Fashion Management of Karen Millen - Case Study Example

Fashion management s Submitted by s: Introduction Karen Millen is a clothing retailer from Britain dealing with women’s fashion specifically tailored coats and eveningwear, while having stores all over the UK, US, Indonesia, Austria and numerous other nations in Europe (Easey, 2009, p. 57). The company was established in 1981 after a partnership between Karen Millen and Kevin Stanford, and using a loan of one hundred pounds, the two bought one thousand metres of white cotton, which they used to manufacture white shirts that they sold to their friends (Thorvaldsson, 2009, p. 70: Kent and Brown, 2009, p. 25). Their first shop was officially opened in Maidstone in 1983 with several branches being opened several years later in different locations such as London and Guildford among others. A considerable expansion of the brand was experienced in the nineties up to 2004 when Icelandic Mosaic Fashion made an acquisition (Oliver and Goodwin, 2010, p. 52). However, Mosaic Fashions stopped trading in 2009 and the brand had to be taken up by Aurora Fashions but eventually Karen Millen stopped being part of Aurora Fashions and became an autonomous company in 2011. Currently, the company operates from eighty-four standalone stores along with forty-six concessional stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Globally, the company operates from sixteen shops that are owned by the company and fifty-seven franchise stores in twenty-three countries in different regions. Karen Millen’s brand value Initially, Karen Millen was associated with clothes meant for special occasions but currently it has gone through some form of reinvention to make it a high-end retailer with prices that are lower compared to those of other designers (Woodward, 2007, p. 111). The main goal of the company is to be recognized as a designer that offers exclusive, and well-tailored modern pieces that are durable as well as designs that aim at women who do not want to become enslaved to trends (Itsinnottingham.com, 2014). The company had to reconsider its offerings especially considering the successes of other brands like Zara, which has become one of the largest and leading retailers in the world. The company has therefore been slowly changing, as the collection had to go through some form of evolution to become relevant to the prevailing fashion trends while reflecting the manner in which women are shopping and dressing (Onenewchange.com, 2014). Party dresses, which were associated with the collection before, have now been swapped for flairs creating appeals to various age groups like lace cutouts and denim garments (Karenmillen.com, 2014). The store is also highly focusing on quality, which has always been emphasized by the customers who prefer high-end fashions. Some of the dresses in the new collection that has been developed by Karen Millen were cut for more than three hours and there are limited editions of striped jacket, which cost more than five hundred pounds with only three hundred and fifty seven made. The company recognizes that these prices are not cheap and it continues to aspire to mainline quality of the designs while remaining attentive to details. A limited number of international apparel companies exist between high street and luxury, and most of the competing companies that have flooded this sector are those that deal with accessories (Tungate, 2012). In this context, Karen Millen considers everything that is does as luxury with the exception of the prices it offers and this provides a real point of differentiation. The company is also redesigning how its stores appear by decreasing the number of sizes on display, which allows the products to breathe so that customers can be able to view their quality. Further, the company is also enhancing the exclusivity of its products through creating small quantities of every design. The main of the changes instigated by the company is to highlight the quality of the products that it produces while at the same time deviating from the notion that is only emphasized on dresses. The clothes developed by Karen Millen are designed at its headquarters in London by a pattern cutters and machinists who create samples before the designs can be used for various sizes so that the brand can have a unique fit. Developers of the company’s products collaborate with factories during the process of manufacturing garments while using Italian fabrics and lace from a Calais mill. The international sales of Karen Miller remained widely flat at two hundred and sixty pounds and the interest before tax and other aspects such as depreciation decreased from fifteen million pounds to thirteen million pounds. According to the management of Karen Millen, the company’s responsibility involves driving value for its shareholders regardless of who they are. Karen Millen’s delivery of brand identity Karen Millen has more than one thousand workers in the United Kingdom, where two hundred work at its headquarters and the remaining in various shops. Most of the manufacturing is done outside the United Kingdom, with half being done in China and the rest in Eastern Europe. Regardless of the fact that most of the manufacturing is done outside the United Kingdom, the management of Karen Millen states that this is not motivated by financial reasons. According to its management, it is difficult to find people who are willing to work in the manufacturing section of the company, which is labour intensive. This is because some of the garments that are made by the company entail up to eighty pattern pieces and this needs skill and extra time to piece together. With the shifts that are being experienced in the global economy, China has become more that a manufacturing centre for Karen Millen as the company has started opening stores in various places in China and has set a goal of opening sixty-five outlets in the five years (Duffy, Glenday and Pupo, 2011). The dresses sold by the company go for an average of one hundred and twenty five pounds in the United Kingdom, but import duties increase their prices by about thirty percent in the overseas markets making it difficult to be successful in the relatively poor markets. However, the brand has recognized that there is an emerging middle class all over the world that is constituted by working class women who want to buy items for themselves (Lange and Meier, 2009, p. 4: Shepard, 2010, p. 284). In an effort to deliver it brand identity, the company evolves at the same pace with the evolution of the tastes of the clients (Okonkwo, 2010, p. 55). The brand considers the UK as having perceptions of