Worldwide Talks 2024, held live at New York's Lectra Innovation Center earlier this month and streamed online late last week, featured Facinovation founders Marcelo and Giordana Guimarães. Major fashion brands and technology companies took to the stage.
Themes include fashion marketing and branding, sustainability, authenticity, community building, and leveraging AI and e-commerce. This year is notable as it marks the 10th time the talks have been held.
When asked about the milestones, Marcelo and Giordana Guimarães said, “Our platform and collaborations with governments around the world to bring the global and local together, such as the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture and the Miami-Dade County Mayor's Office, “to uplift the cause through this.'' Adaptive clothing for Brazilian favelas, the homeless and the disabled. A big moment for us was being invited to ring the opening bell of the Nasdaq market in 2023. ”
Fashinnovation's mission is to create real change in the industry through connections and thought leadership. Speakers include companies such as Google, Marc Jacobs, Meta, Lectra, Mastercard, and YouTube, as well as notable designers such as Steve Madden, Kenneth Cole, Diane von Furstenberg, and Donna Karan.
The 10th edition began with Irina Grechko, Fashion Director at Refinery 29, interviewing Raissa Gerona, Chief Brand Officer at Revolve Group. The title of the session was “Fashion builds community.” Gerona shares her own career path, which includes launching her own apparel brand, Lovers + Friends, and the challenges of having no business training or fashion experience, and growing a small business. I stated that I recognized the issue. But to build a brand, you need to build a community.
From left to right: Marcelo Guimarães, designer Mara Hoffman, and Jordana Guimarães.
“I think for small businesses with limited funds, you have to be very creative in finding ways to connect with consumers and ways to market to them in ways that don't require a lot of capital. ” says Gerona. That's what drew her to her Revolve, she added. Revolve is a retailer that carries thousands of brands and also serves as a platform for emerging designers.
This is also a platform for building a community, but it starts with a great product.
“Serving as a platform for small, emerging brands is something we are extremely proud of. They create clothes and accessories that people want to wear, so they bring communities together. “It's very useful for people who want to be able to do it, but it's hard to find,” Gerona said.
Having a great product is important, but successful sell-through today requires leveraging AI and data in customer acquisition, marketing, operations, and other processes. During a panel discussion on this topic, Shivani Bala, Commercial Partner and Manager at Gorgias, was asked about how he uses AI to help solution providers streamline the customer service experience.
Bala started by explaining how Gorgias works with Shopify and online stores by providing a customer support help desk solution that unifies multiple customer channels (email, SMS, social media, etc.) in one place. I explained what I was doing. According to Bala, the company uses his AI to streamline the customer service experience in a variety of ways.
“First, we can respond more quickly, and then we can [service questions] You can get tickets faster,” Bala said. “AI can detect the reason for contact, such as a return request, and send a personalized response.” The platform can also send article recommendations. Users of this solution found it to be effective as “70% of consumers who receive an article recommendation have no follow-up questions.”
AI can also detect and prioritize the reason for the contact and the tone of the message.
Attendees at the event also discussed the importance of delivering great products, leveraging AI in processes, increasing sales, and building community, as well as practicing reliability and sustainability. But at the core of fashion apparel is branding and creative inspiration. And for some people, success means turning away from what everyone else is doing.
During a panel discussion, Nicole Miller was asked if timeless fashion means always being on trend. Mr. Miller answered candidly, saying he disagreed with that sentiment. “Maybe it's a bit of a classic, and sometimes it's a trend. It comes and goes, but it's not consistent as a trend at all,” Miller said. “It's like a wave. It's also important how much you focus on trends.”
“When designing, I've always distanced myself from trends,” Miller added. “I always try to look in a different direction.”
Miller said she avoids design services that research the “next big thing” in the fashion industry. Ms. Miller said she always felt that if there was something in the world, she should do something different. So I've always tried to do the opposite or do something radically different. And I've had better luck doing things that don't follow trends, or doing things off of a whim or a random idea. ”
When Fashinnovation passes this 10th The future is brighter and more global as we reach the edition milestone. “Over the next 10 years, we at Fascinovation want to continue to connect founders around the world, which means partnering with governments around the world to bring our global ecosystem to their regions and It means continuing to integrate our talent pool,” said Marcelo and Giordana Guimarães. WWD. “We believe that in order to make the changes we want to see as an industry, everyone around the world needs to be on the same page and move towards the future together.”
From left to right: Marcelo Guimarães, Larry Namer, and Jordana Guimarães. Founder of E! Namer Television, Fashion Innovation Advisor.
