What you need to know to build your fashion brand? (And that no one will tell you)
By: Eddine Belmahdi
Tags: Fashion, Inspiration, Advice, Business, Fashion Designer

Hello everyone, I am Eddine Belmahdi, and here is my first story in Medium.

As a fashion designer in Paris, since 2015, I have learned a lot about the industrie, even if I don’t know everything yet; here is what you need to know (and that no one will tell you) if you want to build your brand.

Photo by Flaunter on Unsplash

1: Found your identity : In your clothes style

In this article i will give you some of the best tips to follow one by one, and the first (and most important one) is to found your identity; there is thousands brand who are created everyday, and each of those brands are creating thousand clothes every year. So if you want to make your place in this industry, you should found what is your brand about? What is your style? You got it? Now work it again! and again….

Founding your identity is not just saying “Ok i will make sexy clothes”, This is deeper than this, everyone can make sexy clothes, but what will you give to the sexy style, that other people didn’t gave? I will use my work as example, I always loved traditional clothes from Algeria (My dad’s country) so at the begging is was doing those Caftan, Karakou, and all kind of dresses we can found in Algeria, but at the end of the day if you saw one of my dresses, and one of anyone’s dresses in Algeria, you couldn’t identify which one was mine or not… That was my first and biggest mistakes, I was just doing a red Algerian Caftan, with that gold embroidery, that anyone could have made.

So for that i’ve work on my identity, how can it be stronger? How can it be recognizable? Where do I want to go with my brand?

Photo by Arno Senoner on Unsplash

2 : Build your identity : In you visual présentation

This step will help you to define your customer base and fan base. You need to select the colors you want, your logo, your style of photography, your models type etc… For exemple; If your target is plus size people, you will need to have a plus size model for your photoshoots. If it’s an ethnic brand, you will select and ethnic model etc…. But once again for this step you need to, first of all, define your identity.

As half Algerian and half French, I wanted my brand to be representative of my both origins, and I wanted (at first) to bring a new breath to the Algerian’s clothes identity. So I decides to make my visual identity in this way, I found the links that France and Algeria have in commons, and then I’ve work on it. The links are not necessary in fashion, they can be in architecture, food, arts, music etc… you need to found the stuff that are talking to you and introduce them in you visual identity.

Photo by Jannis Lucas on Unsplash

3 : What is the message that your brand will spread?

This step is very important! Your brand have to spread a message, it have to tell a story…. Either it can be something about self acceptation, about roots, about history, about empowerment, about a lifestyle… Your brand story, is in 90% of times, linked to your story.

Once you found the message you want to spread through your brand, it will also help you to make your identity stronger. All the steps are giving to you are working and empowering each other.

For exemple : As I wanted my brand to share my Algerian heritage, target people who have an affection to Algeria, in France, (this is my primary customer base) so I have work with French models who have Algerian origins. Then my goal was to reviving Algerian haute couture, and to make it desirable for black Africans people, Russians, Arabs (Lebanese, Saudi, etc…) or any people in the world. So i had to work on the style of my pictures, and respect international codes of the fashion industry. (for exemple the makeup for photoshoots is way more visible in Algerian’s style, than in general in fashion shoots, so I’ve start to work on this… etc)

Photo by Najla Cam on Unsplash

With this 3 simple steps, that no one will tell you, you can build your brand identity, strategy and start working on your goals more easily. It will avoid you a loss of time, and energy. Remember once you defined your identity and the message you want to spread, all you designs, all you shootings, all you mood boars have to be in harmony with it.

If you want more advice in fashion industry, in building a collection, a brand, a photoshoot etc… feel free to subscribe on my Medium page.

XOXO

Eddine