SCAD Fashion: “Shop All Floors”
What we can learn from influencers and the “fashiontainment” experience
Fashion is in a constant state of flux. Nothing stays the same. Everybody is looking to reinvent and be the first to present the new.
Seventy years ago, fashion was focused on the length of a hemline, the cut of a garment, the latest color trends. Fashion shows were exclusive to selected guests and clients. You had to know people in the know. If you weren’t able to afford “couture,” specialty boutiques and department stores were the places to go for advice. The in-store salesperson was your confidant and friend. They knew you, your needs and tastes. They made sure you were on top of the social dressing game.
It was an event to buy clothes. The experience was social, and included the exchange of information and gossip. People loved to go out and shop. It was better entertainment than theater and movies.
Over the subsequent decades, we have largely eradicated the social entertainment factor from shopping for clothes. The sales assistant, once your best friend, became a nonentity in a store designed to display clothes in a sterile, impersonal style. Shopping became boring. This set the stage for the explosion of online shopping and the rise of the influencer.
The digital world evolved and revived much-needed fashion entertainment. Facebook and Instagram brought the gossip back to life, but the choices in the internet were impossibly vast. How to choose? Buying a white shirt online became an adventure.
When “white shirt” was entered into a search engine, you were drowned in thousands of options. They all looked the same. How to choose? How to shop? The “influencer” was born. A “choice- facilitator” who could make your decision for you. This person’s blog not only featured clothes, but a lifestyle to relate to. Influencers seemed to understand our lives. They provided the gossipy storylines we were looking for. Influencers brought “fashiontainment” back to the consumer.
There are influencers for everybody and every taste. They are not only trendsetters, they are show masters and presenters. Fashion designers of today too often lack the talent to entertain and present, proving that design is not about skill alone. It requires charisma and wit.
We want to believe and we want to be entertained. We are looking for the person who understands us. This much neglected “fashiontainment” element of shopping is one of the main reasons why brick and mortar stores became shopping unfriendly.
As a professor of fashion, I see how we can bring “fashiontainment” back in a meaningful way. At SCAD, we consistently focus our students on finding their inner voice. Fashion students are constantly challenged to reflect upon key questions: “What is my personal style?” and “What is my style as a fashion designer?” Understanding the connection between these questions is important because it personalizes the learning process. “Who am I dressing with my clothes? How does that person live?” Those questions are keys to learning. As I explain to my students, the challenge is to find your unique voice and to articulate your voice in relevant design content.
It’s important, too, that as an institution, the university is focused on professional outcomes. SCADamp, our professional presentation studio, prepares students to present their structured ideas. They also learn how to interact and share their expertise with “non fashion” people. In SCADpro, our collaborative innovation studio, students work towards an industry brief most often provided by a Fortune 500 client.
At SCAD, we prepare our students to be leaders with a gentle touch but profound impact. The industry has to act and reinstate the much-needed expert knowledge on the actual shop floor. SCAD students are ready to take the lead.
The online shopping experience cannot ever dream of competing with the personal touch of real in store “fashiontainment” and friendly support from knowledgeable sales staff. Real life influencers need to be reintroduced to the shop floor where they belong. Of course, there is always space for “fashiontainment” in both worlds, physical and digital.
When we do return to in-person, brick and mortar shopping again (and it will happen), we have to learn how to become friends again with our customers. We need to learn how to understand them again and entertain them with fashion, gossip, smiles, and most importantly with trust.
Let’s bring some joy and fun back to clothes shopping. Let’s disrupt, laugh and influence in a meaningful way again. Let’s be friends again with our clients.
Let’s reintroduce the power of trust to all shop floors.
By Jens Kaeumle, SCAD Chair of Fashion
