New and Conservative Brands
Being young does not always mean being open to innovation. Or so it seems by looking at the fashion industry, where the key players are those brands which dominate the catwalks of Milano and Paris. This is the surprising result emerging from the research project we have worked on for years, seeking to identify patterns of innovation and the role of opinion leaders in identifying them. Fashion is among the least codified industries when it comes to the development and launch of new products.
Our study spanned a decade, from 1998 to 2008, and considered all the fashion collections developed in each season for each year (i.e. spring/ summer and fall/ winter) by prêt-à-porter brands, as listed in the official calendars supplied by Camera Nazionale della Moda of Milano and the Fedération Française de la Couture et du Prêt-à-porter of Paris. The resulting sample was made up of 42 firms, 22 on Milanese catwalks and 20 on French ones. The results that emerged in terms of innovation behavior were very interesting and were described in a paper titled Innovation Patterns in Global Fashion: Firms' Behavior and the Influence of Critical Audience Evaluation, presented at the Strategic Management Society Conference held in Rome in mid-September.
For each of the brands considered all the clothing creations appearing in each collection were analyzed along with the relative communication campaigns. By using a conceptual grid comprised of five parameters (cut, color, length, fabric, ornament) each dress or suit was codified and compared to the same type of creation proposed in the previous season, so that an innovation index for each collection and for each brand could be built. By computing the average, we also obtained an overall index of innovation per season referred to every brand considered. At the same time, we gathered all the reviews of fashion shows which appeared on authoritative international media sources - International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Wwd, Style.com – and these were codified to arrive at a synthetic index for evaluating each collection.
The analysis of the data shows how fashion reviews affect the innovation behavior of firms in the industry. The direction of the relationship is however counterintuitive. It's common opinion that older firms have a superior reputation to defend and are thus less innovation-oriented, since their aim is to constantly protect and strengthen their identity.
The reality is different. In fact, it's precisely those established brands which have a longer history that seem less constrained by the views of opinion leaders and thus keener to innovate. The rationale for this is not only about lesser financial constraints which favor experimentation, but also the necessity of pursuing a sort of "planned obsolescence", with the intent of constantly stimulating new needs in their target market of loyal customers. Conversely, younger brands tend to break the established rules of the game as they enter the industry, but once they are incumbent they need to consolidate their identity and recognition beyond the initial niche of admirers. This is the reason why they are more affected by the judgments of the relevant audience, and thus tend to reduce their propensity to innovate from one season to the next, as soon as they obtain positive reviews in leading media sources.