Published 5 years ago on Aug 29, 2020
by Ramesh GunasekaranView: 1718
THE MYTHS IN FASHION DESIGN
Article 2 of 3
Another topic quite close to my heart. Do brands really understand the importance of fits? Can fit be a differentiator in business? In this blog, I will touch upon
- understanding body types,
- what is a fit strategy,
- my three simple rules for fits,
- is fit taken seriously by business and finally
- benefits of having a fit strategy
THE IMPORTANCE OF FITS IN FASHION
We all understand our own body type & dress accordingly. Stylists from around the world urge you to dress according to your body type. Yet brands do not seem to pay much heed to this?
After studying the brands in India, I realised that they think:
INDIA IS FILLED WITH THIN PEOPLE & ALMOST 70% OF ITS POPULATION IS SKINNY
Wondering what has lead me to this conclusion? It's the amount of slim & skinny fits one sees in the market.
Usually the brands profile the consumers to understand their requirements. We look at their income, education, age, gender etc.
But do we look at their body types?
Do we then agree that body type becomes an important aspect of consumer profiling?
It doesn’t just aid in creation of the right garment & fit, it also becomes a designing, marketing and positioning tool.
To understand body type, let’s look at these infographics.
And if you thought mens body shapes are complicated, check out the women’s body types…
These infographics are self explanatory.
Have we defined clearly the body type who is actually buying our clothes? The first rule of Marketing - know your customer. Well, do we? And that is the question I am asking?
Having understood the above body type segmentation, I would like to ask the reader if they can tell which brands are catering to which of the body types? Is it clear in their communication? Are their charts mapping fits to body types in the store for ease of buying? Or have you after many mistrials, started to make a beeline for the few brands that actually fit your body type well?
This video gives us a glimpse into the evolution of fits and clearly states that many of the international brands build their fits around a specific target audience based on their body types.
And this leads me to the next segment;
What is a Fit Strategy?
It's surprising that “Fit” is often ignored by fashion and retail businesses in India.
The pertinent questions brands need to ask themselves are;
-
- Who is buying from me?
- Age, Gender, Body type?
- Size Analysis?
- Sales loss due to fit/size issue?
- How is this data captured?
Once this is clear, brands need to clearly establish a fit strategy. These can be of 3 types;
Having discussed possible fit strategies, let’s now talk about my simple 3 rules for fits. This has been evolved over time and am sharing it with the hope that our readers will benefit from these.
My 3 simple rules for Fits
Fit rule number 1
In a brand, the same size should fit the consumer across all products & fits.
Make life simple for the consumer. In most brands, if a ‘M’ size in regular fit works for the consumer, he has to force himself to wear a ‘L’ size in slim fit. Why? For the consumer, if she/he wears a ‘M’ in a brand, she/he should be able to wear ‘M’ across all their products. It saves time on mistrial and retrial, makes it easy for the consumer to pick up clothes without trying them as she/he is confident of the fit.
Fit rule number 2
Use standardised body forms and models for fit trials
Standardise the base body measurements for the brand, develop body forms and use those for fit trials. Even if we keep a panel of live models, please ensure they are the right body types and measurements.
There is a tendency for the designers, buyers and business heads to try the garments on themselves and personalise it to their own bodies. The brand has to ensure it fits their consumer profile and should discourage teams from these personalised fit approvals. If they binged at a party the night before trying a fitted garment, without a doubt the fit will go for a retrial.
Standardisation of these processes is of the utmost importance.
Fit rule number 3
Clearly define where to go for fitted garments and where to go with generic fits
Fitted Garments require more sizes, more variants. This increases inventory holding as no of sizes and fits that need to be managed goes up. Generic fits, can easily be designed which are roomier and allow a higher number of body types to fit into, with lesser number of sizes hence reducing inventory risk.
Now every brand needs to look at this clearly in terms of which categories, they want to invest into more sizes and where they want to offer width.
But this is all common knowledge, so why don’t we find brands focussing on clearly defined fit strategy? What ails us?
