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From the course by Università Bocconi

Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies

1609 ratings

Università Bocconi

Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies

1609 ratings

Learn how fashion and luxury companies work and understand their brands, products, retail, and communication strategies. Travel through business models, international development, and product categories with industry influent experts. Adopting a case-study approach, the course presents strategic brand management in luxury and fashion companies as a balancing act: tradition vs. innovation, expertise vs. experimentation, casual vs. stylish; in order to increase the brand value by nurturing the brand heritage and at the same time staying fresh, relevant, and contemporary in the global marketplace. Topics such as the impact of new retail channels, new media channels, and new business declinations for the brand and emerging markets will be discussed in the course.

From the lesson

The Evolution of Business Models: From Designers to Fast Fashion Retailers

This second week will be significantly denser and more time consuming than the first one. The topic is that of Business Models in Fashion and Luxury, and will give you a lot of important insights on this industry.

Luxury Brands6:27

Luxury Conglomerates4:09

Premium Brands5:45

Designer Brands6:22

Vertical Retailers - Mass or Fast8:20

Meet the Instructors

Erica Corbellini
Director
MAFED - Master in Fashion, Experience and Design Management
Stefania Saviolo
Director
Luxury & Fashion Knowledge Center - SDA Bocconi

Business models are a way to simplify the reality.

The truth is that companies are constantly learning from each other.

For example, luxury brands are improving their supply chain

following the example of vertical retailers.

And so more and more fast fashion companies are investing in their own unique style.

Some are following the route of fashion designers.

Then you have to add the fact that the industry itself is very dynamic.

What we can do is take a picture of our companies that are competing today,

but the way that they compete next year will be different.

So that business models may help to position the different companies,

and understand the sources of their competitive advantage.

The premium brands identify a quite heterogeneous

group of companies that were born as a result of a division of an entrepreneur,

and the control of distribution, distributive and manufacturing realities

more than as a consequence of the intuition and inspiration of a designer.

Here we mainly find brands that have a fantasy name,

like the American Coach or the Italian Diesel.

We may have designer brands that have a lower position than the European ones and

base their competitive advantage on the right marketing mix.

But here again, as I said, we have a lot of differentiation.

So we have companies that are mainly based on outsourcing and wholesale.

But we have, as well, the Italian, premium brands, such as Pinko, Patrizia Pepe,

Liu Jo, Twinset that produce in Italy, because of a proximity

factor with that supplier that allows them to have more flexibility and

those products with higher level of fashionability.

We have companies that are pure wholesaler, so

they don't have their own stores.

But we also have brands such as Maxx and Kohl,

that belongs to MaxMara group, that is only selling to its own store.

Somehow the common value proposition is in the right combination between

a product that is trendy, updated, but not extreme in terms of fashionability,

a price that grants the customer a right value for money.

So, you spend some money, but you also have a value, because there is

a control of the supply chain and then the right service to the customer,

which means the right delivery to the store, the right creation of an experience

that is involved in the physical store and in the digital environment.

It is worth it to notice that this pretty complex and

heterogeneous class is the one that today is growing the most.

And this is because for current customers searching for mix and match, so

their own unique style, the contemporary brands, which is another way to refer to

premiumpress, offer a product that you may buy if you want to be somehow different.

So it's perceived as less commodity than the offer of the mass market, but

in the meantime you can also change more often than the luxury brands.

So it will require you less investment.

Over the years, these companies have understood the importance of building

their own unique style and filtering the trends through their particular eyes.

But moreover,

they understood the importance of creating an emotional storytelling.

So having a strong and unique concept in their communication is

fundamental, you know, to engage the customer.

For example, the French company The Kooples based its success

on the identification of this idea of contemporary couples that tell

their true story, that is a story of communication but also reflects the fact

that the product and this rock bohemian attitude intersect.

Or Italian brands such as Liu Jo

and PINKO use top models in their communication like Kate Moss for Liu Jo

or Alessandra Ambrosio for PINKO campaign in order to

express prestigious causes that enhance the customer experience.

To summarize, this is a very successful business model that creates room for

a new breach market segment.

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