This was Riga Fash­ion Week!

This Autumn, Unit­ed Fash­ion took place dur­ing the biggest fash­ion event in the Baltic region, Riga Fash­ion Week. The Baltic Fash­ion Fed­er­a­tion, offi­cial part­ner of Unit­ed Fash­ion and host orga­ni­za­tion, pro­vid­ed a pro­gram that offered new oppor­tu­ni­ties for 15 select­ed Euro­pean design­ers and fash­ion pro­fes­sion­als through a Unit­ed Fash­ion show­room, var­i­ous sem­i­nars and work­shops, a net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty and the par­tic­i­pa­tion in fash­ion shows to present their collection. 

15 YOUNG EURO­PEAN FASH­ION TALENTS

At the design­er show­room, 15 fash­ion brands from 8 coun­tries pre­sent­ed their col­lec­tions to inter­na­tion­al buy­ers, jour­nal­ists, blog­gers and influ­encers: lux­u­ry hand­bags of Agnes Nor­den­holz (Ger­many) and Vaskala (Latvia), min­i­mal­is­tic and ultra fem­i­nine jew­ellery by Gamme Blanche from France, the gen­der-neu­tral col­lec­tion of the Mace­don­ian design­er Teodo­ra Mitro­vs­ka, artis­tic pieces of Sander Bos and Ruud Antoni (Bel­gium), the con­scious slow fash­ion col­lec­tion of Dori­ane Van Overeem (Bel­gium) and unique leather pieces of Snobe (Bel­gium). Duarte (Por­tu­gal) pre­sent­ed its lux­u­ry sports­wear col­lec­tion based on the Mona­co Grand Prix, while Imauve (Por­tu­gal) show­cased its pure and time­less pieces. Among the Baltic Brands were Diana Arno (Esto­nia), Kristi Andress (Lithua­nia) and the ele­gant dress­es by Undress (Lithua­nia). Local design­er One Wolf (Latvia) rep­re­sent­ed street fash­ion, high qual­i­ty shirts by Tal­ent­ed (Latvia) and the effort­less streetwear from Pix­ie Won’t Play (Latvia)

“The par­tic­i­pat­ing design­ers of the ​“Unit­ed Fash­ion” project got acquaint­ed with the Lat­vian mar­ket, besides, this inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion allowed us to expand the geo­graph­i­cal pro­file – this year, for the first time, on the podi­um of Riga Fash­ion Week”

Jele­na Stra­ho­va, Baltic Fash­ion Fed­er­a­tion President

DIG­I­TI­ZA­TION AND BRAND MANAGEMENT

Dur­ing a series of lec­tures and work­hops, the design­ers and fash­ion pro­fes­sion­als learned about top­ics as dig­i­ti­za­tion and brand man­age­ment for the devel­op­ment of their busi­ness. As the devel­op­ment of the dig­i­tal envi­ron­ment is very fast nowa­days and its lat­est tech­nolo­gies are being applied in var­i­ous busi­ness fields, the sem­i­nar aimed at pro­vid­ing an inter­na­tion­al, inno­v­a­tive and prac­ti­cal vision of fash­ion brand man­age­ment in this fast-paced dig­i­tal era. 

After the intro­duc­tion to the Baltic Fash­ion Mar­ket by Beat­rice Stiv­ri­na, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of BOLD Con­cept store, Jonathan Chip­pin­dale (UK), co-founder and CEO of cre­ative agency Holi­tion talked about how brands are rein­vent­ing cus­tomer rela­tion­ships and trans­form­ing the way in which they build engage­ment, whether it be on-line or in phys­i­cal stores, or indeed on the cat­walk. Fun­da­men­tal tac­tics for emerg­ing brands were reached to the design­ers by Kristi­na Dim­itro­va (UK), founder of INTERLACED. 

Vés­ma Kon­tere McQuil­lan, tutor at Wes­t­erdals Oslo School of Arts, illus­trat­ed the ​‘Scan­di­na­vian cool’ and what the Baltic state can learn from it. Senior Tutor and Pro­gramme Leader of Fash­ion Busi­ness Mas­ter at Isti­tu­to Marango­ni Fioren­za Sarot­to argued why young design­ers should put all their efforts in build­ing a dis­tinc­tive and rel­e­vant Brand Iden­ti­ty, work­ing on emo­tion­al and cul­tur­al values. 

Kristaps Silins , CEO of White Label, high­light­ed the five biggest B2B strat­e­gy mis­takes dur­ing his ​‘Strat­e­gy of NO’ lec­ture; think­ing too much about your prod­uct, engag­ing too much in com­pe­ti­tion with com­peti­tors, speak­ing too ratio­nal­ly, with­hold­ing risks and not brand­ing your philosophy.

Final­ly, Lat­vian brands AMORALLE (Agnese Kaza­ka, Mar­ket­ing Man­ag­er) and INCH2 (Max­is Uskans, Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing Strate­gist) shared their suc­cess sto­ries to illus­trate the prac­ti­cal view and inspire the designers.

“The sem­i­nars were very inter­est­ing. Espe­cial­ly the intro­duc­tion on the Baltic mar­ket of Beāte Stivriņa of Bold Con­cept Store which gives us a good indi­ca­tion on how the Lat­vian mar­ket works.”

Melis­sa Def­fense & Paris Malun­gu, SNOBE