“Collette Dinnigan, Lisa Ho and Kirrily Johnston are designers just like me and I’m not ignorant about the fact that there are hundreds of us out there. As fashion designers we must identify what sets us apart. If you do not have a unique selling point that takes away people’s pain it will not matter how beautiful your frocks are or what celebrity you’ve dressed… it’s simply about thinking differently around traditional business models – especially with the encroaching digital platforms.” Annah Stretton.
For many years I have made reference to myself as being in the business of fashion rather than attaching the much coveted ‘designer’ title to myself. I have also been about building a sustainable business platform in an industry that is peppered with failure, where even some of our most capable are hitting the fashion death row.
So what is it that makes it so difficult for the extremely capable and talented fashion designer to survive and are they all getting into financial difficulty or are some, as Collette Dinnigan states, simply winding down as the time is right.
I suppose the first thing we need to consider is that it is extremely difficult to sell a fashion business that has been carefully crafted against a designer’s name in Australia or New Zealand. Any that have achieved these sales often watch from the side line as their much loved label shrivels and dies at the hands of new owners. So even if a brand doesn’t face financial decline or have a very real succession plan, they will often be forced to consider an end date, as Dinnigan has alluded to in her reasoning around closure.
I have often thought that without the very real interest of my daughter in my business model that there may have to be a closing date positioned into the business plan, as it would never be an option to watch my business die in the hands of another.
In New Zealand it would appear a doomed brand is often destined for the bigger departments store racks; hoping to fool the original customer into thinking the label lives on but simply retails from a different platform… which in fact could not be further from the truth as the generic end takes over producing product that fits perfectly with the requirements of their customer demographic and is worn proudly by them as this was a label that was restrictive around price when produced in its original state.
The platforms we all operate from today in the fashion industry continue to change. This change is driven by the digital juggernaut that is the internet. Whilst some businesses believe the large baby bomber population have yet to adopt, they couldn’t be further from the truth.
Success in retail today is about thinking differently around the traditional business model. Let’s consider a single cell retail store i.e. one that simply sells a single brand to the consumer (the biggest platform of operation in Australia and New Zealand) in it truest sense by starting at the beginning of the customer’s journey.
So we seek a new pair of red shoes for that looming occasion. Before the internet we’d grab a friend and destination our favourite shopping malls or strips. In doing so we navigate weather, parking and location challenges, disinterested shop assistants and lack lustre and limited stock levels as retailers manage their cash flow by skimping on people and product.
Enter the internet and the wonderful Google search engines. We key in red shoes and the selections are numerous. We locate the website that suits us best, find the shoes, pay the money and find that there is no extra freight cost and returns are unquestioned (unlike the physical counterpart).
Sure there were initially apprehensions around the fit and look when purchasing digitally but close up zoom ins on the products enable a relatively good look at the item and hey, you can always return, no questions asked if it’s not exactly what you want.
Fashion. It’s such a fickle space to be. Designers with very little business ability, a bucket load of passion and their success yardstick being the number of high profile celebrities that agree to wear their frocks.
Unfortunately in Australia and New Zealand we do not have the celebrity culture of the USA. No one cares and certainly in New Zealand I see very little outcome from this supposed celebrity endorsement other than the return of a dirty and often damaged frock (that’s if it’s even returned at all).
The true measure has to be the ‘everyday woman’… the one that has the cheque book, the one that has influence over a large group of her friends, the rampant ‘selfie’ taker that posts herself to the social media platforms continually looking gorgeous in your frocks.
So many in physical retail are simply optimistic of a turnaround in their fortunes and they are endeavouring to ride out the difficult times thinking ‘haven’t we just come out of a recession?’ Wake up! These are different times so you have to do things differently. If you sell frocks, you have thousands of competitors. So how the hell do you set yourself apart?
You will need to look consistently for your unique selling point. What is it the sets you apart? We have done several things.
Firstly we have created a multi-fit, fully reversible dress, the Chameleon that is now between 25 to 30 per cent of our turnover. This is a wrap dress that takes away so much of a woman’s pain around finding and owning a great frock that never goes out of fashion. It is multi-fit so it gets rid of her fat days (show me a woman that doesn’t have these). It’s fully machine washable and has a crushed appearance so when you roll up in a twisted ball to transport there is no ironing needed – the perfect travel accompaniment. It’s anti-fashion (doesn’t date), can be worn so many different ways and we provide 101 instructions to effect this and it’s also available in several colour combinations.
I could go on as this dress is truly a superstar but it is more an example of how we looked at where the pain points were for a woman and started to provide solutions.
Secondly was the establishment of the Birds of a Feather collaborative stores. These large spaces were all about inspiring and engaging women and getting her back into the retail spaces she was leaving. We looked at all her touch points, all the things she loved to be around… frocks, shoes, coffee, wine, flowers, chocolates, homewares and beauty and started to provide it all under one roof. And it worked! We created mini department stores but with a much more cohesive feel that also offered eventing spaces that in turn introduced a wider demographic of women to the brand.
These stores are run by women that had an absolute connection to the brand and the customer. Some of my team of intrapreneurs – women channelling their own business dreams and vision through our platform of operation (and yes, they can earn more doing this than operating their own business which many of them have had in the past) have reached six figure incomes with no ceilings.
Thirdly, I have strategically thought about my digital presence and the messages I send. We supply a constant stream of information via the social media sites, our websites and blog. We keep these platforms current and constant – authenticity is key to their success.
By the end of the year we have targeted the Annah Stretton website to be the highest turnover store in the group of 30. Conversation on the digital platforms is about having people engage with the total brand offering that is Annah Stretton. This can also be done through my books. My latest and third book titled Rock the Boat is all about getting women to think differently about what they can achieve, the lives they can and deserve to lead and the contributions they can make.
We all need to sit comfortably in our own skin, not fear the opinions of others, the stigma of failure or the difficult conversations. It’s about living a great life and dealing with the tough stuff along the way.
So as with anything we do it’s important to observe what is happening around us, the changes that are occurring in the environment and just as we do when we initialise a business, we need to be mindful of our competitor’s offerings.
Act to change your environment rather than wait for your environment to change you.
Annah Stretton is the founder of the Annah Stretton fashion label and is a wildly successful New Zealand entrepreneur, author and speaker. With an online following of over 210,000, over 30 retail stores, three books and a strong business leadership programme under her belt, Annah frequently appears in the media and on stage discussing everything from entrepreneurialism, living fearlessly, females in the work force, right through to her philanthropic efforts like the Million for a Million campaign in which she teamed up with Westpac to help inspire one million New Zealanders to commit to a healthier lifestyle and thus, reduce the nations obesity levels. In September this year Annah released her third book, Rock the Boat. She has also been the recipient of the coveted Veuve Clicquot Award.
www.rocktheboatbook.com, www.annahstretton.com, www.annahstretton.me