Fashion Is A Collaborative Process

We are more connected. Computer technology and electronic social networking tools give us more access to information and more opportunities to join together. What impact does the lightening transfer of information have on the fashion community? There has been, in recent times, an outcry from designers, worldwide, that the internet is a tool for piracy…idea piracy, hmm….is there such a thing in an industry that feeds on the mood and spirit of its time? An industry that depends on the ideas and concepts of others in all areas of culture for inspiration.
Today is hallmarked by the opportunity for each of us within the fashion community to truly be inventive, to use the information available at our fingertips to either seek means to push the edge of creativity and expression, to challenge the status quo of innovation, but most importantly, to merge our separate, respective experiences into a collaboration that offers a unique, possibly even ground-breaking aesthetic to our consumers. Consumers who, today, hunger and if you listen quietly to the rumblings, are beginning to clamor for change.

We are now able, through our social networks and e-marketing capabilities, to engage our consumers on a new, more direct and personal level. This personalization dares us to be both honest and clear in our presentation…to not waste our consumers’ time or trifle with their intelligence, but rather to pose new ideas about our usefulness and relevance, even in the midst of our economic recession.

We must remove ourselves from the belief that fashion is a luxury that few can afford to partake, as well as begin to reprogram our consumers away from this idea. Fashion is not a luxury, deemed available only to the favored few and pampered select, but rather an experience. Experiences that are enriched from our ability to express and share them with one another. An experiences belong to everyone. In this sense, we begin to understand our communication bridges gaps, information delivers choices, and the inspiration that we now can access at the click of a button gives us freedom to share, own, reimagine, and disseminate. Our experiences become a part of the whole and we begin to open doors to new, reinvented experiences.