Fashion Names

A name is a word or set of words by which a person, animal, place or thing is known, addressed or referred to. In fashion, names carry unusual weight: clothing brands, designers and apparel companies all need memorable, stylish names, because the name is the first piece of marketing every customer meets.

What Is in a Fashion Name

Asked what is in a name, the fashion industry's honest answer is: everything. The name of a fashion brand or company helps convey its message before a single garment is seen. Brand perception — brand image — plays a central part in a company's profitability: it is the collective consumer perception of what a company's products or services represent, and the business name and brand name play a significant role in forming it.

Choosing a name therefore deserves great thought and strategy. Once a name gains traction it becomes difficult to change: customers, retailers and search habits all attach to it. In fashion the persuasion also runs in two stages — a clothing company must first convince a clothing store of the brand's merit, and then appeal through that store to the final consumer — and the name has to work at both stages.

Perception Belongs to the Customer

The hard lesson of naming is that perception is owned by consumers. A company may believe it has developed a good brand with a clear message, but customers decide whether they agree: the brand message can be marketed and explained, yet its importance is determined only in the eyes of the customer who would make the purchase. Names that promise what the product cannot deliver fail this test no matter how stylish they sound.

Everyone wants a popular brand name, and only a few achieve one — which is why the directories matter. The fashion designer names and fashion brand names directories linked from this page catalogue the names the industry actually trades under, and the popular brand names guide shows which names have achieved the recognition every new label is choosing its name in hope of.

Testing a Fashion Name Before Launch

A name can be tested before it is committed, and prudent founders do so. Spoken aloud, does it survive a telephone introduction? Written down, is it spellable after one hearing, and searchable without drowning in unrelated results? Checked against trademark registers and existing labels, is it free to use in the markets the brand intends to enter? And worn — printed on a label, stitched on a chest, painted on a shopfront — does it look like the clothes it will name? A name that passes those four tests has earned the strategy work this page describes; most famous fashion names, examined closely, pass all of them easily.