What makes a brand fashionable?

A quick dive into the surprising theory of fashion

"We live not according to reason, but according to fashion."
- Seneca the Younger

I like the above quote. It points at a powerful truth behind many of our decisions - from buying a house all the way down to purchasing a tie. The truth is that pathos, or our emotional faculty, is the key driver in many of our purchase decisions.

For example, when making perhaps the most expensive decision of their lives, prospective house buyers often end up choosing a house that 'feels right' - not because the decision maximises the metrics: shortest commute, number of bedrooms, durability, square footage, etc. but because the decision fits with their values. To put it more formally, when deciding between a set of items that meet a specific need (or needs) the limbic system of our brain, responsible for emotions, will often play a deciding role. And it is precisely within this system that fashion works it's magic.

What is fashion?

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”
- Coco Chanel

I share Coco's expansive metaphysics of fashion. In short, fashion is the ebb and flow of emotional worth - wherever you find it. However, it's also helpful to make a distinction between short-term fashion and timeless fashion. Timeless fashion has style. Short-term fashion has trend.

The challenge here then is to distinguish between the two: establishing a unique and recognisable style whilst adapting to, and perhaps even creating, new trends along the way.

Marketing

Style is powerful. However, it needs to be coupled with effective communication in order to be persuasive. That is to say, a brand can only be fashionable if the style is held in regard by a profusion of people within a given group. We live in a world no longer dominated by simple traditional media - instead Instagram, WeChat, and other social media websites all shape our emotional associations. How brands persuasively communicate their brand will be the subject of a whole other future post.

Thus we can confidently say a fashionable brand is a brand that: (1) has a unique style, (2), is in touch with the current trends, and finally (3), is able to persuasively communicate the first two points.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.