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A brief summary of LFW's schedule, press discussions, key trends and influential shows.

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United Nations 2030 Agenda and how it relates to the fashion Industry

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Repurposed Beachwear - Accessorize Group Challenge 

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Repurposed Beachwear - Accessorize Group Challenge 

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Some examples of what Coco Chanel was known for and who she really was

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Some examples of 1990s fashion looks and celebrities, what subcultures existed in the 1990s and who the most famous designers were back then.

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A mood board about me. I used to play football for 8 years. LOVE any pasta that has prawns in it. I'm a sneaker lover and I would say I live in the gym. 

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BRAND ME mood board & short presentation

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Some background history about Harry Gordon Selfridge and how he changed the retail industry.

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A visit to Oxford Street to find out about how some retailers display their shop windows and the different technology they use.

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What's Happening now: Technology in Retailers

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What's Happening now: Technology in Retailers

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Looking at sustainability and future technology with the garment chosen for Assignment 1.

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How The Body Shop uses sustainable fashion as a retailer.

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Madonna's iconic Jean Paul Gaultier's cone bra changed perception of fashion for women as she rebelled against the definition of the female body.

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Iconic Image from 20th Century - Madonna

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Examples of women who challenge the perception of their age and examples of retailers that target the old

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Connotations and Annotations of Tom Daley 

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- Shows unity and togetherness
- Looks like they could be athletes
- Promoting BHM
- Showing that they stand for BHM
- "We are who we are" - proud to be black
- Inclusivity - each may represent a different sport or background
- All very serious - BHM is a serious month
- Random background - looks like a studio
- All wearing white clothing which can represent peace
- Community
- Blocks of stone could represent history

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- Department Stores
- Supermarkets
- Boutiques
- Convenience Stores
- Outlets
- Charity Shops
- E-commerce
- Chain Stores
- Home Shopping
- Telemarketing
- Franchising
- Concession
- Direct selling
- Market Stalls
- Catalogues
- Market Place
- M-Commerce

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What features are needed to make a good independent retailer?

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What features are needed to make a good independent retailer?

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- Good lighting
- Good visual merchandising
- Personalised customer service
- Welcoming
- Good shop temperature
- USP
- Customer loyalty schemes
- Events
- Ordering a reasonable amount of stock
- Staying in trend
- Stock that no others have
- Competitive prices
- Keeping up with technology
- Proactive with sustainability
- Ethical

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RESEARCH TASK: How the Buying & Merchandising roles have changed 

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RESEARCH TASK: How the Buying & Merchandising roles have changed 

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Covid-19 has changed buying habits across many consumers along with myself. Online shopping tends to be more appealing and I recently find myself gravitating more towards comfortable clothing, such as loungewear and gym wear which I wear more regularly than I used to. Online shopping habits however have resulted in more money spending due to the number of items purchased in each order, as I am ordering multiple items in different sizes and colours. This way of shopping seems to have had a negative impact on how much I am spending, as well as what the money is being spent on. Pre-Covid 19 I would be more inclined to buy staple pieces of clothing which can be re-worn and styled in different ways. However, due to the increase in my online shopping habits, I  am finding that my purchases are mainly on cheaper items which I see myself wearing either once or twice. These items are then eventually thrown out due to the lack of durability they withstand.

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How buyer & merchandiser roles have changed

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Digital and physical timetable for LFW 2021

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Faduma Fellowship Program - LFW AW 21/22

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Faduma Fellowship Program - LFW AW 21/22

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During the 2021 LFW, one of the fashion shows included the Faduma Fellowship program where the catwalk was inspired by wheelchair users. This was the first time that LFW had showcased a collection designed for wheelchair users.

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INCLUSIVE FASHION

As the style industry continues to make efforts to shed its exclusionary reputation, an adaptive-fashion initiative took to the runway during London Fashion Week. Powered by Faduma's Fellowship, the show brought adaptive fashion to the runway through the organization's first winner, Harriet Eccleston, who presented a Spring/Summer 2022 collection.

Following an application process that began in April and ended in May, Eccleston was chosen as the winner. Working with Faduma's Fellowship founder Faduma Farah to create the collection of pieces that are comfortable for wheelchair users to wear, Eccleston, a designer who formerly worked with Paul Smith, was awarded £10,000-the equivalent of $13,621. Included in the flock of models who showcased the designs were six who used wheelchairs and modeled pieces that were designed using adaptive features such as magnetic buttons, relocated pockets, breathable fabric and hidden seams.

"The show was fantastic and a watershed moment for fashion. The collection was a perfect demonstration of beautiful design and craftsmanship combined with thoughtful construction to make the pieces suitable for both wheelchair and non-wheelchair users," said show producer and co-founder of the Oxford Fashion Studio Tiffany Saunders. "I am immensely proud of the work Faduma and Harriet have done here. This shows garments that have been 'adapted' do not have to compromise when it comes to style."

The adaptive-clothing movement has been gaining momentum within fashion. Earlier this month, model Aaron Rose Philip debuted on the runway using a wheelchair for the Moschino show during the fashion house's New York Fashion Week presentation. Faduma's Fellowship hopes that designers and others will not forget those who use wheelchairs when they are planning for everyday moments such as event organization and store merchandising.

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LFW Includes Adaptive Fashion Show Through Faduma's Fellowship Program

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INCLUSIVE FASHION As the style industry continues to make efforts to shed its exclusionary reputation, an adaptive-fashion initiative took to the runway during London Fashion Week. Powered by Faduma's Fellowship, the show brought adaptive fashion to the runway through the organization's first winner, Harriet Eccleston, who presented a Spring/Summer 2022 collection.

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Harris Reed Creating Catwalk looks from Oxfam Clothes - LFW AW 21/22

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Harris Reed Creating Catwalk looks from Oxfam Clothes - LFW AW 21/22

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Upcoming designer Harris Reed created catwalk looks from Oxfam clothes which represented a gender fluid collection. This designer mainly used up-cycled materials which supports sustainable fashion. His looks were mainly monochrome which is this years LFW's key trend as part of the "90's Minimalist" look.

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British-American fashion designer Harris Reed presented his first physical salon-style show on the closing day of London Fashion Week, taking on perceptions of masculinity and femininity with his evocative and artistic approach to fashion.

Reed, a twenty-five-year-old Central Saint Martins graduate, has catapulted to fashion fame with his gender-fluid designs, thanks in some part to dressing pop star Harry Styles in a tailored suit with exaggerated shoulders attached to a hoop-skirt draped in tulle, a suit-dress if you like.

Since graduating in 2020, Reed has showcased his debut gender-neutral collection off-schedule at London Fashion Week in February, become part of Matchesfashion Innovators Programme, made looks for Style's world tour, dressed pop-stars Solange and Selena Gomez, and was named as The Standard hotel's first official designer-in-residence in London.

Image: courtesy of Harris Reed by Jason Lloyd Evans

Actually since becoming a 'pandemic graduate', Reed hasn't stopped, he also just launched his first jewellery collection with Missoma celebrating "opulence and glamour" featuring rings, pendants, bracelets and earrings, and he took on the Met Gala and won. He designed a show-stopping gold gown worn by Iran featuring a jacquard bustier, flared trousers and a crinoline skeleton with layers of feathers covered with gold-leaf, as well as an extravagant feathered headdress. Harris also won GQ's Breakthrough Designer of the Year award earlier this month.

London-based Reed is driving conversations around gender and personal identity with his "romanticism gone nonbinary" approach to design, think tulle, puffed sleeves and lace, and the fashion world is excited to have a new emerging designer on the block.

Image: courtesy of Harris Reed by Jason Lloyd Evans

Harris Reed 'Found' September 2021 demi-couture collection

Reed's debut salon show 'Found' took place in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion and placed sustainability at the heart of the collection, as the majority of the pieces were upcycled from garments and fabrics found in Oxfam.

The demi-couture collection features 10 black and white looks taking on the heteronormativity that surrounds the wedding day ideology, from a tiered wedding dress spliced with groomsmen tailoring to bridal lace steered by a reworking of a 19th Century waistcoat.

Image: courtesy of Harris Reed by Jason Lloyd Evans

The social media sensation, who has more than 430,000 followers on Instagram, breathed new life into secondhand bridalwear sourced from Oxfam, as part of his efforts to grow a responsible brand.

He meticulously reconstructed the garments into his fluid creations, repurposing lace veils into halo headpieces and turning a tuxedo jacket into a dress with a veil draped from the body styled over the designer's now-signature high-waisted flares.

This is a collection that makes you rethink the wedding day standard, with beautiful and over-the-top hybrid gowns and tuxedos with ruffles down one side, stylish striped suits with flared trousers, and lace refashioned into a top.

Image: courtesy of Harris Reed by Jason Lloyd Evans

Reed, shared in the show notes: "Working with these older pieces has offered me a fresh insight into construction. While breathing new life into these looks, I've been able to hone my techniques and learn from the original state of the garment."

Harris Reed's demi-couture collection made of upcycled bridal pieces sourced from Oxfam

A look from the 'Found' collection will be displayed in the Selfridges x Oxfam space, curated by stylist Bay Garnett and will be available to purchase. All proceeds will go to Oxfam as part of the Second Hand September campaign to raise awareness about the harmful effects of fast fashion.

Lorna Fallon, retail director at Oxfam, said: "Oxfam is thrilled to be working with Harris Reed, who shows it's possible to transform a second-hand wedding dress into haute couture gracing the runway.

"Upcycling is a brilliant way to breathe new life into clothes and tailor what you find in a charity shop to your tastes. This way we can help protect our planet by giving clothes a longer life, while raising money to help people around the world beat poverty."

