As we know, commercial clothing brands, will determine the style of the brand by setting the age, status, consumption ability, dressing needs and other elements of the target customer group, ready-to-wear will be mass-produced and elements will follow the fashion trends, so as to obtain greater commercial benefits.
To a certain extent, it will tend to be more eclectic in order to meet the aesthetic needs of the clientele, taking a balance between style and demand.
Why add the word commercial in front of designer? It is because of its commercial properties. Of course, if the designer can well grasp the commercial properties, this for the future career width, career life and career upward channel, have a very strong ability to support.
So in addition to drawing, aesthetics, style, pattern, process and other basic design capabilities, as a commercial brand designers, but also need to have the following professional capabilities.
Capability of wave-oriented design
Seasonal band-oriented design is a highly commercially oriented design that starts from the perspective of the loading cycle and product life cycle to develop designs.
By developing designs within the constraints of the band, we can make the products more integral and series-oriented, and the structure and proportion of the products more clear, so that we can complete the design tasks of a season more effectively, which is a market and sales-oriented design development method.
The most closely related to the band is temperature. Generally, the human body’s perception of temperature differences beyond plus or minus 3 degrees is obvious. The most closely associated with temperature is fabric.
Therefore, commercial designers do design, must be very sensitive to the difference of temperature, for example, the first wave of autumn and winter, the jacket needs thinner tweed and blended wool; trench coat can choose coated material and metallic silk material; while tops, undershirts, skirts, pants can be considered with similar fabrics to form a sense of series, but also the main models and main fabrics; dresses and blouses can choose similar fabrics, such as silk cotton, chiffon print, etc.
The wave is related to the fabric, and also related to the category. For example, for the early autumn wave in August and September, what are the sub-categories for outer wear, inner wear, underwear and one-piece, and what is the number of each sub-category.
These ratios and quantities are definitely not patted on the head to come up with, but a combination of weather and temperature big data of sales markets around the world.
the ability to design for the customer group
Product style must not be disconnected from the customer group, for example, the clothes of Jiangnan Cloth, sold to buy a scallion have to bargain square dance aunt, can sell well? And the mainstream customer group positioning of the brand, mainly including the age, income, occupation, education and other customer groups.
In-depth research on customer segment positioning, in addition to pinpointing sales targets, can also help brands achieve differentiation in analyzing competing brands.
Just from the level of demand alone, the following levels can be delineated.
1. can wear good, the basic functional needs, there are clothes to wear, warmth and shelter.
2. dressed to meet the needs of the segmentation scene, formal wear at work, casual wear on weekends, comfortable home wear, sportswear when wearing special sportswear, etc., when wearing a casual point of vacation clothes.
3. wear taste, pay attention to the fashion degree and brand, personality, some people are some brand loyal fans, such as some people will spend 8000 yuan to buy Nike’s co-branded limited edition shoes, some people will be keen on a designer, some people will line up to buy a brand of style, etc..
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The important ability to design for product positioning
When we are designing and developing a collection, we must have encountered the following situation.
A series of style ratios only plan the structure of the category, such as a few T-shirts, a few trench coats, a few shirts, a few pants, etc. As a result, the developed styles are poorly matched, and the sense of the series is not strong, especially after the store, the positioning of the style is very vague, and the shopper is very confused about how to sell your products.
We should all know that before ordering, customers or buyers usually have to listen to the company’s product planning (some are design departments) department’s thoughts on the season’s product development, how many series, what is the theme, what is the main promotion, image, basic and promotional models.
Here the so-called image models, is the store those good-looking clothes that do not sell, must be more models and less.
If a store does not have an image model, the temperament will not come out, there is no way to pull off the visual difference with competitors; and the basic and main models, generally ordered a larger amount; as for the promotional models, which are used to compete directly with rivals, only after careful analysis of the sales table and intelligence table, to order the exact amount.
From the point of view of brand development, a plate of goods is divided into three major sections: basic, thematic and image sections.
The criteria for reviewing the plates are almost completely different for different product attributes.
And the proportion of goods planning, the most common is 30% (basic models) – 60% (theme models) – 10% (image models), the proportion will vary from company to company (theme models in the e-commerce company will be called the main push models).
The ability to design for competitors
Today’s apparel business is not a closed door to do a good job on their own brand, but a business with very fierce competition, who can gain a competitive advantage, who will be able to grab market share.
Only by accurately understanding the products and sales information of competing brands can we formulate targeted countermeasures to win a competitive advantage in the market.
Studying the merchandise category sales data of competitors and neighboring stores can be very informative for your design development direction.
For example, your similar competitive brands, shirt design and sales are very strong, then you have to consider whether your shirts are at a disadvantage, which categories are stronger …… It is recommended that you focus on analyzing the characteristics of competitive brands’ shirts, so that you can use their strengths in the next season’s design development.
Of course, the number of styles in the development categories mentioned here can not be reduced, if the number of styles is reduced will make the whole tray of goods display and collocation is not reasonable, will affect the overall store display image.
Give full play to their own brand advantages, while avoiding the strong rivals, in order to be in a stronger position in the fierce market competition.
