Hi everyone. This week we are going to investigate product development in fashion. We will try to understand why fashion industries and businesses are so complex. We will try to understand what is behind some interesting concepts within the fashion language, such as iconic products and the concept of stylistic identity. We will try to decode the product development process; understanding the different processes, activities, and roles within the product development. So, let's start with the concept of complexity in fashion. Within fast moving consumer goods, fashion's considered to a unique industry because of some elements. First of all, the concept of seasonality, short product life cycle. Second the huge variety of categories, typologies, sizes, and models within the fashion collection. Third, a product life cycle that is short, corresponds to a supply chain that on the opposite is quite long and quite rigid. Last but not least, this is a business with a lot of activities in the product development, a lot of roles between creativity and management. And don't forget the fact that each business model has a different way to approach the product development process. A fashion designer might have many very creative collections. While a premium brand math book could be more classic or offer more basic styles and items. Let's focus at the beginning with a major difference between, luxury and fashion companies in dealing with the product development process. While in luxury collections most of the products are not seasonal and therefore at the end of the season are not discounted. In fashion products are mostly seasonal and therefore we enter into seasonal sales, mark-downs. Another element that makes a distinction between luxury and fashion in the product development concept is that, of course, in luxury products, in particular the leather goods category does have a longer product life cycle. That are iconic that are timeless and long lasting, and in fashion it’s more or less the opposite. Products are seasonal. Sometimes they're not even replenished, and within a season you might even have different collections. So starting from the main collection autumn, winter, spring, summer, but also some different deliveries of capsules of products within a season, such are the flash collections, the cruise collections, or the pre-collections. But, no matter, the positioning or, the higher or lower in fashion content, nowadays on the market. Each company follows trends. In fashion collections or even in luxury collections trends are in a way more or less incorporated. But, what is a trend then? A trend is a certain direction followed by actors in the industry in terms of materials, shapes, patterns, and/or colors. Trends might last a season, or even less, in which case we talk about fads, or maybe are long lasting, and then they might become a classic. An interesting thing of this industry is that when a certain trend is accepted in a certain moment in time, the seasons after the trend that was established will usually be the opposite of the trend that we had in the past. Think about for instance in early 40s the trend in terms of dresses were about dresses that were simple, plain, and then in the end of the second World War, the new look of came into play that was the opposite of the style with very feminine and curvy lines. In the 80's, we had trends that were exaggerated in terms of shapes and very bold colors, well into the 90s we, we entered into minimalism. So the question is now who makes trends? Who decides that this season we have yellow and next season we have blue? A very simple answer is that trends, so yellow this season was decided almost three years ago, by the actors within the textile pipeline. So the reason there is, there has been in fashion for a long time, a consensus among textile companies, trends companies, retailers, and designers, about certain direction in terms of material shapes and, and color, but this was the past. Nowadays, with the internet and social media actually other influencers, such as, for instance bloggers, came into play in order to new sources for trends. And the possibility to see collections online, shop online so this new technology also allows consumers to scout trends in a very short time, and also create trends themselves. So in a business that was in the past trickle down in terms of trends. So from top designers, down to the street, now trends are moving in that process that is name as trickle across, or even bottom up, from the street up to the catwalk.