Image: courtesy of Harris Reed by Jason Lloyd Evans

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LFW SS22: Harris Reed reworks secondhand bridal for debut salon show

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British-American fashion designer Harris Reed presented his first physical salon-style show on the closing day of London Fashion Week, taking on perceptions of masculinity and femininity with his evocative and artistic approach to fashion.

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In 2015 all United Nations Member States came together to create a "universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030." which, together, create a holistic guide to achieving the UN's goals. From ending poverty and reducing gender inequality to tackling climate change and reviving biodiversity, The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) At Remake we strongly believe that fashion must integrate efforts to protect the environment and the people working throughout supply chains in order to truly be a sustainable industry. Here's how the SDGs relate to today's fashion industry. the SDGs recognize that the fight for human rights and the fight for the health of our planet must go hand in hand.

Goal 5: Gender Equality
"Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls."
Female empowerment is a trendy discussion topic within the fashion industry right now. From the UN council to conglomerate CEOs, everyone wants to be a part of the "right side of history." Unfortunately, the data suggests that many aren't practicing what they preach. The New York Times' 2018 article " Fashion's Woman Problem " reported that 85% of graduating fashion design majors were women. Yet, senior management continues to be overwhelmingly controlled by men. And this remains consistent at the other end of the supply chain. Around the world, most factory managers, supervisors and owners are men. Women continue to be excluded from fashion's collective consciousness even though they are the backbone of the industry. It has been inspiring to see women of influence within the fashion industry share their #metoo stories, shedding light on the pervasive problem at all levels of the industry.

Furthermore, Remake's "Made In " docuseries found countless women confirming our fear that low wages, sexual harassment and assault, short-term contracts, and pregnancy discrimination run rampant within the very facilities which produce the clothing on our backs. Why is it that fashion - which benefits from women's labor, money, and influence - is still largely run by men?

GOALS 8 & 10: Decent Work and Economic Growth and Reduced Inequalities
"Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all." "Reduce inequality within and among countries."
In many industries, but especially in fashion, the wealth disparity between the women making clothing and the corporations selling said clothing is shocking. Companies must bridge the gap and provide garment workers a fair wage.

GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
"Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation."
Like most modern industries, technology is rapidly progressing within fashion. Human labor continues to be replaced by automation and demand for increased efficiency. As new technology scales and provides sustainable solutions in some cases, how do we ensure that it doesn't disenfranchise workers in the process? What will happen to displaced labor, especially in fragile nation states that are prone to conflict? In order to combat widespread job loss the industry must commit to training up women from the factory floor to more skilled positions within companies. The fashion industry needs to utilize technology in a way which can grow alongside workers rather than surpassing them. Technological progress is inevitable, but job loss doesn't have to be.

GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
"Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns."
Both brands producing fashion and customers consuming fashion must acknowledge their roles in causing environmental and human harm. Fashion must take a step back from the oversupply of clothing and rethink the system as we know it. At Remake, we believe that to turn fashion into a force for good, it will take action from individuals, corporations, and governments. Find out what sustainable brands we think are leading the charge and how we are evaluating them .

GOAL 13: Climate Action
"Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts."
By now we are well aware of the direct connection between climate change and the fashion industry. We know that an industry which involves many other carbon-heavy industries (such as agriculture and transportation) has a detrimental impact on our environment. How will the industry decarbonize supply chains? How can fashion create a carbon circular economy? What will it take to create reliable environmental regulations for the fashion industry? While imperative for consumers to take proper care of their clothing after purchase, it remains vital for the industry at large to make it easier for individuals to participate in sustainable fashion.

Goals 1-4: No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-being and Quality Education
"End poverty in all its forms everywhere." "End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture." "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all times" "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all."
How can fashion build up the regions in which clothing is manufactured instead of tearing them down? What can brands do to ensure responsible and equal partnerships within the communities they work with? Brands must partner with those in their supply chain to improve their quality of life instead of exploiting them for cheap labor. Fair wages, documented hours, and maker well-being programs are essential in evening the playing field between brands and the women who make their clothes.

GOALS 6 & 7: Clean Water and Sanitation and Affordable and Clean Energy
"Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all." "Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all."
Seemingly beautiful fashion is produced through reckless pollution and inhumane labor conditions across the world. What can corporations do to ensure clean energy, water, and sanitation in the areas where they operate?

GOALS 11 & 15: Sustainable Cities and Communities and Life on Land
"Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable." "Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss."
So often clothing production is out of sight, and unfortunately, out of mind. How can the industry begin to invest in the communities where they utilize artisan's skills and garment workers labor? How can fashion begin to replace the currently fragmented supply chain with local systems?

GOAL 14: Life Below Water
"Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development."
Every time a synthetic garment is washed, microfibers, aka microplastics, are released into the water. These microplastics eventually end up in our oceans, the seafood we eat, and even rain. While there are innovative consumer products available to individuals, how can legislation enforce safe microplastic capture within domestic and professional washing facilities?

GOAL 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
"Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels."
Fashion can no longer be an industry of passive consumption without consequences. How can fashion use its immense influence to fight corruption? How can industry-leaders take responsibility for furthering conversations around climate injustice, labor violations, and gender inequality?

GOAL 17: Partnerships for the Goals
"Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development."
What can fashion do to be an example collaborative sustainable development?

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How the United Nations' SDGs Relate to the Fashion Industry

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The United Nations' SDGs recognize that human rights and health of our planet must go hand in hand. Here's how the SDGs relate to the fashion industry.

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The fabric has gained wide popularity due to its positive qualities, as well as its affordable price and simple maintenance requirements. Let's name the main advantages of knitwear:

softness;

hygiene of the material;

practicality of use;

a large number of different colors;

extensibility and elasticity;

lack of stiffness during movement;

relatively low cost of production;

pleasant tactile sensations;

strength of weaving and threads;

simple and easy maintenance;

breathability

hygroscopicity;

the material does not accumulate static electricity;

wide scope of use.

How to care for knitwear?
To maintain the fabric in good condition for a long time, you need to follow the basic rules of textile care. You should adhere to simple rules:

the cloth is rinsed several times, changing the water;

the material does not like when it is strongly twisted and squeezed;

it is not recommended to iron after washing;

when washing in a machine, you need to choose the "hand wash" mode or wash by hand;

during washing, things should be squeezed, not rubbed;

the water temperature should not exceed 40 degrees;

it is forbidden to dry knitwear in a centrifuge, dry horizontally, simply by straightening the thing;

during washing you should not use bleach;

wet jersey is not hung on a hanger - the product will stretch;

for storage, it is advisable to use special bags, in which you should add anti-moth products;

the powder must be dissolved in advance so that its small fractions do not leave traces on the matter;

when rinsing, be sure to use a conditioner;

steam can be used to smooth the product;

to eliminate pellets, use a razor or a special machine to remove them.

Knitwear is a very practical fabric. There are different types of fabrics, differing in composition, weave, finish and workmanship. Knitted wear is very popular and affordable. Caring for things is simple.

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The fabric has gained wide popularity due to its positive qualities, as well as its affordable price and simple maintenance requirements.

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We don't like things the way they are.

Synthetic materials, micro-plastics and carbon pollution are giving fashion a bad name. Thankfully, our modern wool knit pieces aren't part of the problem; they're part of the solution.

We're Sheep Inc. - contemporary knitwear that has a positive impact on the world. Sheep are also heavily involved.

We work with nature. Not against it.

Our raw materials are carbon-negative, and our manufacturing is completely powered by solar energy. This makes us the first people in the world whose process naturally saves and stores more carbon than it creates. (That's the bit you should remember when you tell your friends about us.)

Our sheep live in New Zealand's High Country with loads of space to walk, run around, or debate the origins of pavlova. All our farms are part of the ZQ programme, which means they enjoy the highest animal welfare standards worldwide.

While our sheep are living their best lives, they also play a key role in the Regenerative Farming movement. Sheep keep the farm's soil healthy by closing the nutrient loop and reducing the need for fertilisers. Our farmers also implement rotational grazing techniques which ensure the grass is never overgrazed and provides living organisms a constant source of nutrition, prevents soil erosion, increases water infiltration rates and store more carbon in the soil.

All of the above means our Sheep are able to provide wool which has a carbon negative footprint. Making us the first naturally carbon negative fashion brand on earth. No other clothing brand can say this; if they did, they'd be lying.

None of this is magic, simply science.

Sheep are people too.

Sheep are very much partners in bringing our clothes to life, so giving them a comfortable and happy life is the least we can do.

Where fast fashion fails, our process thrives; it's zero waste, completely mulesing-free, and always puts the animals' welfare first. We work with independent farms in New Zealand (they have the best sheep in the world) selecting each one based on the quality of the sheep's wool and their level of care. They're shorn once a year (the sheep, not the farmers) to prevent their coats from continuous growth and overheating, matting, and infections. Like any good trim, the shearing takes place under carefully supervised conditions so everyone's happy with the result.

Buy a knit, get a sheep

We want you to feel connected to nature and understand where our things come from, so each of our items comes with its very own trackable sheep. You'll get updates when they're on the move, getting a haircut, or having little lambs of their own. They'll also never bother you with voice notes or views on current political structures, because they're sheep.

Our wool is seriously soft

Silky smooth. Downright durable. And 100% Merino.

All of our garments are knitted as one waste-free piece; the extra thin fibres in our Merino wool elevated by our innovative, chlorine-free treatment means our knits are also worlds away from the frankly dangerously itchy knits of yesterday.

Fun fact - sheep wool is also moisture resistant and naturally temperature regulating, so it can warm you up when you're cold and keep you cool when you're warm. Your hair can't do this.

Look good forever

We're all about functional knits that are built to last, but that shouldn't come at the cost of looking good. That's why we create our knitwear in a variety of colour pallets to suit all kinds of styles and personalities, from attention seeker to crippling introvert.

