3 Ways to Make Your Apparel Brand Connect

You may have heard of a little brand called Gucci. According to analysis published last month in Business of Fashion, Gucci is the hottest selling brand on the planet. While labels like Gucci occupy a high-concept, high price niche, all brands can draw lessons from their success. In this highly-competitive industry, what does it take to make your apparel brand connect with your customers?

Making Connections in a Competitive Landscape

If you’re in the business, you already know what a competitive industry fashion can be. However, fashion and apparel aren’t simply business. Fundamentally, it thrives on creativity from concept and design to marketing to making an apparel brand connect with customers across multiple channels. It all comes down to knowing two things. First, know yourself. Then, know for whom you’re creating. Make everything else connect those two points.

Lead With Your Aesthetic

So what makes Gucci the hottest brand in the world? After all, it isn’t for everybody. As GQ recently wrote, “Gucci’s clothes are not for the faint of heart (or the light of wallet).” But, Gucci does have Alessandro Michele and a strong and distinct aesthetic point of view that lends itself to digital channels. According to BoF, this has helped Gucci connect with millennial and younger consumers. You can’t necessarily predict changing tastes, but you can still have a clear creative point of view that resonates with your target customers. Your aesthetic can guide the way you sell your products to those consumers.

Stay Fresh to Make Your Apparel Brand Connect

Some brands in the BoF analysis appeared to succeed by collaborating with other brands. This kind of cross pollination works particularly for highly visible luxury designers and labels. After all, as BoF points out, the sector is driven by “established” luxury consumers. Presumably, these customers know big fashion names. Thus, they respond to the novelty of such new-yet-familiar collaborations. While collaboration won’t work for a lot of brands, the newness factor remains paramount in apparel. The graphic-driven internet, social media, and eCommerce continue to shorten sales cycles. Brands need to refresh their aesthetic at higher frequency than even a decade ago.

Connect Across All Channels

The technology trends that brought fashion to that fever pitch will save you. Social media and eCommerce help you find and connect with customers wherever they live. Meanwhile, integrated technology enables brands to get their products from the factory to the warehouse to the customers’ hands. Your customers may shop in a particular kind of retail store, on your website, through a marketplace, or any combination of these channels. The modern landscape may look complex. However, the tools exist to connect your product to your customers. These will let you stock up, fulfill, dispatch and replenish in pace with demand, regardless of how you sell.