sketches (no tedious measuring, pattern making, "tech packs" or the like)...a process they're still perfecting:

The factory can return finished samples within 14 days. Sometimes the results are awful, “and sometimes it looks so great you’re just shocked,” Ms. Anand [principal in a "fast fashion" manufacturing company] said. “They’ve done a better job than the designer.”

The result? Designers are screaming for intellectual property protection, of course. While "copying" is a well-established principle in the fashion business, logos, prints and some patterns are protected by copyright laws. Things like silhouettes, colors and fabric, however, have always been fair game.

But now that companies like Forever 21, Zara and H&M have mastered the skills that yield unmatchable speed-to-market, designers want to change the rules.

I think that's bogus.

Everyone gets to play the game of speed today. If competitors have out-played you, the challenge is to change the way you play the game, not petition to have the rules favor the way you used to play. That's not the way innovation works. Of all people, you'd expect designers to understand that.

But, like the old saw says, it all depends on whose ox is being gored.

Comments

[niti bhan]

You make an excellent point Tom, quote:

"If competitors have out-played you, the challenge is to change the way you play the game, not petition to have the rules favor the way you used to play. That's not the way innovation works."

With reference to the high speed competition you mention, Zara, H&M and others of that ilk, who offer fast and cheap, rapidly changing designs, one of the 'sustainable' ways that this issue is being addressed, imho, is what Marks & Spencer is doing with their Plan A - they've redesigned their entire corporate strategy around sustainable design and the environment, going so far as to launch school uniforms made from recycled plastic water bottles. By touching upon the issues prevalent in the UK today such as ethical consumption, fair trade [are the workers in the 'sweatshops' that make the cheap clothing rapidly working in humane conditions and being paid fair wages] and ecofriendly products, they've taken competitive advantage to a level that these kind of retailers are as yet unprepared or unwilling to meet, if only because of the way their cost structure and supply chains are already set up. This is something I wouldn't be surprised to see as a trend, grocers such as Tescos and Sainsbury's are are already reacting to M&S' inititatives, they have to in order to compete.

[Tom Guarriello]

I've seen the M&S program talked about elsewhere and it sounds encouraging. Fashion is currently taking causes like fair trade and ecosustainability and doing what it always does with new ideas: appropriating them. That means the "commitment" that most fashion houses or retailers make to these movements mimics this season's color palette: here today, gone tomorrow. The only thing that will chance that dynamic is the customer. If each of us demands goods made in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner, fashion/retailers will comply. If not...they'll be on to "next" in a minute.

Thanks, Niti.

[ajay]

Fashion is currently taking causes like fair trade and ecosustainability and doing what it always does with new ideas: appropriating them.
AJAY
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