Building A Fashion Brand
At Stateless, we have two main departments: product and brand. While the importance of having quality products is more tangible and clear, branding contributes equally to the ultimate success of most apparel businesses. In this article, we will go through what branding is exactly, why it is particularly important in the context of fashion, and what are the essential elements you need to consider when launching a fashion brand.
WHAT IS BRANDING?
First, to avoid confusion in the context of fashion, the word “brand” is often used as a synonym for “company”. When you refer to a fashion brand, you're often just referring to a fashion company. But for our purposes, a brand is the visual and verbal identity of a company.
Some try to boil it down to a name and logo, but a brand is much more than that. A good brand is a very particular feeling, and that feeling is woven into your products and everything that surrounds them. This does include your logo, but it also includes your messaging, typography, photography, website, and much more. The brand can also be used to inform certain product decisions because you want everything in your company to encapsulate that specific feeling, and that definitely includes your products. The feeling can also inform what your company culture is, the design decisions behind your office or store environments, or if you are hosting a pop-up event, it can even inform what music is being played or what food is being served. What makes a brand successful more than anything is cohesion, so you want to pull that specific feeling through everything your company creates, and in doing so, create a distinct brand world.
WHY IS BRANDING IMPORTANT?
In fashion, branding is building a new world that you're inviting customers to step inside. You're building an emotional connection with your customer every time you offer them this escape into your world. Even if your product is something as simple as socks, if the experience and journey that surrounds and leads your customer to discovering and buying your socks is memorable and transportive, then you've given your customer a positive association with your socks that they then carry with them every time they wear the socks. And that’s what will keep your customer coming back for more. That feeling and positive association is going to help separate your socks from any other socks on the market, because the experience and feeling surrounding the socks is much more powerful than the socks themselves.
A prime example of this is Ralph Lauren. Every time you interact with their brand - whether it be their websites, runway shows, photoshoots or even their restaurants - you're experiencing Ralph's particular take on Americana. Throughout its 50+ year existence, the Ralph Lauren brand has maintained a specific feeling through everything it's created, and the emotional connection and comfort created by that consistent feeling is what allows Ralph Lauren to continue to grow despite other companies imitating its products. Companies that don’t place emphasis on creating a distinct brand world, and rather rely solely on the innovation of their products, tend to plateau or decline over time, because they lack that emotional connection and customer loyalty.
FINDING YOUR VISION
Stateless brand consultants take our clients through a discovery process that helps them define and articulate their brand visions. In order to find a distinct identity, we asked some questions such as “if your brand was a smell or a song, what would it be?” Ultimately we're trying to have each answer form that cohesive feeling. Let's say your company is making gear for skateboarders. The answers to these questions might be easier because there's already a specific culture surrounding the sport of skateboarding. However, you still might want to consider bringing in an unexpected element. Let's say that unexpected element is Wes Anderson movies - what would that feel like? As you explore that, you start to create your own lane and separate yourself from the punk rock vibe that is more typically associated with skater brands, and now you're opening yourself up to a whole different type of audience - a niche audience that can become a strong, loyal foundation on which to build your brand.
To bring it back to Ralph Lauren, his brand elements were classic Americana combined with the sport of Polo. Ultimately, his brand has very little to do with the sport of Polo, but drawing inspiration from that culture helped him to find a unique feeling that he could build upon and incorporate no matter what products his company produces.
At Stateless, once we have that world and feeling clearly defined, our team of graphic designers, content creators, and web developers uses it to start to develop the essential brand assets you need to launch. These assets include your logo, color palette, core messaging, brand system, visual and verbal brand guidelines, packaging, product and lifestyle photography, and e-commerce website. Our goal is to give you everything you need to start marketing your products, and to maintain brand cohesion as you grow.
Check out our branding work and contact us for more information!
MARCH 26, 2022