1st Fashion Business Forum - Athens, finally

Fashion, besides making you pretty on a Monday morning and stylish on a Saturday night, is a business. As such, it finally had its first Fashion Business Forum last Monday. Some of global fashion's best, along with Greek players of the past, the present and possibly the future, discussed thecurrent state of fashion industry. The contribution of the latter was crucial for touching local particularities.

International speakers spoke about tendencies that should not be neglected like the effect of the economic recess and global fashion on buying habits, with value for money, strong brand awareness and consistent presence online (including social media) being more important than ever. Local speakers, noted the lack of government support, the reality of having to engage in offers and early discounts to attract buyers and gave a mixed message on whether or not they believe in the power of www.

Clearly believing in the internet were the three Greek online start-up companies, private sales Brands Galaxy, eshop Buldoza.gr (which further co-invited 15 fashion bloggers to attend) and Fashinating.com which offers the double service of personal styling to consumers through thousands of online finds aswell as market insight and targeted sales testing to businesses through detailed response statistics.

Hotel Grande Bretagne was an excellent choice of space and everything was very well organised on behalf of Boussias Conferences. The official reel of the event is available here: boussias_conf, all other relevant tweets tagged accordingly can be found here: #fbf_athens

Attendance was high as the room was full of fashion business professionals. By no means would one say that the majority of the local market was there, however, this first attempt to offer a conference of this kind was a success and there's always the option of a bigger room next year. Loud absence that of traditional fashion press, although I did see and hear a couple of fashion journalists in the room, one from a glossy and one from a newspaper.

Overall, congratulations to all the businessmen/women who accepted to participate in panels and presentations and share thoughts and tactics. Whether on the right or wrong track, it takes courage to openly talk about your business, especially if it hasn't happened this way before. Constructive criticism and discussion have a chance of pushing one to the right direction, silence does not.

There is still a lot to tell about what went on but as it won't stop being relevant for quite sometime, for now this post is limited to a (brief?) recap.

Attended the forum and blogged about it:
Eye Candies,
Posh Fashion,
Life in Athens,
Fashion Algorithms,
Mary Jane Girl,
Battered Couture,
FFFFashionmiXXXX,
LFoF,
Ordinary Style Pulse,
Little Stylist,
Sugahspank,
Spottedm,
A Brit Greek,
Wardrobe Recycle,

Fashion Architect