Keeping an everyday wardrobe staple in top condition can be tricky, so our wool comes with a lifetime guarantee. This ensures you're getting the most out of your garment, which is good for the planet. And for you. And for ewe.

Our styles are always evolving, so keep your biodegradable eyes peeled for more releases throughout the year. Or just sign up to our emails. That's easier.

Protecting Mother Earth. Because she's worth it.

All of our products are naturally carbon negative. But we also invest 5% of our revenue into regenerative projects working to improve our future on this planet. We call it our Impact Program, and people seem to be on board with it - like our partner Professor Mark Maslin, Head of Climatology at University College London.

The projects we involve ourselves in all focus on the social and environmental elements of our climate. Everything from biodiversity support, scientific research and development, and community development activations.

You're welcome to become an Impact Program member and do your bit. Just drop us a line and we'll tell you how you can make a difference with us.

Get in touch

Join the flock:

We are on a journey. To create clothing from materials that work with nature. Not against it. With design innovation that extends lifespans by generations. Not seasons. Where wearing our clothing, brings us back in touch with nature.

'The very latest in eco-fashion.
The ultimate proof of welfare
in the supply chain."

'The perfect sweater,
cosy and conscientious."

'The world's first carbon-negative
fashion brand, and gorgeous too.
Follow the herd."

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We don't like things the way they are. Synthetic materials, micro-plastics and carbon pollution are giving fashion a bad name. Thankfully, our modern wool knit pieces aren't part of the problem; they're part of the solution. We're Sheep Inc. - contemporary knitwear that has a positive impact on the world.

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- Sales Analysis - last season, current & future sales
- Responsible for stock levels
- Planning budgets
- Negotiating cost prices with supplier
- Forecasting profits and sales

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What Sales Factors do you need to plan for Fashion Retail Business 

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What Sales Factors do you need to plan for Fashion Retail Business 

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- Season
- Sales from previous season
- Categories
- Gender, male/female
- Margins
- Trends
- Levels of stock
- Sourcing availability
- Target market

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Who else is involved in the planning process?

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Who else is involved in the planning process?

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- Finance department
- Garment technologists
- Logistics
- Sourcing team
- Retail Management
- Design team

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Why each item is selling / not selling well:
Red Blouse - in trend and good price
Vinyl Coat - available in Petite and Tall
Premium Racer Vest - staple piece, casual, may buy more than one
Mom jeans - staple item, casual
Boots - real leather
Ruffle mini dress - In trend, styled well with the boots
Double breasted blazer - material looks thin for winter wear, not styled well
Lace blouse - May not be the right season
Faux fur coat - Colour may not be selling well, too expensive
Double belt boiler suit - all denim may not be everyones style, cannot see "double belt"
Vinyl Skirt - too long, too expensive, not styled well with trainers and and jumper
Vinyl Trousers - does not look like the accurate colour stated in description, not styled well with the boots (makes customers think are trousers short or is the model tall)

Repeat stock on each worst seller: can speak to supplier and ask to reduce quantity of stock or change the stock.

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Why the role of the buyer has changed so much

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Why the role of the buyer has changed so much

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Why the role of the buyer has changed so much

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Julia Redman, head of buying for menswear, kidswear and homeware at value retailer M&Co, explains how the role of the buyer has evolved over her 25-year career.

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In the new experience economy, the very idea of what a store is has changed. It's transformed from a place for people to buy things into a place where people engage in shopping experiences of discovery and delight where product is the reward they take home.

Under this new retail experientially-focused model, the old "product is king" approach is dead. Today the retailer must put the customer, not product, at the heart of every activity and objective. Now the "customer is king" and the retail store his or her "castle."

Retailers are discovering the way to move from a product-centric to a consumer-centric retail model is through storytelling. Timberland is doing it with its TreeLab concept where every 6-to-8 weeks the TreeLab store is made over to tell a new story with a curated selection of Timberland products elements in that story, like Streetology about its styles for city living, Shevolution for women and now Made to Give for holiday gifting.

And fashion retailer White House Black Market which specializes in shade variations in its signature black-and-white theme is doing it by adding a rotating selection of accents color to make those basic black-and-white fashions pop.

But perhaps the most story-intensive retailer is NYC's STORY Store, on 10 th Avenue in the Chelsea district. Founded by Rachel Shechtman, STORY is described as "Point of view of a Magazine, Changes like a Gallery, Sells things like a Store." Every 4-to-8 weeks the store reboots to bring in a whole new range of merchandise to tell a new story.

At STORY, products tell the story, but aren't the story. For Shechtman and team the story comes first. "We have to let our story drive the assortment, rather than let the assortment drive our story," she says.

The STORY Store has become a mecca for retailers large and small, looking to understand the fundamentals of retail storytelling. Back in 2014 Target CEO Brian Cornell came calling and his learnings are starting to show in initiatives like Target's next generation store concept.

Today retailers must focus on the customers and the stories they want to hear. Yet, as Kyle Murray, Professor of Marketing and the Director of the School of Retailing at the Alberta School of Business, writes in The Retail Value Proposition, "Most retailers remain merchants at heart. They focus on selling merchandise, rather than managing customers." And no one in the retail organization is so focused on selling merchandise than the merchandiser.

In today's experiential retail world, the traditional role of merchandiser has been disrupted. Populating the store with new merchandise is only part of the merchandiser's responsibilities. The more important part is to present the merchandise is such a way that it draws the customer in, engages their imagination and compels them to buy.

The merchandiser today has to evolve from merely selecting new product and making sure it is in the right store locations to one of creating and arranging the products into visually, imaginative and engaging ways. Merchandisers must become curators who expertly tell stories with merchandise that connects with the needs, desires and most importantly the imagination of the customer.

Merchandisers must become master storytellers. Here are signposts of the evolving role of the retail merchandiser:
New skills
Today the merchandiser must bring a whole new set of skills to the job. The merchandiser must be both style maker and data/tech savvy. "Merchandisers must have a high level of taste, sense of style and supreme self-confidence balanced with emotional intelligence," says a member of the leadership team at a well-known, multi-national retailer. But, he says, "Those people skills, taste, style and charisma can't be taught."

On the other hand, the science of merchandising can. "I need full financial visibility of my business at all times. What is selling, where it is selling, who is selling it and I need it in one place in a financial reporting system that tells me what is going on in my business," he says.

Finding these often conflicting skill sets, the intuitive and the analytical, in one person can be challenging and successfully managing cross-functional teams with one group operating intuitively and another analytically is even more so. "Many merchants have people on their team who've been in their roles 20+ years," says Shelley Kohan, retail fellow at RetailNext, an IoT integrated platform that brings e-commerce style shopper analytics to brick-and-mortar retailers.

"They've run their business on intuition. Then in comes a millennial-analytics person who goes head-to-head constantly battling traditional-mindset buyers in the organization. The millennial tells them 'you are not buying according to what the algorithms tell you to buy' and the traditional buyer says, 'I don't need data. I don't need analytics. I haven't used data for 30 years. I know how to make my decisions,'" she continues.
New tools
"Merchandise planning is sometimes too focused on numbers, " notes Peter Charness, SVP America's TXT Retail, an Aptos Company, which provides software for merchandising and assortment planning. He recognizes that such systems tend to favor the analytically-focused merchandisers.

Rather, he says, merchandisers must always keep in mind who they are buying for, what the store looks like and how to tell the right story with merchandise. "It's important for today's merchandisers to be able to use the tools that get the numbers right and to get the visuals right too."

Recognizing that a picture is worth a thousand words, or data points plotted on a spreadsheet, TXT Retail has added visuals to its product database to bridge the gap between the data analytics and the intuitive. This allows merchandisers to curate selections, not just pick a description off a spread sheet.

The ultimate value of such data-analytic tools is to give merchandisers a store-by-store view of the merchandising stories that are selling to help them understand the customer needs at the shop level, which can make the difference between success and failure for each assortment.

"Back in the day if you had stores two miles apart, you'd buy the same product for both stores. They're the same market, right?" says Kohan. "But now with analytics and enabling technology, you discover the store located two miles south of the other one has a very different customer. This particular product I'm considering will work will in one, but not the other. Now we can make pinpoint decisions about what will sell and where."
What's selling here, what's selling there
And curating merchandisers need to know not only what's selling in their own stores, but also what's selling at the store next door, across town and around the world. It's the insight on which strategies to attract new customers is based. For fashion merchandisers, that's the role that retail analytics company EDITED is filling.

"We built a portal that tracks every fashion retail site," explains Katie Smith, senior analyst at EDITED. "It gives us a view of what's going on in the apparel market worldwide. We categorize and analyze over 660 million SKUs and are adding an extra half a million every week, so we're tracking what's going on globally in apparel retail across men's, women's, children's wear from low-end fast fashion right through luxury high-end."

"There is a critical need for speed to market," Smith continues. "Merchandisers have new frustrations and added pressures layered on top of their traditional numbers-focused and spreadsheet-driven roles. With fashion trends moving so much faster and the changing ways customers discover product, it's disrupted all the roles within this industry."
Tell the story, sell the story
The evolving role of merchandiser is to tell the story and sell the story with merchandise. It's not just managing product and inventory, placing orders, allocating merchandise and moving it through internal systems. It's being able to combine all those moving parts into a story-based product experience that captures the imagination of the customer, entices them to shop and compels them to buy.

"Merchandisers can't stick to their formulaic structures and old ways of doing things. They have to deliver that mystery ingredient, which is customer delight," Smith says. "If a retailer's story isn't being communicated through product, no amount of clever promotions or perfectly timed drops are going to get that product to sell."

Curating stories, where each individual product becomes an element of a bigger story is what merchandisers must do, rather than just finding, buying and shipping out product. "Today's shopper is no longer willing to simply trade dollar for product. They want that added experience. They want that added value. They want that story," Kohan says.

