The Glossy Podcast

From customer data to in-store technology, the role of retail marketing teams is just one element within the fashion industry that's been shaken up in the digital era.

Retail marketing teams can no longer just focus on PR and creative elements. Denise Anza, the former svp of marketing at Saks Fifth Avenue and now a brand consultant, joined this week's Glossy Podcast to discuss the fast-shifting retail marketing landscape.

Influencers are the hottest thing in the fashion space, letting fashion brands, distanced from their audiences for so long, feel more connected to them.

But the growth hasn’t come without its share of tensions. Legacy brands like Neiman Marcus are now outrightly blaming influencers and bloggers for changing consumer expectations faster than they can keep up. 

Bra shopping is about to get more interesting. A swathe of retailers are in the space, trying to take a piece of the $100 billion bra market that continues to be dominated by Victoria’s Secret.

One of them is ThirdLove, a company founder by Heidi Zak, who started the company when she found herself shopping at Victoria’s Secret in her 30s. Zak, formerly head of retail at Aeropostale, said she doesn’t called ThirdLove “lingerie” because “real women wake up in the morning to put on a bra and underwear,” not lingerie.

As the ongoing democratization of fashion continues, there has been a drastic shift in the role of the industry's so-called gatekeepers. And nobody is as much a gatekeeper as the fashion editor. Usually seen front row at shows, these tastemakers have historically been the bridge between the designs and the customers.

“Covering shows has changed dramatically. What we used to do was go, come back, look at our boards and see what’s the story we want to tell our audiences,” said Joyann King, editor of HarpersBazaar.com on this week’s Glossy Podcast. “Now, we’re giving them that information directly from the ground. They want to see everything right then. In some ways we’re editing on the job.”

It’s almost New York Fashion Week and Laurie DeJong has just arrived from a show construction site near Manhattan's Penn Station. Par for the course, since DeJong, the CEO of LDJ Productions, is behind 65 fashion week shows, responsible for directing and producing one of New York's biggest events.

On this week's Glossy podcast, we caught up with DeJong to talk about how social media has changed fashion and her hacks for making it through the week alive. (Tip: Get a Metrocard and stick to the subway.)

On this week’s Glossy Podcast, Tony King, founder of King and Partners, and Inii Kim, creative director, joined us to talk about the changing mores inside fashion brands, how digital demands better marketers and what it was like doing e-commerce for Gucci two decades ago.

Designers design -- but they rarely know the business of design.

That’s where Launch Collective, a management firm that has launched the businesses for designers including Monique Pean and Tanya Taylor comes in.

Vishaal Melwani, knows the men’s fashion business. The co-founder and creative director of Combatant Gentleman is a third generation tailor with 17 years of experience as an apprentice. He’s also part of a growing number of executives in the menswear industry who embodies his own customer: A millennial man.

“Men are getting more interested in what they’re wearing and how they’re wearing it,” said Melwani. It's this trend that's given rise to a number of new men’s fashion labels. But how men shop and stay loyal to a brand is something many brands are exploring and experimenting with.