What does it take to create a brand? How to create your own clothing brand? Types of brands

Identify three significant trends in your field

Start building your personal brand by looking for opportunities. Take a step back from the reality around you, the past and the future. To identify market trends, think about the changes that have taken place in your industry recently. It can be: going into virtual reality, simplification (or, conversely, complication), bias towards a certain style, and so on.

Come up with the best business idea

Your personal experience is what counts. Try to cover the demand that already exists. It's much easier. Come up with a lot of ideas, then focus on one, or find an opportunity to work on an idea that you've been thinking about for a long time, but you never had time for it. That's all. Answer the following questions. What are your common interests with other people? What area do you have experience in? In what areas can you identify a problem and offer a new business idea, service or product? Can you improve an existing service or product? Now name the best idea that you think about all the time but never have time for.

Realize your motivation

The main thing in life is drive. You need to find those things that stimulate you and meet your interests. Think about what you have to offer the world that motivates you. For example, one of the interests is to see how people grow. Find personal abilities that are fun to use, that motivate you, and help others. Once you have the answers to the following questions, you will be able to identify your aspirations, dreams, mission, and values.

• What motivates and energizes you?
• What are you really good at?
• How will it help others and what will be of value to them?
• Think of three experiences that made you happy, upset, and angered.

Now compare your interests with the interests of the company you work for. If they match, then great! If not, there is reason to think.

Describe your vision for the future

Try to complete this task as quickly as possible. Make a list of what you want to achieve in the most important areas of your life. And not only in the profession. A professional wish list is very important, but it needs to fit in with all the other really important areas of your life: personal life, health, career, friends, family, finances, leisure, and spiritual life. Consider the needs of those you love, your financial situation, your income, your desire to travel, your rational or emotional desires. If you find it difficult to take this step, try writing your own obituary. Take a look at your life. Ask yourself what you would like to be remembered for and what you would like to achieve. Focus only on the most important points.

Get feedback

Now it is approximately clear what you want from life, but does this desire reflect your reality? What are you broadcasting to the world? To understand what impression you make, you need feedback. Ask people you respect - those who may have observed you and who you think are genuinely interested in your development - to describe your strengths, weaknesses, and how you behave in specific situations. Ask what is special and unique about you. Ask them what they think are your greatest strengths as well as your biggest weaknesses. Ask for their professional advice. Do it right now.

Write your personal charter/slogan

The main thing is to express your values ​​​​and the image of the future in one phrase. Description of purpose answers three main questions: what do you do? who are you doing this for? what is the use of this? This will be not only your charter, but also a slogan.

Define your goals

We figured out where you want to go in the future (your dream) and what you need to do to get there (your mission). Now let's think about the goal. When you identify a specific goal and focus on it, it seems that moments associated with it appear everywhere. Selective attention works. When you realize you want to buy a red Ducati, you immediately start seeing more red Ducatis on the street than you've ever seen before. It's the same with opportunities: if you're looking for them, you'll see them. If not, how can you see, notice and identify them? The goal should be measurable, feasible and highly motivating. Let's focus on three main goals. Write for each the five most important tasks for the first, second and third year (starting this year).

Develop your visual identity

Now let's turn to strategy and plan tactics for how to convey to people your essence, your style, your beliefs and your sense of tact online and offline, how to put them into practice. Now you need to determine the key elements of visual identity that you would like to have. Start with a logo and font. Choose a designer who understands you and your business and can develop a style that you feel like your own and that you identify with. The visual identity also includes the color scheme. Write down two or three colors that you think reflect who you are and, most importantly, that you feel comfortable in. Think of photographs that capture who you are. If necessary, book a professional photo session.

From email signature to website

Let's talk about your marketing and communication. Basic must-haves: business card, email signature, website and blog, header of your emails, invoices, envelopes, labels, thank you cards and of course a presentation template. Especially important is your signature in emails, which will reach more people than a business card. An ideal email template usually includes the following: a company logo, the sender's signature, a link to the company's website, and official information about the company, which includes registration number, place of incorporation, official office address, and a liability warning.

