The busy purchasing process is starting for many fashion companies. What are the brands concerned about and what do they expect from the SS25 collection? At the Cologne label Armedangels, sales started a week ago. Wholesale Director Greta Meyza talks about her purchasing expectations and which product groups are doing well.
The fashion industry is having a hard time at the moment. Does that also apply to sustainable brands like Armedangels?
“Overall, we are very positive and have had a good season. We have benefited from the fact that we are strong in product groups such as jeans, T-shirts, sweatshirts and knitwear, and that we do not have so many typical summer items. In principle, our assortment is very trans-seasonal and relatively timeless.”
Talking about last season – what sold well?
“Denim is one of our showpieces. We strongly promoted the Detox Denim theme in February and March with campaigns and extended this to wholesale for the first time, where we saw that there was real demand. We could have sold more of the modern, new fits, such as the Wide Leg, as we could have sold more of all the other styles. We see that the demand for modern denim in cool washes and with good fits is still high and I think that will only increase in the coming year.”
And how did last season go for you financially compared to the year before?
“It has been more successful for us, precisely because we have greatly expanded our core items. We have focused on Never-Out-of-Stock programs and have also been able to realize large turnover shares through re-orders, because on the one hand we have expanded the bestsellers in the options, but on the other hand we were also able to deliver more and faster. We were pleased with that.”
How price sensitive do you currently experience retail and end customers to be?
“We pay attention to that. Our entry prices are not very low, we start in the T-shirt segment at around 35 euros. There are also T-shirts for 29 euros, but that is really the bottom price. In the denim segment we are at 99 euros. We try to maintain these core prices as much as possible, and sometimes even increase them.”
“The industry also reports that customers are buying less, and when they do buy, they are choosing special items or with a certain awareness, and then they are also prepared to pay more for them. We have very successful styles that cost more than 200 euros. These are price ranges that we perhaps did not have in our range seven to eight years ago.”
What kind of items are we talking about?
“These were now examples in the knitwear segment, which were trans-seasonal, such as knitted vests. You can wear them indoors in principle, but also outdoors as an alternative to a jacket. That is an important theme – everything has to be trans-seasonal and universally applicable, given climate change.”
What themes do you see for SS25?
“We continue to focus on Detox Denim, this time mainly by improving the fits and reviewing the fabrics, textures and washes. We have worked on how we can produce the items even more sustainably and make the product even more attractive. We continue to focus on a timeless design and hardly use colours or trends that have a short lifespan. We think long term. What do you buy to wear and love for years?”
What else is there besides denim?
“We complement our casual range with tailoring items, which we add as a break in style – a really well-cut blazer, or tailored jersey, for example. These styles feel comfortable and are also suitable for the office. We are strongly committed to that – strong, separate items that you can combine extremely well and use in many ways.”
What are your expectations for the sales of the SS25 collection?
“I am positive. We are aiming for growth. Certainly not 50 percent, but also not growth of less than 10 percent.”
With the appointment of Markus Diekmann as advisor, Armedangels announced big plans, for example that the label wants to become the German Patagonia. Armedangels also wants to be more strongly represented in retail. What kind of partners and stores are you targeting with the SS25?
“We are already very well represented in the DACH market (Germany, Austria and Switzerland, ed.), where we are growing with existing customers and we are now working with double placements. For example, we place the denim collection separately in department stores, next to the shops that we may already have in the women’s segment. In the men’s segment, we still see new customer potential, especially in the concept store and boutique segment, but almost all the big players are already participating. Abroad, we have agencies in Belgium, the Netherlands and France, and there the new customer potential is of course still enormous.”
The Armedangels brand has also developed over the past 18 years. Who are you competing with for market share now?
“We prefer not to mention other brands. We develop our own design language with our creative director Christiane Bördner and are also guided by the feedback of the end consumer. After all, we have a very large direct-to-consumer share.”
And who is Armedangels’ customer today?
“It is often an urban type that attaches less importance to the latest fashion trends, but rather to quality and sustainability. We also have customers who do not pay so much attention to sustainability, but who simply go for the design and quality.”
This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.DE. Translated by AI and edited by Sylvana Lijbaart.
Source: fashionunited.nl