The result of successful story telling will be both delight for the customers, and delight for the merchandisers and the company managers they report to. "Enlightened retailers must create shopping experiences that reward the customer, that delight the shopper. Retailers are busy putting together a brand story and experiences that attracts the shopper, but the story isn't complete until the merchandise is in the shoppers' hand. That's a happy ending for the shopper and retailer," Charness concludes.

... Read More

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Story-Based Retail And The Evolving Role Of Merchandiser

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The merchandiser today has to evolve from merely selecting new product and getting it to the right store to one of creating and arranging the products into visually, imaginative and engaging stories. Merchandisers must become curators who expertly tell stories with and through merchandise.

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In 2021, small businesses are busy reworking their strategies to meet the changes in consumer preferences and behaviors that defined 2020. With major adjustments to living, working, and learning environments, consumer shopping habits have changed drastically - out of both need and desire.

For businesses, this means that the marketing strategies of 2019 won't cut it in 2021.

To help brands thrive this year, here are four important insights into how consumer habits are changing, and how businesses can find opportunities to meet their customers' needs.

Consumers want products that help them stay comfortable at home

Home is now a place of work, school, and leisure. And consumers are on the lookout for products that help them embrace their new homebody lifestyles, whether they spot them on a shoppable social media feed or a display in a physical store. Shopping trends are leaning toward products that make working at home comfortable, add beauty to home spaces, and provide an enjoyable way to spend downtime.

Recent research from Square identified the comfort items increasing and declining in sales in 2020 compared to 2019. Three retail categories to watch are home goods, apparel, and beauty and wellness. Retailers will be wise to stock up on affordable products that are easy to ship, like home decor, candles, air fresheners, house plants, and supplies for at-home hobbies.

Clothing retailers should prioritize loungewear and comfortable clothing, which are showing a surge in sales, according to the same research from Square. Loungewear is up 13x compared to last year, while sweatshirts are up 10x, athleisure is up 3x, and pajamas are up by 71 percent.

When it comes to marketing apparel in 2021, "cozy" is the new "cute." With sales for items marked "cozy" up nine percent compared to last year, retailers can capitalize on the opportunity to promote clothing lines with words that convey comfort, soft textures and fabrics, and tranquility. In addition to product descriptions, professional photos are another way to showcase the coziness of the items in your lineup.

Analysis paralysis is making it harder to decide what to buy

One big trend for 2021 is a rise in the phenomenon called analysis paralysis, during which the stress of making choices about buying can cause consumers to simply abandon their shopping encounters altogether.

This stress has been exacerbated in the past year, as the pandemic has made every decision feel overwhelmingly important. The fear of making a wrong choice is seeping into what consumers buy and how they do it.

To help ease analysis paralysis, retailers can reduce customer choices by presenting curated assortments of products everywhere they sell. Implementing selections of staff picks or categories based on interests can give consumers a sense of comfort in getting an expert recommendation.

Analysis paralysis goes beyond choosing which product to buy - consumers are also overwhelmed with deciding how to buy. Business owners should make the fulfillment methods they offer clear (online orders, in-store, and curbside pickup, etc.) to meet individual consumer comfort levels. It will be crucial in 2021 to emphasize policies to reduce consumer anxiety about shopping or picking up items in person.

Back-to-school items are selling year-round

With learning taking place at home and continual shifts in remote education, the back-to-school shopping season is now year-long. As a result, retailers can increase sales throughout the year, outside of the traditional start of the school calendar.

Not only has the season expanded, but back-to-school products this year will go beyond traditional school supplies. This means even brands that don't normally sell educational products can capitalize on the opportunity to reimagine product lines as educational essentials.

Retailers can reassess their product mix from the perspectives of students learning at home and transitioning back into schools. Products like lighting, webcam covers, organizers, and supplies for labeling and personalizing student belongings can give your store a leg up.

Consumers want in-person shopping to be as stress-free as possible

While shopping behaviors moved heavily online during 2020, research from Square and Wakefield Research shows that consumers earnestly miss shopping in person. In 2021, they are eager to reconnect with the joy of the shopping experience, as long as they feel comfortable.

This means retailers must rethink store layouts to foster socially distant shopping. Ease customer anxiety and promote social distancing by reducing the number of displays on the floor to create a feeling of openness. Consider using creative merchandising tools like power walls that highlight products and guide consumer attention, without taking up much floor space.

To take some of the mental burden off consumers when navigating through stores, retailers can invest in signage to guide foot traffic and customer behavior. Store layouts that allow for one-way traffic flows and clearly marked paths from the entrance to exit are becoming more popular because they allow for a streamlined customer experience.

Adaptation, imagination, and resilience will continue to drive success in 2021

In 2020 sellers had to adapt, reimagine, and stretch their business models as customer needs changed week-to-week. Business owners can embrace 2021 more prepared to meet evolving customer needs.

In 2021, we expect to see consumer shopping habits trending heavily toward products that make it easier and more comfortable to spend time working, learning, and relaxing at home. Business owners can meet these preferences by promoting product lines for each of these situations. Smart retailers may be able to rebrand existing product lines as items that meet the needs of life at home.

While consumers are focusing on embracing their homebody lifestyles, they are also struggling with analysis paralysis and the desire to fully return to in-store shopping. Retailers can rise to the occasion by making the shopping experience as stress-free and decision-light as possible - both online and in-store.
Square has the tools to run your business - on your own terms. To help celebrate businesses paving their way forward, we partnered with Forbes on the Next 1000 initiative to spotlight bold entrepreneurs and share their most valuable lessons. By sharing firsthand experiences, we're helping businesses celebrate resilience, build skills, and explore what's next. See how Square works, and get more expert guidance for the next era of small business.
... Read More

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Square BrandVoice: How Consumer Shopping Habits Are Changing This Year

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In 2021, small businesses are busy reworking their strategies to meet the changes in consumer preferences and behaviors that defined 2020. With major adjustments to living, working, and learning environments, consumer shopping habits have changed drastically - out of both need and desire.

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BCI provides training to work on more sustainable agricultural practises. More retailers and brands are working towards using BCI cotton. BCI cotton is about helping the farmers in the cotton farms.

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Which Global Brands Are Leaders in Sustainable Cotton Sourcing? 

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The Better Cotton Initiative's (BCI) Retailer and Brand Members are forging the way for more sustainable cotton production by integrating Better Cotton into their raw material sourcing strategies and driving demand for more sustainable practices worldwide.

In 2018, 92 BCI Retailer and Brand Members sourced more than one million metric tonnes of Better Cotton - a record for BCI! This represents 4% of global cotton consumption*. BCI's demand-driven funding model means that retailer and brand sourcing of Better Cotton directly translates into increased investment in training for cotton farmers on more sustainable practices.

While all BCI Retailer and Brand Members are contributing to the sustainable future of cotton, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the leaders. The following members are the top 15 (in descending order) based on their total Better Cotton sourcing volumes in the 2018 calendar year. Together they represent a significant proportion (88%) of the Better Cotton that was sourced last year.

1 - Hennes & Mauritz AB

2 - IKEA Supply AG

3 - Gap Inc.

4 - adidas AG

5 - Nike, Inc.

6 - Levi Strauss & Co.

7 - C&A AG

8 - PVH Corp.

9 - VF Corporation

10 - BESTSELLER

11 - DECATHLON S.A.

12 - Target Corporation

13 - Marks and Spencer PLC

14 - Tesco

15 - OVS Spa
Access the Better Cotton Leaderboard 2018.
" Since September 2015, all of the cotton we source for IKEA products is responsibly sourced - 85% of that is sourced as Better Cotton. It took a decade of determination and hard work to embed sustainability into our supply chain and we are pleased to have reached our 100% sustainable cotton target. We won't stop there though. We are committed to creating positive change throughout the entire cotton industry and continue to collaborate with our partners to make this a reality," says Rahul Ganju, Sustainability Manager Textiles, IKEA of Sweden.

" Cotton is our main raw material and it's a natural choice for our consumers. However, we know that being natural doesn't necessarily mean being sustainable. That's why, in 2016, we decided to source only more sustainable cotton by 2020. BCI represents a core pillar in our strategy to reach that goal as the initiative increases cotton farmers' capabilities to adopt sustainable agricultural practices and focus on continuous improvement," says Simone Colombo, Head of Corporate Sustainability, OVS Spa.

"BESTSELLER joined BCI in 2011 and we've been an active member since then. We've increased our uptake of Better Cotton year on year and invested in farmer training and support. BESTSELLER has a target to source 100% of its cotton more sustainably by 2022 - to achieve this we source Better Cotton, Cotton made in Africa, organic cotton and recycled cotton, " says Dorte Rye Olsen, Sustainability Manager, BESTSELLER.

In addition to considering the absolute volumes of Better Cotton sourced, the proportional amount of Better Cotton as a percentage of total cotton consumption is important to highlight. For some Retailer and Brand Members, Better Cotton accounts for a substantial percentage of their total cotton sourcing. In 2018, the companies who sourced more than 90% of their cotton as Better Cotton were adidas AG, HEMA BV and Stadium AB. Decathlon SA, Fatface Ltd, Hennes & Mauritz AB, and IKEA AG sourced more than 75% of their cotton as Better Cotton.

The 'fastest movers' of 2018 (listed in alphabetical order) are Benetton, Burberry Ltd, Fatface Ltd, GANT AB, Gap Inc., HEMA BV, La Redoute, Nike Inc., Olymp Bezner KG, Peak Performance, PVH Corp. and Stadium AB. These retailers and brands increased their volumes of cotton sourced as Better Cotton by more than 20 percentage points compared to 2017, demonstrating that sourcing cotton more sustainably can become the norm for organisations of all sizes.