Your references are a confirmation or demonstration of your essence, qualifications, skills, abilities and achievements, a portfolio of your best work, your beliefs and philosophy (future vision, mission and values), customer reviews, articles and awards you have received during your work. They should contain the most relevant content that will convince your potential clients to offer you a job. A portfolio can be in the form of a book, brochure, presentation, video, website, or an eye-catching combination of some or all of these. Your references can be your personal website and/or blog, where anyone can go and see who you are and what you have to offer. Every six months, evaluate where you are: are you creating, are you growing as a person, trying to stand out? Repeat the process of going through personal creative branding. Enjoy it. You will understand that your life is subject to priorities.

told how to make your own clothing brand in Russia. Look At Me publishes a transcription of the master class.

The domestic fashion industry is in disgrace. People like to talk about it, hold round tables, discuss it, but in reality, little happens. There is even a myth that it is uninteresting and unprofitable to do this. We would like to dispel this myth: doing this is not only interesting and profitable, but you can do it without prejudice to your own sense of style and taste.

The fashion industry is production, press and shops. Production is both design, fabric manufacturing and tailoring, and the production of accessories. Without the press, the industry cannot exist either, because people need to know about you. And without shops, too, because sales are the main thing.

Every company has a concept. We used to think it was a stupid thing, but then we realized what it was for. It is necessary that each employee understands what he is doing and why. So we sat down and wrote what our Oh, my brand is about and what we want to do. And we want to make in Russia a brand of inexpensive knitwear that in all respects corresponds to the level of a stable European brand. And focus it not only on the Russian market, but make it recognizable and sold throughout the global fashion community.

You need to understand if there is a niche for you in the market. In Russia, on the one hand, there is a lot of luxury, and on the other hand, there are a huge number of retail chains where you rarely find something interesting. And there is a void between them. Of course, there are good brands of non-banal and at the same time inexpensive designer clothes that each of us can buy. But these brands are not so many that they form some kind of trend. We realized that there is a hole in the market, and we may well begin to fill it.

It is very important to have blind faith in yourself. Because in addition to some objective aspects of business and work, there is magic when everything seems to grow together by itself. But the business component is also very important, nothing will work without calculation. What we sew will have to be sold in such a way that we can then re-sew and, perhaps, even earn money.

Suppose we want to launch a clothing brand by September. We have three months, in which, having nothing but a certain amount of funds, we may well be in time. The time plan is divided into stages of work. Each stage - in turn on a step-by-step process on the way to finished things.

For starters, we just surfed the internet and collected pictures that we liked. We clearly understood that we wanted to make inexpensive good knitwear. There is American Apparel, there is H&M, there are a lot of other things, but we don’t have such a brand of our own. After collecting a lot of pictures, we decided what we want to do things. We had several categories of things: T-shirts, T-shirts, long sleeves, turtlenecks and hoodies.

Models must be decided by June 6th. Until June 11 - draw sketches. At the same time, you need to search for a constructor who will do all this for you, because you don’t know how to design. The designer is a professional, and he will eventually understand what you want. The design process, if the collection is small and things are more or less similar (for example, 10 simple dresses), takes a month. The designer can be hired on the side, or you can take on the staff.

In parallel, you need to look for fabric and accessories. There is nowhere to buy fabric in Russia. And good fittings too - so that it was cheap. We have stores, we have warehouses, but what is sold there is expensive and not of the best quality. Therefore, we order fabric in the Baltic States, which in the end is cheaper than buying it here. Finding all this is not difficult if you have Google and Yandex. You find a supplier, he sends you samples, and you, having already walked around the shops and warehouses with us, understand what you want. You can buy a T-shirt, send it to them and say: I want this fabric, these properties, this composition. You also need to keep customs in mind. In winter, the fabric went to us for two and a half months. But if you do everything correctly, find a good intermediary, it will not be long. It's better not to do it yourself.

