How to tackle the 2009 financial crisis is definitely one of our main worries. Forecasts are scary and wherever you turn to - the Internet, television or newspapers and magazines - you find tips on how to save money or the importance of cutting back on expenses. So what is going to happen to the “ephemeral” fashion industry? Will young and talented designers have to give up their careers to find more rewarding jobs? Well, according to the team behind the Catwalk Genius site, fashion – and online shops in particular – will keep on being rather strong thanks to ordinary people supporting young and independent designers.
Catwalk Genius offers indeed a new and interesting concept: people are able to buy from it clothes and accessories from various designers, learn more about them and, above all, actively support them.
The list of designers is wide and goes from Aganovich to Sinha Stanic and Alice Palmer. By joining the site the designers are able to sell their collection and reach out to more people, but there’s something more. Has it ever happened to you to have a favourite independent designer you love so much that you would like to give him/her a bit of financial support if only you were rich? Well, now you can actually do so. As a supporter you can buy shares (there are 5,000 on offer) in a designer’s new collection. One share costs £11 (£10 for the share and £1 for the processing fee), multiple shares are also available and the shareholders are usually given a discount to buy more items online. If a designer disappoints you, you can withdraw your share and get a refund or invest into another designer. In turn, designers will be able to use the funding they get through this special backing project to produce a new line.
But it’s not over yet: when the collection goes on sale, the profits are shared by the designer, the site founders and the designer’s supporters in equal parts (30% each), with a remaining 10% going to Catwalk Genius’ affiliate programme. The designer who reaches the funding target of £50,000 will have 6 months to design and prepare a new collection of 4-7 items, using the amount of money given by the supporters. Designers will have full creative freedom, and they will be provided with help to manage the production process should they need any. The site is divided in three different sections: the Boutique offers the latest trends; the Shop Floor features garments from the current season and the Sample Sale includes a selection of pieces from the past season. The clothes and accessories on sale are checked by a
panel of fashion industry experts including members from academic,
journalistic and commercial areas of fashion and most of them - see for example Fred Butler's “Dodecahedron” necklaces and Ostwald
Helgason’s bags, parkas and capes characterised by bold and vibrant prints - are fashionable and in trend.
If you are a designer or have a friend who is a designer you know how difficult it can be to get funds to sustain a collection and a proper business, so the idea offered by Catwalk Genius seems fresh and exciting in many ways.
I already have my little list of shares I’d like to buy and I’m thinking about strategies to expand my portfolio. Financial markets always fascinated me but I never thought I would have turned into a shareholder one day. I’m curious to see how the site will do next year but I’m confident that, with a management team with roots in finance, technology and retail, it will become even stronger, expanding their selection of designers and products. There might be a crisis out there, but it’s in times of crisis that the best ideas are often developed and Catwalk Genius might be one of those brilliant intuitions.
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