BCI has a goal to reach and train five million cotton farmers by 2020. In order to achieve this, BCI calls upon its current Retailer and Brand Members as well as new members to be as ambitious as possible in setting Better Cotton sourcing targets. Increased sourcing generates essential funding for farmer training and support. We're pleased to note that of BCI's current 125 Retailer and Brand Members, 27 already have a public target to source 100% of their cotton more sustainably by 2020. An additional 23 members have sustainable sourcing targets that are set for just beyond 2020.

We're now looking for the next wave of sustainability leaders to join BCI and close the gap between the supply of Better Cotton on the market (19% of global cotton production in the 2017-18 cotton season) and demand from Retailer and Brand Members (4% of global cotton consumption in the 2017-18 cotton season*). In the 2019-20 cotton season, Better Cotton is forecast to account for 30% of global cotton production.
Access the Better Cotton Leaderboard 2018.
As demand for Better Cotton increases, more and more organisations throughout the cotton supply chain are joining BCI and supporting increased uptake of Better Cotton. In the coming weeks, we will launch cotton merchant and cotton mill leaderboards, highlighting who sourced the largest volumes of cotton as Better Cotton in 2018.

*Global cotton consumption figures as reported by ICAC. More information is available here.

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Which Global Brands Are Leaders in Sustainable Cotton Sourcing? - Better Cotton Initiative

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The Better Cotton Initiative's (BCI) Retailer and Brand Members are forging the way for more sustainable cotton production by integrating Better Cotton into their raw material sourcing strategies and driving demand for more sustainable practices worldwide. In 2018, 92 BCI Retailer and Brand Members sourced more than one million metric tonnes of Better Cotton - a record for BCI!

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What criteria do we use to measure best and worst sellers?

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What criteria do we use to measure best and worst sellers?

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- Sales history; last year sales, last month sales
- Sale through; number of stock sold and number of stock remaining
- WSSI
- Events; new years, xmas, halloween, easter, valentines day
- How many you plan to sell
- Coverr - the number of weeks in which

an option would sell out.

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- What is missing from the river island loungewear collection
- Brands they use inspiration from
- Competitors

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Future innovations that will transform the Fashion industry in 2022

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- Metaverse is not real but augmented reality
- Known as a dream for the future of the internet and a way to capture fashion trends
- In the 1992 novel it referred to a 3D virtual world inhabited by avatars of real people
- Facebook has the biggest stake in the metaverse. They describe is as "a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with people who arent in the same space as you"

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In recent months you may have heard about something called the metaverse. Maybe you've read that the metaverse is going to replace the internet. Maybe we're all supposed to live there. Maybe Facebook (or Epic, or Roblox, or dozens of smaller companies) is trying to take it over. And maybe it's got something to do with NFTs?

Unlike a lot of things The Verge covers, the metaverse is tough to explain for one reason: it doesn't necessarily exist. It's partly a dream for the future of the internet and partly a neat way to encapsulate some current trends in online infrastructure, including the growth of real-time 3D worlds.

But let's get to the fun part. Will you start checking your Facebook feed in Fortnite with a pair of augmented reality glasses? Will your friends invite you to cyber-brunch instead of normal brunch? Time to jack in and figure it out.

So, the metaverse. That started as a science fiction thing, right?

Correct. Neal Stephenson famously coined the term "metaverse" in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, where it referred to a 3D virtual world inhabited by avatars of real people. Lots of other science fiction media includes metaverse-like systems (some of them predating Snow Crash). But Stephenson's book remains one of the most common reference points for metaverse enthusiasts, along with Ernest Cline's 2011 novel Ready Player One.

Aren't both those books set in horrible dystopias?

Snow Crash's metaverse is an outgrowth of Stephenson's satirical corporation-dominated future America, but it's undeniably depicted as having a cool side. (The protagonist is a master hacker who gets in katana fights at a virtual nightclub. No amount of narrative self-awareness can fool readers into thinking that's not supposed to be fun.) Ready Player One 's virtual world is symbolically named the OASIS, and Cline portrays it as an almost utopian source of escapism in a horrible future.

On one hand, emulating the virtual worlds of Snow Crash or Ready Player One is less deliberately creepy than naming your tech initiative "Skynet" or your nutrient shake after Soylent Green. On the other hand, science fiction stories can conjure a vivid picture of "the metaverse" without illuminating how it should work or why it should exist.

Then what is the real metaverse?

There's no universally accepted definition of a real "metaverse," except maybe that it's a fancier successor to the internet. Silicon Valley metaverse proponents sometimes reference a description from venture capitalist Matthew Ball, author of the extensive Metaverse Primer:

"The Metaverse is an expansive network of persistent, real-time rendered 3D worlds and simulations that support continuity of identity, objects, history, payments, and entitlements, and can be experienced synchronously by an effectively unlimited number of users, each with an individual sense of presence."

Facebook, arguably the tech company with the biggest stake in the metaverse, describes it more simply:

"The 'metaverse' is a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren't in the same physical space as you."

There are also broader metaverse-related taxonomies like one from game designer Raph Koster, who draws a distinction between "online worlds," "multiverses," and "metaverses." To Koster, online worlds are digital spaces - from rich 3D environments to text-based ones - focused on one main theme. Multiverses are "multiple different worlds connected in a network, which do not have a shared theme or ruleset," including Ready Player One 's OASIS. And a metaverse is "a multiverse which interoperates more with the real world," incorporating things like augmented reality overlays, VR dressing rooms for real stores, and even apps like Google Maps.

If you want something a little snarkier and more impressionistic, you can cite digital scholar Janet Murray - who has described the modern metaverse ideal as "a magical Zoom meeting that has all the playful release of Animal Crossing."

But wait, now Ready Player One isn't a metaverse and virtual worlds don't have to be 3D? It sounds like some of these definitions conflict with each other.

Look, I just read an article saying we were all going to live in the metaverse, and I want to know what that means.

Right now, tech industry figures who talk about "the metaverse" are usually excited about digital platforms that include some of the following things:

Feature sets that overlap with older web services or real-world activities

Real-time 3D computer graphics and personalized avatars

A variety of person-to-person social interactions that are less competitive and goal-oriented than stereotypical games

Support for users creating their own virtual items and environments

Links with outside economic systems so people can profit from virtual goods

Designs that seem well-suited to virtual and augmented reality headsets, even if they usually support other hardware as well

But in most current discourse, "the metaverse" arguably isn't a fixed set of attributes. It's an aspirational term for a future digital world that feels more tangibly connected to our real lives and bodies.

So is Fortnite a metaverse? Or Facebook Horizon? Or is the metaverse all of them put together?

People like Tim Sweeney (CEO of Fortnite publisher Epic) and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg often say they're just building one piece of a larger interconnected metaverse, similar to an individual social network on the present-day internet. "The metaverse isn't a single product one company can build alone. Just like the internet, the metaverse exists whether Facebook is there or not," one recent Facebook statement reads.

But informally, "metaverse" is also used to describe a single platform that meets the criteria listed above. Second Life, a virtual world that isn't a traditional game, has been frequently described as a metaverse. Sweeney has described Fortnite's user experience as a metaverse because it's a virtual 3D space that mixes gaming and non-gaming elements. Roblox CEO David Baszucki coyly notes that "some people refer to what we're building as the Metaverse."

If you like Koster's "multiverse" definition, there are also arguably several standalone multiverses. Microsoft's Minecraft gets less hype than Roblox these days, but it enables similar activities through modding. So do lower-profile services like The Sandbox, which incorporates a complex cryptocurrency-based economy as well.

Why is the term "metaverse" even useful? "The internet" already covers mobile apps, websites, and all kinds of infrastructure services. Can't we roll virtual worlds in there, too?

Matthew Ball favors the term "metaverse" because it creates a clean break with the present-day internet. "Using the metaverse as a distinctive descriptor allows us to understand the enormity of that change and in turn, the opportunity for disruption," he said in a phone interview with The Verge. "It's much harder to say 'we're late-cycle into the last thing and want to change it.' But I think understanding this next wave of computing and the internet allows us to be more proactive than reactive and think about the future as we want it to be, rather than how to marginally affect the present."

A more cynical spin is that "metaverse" lets companies dodge negative baggage associated with "the internet" in general and social media in particular. "As long as you can make technology seem fresh and new and cool, you can avoid regulation," researcher Joan Donovan told The Washington Post in a recent article about Facebook and the metaverse. "You can run defense on that for several years before the government can catch up."

There's also one very simple reason: it sounds more futuristic than "internet" and gets investors and media people (like us!) excited.

Didn't we have a whole metaverse hype cycle around Second Life in the '00s? What's different now?

It's true: plenty of new "metaverse" phenomena aren't really novel. People were becoming digital land barons and selling virtual items in Second Life nearly two decades ago. Schools and businesses have opened satellite campuses in that world and others. Social 3D spaces like CyberTown long predate Second Life. Even before that, early virtual worlds popped up in the 1970s with text-based multiuser dungeons or MUDs. Many older worlds also inspired the kinds of utopian predictions we see around the metaverse today.

One reason we might be experiencing the hype cycle again is that graphics technology and internet connectivity has significantly advanced since, say, Second Life's 2003 launch. Many video games operate under a "live service" model where the developers constantly update a game to encourage players to return, creating a more convincing illusion of a living, breathing, ever-changing world. Non-metaverse games like League of Legends or Overwatch make significant changes to gameplay years after release, treating the experience more like a virtual space than a static game. From there, a leap to in-game concerts and fashion shows doesn't seem that far.

At the same time, virtual and augmented reality have gotten closer to consumer application, even if VR remains niche and AR nascent. One estimate suggests Facebook has sold around 8 million Oculus Quest 2 headsets, and several dozen VR games have made over $1 million in sales. Those are tiny numbers compared to phone and console sales, but huge compared to the practically nonexistent home VR market 10 years ago. Apple is reportedly working on VR / AR headsets, and Chinese company Nreal has successfully shipped full-fledged consumer AR sunglasses at a comparatively low price.

