My days are being filled with some interesting conversations at the moment. Though each conversation may start off with a different subject, we all seem to agree on one thing, the fashion industry needs a shake up. Over distribution and lack of freshness, are meaning brands are beginning to be worried about having all their eggs in one basket, yet at the same time are unable to move away from the big orders. But what is the alternative for these brands?
I know I keep referring back to the good old days of when independents ruled the fashion industry, where each city had a store that offered a point of difference, but I do genuinely believe this is needed to keep the industry moving forward. Recently, we have reached out to a few brands just to start conversations, to see what opportunities are out there and whether we can offer a strong brand mix to sit alongside MARAI. What does surprise me is how many brands just don’t reply. Okay, this might not work for them at the moment, they may be having internal conversations as to how they see the future and I get that, but at the same time its only a conversation, which may also may not even be right for us. What I do believe is that the retail landscape will change and as independents pop up and offer better service with curated brand profiles they are passionate about, customers will slowly gravitate towards them and brands will have no choice but to embrace working with independents.
So, this takes me back to my title of this blog post. Multi-million pound businesses used to be viewed as successful and were able to catch headlines. Now it feels as though brands hitting the billions are the only ones catching the glory, hence the need for over distribution, saturation of the market and to keep the shareholders happy. So how much is enough?
