If I were to look back at some of the best designed products, and understand their principles of design, I would definitely look at Braun. Why? Because Braun products were created with a great combination of functionality and technology.
Hungarian vehicle developmental company Antro may have found the perfect solution to traveling in a big city—a foldable electric scooter.
The environment-and user-friendly folding scooter offers a unique solution for both commuters and the challenges of urban road. Called ‘Moveo’, the scooter is capable of transforming into a rolling suitcase when not in use eliminating the need for a parking space.
The concept of development reached the end of the third prototype is ready for production in Hungary aims to achieve improvements in technology and now working with the team.
What are your thoughts about this concept?
Joshua Harris has envisioned that, in the future, somewhere in 2050, we can print our own clothes using the Clothing Printer.
Industrial designer Joshua Harris has created the concept for an in home, clothing printer that would allow to each consumer to manufacture their own products at home.
The ability to create customized objects, such as 3D printing, is increasing in sophistication and marketability. People are becoming more and more aware and comfortable with the concept of printing objects for immediate use.
The technology for a clothing printer exists but is not packaged in a form that would be suitable for consumer use. With the future potential of printing technology, an at-home clothing printer is a definite possibility. Joshua’s challenge was to define the experience.
Fashion Designers in the future can sell cartidges of material and then sell their designs digitallu for the user to print.
The design would eliminate the need for closets, washing machines and dryers, thus saving space in the crowded urban environments of the future.
What are your thoughts about this concept?
Source: Joshua Harris
Take a quick break and enjoy Nylon Sky and their geometric jewelries. Originally from Barcelona, Nylon sky was born out of a love for geometric pattern and cutting things out with lasers!
Photos source: Nylon Sky
Their favorite fabrics are Acrylic, wood and leather. Most of their creations can be found in their shop.
We’re in love with the clothes of Canadian designer Angélique Chmielewski because they are simple, delicate and tell stories of life.
“My designs are inspired by human experiences and the idea that clothing can be a vehicle used to express one’s emotions, thoughts and ideals. What we wear every day is an expression of our unique personalities and contributes to the stories of our lives. I believe everyone has a unique story to tell and my collections seek to provide pieces that help tell those stories.” says Angelique
Photo source: Angélique Chmielewski
Angelique’s studio is currently based in New York City. So, ladies, if you’re in NYC don’t miss out her collection.
Photo: stripendspotted
Scott Schuman is back with a completely new collection of beautiful images of the men and women who have caught his attention: The Sartorialist: Closer
His much-loved blog, thesartorialist.com, remains one of the most-read in the fashion world and continues to grow in popularity as Scott travels further and more widely. This book encompasses the diverse style and visual attitude of people as far afield as Japan, Korea, London, Milan, New York, Paris, and beyond.
In The Sartorialist: Closer
You can have the book The Sartorialist: Closer
Photo: Net-a-Porter
Stratasys and Materialise has announced the unveiling of 3D printing collaborations on the catwalks of Paris Fashion Week as part of Iris van Herpen’s Haute Couture show, ‘VOLTAGE’.
Source: Materialise
Dutch designer van Herpen’s eleven-piece collection featured two 3D printed ensembles, including an elaborate skirt and cape (top right) created in collaboration with artist, architect, designer, and professor Neri Oxman from MIT’s Media Lab, and 3D printed by Stratasys.
“The ability to vary softness and elasticity inspired us to design a “second skin” for the body acting as armor-in-motion; in this way we were able to design not only the garment’s form but also its motion,” explains Oxman. “The incredible possibilities afforded by these new technologies allowed us to reinterpret the tradition of couture as “tech-couture” where delicate hand-made embroidery and needlework is replaced by code.”
Van Herpen adds, “I feel it’s important that fashion can be about much more than consumerism, but also about new beginnings and self-expression, so my work very much comes from abstract ideas and using new techniques, not the re-invention of old ideas. I find the process of 3D printing fascinating because I believe it will only be a matter of time before we see the clothing we wear today produced with this technology, and it’s because it’s such a different way of manufacturing, adding layer-by-layer, it will be a great source of inspiration for new ideas.
So, welcome to the future of fashion design. We were wondering how far would 3D technology go in the next 50 years?
