Lifestyle Fashion Brands

What is a lifestyle fashion brand and how is one developed?

A lifestyle fashion brand is a brand that attempts to embody the values, aspirations, interests, attitudes, or opinions of a group or a culture.

Develop A Popular Fashion Brand

The fashion industry landscape is dominated by companies pursuing the dream of developing significant brand identity.  Many of these companies scratch and claw on a daily basis with the single goal in mind of creating a recognizable brand.  The probable thought process being that once they achieve the development of a popular brand identity, fame and fortune may shortly follow.

Driven with the desire to develop brand recognition within their target market, designers will develop collections, formulate PR campaigns, mingle with celebrities, and do everything else it takes to push their brand into the spotlight.  For some, their dedication and diligent efforts will pay off.  However, for others, the hard work may undoubtedly go unrewarded.  Along the lines of Darwin's theory, in the fashion industry the strong survive and the weak simply get eaten alive (the garment industry is a dog eat dog environment at times).  Therefore, for every one hundred or thousand fashion companies that will set out to develop a popular brand, possibly a small handful of them will actually make a mark in the industry. 

On the Lifestyle Fashion Brand website, we will explore the fact that once a fashion brand becomes popular, their may still be high mountains to climb.  Unfortunately, getting in the spotlight is only have the battle.

More Goals to Achieve

For the fortunate (or lucky) companies that reach the caliber of becoming a "popular brand", even they still have steep hurdles to overcome.  Similar to searching for the golden grail, fashion designers have an ongoing quest.  Although the company may have already achieved success by developing a quote un quote popular brand, they may set for themselves an even higher goal.  Driven fashion designers may set their sites on obtaining an even higher level of brand recognition.  Yes, I mean that their is a level that is extremely rare and elevated beyond the point of becoming a popular brand.  The rare prize that I speak of is one that is sought by many but obtained by only a few.  The level of brand recognition that I am referring to is the achievement of being called a "Lifestyle Fashion Brand".

Although achieving the status of a "lifestyle brand", may not be on the top of every fashion companies mind.  It is of our opinion that this is the best of goals for any clothing company.  A "lifestyle", is something that defines a person or group of people.  As a fashion company, if we are able to connect with a lifestyle in such a way that it defines our business, we are in fact developing an extremely strong bond between our brand and a particular sub culture of society.  If a clothing company can achieve such a bond with a particular segment of humanity (with customers), they have hit a home run.  In short, becoming a true lifestyle brand means that the fashion company has a true pulse on the needs and wants of their customers.  When an apparel company is labeled a lifestyle brand by their peers, it become clear that have become one with their customers.  In doing so, the clothing company has the opportunity to sell a great deal of product.

One of the benefits to developing a true lifestyle brand, consumers will most likely purchase product in more then one clothing category.  For example, the consumer of a lifestyle brand may purchase socks, shoes, shirts, pants, outerwear etc., all from the same brand.  This gives the owner of the lifestyle brand great opportunities.  One such opportunity is the ability to license their fashion brand to other companies based on particular clothing categories.  Let's say for example, that the owner of the lifestyle brand is an expert with designing, manufacturing, and distributing t-shirts and hoodies.  However, they have zero experience with managing the production of denim jeans.  Rather then disappoint their loyal consumers with possibly inferior jeans, the brand owner can license the jeans category to an expert in that area of the apparel market.  Via apparel licensing, the brand owner can allow others to do the leg work and at the same time earn a nice profit.

Changing Lifestyles

As culture and experiences will help define and change particular lifestyles, it is important for a lifestyle brand to make an important conscious decision.  They must decide if it is in their best interest to stay fixed on their path (stay true to the original concept of the lifestyle), or be flexible and in act change to their brand image and company as the lifestyle being addresses goes thru it's natural changes.  For example, let's say that the particular lifestyle in question was based on young men's surf culture.  At a particular point in time, the surf culture may be based on dressing in grunge.  If a fashion company starts at that time and is focused on grunge, do they stay with the grunge look if for some reason the surf community trends toward a preppy look for some unforeseen reason.  Well, it is of my opinion that a lifestyle brand must go with the flow.  Stay true to your target market, but bend as they change direction.

At the same time the lifestyle changes, the fashion brand may change and grow accordingly.  The lifestyle defines the fashion company and at the same time the fashion company helps define the lifestyle.  However, their is a fine line in regard to who is driving the trend. 

The image below of a surfer and yardage markings for a football field is an image from Quiksilver that was on their website in July 2011.  The image celebrates their line of NFL Board Shorts.

Is it good to mix a surf lifestyle and a football lifestyle?  In all honesty, I do not have access to their sales figures.  Therefore, I do not know the actual answer to this question.  However, I do know that Quiksilver is a clever company and that if the NFL board shorts project is not a success they will rebound.  If it is a success, maybe we will see other sports licenses move their way.

If you are interested, you can watch the Quiksilver NFL Boardshorts video on FIN.  In my opinion, they did a good job in this video marketing to both the surfing lifestyle and football lifestyle.

Definition of a Lifestyle Brand

If a designer or fashion company can be recognized as the developer of a lifestyle brand, it is of our opinion that they have reached a marvelous achievement.

• Preppy
• Action Sports
• Surf
• Skate
• Biking
• Nautical
• Grunge
• Punk
• Luxury

Learn how to promote fashion brands from the promote your fashion brands term on Apparel Search.

Here are a few ways to help build a brand:

Viral Marketing

Social Bookmarking

Fashion Brand SEO

Here are a few examples regarding how a fashion company can promote their brand.  In this case, it is the promotion of the brand name "Apparel Search" (which is owned by the Apparel Search Company):

• Successful lifestyle brands are relevant brands (relevant to a particular lifestyle).  Relevant brands do not overextend their brand offering, but only enter categories where it makes sense for them to meet the true needs of their audience.
• A lifestyle brand is an attempt to make a corporate brand part of the identity of a person or group.
• Lifestyle brands can transcend their products and have their own meaning or identity.

Lifestyle brands seek to inspire, guide, and motivate people, with the goal of their products contributing to the definition of the consumer's way of life.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about lifestyle fashion brands here on Apparel Search.