Last Christmas, many gift shoppers traded in the legwork in exchange for their credit card numbers. Whether to save time or duck the cold, online shopping received a huge boost: a full million customers signed up for Amazon Prime, a service guaranteeing two-day delivery, during the third week of December alone. E-commerce accounted for over 15% of the holiday period’s total sales – and it hasn’t slowed down since. Whether shopping for others or ourselves, mall hopping is getting old.
The blessing of being productive in pyjama pants with a coffee mug in hand isn’t the only result of our new habit: retailers must adapt too. Just about every well-known brand has had to create an online store to stay competitive. Seeing Zara and Topshop make moves online, then, is no surprise – but the mechanics of e-commerce also create more interesting opportunities. Thirty dollars a month for a web hosting is far less than rent for some two thousand square feet downtown. Overhead costs are dramatically lower. Space optimization is a non-issue. Customers are no longer limited by geographic proximity.
In other words e-commerce is, for retailers, cheaper and less constraining.
If the need for million-dollar investments and artistic compromises is reduced, the marketplace suddenly becomes accessible to smaller, more creative brands. The big corporations may not be close to sinking, but every time you shop online you help level the playing field. After all, there are many more alternatives to Zara in the dot com than in the mall.
This is causing a full-on revolution in the retail world and no one saw it coming better than Stefan Siegel, founder of the digital platform NOT JUST A LABEL (NJAL). Set up in 2008, NJAL is an online community, news source and shop created to foster and showcase the boldest designers and thinkers in fashion. “Our aim is to realize the Internet’s potential to be used as a networking platform for fashion designers,” says Siegel. “I feel that nowadays, emerging designers are dictating the future of the global fashion industry, whereas before it was always held in the hands of financial corporations. When it works, art and business make an incredible partnership.” To him the key to the empowerment of emerging designers was the Internet, a tool democratic by nature.
Sebastian Ferraro, one of the creative directors of ready-to-wear brand Not Guilty Homme, echoes the sentiment. His label, he says, “embodies a casual and cool downtown style, fusing unconventional detailing with a laid-back Mediterranean aesthetic”, a combination of elements that targets a very specific consumer. Without e-commerce, it likely would have never found a global audience: “Online shopping allows brands like ours to get places they traditionally couldn’t get. People from everywhere can learn about our work and that’s positive.” Now Not Guilty Homme, still distributed mainly online, is garnering buzz all over the globe thanks to a beautiful Sebastian Sauvé-fronted lookbook and equally strong SS14 collection.
Of course, a level playing field wouldn’t mean a thing if consumers still wanted to play it safe but Siegel and Ferraro both argue that having access to an unlimited number of items, brands and collections is changing preferences at the root. “Our customer reflects a change in how people approach fashion,” Siegel notes. “They are on the hunt for individualism in fashion. They prefer niche companies to mega-brands, and products with a meaning and real, lasting value. What you wear speaks volumes about you.” To put it plainly, the more options there are, the less appealing the middle of the road looks.
To Ferraro this quest for individualism means having a strong brand personality is more important than ever: “What consumers want is clearly changing. Now people have access to the entire global fashion industry, no matter where they live. As a result they started seeking brands they really identify with. They want to know the details. They want to know the people behind the clothes.”
Consumers now want more than a garment: they want a story. Gone are the days where brands were nothing more than their merchandise – another change Siegel saw coming. “NJAL is an example of how a website can let designers really show what their brand is about. A designer can upload their fashion films, videos from their shows, and the history of their label. Their profile shows all of their collections in one place, allowing a viewer to see how the brand has evolved over time, and the designer has the chance to explain the inspirations and motivations behind each collection. There’s only so much text you can fit on a physical label, and our online space gives more room for our designers to speak and help their customers understand and fully appreciate each product they buy.”
The shift towards online shopping is not without its perils. Beyond the obvious practical limitations such as delivery time and the inability to try on the garments, e-commerce and its unlimited supply is accelerating the pace of consumption and shortening the lifespans of trends. Ferraro argues that having an online presence “also carries great work and responsibility, because, as we know, everything is going very fast.” The idea is to make good work and fresh visions more available, not make them increasingly disposable.
Siegel too feels strongly about the topic. “With £23 billion spent each year on two million tonnes of clothing in the UK and 50% of this going to UK landfill, we must accept something is simply wrong with our retail industry. Clothes bought on the high street are worn an average of four times before they are thrown away. The mainstream fashion industry’s reliance on global, mass-production and faster-than-ever-stock-turnaround is a threat to natural resources that can no longer be ignored.”
The good news is these emerging designers who are gaining ground on the big businesses are far likelier to put care and time in designing and manufacturing their collections than the fast-fashion giants. In fact when looking for new talent to represent, NOT JUST A LABEL puts as much emphasis on sustainability as it does on design. “We represent an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacture of clothing which maximizes benefits to people and communities while minimizing impact on the environment. I want to see the end of the $2 T-shirt; fast-fashion retailers have survived too long on consumers’ demand for cheap designer rip-offs and their distorted views on value.”
E-commerce is still young, and much could change over the years. But if shopping online because I don’t feel like lacing up my boots is giving the likes of Stefan Siegel and Sebastian Ferraro a voice, I’ll gladly play my part.