Another possible reason is that modern pop culture is built on sprawling and highly intertextual media franchises owned by a few companies that promote their huge intellectual property catalogs as shared universes. That enthusiasm has translated into dreams of - as Verge editor Liz Lopatto describes it - "an online haven where superhero IP owned by different companies can finally kiss." (This is the entire premise of Ready Player One.)

And if you believe the metaverse shouldn't be owned by a handful of companies, there are new technologies that could facilitate less centralized virtual worlds, like cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens or NFTs. These metaverse visions overlap with the concept of Web3, a term covering decentralized internet services where users retain more personal control over the data they put online.

Or maybe we're in a global pandemic that's kept billions of people away from casual real-world human contact for more than a year?

People keep saying NFTs are part of the metaverse. Why?

NFTs are complicated in their own right, and you can read more about them here. Loosely, the thinking goes: NFTs are a way of recording who owns a specific virtual good, creating and transferring virtual goods is a big part of the metaverse, thus NFTs are a potentially useful financial architecture for the metaverse. Or in more practical terms: if you buy a virtual shirt in Metaverse Platform A, NFTs can create a permanent receipt and let you redeem the same shirt in Metaverse Platforms B to Z.

Lots of NFT designers are selling collectible avatars like CryptoPunks, Cool Cats, and Bored Apes, sometimes for astronomical sums. Right now these are mostly 2D art used as social media profile pictures. But we're already seeing some crossover with "metaverse"-style services. The company Polygonal Mind, for instance, is building a system called CryptoAvatars that lets people buy 3D avatars as NFTs and then use them across multiple virtual worlds.

Is using one avatar or item across different worlds as simple as it sounds?

On the contrary, people like Raph Koster think it's one of the metaverse's toughest problems.

There are a few ways designers support people "moving" items between worlds right now. One is to build all the worlds within a single platform like Roblox, where players can do things like accessorize an avatar with virtual gear and use it across different experiences. But this breaks down across worlds that are more technically and aesthetically different. Even leaving aside wonky problems like file format support, something as simple as a 3D hat model might look good on a Lego-like Roblox character but make no sense on a pixelated avatar from Minecraft. An item might have a particular ability in one world (like playing music) that another world doesn't support at all.

A second option is to manually create a different version of the same asset for every world. Fortnite and Halo both feature Master Chief avatars, for instance, but with a design tailored to each game. (This is typically how media franchises kiss with the companies' official blessing - Warner Bros. can't just take a Bruce Wayne model from the Batman: Arkham series and drop it in a Lego Batman game.)

This method can look seamless to users, but it can be a lot of work for developers and not worth the payoff in all cases. Epic and Microsoft might both benefit by adding a popular character to a popular game, but does Microsoft really want to model its own version of every single Fortnite skin for Minecraft, just so players can use another company's avatars in its world?

A third option, available in the popular virtual world VRChat, is having players or third-party designers upload their own 3D models with a specific set of characteristics. But uploading a model demands more work and technical skill from users. (Arguably this is the closest analog to Stephenson's Metaverse, where a good avatar requires either money or great computer skills.) Meanwhile, the developers cede some control over the aesthetic of their space. And if companies approach them with deals for licensed characters or items, they could find a world already populated by knockoffs.

This could change in the future. Epic could try to implement a shared item library for its popular Unreal Engine, for example. New AI visual filters could tweak a single 3D model to match different world designs the way existing ones turn selfies into anime. But any fix would require a level of coordination that we haven't seen so far.

Is the metaverse a kind of internet? Will it replace the internet?

People are certainly talking about it that way! In an interview with The Verge, Mark Zuckerberg described the metaverse as "an embodied internet," basically an upgraded version of the internet where people can have "different experiences that you couldn't necessarily do on a 2D app or webpage."

Tim Sweeney takes a similar line in The Washington Post, imagining the metaverse as "a kind of online playground where users could join friends to play a multiplayer game like Epic's ' Fortnite ' one moment, watch a movie via Netflix the next." If you're imagining a place where you can watch videos, play games with friends, and buy things, it's going to end up looking a lot like the internet.

One of the metaverse's key benefits is supposed to be "presence" - a sense that you're physically engaging with places and people instead of watching them through a window. Gathering your co-workers around a virtual table in a service like Spatial and Facebook Horizon, for instance, could feel more natural to some people than looking at a grid of Zoom thumbnails.

But many pieces seem as likely to supplement the internet as replace it. A virtual dressing room makes sense if you want to see how an outfit would look on you. It doesn't necessarily require a whole virtual store, though, just an easy way to switch between flat and spatial experiences. A good comparison point might be the mobile internet, which saw a slew of app-based services supplement or even replace traditional websites - but hasn't made desktop-based options obsolete, either.

A text-heavy, non-real-time internet also has some noteworthy advantages. High-end computers, gaming consoles, and VR headsets that support detailed virtual environments can be expensive. People with mobility issues or slow internet connections might find moving an avatar around a real-time 3D world inconvenient. And people with low or no vision can use screen readers to access text on webpages, while navigating an environment based on images can be harder. Accessibility experts can help mitigate these issues, but there's still a long way to go before they're solved.

Will the metaverse turn into just another form of advertising, like social media?

People like Tim Sweeney say they don't want it to. Sweeney told The Washington Post that present-day social media has "trapped" companies and users in walled gardens and bombarded them with ads. Roblox designers make money that's not ad-driven by selling digital goods in their individual worlds and letting the company take a ( sometimes surprisingly large) cut. Proponents of new options like NFTs see them as a viable alternative to ad-supported systems, although NFTs have potential negative side effects of their own.

But "advertising" is a slippery word. Fortnite, Sweeney's version of a world beyond ads, is still packed absolutely full of big pop culture franchises and brands building name recognition - in the same Post interview, he imagined auto companies dropping models of their cars into the metaverse to let people test-drive them. With varying levels of skepticism, media coverage refers to the metaverse as "an expansive, digitized communal space where users can mingle freely with brands" or "a realm of culture and digital identity for brands to further discover their fullest potential."

This might not come as a shock to fans of Snow Crash, where brands have supplanted nations, or Ready Player One, where pop culture franchises have all but conquered reality. Fortunately, if it doesn't sound like much fun, there's still time to help shape the future of the metaverse - assuming it actually arrives.

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What is the metaverse, and do I have to care?

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In recent months you may have heard about something called the metaverse. Maybe you've read that the metaverse is going to replace the internet. Maybe we're all supposed to live there. Maybe Facebook (or Epic, or Roblox, or dozens of smaller companies) is trying to take it over.

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- Cleaning
- Bleaching
- Optical brightening agent
- Sourcing
- Mercerization
- Singed
- Shrinking

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Innovation in Fabric Dying & Finishing & What is Being Done to Reduce Water and Chemical usage  

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Innovation in Fabric Dying & Finishing & What is Being Done to Reduce Water and Chemical usage  

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Innovation in Fabric dying & finishing:
- New industrial solutions - new technology such as sono-based technnology which produces anti microbial textiles. This technology also allows them to remain effective towards viruses, such as covid-19
- Anti-microbial finish by natural ingredients
- Digital printing: fabric is sprayed rather than using chemicals for the printing. Does not have a minimum amount of fabric printing and uses less wastage, less water, sharper in quality, quicker, controllable.
- Airdying

What is being done to reduce water usage:
- Reusing wash water
- Countercurrent washing: less contaminated water for final wash is re-used for the next to lash wash
- Reducing carryover: water containing contaminants that is not removed is carried over which then contributes to washing inefficiency

What is being done to reduce chemical usage:
- Plasma processing for finishing:

As plasma is used at a low temperature, it decreases the risk of fabric damage.

The ability to apply plasma over a wide range of thermal, physical, and chemical temperatures allows for fine tailoring of fabric surface treatments.

Plasma is an environmentally friendly choice due to its dry treatment techniques.

- Implementation of nanotechnology:

Most sustainable technology

Textile fibers with diameters ranging from 1 to 100nm are used in this technology.

The sustainable implementation of nanotechnology in the textile industry can reduce the usage of harmful and toxic chemicals which damage the environment.

Natural Anti-bacterial agents:

Papaya (Seed and Leaf)

Aloe Vera

Neem

Banana (Leaf and Peel)

Mango

Pomegranate

Sericin

Chitosan

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What Sources Would you use to Collate your Information as a Buyer?

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What Sources Would you use to Collate your Information as a Buyer?

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- Use Edited, WGSN, Global data
- Articles such as Drapers, BOF, Retail Week
- Going into store (different stores) and try smaller stores or stores in different countries
- Social media
- Website

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- Personalised
- Partnerships
- Positioning
- Purpose

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What needs to be captured as part of a Comp Shop Report?

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What needs to be captured as part of a Comp Shop Report?

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- Current trends in store/online
- Pricing
- Marketing
- Promotion
- Colour options
- In store experience
- Sustainability
- Size range
- Country of origin
- Customer reviews
- In store experience - technology being used

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What is Inspirational/ Directional Shopping and why would you do one as a Buyer?

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What is Inspirational/ Directional Shopping and why would you do one as a Buyer?

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What is it?
- Thinking like your customers - what do they wish for
- Using technology that entertains and engages
- Comparing what other shops are doing - mainly more luxury designers
- What is your customer aspiring to

Why do we do it?
- Searching for new ideas/concepts
- Looking for updates of best sellers
- Looking for new product opportunities
- Getting confirmation of potential trend direction

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Where would you get Shopping Inspiration from as a Knitwear Buyer for AW22

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Where would you get Shopping Inspiration from as a Knitwear Buyer for AW22

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- Selfridges
- Prada
- Jacquemus
- Gucci
- Clubs / festivals
- Travel abroad (Canada, Scandinavian countries)
- Bloggers
- Vintage stores

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Music:
- Kanye West
- Madonna
- Spice Girls:
- Michael Jackson
- Destinys Child
- Britney Spears
Influencers & Celebrity:
- Marilyn Monroe
- The Kardashians
- Brangelina
Film & TV:
- Clueless
- Breakfast at Tiffanys
- Greese
- Friends

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A group presentation summarising the sourcing process from Africa, the benefits and disadvantages and why the fashion industry including retailers source from Africa.