brand that have narrowed, however, globally, it has become more than just dresses for going out as people consider it as a total wardrobe. The company instigated changes in tactics regardless of the fact that it already sold seventy percent of its products in markets outside the United Kingdom, and is considering moving to Norway and India among other places globally. Karen Millen has acknowledged that people prefer being exclusive and thus decided to introduce clothes that were more expensive at higher prices which have sold out in most of the cases. The geographic spread of the business has been central to offering clients garments that will not be easily seen being worn by other people, thus making them unique. Even when the company makes a huge production of about four hundred units, these units are spread around about four hundred stores in more than sixty-five countries, and these results in some level of exclusivity, which is difficult to find in other brands for similar prices. Karen Millen’s target consumers The main clients that are targeted by Karen Millen are women between the ages eighteen and forty-five years who are especially fond of travelling and being trendy (Stone and Desmond, 2007). The company usually issues approximately eight collections every year with special attention to the tissues it uses. In order to attain a complete look, Karen Millen provides its customers with a broad range of shoes, belts as well as optics and cosmetics and body care products. The company makes clothes for women who seek something positive and fresh as far as urban sameness is concerned. The company emphasizes on high quality clothing together with top consumer services while using numerous common advertising methods to achieve a customer base and retain their customers. Karen Millen is a company that has been able to establish itself as a brand and in the process has developed awareness in its customers. The company places its advertisements in the areas where its target audience will easily see them including campaigns in various magazines like Glamour that appeal to young readers interested in fashion along with independent women (Emmanorth.tumblr.com, 2012). Karen Millen’s website attracts viewers with fashionable photos of models donning its garments. Karen Millen gives sales every season together with gift cards and limited edition garments when consumers sign up for their newsletters online with the aim of increasing sales and maintaining the loyalty of their customers. The company also regularly sends dresses to various celebrities for then to wear on special occasions so that the brand awareness can be increased. This will associate the celebrity with the garment and sales will increase through this form of publicity. Product Development plan A well-developed product development plan is important is avoiding time wasting, money as well as other resources of the business (Baxter, 1999, p. 261). A product development strategy assists in the organization of product planning and research while capturing the views of the customers and their expectations (Annacchino, 2003, p. 169). This plan will be important in helping to avoid overestimation or misleading of the targeted market (Rafinejad, 2007, p. 67). It will also assist in avoiding the launch of products that are designed poorly or products that do not meet the needs of the targeted consumers. The design of the new lingerie products will be developed in a way that will comprise of boning which will be ideal for developing structure and support for the person wearing it. They will be characterized by a long line bustier and briefs that have a high waist so that they can easily provide support along with a stretched effect for the wearer which is ideal for plus size consumers who are conscious about their bodies. Further, the bra cup that will be created will be innovative, as it will have a caged detail with half a cup. This lingerie will be packaged in special boxes to make them more appealing for high-end customers as well as people wishing to buy them as gifts. The materials that will be used to create this new line of lingerie will be sourced from the same suppliers who supply the materials that are used to make the clothes that are already made by Karen Millen. The already identified suppliers have been chosen because it will be easier to get good prices from them based on the already established relationship that they have developed with the company. These developed lingerie line will be priced in the same manner that other Karen Millen products are priced in order to maintain consistency. The pricing will also continue targeting the same customers that it targets with its clothing in order to retain them while giving them a wider variety to choose from. Bibliography Annacchino, M. 2003, New product development, Butterworth-Heinemann, Amsterdam. Baxter, M. 1999, Product design, Stanley Thornes, Cheltenham, Gloucs. Duffy, A., Glenday, D. and Pupo, N. 2011, The shifting landscape of work, Nelson Education, Toronto. Easey, M. 2009, Fashion marketing, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. Emmanorth.tumblr.com, 2012, Fashion Marketing and Promotion 105 ~ Emma North. [online] Available at: http://emmanorth.tumblr.com/ [Accessed 6 Jan. 2015]. Itsinnottingham.com, 2014, Karen Millen | Shopping | Its In Nottingham. [online] Available at: http://www.itsinnottingham.com/in-nottingham/shopping/2244/Karen-Millen/ [Accessed 6 Jan. 2015]. Karenmillen.com, 2014, Occasion dresses, maxi dresses & day dresses - Luxury Womens Fashion | Karen Millen. [online] Available at: http://www.karenmillen.com/dresses/dept/fcp-category/list [Accessed 6 Jan. 2015]. Kent, T. and Brown, R. 2009, Flagship marketing, Routledge, London. Lange, H. and Meier, L. 2009, The new middle classes, Springer, Dordrecht. Okonkwo, U. 2010, Luxury online, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Oliver, J. and Goodwin, T. 2010, How they blew it, Philadelphia, PA, London. Onenewchange.com, 2014, Karen Millen | One New Change, [online] Available at: http://onenewchange.com/shops/karen-millen [Accessed 6 Jan. 2015]. Rafinejad, D. 2007, Innovation, product development and commercialization, J. Ross Pub, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Shepard, J. 2010, Sociology, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Belmont, CA. Stone, M. and Desmond, J. 2007, Fundamentals of marketing, Routledge, London. Thorvaldsson, A. 2009, Frozen assets, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J. Tungate, M. 2012, Fashion brands, Kogan Page, London. Woodward, S. 2007, Why women wear what they wear, Berg, Oxford. Read More