How to Shop Like a Fashion Professional
- Joshua Miller
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Video Description
Hi everyone!
Because style is my favorite subject, today I want to talk about my experience working in the fashion industry and how it changed the way I shop.
Specifically, I’m going to share 5 things I learned from my time as a fashion merchant and designer that can help you buy better clothes with less time and money.
Make sure to let me know in the comments if there’s anything I’m missing or if there’s anything you’d like me to expand upon in another video.
But until then, make sure to have a wonderful day, and thank you so much for watching!
: )))
Video Transcript
Hi everyone, I'm Joshua Miller, and welcome to my YouTube channel. I create videos on fashion, pop music, and Pokémon so that way you can live with style, confidence, and enthusiasm. And because style is my favorite subject, today I want to talk about my time in the fashion industry and how I think it can be used to help you be a better fashion consumer.
For context, in college my majors were fashion merchandising and business management, and with this, I got to do two internships in the fashion industry, one in fashion merchandising and the other in fashion design. And getting to take this peek behind the curtain of the fashion industry really helped me understand how the entire machine works, which has just helped me become a better consumer.
So, in this video, I'm going to be sharing five ways that you can shop like a fashion designer. And I'm just really excited to share all of these things with you guys today. So, let's get into it.
The first thing that I think is important to understand is that when shopping for clothes, you should always start with the assortment story and not just the individual pieces.
When you go to a store, either in person or online, it can be really easy to just start looking for individual pieces and then see the ones that pop out at you and consider whether or not you want to buy those. But in order to understand the entire collection of clothes, you're going to have to think like a fashion designer and start trying to work backwards to piece together what the creative concepts are that tie the entire assortment together.
Whether it's '90s nostalgia or Western vibes, understanding the creative concept behind a collection is really important because it'll help you be able to, one, quickly understand if the assortment is even for you and, two, be able to sort through the assortment to find the best option within every single category.
The second thing is that fashion brands are constantly taking inspiration from each other.
During my time in the fashion industry, something I often had to do was comp shopping, or competitive shopping, which means going into the actual stores of your direct competitors and seeing the products that they are selling and which products they're selling that you aren't, and considering whether or not it's worth adding those to your assortment.
And I think that, as a consumer, understanding the reality of this is really important because it helps you realize that the ideas and the products that you see in one store that really excite you aren't often going to be exclusive to that store.
While, yes, brand trademarks and specific motifs are going to be signatures of a specific brand, oftentimes the bigger-picture creative themes within the fashion industry can be found in a variety of retailers instead of just the one with which you first encounter them.
And this is really important because I don't want you to feel pressured to buy something that you really love at a price point that you don't feel comfortable with because you think that that retailer is the only place where you can get that product.
Because if fashion designers are constantly taking inspiration from each other and the product that you're interested in is of interest to other consumers, chances are you're going to be able to find it at another retailer in the near future.
And the third thing that I want you to consider is the story behind the prices at which clothing is sold. If you think about it from the perspective of the fashion retailer, they want to make as much of a profit on the product as possible, meaning that if they're putting it on sale, they're often doing it because they have to, which usually indicates that the item is either A, not as fashionable as it used to be, or B, is heading into a period of time where that product is going to be less valuable to the average consumer.
And while I don't think that you should write off every single product on sale from being something that you consider buying, I do think it's important to at least consider the price and what it's trying to tell you about the value of that product before you try and buy it.
And the fourth thing that I want you to consider is that whenever a fashion brand expands into a new product category, it's usually best to be a little bit skeptical of the quality.
This is because whenever fashion designers want to bring a new product to retail shelves, they often have to rethink the way that they design products, the things that they use to make them, and who they use to manufacture them.
Just because a brand is good at executing one thing, that doesn't mean that they're going to be good at executing another, which is why I want you to be cautious and make sure that you are making the most out of every single dollar that you spend.
And the fifth and final thing I think it's important to consider is understanding lead time and how it affects which retailers you should shop from.
So, in the fashion industry, the term lead time refers to the amount of time it takes a fashion design to go from the actual fashion designer to the hands of the consumer.
And based on the sourcing strategy and the supply chain strategy of the specific fashion retailer, this can be as quick as two weeks or even four weeks, or as long as six months or even two years.
Which is why I think it's important to understand how long a given retailer is probably going to take to bring a product to life, just so that way you can decide which retailers are the best considering how trendy of a product you're going to be interested in buying.
So, to conclude, when shopping for clothes, I definitely encourage you to not just think about the individual pieces that you see, but the overarching system and trends that enabled that piece to exist in the first place, because doing so will help you make better shopping decisions that empower your personal style while also saving you time and money.
And if there's anything that you can take away from this video, it's that you don't need to work in the fashion industry to shop like someone who does. By using the things that I presented to you today, hopefully you'll be able to make better decisions that help you build a wardrobe that empowers you to live with style, confidence, and enthusiasm.
So, there you guys have this week's video. Make sure to let me know in the comments if there's anything you think I missed or if there's anything else on this specific topic that you'd like for me to make a video on.
As someone who still works in the retail industry, this is a topic that I'm super, super passionate about, and I would love to be able to help you using the information that I've acquired along the way in any way that I can.
And as always, I'm going to have all my social media links in the description down below, so make sure to check me out on other social media platforms if that's something that you'd be interested in.
But until then, make sure to have a wonderful day, and thank you so much for watching!
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