From Nothing To Somewhere

LOUIS VUITTON - DREAM

As you may know the fashion industry is currently in deep mutation. The business aspect and the creative aspect of fashion businesses are questioned. Every brand is trying to take new positions in this changing environment. The “see now buy now” model is coming to reality and fashion week calendars are being impacted. As a matter of fact, 8 brands have canceled their participation to the current Milan Fashion Week, preferring showing their men collection with their women line, as a whole.

Some predict the end of men fashion weeks. Indeed, if big brands now decide to show only twice a year during the traditional women fashion weeks. Most of buyers and journalists won’t spend time and money for unknown designers. Independent designers might be the big losers of this new shift.

If menswear fashion weeks become irrelevant, they will disappear. Most of them will showcase during women fashion week anyway. It’s already very difficult to catch the attention of buyers and journalists. With this new deal it will be worse.

Buyers and journalists are extremely busy between catwalks and showrooms. They focus on famous brands first, and if they have time they give a chance to a few independent designers. With busier fashion weeks, they will have no time left.  

To use finance terms, established brands are currently operating a hostile takeover on the fashion industry.

Fashion is a business and money is more important than talent. The market is now telling that you will need way more money to get exposure and make your company work.

Independent designers design and create their collection locally, they handpick the fabrics, they work closely with craftsmen. It’s part of their brand’s DNA. They usually make the best products possible and they manage small productions.

As far as I’m concerned, I make a point to make all my products by hand in Paris. I spent a lot of time to find the best artisans. Craftsmanship defines my brand.

Luxury today has as many definition as there are human beings so it’s pretty much impossible to share the same values with everybody. My definition of luxury for fashion is having the best quality in garments, respecting the environment as much as possible but also in mastering the technics of cutting and sewing. I work with an atelier for my leather items and another one for my cotton items because it’s 2 completely different work. One can’t do what the other does.

Luxury for me is also valuating the work of craftsmen and workers in general. By working exclusively in Paris, I support local economy. I know they are protected by French laws. Their work also has to be paid at the right price. So I’m not always trying to reduce their price. Once you reach the minimum price they can make for you, you really know that if they go lower, you kill them. If you want lower pricing, you have to move your production abroad.

Brands that have decided to enter the “money race” have managed to decrease the quality of their fabrics, producing outside the country where work conditions are more flexible at a significantly lower wage. However, they make sure that their garments are perfectly well cut and sew.

After working on their margin, they need to sell more to assure more profits. They spend huge amount of money in marketing and communication to reach the most people.  As a matter of fact, they want to make “luxury” available to everybody. Basically they do mass market with a high price tag.

For independent designers the “made in” tag means it’s 100% made in the country, for big brands (except a few) it means one, generally small, operation has been made in the country. Laws must change on this matter but it’s another topic.  

Fashion is a business and it’s all about strategies. Just know what you get into and know what you buy.

I just feel that people need to understand that independent designers are not in the same business.

We don’t work the same way, we don’t have the same goals, we don’t come with the same products.

Now that I’m launching my brand, I’m always being compared to other famous brands, saying I’m too expensive. The thing is I and my fellow independent designers, make better products in our ready-to-wear lines. Our work is artisanal and we are involved in every aspect of the brand.

It’s like comparing a Rolls Royce Phantom for example to a Mercedes S class Maybach. They are both incredible cars but they are not built the same way. No one is questioning why a Rolls is more expensive than the Mercedes.

The same way, I feel people need to be educated to make the difference between luxury independent designers and major luxury brands.

Maybe I’m still too young in this business, but sometimes I’m tired of seeing the same news over and over while lot of other things happen, and nobody cares.

Paris Fashion Week I Mounir Ghazi private viewings & cocktail party 

There has been a lot of talks and writings about the current state of fashion. I also personally had a lot of talk about this topic. With this post I want to share my point of view in a few words and maybe open a conversation.

In a word of fashion ruled by super powerful investment/luxury groups, most of the brands are under pressure. Finance, market, retail and media have become the new creative directors of most of the big names. Brands have to satisfy too much people at the same time and that’s why they take compromising “rational” business decisions like moving their productions to other countries or spending more money in marketing than they have ever done in history. The formula is simple: global branding strategy + mass production + decrease of quality = higher profits.

Fashion weeks look like a circus. Every brand is doing bigger shows season after season. Super stars, super models, herds of photographs and top bloggers, live streaming… Now they are complaining because pictures come out 6 months before the products hit the market, even stating that the system is broken! Is it a joke?

They say they want to make private viewings for professionals 6 months before the fashion week schedules. It is actually the purpose of fashion weeks! B to B!

4 fashion weeks a year is already hard to manage and now they want to have 8! Where are we going with this? Seriously just fix your mess and it will be all back to normal.

Kanye West showed us the future of fashion shows: showcasing his collection at Madison Square Garden, open to public if you buy tickets.

So basically they will make money out of their presentations, selling the new collections straight out of the runway. Profits are sky rocking and they still want more!

The “system” is not broken they have just compromised it and now they want to build a new one to make more money.

I blame them all for supposedly breaking the system, I blame them for discrediting their own identity and I blame them for taking customers for idiots and bags of money.

Let’s be real where is luxury when all those brands are trying to be like H&M and Zara? Where is the brand culture when you move from your educated customer to mass market?

Luxury brands are being cleared out of their substance and I really don’t know how this will end up.

