Footwear News Summit-The Hot List
The FN Summit-The Hot List, for sure brought the heat to Manhattan. They invited the top industry professionals to discuss the hot topics in the footwear industry. Before I dive into the event, I would like to thank the Fashion Scholarship Fund (FSF) for having me at the event on their behalf. I am a proud alumni & mentor of this amazing foundation. I can not praise the FSF enough for the work they do for students to get them ready for their career paths in the industry.
The FN summit brought leaders from all different aspects of footwear together to speak on current trends and where the market is heading. They had the brands that are winning in their space to speak on their secret sauce. Brands such as Crocs, ON, Aldo, Golden Goose, and many more. It was super insightful to hear what the industry leaders were thinking about in this new age of fashion. The topics that I thought were the most interesting were brand building “the secret sauce”, AI, & DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) / retaining employees.
Brands are always looking for what's next on the horizon, from bringing freshness to the brand or looking at others for their secret formula. Like Michael Jordan in Space Jams, the secret formula is just the basics. Those basics are creating meaningful products with meaningful story telling, having good quality products, and knowing what your customer needs/wants are.
Building a product assortment with a meaningful story that relates to consumers is no easy task when you are trying to force a false narrative. The brands that are winning the space are the brands that have a strong brand message and convey an authentic message in a way that the consumer relates to. No project or product is too small to have a meaningful message behind it. A challenge for brands is how do you keep that story message clear and concise throughout all your media/distribution channels. Creating physical products will always be the most important step in gaining a new consumer, but once the transaction is completed how do you keep them coming back.
Peter Arnold Executive Director of Fashion Scholarship Fund (FSF) & Alexander Britto Footwear Designer/ FSF Alumni discussing the benefits of the FSF.
Brands such as ON and Golden Goose do this by enhancing their physical spaces and fostering authentic brand partnerships. Golden Goose enhances their spaces by adding small cafes, creating its own line of coffee, and adding cobblers to some of their locations. By adding a cobbler it brings in new consumers to the store. They can get any brand of sneaker/shoe or handbags repaired. By having them onsite in the store, it brings new people into the store that might not have ever heard of the brand before. It brings in additional revenue for the brand, it helps them with acquisition costs, and creates a new consumer. ON is doing this by opening stores in communities where the consumers are matching the brand's ethos. The build out of the stores must meet the brand standard of being a premium performance brand and be a unique space for the customer experience. Lastly, ON does this by building meaningful partnerships with collaborators that are authentic and that doesn't feel forced. The strategy is to work with brands and people that are first consumers of the brand and that are passionate about the mission. Such partnerships with Loewe and Zendaya were built based on their multi respect for each other first and then followed by how well financial it will do for the brand.
In 2024, we live in this polarizing environment. A topic which people love to hate is AI. I think mass media and Tik Tok influencers pushed around this notion on how horrible AI is and how it will be taking people's jobs in the near future. Mass media also does a horrible job at educating people on how much AI is already in our everyday life. There are two forms of AI, Cognitive AI and Generative AI. Kumar Rajan the SVP of Engineering at Aetrex, global leader in foot scanning technology, orthotics and comfort and wellness footwear, explains how Cognitive AI analyzes consumer/people data patterns to create a tailored experience for the end user. It is commonly used in your social media feed or customer services automated chats. Generative AI builds and creates images, texts, and audio based on information imputed into a closed loop system.
The most important aspect of AI is that everything is trackable. We can use that data to make sound decisions.
Brands use AI in many different ways. Pacsun, represented by Shirley Gao Chief Digital Information Officer, uses AI to optimize business performance and to drive traffic to the website. They use AI to generate reports and to analyze data to make the reporting easier for employees to utilize and to understand. They also use AI to enhance customer experience, it is done by indicating key words that might be missing from a particular product page and driving web searches to their particular page.
Hilo, is a design studio that focuses on pushing shoe design into the future. They do this by creating footwear with limited waste in the production process and use AI in the creation process. The AI helps render designs quicker and in a cheaper way to help get products to the market faster.
Vibram Mobile cobbler unit repairing footwear on Park Avenue.
Employees feel a big disconnect in this current climate. DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) / retaining employees is a challenge for a lot of companies. The only fault is the companies themselves. Employees, more specialty employees that are from BIPOC background, feel that they are being looked over and not taken seriously anymore. Brands felt pressure to change in 2020, but when the dust settled they took their foot off the gas. People see and feel that brands do not care about adding diversity besides making products that appeal to a specific marketing campaign. To truly change how companies operate and function they must retain employees. The only way to do so is by being an active listener and a voice for change. While being a voice, you must follow through on the promises you make to employees. When employees feel valued, they will stay with the company longer and then give the opportunity to others like themselves to grow within the organization. This goes beyond race. It encompasses disabilities, gender identity, the list goes. Treat employees with authenticity and be willing to embrace uncomfortable conversation to be the true change.
The biggest takeaway from the summit is to be authentic and embrace change from all aspects of business.
All the amazing speakers from FN Summit- The Hot List - Speakers
