Economic Opportunities: New Opportunities For Women'S Street Clothes To Become Brand Names

Before becoming a global industry, street clothing became a sub culture.

Women in this subculture mix their old clothes, fixtures, military uniform, skateboards and sportswear, and add some elements of reggae, punk and hip-hop to form their own style.

I was one of them in 1990s.

I used to wear Dickies clothes, a Canal jeans and a M65 jacket, a Fuct T-shirt, a slow-moving Adidas Gazelles, a silver letter belt from Losangeles's barter market Slauson, a Kangol fisherman hat and several "door rings" earrings.

Neneh Cherry, Kolo Savini (Chlo Sevigny), Ai Liya (Aaliyah), Rossi Perez (Rosie Perez) and Luscious Jackson were pioneers of early female street clothes. They wore those styles before the word "street dress" appeared.

From the very beginning, women were an important audience of street clothing. However, with the rapid development of this style of dress into a big business, its mystery has made it more easily accepted by young men who dominate the street dress culture.

If you can guarantee that a product can be sold on a global scale, it will be much easier to bring it to market.

I have worked with creative organizations and Brand Company that are related to street dress culture. According to my past work experience, this industry has a threshold for entry, which unintentionally puts women out of doors.

Over the past twenty years, investment capital, retail stores, e-commerce platforms and social media are all in the hands of men.

When I mentioned to the founder of street apparel company that they wanted to hire women to work and give them opportunities for promotion, some of them didn't even realize this problem. For those private brands that need not be accountable to shareholders, the problem is almost unimportant.

Even the listed sports shoes companies like Nike, Adidas, Puma and Converse have improved very slowly.

Women are huge business opportunities. Now is the perfect time to seize this opportunity.

In order to correctly grasp this opportunity, brands need to adjust according to women's shopping habits, enhance the status of female role in telling brand stories, change the male to female concept and emphasize the employment and promotion of women.

Driven by the pressure from the media, women's movement and the potential business opportunities of billions of dollars represented by female consumers, we women began to appear on the conference table.

In the future, we will see more integration and collaboration in this industry. We will also see that brands that want to enter this lucrative market will rely more on women athletes, female designers, innovator and women culture leaders to improve themselves.

This change also gives the brand a wake-up call: if they are not committed to training and serving female audiences, they will be left behind.

The decision makers of large sportswear brands are not women. This needs to be changed quickly, and the pace of change is not fast enough.

The history of women wearing Street clothing has a long history.

In the early 90s of last century, the designer Patricia Field opened the store in the center of the city to attract women in the street clothing culture circle. The girls in New York nightclubs were wearing clothes bought from her family.

In addition to that store, you can't buy Shanzhai Chanel baseball caps, thick bottomed sports shoes and tights to match a large Dougie chain in other parts of the city.

Like the Dapper Dan in the suburbs, Field combines sports with luxury, attracting consumers who know the street in a sexy, affordable and fun way.

In those days, street dresses also liked the Hysteric Glamour, the brand founded by Nobu Kitamura.

This Japanese brand was founded in 1984, and was subjected to the fanatical worship of professionals.

(before her Harajuku Lovers production line copied the brand, Gwen Stephanie [Gwen Stefani] mentioned it in her song "Harajuku Girls").

Other famous women's street wear brands include stylist Daisy von Furth and X-Girl Gordon created by Kim Gordon Kim (Gordon Kim) and Milk Fed of Sophia Coppola (Sofia Coppola). These two brands have improved the street style of the super size skateboard in order to introduce a more suitable dress.

The list of women leaders in street clothes can also be listed as follows: Pauline Takahashi first opened a fashion shop called Funkeessentials in Losangeles, then led the women's design team of Stussy; Leah McSweeney founded Married to the Mob; Carri Carri set up a cable in London; before he founded the company, he founded a new company with little known people.

In the past ten years, the most influential female run shop is Sarah Andelman's clothing store Colette in Paris, and the luxury mix that you saw in Dover Street Market, Maxfield, Ssense and GR8 is the model created by Colette, but the store was closed in 2017.

Despite the efforts made by these women businessmen and creative people, the popular street wear around the world has been more inclusive of race than its gender.

Until recently, there were only sneakers, brand stories and retail experiences for women.

The brand needs to pay more attention to the employment and promotion of women.

As far as my personal experience is concerned, in the drop culture mode, that is, in the category of limited edition luxury street wear, I am often the only woman on the negotiating table, while the traditional street apparel brand executives are still very few.

"The decision makers of large sportswear brands are not women. This needs to be changed quickly, and the pace of change is not fast enough.

I was once a member of a small group of female managers in this industry, in charge of the multi million dollar men's shoes business.

Rachel Muscat said.

She is now working on the I Am Other of Farrell Williams (Pharrell Williams), a former category director of Adidas in Adidas, who works with Palace, Williams and creative partners like Kanye West (Kanye West).

At the same time, it is too unwise for street clothing brands to ignore the power of female consumers.

According to the trend study, J Walter Thompson Intelligence global director Rachel Pashley said: "recognizing women is in line with the vested interests of the brand, which is imperative from a financial point of view.

Achieving equality between men and women is ultimately dependent on the economic opportunities represented by women.