In parallel, we need to look for production. We do not have high-tech production in our country, but there are heaps of opportunities to sew a T-shirt from linen. In St. Petersburg, this is not worth doing - it's expensive. But this can be done in the Leningrad region, where a seamstress earns not 20,000 rubles, but 10,000 rubles, and the cost of a thing is very low. Production can also be found on the Internet. Now you are ready to send the developed patterns to production.

At this time, work with the press begins. Even though you still don’t know exactly what the sleeves and collar of the T-shirt will be processed, you should already understand exactly who your audio audience is and in which magazines you want to see materials about yourself. It must be borne in mind that an issue is rented out on average in a month, and if you want to get into a print publication, then you need to send a press release about two months in advance, which journalists would pay attention to, and shooting so that they understand what they are offered write. During this month, you should already clearly understand what kind of fabric you have, you take 10 meters of this fabric, sew patterns you have developed from it and take them off. You get beautiful pictures of things before you actually own them. And in two months, while the magazines are being typeset, you already have something to send them and what to tell them.

Press release. The main problem with most press releases is that instead of specific information, journalists have to read in what a beautiful flying image you will walk around the city. And the journalist has 50 such messages in his mailbox, so he opens them and immediately closes them. Write as it is: you represent such and such a brand, it is interesting because of this and that. You should pay attention, because it is beautiful and at the same time cheap. Or no one has done this before. You can find the addresses of journalists if you go to the kiosk and buy the magazines that interest you. Write a separate letter to each journalist. Wrote en masse - received en masse the answer "no". And most importantly: a good press release costs as much as a bad one, and a good shoot costs as much as a bad one. We must bear this in mind.

When things are ready, they must be sent to the store. To do this, you need to add your markup to the cost of things. This is called added value. Here, for example, is a dress: if you add 100% to its cost and another 100% is added to it in the store, it will cost 1,500 rubles. But your dress is so cool that it will sell for 3,000 rubles. So you can add more. Added value does not have a clear coefficient. But at the initial stage, you need to add more, because along the way you will still have a lot of errors, jambs, delays, and it will all cost money. And while you have a small turnover, these mistakes need to be insured.

Use the internet. Do not think about the show, it will not bring you any result, since we do not have an industry. But if you make a beautiful site, the effect will be much greater.

Come up with special projects. Often a print publication is not interested in publishing news about which 150 comments were written on Look At Me two months ago. Therefore, you can come up with all sorts of interesting things - for example, a limited collection, which you don’t tell anyone about, except for the editors of printed publications.

Use all free features. Publication is a sales tool. When the brand Oh, my posh! , they wrote a whole page about her in Afisha, and everyone came to us and asked: “How much did you pay?” Believe it or not, there is no such thing as paying for a publication for a good journal. Beautiful videos and photos can also be taken for free, and there is nothing shameful in this.

Help the store. For the store you are a partner, he is interested in selling you, making money on you. Therefore, print out the price list, prepare beautiful lookbooks, it will cost you 5,000 rubles, but it will be a tool that will help you sell better. A lookbook is a banal thing, well photographed on a white background, where articles, composition, colors and sizes are signed.

Think about where you will move next. If you spent your money on the initial project, then you can then find an investor who will allow you to enter a new stage. You will already have something to go with him.

Successful branding will help you outperform your competitors and create an excellent reputation for your product or service. Luck has nothing to do with this, because the key to victory is due diligence, creative thinking, observing competitors, understanding the key principles of the business, its mission and culture, as well as a strong desire to cooperate with the people who, together with you, create the success of your company. Next is designing a logo and slogan that represents the unique spirit of your company, and promoting your brand with all your might. Read below to learn how to take the first step towards building a successful brand.

