The changing face of Fashion Online

As many of you would have read, I was privileged to meet with Piera and Philippe from Refinery 29 to have lunch with them on Monday and then listened to them speak at the Portable presentation held at Penthouse Mouse. They are two of the most humble and genuinely nice people I’ve met from New York to have achieved such success and yet still be so grounded and driven about what they want to do next.

Notes:
* They began (in 2005) at a time when there was a trend away from mass towards grass roots designers. Individualism was important and there was a big gap in the online publishing space for a niche fashion magazine.

* Their first version of Refinery 29 was like a department store map to the best shops in New York and offered an insiders guide to what was cool and happening at the time.

* They launched by supporting emerging talent like Alexander Wang, Opening Ceremony, Vera Cava, Rag & Bone and Erin Featherson.

* They believed and still believe that Risk is more important than experience and being flexible, organic and dynamic with their choices in both content and business strategies is what makes them successful.

* They currently have 1 million unique visitors per month with 100,000 email subscribers.

* They feel fashion has become a conversation and not a monologue and this ability to react to their subscriber’s comments has helped shape the business.

* Their top 5 inspirational sites they reference are:
Garance Dore
The Selby
The Cut
Polyvore
Lookbook.nu

* They believe there are 3 main ingredients to their content; entertainment, inspiration and information.

* They try to offer a real “mixture” of content, styling tips and information that appeals to a broad database but is still cutting edge so that they satisfy their growing database but also push their readers to try or adopt new trends.

* They monitor results closely; each team member (4 full time staff and 4 interns) gets an email from Piera each morning with stats from Google Analytics about what sections of the site were most popular, had the most click throughs and were commented on the most.

* They believe that Fashion is really just one big conversation and technology affords huge opportunity to communicate with others.

* The next 4 interesting trends in technology are:
1. Content – being true to your signature
2. Mobile – apps, e-commerce and entertainment
3. Crowd sourcing – the website Quirky
4. Location based services – FourSquare

I've got Refinery-itis!

I have a confession! I’m got a severe case of Refinery-itis! I need my daily fix and I seem to die a little inside without it! This online fashion site just begs to be bookmarked with its distinct edge and point of view and has gathered some major momentum of late. I was fortunate enough to interview Phillipe von Borries (one of the co-founders) who is visiting Australia as part of the Portable Content presents Refinery 29 east coast tour. The Melbourne seminar is part of LMFF and held at Penthouse Mouse.

1. Refinery 29 has really hit a niche in the saturated fashion online market. What do you owe the popularity too? Luck, timing, specific strategies?
We’re just breaking through a 1,000,000 visitors a month and the site is among the leading fashion/shopping/style sites in the US. It’s bigger than Lucky Mag, Barneys and a range of other power players in this space. The success of it is due to a number of factors. Adaptability has been very important. We’ve tried out different things again and again to see what our audience responds to. Innovation online is key and it’s critical to challenge yourself and your audience over and over. We also got into the space at a critical juncture four years ago when there were very few players, which allowed us to foster very unique relationships with fashion most exciting new designers. Lastly, we engage our audience. We know fashion is not a one-way street and we make sure every day to build a relationship with our readers. That is the most important part of digital fashion media today.

2.We are currently experiencing a significant shift in the fashion media industry with the power of the consumer, social networking and street style blogs etc. What do you think will happen next in the online space in fashion?
I think consumers will own the space more and more. Fashion used to be about limits and restrictions. Today it’s about access, transparency and immediacy. Readers/consumers etc want to be part of the creative process. Look at sites such as polyvore.com which allow readers to collect tidbits from around the web and build scrapbooks that you can share and even shop from! It’s all about personal expression these days.

3. Your “How to get snapped by the Sartorialist” diagram was a viral hit. It’s a great case study of how viral communication operates in the current landscape. Did it inadvertently bring you new subscribers, new traffic and a new kind of notoriety?
Yes and yes. That story was the most successful we ever published and our editorial team is incredibly proud of it. It’s a great example of the creative power of our staff as well as our ability to always innovate. The format of the feature was an infographic, which is very engaging and entertaining. We know the importance of our readers simply wanting to be entertained. Fashion is about having fun. It’s not serious and that’s an important part of our editorial standpoint every day. The Sartorialist feature received over 100,000 unique views, it was republished in GQ South Africa, Italy and Russia and picked up by dozens of blogs.

4. What do you think of the Australian fashion industry? Who has caught your attention and what do you think makes up the Australian style?
We love Australian fashion. We are HUGE fans of Australian designers. Australian fashion is kind of a cross between LA and London. It’s casual but still accessibly glamorous. These are women who love fashion but they’re down to earth too.

