loveFMD Magazine issue4

SPOTLIGHT |THE NEXT BIG THING
The Next
BIG
Thing
What happens when Big Data meets Fashion? The emerging
practice of ‘benchmarking the value of a fashion model‘ is
set to bring fairness into a contested market.
by Clinton Gonsalvez & Iva Mirbach
The fashion industry is not only one of the fastest growing industries in the economy, but also one of the
fastest changing ones. Constantly concerned with launching new trends and introducing new products,
it’s easy to see why fashion has become so challenging. Each season, fashion brands compete for individuality,
so as to attract new customers through the most creative and appealing advertisement campaigns.
With fashion trends changing faster than ever before and the shortening of fashion cycles, it has become
common place for brands to release more collections during a year.
In the 90s, two collections used to be the norm, Spring-Summer
and Fall-Winter. Today, ‘Fast Fashion‘ brands like H&M,
Zara, Mango, have new collections almost every month thereby
which, other ‚High Fashion‘ brands uniformly provide new
clothing and accessories through the launch of mid-season collections.
In addition, brands are embracing the idea of having
up to six new collections per year. However, having an amazing
new collection is just not enough, which is why brands
strive to spot the best photographer, creative director, stylist.
Above all, choosing the most promising model to represent
their brand becomes paramount.
4 | loveFMD.com
One of the main reasons why newcomer models are more in
demand today than ever before, is because they are instrumental
for a brand to succeed. Discovering ‚the next big thing‘,
whose popularity will bring new customers has become the
key factor for how brands attract fashionistas and what sets it
apart from its competition. Each year, a new class of models
get plucked from obscurity to runway glory, successfully landing
bookings and working with the biggest names in fashion.
While top models like Kate Moss, Gisele Bündchen, Adriana
Lima, Karlie Kloss are infamous, casting directors often have
the ardent task of getting an overview of every model, especially
the new faces.
„
A new era of technocratic possibility has begun
„