Is Fit taken seriously by businesses?
Every fit decision is an investment decision, yet what is the infrastructure we have built in our companies to get good quality fits? Do we benchmark, analyse, study consumer reaction to fits, invest in quality technicians, fit testing softwares, body forms, pattern making and sampling infrastructure to ensure that no stone is left unturned to ensure consumer delight?
Fits are clearly investment calls. The money invested in a fit is much more than the money spent on acquiring stores - but store acquisition may take up a lot more top management time than deciding on a fit strategy or finalising a fit into which crores would be invested in the form of inventory.
Most brands do not have a well articulated fit strategy and leave it to designers and product teams at mid to junior levels to do that. And this leads to ‘fit personalisation’.
I remember being in a panel discussion where a department store chain MD was lamenting that in his own store he could not buy most of the products as they were in slim fits and it did not fit him.
He made a very interesting point, that India has a large population and capable of discretionary spend in the mid to older ages, but no one designs for them. The point is that brands need to move to a clearly defined or differentiated fit strategy. This will lead to some major benefits as I have enumerated below.
Benefits of a having a well articulated Fit Strategy
Consumer Loyalty
I have been in many discussions and meetings on consumer loyalty. But the unfortunate truth is that in fashion, most companies seem to overlook the obvious. The biggest hook for consumer loyalty in clothing is fit.
Once consumers like a fit, they just keep going back for it. Look at how Levi’s has created their consumer loyalty on fits, some of them going back decades. They may play within the fits but fundamentally give the consumers jeans that fit well.
In fact in stores, you can see consumers asking ‘can you show me some new options in this fit?’ They are so sure of the fit, that they buy it without even trying. That’s power of loyalty.
It’s amazing how fits can define the fortunes of a fashion brand.
Lower returns in Ecommerce
With Ecommerce increasing in scale and size. Brands need to take fit standardisation and strategy very seriously. How they communicate, the consistency of sizing across brand products, all will have a huge impact on returns, trials and consumer time. The brands need to decide how important their consumer experience is for them.
Once consumers start trusting the sizing and fits of a brand they will start ordering with more faith and this can have an exponential impact of sales. But this requires, well defined fit strategy, consistency and clear communication.
Differentiation
Fit can be a major differentiator in business. Particularly category focussed brands could have a field day with it. It is some thing which is a clear differentiator. A brand that makes great looking clothes may attract the consumers, but a brand that makes good looking & great fitting clothes will convert the consumer to a brand loyalist. Isn’t that what we all want?
Conclusion
To conclude, I would only say that fashion brands, even retailers need to clearly understand who their consumers are and make a fit strategy to suit that. In Europe and the US, there are a host of new brands catering to fashion for heavier women. This is because they felt embarrassed to try on clothes in stores and not fit into them.These brands understood their customers body type & have started catering to them.
Sometimes we are looking at so many reasons for why sales are declining, walk ins reducing. But very few realise that selling ill fitting clothes is a silent killer. The consumer just walks away and we don’t even know why?
I am amazed at the kind of trivia that passes for reportage in the industry but no one understands or discusses real issues the industry is facing. I am looking forward to a lot of interesting conversations, please do share your thoughts in the comments section below.
RELATED TOPICS:#Anindya Ray
Ramesh Gunasekaran
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15 Comments
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Nitin AgarwalSep 07, 2020 at 06:45 am
Very well articulated points Anindya. Cannot agree more that in the fight to acquire more customers and to ensure more and more repeat purchase, fit plays a very important role and most of the times we tend to give less priority on the fit.
