{"id":588,"date":"2016-10-13T06:12:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T00:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/54.169.171.227\/?p=588"},"modified":"2024-05-02T14:11:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T08:41:01","slug":"buying-into-the-brave-new-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vue.ai\/blog\/retail-trends\/buying-into-the-brave-new-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Buying into the Brave New\u00a0World"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

Thought to be the oldest shopping mall in the world \u2014 Trajan\u2019s market in Rome\u00a0, built in 100 AD\u2014 was surprisingly modern. A multi-storey structure with stores, taverns, offices and warehouses, it brought hundreds of individual shops or \u2018tabernas<\/em>\u2019 together into one convenient location. (One has to wonder if it was equally populated by nihilistic teenage mallrats.)<\/p>\n

Two millenia later, the first online store was invented. Michael Aldrich connected a TV set, a phone line and a computer to create a makeshift teleshopping system called Videotex. The Internet was 11 years away.<\/p>\n

\u201cVideotex is more a new way of communicating, rather than another way of computing\u2026\u201d<\/em> begins his paper, possibly explaining the wonders of remote shopping to his first customers, Thomson and Horizon Holidays, who sold packaged holidays.<\/p>\n

And in between these two significant pivots in the normal course of events, Charles Frederick Worth was making another kind of history in France. He sewed a label onto his garments.<\/p>\n

Just as the first \u2018byline\u2019 by princess Enheduanna, the high priestess of the Sumerian city of Ur who signed her poetry with her name, launched literature, this act of identity launched couture. The House of Worth opened in 1858. And as we go through the glamorous rigmarole of fashion weeks, it\u2019s nostalgic to note that Worth was one of the first fashion designers to create several designs for a season and show them on live models.<\/p>\n

\"live<\/a>
The most popular social media influencers in fashion today (L to R): Eva Chen, Leandra Medine and Chiara Ferragni. Illustration by Gauri Kumar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s important to know this history. Because everything we\u2019ve built since has been built on this foundation, this philosophy that lets us dip into the past for inspiration while we face constant change and technological advancement. The first Roman markets may have been very much like our own. Ecommerce was ahead of its time. Haute couture began with one man leaving his mark on his creations.<\/p>\n

And now, the robots are here.<\/p>\n

Hacks and Comebacks<\/h3>\n

The Internet exploded in the 90s.<\/p>\n

When eCommerce started gathering momentum, surgical incisions and augmentations shaped it into something more sophisticated than the humble hack that started it all in the 70s, leaving physical stores lagging behind. The rift between online and offline began to widen.Then social media boomed.<\/p>\n

Now hyper-connectivity rules the interwebs. Moving at a million miles a minute, user generated content pops up every second, public sentiment shifts at the drop of a hat and attention comes at a premium. Fashion immediacy was born under the aegis of new age bloggers and Instagrammers.\u00a0Banner blindness progressed (or regressed, depending on your perspective) to social noise cancellation.<\/p>\n

But if you can tap into this crazy network and make sense of it all, you hit gold.<\/p>\n

Influencers like Leandra Medine, Eva Chen<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0and Chiara Ferragni<\/a> are just as prominent at the coveted front row as fashion critics like Vanessa Friedman from the NY Times or editors like Anna Wintour. Passive communities are being replaced by ultra-active ones which follow influencers religiously, seeing them as more human and authentic alternatives to large, impersonal organizations.<\/p>\n

And where was the physical store all this while? Growing, but at a slower pace than its digital counterpart. It wasn\u2019t until eCommerce plateaued that brick-and-mortar started catching up. There are still big, unexplored gaps in the online shopping experience, especially around catering to the idiosyncrasies of individuality, which are impossible to bridge without coming full circle to its physical origins.<\/p>\n

Tom Kearnan, the Director of Global Fashion and Merchandising at Indochino<\/a>\u2014a menswear brand that has embraced the omnichannel model\u2014says:<\/p>\n

“I love that customers are able to move through channels seamlessly and interact with the brand when, and where and how they want.<\/p>\n

[But] I’m still a little skeptical when it comes to online purchasing of unusual fabrics such as alpaca or yak, where the ability to touch and feel the fabric is more important.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With all this going on, eCommerce is facing a mid-life crisis of epic proportions. It\u2019s deviated from and is trying to get back to the two keystones that make shopping exciting: community and the human proclivity to own art and beauty.<\/p>\n

The flickering computer screen is not always conducive to providing that (clich\u00e9d as it may sound) experience. Simon Forster, the executive director of Selfridges, recently said what\u2019s on everyone\u2019s mind, but no one wants to admit \u2014 that it\u2019s early days yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe market is evolving at an increasingly fast rate. There are no retailers that I know who would say that they are there: that they are truly omnichannel, that they are truly digital. Everybody is trying to keep up with a customer that\u2019s evolving quicker than any organization can actually cope\u00a0with.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just as everyone prepared to down the shutters for good on physical retail, it became obvious that people were still visiting stores in droves. The social allure of shopping was alive and kicking. To see and to be seen in, to touch and to try, to have the experience of walking into a branded store and surrounding oneself with luxury\u2014 none of that went\u00a0away.<\/p>\n

Online shopping may be fairly young, but shopping itself is ancient. Bricks and mortar was suddenly hip again.<\/p>\n

And technology started its slow-mo foray into retail with a more visceral twist, luring people back with desirability, wonder and romance. Take the Met Gala\u2019s Manus x Machina theme, or Minkoff\u2019s Store of the Future with magic mirrors and its flirtation with live-streaming VR at this year\u2019s NYFW.<\/p>\n

Pause for a moment. Let that last bit sink in. I digress, but how often does a completely new medium become mainstream? Not a new channel, a new medium. Like print or film or electronic media.<\/p>\n