Steps

Part 1

Create a true, lively and sincere image

Define your mission precisely. What qualities, values ​​and experiences do you offer to your clients? In order for your brand to work effectively, you need to project a true image of what your company aims to provide to consumers. But first you need to formulate the mission of your company so that it becomes clear how you differ from your competitors. Think about the following questions:

• Why are you doing this particular thing?
• What are your goals?
• Who is in your target segment?
• What makes your company special in this area?

1. How you want to be seen. You must make your customers think of your brand as a living, breathing person they can trust. When walking through a supermarket or flipping through a telephone directory, they should be looking for exactly your product or service. Considering your company's mission, decide what type of relationship you want to establish. What are you going to base your mission on?

   • Maybe you want your product to be seen as an adventure, a ticket to a new life, or a second chance. This approach is often used by large food companies that sell products such as goji berry juice or germinated cereal bars.
   • Or maybe you want to present your brand as smart and modern. Does your product make you feel cool, like you're in a private club? Urban Outfitters and Apple are taking this approach.
   • Another approach would be to offer your customers a reliable option that they can fully trust and that will never let them down. This is a good approach if you are selling a product that will never fail, such as tires or legal services.
   • When building a brand, you can also rely on nostalgia. People feel connected to things that remind them of childhood and carefree times.

2. Think like your client thinks. When you buy a product, think about why you are buying it. What makes you choose a particular brand? Try to use your answers to imagine how your own brand will be perceived. Find out what your customers crave to feel and let them feel it through your brand. Do they want to feel strong? Responsible? Conscientious? Smart? Unique? Your brand should evoke these feelings through its appearance, marketing, and design. Awaken these feelings not only with language, but also with color and product design.

3. Engage your employees. Communicate to your employees the importance of your brand and explain how and why you came to this brand. You will need their support for the success of your new branding.

   • Remember that the client will see your business through your brand. This also includes the appearance and behavior of your employees.
   • Your employees will have their own specific vision of your business and methods to achieve your goals, so that each of them will make an invaluable contribution to the development of your business. Ask employees how your product was received in the market, and don't ignore their opinion.

   Part 2

   Earn customer trust

   1. Your product must match your message about it. If your message sounds good but you don't deliver on your promises, your customers will go elsewhere and your brand won't catch on. But if your business delivers what your branding promises, you will be rewarded with the trust of your customers. Soon, they will start spreading the word about the quality of your service, and your brand reputation will speak for itself.

      • Also make sure that the associations your brand evokes with your customers are in line with what you are offering. For example, if you promise that your margarita-flavoured lemonade is the most refreshing drink on the market, but your customers usually complain that they are unpleasantly surprised by the lack of tequila as soon as they take a sip, then something is wrong with How do you present your product to potential customers? You may need to rename your drink so that customers don't feel disappointed every time they try the product.
      • Transparency in doing business is also important. Trust is a very important part of brand awareness as your customers need to feel like they know your brand like an old friend. Let your customers see your real priorities, how you work and where your money is going. If the information is not always the best, at least it must be true and presented in the best possible light.

   2. Do market research to find out who you serve. What are the age and demographic groups of your main customer base? The answers may surprise you, so it's important to do some research to find out who is interested in the products you offer and how they respond to your branding.

      • Consider creating a focus group as one way to test how people of different demographics react to your product. Ask them to describe their perception of your product before and after trying it.
      • Targeting a specific demographic is often a more effective strategy than trying to make a product appeal to everyone. You can narrow down your target group after you have identified who is buying your product. For example, if you find that teenagers are the most likely target group for your breakfast cereal, you can change your branding strategy to make your product even more appealing to that group.

   3. Do a comparative analysis. Do your research to find out what other companies offer and find your differences from those companies. Your branding should focus on the difference, what makes your product stand out from the rest. Finding something special that sets you apart from other companies is very important, because your customers have so many options that they may never know your product exists unless you make it special.

      • You may find that a certain company has already chosen a particular market segment, but this does not mean that your product will not be attractive to a slightly different audience.
      • If the market becomes saturated with great products, consider turning in a different direction. Change either the branding approach or the configuration of your product.

