I am fascinated with the fashion business model. In researching and thinking about the new ways that the music business, or independent music business can thrive. I’ve been trying to compare and contrast other business models. Ones where the products are generally the same, but differ enough to garner fierce brand loyalty and continued support. After a shopping trip with my girlfriend at Bloomingdale’s, looking at prices and designs of the dresses she wanted me to buy, I have become interested in the fashion business. Not to do it myself or anything but I appreciate it as an interesting business model as it is similar to the music business model (which is under repair currently).

Fashion is as a shortcut to self expression. In that way, fashion and music are alike, in that both have the power to unite (and divide) people by allowing them to express something, or as in the case of music to share something together. I feel like that is at the core of music “movements” like punk, grunge, gangsta rap, and on and on. Much like wearing a particular designer expresses something about who you are (in my mind, mostly your financial class), being into certain types of music says something subtle about who you are. Bands have followings that seem to collect a particular marketing group. I’ve heard people talk about Dave Mathews Band and how their audience has become “frat boys” and that is a turn off for them and they wouldn’t go to concerts anymore because of it. I’m sure there are examples that contradict this observation, but in general fashion and music are both trying to do the same thing.

They are “selling” a perspective. Ads for clothing lines really have very little to do with the clothes, but as the old advertising term goes, they are selling a “lifestyle”. Same could be said for music. A particular music is selling the lifestyle, or “brand”. It articulates a particular assumption about what the music is about, who is playing the music, who is listening to the music, and a bunch more subtle areas that is in essence what makes it art.

Of course, it goes hand in hand that fashion business and the music business piggy back each other to help define each other, or probably more accurately to aggregate each others audience/customers.

Since music is essentially a “brand”, how can indie musicians more effectively use techniques of the fashion world in creating their own customers?