Going to trade-shows might bring to your fashion business a lot of value.
Photo source: Le Cuir a Paris.
Some of he biggest benefits for a designer to attend trade shows are:
To help you identify the best trade-shows that happen worldwide two times per year (Autumn and Winder), we put together some of the most visited trade-shows in the world.
Being enrolled for the Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society course for the past 8 weeks was one of the best experience in terms of design education that I’ve had in the past years.
This is a course on Coursera.org aimed at making you a better designer. Karl T. Ulrich professor at the University of Pensylvania created the course for designers around the world, and combines the fundamental concepts with hands-on design challenges to become a better designer.
ABOUT THE COURSE
The course marries theory and practice, as both are valuable in improving design performance. Lectures and readings will lay out the fundamental concepts that underpin design as a human activity. Weekly design challenges test your ability to apply those ideas to solve real problems.
The course is deliberately broad - spanning all domains of design, including architecture, graphics, services, apparel, engineered goods, and products. The emphasis of the course is the basic design process: define, explore, select, and refine. You, the student, bring to the course your particular interests and expertise related to, for instance, engineering, furniture, fashion, architecture, or products.
Here is a great video where Professor Karl Ulrich better describes the experience with the course.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
The course it was incredibly rewarding for me. Being enrolled with it every week was an amazing experience, sometimes was difficult, sometimes was fun, but in the end, in two months, I really learned how to think design from the user needs perspective.
I truly believe that design is not only about being beautiful, it’s about being functional and creating an experience for the consumer. The course taught me how to identify gaps, how to set up the problem statement and find out user needs. Based on that I could explore for the design concept and create an amazing handbag concept in the end.
I highly recommend this course for every designer or aspiring designer or for everyone who aims for a better understanding of the design thinking. Even though you are a fashion, graphic or product designer, this course provides a unified framework for design across all domains.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Probably the course will start again the next year for all of you who are interested to make a difference when thinking about design. But for now, if you have an account on coursera.org, you can see the archive of the course here and you can pass through each week of the course. It’s important to be enrolled to each week to understand the flow of creating a concept.
To get a feel for the style of the instructor and the material in the course, this book is a good place to start:
Ulrich, K.T. 2010. Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society. University of Pennsylvania.
The free digital book available here: http://ulrichbook.org/.
With few exceptions, each idea in the book applies to graphics, environments, products, software, services, machines, and buildings. This is a book about ideas. It is not a handbook for doing design. The book targets three audiences: designers with an interest in ideas about the design process; those who do not think of themselves as professional designers, but who have an intellectual interest in design; and university students and their instructors.
Coursera.org is an on-line university completely free, taught by real professors and linked to well respected universities in Canada, the United States and around the world. It is completely free. Right now it is for the joy of learning from some of the best professors out there. I hope you’ll enjoy no matter what age you have.
In this talk from PSFK CONFERENCE NYC, Abe Burmeister explains how a punk-rock ethic helped him create a business building a new niche in a market he had no experience in. Abe just wanted a pair of pants he could both ride his bike and go to work in - and all his partner Tyler needed was a shirt that stayed fresh despite his pedal-powered commute.
The Outlier co-founder describes how the duo paired intensive research in New York’s garment district with the connectivity of the web to create Outlier - a performance fashion business that only sells over the web.
Enjoy!
Abe Burmeister is co-founder of OUTLIER, an innovative performance clothing company whose first product was a pair of pants designed to enable bike commuting.
Enjoy this video and take your personal lessons from there.
I think, no matter if you’re a small designer or an experienced one, you might find some aspects that will have a trigger to you.
We’ve found some words we’ve identified with..
“When you start to design your own company you have to look inside yourself and say ‘well, what am I about?”
“You have to know where culture is today, to react to be contemporary to respond to it.”
“No matter how hard you try there is a cultural window where is your world.”“I’ve had moments of clarity where the silence drives up to noise where I can feel rather than think”
“Fashion, for me, is not just clothes. It can be a mirror where we are culturally at a moment in time. Or an indicator of where we are going.”