With each, not even a year, but a day, the competition becomes stronger and stronger. Giant companies are emerging, biting off a big piece of the pie from cream-filled customers.

Small competitors appear, who also pinch off a piece of the market with a dessert spoon.

In order not to lose this race, there are over 5000+ ways of marketing.

But if you plan to go for a long time and steadily, then it's time for you to deal not only with chips, but also with more long-term tasks. Namely, think about how to create a brand from your company.

If you think that the word “brand” means the process of creating a logo or slogan, then you are mistaken.

Everything is much more global than it seems. Also, if you think that the brand is pathos and a huge amount of money for, I hasten to disappoint you.

Often this is a sin of well-known companies that aggressively promote their brand to the masses.

In fact, much more is hidden under the word brand: the company's values, its recognition among consumers, etc.

This is all part of why a customer decides to buy from you.

And, as I already said, if you plan to do business "in debt", then without creating your own brand you can't go anywhere. Although at the beginning of my marketing journey, I thought very differently.

Do I need it?

Let's go right away. If you do not want to create your own brand, then either the market will force you to do it, or it will throw you out of its orbit.

Naturally, you can earn little money from sales without a brand. This also has a place.

But if you look at the big players, you won't find a single one among them that works without it.

You already have a company, a name, and maybe even a logo. If you have been working for a long time, then there is a corporate identity, and maybe even.

Offhand, we can say that you have an established brand. Well, let's check not by eye, but by science.

Right now, please answer the questions below to evaluate which of us gets candy for being right in our thoughts:

1. Does your company have a mission? What?
2. Do you know your clients? Who are they? How do they feel about your company?
3. What are the benefits of your product and company?
4. What impression should your customers have of you?

Stop! This raises the question: “Why is the mission, values, customers, benefits, and also the impression mentioned in the brand evaluation?”.

All questions are philosophical, without specifics, it's true. Because the very concept of “brand” in the world is often misinterpreted.

For most entrepreneurs, this is just a logo and a slogan that is advertised everywhere. But in fact it is much broader.

Brand- these are associations, ideas, fantasies: and even emotions that arise in the mind of the consumer when you mention your company.

In fact, this is an abstraction that pops up in the head, which is precisely created due to the logo, colors, slogans and other things.

We will discuss what it takes to develop a company brand in the next chapter. Still, the article should be with clear instructions, and not sketchy knowledge.

But before that, I want to warn you. Creating a company brand is only a small part of a big task called branding.

Branding- is the work on the creation and "promotion" of the brand to create a positive image and associations in the minds of consumers.

If you manage to do everything according to Feng Shui, then the result will make you the king of the copper mountain. The risk will be justified by the list of advantages that you will receive by going through this voluminous work. Here are some of them:

1. Correct perception of your company;
2. Increased awareness among competitors;
3. Reduction of drawdowns during the crisis;
4. Growth in the number of loyal customers;
5. Increased employee loyalty.

All this leads not to mythical benefits, but to quite measurable ones, which will be reflected in the company's personal account.

Therefore, the process of creation must begin now, although no, it should have started yesterday. And there is only one reason for this.

The road is a lifetime

Bad news. Branding implies a rather long sequence of actions for the development of the company.

No one knows exactly what it takes to create a strong brand for the ages. This work has blurred boundaries. The only thing we know is that it happens in 5 directions:

• Brand positioning. This is where the brand is born. What place will he occupy and where will the company go. Remember the famous Steve Jobs and his Apple company.

  If it’s easier for you, you can divide the brand into: product, place, price and promotion. This is if it's really rude.

  But what to do?

  It is important to understand the specific creation algorithm, the sequence of steps and actions that will bring you closer to a strong brand.

  We have considered the directions that generally describe the situation. Now let's look at each one under a microscope.

  And we will define 11 steps (all books are reduced to them), each of which is responsible for one of the previously studied areas.

  big idea

  What the brand is created for and what image of the company will be promoted with its help.

