Recap 2018: our best career, branding and sales tips for fashion professionals

What are your career goals for 2019? Regardless of where you are in your career, FashionUnited has published lots of valuable advice throughout 2018. Let’s look back at some of the best tips and insights we’ve given to fashion professionals this year.

War for talent: fashion professionals lack skills, reveals worldwide study

The fashion industry is in dire need of professionals with technical skills, as universities stopped providing students with skills related to functions which are usually outsourced. Now, technologies such as 3D design, big data and artificial intelligence are widening the gap even more, because it is hard for academia to keep up with such a fast-paced market. 62 percent of fashion managers struggle to fill certain positions, according to a survey by fashion innovations company Alvanon, shared in exclusivity with FashionUnited.

From journalist to Cate Blanchett’s stylist: Elizabeth Stewart on how to make it in the industry

Cate Blanchett, Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain and Gal Gadot. These are just some of the names on Elizabeth Stewart’s list of clients. A former fashion editor at Women’s Wear Daily and the New York Times, she is now one of the most sought-after stylists in Hollywood. That comes as no surprise, as the celebrities she dresses often appear on the list of best dressed. FashionUnited spoke to Stewart about her career trajectory and what to do if you, too, aspire to become a stylist to the stars.

Four years out of school, one fashion graduate’s story

A summa cum laude graduate of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and winner of the Joe’s Blackbook Design Scholarship in 2014, Dashiel Brahmann has worked with Thom Browne and started his own eponymous label. To many students itching to get out of school and test their mettle in the real world, Dash, as he prefers to be known, is living the dream. But as he shares candidly over coffee with FashionUnited, the hard work doesn’t end at graduation.

70 percent of recruiters check candidates’ social media

beware of what you post on social media. 70 percent of recruiters do check applicants’ social media profiles, according to a survey with over 1,000 hiring managers and HR professionals across the US. Among the recruiters who do social media digging to find out more about candidates, 57 percent have at least once found content which caused them not to hire someone.

5 examples of storytelling done right

Meet five labels which have managed to build a strong relationship with their customers, turning them into loyal fans that keep coming back again and again.

5 tips for fashion branding on Instagram

Instagram can be a powerful tool to target consumers, particularly in the fashion industry where visuals are key. Content from fashion brands receive 58 times more engagement on Instagram than on Facebook. However, Instagram is only effective when used right. Marlous de Weerd, partner at Amsterdam-based creative marketing agency Daily Sirup, shares the ins and outs of Instagram marketing.

Meet the makeup artist putting Latin America on the industry's radar

Alexa Rodulfo began her career as a makeup artist in Mexico until 2006 when she decided to move to New York City with the hopes of expanding her career internationally. After a lot of hard work, she built enough of a reputation to begin being hired to work with celebrities, such as Carolina Herrera, Margherita Missoni and Ivanka Trump. FashionUnited had the opportunity to speak with the artist to find out what it is like working as a makeup artist today, where the beauty and fashion industries are going, and what her future goals are.

The dos and don'ts of using video in your online fashion shop

If you run a fashion webshop and it doesn’t feature videos yet, now is the time to start. Videos provide visitors with a richer shopping experience, which makes them a very effective tool to increase sales, according to video marketing experts Moriam Hassan Balogun, from Orangevine, and Jelle Rood, from Exposar. FashionUnited spoke with the duo about what to do and what not to do.

5 Startups that aim to change the way people buy clothes

This year, FashionUnited published a series of interviews with startups that aim to change the way people buy fashion. They are using technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to make shopping faster, more practical or more inclusive. Find all the interviews here.

The Career-Making Elevation of Fashion Illustration

Brands are commissioning hand-drawn artwork for the immediacy of its impact but also for its more intimate, personal quality, much sought-after by the modern-day authenticity-seeking consumer. It suggests a return to innate skill over technological wizardry, and young illustrators can even contemplate careers in the field, something long-discouraged as a viable plan for the future.

Photo: courtesy donaldrobertson.com