The important segment when you’re managing production with your design team is the tech pack. In the footwear business, the tech packs are beautiful technical drawings. First started by hand and then finished in Adobe Illustrator, the tech pack is what builds your footwear collection. It’s how you break down your collection and all of the sizes you’ll be offering. In shoes, for example, it’s your mid-soles, outsoles, cushions, labels, and your aglets on the laces.

It’s all in the small details of producing your product, from what material you use for the linings to where your logo goes. Your tech packs, sometimes loosely referred to as spec sheets, is really an international language suited for the factory. The production people will refer to tech pack and are able to understand how the product needs to be made.

The tech packs specify how styles are made and what materials are used – they are like a contract with your factory. You are going to inform the factory of every single detail in that shoe, from material, to mid-sole, out-sole, sock lining, lining, type of stitch, type of thread, logo placement, straps, laces, and fabrication. Is it welded? Is it stitched? Is it molded? All of your footwear education information is in the tech pack and what you don’t put in there will not be added by the factory.

Any information you don’t put in your tech pack, somebody else is going to come up with what’s missing. In online footwear education, you’re taught to make sure that everything’s in there. If you don’t include the thread color, you will wind up with whatever thread color’s on the machine. So you do need to be very specific and thorough with your tech pack to ensure the best results.

Technological advancements are revolutionizing the way we travel. We use technology from the moment we leave until we return. Many of us will think of Facebook or Instagram when considering what motivates us to travel. We’ll recall these lovely destination accounts. They inspire us with photographs of places we’d like to visit.

To begin, we must then arrange our vacation after we have the inspiration to travel. We may use airline or travel agent apps. We may also use apps like Tripit, which compile all of that information into one easy-to-understand bundle, so we know where we’re going and where we need to be.

Next, when we’re looking for the best deal, we might use price comparison websites such as Trivago.

Price comparison websites are interesting models because they don’t book the room for you. They only provide you with a pricing comparison. Then, as you click, you will make a reservation with the company you just selected. Trivago makes money in a variety of ways. Every time you click, the individual who actually finishes your booking receives a commission.

Finally, when we return, we may write a review. Travel reviews are critical since they have the potential to impact others’ future travel decisions. TripAdvisor is by far the most popular travel review app, and it has lately expanded its services to include travel bookings.

The entire wheel of travel, as we call it, is surrounded by technology. It’s with us virtually the whole time. Because technology has changed the travel industry, there are now professional opportunities for people we didn’t have before.

Consider how Instagram influences our travel decisions. Influencers are paid to post specific photographs or posts and videos about properties or places. Google Guides might also be an excellent way for people to review and influence the visits of others.

Another area where technology has helped people develop their own company ideas and become a part of a community is reviews. When you consider Google Local Guides, it’s an excellent illustration of how individuals leave ratings that affect where other people go. Someone may hire you as a result of the reviews you’ve published. This may lead to professional opportunities in the future.

Brand storytelling is more than simply sharing the story of your brand’s history from the beginning to the present. Whether you are trying to renew interest in your company or getting a new company off the ground, brand storytelling is as essential to any business as making sure you send the correct orders to the people who made them.

So, if telling customers or potential ones a sequential history of your brand isn’t brand storytelling, then what makes brand storytelling different? And why is getting telling the brand story in a certain way crucial to the success of any business?

What makes brand storytelling unique from laying out a timeline is that it elicits an emotional reaction and creates a connection with people when done correctly. These people will hopefully turn into new customers.

Most importantly, your storytelling must be authentic if it is going to resonate with others. When you think of David Yurman, of course, you will think of jewelry, but you may also feel as though the artist created the particular piece just for you. David Yurman’s brand storytelling reminds you that artists first and foremost are what leads the brand—designed to be both stunning and unique each piece is a reminder that artists show and care about the brand. That type of almost purely visual storytelling, along with written storytelling, allows the brand’s artistic roots to shine through, resonating with artists and art lovers alike.

As humans, we all need to feel understood, to know that someone out there empathizes with us as we empathize with others. While not every person will identify with every brand, the brands you will remember are the ones that tap into that innate human need to connect. If your brand storytelling is relatable and one that people can identify with, even feel a part of, you are doing something right.

Don’t fret if telling a story with visuals or your words isn’t your first choice of jobs to do within your company. You have options to help ensure adherence to the last aspect of your brand storytelling – consistency. It’s imperative to keep the feeling your brand’s storytelling evokes in people the same across all media platforms, from digital, print, and television to influencers you may choose to enlist to promote your products.

A company can choose who tells its brand’s particular story. If it is your company, you will feel that connection to your story. Whether you can convert that into marketable media or not, public relations (PR) professionals and PR firms are there to help. They will extend the reach of your story, acting as liaisons with media professionals who will put your brand and storytelling in front of a wider audience.

Brand storytelling is multifaceted; enlist help when you need it. As long as it remains authentic and consistent, people will identify with it and with your company.

