Trying to put my finger on exactly why there seems to have been such a noticeable shift in how companies present themselves these days and when exactly this started to manifest itself is turning into a bit of a personal obsession of late. It feels like another lifetime when shop assistants in designer stores would look you up and down, assessing whether you as a customer were in fact “worth it”, whether you might be deserving of their attention and their care. Or maybe I’m not spending enough time on Sloane Street, but I doubt it. Maybe I’m just remembering an episode of AbFab, but again, I doubt it. Now of course we’re spending more and more time shopping online where an increasing number of retailers are hitting the nail so very much on the head that it’s left a lot of us wondering: why bother with shops when we can get such incredibly good service online and feel like we matter and like we’re totally worth the effort?
Last week I spent an inspiring half hour chatting to Young British Designers’ founder Debra Hepburn who very graciously interrupted her Cornwall holiday to answer some of my questions on her relatively new and thriving business. And this is where paragraph one ties neatly into this one, because Young British Designers (YBD or @YBDfashion if you tweet) is slowly but surely winning us over with not only their products but with their genuine and consistent message, their approach and their customer care. The idea for the YBD site came from a collective desire to help young people, and specifically young British design talent; promoting and advising these young, valuable and potentially great future ambassadors for British fashion not only by giving them the online store facility at such an early stage in their careers, but by also offering advice on how to break into the sector, highlighting important aspects within the industry, nurturing their talent rather than exploiting it, and creating considered opportunities for connecting with important industry bodies and other respectful retailers. Who else does that?
The sequence of events that kick-started this seemingly simple concept was initiated by the company’s creative director, Stuart Jackson, who was struck by an inspiring incentive he came across during a trip to South Africa supporting young, talented designers. Hepburn herself studied fashion and has harboured a strong passion for the subject all her life but ended up in marketing and copywriting and subsequently running her own successful advertising agency, which she still does to this day. If you’re thinking multi-tasking multi-achiever, you’ve got it. Add to that a young family with 2 dogs and I think I need to lie down in a darkened room. Her husband, Julian Whitehead, decided to exit the corporate world in favour of an alternative and more fulfilling career and is now YBD’s Managing Director as well as the guy behind customer services. Together this team of creative professionals “simply” pooled their collective experience and passion, headed off to London Fashion week, bought the 1st season’s stock with their own savings, and launched the star of the show, the Young British Designers website in September of 2010 amongst an explosive publicity campaign splashed all over the social media network. I remember it, I was there, it was impressive and highly effective. The site itself was set up by countless numbers of volunteers who gave their time and professional service to help get the concept off the ground. This ain’t some money-making machine, guys, this is the real thing. Here you’ve got a group of people, with their day-jobs either behind them or still very much in gear, whose desire to give something back, to share the knowledge and lend a hand was far more important than making a profit.
Since last year, when the focus was to find the first selection of young designers and feature them on the site, the company is now taking about 15 calls or emails a day from designers wishing to be considered. Whilst this kind of growth is rewarding and underlines how effective YBD has become in such a short space of time, the company is clearly after the longterm, investing in the future of British fashion and ensuring that the company itself and the young talent it represents gets as much support as it deserves from within the industry, in particular from bodies such as the British Fashion Council, with whom YBD would like to become more involved, establishing feasible and productive collaborations. As Hepburn quite poignantly puts her point across, YBD’s number one concern and objective is to help and support young British designers, however it cannot remain their sole resource indefinitely.
If you’ve not visited the website yet, click here to view some of the best of young emerging British fashion. We here at Futurespace love pretty much every single one of these bright stars but have a particular fondness for Charlotte Taylor, The Orphan’s Arms, J.W. Anderson, Lako Bukia, Studio Nicholson, Bionda Castana, Z-Mode, borne by Elise Berger… it’s difficult to stop once you start, you’ll see. We also have a very exciting piece of news and a bit of an exclusive for you, dear readers. After repeated nudges and requests from male YBD followers, Autumn Winter 2011 sees the launch of a capsule collection for men. So gentlemen, keep your eyes on the site to get your first peek at this new addition to the YBD family. Hard to imagine that there’s room for improvement but menswear is probably the way to perfection. In fact the YBD customer profile will be an interesting species to analyse over the next coming years; the knowledge that you’re not likely to see many others wearing the same garment or accessory is clearly a big draw right now, another is the personal service that you receive and that will make you want to come back for more, again and again. And you will. And once you get there, once you’re a true regular you know what’ll probably happen? You’ll receive, completely out of the blue, a Young British Designers Dressing Up Box sent to your home address. A brand new service which features a box containing a selection of the newest pieces, handpicked and selected especially for you to try on and fall in love with. And it’s a service based entirely on trust. We love that and we love YBD.
