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Many colors and many price points make for swift selling this season.
There is no season in fashion—human or pet—more exciting than spring. As the sun starts to warm us, the colors get more vibrant, the fabric goes from fluffy to flowy and the focus again is on the pretty rather than the warm or the practical. In spring all things are possible, in fashion and in life, because everything is new and fresh.
This all sounds lovely, but what does it mean for pet boutique owners and buyers? What will the trends be this year? Not to worry, Pet Style News reached out to three prominent pet fashion designers to get their take on the inside scoop for the coming season.
Eye on the Runways
High-end pet fashion designers must always have their eyes on what’s happening in human fashion, right? Not necessarily, says Rebecca Bissi, owner of and designer for Chien Coature in Racine, Wis.
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Rebecca Bissi, Chien Coature |
“I do and I don’t,” she says. “I’ve got the ideas in the noggin and whenever I have time to execute them, I get them out there. In my designs, I pay attention to color based on what’s going to look good on certain breeds and what I like to work with as far as materials.”
Carol Davis, designer and owner of Global Dog Designs in New York says she pulls a little more directly from what’s going on in human fashion.
“We look at the runway shows in New York. We look at them online from all over the world,” she says. “I walk on 5th Avenue and Madison and in Soho and Chelsea and look in windows. We try to translate what we see into ideas that are artistic, unique and practical. I spoke to a buyer this morning whose needs were pretty typical. Her people want stuff that’s minimal, but elegant—something that the dog will stand out wearing it. The other thing I have seen is unique ways to translate into pet fashion those items I see on the runway. I saw for spring that designers did cutouts, illusion type things. Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Jill Stewart and a few others did it. So I designed an eyelet jacket. It’s very pretty but it’s not over the top.”
Jennifer Basulto, owner and designer for Haute Puppy of North Hills, Calif., is also a close watcher of the runways. For the upcoming season, she is predicting a lot of flowers.
“The spring runways were definitely filled with lots of flowers, lots of stuff that looked like a water color painting,” she says.
Indeed a look through the December issue of Vogue reveals hints of that trend. Patterns seem ready to burst onto the scene again in a more traditionally feminine fashion. Basulto will be pulling some inspiration from some of those current designs, she says.
Color is Everything
Although Basulto says she will create her designs in a whole range of different trendy colors, she is realistic about pet fashion’s favorite hue.
“In human fashion the color for spring is blue, but in dog clothing we can’t get away from pink. I find a lot of people who dress their dogs dress them very much like they would if they had a little girl, so they want everything pink and frilly,” she says.
Bissi says one of her signature color combinations for the upcoming season will be a pale pink and cream.
“I’m sure I’ll do a turquoise too,” she says. “It looks good on a black dog and looks good on a white dog.”
She’s also planning a focus on red and some pieces in lime green.
“White dogs look good in everything, but I try to offer something for every breed of dog,” she says.
Davis has a sense of what the market is going to demand this spring.
“I think what buyers are looking for is feminine with an edge,” she says “By feminine, I just mean interesting with a little embellishment. It’s the artistic thing. That’s what we try to do.”
In a market with so many copy-cat designers, she says, it’s important for shops and designers to stay true to their own vision of what great pet style is. With so many different types of customers, she says, a different angle can help identify you as a source for special things.
“You have kind of the bling and the Malibu and the foufou stuff, you have the LL Bean type stuff and then you have the street funky stuff,” she says. “I am kind of almost creating my own thing. I just keep coming back to is what’s my unique selling proposition. What makes me stand out. My concept is that I love dogs, I love travel and I love beautiful things.”
For her casual pieces, Davis says she is getting back to basics, with a twist.
“This spring I’m doing a lot of denim. I’m calling it a deluxe denim,” she says. “With women’s fashions, it’s all about the flash stuff like the acid wash. We’re going back to the simpler raw denim. We’re softening it with embroidery. We put our flags from the different countries on the pieces.”
She’s also taking a hint from the casual chic of some human designers.
“The other thing I see as a trend is the kind of street to chic,” she says. “We’re not real funky-funky downtown, but we’ve got a nice sophisticated cool thing. I think that’s what the buyers are looking for. You want something different but it can’t be so over the top that it’s impractical. It’s got to be quality material, quality embellishments.”
Are They Buying?
While the economy was steadily improving as 2009 wore on, unemployment was still rising at press time for this issue, which leads to the main question for retailers this spring when it comes to apparel: If I stock it, will they buy?
Many retailers looked their situations square in the face last year and made painful but important changes to their inventories, either shifting away from apparel entirely or diversifying their shops which previously were mainly focused on apparel. It’s no secret that clothing for pets is in most cases a luxury item and therefore one of the first things people are likely to stop purchasing. Every business owner has to make a decision about what will work in his or her market, but as things continue to improve, a little bit of experimentation may be in order. The key to reducing risk and increasing profit is absolutely going to be intelligent marketing and inventory choices.
There’s a certain psychology to spring that makes people feel more upbeat and carefree, even if they are still dealing with some financial woes. Shop owners will want to capitalize on that this year with in-store events (outdoors if possible) to get people excited about the season. When it comes to inventory choices, Basulto had some input.
“I think that there are a lot of people that have had to scale back and do a lot of utilitarian stuff because that’s always going to be needed,” Basulto says. “But in my opinion the people who would buy my clothing, those people still have money and they’re still spending it in mass quantities on their dogs. Those people are very few and far between but things are starting to pick up. By this time this year I think that a little bit of that expendable money is going to come back for others too.”
For the more cautious store owner, there is always the option of making the slightly less practical option into a more practical one.
“Start with D-rings because they can always be used as a leash or harness. So then it’s not so much a luxury item anymore, it can be used as a functional item. That’s the thing that I always think about is someone who doesn’t carry apparel at all. There are tons of companies out there that will add D-rings for you.”
There’s a great deal to consider when you’re freshening up your shop and your inventory for the most hopeful of seasons, but the best advice is to know your customers and cater to their needs, with perhaps a risk or two thrown in to tempt them to new fashion frontiers.
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