Are you an artist/ fashion illustrator and you’re looking for places where to sell your artwork? Society6 might be a good choice. There you can selling your artwork as gallery quality art prints, iPhone cases, t-shirts and other fine products - without giving up control of your rights.
Selling your artwork as a product on Society6 is as simple as making a Post on your blog - except you make money from it! All you have to do is post your artwork to make it immediately available for sale as a variety of products. When you sell a product, Society 6 will produce it, package it and ship it for you, so that you can focus on making more art!
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Fashion Illustration by Kelly Murray
YOU CONTROL THE RIGHTS TO YOUR WORK
What’s yours, is yours! When you post your artwork on Society6, you continue to control the rights to it. We’ve made it easy for you to be able to make one Post right here on Society6, and if selected by our Retail Partners, have it made available through their online stores without forfeiting your rights to your work, nice.
In order to sell your artwork as prints or other products you must be a verified member of Society6, this is how they pay you for your sales. Get Verified Now!
POST YOUR ARTWORK
Click Post from the main navigation, as you normally do. Check the box next to “Make this artwork immediately available for sale…”, it’s highlighted in blue on the top left of the page. Upload one (1) high-res file from your desktop by clicking “Select File”, and chose the highest quality file that you have that is less than 50mb (Note: this file will take longer to upload than on regular posts), and then set your prices once the upload is complete.
SET YOUR PRICES FOR YOUR ART PRINTS
Set your retail price and your profit for each art print type and size, if you don’t add profit then all sizes will be made available at the base price. Based on the quality of your digital file, we will only allow you to post at sizes that will reproduce as high-quality prints, some sizes may not be available.
ADD OTHER PRODUCTS TO YOUR ART PRINT
You will also be able to add T-shirts, Laptop Skins and more to accompany your Print after you publish it (Stretched Canvas is added for you). Instead of setting your pricing and profits, you will be paid the published profits on the sale of each of these products.
PROMOTE YOUR PRINTS AND OTHER PRODUCTS
Make sure your Facebook and Twitter accounts are connected (indicated on the right-hand column). Hit Publish, and be patient. Share the link with everyone you know.
TRACK YOUR EARNINGS
When one of your prints or other products is purchased, it gets produced, packed and shipped while you get paid. Track your earnings in your Account (you get paid every 1st of the month via Paypal - with a 30 day per purchase grace period from date of sale). Ex: if you sell something on Jan 15th, it is clear on Feb 15th and then you get paid on March 1st.
Ready to go?
Want more detailed information on how to best prepare your files?
Check out Society6 & FILE Preparation Guide
We’re preparing to attend Apps World on 2-3rd October in London.
The event is focused to increase knowledge on one of the world’s largest growing industries, confidence to deliver your mobile strategy for your fashion brand and find out new invaluable contacts to set you in the right direction. During the event you’ll also find out the tools and techniques required to turn your website into a business and the insight and knowledge to run a successful mobile marketing campaign for your fashion brand.
Maximising the opportunities mobile marketing brings brands and building sustainable strategies both for apps and in a broader context through search, affiliate & ad networks, analytics, sms, vouchers, location strategies and more are covered in this track. As apps increasingly fall under the marketing remit, the introduction of detailed metrics into the delivery of mobile marketing has refined much of the associated strategy. Understanding the application of these metrics, and acting intelligently on the insight they provide, is fundamental to today’s sessions.
An increasingly mobilised workforce and the boom in the consumer apps sector has led to a rapid expansion of demand for enterprise app development and the emergence of the enterprise app store. Day 1 looks at real-world examples of apps being used for business and examines how applications fit into traditional organisations, enabling remote working and real time data accessibility.
If you want to find out more on how to maximize your mobile campaigns effect, see you at Apps World who will be taking place at Earls Court 2, Warwick Road, London SW5 9TA on 2-3rd October. More details about the venue here.
Talking on financing is one of the most important decisions a fashion label will make. To have a chance to raise money from an investor, depends very much on the nature of your fashion business. It’s true that this is not an easy step but, if you keep on going for your goal, you’ll have many chances to reach it.