Luxury in fashion is dead and fashion just makes no sense.

In this race of non stop growing profits, they constantly look for ways to decrease production costs and increase their margins, exceling in mastering market laws.

While social media is supposed to create communities and interactions with customers, they have created a religion type of communication spreading their fake bliss to their audience who take their godly words as pure truth.

High fashion, like other industries, reveals how the constant race to more profits is destroying everything. Now they’re coming to destroy themselves without knowing it (or maybe they know after all). When is enough? Why can’t we say a business has reached its maximum growth and it’s fine? Why do they always want more?  If they can find a way to get all the wealth of the planet, will they go to Mars to find new money?  

Since last summer I’ve been completely focused on products development.

Seeing your designs turning into real products is really an exciting moment! But it’s also a very expensive part in the process of building a brand.

Now, the more I see the collection being shaped, the more I’m doubting about what’s coming next.  After launching the brand, success won’t be something I can guaranty. It’s the moment when I lose control on my project. And it’s scary because I’ve been through a long period of difficult time. I have put so many effort and sacrifices; I have taken so many risks, now I’m wondering and if all of this was for nothing?

Will people know about me? Will they understand who am I? Will they understand my vision? Will they like the products? Will they buy them?

I’m doing my very best to make the best products possible. I can tell you what you will see is the very best I’m able to do. Everything has been thought and studied, every detail, every inch of every piece. I had the chance to be surrounded by extraordinary people who are experts in their field and are always giving me the perfect advice.

However, as you may know, you can have the best product on the planet and still no one will buy it. On the contrary, you can have a bad product or let’s say a basic product and be extremely successful and even being considered a genius by some.

This is exactly what I hate about business. It’s never about the product it’s about marketing. I love the art of marketing but if you don’t master it and if you don’t have enough budgets it’s hard to make it. The world has become so noisy no one will give you a shot even if your product is a revolution. I’m not saying it’s good or bad. This is the way it is and I’m part of this world so I’m like everybody else.        

As for the fashion business, most of the time when you talk to insiders, they look at you with disdain, like you’re not doing something special, actually like you’re not doing shit, even like you’re shit sometimes!

And so-called people who made it from nothing are the worst! I’m a very cool person but I realized those people could make me lose my cool.  

Fortunately they are not all bad, I have met good people too.

- “ Here’s what you should do, here’s what you shouldn’t…

- NO!!! “

First of all, I can see in your eyes and your attitude that you absolutely don’t care, so why should I listen to you?

Second, people need to stop applying the same formula to everybody. It’s completely stupid!

Third, my brand, my rules! My brand is my name. It represents who I am, my values, my culture, my life.

I’m Arab, born in France from a modest family and aiming to do luxury. Sure thing is I haven’t choose the easiest way to make it in fashion.

I thought my products would talk for me but nobody cares about products. Luxury brands now can make basic products and make them vey pricey. Brands can call themselves luxury while making shitty products. Anybody can say anything. In today’s world it doesn’t have to be real it just has to look real!

It’s all about marketing and how you build the hype around your brand.

Everything has become so complex and it could be so simple. At the end of the day I’m just this little guy who loves fashion and products with a soul. That’s what I’m building, through my vision and esthetic.

Back to when I was running FlavorPark, I was with my brother and we were supporting each other all the time.

Now it’s totally different, I’m by myself and I know no one can help me to make it in this business. I come from the bottom so if you need someone to fix your car or build a wall in your house I got you! If you need somebody on a higher level, I can do nothing for you.

I feel incredibly alone in this journey, invisible and even unwanted sometimes! This feeling is heavy and this is frustrating. I start to understand Kanye West when he used to rant on interviews about how he was treated by fashion people.  

But what happens here is, to me, a reflection of how our society works. Democracy, modern world, developed countries, first world… Call it how you prefer. We still live with castes and everything is made to make you stick to where you come from. Of course you will always find people who make it. It’s part of the whole scheme. Hope is needed to maintain the balance.  

The more I’m involved in my project, the more I see the reality of the business of fashion and the more I see how society is built on inequality and injustice. We all know it, but now I can deeply feel it and it has changed my perspectives.

I have always dreamt about earning millions but honestly all I want is to create and to make a descent salary out of my work.

My reality as an entrepreneur is I’m 32 and I still can’t take care of my family. I can’t stand this situation! My parents sacrificed everything they had for us. I don’t know any other parents who would do what they have done for us! Now they’re getting old and I still can’t help them.

I’m the older brother, my siblings would need my help and some support from me too.

I feel so useless and it makes me wanna cry sometimes. Being so powerless is the worst experience I have lived so far in my life.  

Building my brand now feels like a selfish move. All the money I’m spending would be a better use for them.

I’m investing all my money in this brand and I even don’t know if it will pay off, if I will at least get this money back… Just because of hope! And I hope God has good plans for me. 10 years from now, I don’t want to regret the choices I have made in my life. Taking my family for granted is already something I’m regretting. I want to show them I can be a good son and a good brother. If it doesn’t work and I still can’t help them it will be very hard for me to live with this feeling of guilt.

I’m usually not scared of failure but for once I want this business to be viable. My life needs to change. I need financial stability. I need to move forward as a human being.

Even if this post is darker than usual, I’m still a very optimistic person. Hey even optimistics can have their moments sometimes! Being positive requires analysis and reflection right?