Researching and Choosing a Sub Brand

Before choosing my sub brand for this project, I decided to explore existing, successful sub brands for popular brands, how they were established, how they reflect the main brand and their success. A few examples that came to mind were the brands: Red Valentino for Valentino which is marketing towards a much younger audience to appeal to a different crowd, Collusion for Asos, which is more dynamic and energetic, appeals to any gender as it is relatively genderless and Mennace for Missguided which is their male clothing sub brand, although this is slightly different as it seems to be a completely different brand which has links to missguided rather than a sub brand, even though it technically is.

I researched these all in my sketchbook which was very effective in my development of choosing and researching into creating my own sub brand as i and looked into the relation between the main brand and the sub brand and how they compare and contrast with each other as well as how I can take inspiration from certain aspects to keep in consideration for my own brand, such as keeping in mind the graphic design and the setting and environment of photoshoots.

As I researched the brands on the list I was keeping out for something that the brand was missing or could benefit from having in their collection to increase their customer base by appealing to another type of person. My options were between an accessories sub brand for Outlier based on utility wear accessories to keep the same customer base and attract loyal customers, a genderless athleisure brand for Puma to expand the audience and delve into a trend that needs to be applied to a lot for clothing stores or a sports wear athleisure brand for I am Chen tying in their current aesthetics to create a whole new brand.

I decided to chose to create a sportswear brand for I am Chen instead of the others as I felt more interested in the brand as a whole compared to the other two, I found the potential to explore the heritage more exciting as well as the fact that I have helped backstage with one of their shows therefore I feel more connect with the brand and excited to research the further. The style of athleisure and sportswear I am coming up with will allow me to become more absorbed into my work due to my interests.

This ties in with the WGSN that was given which explored not only upcoming trends, but the reasons why certain styles of clothing have become more popular. WGSN predict that more loungey, multifunctional and comfortable clothing will increase in popularity due to the growth of adults working from home due to the increase of jobs offered which allow people to make a living from the comfort of their room.

My next steps are:

SWOT for I am Chen

SWOT for Competitors

Research more trends and concepts for sub brand