Branding Series - Creating Designs that Align with your Brand
Your brand, customer, story, and vibe will help you design your first collection or next collection. In this blog, I will show you how to create designs that align with your brand.
Chanel has their tweed suits and fap bags, YSL has their sleek suits, Fendi has their fur, and so on. Signature styles for your brand can take time to find and create. But all of these brands have been able to create signature styles by understanding their customer and providing them with a product they truly love.
Understanding your customer’s demographic is key to finding what your customer really wants. The Key elements of Developing a Fashion Brand blog post, goes into how to find your brand message and culture. Your brand message and culture gives you a closer look into your brand’s demographic. But there are some important questions that should be answered to create designs aligned with your customer. What is the age range of my customer? How much money does my customer make? What types of jobs does my customer perform? Where does my customer shop for clothing? What are they willing to pay for the pieces they buy? Does my customer have any specific needs, higher necklines, lower hems, specialty items like maternity designs, etc.? Would my customer object to producing overseas? What fabrics would my customer accept? Synthetics or all natural fibers? What purpose does my line fulfill? Aesthetic or utilitarian or both. Learning more about your customer can be a great guiding light for feedback.
Let's take the sustainable brand, Patagonia as an example. Patagonia is an eco-conscious brand that specializes in clothing and accessories for outdoor enthusiasts that enjoy outdoor sports and leisure. Just with that we know that the customer has time for leisure activities, values utility, values eco conscious brand, materials, fabric, and production. They likely have expendable income to participate in outdoor sports and leisure and purchase eco-conscious clothing. Taking a closer look at the website, the colors used in the clothing design are neutral with pops of jewel tones, the fabrics are recycled, and they show how their products are fair trade and to what percentage. From that we can see that the customer values ethical and sustainable practices, like fabric use and production. The color story they have chosen is wearable to the customer and their lifestyle.
Reflecting and researching your competitors can be a great way to get feedback on your customer. Designing and branding work is symbiotic in nature. For example, if you want to design something that you know does not resonate with your brand or customer, one of two things need to happen: changing or tweeking the design to suit your customer or changing your brand and brand niche. Changing and adapting your designs is a lot easier than changing your entire branding but sometimes when designing your ideas for the brand might evolve and change, and that is ok too.
Perhaps you have had a line for a few seasons, it is important to look at the past years sales to evaluate what the best sellers have been for your brand. And to try to offer that style in a new colorway, print or innovate it for the next season. For example, take a best selling satin top, and create a satin dress from the tops design. It is important to look at feedback and reviews of your designs so you can routinely make quality products your customer will love year after year.
Do you have an idea or vision that you just need to get on to paper? Or a detailed season review? At V.Mora, we have our Design and Edit service, where we sit down with you and go through your ideas and turn them into beautiful hand drawn sketches. We can also help you analyze past collections to help you innovate for the future. For inquiries please contact: vmorainquiry@vmora.com
Are your designs already aligned with your brand? Are you ready to start creating samples and producing your line. V.Mora can help with sampling and finding you the factory you desire for your production. If you are in need of the following Development and Production services:
Sourcing
Technical sketches
Pattern Making
Prototype making
Sample Making
Fittings
Digitizing and Grading
Marker Making
Manufacturing
Please contact us at: vmorainquiry@vmora.com