It is imperative to recognize women's vested interests in a financial sense.

Women represent strong spending power.

In 2009, Harvard Business Review published an article entitled "The Female Economy", which is Michael J Silverstein and Kate Sayre. The article reads: "in the annual consumption expenditure, women in the world account for 20 trillion dollars, and in the next five years, that figure may rise to 28 trillion dollars.

In the same period, their total annual income may increase from $13 trillion to $18 trillion.

In general, the growth market represented by women is larger than that of China and India.

A report released by Nelson in 2017 showed that African Americans' purchasing power will reach 1 trillion and 500 billion dollars in 2021, and the growth of their purchasing power is mostly driven by women.

According to another report released by Nelson, "compared with non Hispanic white women, Latino women spend 43% more on sports shoes that cost more than five hundred dollars."

As the early audience of street apparel, these women have long been a powerful consumer group.

If you want to seize this business opportunity, you must change your mind.

If the brand wants to succeed, it can move closer to the general pattern of men and women. This move can attract both male and female buyers to maximize sales.

In the field of sports shoes, the new style introduced by the market has always been male. But after noticing the phenomenon that women began to buy men's shoes, in order to meet the needs of female audiences, the brands reintroduced these styles to a small number, and also introduced different color matching.

As popularity becomes more and more gender neutral, men are no longer resistant to buying women.

In 2018, Nike launched M2K women's sports shoes, and male consumers began wearing them.

After the joint listing of Nike x Ambush for female audiences, influential men bought this artificial fur pilot jacket, which caused a sensation in social media and resonated with Skepta rappers who care about clothes.

As a creative person, Yoon Ahn, co-founder of Ambush, adheres to the idea of creativity and product before gender when dealing with her product line.

"We live in the digital age, making it easier to communicate with people.

If the work you are producing is related to the word "now," then it will draw everyone's attention.

Ahn said so.

"To my surprise, the footwear business is still managed by men and women, which really hinder business.

If you make some shoes for men and women, then there will be a lot more sales. "

Muscat said, "in the field of street clothing, the money for men and women is a very important topic, because women in this field are not traditional women's clothing."

Female consumers do not necessarily have different product lines. They do not want to shop in stores that only sell women.

They just want to go to Undefeated or Kith to find their size.

In the field of street wear, the money for men and women is a very important topic because women's money in this field is not a traditional dress.

Meanwhile, street fashion tycoons are constantly improving to provide women with better products and better shopping experience.

During the fashion week in Paris in February 2018, Nike has made many new attempts to promote the growth of women's shoes from $6 billion 600 million to US $11 billion in 2020. One of them is to set up a high-end sports shoes boutique.

Bathing Ape launched a series of strong women in spring and summer in 2019, and it didn't feel like a game of "changing size to pink."

Female designers have also been given a lot of publicity.

Old brands, especially those affected by the streets, skateboards and hip-hop culture in 90s, are scrambling to cooperate with new brands that women hold. These new brands include Cynthia Lu's Cactus Plant Flea Market, Christelle Kocher's Koche and Erin Magee's Magee.

Selling products from female athletes, female musicians and female influencers is a major business opportunity.

In 2013, Adidas launched the women's shoes project from the perspective of sports sisters' Union in the advertising campaign of "All In for My Girls", and its business grew exponentially.

The brand is now working with pop star Dua Lipa (Dua Lipa) and Karlie Kloss, an entrepreneur and model figure. Lipa

The sales of Fenty x Puma series made by Rihanna (Rihanna) are very good, so that once Puma is out of favor, it is again related to culture.

Nike promotes women athletes to fashion icons through brand information, free media coverage and clothing joint names, such as the Queen series of LVMH designers Virgil Abloh and Serena Williams Serena Williams in 2018.

In June this year, the FIFA Women 's World Cup will be held in France, when female designers and female athletes will shine.

Because leading advertising activities and promoting sales are still influential people, large brands can jointly launch limited edition capsule series with influential women in order to face more precise groups or regions.

Then work with Footlocker or JD Sports and other large retailers to stimulate greater energy.

The promotion of joint names can really enhance the brand, but it does not necessarily arouse people's desire to buy and boost sales, and there are no perfect joint partners.

The way to integrate two or three visions is challenging and requires an agenda. Moreover, the younger the partners and the less solid foundation in the world, the more successful it is to launch the limited edition and manage the process. The source of marketing and business expectations will also become increasingly confusing.

But there are also some well recognized cases.

Brands like Sacai, Marine Serre and Ambush have proven that they can sell products through the global promotion Joint Fund (limited edition that aims to raise concerns and improve sales).

Influential women such as Billie Eilish, a 17 year old musician, push the culture forward by incorporating street clothes into their pop stars.

Women in New York Skate Kitchen and Brujas in Bronx district are promoting tolerance and empowerment, and have created their own skateboards and street culture.

In addition, influential women like Vashtie Kola, Slick Woods, Emily Oberg, Elle Who, Aleali May, and Beija and so on are redefining the dress style of women's street wear in 2019.

Through their digital channels and influence, these women can communicate with their groups in style and opinion, which also makes them popular with brands.

Applying this force to business is also the key to promoting equality between men and women in the future and allowing women to participate more in street dress culture.