Random fashion thoughts - Part II (A New Hope)

[gettoasty]

Ugh why am I so late on this.

That's pretty crazy though, 6 figures for 1 post. But that's for large design house with big budget.

What about the little guys? Certainly there's still potential and a way to act like a host/proxy of services. I was thinking more about the scale rather than the individual poster. According to Mr. Rankin, the work cannot be too contrived otherwise it would loose its moment... HAHA.

 

[venividivicibj]

Btw there are some ******* good DB suits in kingsman. And some nice chalk stripes.

 

[Mulan]

Watching @brad-t talk about Beyblade on Youtube is so nostalgic. Oh and you could totally pull off a Zack Fair cosplay.

 

[gdl203]

This might be a dumb question, but why don't more stores do lookbooks?

It's expensive, takes a considerable amount of time, kills a few pieces in the process (wear/tear, tailoring needed, ruined shoe soles), and about 50% of the time ends up being self-indulgence for the store "stylist" and the photographer, without much help or even consideration for whether the actual customer will derive any additional fit information from the artistic shots. The other 50% of the time, they are indeed quite helpful, but then again see the point about cost, time, etc... someone has to pay for those, right? I'm sure it works for Net-a-Porter who has over 2,400 employees and can leverage the cost of those photo shoots across 9 million monthly visitors -- but the economics make little sense for small stores, unless they're over-staffed and/or overcharge for their products.

 

[dieworkwear]



kills a few pieces in the process (wear/tear, tailoring needed, ruined shoe soles),

 

[OccultaVexillum]

Product shots like Gentry seems like a good compromise.

 

[snowmanxl]

Yeah I was just going to say gentry does a pretty good job.
Haven too

 

[Severisth]

Anyone know if there are going to be any new Peir Wu stockists for this FW? Now that SP isn't carrying them, and it doesn't look like H Lorenzo is getting any new stock; seems like it's just the Peir Wu webstore and Stranger Lagos

 

[LA Guy]

Yeah I was just going to say gentry does a pretty good job.
Haven too

Retailers, and really, vendors, are like startups, insofar as their success often hinges on just a couple of core personnel. The small retailers that I've see do a good job of visual merchandising often have really dynamic leaders who do... everything, and are willing to take on any task, and are good self learners. The photo sessions are often done with $0 budget. The owners cobble together some equipment, and borrow from friends, and they shoot, edit, etc... using friends as models, and often, doing all of the editing themselves.

The problem is that in retail, you often don't attract the same level of talent as a tech startup, for example, because it's much less glamorous, and frankly, has a much lower potential of going big, with a similar potential of failing. I know people who do tech startups, in San Francisco, three people large, that get $200K in angel investment to see what they can do in a year. $200K does not go very far in San Francisco, so these are young guys who live all together in a crap apartment, work all hours, eat the cheapest food that they can, and throw all the money back into the company, all for that small chance to make it. For retailers, it's hard to pull together that sort of team, that will essentially live the company. Part of that is the incentive to work that hard for essentially nothing, part of it is that the caliber of the pool of available workers is often just not there.

 

[habitant]



Retailers, and really, vendors, are like startups, insofar as their success often hinges on just a couple of core personnel.  The small retailers that I've see do a good job of visual merchandising often have really dynamic leaders who do... everything, and are willing to take on any task, and are good self learners.  The photo sessions are often done with $0 budget.  The owners cobble together some equipment, and borrow from friends, and they shoot, edit, etc... using friends as models, and often, doing all of the editing themselves.  

The problem is that in retail, you often don't attract the same level of talent as a tech startup, for example, because it's much less glamorous, and frankly, has a much lower potential of going big, with a similar potential of failing.  I know people who do tech startups, in San Francisco, three people large, that get $200K in angel investment to see what they can do in a year.  $200K does not go very far in San Francisco, so these are young guys who live all together in a crap apartment, work all hours, eat the cheapest food that they can, and throw all the money back into the company, all for that small chance to make it.  For retailers, it's hard to pull together that sort of team, that will essentially live the company.  Part of that is the incentive to work that hard for essentially nothing, part of it is that the caliber of the pool of available workers is often just not there.

There is no financial incentive really.

 

[cyc wid it]

Haven's site is really really solid. Between their product shots + measurements etc. and their editorials, I can't really think of a better site.

 

[Caveat]

The one thing I really wish stores would change would be to accept returns with a restock fee on sale items.

 

[OccultaVexillum]

Haven is great.
My favorite shops would probably be:
Notre
Gentry
Haven
Nomad
Neighbour is great too but they never buy anything to bigger than a large. They all do really nice editorials and product shots.

 

[round]

I've had a revelation, I shouldn't wear overalls.

 

[Baron]



Because a good photographer shooting a whole lookbook would be WAY more expensive than that. ++ models, assistants, hair/make-up, location fee, design, retouching, etc. all add up.

I love look books -- they embody the romance and ideals of fashion -- along with runway shows and editorials. But for my own clothes buying I've learned to accept habitant's idea: if it looks good on some short model with average build on some half-baked e-commerce page, there's a pretty good chance it will look good on me. 

I think it's a good investment for brands though, because as we know the image has a lot of power to persuade. A good look book or campaign or whatever can cement your impression. 

I assume if you're a big store, you have to pay the big bucks. But for a small operation, can't you get a lot of that stuff for relatively cheap?

Back in the '90s, I organized some fashion shoots for a few streetwear companies. The models and make-up artists were basically free and the only person who really got paid was the photographer (partly because of film developing costs). Obviously, as a freelancer, I like to see people get paid for their work -- but if a store wanted to, it seems like a relatively easy thing to pull together. Esp now that everything is digital.

I'm actually participating in a "budget" lookbook shoot tonight. My wife is a professional photographer, one of our good friends is a designer with a smallish women's line. She's shot the last several lookbooks for her. In some cases the designer (or store) can trade clothing for work, but nobody important to the process is going to work for free (I'm working for free, helping my wife and modeling as an extra in some shots). You need to pay (in cash or clothes) the photographer, the model, hair and makeup. And the photographer's gear rental costs money. I'm not sure if it makes sense for a small store.