5 reasons to use Vine to promote your brand

Are you using Vine yet?

This short Twitter owned video app is already being utilized by brands and consumers partly due to its simplicity and ease of use. It was used in a big way at New York and London Fashion Weeks as designers and editors alike logged in to Vine to capture and share six-second scenes from the shows.

Design houses including Burberry, Jonathan Saunders and Paul Smith used the app to bring followers behind the scenes and front of house. Matthew Williamson used Vine to showcase details up close during his show.

 https://vine.co/v/brBOwTl0FJm

If you are a fashion label it’s probably time you start to think about using Vine as part of  your current social media marketing strategy.

5 reasons to use Vine to promote your brand:-

Allows you to takes short snippets of new designs, or at a fashion show/presentation

Vine takes quick snippets of video content and stitches them together to create a quick 6 second snapshot of video. You don’t need continual footage, but instead can use 3 snippets stitched together so allows you to take 3 different views of a design, rather than just one at time. It also allows the consumer to get more than just one view of a product or event.

Integrates with Twitter & Facebook

Since you can sign up through Twitter, it makes it simple to follow any of your twitter followers who are also on Vine. Also you can easily share Vine content on Twitter and Facebook once it’s been recorded.

It’s super easy

Setting up an account, shooting your first video, and sharing are as quick and easy as with Instagram, but it is also possible to share content on other platforms. There are now other Vine applications  (eg VineIt ) that are starting to be released to help find and view videos. As with third party Twitter applications, more are likely to come on stream as it gains popularity. You can also upload the videos and embed in to tumblr.

Helps you engage with your customers  

Be creative - use the quick snippets to showcase individual pieces or show the different looks that can be created, take behind the scenes videos of an event or at work in your studio or trail forthcoming new pieces. There are endless possibilities!

It’s fun

As with other visual platforms such as Instagram &  Pinterest, it’s fun to use.

As with all your other social media platforms, it should be used as part of your overall marketing strategy and basic marketing principals apply. The content you create needs to be planned, measured and reflect your brand in an appropriate way.

If you’ve started using it – let us know how you’re using it.

By Alison Lewy

Designing for Grown Up Women

If you are a fashion designer and aged around 23, you probably consider anyone of 40 to be elderly, and a 60-year-old to be so ancient as not to be worth even the slightest consideration.

This is entirely understandable, but also commercially suicidal in today’s highly competitive fashion market.

For the older woman customer has changed. These days she is unlikely to be a crinkly-haired granny clad in elasticated waist trousers and a fleece who puts her feet up with a cup of cocoa and a copy of Saga magazine.

She is far more likely to be a sassy, savvy, gym-fit woman with highlights, Acne ankle boots and Rouge Noir nails who shops at My-Wardrobe, Matches and Reiss and is probably running a PR firm, editing a magazine (Anna Wintour, editor of American Vogue, is 63) or, hey, like my co-director Cyndy Lessing and me, a fashion website, SoSensational.co.uk

Not only has the older woman changed, but – vitally important to you as a designer who needs to sell his or her products – she has more disposable income than any other female demographic and, most relevant for you, she likes to spend her money on fashion and luxury goods.

• According to a Mintel report, the UK population aged over 55 is in control of around 80 per cent of the country’s wealth. In 2008, it was worth £5.4 billion, and by 2014 – that’s next year – it is forecast to grow to £6.4 billion.

• According to a 2007 Mintel report, women aged 50 to 69 buy more designer fashion and luxury goods than any other group.

• In mid-2006 approximately one in five people in the UK were aged under 16 while one in six people were aged 65 or over. According to market analysts Datamonitor, in 2000 there were about 132 million over-50s in Western Europe. By 2025 there are expected to be 177 million.

If those statistics have made you feel it may be worth taking a fresh look at your attitude to grown up women we have some suggestions which may be helpful. And the good news is that, you will almost certainly be able to extend your line to appeal to an older clientele (as these images from successful luxury brands highlight) without compromising on your aesthetic vision.