  It can also be called the key message that you will convey to your customers in all your communications.

  In our case, this is “only an integrated approach (marketing, sales and personnel) will lead the company to stable and predictable sales.”

  Example 1: The footwear company "Geox" broadcasts the idea of ​​healthy footwear. In addition to the fact that it is made of high quality materials, it is made taking into account the physiological characteristics of a person.

  And in this struggle, a properly created brand becomes a pretty good help and weapon, which, albeit in the long term, will still ensure the company's growth and consumer loyalty.

Nelli Nedre, a Petersburger, dreamed of working as a designer since childhood. While studying at the institute, she realized that she was not interested in inventing expensive extravagant clothes that no one could wear in everyday life. After working as a designer for a streetwear brand, a year ago she decided to create her own company and began producing laconic items in discreet colors that fit into world fashion trends. Now Nelly's clothes are sold in ten stores, and the company's monthly turnover exceeds half a million rubles.

experience

Nelly Nedre

Brand founder

At the age of seven, I announced to my grandmother that when I grew up, I would become a designer. Then she gave me a suitcase with felt-tip pens, and since then, like an obsessed, I began to invent and draw various outfits. After graduating from school, without hesitation, she entered the faculty of fashion design. Education at the institute became a real school of life for me: they kicked me out every six months, they said that I would be a bad designer, that I would never succeed. At the same time, from the third year I began to make full-fledged collections, participated and won with them in international competitions. I experimented with shapes, tried different fabrics, searched for my own style. By my fifth year, I was a fully formed designer. The teachers at the institute demanded that we show our potential by making the most of our imagination, but I quickly outgrew this approach to clothing. I realized that I don’t want to make things that no one wears, even if they look interesting.

The practice that I went through with various designers helped me a lot to understand this. Before graduation, I managed to work in an atelier, a luxury brand, a streetwear brand, and even supervised production in China. In general, I probed all the soil that is possible. In my senior year, I was offered a job by the owner of the St. Petersburg streetwear brand Trailhead. The experience in his company was invaluable. This is a serious brand with a wide range of products, the founder of which has been working with clothes for twenty years and is well versed in the market - he knows what the Russian consumer is ready to buy. It doesn't do anything fancy, it only works with basic shapes and colors. I started as one of the designers of his brand, and he could say: “Nelli, what are you drawing! Who needs this pink button on the side, I won’t sell it to anyone!”

The company had an experimental workshop in which we made samples, sent them to stores and, if we understood that they were going well, we launched a large production in China. I was able to try a lot of things within Trailhead: I developed a line of women's clothing, which was almost never done before me, organized shootings for lookbooks and an online store. At some point, it became clear: I already know absolutely everything that is needed to open my own business.

Own business

I decided to leave Trailhead, and at that moment my friend, designer Asya Malbershtein, offered me to rent a twelve-meter room for a workshop. She has been pushing me to create her brand for a long time, and I thought that this room was a good sign. All my money, about 100 thousand rubles, I spent on a sewing machine and the purchase of fabrics for the first collection. Three months later, I realized that this was not enough, and took out a loan of 300,000.

With this money, I hired three people, bought additional equipment. I registered the brand name, it cost about 60 thousand rubles. They dissuaded me, they believed that this was an unnecessary expense, but for me this measure of protection was very important. I also made a website, registered an individual entrepreneur, received permission to trade. A year later, when I had five people on staff, I rented a 63-square-meter space, which now houses the production itself, the showroom, and the office.

Now I have a manager, three seamstresses, a constructor and a designer on my staff. For me, this is the golden time of the company, because so far it is not difficult to maintain a friendly working atmosphere, and each employee clearly understands what and when he should do. When there are more than fifteen people in the company, it will be very difficult to maintain the old trusting relationship with all employees. You will have to get used to communication in the "boss - subordinate" format. I managed to rehearse all the typical problems of working with a brand back in Trailhead, so I was ready for stressful situations. True, I had to develop an additional degree of rigidity in myself, without which the boss cannot be.

