While most people still buy clothes in bricks and mortar stores, the numbers are growing for those who choose to shop online. And for those early adopters, the ways to shop are changing at a swift pace. For starters, the vast sea of online retailers has brought about the need for time-saving aggregators; shopping sites that pool several etailers together to save clicking time when searching for that elusive pair of nude Louboutin pumps. Shopstyle has cornered the market here but there’s an emerging niche of more targeted sites for those who want to drill even deeper. At The Style Director we focus more tightly on classic hero pieces in neutral colours, while Farfetch aggregates a wide selection of product from physical boutiques around the world. Merchandise from a mix of independent boutiques (including some wonderful vintage stores) is photographed in a uniform way and sold online, leaving Farfetch to handle the technical side while allowing the stores to reach a far wider customer base.
Meanwhile, ‘curation’ and ‘editing’ are popular buzzwords when it comes to engaging and useful ways to shop online. Topshop, H&M and ASOS have all tried this approach, inviting fashionable tastemakers to pick their favourite pieces and showcase them online. This gives product personality and taps into the current obsession with street style and fashion industry personalities whose unique style has the power to shift clothes in surprising quantities.
And then it gets even more fun. Social shopping is another growth area online with retailers encouraging shoppers to create profiles, follow each other’s wish lists and share purchases on social media sites. Pinterest has only been around since 2010 but already savvy fashion etailers are ‘pinning’ shoppable items to their profiles in the hope that followers will re-pin and lead to sales.
Back in the day, buyers and fashion editors held all the power in influencing the taste of the masses. Now bloggers are doing the same in a more approachable, wearable and often affordable way. Consumers who relate to a blogger’s style choices will often head straight to that blog when looking for shopping inspiration. Blogs with a strong aesthetic such as Keep It Chic and Disneyrollergirl (full disclosure – Disneyrollergirl works with The Style Director) frequently feature shopping pages where readers can buy straight off the page. This merging of content and commerce is a hot topic in industry circles as it challenges the traditional function of fashion publishing. Most well known etail sites including Net-a-Porter, ASOS and Stylebop now have regular editorial pages while magazine fashion editors are fast migrating to bring their editorial eye and voice to online stores. For retailers like The LN-CC and Darkroom both of which enjoy online stores and offline presence, there’s a conscious move to align the two with experiential events and content that marry both harmoniously. Elsewhere, there are changes in the style of photography, with the likes of my-wardrobe moving away from ‘catalogue’ shots to more editorial action poses.
Another development is that of friendly ‘how to wear’ styling advice as seen on Gap’s new Styled-by site. Using media partners including Refinery29, non-models ‘self-style’ Gap outfits with their own (uncredited) clothes resulting in a believable but stylised set of outfits that can be shopped straight away. And for those fashion-forward shoppers who want next season’s look right now, the technology is speeding up to make that a reality. Five years ago Roland Mouret caused a stir by allowing outfits to be pre-ordered on Netaporter straight from the runway. More recently, Burberry has followed suit, while social site Lyst.com has introduced the option to ‘favourite’ runway looks and receive email alerts when stock arrives online. ‘Pre-tail’ site Moda Operandi (only a year old) has helped things along with its instant-order concept that lets impatient shoppers order looks just days after their runway debut. As fashion customers get accustomed to watching shows in real time, and technology improves to shrink delivery times, the fashion seasons will only get shorter. Conclusion? Hold on tight, fashion retail is about to move even faster!