Poonam Sood lalAug 31, 2020 at 20:55 pm
Hi Anindya .In todays world if any business has to survive it has to go online .Fit therefore becomes critical .The businesses which have standardised fits will be the survivors finally .Eg an M&S and a Levis has some standardised fits.They can therefore go online easily . It is critical therefore now for the businesses to standardise the fits and give them names the customer can identify with .Eg size 32 regular or a size 32 tapered must be the same every time irrespective of the design element With factories and your production teams also going on line once the fit is clear for the company then dummies must be issued to factories and production teams to do the fits right there at the factories Samples coming to H.O for fit should be a formality for fit and should be more for the design element .Ive seen styles come into he 5th fit sometimes -which basically means someone is unable to decide and management needs to step in after the 3rd fit --as a rule .What a waste of time and resources ! In the domestic business I've seen designers trying styles on themselves and commenting .This is absolutely unacceptable .In International business the Dummy and fit model are standardised and no one cant tamper with it . The question then comes --how to standardise a fit in India ?.Take your top 3 selling brands --study their fits and take the top 3 street side brands (critical to do this ) and study their fit .The street side brands actually would know the customer better otherwise they will simply loose the customer as most do not have fitting rooms . Do NOT try to invent the wheel by introducing new fits . The fit is the most critical part of the garment .We allow designers to tamper with it .It must stop .With standardised fits everyone can concentrate on the design element from the factory to the ultimate customer
Sanjay LalAug 31, 2020 at 12:23 pm
Well-tailored clothes make a huge difference to your appearance. By well-fitted, we mean clothes that conform to your body’s shape, allow you space to breathe and move and don’t add bulk to your frame. Hems that skim your ankles correctly, seams that don’t pull, sleeves that don’t require rolling to the right length are all subtle elements that are unremarkable when they are precise but very obvious when they are not and make the wearer look sloppy. Elements of Fit The elements of fit are the parameters on which the evaluation of Fit is generally based on, these are also referred to as five classical elements of fit:- Grain: for a good fit the garment should be cut on the right grain or in other words on grain. An on grain garment hangs evenly and appears symmetrical. Set: refers to a smooth fit without any undesirable wrinkles. Wrinkles caused by poor set cannot be ironed out but result from the way the garment fits the wearer. Set wrinkles usually occur because the garment is too large or too small for the wearer and the garment hangs or sags when worn. Line : refers to the alignment of the structural lines of the garment with the natural lines of the body. Poor design or construction can result in an out of line garment. Even figure irregularities can distort the lines of the garment. Balance: occurs when the garment is in equilibrium. The right and the left side of the garment appear evenly balanced or symmetrical, when viewed from front, back or side of the garment. For example, a skirt is balances if the legs of the wearer are in the center and are not touching the front or back of the skirt. Balance relates to grain and line in the garment. A garment is out of balance when it is cut off grain, causing it to hang unevenly. Also if the line of the garment does not follow the line of the body, it will hang out of balance. Poor posture or lack of symmetry in the wearer’s body is another likely cause of it. Ease: refers to the amount of roominess in a garment. Ease is the difference between the measurements of the body of the intended wearer and the measurements of the garment. There are two kinds of ease: fitting ease and design ease. Fit ease is in direct contact with the body and is responsible for the comfort factor and design ease of the garment is for aesthetic appearance. A garment must contain adequate ease beyond the actual measurements of the wearer to allow room for ordinary movements like walking, sitting, reaching out and even breathing. Ease in this context is called Fitting ease. Design ease is the extra style fullness added to the fitting ease. All the garments have fitting ease but design ease is optional as it is added purely for the sake of appearance and giving the garment its style.
Prashanth HVAug 31, 2020 at 00:47 am
Hi Anindya, Thank you for enumerating most important part of a garment which is fit. The process of fit development is extremely important and difficult part of a brand. But once it is cracked one should also maintain and update according to changing customer preference. Any fit the customer should feel comfortable, then the look and style.
Ravindra ChawlaAug 30, 2020 at 20:16 pm
Very truly said Mr.Anindya that the biggest hook for consumer loyalty in clothing is FIT of the garment. I agree that sales will multiply exponentially once customers start trusting the size and fit of a brand. Customers getting discouraged when their actual size do not fit for other brands. Nowadays customers are using various online platforms to buy their merchandise where they cant do any wear-trial, in that case fit standardization and fit strategy plays a vital role. And you very well explained that weather online or offline purchase great fitting clothes will convert the consumers to a brand loyalist. By understanding their consumers body types, study consumer reactions to fit, brands can ensure their consumer delight, otherwise the investment will end up into inventory only. Appreciate your well explanation of different body types of Males and Females via info-graphics. It was a good learning and a good read article.
