Week 1: Scan

DESIGN

Off-white is a combo of Streetwear and luxury, according to Virgil Abloh interview with NYT. Virgil states that his inspiration comes from his teenage years, street subcultures (rap, rock, skate) and fashion icons (for instance Lady D.) Virgil defines himself as a creative director and not as a designer. He is very dependent on the people he works with to make his vision tangible. In 2013 Virgil opened Off-White and began making customized T-shirts and hoodies using new blanks, textiles, and technologies provided by NGG CEO Davide De Giglio. The key elements of his design are: quotation marks, diagonal stripes, Helvetica font, and referential prints. A lot of his work is inspired by industrial things, such as the tension belts and industrial zip tie tags (to keep their authenticity and maintain the value of the item).

BRANDING

Off White was one of the first brands built on social media, as Virgil let big stars like Lil Uzi Vert, A$AP ROCKY and Rihanna wear his clothing to create hype. A big marketing/branding strategy of Off-White is to do collaborations with millennial approved brands, such as Timberland, Nike, Evian, IKEA, Dr. Martens, etc. In all the collaborations, Off-Whites design elements are heavily visible. The quotation marks, zip tie, colored laces, logo, and diagonal stripes are visible in a lot of the collaborations. The Off-White runways contain a lot of celebrities. Most of the runways are styled in a natural/industrial manner.

PRODUCTION/CMT

There is no code of conduct, no evidence or living wages in the factories. On the Off white website, they mention that the clothing comes from Milan, but the garments are really made in Portugal, Italy (not specifically Milan), and Romania according to Farfetch. What all these countries have in common are the low minimum wages or no minimum wages, bad legislation, bad labour conditions, long working shifts, unpaid overtime, no contract, no insurance.

COMPANY CULTURE

Off-White only has 8 employees in the main office. Virgil states in his Harvard lecture that he hires random people from Instagram to help him with the design process, meaning there are a lot of freelancer working in different fields. In Virgil’s interview with NYT, he states that he does not have a desk because he mostly works on his phone from abroad. The main office in Milan is Former Palazzo where his small team works together in well connected rooms. He defines his main office a laboratory for innovation. Off-White has got some negative attention for not having a diverse staff. The people that work in the main office are mostly white Italian people, but he also collaborates with people from all over the world. For Off-White photoshoots, campaigns, and runways a lot of people of different nationalities are used.

BUSSINESS MODEL

 

Off-White is the first selling brand worldwide. It belongs to New Guards Group, along with 7 other brands. The brands run 100% separately, but share the logistics, administration, finance, and production. New Guards is the licensee and has the right to produce and sell goods, apply a brand name, or use patent technology owned by the licensor (Off-White). The New Guard group was bought by Farfetch in 2019 for 675 million dollars. Farfetch is an E-tailer that focuses on finding the new age fashion giants. It supports NGG through a “connected wholesale” model, meaning that it receives supply and demand data, processes it, and returns quick results to the company. This results into a quick production cycle, with no over or under production. The factories work with the company 24/7 in 4 shifts, delivering stuff overnight and producing within 3 weeks. They describe it as fast luxury fashion. Off-White’s site is going to be completely remodelled in 2019, using the Farfetch platform. There are 46 retailers that sell Off-White worldwide.

END OF USE

No There is no information about the end of use policy of Off-White. So what do they do with the remaining clothing