A DAY WITH FASHION FRINGE

Last week I attended a mentoring session for the three Fashion Fringe 2012 finalists at Shoreditch House.

The mentoring sessions (just one part of a rigorous process to get them catwalk ready) are designed to give invaluable insider knowledge as well as leaving time for those burning questions each young designer wants to know the answers to.

The session I attended was about how it takes a lot more to promote your brand than just creating a good fashion collection. Speakers included:

·         Tamara Sender, Senior Fashion Analyst at Mintel who discussed the business of online fashion, shopping online in general and consumer attitudes for shopping online. She also talked about how m-commerce shopping was rocketing in 2012 – get your tablets at the ready folks!

·         Julian Whitehead and Debra Hepburn, founders of Young British Designers, spoke about what to expect when you take a business online, their customer profile and what it takes to catch their eye when they are making those all important buying decisions.

·         Finally Sarah Bush, Senior Director of Europe for Shopstyle, discussed what constitutes good online marketing, best practise for engaging with customers online, and what is appropriate content for blogs and social media like Twitter and Facebook.

As well as coming away with some great facts (did you know Facebook is seeing a decline in young users but an increase in the age 40+ signing up), I also made some great contacts and hope to bring you more on Young British Designers soon - so watch this space.

I also met the Fashion Fringe finalists (below), Vita Gottlieb, Haizhen Wang and Teija Eilola, and you can follow their progress here as well as checking back on ShopStyle.co.uk to see how its partnership with Fashion Fringe is progressing.

In the meantime I hope you will join me in wishing the three finalists, seen below with Lucie Bartlett, Project Manager for Fashion Fringe / IMG Europe, the very best of luck in the run up to London Fashion Week this September.

Natalie Dawson, Fashion Writer, WWB x