The second half of the morning was dominated by author and marketing, research and business consultant Walter Van Andel, who gave me another much needed crash course focused on business models in the fashion industry. The lecture gave me flashbacks of sitting in class with Jane Bongers at Humber College’s Advertising Copywriting program where we learned the basics of value propositions, strategies, choices and consequences, and value capturing.
His presentation was followed up by a case study of a successful Belgian designer, Natalie Vleeshouwer, who early in her career, following a one-off maternity wear gig, realized that there was a niche to be filled in the high-end maternity wear market. She now has has about a dozen shops worldwide under the Fragile name, with a strong following in Japan, and line extension that simply follows her name due to apologetic requests from mothers who wanted to keep wearing her clothing but were sure that they would no longer be pregnant again! The bonus of her maternitywear line is that it can be worn after pregnancy and the materials are made of extremely sensitive and comfort-focused fabrics.
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