3 ms·

To be honest, this is highly amusing to me because nowhere in the musings on the failure did I see the writer(s) acknowledge that they have not a foggiest idea

To be honest, this is highly amusing to me because nowhere in the musings on the failure did I see the writer(s) acknowledge that they have not a foggiest idea of the apparel (i.e. fashion) business. I bet no one in the entire company was a subject matter expert. No one here would be surprised if Bob, a literature professor, who played tetris five times in his life would fail at building a video game startup. This is Bob, a literature professor, who gets his clothes at Macy's on sale ( still at ~400% markup ) building a fashion startup and failing. That is why they failed. The founders are all men. The biggest consumers of apparel are women. Those that run successful boutiques are women and they largely service... women. Those that decide to do their own knock offs of the on trend are owners of the successful boutiques. Surprise surprise they are also women. What do they all have in common? They know that the market is in the throw away clothes that are supposed to last just one season ( trends move ), be cheap ( trends move ), and look kind of like what has been walking down the runway during the Milan FW, Hong Kong FW, New York FW and London FW. Turn around on this stuff in design is about 1 week, manufacturing is another 1 week and mass production is in 3-4 weeks. Designers of the knockoffs ( ok, call them inspirations ) can be talked with in NYC fashion district and in NYC Chinatown (I'm sure it can also be done in LA and during MAGIC in Las Vegas but they are in NYC weekly). Those that want to tweak designs can request it right there and in 3 weeks time i.e. a month after Willow Hand walked down the catwalk in Pineapple pants and well before D&G supplies their stores all those boutiques would have $40-$100 pants inspired by that. I bet they did not hear what their potential customers were telling them. And that's not even talking about the likes of Zara and H&M. There was no market for this kind of a company.

ajiang 8y ago
That's a lot of assumptions you've made without any backing. 1) Building a startup requires the ability to build a tech product and knowing how to solve a problem and sell it. Bob the literature professor is not a good example, as he would not know either - but these guys could clearly build the product at the very least. If you looked at their backgrounds, at least the CEO (OP) had previously started a fairly successful apparel company. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentmori https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentmori So to correct your analogy, this is like if Bob the video game software engineer was starting a video game startup. 2) Many top fashion companies are built by men. In fact, H&M - your example - was founded by a man. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_Persson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_Persson I'm all for diversity, but your comment is overly harsh in tone and not back by substance.
- notyourday 8y ago
  > If you looked at their backgrounds, at least the CEO (OP) had previously started a fairly successful apparel company. It was not successful. It was an unknown flop. > So to correct your analogy, this is like if Bob the video game software engineer was starting a video game startup. It was Bob, a professor of literature, who tried writing a tetris clone in college got to drawing pieces, who tried starting a video game company > 2) Many top fashion companies are built by men. In fact, H&M - your example - was founded by a man. In nineteen fourty seven. > I'm all for diversity, but your comment is overly harsh in tone and not back by substance. This is not about diversity. It is about a vegan starting a butcher shop and getting accolades for waxing about reasons for a failure.
this2shallPass 8y ago
You're probably right, lack of knowledge of the context and the industry helped lead to or caused this company to close. Having someone in the company who was a subject matter expert, if they didn't, probably would have helped them in many ways obvious and not obvious. That doesn't seem to have anything to do with sex or gender though. It might, sure, but it doesn't seem to obviously relate to it.
- notyourday 8y ago
  SMEs in women's fashion tend to be women. That's the elephant in a room.
qaq 8y ago
Zara founder is a dude and he was the richest person in the world for a period of time.
- notyourday 8y ago
  In 1975. Zara mass market pioneered and optimized the retail aspect of "knock off the runway" optimizing the entire knock off to shelves process to about two weeks. It really showed up on the scene twenty years ago. Those markets are gone and they are not coming back.

ajiang 8y ago

That's a lot of assumptions you've made without any backing. 1) Building a startup requires the ability to build a tech product and knowing how to solve a problem and sell it. Bob the literature professor is not a good example, as he would not know either - but these guys could clearly build the product at the very least. If you looked at their backgrounds, at least the CEO (OP) had previously started a fairly successful apparel company. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentmori https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentmori So to correct your analogy, this is like if Bob the video game software engineer was starting a video game startup. 2) Many top fashion companies are built by men. In fact, H&M - your example - was founded by a man. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_Persson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_Persson I'm all for diversity, but your comment is overly harsh in tone and not back by substance.

notyourday 8y ago
> If you looked at their backgrounds, at least the CEO (OP) had previously started a fairly successful apparel company. It was not successful. It was an unknown flop. > So to correct your analogy, this is like if Bob the video game software engineer was starting a video game startup. It was Bob, a professor of literature, who tried writing a tetris clone in college got to drawing pieces, who tried starting a video game company > 2) Many top fashion companies are built by men. In fact, H&M - your example - was founded by a man. In nineteen fourty seven. > I'm all for diversity, but your comment is overly harsh in tone and not back by substance. This is not about diversity. It is about a vegan starting a butcher shop and getting accolades for waxing about reasons for a failure.

this2shallPass 8y ago

You're probably right, lack of knowledge of the context and the industry helped lead to or caused this company to close. Having someone in the company who was a subject matter expert, if they didn't, probably would have helped them in many ways obvious and not obvious. That doesn't seem to have anything to do with sex or gender though. It might, sure, but it doesn't seem to obviously relate to it.

notyourday 8y ago
SMEs in women's fashion tend to be women. That's the elephant in a room.

qaq 8y ago

Zara founder is a dude and he was the richest person in the world for a period of time.

notyourday 8y ago
In 1975. Zara mass market pioneered and optimized the retail aspect of "knock off the runway" optimizing the entire knock off to shelves process to about two weeks. It really showed up on the scene twenty years ago. Those markets are gone and they are not coming back.