Know your target audience. Always keep them at the forefront of your mind. Understand their lifestyle and what they are looking for. Gather their feedback and use it to tailor your approach. The voice of the consumer is an essential input into the development of any fashion business or blog.
Imran Amed
Growing up in Canada, I used to love a walk in the early morning, when the streets are quiet and the sun was shining. Walking in the morning is still very refreshing... and if I can, I will walk to my first meeting or appointment.
The way the media tends to cover fashion is as this superfluous, vacuous industry. They focus on models and shows, but behind all that is a massive global industry.
I always wanted to do creative things, but I was really interested in entrepreneurship. My family comes from a very entrepreneurial culture, so business was always something I was interested in.
Most of my ideas come from drawing patterns across conversations I have with different types of people - technology investors, young fashion design students, a CEO. This variety is stimulating and offers many different perspectives on the things I am thinking about.
There's a side of fashion that's very analytical and data-oriented and methodical, but there's also a side of it that's just like magic. You can't quite put your finger on it, and you can't quite describe or prescribe a formula for how to get that magic exactly, but when you feel it and when you see it,you know that's what it is. It's magic.
As I began to take risks, leaving my very comfortable and secure job and taking this first leap into fashion, every subsequent risk became easier to take because I began to see the kind of opportunity and excitement that risk-taking offered.
Fashion is always seen as somewhat frivolous and self-indulgent. And I think people on the inside maybe don't see or understand how exciting and diverse a business it is.
A whole series of events pushed me towards meditation, and now it's become such an integral part of the way I manage myself. It's a tool for me; when you're an entrepreneur, and you're pulled in every direction, it is wonderful to have this discipline.
Not every brand needs to be on every social platform. Brands should have a very strategic objective, whether it's marketing or commercial. The biggest mistake a brand can make is to be on a social platform without a plan or the resources to manage it.
The most fascinating part is how fashion just attracts all these social rejects, if you will, from around the world, encourages individuality. They're the people who make the industry tick.
One cabbie chastened me by saying that the fashion industry was doing harm to young people, who are trying to live up to an unrealistic ideal. It prompted me to make body image and diversity key issues on 'The Business of Fashion.'
In the daytime, I was studying at school and in the evenings, I was a stage kid. I was trained in theatre and public speaking. I was a really active kid.
Although he's no longer with us, Steve Jobs is still inspirational to me, as he managed to find the balance between right brain/left-brain thinking that is crucial to building a creative technology business.
Look at the way sports, music and film have become driving forces of popular culture. Fashion is the fourth pillar.
I have always been drawn to fashion from an aesthetic and consumer standpoint. I honestly never thought that I could take my business training and apply it here. I worked in retail and was into fashion. It was something I liked, and people trusted my opinion.
I usually have eight to 10 meetings a day and travel 150 days a year..._It sounds crazy, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Leaving all the glamour and air-kissing aside, at the end of the day, fashion is about operations and getting things done. The best way to be successful, therefore, is to learn from the people who do it best.
Fashion is not art. Fashion is a business that requires discipline and attention to detail and very organized systems of logistics and operations and processes. But even with the most smoothly oiled machine to manage the business, without creativity, fashion could not exist.
I've always had an affinity for the fashion industry - I've always been drawn to it. But I grew up in Calgary in Canada, which, being a fairly isolated city, is not particularly known for having anything to do with fashion.
Fashion for a long time was very elitist and difficult to get access to. The access I can now provide to my readers live from fashion shows with my iPhone was never, ever possible before.
I had long had an instinct about there being a role for me in a creative industry. Maybe I didn't listen to that voice as much earlier on, but when it had become a deafening sound in my head I realised I had to go and explore it.
Fashion is an industry of action, not discussion.
I'm regularly speaking at London Business School and Harvard Business School. They're the next generation of leaders in the fashion industry.
I have met with hundreds of young fashion designers, hundreds of fashion startups, hundreds of CEOs and business leaders. All I do is get to ask questions of professionals in the industry. I learn from every conversation. It is the best education I could have.
It's not like I ever sat in my room and said I was going to start a media company and become an editor in chief. It was never my dream. It was something that just happened.
Education was something my parents always put a lot of emphasis on. It was naturally in me, and my sister is equally driven. She is a paediatric endocrinologist.
I love nothing better than immersing myself in different street cultures; exploring all those neighbourhoods in Tokyo was quite amazing, or visiting Morocco to see an Inditex factory.
For someone who comes from my business background, getting fashion people aligned around certain things can be a challenge. In a way, the industry is so forward-looking. And yet, sometimes people in fashion are not open to change.
One of my closest friends was a half-black, half-Jewish girl. Another good friend had a shaved head... but I was also friends with jocks. I was a 'floater,' I guess you could say.
I realised I had to work in something creative, but with a business and global element. And that I had to do it while I was still young and had an appetite for risk.
My parents landed in Calgary in December 1974, straight from Nairobi. They were immigrants, like many people coming to build a better life. My mom was five months pregnant with me when they landed.
Even back in elementary school, I was a leader, but a leader who didn't know how to channel my leadership skills in a constructive way. When I was younger, it probably came out as being more of a bossy little kid.
Digital has really made the fashion industry a lot more transparent. So people can see and understand how the industry really works, and participate in an industry that was very inaccessible to people. The only thing that people used to see before was the end product. Anyone can participate in it now.
I could have probably built a great career in management consulting, but one of the insights that I had early on is that just because you're good at something doesn't mean that you should continue to do it. Somewhere in my heart of hearts I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do.
When you come through a business education, a lot of what they teach you is to make decisions through analysis, and logic and rationale, and I'm a big believer in that. But I also believe in the power of instinct. The truth is you're never going to have a perfect answer or view of how it is going to work.
Combining technology and fashion shouldn't be about PR gimmicks - they should genuinely enhance the experience of buying, owning and experiencing a luxury product.
I'm not a designer, nor do I fancy myself a designer.
One person I find fascinating is J.Crew's Mickey Drexler. I would love to get into that brain and see how it works.
The power structures in fashion used to be limited to western Europe and the States. That's changing.
As much as technology has made me so much more efficient, enabling me to run a small but global company from where I happen to be, at times it feels like the technology is running me, as opposed to the other way round.
You might call me an accidental entrepreneur.
The most amazing thing about Karl Lagerfeld is that no matter what you ask him, you will always get an interesting answer. We even exchanged notes about ponytails.
Not everyone can be successful selling fashion at $25,000 for a wedding outfit. Certain designers are able to do that. And there is only a certain amount of consumers who can do that. The real opportunity is in that $25 garment.
My advice to owners of fashion brands is that you have to give digital a seat at the board table. A lot of brands treat digital strategy as something on the side.
I focus on projects I am passionate about and only work with people I respect. Without these supportive teams, partners and clients, I could never work on so many things. I am fortunate that they see the value in the multiplicity of my work and how it all comes together in a kind of virtuous cycle.
Frankly, I don't understand the monthly magazines that continue to publish news that is two months old and which has already been reported on ad nauseam online, including on their own websites.
