The creation process of a fashion brand usually begins with the idea of a product or a line of items that will then shape the rest of the business. Ludovica and William’s business story is just the opposite. They proved you can create a successful fashion brand even with no background in design.
Both in their twenties, they studied economy and created Glimmed in January 2017. Their goal is to offer fashionable – and instagrammable – products that are affordable (under 100€) and yet of quality. The clutches – their star product – are produced by Karl Lagerfeld manufacturers whereas Hermès manufacturers do their prints.
As their Boobs t-shirt is all over Instagram, I catched up with them the time of an interview to talk about their story, the idea behind Glimmed, how they developed it with no fashion background, how they obtained a concession at La Rinascente in Milan and their social media strategy.
The birth of Glimmed and its story
Glimmed was created during the first months of 2017 with the goal to fill the gap between luxury brands and fast fashion brands. Despite not having studied anything related to fashion, both founders have an entrepreneurial mindset. They made a market and sector analysis to understand where to position their brand and what type of product they needed to develop with little investment. And in three weeks, they began producing their first products. Thanks to a fun packaging and a top-notch customer service, Glimmed reached 2000 sales right after its launch.
While Ludovica and William take care of logistics, administration and other parts of the business, a designer creates the products, and other people (all under 30) contribute to help Glimmed grow.
The online shop
Since its beginnings, Glimmed is exclusively sold online on the brand’s website. As for Instagram, it was created at the same time to build brand awareness and make it visible to everyone. With a starting budget of 150€, they began investing in influencer marketing – today their budget is around 3000-4000€ a month and has an ROI around 13% – to promote their Boobs t-shirt that is more and more seen on bloggers.
More than bringing sales, this strategy contributed to contract propositions by Italian retailers interested in selling their products. It was Glimmed beginnings to be sold in physical shops.
How the founders got a concession at La Rinascente in Milan and the Galeries Lafayette in Paris
Getting a space at La Rinascente in Milan is probably the goal of many brands. Not only a place to boost the sales, but the Italian luxury shop is above all, a brand image accelerator. It all started casually when a Glimmed intern sent a mail to a buyer of La Rinascente to introduce their products. Incredulous, Ludovica and William got an appointment with the store to discuss the idea and, in eight days, they built a pink corner that received many likes on social media.
It was one of this moment that only happens once in life hence why the two founders decided to invest in creating a millennial pink corner perfect to instagram. Their pop up opened during the Fashion Week, time of the year in which customers’ traffic reaches its highest point. Their pop up attracts mostly fashion professionals who spend their time observing how La Rinascente does business. Again, luck is with Glimmed as a buyer of Galeries Lafayette in Paris noticed their pop up.
Their piece of advice to who wants to start a fashion brand
William believes it is essential to give yourself goals to understand which direction you want to go and what strategy you can adopt. You then need to keep track on your progress to understand how your business is performing and correct some actions or in the worst case, close down. Finally, fashion is not only about big brands, you can create your own business without investing a lot.
thanks for info