Top 10 Reasons You Need a Fashion Director

A fashion director is one of the most crucial people in the fashion business. Fashion brands always require a guiding light like the great Virgil Abloh Lv of Louis Vuitton has revolutionized its menswear segment lately. Thus, it is a fact that no fashion house can sustain or seek growth without a good fashion director who supervises the designing process of the brand’s offerings. 

10 Reasons Why Company Needs A Fashion Director

There are several reasons why a fashion business may need a fashion director for themselves. Some of the most important reasons are as follows - 

1. To Conceptualize A Fashion Brand

Fashion directors work with clients to help them organize their fashion ideas better. They also guide them in their events and give them business ideas that help market the product. A good director enables brands to be acknowledged as having a clear concept and doing successful events. This eventually creates awareness among customers about the brand image and accelerates sales. 

2. Formulating A Fashion Statement

A fashion statement is a very important thing for every brand, as it reflects their overall collection. And it is the job of a fashion director to help brands make their fashion statement, just as Tom Ford Director kept in check the brand image of Gucci when he worked with them. This, in turn, guides brands in creating a collection of clothes and accessories which conveys this statement aptly. 

Furthermore, a fashion director also ensures that all the photographs and projects related to the brands must run in sync with the fashion statement. They also supervise all the runaway shows, advertisements, and the cutting of materials to ensure that they all convey the same fashion flavor. Thus, a fashion director plays a crucial role in the marketing and branding of a fashion business. 

3. Conducting Market Research

Fashion directors are also responsible for collecting and analyzing market data. This data helps them predict what their customers will like to wear in the future. This practice is known as fashion forecasting, and it is used by famous fashion directors like Virgil Abloh Lv to create the fall collection of Louis Vuitton.

After understanding what the consumers will wear in the future, fashion directors advise the production and marketing team. This helps brands adapt according to the changing times without making any changes to their core beliefs, 

4. Acting As A Liaison

On several occasions, a fashion director helps fashion brands connect with the right people for their projects. For instance, if a brand wants to focus on a target audience that is slightly overweight, they would require overweight models and designers who specialize in such clothes. A fashion director has already established himself in the fashion world, and they can help businesses find plus-size models with excellent portfolios. Furthermore, they can also find the right photographer, cinematographer, and event coordinators for the campaign. 

5. Making Design Concept

The design concept is the core idea behind any cloth or accessory that a fashion brand manufactures for its consumers. It is created by making the right sketch, images, and fashion statements. Thus, the design concept becomes one of the most crucial steps in manufacturing a new collection for the brand. A fashion director plays an active role in making a design concept for a client. First, they create the initial sketch and blueprints for the clothes and accessories. However, not every time a fashion director actively makes prototypes for the client, they delegate this task to the junior designers. 

6. Setting Up The Right Price

Another part that a fashion director plays is that they set the price for the manufactured clothes and accessories. Fashion brands are well aware that no matter how beautiful a dress is, no consumer will buy it if it is quoted at the wrong price. Therefore, a fashion director analyzes the price of the products made up of the same material already available in the market and calculates the right price of the new product. 

This practice requires them to study its sales record to analyze which consumers prefer price segments. Furthermore, they also consider the manufacturing and transportation cost of the product and how it will affect its overall pricing. 

7. Creating Strategies 

The job of a fashion director is also to analyze the brand's competitors and adapt accordingly. They help companies sketch out their plans for the upcoming season and create plans for future events. Fashion designers such as Tom Ford Director are often spotted at fashion shows in Milan, Paris, New York, and Toronto. After analyzing hundreds of designer shows all around the world, they come up with creative strategies that will define the offerings of a brand. 

8. Leading Photoshoots And Casting

A fashion director is responsible for picking up the right photographer for an event. First, they select which of the photographers will best suit the show's theme. Photographers often seek guidance from fashion directors on how they can perform a good shoot and what will be the right location for it, portrait style or high energy. 

In addition to it, they also discuss how elaborate the set will be and how many props will be present on the set. Then, after making the budget for the shoot, a fashion director with the photographer makes the final blueprint for the shoot.

Finding a suitable model is also essential for a successful photoshoot. Fashion directors search across all the model directories worldwide to pick the right one. Moreover, they had connections in all the top model agencies, and by leveraging this connection, they found the perfect model for the job. Here the role of fashion director becomes very important as finding a good model is crucial for a successful photoshoot. 

9.  Styling And On Set Supervision

The fashion director spent most of the time styling the models and setting them up for a photoshoot. Styling involves pairing all the clothes at their disposal and finding the right accessories for them. Finding accessories among several racks and shelves is difficult, even for expert fashion directors. So after styling, they cross-check it with the head of the fashion brand and then move on with the fashion shoot.

The job of a fashion director does not end here, but they also play a crucial role in managing the work at the set. Shooting at an exotic location is tough if one lacks proper guidance. A fashion director guides the photographer with the right angles and helps the models with the proper poses. Furthermore, they also take care of any styling that needs to be done on the spot. It is also their job to ensure that the story aligns with the brand's image. 

10. Representing The Brand

Fashion directors like Virgil Abloh Lv were the face of Louis Vuitton for the time he was their fashion director. Every statement that he made on TV shows or interviews about the brand was taken as the news coming from the core of Louis Vuitton. So one of the crucial aspects of the job of a fashion director is to be the face of the company they are working for.

They also go as fashion experts in various fashion shows where they put forth their views and elevate the respect of the brand they represent among the masses. Sitting on the top bench, it's their responsibility to supervise the office's work and ensure that everything is executed and delivered on time. 

Some Famous Fashion Directors

To understand how much a brand needs a fashion director, let's take the example of two famous fashion directors in the fashion world - Virgil Abloh Lv and Tom Ford Director.

Virgil Abloh

Virgil Abloh is known for his exemplary work at Louis Vuitton and has introduced a new future to the brand. The chief executive of Louis Vuitton, Michael Burke, praised his career and said that he is extremely good at creating a bridge between the classic and the zeitgeist in his work. Virgil Abloh Lv has brought a revolutionary change in the streetwear segment. Before joining Louis Vuitton, he worked with Kanye West as a creative director. 

Tom Ford

Tom Ford has been a crucial part of Gucci’s journey and is responsible for turning it into a billion-dollar fashion brand. When he joined the brand in 1944 Gucci, the brand was bankrupt and was unfashionable. But he worked to make it the brand as we see it now. Furthermore, he launched his brand, which was a huge success. 

These two examples show how vital a fashion director is to the brand and how one right person makes a bankrupt brand a billionaire. We all see Gucci and Louis Vuitton as the top luxury brands, but less we know about the efforts of these fashion directors in transforming these brands. So if one has a fashion business of their own, they probably need a good fashion director, but that is not the only thing that matters. The business also needs a good supply of products where B2B apparel manufacturing platforms like Fashinza can help out.