Choosing the name for your fashion brand can be a surprisingly complicated process. While it may initially be simple to come up with a name you love, you also need to perform your due diligence to ensure it’s not already taken or trademarked. When Lafayette 148 New York first started out in 1996, they underestimated the process of securing their name and brand.

Their name, chosen because it was their street address in iconic New York City, was challenged three years into business by a French department store with Lafayette also in their name. Lafayette 148 already had a few stores, branding, and stationery in their name at this point. Luckily, their trademark infringement claim was denied since the department store did not have a brand presence in the U.S.A.

After winning the U.S. trademark case, Lafayette 148 New York expanded their fashion business into Canada and also won their trademark. The process of securing and protecting their brand name was one country at a time and involved costly legal fees. In their case, they must always include the numbers and New York in their name.

When deciding on the name for your fashion brand, it’s smart to look up any potential names on the United States Patent and Trademark Office website and see if they are already a registered trademark. If not, you can apply for a trademark in your specific category as well as secure your website domain and social media handles.

Many people choose to use their own name or initials for their fashion brand. Using online fashion education and noting what makes your brand unique or what words describe your aesthetic can help you come up with a classic name that accurately conveys your brand.

In the head space of the consumers and the industry, brands have a front door. The front door that makes the first impression on the world. This is the name. Coming up with a name that’s going to resonate is super important for your brand. It should be something that people can remember. It should be a name that’s going to stick around.

It’s a mystery why some brand names resonate and why some don’t. We can ask, how did this brand become a huge brand and this brand not? Ultimately, determining why some names stick is hard to kind of quantify. How these brands endure has to do with what’s behind the name. Names are certainly important.

When naming a brand, it’s important to consider a number of factors. If you are starting a brand that you want to have a global scale, you have to consider how the name will translate. For example, you have to ask yourself how this name will translate into Mandarin for a business in China, which is a really important market. Ask yourself: How is this name going to project around the globe?

Thinking about a brand and the name for it can be tricky. “There are certain things that I love for my personal aesthetic. For example, I love genericness, but at the same time it has to be searchable, it has to be found in the world. Like for example, there’s a music group called Men or there’s another music group called The Internet. And I think that’s so fun, but at the same time, it is impossible to find, and it’s not really but it is. Then also, I think personal connections again, make the most sense,” says [INSERT SPEAKER HERE].

What’s in a name? The choice of branding is one that’s fraught with potential pitfalls in fashion business. The eponymous brand means naming the brand after yourself. The world is rife with eponymous brands and some of the biggest brands are named after their designers. Even the great fashion houses of Europe are named after their initial designer.

There’s a precedence for this type of naming, but it also puts the designer in a difficult position once they need investors. Investment comes with degrees of control. If an investor buys into your brand and your brand is Douglas Hand, and you are Douglas Hand, that investor wants 33 percent of the company that holds the trademark Douglas Hand.

Investors will have a lot of input on how the Douglas Hand name is used. You may not agree with those things, but your name is outside of your own control. Now it’s in the control of a constituency that is usually focused on return.

In the 1980s, you had Calvin Klein with his name sewn on really cheap underwear. They made a lot of royalties, but Calvin himself probably wasn’t very happy about it. That is one pitfall of the eponymous brand.

Lawyers and fashion education experts advise clients to come up with something fanciful when deciding on a brand’s name. Why fanciful? You have the benefit of not having to possibly give up the rights to your personal name in the future if you decide to sell your brand.

Another pitfall for names is you can’t choose something that’s purely descriptive. American Apparel, for example, was selling American-made apparel, not the brand. They didn’t have trademark rights until the world recognized American Apparel meant it’s from the Los Angeles-based company run by Dov Charney. It takes a while to build up that name recognition in the mind of the consumer.


Retail has rapidly changed over the years, with some fashion brands opting for alternatives to the traditional brick & mortar, physical store concept. You’ll find brands focusing solely on e-commerce and not having a physical location. Others have a more hybrid approach. Their physical store serves as more of a showroom for potential customers to see their brand in person before later purchasing online.

The innovative use of the showroom concept for fashion retail locations has been adopted by major brands including Bonobos. Potential customers can check out the brand in person, assessing quality, materials, colors, and sizing. Unlike a traditional retail store where you can purchase on site for instant gratification, the showroom concept has customers place their order at the showroom or online for pick up at the showroom.

The showroom model has become a marketing and advertising play for a lot of retailers. Physical retail is also turning into industrial fulfillment, where they’ll do a hybrid model where there’s the showroom and the goods will be at the fulfillment center.

Nordstrom is currently doing this model where half of their stores use this concept called the “bricks to clicks effect.” Through fashion education and trend spotting, a lot of fashion brands are starting to reevaluate their sales channels. Ifthey have a brick and mortar location for consumers to see the styles in person, they’re starting to see in increased online sales in that geographic area – the bricks to clicks effect.

This sales data is being monitored by performance analytics tools like like the Guest platform. Also, point of sale (POS) companies are starting to provide more granular data to their customers and their retailers, so they can use this data to make better qualified buying decisions going forward.

