Fashion by the numbers is no longer merely the purview of financial officers, but also of social media analysts, strategy and content marketing consultants, all stakeholders invested in tracking the customer journey in today's increasingly corporatized big business of fashion.
Feeding the voracious content conduit, social and offline, is the job of wizard and illusionist-an artist who is also a shaman possessing the ability to divine and inspire mass market design, but also an illusionist, able to conjure imagery of garments you will want and love to wear six months hence. Such stage magic is a CV requirement of today's creative director of fashion.
Accountable in social media, statistically, both by employer and the public, today's fashion designer must also be a social strategist, creative content artist, social influencer, and exquisite networker able to produce legerdemain at the speed of social. As a bonus, she/he may also advocate a socially responsible cause.
Daunting, maybe, but not beyond the mesmerizing prowess of successful fashion designers who closely track their stats. Beyond their unassailable faculty, the stats for each of the designers in NetBase 2-year comparative analysis below also confirm their status as social chutzpah champions.
Each designers steadily graphed ascent, as an influencer, is also a tribute to their social strategy acumen, illustrated comparatively over two years in the NetBase timeline below. Each designers' reach, measured by potential impressions, charts their measure of general market influence.
To compare specific campaign performance vis-à-vis other designers, such as during the recently concluded global Fashion Month, the extract below shows Marc Jacobs earned peak social reach among the six designers analyzed. His flair for the theatrical notwithstanding, Jacobs greatly impacted his social presence by broadcasting his NYC runway show on Periscope from Times Square to London's Piccadilly Circus.
While promulgation of brand popularity as measured by social media impressions cannot be dismissed as a critical factor in attracting not only audiences, but customers to aspirational fashion labels, other brand characteristics, in particular, those associated with social responsibility and, plausibly longer term brand image, have gained traction among Millennials.
The transparency of social media has thankfully lifted the veil on stinging social issues in fashion like racial diversity and sustainability, propelling public discussion to the forefront of mass consciousness. Gone are the non-digital dark ages of fashion's cloaked and nefarious industry practices, which exposed little below the alluring veneer of glitz and glam.
Escalated by socially-conscious designers, social issues have quickly attracted front row attention. Notably, Olivier Rousteing, creative director of Balmain, has been a staunch impetus in directing attention in social media to the lack of racial diversity in fashion advertising, which according to a FashionSpot survey is still 85% white.
Rousteing, a black designer of mixed racial heritage, is a Millennial with a moral mission. He valiantly defies the pedigree of racially anemic fashion, bucking a tradition most designers of his caliber would not risk. For example, the ad campaign for his new H&M x Balmain collaboration, debuting in November, is an exemplary hallmark of diversity.
To promulgate his campaign and grow Balmain exposure, he has recruited a heady following, including all-star social media influencers Rihanna, Kendall Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and others to his Balmain Army. Rousteing's Balmaination also help propagate his effusive stance on the greater societal risks of fostering non-diverse beauty and fashion. And, of course, his Balmain collections.
The Crosstab chart below is a two-year analysis of the percentage of mentions by theme-diversity and sustainability-associated with each of the designers over two years. Balmain and Rousteing, among the six designers in this two-year analysis, earned a remarkable 47% of social media mentions on the theme of racial diversity, distantly followed by LVMH brand Marc Jacobs (19%) and Kering's Stella McCartney (13%).
On another prickly fashion front, sustainability, Stella McCartney has been instrumental in demonstrating in her inspired and commercially successful designs-all fur and leather-free-that sustainability need not trump profitability. Based on the sustainable brand Crosstab analysis, Stella McCartney generated a full 92% share of total sustainability mentions over two years among the six designers analyzed.
An unequivocal supporter for sustainability and animal rights since the launch of her eponymous brand, McCartney has inspired other designers and fashion tech leaders to innovate alternative solutions, as well, fostering new fashion tech incubators.
A Kering Group label, along with Saint Laurent in this analysis, McCartney undoubtedly had CEO François-Henri Pinault's ear in helping to draft Kering's sustainability manifesto urging accountability in the industry be measured by a new P&L-an E P&L, or Environmental P&L. While luxury behemoth LVMH has its own social responsibility missive, there is no doubt that Kering's McCartney is the greatest single change agent for a notoriously polluting industry.
Social wizard, master of social chutzpah, illusionist, social activist? If these are the basic skillsets for today's fashion designer, imagine what prestidigitation future designers will be compelled to conjure.