• Explain the price market categories of apparel.
• Define designer collection showings.
• Describe how designers capitalize on their name recognition.
• Summarize the designing process for fashions.
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• Identify the world’s fashion centers and their specialties.
• Recognize some influential fashion design names and labels.
• Cite U.S. fashion associations and awards.
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• Fashion design is the art of combining beauty and function into new clothing and accessory creations
• Fashions are designed and produced at various price levels
• The designing process is based on needs of the market combined with creative inspiration
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• Fashions, particularly women’s garments, are grouped into five main price levels
– designer
– bridge
– better
– moderate
– budget
• Price levels were distinct in the past, but are now blending into one continuum
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• This price level is the highest, involving a small couture segment that provides original, high-priced fashions for the tiny
“class” market
– Garments are custom-made and offered at many thousands of dollars
– These are prestige fashions created by name designers who need international recognition for success
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• Bridge lines are “secondary” lines of wellknown designers
– They sell for many hundreds of dollars
• Bridge lines offer the most expensive readyto-wear apparel produced
– Ready-to-wear (RTW) refers to garments produced in factories according to standard sizes, rather than individually custom-made
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• Better garments have high quality but more reasonable prices
• They are
– designed by talented experts who are unnamed on the label
– sold in selected specialty and department stores
• These RTW garments are more accessible to consumers
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• This category includes medium-priced merchandise with well-known brand names
• This apparel is widely available and worn by most people
– Items are sold through department, chain, or specialty apparel stores
– Retailers sell higher volumes of this level and have lower margins (profit per item)
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• Budget is the lowest-priced apparel category
– Garments are manufactured inexpensively in large numbers and mostly made overseas
– Low-priced chain and discount stores carry this apparel
• This category may include downscaled
knockoffs, or direct line-for-line duplicates of designs
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• Garments from a designer or apparel manufacturer shown in a specific seasonal presentation are called a collection
– A line is a group of styles and designs produced and sold as a set of new selections for a given season
• At the top designer levels, spring and fall showings are glitzy runway extravaganzas
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• Most of these showings are held for publicity and prestige
– To cut costs, top design firms stage their shows at one common site
• Designer RTW collection showings are the most important fashion events
– Depending on retail orders, only about half the designs of each collection are produced
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• The major showings are held twice a year
– Couture collections are shown about three months ahead of the fashion seasons
– Ready-to-wear collections are shown earlier to allow time to place and fill orders
• The individual showings are spaced so important clients and the press can attend each one
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• Top fashion designers have specific creative reputations and personal trademarks for which they are known
• These give the products a perceived
difference, the idea that items stand out from others usually because of image and quality
• Designers capitalize on name recognition to make a good profit with ready-to-wear lines
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• Each designer strives to have his or her signature, initials, logo, label, or garment type instantly recognized
• A logo is a symbol
– representing a person, firm, or organization
– seen on clasps of purses or embroidered onto chest pockets of shirts
• Several ways to promote name recognition are described in the following slides
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• Designer secondary lines have almost completely replaced custom-made fashions
• Designer RTW (bridge) garments feature top quality fabrics and construction
– They are carefully distributed worldwide so only a few items appear in the same consumer market
• Some luxury design firms also create lines for discount and chain stores
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• House boutiques are small retail shops owned by the designers
– They are located in fashionable areas of cities
– They feature RTW designs as well as high-priced, high-quality accessories
• The merchandise is designed by the designer or a design assistant and manufactured by outside producers
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• Licensing is a legal arrangement whereby manufacturers are granted the exclusive right to produce and market goods that bear the famous label of a designer
– The designer gets a percentage of wholesale sales
– For manufacturers, using the status symbol of a designer’s name is very profitable
– For retailers, name products sell well continued
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• Smart designers take an active role in assuring the quality of their licensed products
• Some well-known designers produce specially licensed goods for low-priced mass merchants
• Celebrity licensing links the name of a celebrity to products
• Cartoon characters and copyrighted products or logos may also be licensed
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• Top designers also supplement their businesses with franchises
– Franchising is a contract arrangement in which the designer grants a retailer the right to use his or her famous name and trademarked goods within a particular area
– In return, the designer receives a set amount of money or royalty payments
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• Franchising allows store owners to get their businesses off the ground quickly with instant name recognition
– The designer or firm (franchisor) does not own the franchise or help run the business
– The franchisee is the owner (person or group) of the business
• Franchise stores of designer fashions are often located in exclusive shopping areas
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• A few designers sell the patterns of some creations to commercial pattern companies
– Examples: Vogue, McCalls, Simplicity
– These designer patterns are reproduced and featured in pattern catalogs at fabric stores where the patterns are sold
• Skilled home sewers can use the patterns to make their own designer clothes
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• Most designers in the RTW fashion industry are not well-known to the general public
• Ready-to-wear designers
– work for more moderately-priced manufacturers
– plan their company’s lines almost a year before the apparel is bought by consumers
• Styles selling well now are modified into fresh interpretations for next season
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• U.S. firms generally make “safe” decisions with designs that are known to be popular
