Executive Summary: Deana's Fine Clothing

Stagnant sales performance has caused Harrington Collection to explore new avenues for improved performance, including the launch of a new active-wear line. Recognizing an emerging trend of low price and rapid style turnover in the women’s apparel market, along with tremendous growth in the active-wear segment, Harrington needs to work strategically to capture this profitable market opportunity. After careful analysis, it was determined that Harrington should implement a new active-wear line.

Francesca’s collections attracts many different demographics, but their target market include fashion conscious females between the ages of 18-35. They are mainly college educated and have a moderate to large disposable income. Their customer has a taste for classic items mixed with ethnic inspirations and seek exclusivity and disassociation from others. In a geographic perspective Francesca’s is widely available nationwide in a variety of formats such as free standing and shopping malls. They possess 283 locations in 41 states and continue to grow rapidly.

“Clothes” is written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. It is a short story about an Indian-American woman, Sumita, who is about to embark on a new chapter of her life, marriage. Sumita, throughout the story, is nervous and confused about what is to come next in her life. The story begins in the women’s lake with Sumita and her friends, Deepali and Radha. The groups of friends are preparing Sumita for her big day, meeting her soon to be husband for the first time.

This short story is about a young Indian woman named Sumita, her impending arranged marriage and subsequent trip to America, which is symbolized by the color and type of her clothes. The author utilizes color symbolism to express the emotional changes that Sumita is going through and how she uses colors to keep her grounded with her Indian beliefs during her transition from girl to bride-to-be to an Indian-American to widow. There are many examples of colors that represent established Indian beliefs and religion are mentioned throughout the story.

For this growing population, we can track the merchandises and find out what kind of items the customers spend money on. We gather the data and analyze the pattern and what style the customer is looking for. We send e-mails to the customers when getting new items that fit the customer’s dress preference with style suggestions.

People indulge in clothes shopping every day and often do not consider the changes that occurred throughout time that led to the development of mass produced clothing for both men and women. As a result of the Civil War, the production of clothing shifted from homemade clothing to clothing mass produced in factories. After the Civil War, Urbanization along with new developments, such as advertising and the new, wealthy urban class, increased the demand for mass produced women’s clothing and clothing stores that made clothing readily available.

As two separate companies, they have established a different approach towards the market, however with the right research and evaluation, Rousteing and The Bay have beautifully managed to make both sides collide with success. They have managed to design ready-to-wear for different target groups, for example, women’s outerwear shoes, men’s business attire, jewellery, as well as the latest Balmain Army collection inspired by Rousteing himself. They have made the price range of the products in the listed categories reasonable and affordable for premium quality clothing, accessories and footwear for both genders that are quality and price conscious. Also, in Toronto and Vancouver, The Bay has launched a showroom called “The Room” that features some of Balmain’s hottest but not-so-retail-friendly designer clothing from Rousteing’s runway collection. With the stratospheric prices, these items are obviously in display for the more sophisticated young female adults that completely disregard the price tag when they see something they genuinely adore. However, this was also an intelligent way for Rousteing and The Bay to promote their collection by giving the people of middle-class families to feel and take a closer glimpse of some high-quality handiwork. This makes the women of the demographic target market want to know what else Balmain has in store at The Bay, that is of similar quality, but with a more affordable

In the “Perfect dress” by Marisa de los Santos, Marisa describes how women view themselves. Women are never satisfied with their appearance, always wanting what they do not already have. Marisa explains the significance of a beautiful dress to a woman on low self-esteem. She taught us that when we learn to see the beauty in what we have, nothing can stop us from feeling untouchable.

Of the hundreds of named brand clothing that form part of the retail and fashion industry I chose to compare, for my analysis, Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, American Eagle, and H&M. These stores are prominent, well-known for selling apparel, shoes, and accessories by the means of offering sales and promotions to their customers. This is a clever strategy for attracting customers, allowing them to believe that they bought goods at affordable, convenient prices – and not to mention the prestigious name prescribed to the clothing brands. Using keyhole.co as my main source, I obtained relevant and valuable information regarding the status of these brands. My intentions were to compare a period of 14 days, however, due to the limited access that I received from my free trial, the program only allowed me to see fewer of the dates than I anticipated. I want to take this opportunity and mention ahead of time that due to the various and distinctive products that are sold from these stores, when looking for the “spending capacity” I decided to focus on shirts/ jeans for men and women and compare the prices among them since each of these retailers carry those items and as a way to make this report easier to contrast and comprehend. Also, when approaching the section of “setting”, I screen-shotted some of the images on Instagram and made them into a collage to separate the type of clothes and trends that each of these brands sell currently. In the following modules

The women's apparel market is highly competitive. With the launch of a new active-wear line from Harrington Collection's, more and more competitors will start to realise the potential value in in producing an active-wear line of their own. The active-wear market is growing so rapidly (expected to double turnover from 2007 to 2009), that eventually all of Harrington's competitors would likely be expected to launch a line of their own, relying on existing brand loyalty and high-scale advertising campaigns to capture market share and move units.

The short store “Clothes” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is about a young Indian woman, Sumita, and her cultural transition to America that is symbolized by her clothes and the color of her clothes. The traditional Indian attire for a woman is a sari and each one has its own purpose. Her clothes also indicate her progression from daughter, to wife, to woman.

The U.S. women’s apparel industry market is mature, given that the average growth rate from 2005 to 2007 was 4.66%. Within the industry, there are 6 categories of clothing in which companies compete: haute couture, designer, bridge, better, moderate, and budget. Each category targets customers with different needs and different price ranges, with haute coutre and designer clothing ranging upwards from $10,000 and moderate

Hbswk.hbs.edu. 2005. Zara's Secret for Fast Fashion - HBS Working Knowledge. [online] Available at: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4652.html [Accessed: 25 N

As a clothing store which is focusing on local designed and European designed clothes, our products are going to be high-end, fashionable, green and unique.

Although the company is very secretive about its process and value chain, we identify some large common denominators with the lingerie industry. La Perla, along with all major fashion houses relies on designers for the election of their fabrics and they play a major role on the election of suppliers. This is the first step into their value chain, assessing quality and selecting the best supplier for each line and product. Once the raw materials are in its warehouse the most important step occurs, the confection and cut of the fabric, this is done by experts and where La Perla focus is added value. Once the product is