Work with shops

It is important to understand that I did not start from scratch. In addition to experience, I had good connections with stores: we were friends with some of the owners, we had previously collaborated with some. Therefore, I knew exactly where I would sell my first collection.

The first time I sold 50 things a month. Now, on average, we sell about 400 items per month for half a million rubles. We cooperate with ten stores scattered throughout the cities of Russia, the largest of them is Moscow - Trends Brands in Tsvetnoy. Now, I am sure, the number of stores promoting Russian designers will only increase.

I did not plan to open my own offline store: there was simply no space. However, it turned out that people, having bought our clothes in other stores, began to visit the site and write to us directly. So I opened a showroom, and now it sells as much as all the other outlets. Our online store brings us another 100 thousand a month. This is beneficial for us, because we supply clothes to other stores with a fifty percent discount, and we can sell them at the regular retail price.

Cheating in stores is very different: in St. Petersburg it is somewhere around 100%, that is, a store buys a thing from us for 1,500 rubles, and sells it for 3,000. In Moscow, cheating can reach 250%.

The cost of production also depends on how much time and effort the seamstress spends on this thing. If we, for example, made an experimental model of a dress, I ask the seamstress how difficult it was for her to work with him and how long it took her. If it was difficult and slow, I exclude this model from the collection. I determine the price based on the fact that I need to pay my employees a normal salary and develop the brand. I would like to please customers by setting the minimum price, but I do not agree to work at zero, my work costs money.

Create a collection

The system of work in a large and local brand is largely different. The giants of the industry are trying to predict trends for several years ahead. They have special people who travel the world and collect information about trends in all possible areas: from art to new technologies. They also take into account the economic background. When you immediately produce thousands of pieces of clothing at a factory in China, you take a big risk, you have to be meticulous, save on threads and buttons. Since we are still a small brand, we do not adhere to a clear seasonality and prepare small capsule collections four to five times a year. It takes me about two months to create a collection.

I always start by looking at 60 of my favorite clothing websites and blogs for inspiration, figuring out what's hot right now. I'm putting together my own moodboard, which can include works of art, and excerpts from films, and photos of a friend, and music. Six months before the official release, new collections are posted on the Style.com website, I notice the details that most often appear in all brands. Having prepared the base for inspiration, I close myself in the apartment for several days and draw. According to my drawings, the designer makes trial patterns, then we sew the first samples, measure them, and refine them. When the collection is ready, we photograph it for the lookbook, send it to stores and wait for a reaction. A collection can have, for example, nine models in four colors. It is not necessary that each of these 36 items will be produced in more than one copy.

Choice of things

Buyers of stores usually know their customers well and understand what they will be ready to buy from them. Some take mostly basic classic things, while others, on the contrary, choose more extravagant models. First, they order a trial batch, then, focusing on demand, they buy something extra. We do not have a warehouse where we store things, because we always sew a certain amount for a specific order.

Gradually, we realized which models go best, so we singled out a separate Gills Classic line. These are things that are in constant demand, regardless of the season. If you look closely, all global brands have their own database of models, which they reproduce year after year. Chanel jacket, classic Carhartt sweatshirt, pumps. These are proven things to which you can add a pocket or change the fabric, but in fact they are always the same. Adidas' best-selling model is the classic black 3-Stripes tracksuit. Brands always make money on the simplest, most basic things. The same goes for color: black and gray always go with a bang, especially in Russia. My brand is also based on versatile pieces and a monochrome palette. Of the fabrics, I chose the footer for work, because that's what I feel best.

I have a principle: I will never do just a beautiful thing that I can’t make money on. When I come up with a beautiful and simple model, I look at whether it falls into trends, calculate the cost of its production and calculate how much it will be sold in stores. If I understand that no one will buy it for such a price, I immediately cease to like it and I refuse it.

Photos: Yasya Vogelhardt