Designer Stephanie Rolland, Photo source: Arstcrylogique
If you have just started with your fashion label you might know from the beginning that it’s very hard to raise money from an investor. This happens because investing in a new designer is very risky. You don’t know if your business will work so that you must test it first and then, go to check out for investment. I’ve recently read an interview with fashion designer Stéphane Rolland who had the chance of being funded by some investors, and she’s saying that “nobody is ever being known to produce a first collection on break even. It’s an absolute risk. It takes at least a minimum of 2-3 collections to see the light.”
The best thing you can do when you are at the beginning with your label is to talk with as many advisers as you can. Investors may have advice to offer, and you might take this under consideration.
We highly recommend you to check out Astia which is an international, mentoring and training organization that prepares women-managed startups for funding, and then helps to introduce them to investors. Their track record is: over 60% of their graduates receive angel or venture financing.
The good news is that with your business plan in hand proving that your fashion business have a strong vision and makes profit, your chances to get finance to your fashion label increases.
When you are sure about your business profitability, it’s time to talk with some angel investors. There are active investors in fashion lines, but they are hard to find especially if you do not have a track record.
1. Jeffrey M Aronsson - Aronsson Group - they are a group that restored Oscar de la Renta’s profitability, fixed the Company’s capital structure problem and paid off all debt, tripled its sales, while improving gross margin by 800 basis points. They also have returned Donna Karan International to profitability within 2-years of taking helm after 4 years of losses since the LVMH takeover in 2001. They initiate a strategy and pushed development for the Marc by Marc Jacobs accessories line.
2. Monica Mehta - Seventh Capital the New York- based investment firm main focus is small and middle companies. They focus on one to two acquisitions per year and maintain a long term investment horizon. They are interested of seeking investment opportunities in e-commerce, consumer web and financial service companies. So if you’re not a designer but have an idea for an online retailer, or if you sell your goods primarily on the web, it might be worth looking into.
3. Andrew Rosen - HM Capital Partners. The Theory founder and CEO, Andrew Rosen is an investor in Proensa Shoulder, and also he bought fashion house Helmut Lang from Prada. Henvests publicly and privately in brands.
4. Marvin Traub, Marvin Traub Associates - Traub is best known as a prominent business executive in the retail sector known for his impact on merchandising and marketing. He spent 22 years as a CEO at Bloomingdale’s. He mostly consults for big companies but he is also a partial investor in brands like Rachel Roy and Matthew Williamson.
5. Sage LLC - This Los Angeles based independent investment banking advises its clients on a wide range of mergers and acquisitions. Their trusted advisers are the people you reach out to when you’ve already built a successful business and want to take it a step further.
6. Trapezia Capital – is the Uk based fund investment dedicated exclusively to investing in high growth women-focused businesses.
Photo: Chloe & Isabel
7. George Bell - General Catalyst Partners which is a venture capital and private equity firm that invests mainly in entrepreneurs who are building technology-based companies but it recently invested in a few fashion and lifestyle companies including Chloe & Isabel.
8. Robert Bensoussan - Towerbrook Partners Robert Bensoussan formerly CEO of Jimmy Choo is raising a fund to invest in fashion businesses with sales of $30m. They are based in Europe and the USA and focuses on making investments in European and North American companies.
Designer: Marios Schwab / Photo Source: icon concierge
9. Wendy Malem - The Centre for Fashion Enterprise is a London based business incubator that supports and nurtures emerging fashion design talent. They identify and selects designers from the UK, to fulfil consultancy and collaborative roles for UK and international fashion and lifestyle companies, and negotiates licensing and sponsorship deals on behalf of designers. The CFE boasts a past and present roster of international designers includingErdem, Peter Pilotto, Marios Schwab and Richard Nicoll; iconic names known throughout the fashion industry for their innovation, creativity and desirability.
A good idea might be to take a look at all those designers who already raised finance and learn about their businesses, how a business should be to take a chance in front of the investors.
Once you have successfully raised your funding, you will need to think carefully prioritising key areas to allocate the capital across the business needs you have identified in your business plan.
We’ve invited select companies to join us as our friends, partners, and faculty.
They represent some of the most successful leaders at the intersection of business, fashion and entrepreneurship.
To inquire about partnership opportunities, please contact us here: julia(at)fashionarium(dot)com
If you want to get in touch, please send an email to (julia at fashionarium dot com)
