Fashion retailing is all about having the right goods in the store to match the current fashion and colour trends and being able to adjust the catalogue on going in the light of sales trends. One needs to be able to get more of the fastest selling merchandise on sale during season whilst its appeal lasts and correspondingly eliminate lines which are not popular and become a drain on resources.

Retailers fortunes depend on how well or badly they rise to these challenges – both here in the US and in UK & Europe one can see examples of those whose profitability is suffering because their merchandise has lost its fashion appeal. The problems faced by the retailer are principally:

• Merchandise development times are too long
• Communication with distant suppliers is slow
• Systems are not compatible
• Delivery times are too long

The retail supply chain embraces Design, Product development, sourcing and buying, production, quality control and finally delivery to stores. In parallel, catalogue planning (ie building ranges of merchandise to create a cohesive offer in appropriate colour and size ratios), advertising and promotion plus store layout planning all play a part before any item is offered for sale.

Having identified overall design trends, individual items are originated first as concepts which progress to final artwork, colourways, and then to garment sampling with all its attendant delays and costs. It is often only at this point that sourcing of a suitable production unit begins with all the preliminary set up details which need to be put in place before orders are confirmed.

Given the complexity of all these interdependent activities it is not surprising to find that the time taken to get goods from concept to market place is often longer than the selling season itself !

The consequences of this are that the flexibility to respond to sales is not possible, the risk of writedowns is high and that profitability is low. What can be done to help?

Fortunately intelligent use of technology can help considerably. Within the supply chain there are technical aids in the form of various types of CAD used extensively in Design and Product Development and beginning to be used in cataloguing and store layout planning.

On the production side, digital specification, communication and control of colour is now well proven (especially in the UK) to deliver considerable savings in both time and costs compared to previous manual methods. This was the area in which I was most actively involved in Marks & Spencer.

In any range of merchandise we want to buy the right colours at the right time in the right quality. This involves:

• Colour Creation – translating design concepts into tangible colour standards and specifications to which dyers and manufacturers can respond.
• Colour Communication – Conveying unambiguous colour and performance specifications to dyers and all component suppliers in the garment supply chain
• Colour Control – ensuring agreed standards of matching and performance are adhered to ensuring uniform appearance in stores and satisfactory wash and wear characteristics for he customer.
  

Traditionally this has involved producing fabric colour standards to distribute amongst suppliers and then have them submit swatches in their hundreds to illustrate how well (or badly) they can match the shades in laboratory and production.

Because the fabric standards used are inherently non uniform and subject to the effects of dirt, mis-handling and especially atmospheric condition – and because all assessment is manual and therefore subjective – it is unsurprising that this approach is very time consuming, costly in terms of samples & lab dyes produced and air freighted across the world, a major cause of late production, and a source of constant complaints and arguments.

In our international business we set out to

• Specify colour by numbers
• Set clear pass/fail limits
• Accredit suppliers to make decisions
• Manage exceptions
  

The anticipated benefits were more consistent quality, supplier self approval – eliminating the need for submissions, the elimination of delays and a reduce in costs.

The whole approach was based on standard working practices with Colour Measurement. Once colours were agreed by design, Colour Standards were set up based on spectral reflectance curves and clear pass/fail tolerances established using colour difference measurement.

The accreditation scheme which ensured we and our suppliers had suitable equipment, properly maintained and used by trained operators was the bed rock foundation upon which confidence in the approach was built. It would not work without it.

Colour Measurement printouts become part of contractual agreements and decisions worth many thousands of dollars are made daily based upon them. In conjunction with this digital approach clear specifications for colour fastness and adherence to environmental codes of practice were included. A number of major US retailers are now beginning to use this approach.

The next step was to add pictures to the numbers using Colorite “Imagemaster,” originally a sponsored development in Manchester UK funded by M&S and some suppliers and now owned by Datacolor.

Imagemaster enables accurate on screen colours to be displayed on high quality calibrated monitors using photographic images. Fabric textures, whole garments, components or lab dyes can be visualised and communicated without the need for physical samples to be made – giving huge savings in both time and cost. Colourways and ranges of garments can be created and coloured on screen and data derived immediately which can be fed directly to the dyer and to his colour matching system.

Imagemaster technology contributes in three main areas; the elimination of lab dyes, the approval of garment appearance, accessories and trimsand colour development.

Overall, the use of Colour by Numbers and now Imagemaster has shortened the product lead time by at least two months and enabled huge reductions in lab dye and sample costs.

Looking to the near future, this approach will be extended to communicate via the Internet so that specifiers can direct their suppliers to download appropriate colour data directly to their colour match prediction systems and into production.

A major breakthrough will come in about nine months time when the first properly integrated system combining Imagemaster technology with CAD becomes available. This will lead to a further potential 4-6 weeks saving in lead time since at present, once designs are finalized on CAD the producer has to start again from scratch to reproduce and manufacture them. Alongside all of this, digital colour will then begin to link directly to Store Visualisation programmes with further significant time and cost savings.

In order to achieve the projected benefits there are practical issues to address and overcome eg: The need to standardise:

• Lighting specifications – especially daylight, throughout all disciplines
• Viewing conditions
• Screen calibration
• Printer calibration
• Ink primaries
  

Further accreditation disciplines will need to be agreed through the chain to ensure uniform profiling and calibration of systems to maintain compatibility – much education and training of personnel will be necessary. This will sometimes be difficult especially among the more free thinking members of the design community who will need to understand how to derive the best from their new tools.

Collaboration will be required between system providers in colour, CAD, monitors, printers, inks etc., all of which have traditionally worked in isolation .. together with their user customers to achieve success. The benefits for those who get on board will undoubtedly be great , including more consistent quality, reduced “Time to Market,” reduced sampling costs, improved flexibility to respond to sales, less writedowns, increased sales, more profits.

The prospects for those who do not get involved are that they will become increasingly uncompetitive and fail.

In conclusion:

• Colour Fidelity through the textile production chain is feasible
• Cooperation between technology providers is required to make it happen
• The industry wants it !
  

Lets do it !