– Most copied designs are “toned down” to have wider appeal and to meet various price ranges
• Copying designs saves money for companies and dominates the lower-price markets
• Fashion piracy is the stealing of design ideas
– The U.S. has no legal protection against it
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• Forecasting services
• Art movements, new stage plays, popular movies and television shows, and celebrities
• Fashion-forward styles noticed “in the streets”
• Foreign and U.S. fashion magazines and shows
• Consumer attitudes and purchasing patterns
• Fabric innovations or unusual textiles from other cultures
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• Traditionally, designers made sketches of their ideas before creating a pattern
– Most companies now use CAD systems
– Through global networks, digital images can be transmitted anywhere for instant reaction
• CAD enhances the creative process and shortens product development time
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• Most major cities of the world have several talented, exclusive fashion designers
• Countries are eager to export their fashions to other countries and host their own exhibits and trade fairs
– Designers and apparel companies have promotional trade offices in major cities
• Retail buyers watch trends before buying merchandise to sell in stores
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• The U.S. has gained worldwide recognition for fashion creativity
– New York City is the U.S. fashion capital
– Designer fashion shows are held twice a year in
Manhattan during periods called fashion week
– More than 50 designers spotlight their collections
• Other fashion hubs include Dallas, Atlanta,
Miami, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago
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• The city of Paris is considered the world fashion leader
• Haute couture is the name for its highfashion designer industry
– Trade buyers, retailers, and pattern companies must pay a high caution fee to attend French designer showings
• Prêt-à-porter is the name of its RTW industry
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• Italy is known for beautiful fabrics, sportswear, sophisticated prints, knitwear, and menswear
– Its high-fashion design industry is called alta moda
– It is a fashion leader in the design and manufacture of leather accessories
• Fashion collections are often promoted with fashion fairs showing different categories at different times
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• London is Britain’s major fashion center
– It is famous for custom-made “Savile Row” topquality menswear and elegant women’s apparel for royalty
– Its strengths are high-quality RTW men’s tailored apparel, fine rainwear, and far-out “punk” fashions
• Bond Street is now the creative area
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• Germany
– produces well-made, conservatively styled, highto moderately-priced RTW for women and men
• The Scandinavian countries of Denmark,
Norway, Sweden, and Finland
– are renowned for woolens
• Spain
– excels with leather, suede, and beading
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• Canada’s fashions are mostly at the high-and moderate-price levels
– Its fashion industry is centered in Toronto
– Besides apparel, especially outerwear and furs,
Canadian designers create decorative household linens
• The Fashion Design Council of Canada promotes their fashion design industry
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• Governments of these countries market their apparel products to the world
– Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Bogota, and other major cities are fashion markets
– Some fashion products involve each country’s national ethnic heritage of crafts
– Many products are made to North American company specifications at lower production costs
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• Japan sends medium- to high-priced clothing to other countries
– Some designers have fashion businesses in Paris
– Other Japanese designers make and sell their clothing lines all over the world
– Tokyo’s semiannual Japan Fashion Week introduces Japanese designers to buyers, the press, and the public
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• China is a high-volume producer of textiles and lower-priced apparel items sold throughout the U.S.
• Hong Kong produces its own designs
– It offers exotic fabrics, especially beautiful silks
– It is the world’s largest exporter of fashion apparel
– Fashion collections are shown during the annual
Hong Kong Fashion Week
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• The country is an important source of lowpriced apparel for America’s mass retailers
– It has textile and apparel factories, especially for making sportswear of manufactured fibers
– Recently, Taiwan upgraded its mass-production quality
• The industry has organized to showcase
Taiwanese products to the rest of the world
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• Korea has young designers who create apparel for their country’s fashion-conscious market
• Most designers concentrate on RTW
– such as volume-priced knitwear, menswear, and sportswear
• Most production follows specifications of companies in other countries that are taking advantage of South Korea’s low labor rates
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• Annual Singapore shows feature the creations of designers from Singapore,
Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the
Philippines
• Australia’s fashion industry also has many talented designers
• India has cotton and silk textiles and fashions
• Eastern Europe and Russia produce apparel through contracts with Western design firms
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• Most designers and their firms are known for particular specialties
• In some cases, well-known names of designers are maintained for the fashion house after that person has died or retired
– Examples: Chanel, Dior, Nina Ricci, and Anne
Klein
– New designers are hired to continue their highfashion traditions with new creations
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• The most prestigious U.S. fashion awards were the Coty Awards in 1940s through the
1970s
– Many of today’s designers were named to the
Coty Hall of Fame, the highest fashion honor of the past
• These same awards were continued as the
Cutty Sark Awards through the early 1980s, then discontinued continued
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• Recently, the Council of Fashion Designers of
America (CFDA) has presented the most important fashion awards in several categories
– The highest industry honor today is the CFDA
Lifetime Achievement Award, which is controlled by CFDA’s member designers
• Other awards include VH1 Fashion Awards and MTV awards
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• New fashions are produced at different price levels
• The most important collection showings are held twice a year
– Collection showings are very pricey, but important for publicity
• Designing for RTW starts about a year before the apparel will be sold to consumers continued
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• Many different inspirations affect designers of today’s fashions
– CAD systems streamline the design process
• Important fashion centers are Paris,
New York, Los Angeles, Milan, London,
Tokyo, and other world-class cities
• The Council of Fashion Designers of
America presents the most important fashion awards
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