RameshRAug 30, 2020 at 17:20 pm
Hi Anindya, I agree with you on the approach towards handling fits by most of the brands and retailers in India. Many brands doesn't really go through the process and the time taken for a fit creation. Either it is copied or tweaked from popular fits in trend. Like colours, fabrics, cost and brands, fit is very personalised experience of a consumer. Having standardised " M " or " L " across the fits might be challenging especially the target customers age group is wider. Developing a fit without compromising wearer's comfort defines the success of it. While developing the fit, we should know the purpose, target group, body anatomy and contours of gender and age groups of the specific geographical region. Creating a good fit begins here without having answers for these questions may not yield the desirable results. And developing a good fit is science having said that right technical skill set, resources are important this is really understood and implemented well in the fashion industry in western hemisphere. Here we still contemplate with it and considered to manage on the go. Imparting the basic knowledge of fits and development process is essential to the PD, product, sourcing and buyers.
Umesh KamaladinniAug 30, 2020 at 16:26 pm
Good article Sir,well explained about fit, Body shape and Fabrics are more related to fit ..
Steephen AnthonyAug 30, 2020 at 10:45 am
Hi Anindya, Very good article to enhance the understanding of the fundamentals of Fit. Adhering to these fit rules will help us in executing the concept of "Quick to Market". Knowing what we want will definitely help to get the goods produced/procured much faster.
HimanshuAug 29, 2020 at 20:07 pm
I read the article couple to times to understand the ‘need’ for a FIT STRATEGY for a brand or retailer seperated from the product strategy. I completely agree that FIT is one of the most important criteria for a product purchase, having said that, I am of the opinion that a good product/ Buying manager has to embed Fit as part of the range construct. The basic premises of understanding the customer and the Brand proposition, Range construct would take care of Category offering, fabric & colour selection, Fit offering and pricing. Depending upon the consumer buying behaviour each category has its selection criteria, How well the buyer is able to map and align the offering to this makes him/ her good or bad. Alienating Slim/ Skinny fit in favour of Comfort fit may not be the Answer, with the whole fitness movement from Gyms & fitness centres, healthy eating options, mind and body wellness programs has fuelled the Fitness & Sports industry. Workout is becoming a part of Average Indian. Investing in studies and Fit researches, Consumer fit testing is a better approach. Quality of fit technicians, investing in training a buyer & designer to understand how basic measurement, cuts and shaping could evolve into a desirable and well accepted Fit. At Meraki, We understood Fit to be our most important component, We have ergonomically designed our silhouettes and fits to ensure they drape and fit well on various body shapes. Our floating size concept takes care of the ‘in betweens’ and caters to a huge ‘not-so-perfect’ body types. Being an e-commerce Womenswear brand, by investing in identifying the right fit for our customer has kept our returns to a bare 6% as against 30% industry norm and our customer repeat purchase is 45%. Its a different but complimenting perspective on the article, the teams to work their skills on bettering the RANGE CONSTRUCT. Thank you Anindya for bringing these insights and initiating the dialogues with readers for all rounded views. Cheers Himanshu
AjayAug 29, 2020 at 12:46 pm
Hi Anindya, this article on fit actually measures the diverged trend and the most complex feature of apparel design . Unlike Europe , Australia, Japan, USA - India still have not derived a standard Measurement chart. With our diversified cultures and regions, the scope of FIT or measurements becomes very critical for any launch. Thus we majorly attribute the fits based on running trends. If we look at the return stocks we can easily analyze the sale trend. The question is are we doing this? Also the key to FIT is the fabric selection and also the kinds of blends that makes the fit look perfect. Very true, many time consumer tend for the loyalty of brand due to his or her fits.