In the fashion business, “collection” basically means articles of clothing or different items in the clothing line that make up a new collection. What’s the difference between “collection” and “line”? A line is simply a specific organized group of garments that has a centralized concept. It’s a little bit similar to collection. For a designer, you many have different lines working under your label, meaning you have a contemporary line, a high-end line, and a low-end, mass-market line. These lines sell to different clients with different price points.

For a contemporary collection, designers may produce anything from 15 pieces to 30 pieces or 30 styles. For a larger designer corporation or designer label, they may produce as many as 70 to 100 styles per season. We dress differently in the four different seasons of the year. Some designers like to combine the seasons together to create a spring/summer and fall/winter collection every year. For larger mass-market stores, such as Gap, they will produce spring 1, spring 2, spring 3, summer 1, summer 2, summer 3, and so on.

Designers use their fashion education and take a look at what is necessary for their customers in each distinct season. A jacket for a cold wintry day, or a blazer for a nice spring afternoon with some breeze. Creating a complete seasonal look is key. Another important aspect of designing a fashion collection is you want to have a centralized theme. If you’re using all earthy tones, then use only warm, natural tones. If you want to do a neon pop color collection, then you might choose hot pinks, hot reds, and hot blues. Therefore, your fabrications and colors should be pretty much uniform and fit the overall theme.

“Every season as a team we collectively go through all of the runway shows from New York, London, Milan, and Paris, and pull through actual looks that we think will work for future stories at Teen Vogue,” Says Sarah Brody. “Once we’ve identified the trend for the season, we go through all of our market images, which are the photos that we’ve taken at all the appointments that we’ve gone to so far, and we pull out the lower end market and the more affordable pieces that we think that our readers want to see on the page that still relates to the bigger trends that we’ve seen this season.”

“After that, we compile a book that we present to Amy, our editor in chief and our creative director at Marie. We go over every single trend, what styles we think might like that trend, what photographer would work well with it, and we send them out to all the stylists and photographers that we work with regularly. They send back their feedback and some inspiration images that they would want to incorporate for a future shoot for the magazine.”

“As shoots are confirmed, we work with stylists to call in the best pieces that we think will work for the story that they’re doing. Whether that’s a sweater from Guess or a pair of jeans from AG, we’re always looking for the best pieces in the market because it’s our job as editors to not have everything here.”

“Once everything is here and laid out, it’s organized on racks and tables. We then, as a team, edit through to what we think are the best of the best pieces that we want to show the stylists and show Amy in the run through. For those of you that don’t know what a run through is, it’s like a dress rehearsal before a show,” Explains Brody.

“We go through everything. Amy picks out her favorite pieces as the stylists goes through the looks that they’ve created. We talk over the shoot before it actually happens.”

“My favorite part of my job is meeting with new designers and figuring out how I can incorporate them into the book. After all, the Teen Vogue tagline is ‘fashion starts here’. A special experience for me was our main cover story with Kylie Jenner where our sales brand and Maxwell asked the fashion team if we knew of any designers that sent a muslin dress down the runway, and no one really did.”

“I thought of a friend that was just starting out on his own, and I asked him if he would make a dress. Brandon, myself, and my friend Max designed the entire thing from scratch. I was super excited when it ended up being shot. Here’s the image of Kylie and her friends wearing it. That was just one of the many, many memories I have of working here at Teen Vogue.”

Sample creation is essential to making fashion products that sell. According to Angela Gao, no design process is complete without time spent creating and refining these mockups.

“When I’m designing, I like to have a mood board right where I work. If I find appealing images for a new collection, I pin them up along with fabrics I’d like to use.”

Next, Gao refines the creative inspirations she’s collected. “I sort the fabric I’ve gathered. Then, I develop sketches representing flat joins of what I’d like to produce.”

Sample making comes next. Many designers produce samples in factories or designated sample rooms, but smaller designers may prefer in-house production.

“I usually produce the initial mockups and send them directly to my factories,” continues Gao. “Then the factories send me the completed samples.”

Sample-making ensures that everything fits before it goes into production or gets sold to stores. Gao says the extra effort helps her create quality products for her target consumers through a “fit modeling” process.

“Working with fit models is important, but it differs from runway shows,” Gao explains. “Runways are glamorous, so everything is slim, skinny, and tall. When you’re selling to a customer or buyer, however, your work must fit real people. Fit models have the perfect sizing that matches typical clientele. The fitting process lets the designer fix aspects that they dislike and adjust poorly fitting elements. For example, if an armhole looked too big, the designer would pin it up and resize it at this stage.”

Gao also says that fit modeling is just the first step – It’s important to recheck the work afterward. “After you finish fitting a garment, you can send the sample back to the factory. When the factory returns an adjusted prototype sample, you’ll check it against a fit model again.”

Sample making also facilitates business opportunities known as sample sales. “A sample sale is a retail channel for designers to sell samples,” says Gao. “Companies can generate some extra profit by selling samples that would go unused. The only downside of this practice is that samples aren’t perfect. Sometimes, they might lack buttons, closures, zippers, or other features. They also can have fit issues. Nonetheless, sample sales offer great deals.”