Venue
Holding Promotional Events for Your Fashion Business
By: startafashionbusiness.co.uk
It’s all well and good to send out promotional items and appear at fashion shows, but if you really want to draw attention to what you’re doing with your fashion design business, you’re going to need to run your own events. These can be held for your business launch, when you bring out a new apparel collection, or in celebration of notable successes. They’re an opportunity for you to distribute promotional products and make an impression on the people who really matter.
Of course, the worst thing you can do is to invest a lot of time and resources in an event to which hardly anybody turns up, so it’s important to plan carefully and to advertise effectively. You can use the fashion press for this, but it’s also a good idea to advertise your event at trade shows and by sending promotional items to buyers, retailers and modelling agencies. When you’re more established it can be advantageous to make your events seem more exclusive, but as a new company you should invite people at all levels of the industry. Personal invitations are generally the most successful, and you should be sure to invite everybody whom you’ve directly done business with.
Putting on an Event
The first thing you need to get right when planning an event is the venue. Avoid the temptation to use your own premises, where there’s too much chance of valuable equipment and fabrics getting damaged, or to use your own home, which - unless it’s huge and spectacular - looks unprofessional. If possible, choose a venue with a bar, as most people in the fashion industry like to drink. By arranging a tab with the bar you can offer free drinks to the first few people there, always a good way to get the party started. Of course, as people get drunk they’re more amenable to persuasion, so this is a great opportunity to talk to them about your fashion designs. Needless to say, make sure you don’t get drunk yourself.
Make sure that some of the people at your event are wearing your designer apparel, whether they’re professional models or just good looking friends. It’s important to keep everybody’s minds focused on what the events is about, even whilst they relax and enjoy themselves. This also helps to create a bit of glamour. You can add to the effect by decorating the venue with large pictures of your work. Promotional products like catalogues should be easily available. Make sure there’s a photographer present so that you have some pictures of your event available for future use, especially if well-known people from the fashion industry attend.
You will usually be able to buy materials for your events, such as invitations, decorations and catering supplies, at wholesale prices provided that you identify yourself as a business customer. It’s normal to provide some food at promotional events, but a couple of plates of sandwiches will suffice, and you can always save money by making these yourself. Some venues will offer them for free.
Informal Events
Formal events are not the only way to draw attention to your fashion design business. Sometimes it’s beneficial to break the rules and use an informal venue to gain extra attention. Make sure you have permission to do this, especially if it’s in a public place, and tip off the press before it happens, but let it surprise the public.
Informal events are sometimes held in partnership with stores stocking a particular designer’s apparel, as they’re a great way to boost sales for everybody. They need to be glamorous, so get models involved. Impromptu fashion shows in unusual places are a great way to capture the imagination of the press and the public alike. Distributing free promotional products to the public will help them to remember what the event was about and will make them feel extra good about having been there, encouraging them to spread good word of mouth about your work.
Whatever type of event you go for, make sure that it looks good and that it feels fun to be a part of. For your own part, you’ll probably find it exhausting, but it can be a very effective way to put your new fashion design business on the map.
Creating your Fashion Business Website
By: startafashionbusiness.co.uk
In this day and age it’s impossible to make it as a fashion designer without a website. Not only is your website essential for online marketing, it can also be a venue for selling clothing direct to the public. But how should you go about setting it up?
The first thing you need to do is to register a domain. This is the online address at which your website will live. Ideally it will feature the name of your business, and you should keep it as simple as possible. You’ll need to pay a monthly fee for this address, but it doesn’t have to be very expensive. You’ll also need to rent server space - the physical space where the data for your site will be kept.
If this already seems too complicated, you can hire a professional web design consultant to help. A professionally constructed website is guaranteed to look good (or you should ask for your money back), but it can be expensive, and in the early stages of building your business it may not be practical. If you would prefer to have a go at constructing you own website, you can find good html and CSS courses online for free. Learning what you need to know to make a simple site is fairly easy. You can always call in a consultant for help with extra features like Flash or Java applets.
The most important thing about your website is that it should be accessible for as many customers as possible. Check that it runs on different operating systems with different browsers. You can then start to tailor it to the needs of your fashion business.
What Should Your Fashion Website Feature?
When people visit a fashion website the first thing they want to know about is the designer. This doesn’t mean you need to write your autobiography - what’s important is your designer brand identity. This should include your logo, a consistent colour scheme, a consistent style and one or two high quality images featuring your most impressive work. You should write a friendly but professional introduction welcoming visitors to the site. This should include lots of words which people looking for a site like yours might enter in search engines. Changing this introduction every week or two will help to keep search engines interested.
It’s essential that your website is easy to navigate. Providing a menu bar at the side or at the top and bottom of each page is the easiest way to do this. This should offer links to each of your other pages. Keep your categories simple. You might want to list clothes by type (eg: ‘jackets’, ’shirts’ etc.), or you might prefer to list them by season (eg: ‘Spring collection’). It’s a good idea to have a ‘new’ page so that returning visitors can check out your latest creations.
Each category page should feature a full size image of one of your designs along with thumbnail images of the others available - visitors can click on these to see larger images. Using thumbnails cuts download times and makes it easier for potential customers to access your site.
Once they’ve seen your designs, visitors will want to know how to buy them. You should either provide an online order and payment system (most online banks can help you set this up for free) or full contact details for your business and advice on how to find your retail outlets.
Online Marketing for your Website
There’s no point in having an impressive fashion website if nobody knows it’s out there. As soon as you’ve launched your website you should start your online marketing campaign. Here are some simple tips to get you started:-
- Make sure you’re listed by as many search engines as possible.
- Arrange to be listed in online fashion directories.
- Arrange to be listed in online business directories.
- Talk about your site in business and social networking communities. Blog about it.
- Participate in link exchange schemes.
All of these options are open to you for free or for very little money, so you should make full use of them before you worry about paying for more traditional online advertising.
Setting up a website for your fashion design business may seem complicated, but provided you take it in simple stages you’ll be surprised at what you can achieve.
Stories Not just for runways
WHAT”S YOUR STORY… Fashion presentations, storyboards aren’t just for runway, actually we’re kinda board of the runway, Which is why we are seeking designers who dare fashion is supposed to excite titillate, I’ve evn been moved to tears by
Let’s Give ‘em something to talka bout…
Designer, Wearable artist, printed apparel lines, illustrates, textile artist, jewelry, accessories and shoes. home and interior designers, Yes, Brooklyn Fashion Week Is for YOU! Designer Showcases Fashion, SS09, Immediate delivery Fall/holiday 08, Resort or signature. lines and collection. This is your chance to SHOW OFF… Your vision, your design story.
Any format that works for you:- Salon type runway… We’re looking for a tadbBit more than at trunk show! Let’s give Brooklyn something to talk about!
Presentations, Large Size Storyboards, Installation, Theater, Dance, auctions. The Floor is yours. just make certain it fits the venue, No one breaks any bones. etc. Venues wishing to Host designers please call 1-646 736 2948, use the online call center on our home page or register online