Small Apparel Brands Bucking Trends

I talked earlier this week about the feedback many of you provided to me recently ... "apparel is dying". I responded by suggesting this is part of a natural rhythm in business ... brands eventually commoditize an industry (Amazon, Walmart, Target) leaving low prices mega brands and fashion / high priced brands.

Then the middle fills back in with brands that "add something" to make mid-priced merchandise amenable to the customer. I asked you to forward me examples of apparel brands that are smaller, that "add something" to support mid-priced merchandise.

I'll list a few of your recommendations here (there weren't a lot of submissions), then do a deeper dive on one sent in by a reader from a client I've had a relationship with for fifteen years.

• Fair Indigo:  Sustainable, Fairly Made.
• 80s Tees:  Gen-X Pop Culture.
• Lascana
• Creation L
• 32 Bar Blues

Let's spend a few minutes on one brand sent in by an employee of a client I've had a relationship with for fifteen years.

The apparel brand?  Wool& (click here).

The reader cited the marketing hook that makes this brand worthwhile.

• "Wear one of their dresses for 100 days straight and Wool& will give you a $100 gift certificate".

Here is more on the 100 day dress challenge (click here). They suggest that 7,000 customers completed the challenge. Read the criteria for completing the challenge ... you give them your email address, you've already had to have purchased a dress, they encourage you to wear the dress eight hours a day to get the most out of it (100*8 = 8,000 hours, yeah, that's getting some mileage out of the dress). They ask you to promote the challenge on social media ... free marketing! Then you have to email them date-stamped pictures of all one-hundred wearings.

Also notice the "Why 100 Days" quotes.

• The challenge proves that wool is a performance fabric.
• The challenge proves that wool is remarkably odor-resistant.

Finally, there are 413 comments in the post about the 100 day dress challenge. I've talked about the importance of hosting your own community-based forum. Here's one. Every time you log in an participate, they capture information about you that tells them you are interested in them in-between purchases. They may not even use it, but if they worked with me, they'd use it! Who would you rather have on your customer file ... a customer who last purchased 18 months ago that you know nothing about, or a customer who last purchased 18 months ago and interacts with your community?

If 100 days is too long, they offer a 30 day challenge and a $30 gift card. Compromise!

They have community meetups. Twenty-five years ago at Eddie Bauer we had a "field marketing" team ... it was their job to foster what is now called "community". It turns out people want to feel like they are part of something. Who knew?

Here's their Facebook community ... it's private, 25,800 strong. They tell you it is, and I quote, "The Nicest Place on the Internet".

So, yeah, this is what "plus something" looks like. You add all of this and all of a sudden you can get away with mid-priced or even non-fashion expensive-priced items. You're not competing against Target. You carefully define your corner of the world.

I know, I know, this is where you tell me that I'm crazy, and you tell me this is too much work, and you tell me there is no guarantee of success. If that's how you feel, tell me how your call-to-action A/B creative test on Facebook worked, because you're left fighting for customers in a soulless digital landscape, all-the-while being pressured to lower your prices to Amazon / Walmart / Target levels.