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A Large-Scale Disruption in Container Shipping is Expected to Wreak Havoc on Retail This Christmas

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A Large-Scale Disruption in Container Shipping is Expected to Wreak Havoc on Retail This Christmas

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- There have been more than 50 ships waiting at the docks of the East China Sea since August due to a member of staff catching COVID at one of the terminals
- China has 8 of the top 10 busiest ports in the world and are running below capacity due to COVID restrictions
- U.S. has also seen bad congestion of ships
- Demand for consumer products was lower earlier in the pandemic as they mainly focused on purchasing essential goods
- Containers have become more expensive, thereby, forcing shipping companies to charge higher freight rates to cover the cost
- Concerned that this will put pressure on retailers during Christmas
- Brands such as Coach and Kate Spade have been stockpiling their handbags and accessories ahead of the holiday season to ensure they have enough stock to meet consumer demands

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Ningbo-Zhousan may not exactly be a household name, but find something in your house made in China - from apparel and accessories to tech gadgets and homewares - and it was likely delivered from there. Overlooking the East China Sea, some 200km south of Shanghai, Ningbo-Zhousan is China's second-busiest port, handling the equivalent of some 29 million 20-foot containers every year. As of mid-August, the port had more than 50 ships waiting to dock. This was because the Ningbo-Meishan terminal, which handles about one fifth of the port's total volumes, has been closed for a week after a member of staff tested positive for COVID.

While this proved to be a temporary, two-week shuttering of operations, it is merely the tip of the iceberg in shipping. China has eight of the top ten busiest ports in world, and they are running at well below normal capacity because of COVID restrictions. From Shanghai to Hong Kong to Xiamen, ships are in long queues to unload - and the diversions from Ningbo only made this worse. Not limited to China, the U.S. west coast has also seen bad congestion, with many ships anchored in California's San Pedro Bay, awaiting access to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

This drove the cost of shipping rates for containers through the roof in recent weeks, with the cost of moving a 40-foot container from China to Europe is currently running at around $14,000 or about ten times what it would normally be. So, how long will this continue, and what will the knock-on effects be?

The Pandemic and Other Problems

The situation is noticeably different than it was in 2020. COVID restrictions had, of course, weakened the cargo-handling capacity of ports then, but it was less of an issue because global demand for consumer products was so much lower earlier in the pandemic as consumers focused almost exclusively on essential goods as opposed to discretionary products. Now that many countries have vaccinated large numbers of people and their economies are reopening, demand has bounced back with a vengeance. Look for further than the latest revenue reports of luxury goods giants for proof. With consumers shopping again, ports are not coping well.

On top of that, there have been other problems, not least of which was the Suez Canal blockage in March. With ships stuck for a week after the huge Ever Given container ship got stranded, transport companies were under more pressure than usual to return to Asia after they finally reached their destinations in Europe and the Americas. As a result, many did not wait to be fully loaded with empty containers, which, in turn, contributed to a lack of shipping containers in Asia, something that was already becoming an issue because of ships not always calling in at their usual ports during the pandemic because demand was much lower than normal.

The upshot is that containers have become more expensive, thereby, forcing shipping companies to charge higher freight rates to cover the cost.

At the same time, weather has caused problems over the summer. Both the southern Chinese port of Yangtian and part of the port of Shanghai have spent periods closed in recent weeks because of typhoon alerts. The backlog has also been worsened by major importers baulking at the shipping costs and chartering their own ships instead. Home Depot, the big U.S. home improvement retailer, was among the companies that did this in June.

Looking Forward

There was actually a slight decrease in shipping rates in over an almost two-week period in mid-August, which prompted the Freightos Baltic Index - the metric for global container freight rates - to fall from $10,380 to $9,568 per 20-foot container. But this is nothing to get excited about. It broadly reflects the fact that the price of shipping goods from China to the U.S. has come down after many ships diverted to that route to make the most of the high prices. Other routes, such as China to Europe and Europe to the Americas, are still mostly going up in price.

As for whether this will continue, it is extremely difficult to say. Some freight companies have ordered new container ships to help address the shortage, but these vessels take two or three years to build. So, that is not going to make any difference in the short term.

What matters is future COVID outbreaks and to what extent China and other major port nations have to impose tough regulations to protect their populations. Perhaps, we will be lucky and the situation will steadily improve from here, or perhaps this mismatch between supply and demand will endure for several years. In the meantime, we can expect inflation to rise as importers pass on the costs of shipping to customers. Given that governments and central bankers were already worried about rising inflation for various other reasons, they could do without this extra dimension.

If the problem with shipping rates endures, it is also likely to feed into already-existing boardroom discussions - including among fashion and luxury goods purveyors - about whether it is wise to rely so heavily on China as the manufacturing hub of the world. With relations between China and the west already at a low, and much talk of globalization giving way to regionalization, many companies are already arguing that they should make more consumer goods closer to home - or prioritize " nearshoring," as it is known in the trade.

But more imminently, one big issue will be putting enormous pressure on retailers: Christmas. All of the ships that diverted from their usual China-Europe route to help serve the U.S. are cutting it close to get back to China in time to restock. The crossing takes about 45 days, and they need to then leave China by about mid-October to make the 35-day crossing to get goods to Europe in time for December. If there is still congestion at the Chinese ports by October, this may not be possible.

Against this background, many brands are busy preparing for the holiday season with a level of urgency that has not been felt in recent years. New York-based Tapestry, which owns the Coach and Kate Spade brands, has been "stockpiling its handbags and other accessories ahead of the holiday season to ensure it can meet consumer demand amid ongoing delays in the delivery of products from suppliers," Bloomberg reported last month.

"We find ourselves in a dynamic where the consumer demand backdrop is strong, while supply chain remains challenging," Scott Roe, Tapestry's chief financial officer, said in a quarterly earnings call in August, telling analysts and investors that the group is working overtime to "secure significant expedited deliveries, at an additional cost, in order to mitigate the impact of supply chain disruptions, at least through the holiday period."
Stavros Karamperidis is a Lecturer in Maritime Economics at the University of Plymouth. (This article was initially published by The Conversation)

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A Large-Scale Disruption in Container Shipping is Expected to Wreak Havoc on Retail This Christmas - The Fashion Law

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Ningbo-Zhousan may not exactly be a household name, but find something in your house made in China - from apparel and accessories to tech gadgets and homewares - and it was likely delivered from there. Overlooking the East China Sea, some 200km south of Shanghai, Ningbo-Zhousan is China's second-busiest port, handling the equivalent of some 29 million 20-foot containers every year.

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- To define a customer for a certain product that will sell, the following is required:

Age

Lifestyle

Location

Income

Interests

Buying patterns

Purchasing preferences

Stage of life

- A consumer profile is the description of the customer or a set of customers based on what they have in common.

Market segmentation:

Demographic: Age, city or region of residence, gender, race, ethnicity, or household composition.

Socioeconomic: Income, educational attainment, occupation, neighborhood, or association memberships.

Brand affinity/product usage: Product engagement, purchasing history, or level of brand loyalty.

Psychographics: Lifestyles, life stage, personality, attitudes, opinion, or voting behavior.

Generation: Specific generation cohort group.

Geography: Geographical area in which consumers reside and work.

Geodemographics: Combines geography and demographics, which may cluster into identifiable groups.

Benefits: What consumers are looking for when they shop for products and services.

- How fashion driven the customer is; are they fashion aware or do they prefer staple pieces that they can wear for a prolonged time.

How to use a consumer profile:

What will motivate them to find your business.

The benefits they are looking for.

Where they are most likely to interact with your advertising.

The messaging that will best appeal to their needs and wants.

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Every business should invest time and resources in creating consumer profiles of your ideal customers.

These profiles describe consumers based on different categories so they can be grouped for marketing and advertising purposes. By targeting advertising to a specific market segment, companies and marketers can find more success in selling a particular product and increase profits. Consumer profiles allow you to define and describe these market segments.

Consumer Profile Definition

Before marketing a product to potential customers, you will need to define your target customer based on their:

A consumer profile is a description of a customer, or a set of customers, based on the characteristics that they have in common.

Using Market Segmentation to Create Consumer Profiles

No matter how targeted your product, there will be some variations in your ideal customers. For example:

Your customers might all be the same age but live in different geographic regions.

You offer products at different price points to allow you to reach customers at different income levels.

You offer one product that can appeal to customers with different interests.

Some of your customers watch network TV, while others are more likely to see advertising on social media.

Creating multiple consumer profiles allows you to segment your customers based on these differences. You can then use this market segmentation to create advertising that is more successful with different groups of customers.

There are many different traits that can be used to segment customer groups, such as:

Demographic: Age, city or region of residence, gender, race, ethnicity, or household composition.

Socioeconomic: Income, educational attainment, occupation, neighborhood, or association memberships.

Brand affinity/product usage: Product engagement, purchasing history, or level of brand loyalty.

Psychographics: Lifestyles, life stage, personality, attitudes, opinion, or voting behavior.

Generation: Specific generation cohort group.

Geography: Geographical area in which consumers reside and work.

Geodemographics: Combines geography and demographics, which may cluster into identifiable groups.

Benefits: What consumers are looking for when they shop for products and services.