Garment length 
This is a vital area to consider. If all the dresses in your collection finish four inches above the knee, your brand will not appeal to a stylish older woman. Take a look at the shapes. Will any of the styles work if they are longer? Big, high profile players like Erdem, Preen, Roland Mouret, Antonio Berardi and Jonathan Saunders have all produced wonderful dresses that are on-the-knee or over-the-knee, which would appeal to a stylish woman of any age.

A perfect example of a new designer label which has taken on board the need to produce longer hemlines  is a fabulous fashion brand called Art on Fashion, which can also be found on the SoSensational Directory. Their offering is beautiful dresses, tunics and tops, in amazing prints created using specially commissioned artwork from artists in Japan, Europe and the USA.

They could quite easily have produced garments appropriate only for a very young clientele, featuring vest tops and short dresses. What they have done, instead, is to offer those things, but they have also produced wonderful and very on-trend over-the-knee dresses and longer-length tops which would appeal to the kind of woman – of any age – who would probably like Erdem, Preen, Berardi, Mouret, Saunders, et al.

Sleeves
Sleeves are a tricky subject. It is quite likely that the image which shimmers into your head is of horrid, polyester sleeves added to a frock as an afterthought. In fact, sleeves are a key trend this season – especially bracelet-length sleeves, which play into the whole retro mood.

Fabric quality
The quality of the fabric will be largely determined by your production budget, but if you have the budget flexibility to produce a few garments in a fabric that is slightly weightier, you may find you have expanded your appeal. Lining can also make a garment appeal to an older customer. But if you can’t afford to – or don’t want to – line a garment throughout, you may want to line the skirt of a dress, especially if it is in a very light colour and very see-through.

Selling online? Give the customer the information she needs 
If you are selling on the web, give the customer as much information as you can. Key pieces of information include whether a garment is lined, the length of a garment and whether the garment is true to size. Not only do you increase the chance she will buy, but you will cut down on returns, which can be a big cost for a fledgling business. And when it comes to length, don’t rely on a model shot making it clear what length a garment is. Even if you publish the model’s height, it can still be hard to judge the correct length, so a simple measurement – in inches and cms – is simple but effective.

By Jan Shure
Jan Shure is the former fashion editor of the Jewish Chronicle, broadcaster, blogger and an award-winning magazine editor. She is co-founder of SoSensational.co.uk, the shopping website for grown-up women.

Images courtesy of Browns, Matches and My-Wardrobe, all available to shop at SoSensational

Fashion Angel launches business mentoring competition sponsored by ASOS Marketplace

We are delighted to announce the launch of our latest competition, sponsored by ASOS Marketplace.

One lucky ASOS Marketplace seller has the chance to win six months of Fashion Angel business mentoring.

James Hart, E-commerce Director at ASOS, said: “We are very excited to be working with Fashion Angel again to provide another amazing mentoring opportunity for one deserving ASOS Marketplace seller. We are looking forward to seeing the results of their business development on the site over the next 6 months”

The competition is open to fashion and accessory designers and vintage collectors that currently sell their products on ASOS Marketplace.

Alison Lewy said " the overwhelming response to last year's competition shows there is huge demand for specialist fashion industry business support. We enjoyed working with the 2012 winner, Fazane Malik, who as a result has taken her business in a new direction "

The winner will be announced on Wednesday April 3rd 2013.

The Prize
Six months Fashion Angel business mentoring package.

The winner will win a place on the Fashion Angel six month business start up mentoring programme.It’s a fantastic opportunity for fashion industry entrepreneurs to access six months of one to one mentoring from industry professionals.

By the end of the programme the winner will have an infrastructure in place and have the confidence to build a successful and sustainable business. They will also benefit from the exposure their brand will be receiving as a result of winning the competition. Click here for more information on the Fashion Angel mentoring programme.

Deadline for Entries: Wednesday  17th March 2013
Finalist Notified: Wednesday 3rd April 2013

Entrance Criteria
Open to ASOS Marketplace sellers who are based in the UK.

APPLY NOW

To enter the award, entrants must complete the online application form, or request one from info@fashion-angel.co.uk and submit 3 product images.

Full terms and conditions can be found
on the application form.

Follow @FashionAngel1