The ability to consider the price of goods to design
Commercial designers must pay attention to product prices, how to develop to refer to the price positioning.
Domestic commercial brand pricing is generally set first multiplier. And the basis for determining the multiplier, one is the cost, but the brand premium capacity. The brand value of the poor brand can only set 5 times the rate, the good brand can set 10 times or even 12 times more, such as Masefield, the Wo.
Analyze the price rules of brand clothing market segmentation. Brand clothing is divided into FMCG, low-end, mid-range, mid-range, high-end, high-end, luxury, buy stores.
Brand pricing is relatively easy to control wholesale, large FMCG brands are generally about 3 times, the common practice of low-end brands is 4-5 times the raw materials + processing, mid-range is 6, high-end 7.5 to 12 (is the technical term: multiplier).
This is also divided into specific situations to analyze, for example, some so-called good brands in previous years to 15 times, just because most consumers’ perception is not comprehensive and multi-line city information asymmetry caused.
The price of luxury and designer brands is actually based on the positioning and popularity of the brand.
Buyer brand and divided into label and pure buyers, pure buyers such as a T, play is to buy and sell, hanging price according to the original product, but because of strong bargaining power can reach with discounts for price fine-tuning. This part can refer to high-end brands. The example of labeling is hot air, looking for models labeled, the price reference to the low-end brand.
the ability to design considering sales patterns
Need to be clear about different sales model, what design strategy should be adopted.
1. if you do brand chain mode, then your corresponding product series with is very important, pay attention to the continuity, especially to distinguish the ratio of continuity models and the main models, and the quality of fabrics and workmanship must be strong.
2. if you are a buyer’s store model, we must pay special attention to your style diversity, and fashion degree to high. 3.
- but the e-commerce model is different, e-commerce pursuit is the explosion, so it belongs to the pace of fast fashion (most). The electric business may be A class line B class line, there is a burst line, and a variety of combination of lines (such as Handu clothes), it is a different kind of practice. So this time, we should be according to their own situation, make their own positioning.
- wholesale mode generally do not have to do the whole category, so generally first do a wave decomposition, and then do a style analysis, color analysis, style ratio distribution. Compared with the brand planning and design, wholesale is more market-oriented, the pursuit of rapid response.
the ability to consider the selling point of the product to design
If the color is the core selling point, then the direction of your models should focus on the “color” up, other aspects such as style, fabric, do not spend a lot of effort to study.
Another example is the style, if for women and young people, relatively, to emphasize the uniqueness of the style. And for mature people, focus on simple and generous, calm and uncomplicated. Another point of view, the low price point of the product is difficult to create selling points in the fabric, process (cost and uniqueness are limited), only in the style changes more articles.
For example, the women’s brand Pacific Bird fall models, the version is responsible for the public-friendly, tall, short, fat and thin are suitable. Style changes to seize the psychological needs of this consumer group, with a large lapel design that closely follows the trend, taking into account the fashion degree also ensures the customer base area.
And fabric, in general, the lower the price point of the product, the fabric is not easy to become the core selling point. If you are doing high price, high maturity products, the more fabric (material) you need to spend a lot of effort to as a model ideas.
Even your paragraph to “cost-effective” as the core selling point is possible. Selling point, not necessarily particularly trendy, particularly eye-catching, but for a commodity, every factor that needs to be considered can be combined with the right. Color? Style? Or fabric? Structure? Details? Under the premise that your position is clear, grab a key point to design.
Basic merchandise data analysis skills
It should be noted here that commercial apparel designers do data analysis, using only addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, without advanced mathematical knowledge, judging data mostly in percentages.
Note also that data analysis should be compared, data analysis without comparison is almost meaningless. Get more historical data and more basic data.
Important to note are.
Seasonal ratio of goods, the proportion of the structure of goods, the proportion of new, old models, color ratio, best-selling models, the proportion of slow-selling models, high, medium and low price ratio.
And figure out the commodity data analysis, in order to give rational support to the design and development.
For example, the design department will analyze the problem (good aspects/bad aspects/continuity points/missing points) of the model.
Style extension planning has a great impact on style sales. The design department will refine the style keywords for the best-selling models, including category, silhouette, length and fabric, and make a continuation development plan.
Mastering these data analysis is enough to be competent as a commercial designer and pave the way to be a supervisor or director in the future.
Basic planning skills
Planning is to clarify the specific work content. For example, brand positioning, style positioning, customer analysis, product structure, wave strategy, marketing strategy, color combination, etc.
From a broader perspective, planning is the process of coming up with a rigorous idea, then being adopted, implemented, and given feedback after a complete demonstration.
Capabilities such as style, customer segments, product attributes, basic data, etc., as mentioned earlier, can all be integrated in a plan.
For example, the positioning of the design plan, the proportion of the category structure of the design plan, the wave of the design plan, each wave, each series, each hanging rod, each group with, each single product, how to plan in the design plan and so on.
Therefore, a complete professional design plan represents the comprehensive ability and quality of a commercial designer.