Consumer profiles are often used by market researchers, many of whom develop proprietary consumer profiles or use panels of consumers who have been classified according to their common attributes.

However, any business can and should create consumer profiles to allow for more targeted marketing and advertising. You don't have to work with a market research firm to develop useful consumer profiles.

Segmentation Systems for Creating Consumer Profiles

If you do want to use preexisting consumer profiles, there are many options available.

Market research firms often make their consumer profiles available for discrete market research projects that are conducted for their market research clients at large companies. There are several different examples of classification categories that market research firms use.

ABC1 is a common grouping strategy based on the professional job role of an individual, a person designated as the head-of-household, or the main contributor of income to a family. The termABC1 is shorthand for the first three socioeconomic groups in the taxonomy, which is:

A = Senior or higher managerial, administrative, or professional

B = Intermediate managerial, administrative, or professional

C1 = Supervisory or clerical, and junior managerial, administrative, or professional

C2 = Skilled manual workers

D = Semiskilled and unskilled manual workers

E = Everyone entirely dependent on public support (chronically ill, unemployed, elderly, disabled, and other reasons)

Lifestage and other special groups are mostly categorized according to proprietary consumer research or census-based research. Different countries associated specific percentages with each of the life stages groups. The standard taxonomy for life stage groups is:

Pre-Family or No Family: Younger than 45 who are not parents.

Family: Any age with at least one child younger than 16 still at home.

Third Age: Ages 45-64 with no children younger than 16 still at home.

Retired: Older than 65 with no children younger than 16 still at home.

ACORN (A Classification of Residential Neighborhoods) is a geodemographic segmentation used in the United Kingdom. The system uses census data on residential areas to categorize consumers based on income, education, ethnicity, and other traits. Postal codes then can be associated with specific ACORN categories because people who live in neighborhoods tend to share a number of attributes.

MOSAIC is a system of consumer classifications that covers consumers in 29 countries, including the United States, Australia, Eastern Asia, and Western Europe. It identifies 10 types of residential neighborhoods that can be found in cities around the globe and classifies more than 400 million households worldwide.

ESRI Community Tapestry is a system for classifying households in the United States. It divides U.S. neighborhoods 14 LifeModes, including:

Affluent Estates, Upscale Avenues, Uptown Individuals

Family Landscapes, GenXurban, Cozy Country Living

Ethnic Enclaves, Middle Ground, Senior Styles

Rustic Outposts, Midtown Singles, Hometown

Next Wave, Scholars and Patriots, Unclassified

These LifeModes are subdivided into more than 60 market segments such as Top Tier, Enterprising Professionals, Rustbelt Traditions, and Urban Villages.

CAMEO is a classification system that divides consumers into segments both within specific countries and around the world. CAMEO UK classifies households within the United Kingdom, while CAMEO International is a global system that segments customers across borders. CAMEO Global is the largest system of segmenting consumers in the world, covering buyers across 40 countries in Eastern and Western Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region.

PSYTE HD is a Canadian geodemographic system that uses postal codes to classify consumers into more than 50 groups based on lifestyle and neighborhood. It uses the Canadian census as well as third party data to create a comprehensive map of consumer behavior based on neighborhood.

How to Use a Consumer Profile

Once you have collected relevant information about your current and potential customers, creating consumer profiles that describe specific segments allow you to envision a person interested in your product. This gives you an in-depth understanding of:

What will motivate them to find your business.

The benefits they are looking for.

Where they are most likely to interact with your advertising.

The messaging that will best appeal to their needs and wants.

Once you have a clear picture of the type of customers your business should be targeting, you can create an appropriate marketing strategy. Your ideal customer profile will help you pinpoint the who, where, and how to reach potential consumers interested in what your business has to offer.

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How to Create the Ideal Consumer Profile

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Every business should invest time and resources in creating consumer profiles of your ideal customers. These profiles describe consumers based on different categories so they can be grouped for marketing and advertising purposes. By targeting advertising to a specific market segment, companies and marketers can find more success in selling a particular product and increase profits.

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How a buyer would build a good relationship with their suppliers

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1. What colours are to be delivered 24/11/2020
Charcoal, teal, black, grey marl, bottled green, white
2. What is the cost price of the polo in grey marl?
£3
3. How many units are on order for black?
3000
4. Who is the supplier, why might there be more than one?
Supreme Jersey and fast jersey - for quicker delivery
5. What is the launch date of the burnt orange, which other colour launches with it?
Charcoal and grey marl
6. What is the delivery date of the lemon polo?
22/02/2021
7. How many units are on order for teal?
1500
8. What is the chittagong, what is the shipment lead time, what shipment method is being used?
Chittagong is in bangladesh - shipment method is by boat and shipment lead time is around 4 weeks

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What is the Role of the Garment Technologist

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What is the Role of the Garment Technologist

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Responsibilities:
- Working with the design team to make sure design suits production methods
- Finding and choosing suitable accessories and fabrics
- Planning the sizing and making up of garments
- Working with pattern graders to size pre-production garments and advising cutters and machinists on making up samples
- Work closely with Buying, Design, Merchandising and supply base
- Evaluate quality of the final product
- Establish and maintain relationships with suppliers, sourcing regions and technical labs
- Risk assess products in terms of safety and analyse test reports

Skills:
- Ability to work well with hands
- Good verbal communication skills
- Knowledge of maths
- The ability to analyse quality/performance
- Garment construction and manufacturing knowledge

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- Consider the number of stores
- Average of how much is spent by the customer
- Amount of storage space in the store
- Budget
- Trend and how it performed before

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1.  Who is responsible for the critical path?
- BAA
2. What is a lab dip and why do you need them?
- Dyed fabric sample needed to meet colour standards of a designer
- consistency for the customer
- matching colour story for
3. What is a strike off?
Print production sample

4. What is a first fit, second fit , sealer, production sample.
- First fit refers to the first fitting session to get an idea of what the product looks like on
- The second fit is when the item will come back for re-fit after adjustments
- Sealer is the last sample submitted before the supplier starts production
- Production sample is the final sample of the finished garment

5. When can you expect trim cards to come for approval?
Once the final product has been completed

6. What kind of tests would you need?
- Hypoallergenic
- If the item is suitable for wear - not itchy or harmful
- Testing for any needles left in the garment
- Make sure that dye does not transfer

7. What is bulk fabric?
- The fabric that has been bought for the order and bought by the factory for your specific order

8. What is a bulk test report?

9. What areas are short lead and which are long lead?
- Turkey
- Anywhere in EU (Spain, Italy, Portugal)

10. WHAT CAN GO WRONG?
- Fits can go wrong
- Prints can be incorrect
- Colours

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Negotiation Key Words:
- Persuasion
- Influence
- Intuition
- Bargaining
- Compromise
- Influence
- Assertiveness
- Relationships
- Logic
- Rapport
- Empathy
- Emotions
- Effective

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What are the Roles & Responsibilities of a High Street Buyer 

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What are the Roles & Responsibilities of a High Street Buyer 

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- Assessing the critical path
- Product development from a catwalk item to high street style
- Keeping up to date with market trends
- Keeping up with competition
- Working with designers and garment tech
- Understanding customer
- Working with designer to create product strategy
- Range planning and selection
- Negotiating price (quantity and delivery dates)

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What are the differences between the roles at Zara and Selfridges 

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What are the differences between the roles at Zara and Selfridges 

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ZARA:
- Shorter lead times
- Busier schedules
- Keeping up with trends quicker
- Ordering a high quantity of garments
- Discounts
- Carries out inspirational shopping trips
- Works directly with deisgners
- Works with merchandiser

Selfridges:
- More luxury buying
- Ordering lower quantity of garments
- May not meet with suppliers directly
- Consider store layout
- Visiting trade shows
- Works with sales/account manager
- Managing expectations with seniors
- Exclusive items (earlier release dates, exclusive items in particular stores

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What Events and Meetings might you attend as a Branded Buyer

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What Events and Meetings might you attend as a Branded Buyer

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- Trade shows
- Catwalks LFW, MFW, NYFW
- Forecast meetings
- Meetings with the designers, garment tech, merchandisers
- Sourcing events
- Colour shows
- Movie premiers - Cannes Film Festival

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Maggi Mattioni 3D Designer: Presentation on 3D Design and Technology

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Maggi Mattioni 3D Designer: Presentation on 3D Design and Technology

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Nicholas Lambert - Primark Cares: Presentation on Greenwashing & Sustainability 

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Nicholas Lambert - Primark Cares: Presentation on Greenwashing & Sustainability 

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For our group challenge we were given the beachwear product category to focus on. Within our group we split up sections for each person to do, then individually adding further information into each slide.

We first thought about the target market for the brand before deciding on the range plan. Although this was difficult to figure out due to the diversity of the brand, we managed to conclude a target market where we could focus on which products to add to our range.

We decided to go for a sarong, bucket hat, sunglasses and a headscarf. However, after doing our comp shop in which myself, Ines and Riin visited Selfridges, we came up with the idea to create a towel bag. This idea was taken from one of the items we saw in Selfridges which was a short and shirt set made of a towelling fabric. Thereafter it was decided that we would remove the sunglasses from our range and add a towel bag.

On return from our comp shop, we wanted to add a concept to the range and decided to use UV technology in our garments. A further concept we decided to add was multi-use and multi-purpose. We added this into the range by making the end result of our bucket hat, sarong, towel bag and scarf multi-use. The bucket hat, sarong and scarf were made to be reversible, where one side of the item is a print and the other side a plain colour.

For further sustainability efforts, we decided to create bio-degradable packaging, which can also have different uses as it has been developed to be re-used.

Overall, the challenge was an experience in which we worked as a team to think of different concepts and sustainability efforts for our range. The group worked well together as everyone was in agreement when deciding on our range. Everyone had an idea which was implemented into the presentation as everyone was knowledgable in different areas.