The Business of Fashion website is changing the way the industry sees itself

Asia is becoming a focal point for fashion as the industry searches further afield for talent, says Imran Amed, the Canadian-British founder and editor-in-chief of online journal Business of Fashion (BoF). Eight years after the former McKinsey and Company management consultant launched BoF, website postings have over 2.5 million followers from more than 200 countries.

BoF started as a blog, but grew into the industry’s leading digital source of information for designers, fashion houses, and fashionistas. “We are providing a unique, global, analytical perspective in a time of great change for the fashion industry,” says Amed, a keynote presenter at the 2015 Hong Kong Business of Design Week (BODW) last November.

“In Asia, we can find amazing craftsmanship, The Business of Fashion website is changing the way the industry sees itself including batik in Indonesia, embroidery in India, and textiles in Japan. When these are combined with modern design, it’s very powerful,” says Amed. He feels that there is an exciting creative resurgence in fashion design in China, too. “One of my favourite designers is Uma Wang, who uses in-depth fabric development to create really beautiful, unique garments,” says Amed, a Harvard Business School graduate who dreamed of working in an industry that combined commerce with creativity.

During his BODW presentation at the Fashion Ecosystem Forum at PMQ, Amed spoke about the way consumer behaviour and the fashion industry have been reshaped by digital forces. For instance, last year BoF launched a subscription-based global job market platform, called The Business of Fashion Careers, where talent and fashion companies can connect. Within a week of launching, 150 fashion companies from 15 countries had signed up. Prior to the launch of the online recruitment channel, a survey indicated that few fashion-related businesses use social forums to recruit talent.

Amed says the fashion industry is not as easy to disrupt as the music industry, whose business model has been fundamentally changed by digital streaming and piracy, because fashion is about physical products. The areas where technology has disrupted the fashion world are limited to the communications and transactional side of the industry: the way consumers discover and discuss fashion, the way they learn about brands, and the way they make purchases. Instagram has been especially important in sparking conversations about images.

According to industry insiders, everyone from the big brands to emerging designers is prioritising social media as a way to communicate with customers. That goes for up-and-coming designers as well as established luxury brands. Tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram posts have become an integral part of the brand-building process.