Last Christmas, many gift shoppers traded in the legwork in exchange for their credit card numbers. Whether to save time or duck the cold, online shopping received a huge boost: a full million customers signed up for Amazon Prime, a service guaranteeing two-day delivery, during the third week of December alone. E-commerce accounted for over 15% of the holiday period’s total sales – and it hasn’t slowed down since. Whether shopping for others or ourselves, mall hopping is getting old.
The blessing of being productive in pyjama pants with a coffee mug in hand isn’t the only result of our new habit: retailers must adapt too. Just about every well-known brand has had to create an online store to stay competitive. Seeing Zara and Topshop make moves online, then, is no surprise – but the mechanics of e-commerce also create more interesting opportunities. Thirty dollars a month for a web hosting is far less than rent for some two thousand square feet downtown. Overhead costs are dramatically lower. Space optimization is a non-issue. Customers are no longer limited by geographic proximity.
In other words e-commerce is, for retailers, cheaper and less constraining.
If the need for million-dollar investments and artistic compromises is reduced, the marketplace suddenly becomes accessible to smaller, more creative brands. The big corporations may not be close to sinking, but every time you shop online you help level the playing field. After all, there are many more alternatives to Zara in the dot com than in the mall.
This is causing a full-on revolution in the retail world and no one saw it coming better than Stefan Siegel, founder of the digital platform NOT JUST A LABEL (NJAL). Set up in 2008, NJAL is an online community, news source and shop created to foster and showcase the boldest designers and thinkers in fashion. “Our aim is to realize the Internet’s potential to be used as a networking platform for fashion designers,” says Siegel. “I feel that nowadays, emerging designers are dictating the future of the global fashion industry, whereas before it was always held in the hands of financial corporations. When it works, art and business make an incredible partnership.” To him the key to the empowerment of emerging designers was the Internet, a tool democratic by nature.
Sebastian Ferraro, one of the creative directors of ready-to-wear brand Not Guilty Homme, echoes the sentiment. His label, he says, “embodies a casual and cool downtown style, fusing unconventional detailing with a laid-back Mediterranean aesthetic”, a combination of elements that targets a very specific consumer. Without e-commerce, it likely would have never found a global audience: “Online shopping allows brands like ours to get places they traditionally couldn’t get. People from everywhere can learn about our work and that’s positive.” Now Not Guilty Homme, still distributed mainly online, is garnering buzz all over the globe thanks to a beautiful Sebastian Sauvé-fronted lookbook and equally strong SS14 collection.
Of course, a level playing field wouldn’t mean a thing if consumers still wanted to play it safe but Siegel and Ferraro both argue that having access to an unlimited number of items, brands and collections is changing preferences at the root. “Our customer reflects a change in how people approach fashion,” Siegel notes. “They are on the hunt for individualism in fashion. They prefer niche companies to mega-brands, and products with a meaning and real, lasting value. What you wear speaks volumes about you.” To put it plainly, the more options there are, the less appealing the middle of the road looks.
To Ferraro this quest for individualism means having a strong brand personality is more important than ever: “What consumers want is clearly changing. Now people have access to the entire global fashion industry, no matter where they live. As a result they started seeking brands they really identify with. They want to know the details. They want to know the people behind the clothes.”
Consumers now want more than a garment: they want a story. Gone are the days where brands were nothing more than their merchandise – another change Siegel saw coming. “NJAL is an example of how a website can let designers really show what their brand is about. A designer can upload their fashion films, videos from their shows, and the history of their label. Their profile shows all of their collections in one place, allowing a viewer to see how the brand has evolved over time, and the designer has the chance to explain the inspirations and motivations behind each collection. There’s only so much text you can fit on a physical label, and our online space gives more room for our designers to speak and help their customers understand and fully appreciate each product they buy.”
The shift towards online shopping is not without its perils. Beyond the obvious practical limitations such as delivery time and the inability to try on the garments, e-commerce and its unlimited supply is accelerating the pace of consumption and shortening the lifespans of trends. Ferraro argues that having an online presence “also carries great work and responsibility, because, as we know, everything is going very fast.” The idea is to make good work and fresh visions more available, not make them increasingly disposable.
Siegel too feels strongly about the topic. “With £23 billion spent each year on two million tonnes of clothing in the UK and 50% of this going to UK landfill, we must accept something is simply wrong with our retail industry. Clothes bought on the high street are worn an average of four times before they are thrown away. The mainstream fashion industry’s reliance on global, mass-production and faster-than-ever-stock-turnaround is a threat to natural resources that can no longer be ignored.”
The good news is these emerging designers who are gaining ground on the big businesses are far likelier to put care and time in designing and manufacturing their collections than the fast-fashion giants. In fact when looking for new talent to represent, NOT JUST A LABEL puts as much emphasis on sustainability as it does on design. “We represent an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacture of clothing which maximizes benefits to people and communities while minimizing impact on the environment. I want to see the end of the $2 T-shirt; fast-fashion retailers have survived too long on consumers’ demand for cheap designer rip-offs and their distorted views on value.”
E-commerce is still young, and much could change over the years. But if shopping online because I don’t feel like lacing up my boots is giving the likes of Stefan Siegel and Sebastian Ferraro a voice, I’ll gladly play my part.