5. What are some of your favourite Australian and international blogs/sites?
Lover, Sass & Bide, Karen Walker and Chronicles of Never

Fashioning Melbourne

On Thursday 4th March, I attended the Fashioning Melbourne forum which is part of the LMFF 2010 Cultural Program. It was held at the State Library and a sell out event. Robert Buckingham was the moderator and the panel featured The Age fashion editor Jan Breen-Burns, Bec Cole (stylist and co-creator of Madame Virtue & Co), Sener Besim (GM of Scanlan & Theodore) and Debra Mar of Blacklisted. The forum was a discussion about retailing in Melbourne and what makes Melbourne unique. Here are some edited highlights discussed throughout the night:

Melbourne’s Patchwork of Retail
Melbourne is a ‘gorgeous soup of retail’ according to Jan Breen Burns; from Bourke Street’s home of the flagship/mega stores (Sportsgirl, Forever New, Supre and General Pants) to the many twisting historical arcades, to the destination designer boutiques found hidden away up flights of stairs to the mix of cluster villages in inner city suburbs to the mega retail shopping centres of Westfield and Chadstone.

Exciting Retail Experiences
* Captain of Industry – offering a modern day version of the tailored bespoke service of yesteryear.
* Le Louvre – the new home in South Yarra offers the ultimate retail experience of surprise, delight and prestige mixing exclusivity with accessibility.
* Sportsgirl – for a hit of fun, fast fashion with a fresh, must see approach.
* Thousand Shop – honest, genuine retailing with a lifestyle approach and strong personality.
* Shag – for an injection of vintage storytelling and nostalgia.

Role of Customer Service
• Creating a calm but stimulating environment for customers to feel a sense of belonging (in Scanlan’s case up to 3 hours in the Armadale store at times!)
• Having knowledgeable staff that understands the difference between pouncing, educating and allowing some good quality browsing time, but also offering genuine advice.
• Involving the customer in the process – showing them how, where and why the product is made locally by creating a retail experience that shares the creative process (having a store front in the actual workroom like Blacklisted in Easy St Collingwood)

Pioneering Retail
• Le Louvre have always been the first to start a trend with their retailing – first in Collins Street before it was the Paris end of Collins St and now with their new store in South Yarra where there is no other fashion retailing.
• High Street Armadale – When Scanlan & Theodore moved there it was largely an art gallery community, however it’s become a mix of fashion, food and art now and this leads to a great overall experience.
• Madame Virtue & Co is in Crossley Street and one of the few fashion retailers inhabiting this area, instead preferring to be amongst the melting pot of food and art mixed with history.
• Blacklisted moved its premises from South Yarra to Easy St Collingwood as all their suppliers were located there and it made the experience for customers an all encompassing one.

Interesting bits & pieces
• Robert Buckingham is working with The Future Laboratory on a retail strategy for the City of Melbourne about evolving Melbourne as a city.  Can’t wait to see what comes of this association and props to City of Melbourne for engaging a trend intelligence agency to help their plans!
• Sener Besim is waiting for the dust to settle with DJ’s and Myer’s new department store re-births in Bourke Street before reviewing their next Scanlan & Theodore business development move within the CBD.
• Jan Breen Burns is curious to see how the new Department stores will change the consumer buying behaviour outlook in the CBD, given the success they are experiencing with “The house of brands” philosophy.
• Online retailing is a must do if you have a bricks and mortar store, but you need to be clever about the approach and mimic the real time experience as best as you can online to have any sort of longevity or business success!

Sportsgirl embraces Bloggers

On Monday 8th February I was invited to attend the Sportsgirl Roadshow parade for Autumn Winter 2010. Primarily, this is put on for the Sportsgirl retail team, however this year, they invited a few Melbourne Bloggers to attend to take a sneak peak at the action. It’s an interesting strategy on Sportsgirl’s behalf. The bloggers feature their own reviews and photo’s from the parade, and share this with their communities.

Jade Roberts (PR Manager) said she has been working with bloggers for 2 years and finds they are effective for reaching out to potential/existing Sportsgirl customers because of their strong community followings and unique perspectives on fashion. It’s also helpful due to the fact that online is immediate and Sportsgirl is all about fast fashion.

Whilst at the parade I chatted with Kate Elton, Online and Events Manager whose position was created to cater to the new Sportsgirl community website some 8 months ago. Kate's role varies from updating the website daily with product, blog posts and articles to managing the social networking community (twitter, facebook etc). Kate has found Twitter has been incredibly popular in the last year and uses it to offer sneak peek's to their twitter followers. She finds the website sections that are most popular are to do with 'style advice' i.e. Style Snaps and Style Me.

The parade was a high-energy event with a Circus/ Moulin Rouge/ Vaudeville theme and featured smiling models (a refreshing change that epitomised the perfect Sports-girl)! The audience gasps, laughs, claps and general buzz was a combination of lust (for the pieces they have yet to own) and $$ signs clicking over in their heads (as they saw what would sell in their respective Sportsgirl stores)! This roadshow was a great way of inspiring the Sportsgirl staff about what's coming in store as well as offering the wider Sportsgirl community the opportunity to share the night through the bloggers attending.