Cable-knit sweaters, crisp polo shirts, linen trousers and a logo you can barely see. The old money look signals wealth by not trying to show it. For a new clothing brand, that creates an interesting challenge. Old money style is…
Every successful clothing brand belongs to a type. Some are defined by a style, like streetwear or minimalism. Others are built around an activity, a set of values or a price level. Knowing your type is more than a label….
An Instagram giveaway is the fastest way to add a thousand followers and the fastest way to add a thousand people who will never buy anything. Both outcomes come from the same post. The difference sits in what you give…
Sneakers are the most requested product in independent fashion and the one most brands regret rushing. A shoe is not a garment with laces. It is an assembly of twenty or more components, built over a shaped form, where a…
Footwear is the category almost every clothing brand wants and very few get right. Shoes carry more identity than any other product you can make, which is exactly why founders reach for them early. A recognisable silhouette on someone’s feet…
Standard marketing advice tells you to define a target audience by age, income, and location, then build a persona around it. Apply that to a clothing brand and you end up with a document that describes half a city and…
Skate brands live or die on credibility. Skaters recognize within seconds whether a label actually skates or simply borrowed the look, and no marketing budget repairs that first impression. That makes skate one of the hardest lifestyle categories to fake,…
Shinsuke Takizawa spent eight years directing design at Major Force, the Tokyo hip-hop label run by streetwear pioneer Hiroshi Fujiwara, before he ever ran a clothing brand of his own. In 1994, he left to start Neighborhood in Tokyo’s Harajuku…
Alexandra Waldman had a fashion background. Polina Veksler had spent her career in finance. In 2015, the two friends combined those skill sets to launch Universal Standard, a New York-based womenswear brand built around a simple premise: every style, in…
Toshikiyo Hirata built his first denim factory in 1984 in Kojima, the Japanese district known as the country’s denim capital. He opened his own store a year later, selling jeans made with techniques he had studied on trips through the…