Who are my (potential) customers? Before, when my company was called Faerytale Fashion, this question was easy to answer. I was present in the gothic-scène, my nightlife, day-life and social life all existed within the gothic-scène. I dressed according to the guidelines of the subculture, not because I thought this uniform was obligatory, but because I really liked the dress-code. I liked looking like a gothic princess (or queen at some times) and I loved the way this look made me feel. My company reflected my own style: gothic, but a bit more colorful than just 50 shades of black. I had a boot at gothic/fantasy fairs, and even at some concerts, next to a website that I promoted on these events.
My main problem was that I always loved colors. I have tried to limit my color-scheme to that of the gothic world: wine-red, dark violet, moss-green and midnight blue, but I failed miserably at that, since every other color in every shade always kept entering my fabric-station. Still, my brand was a mild success for a short period of time. The brightness might have been a bit of a downfall, but it also differentiated me from every other brand. Another problem might have been the fact that even then I made mainly one-of-a-kind items, and the difference in style between my items was big, because my imagination in designing always runs in overdrive, and I love to challenge myself. So no distinctive and recognizable fashion-lines (maybe over the entire period of several years, but certainly not within my boot). The offer, especially within my boot, was quite ‘versatile’ and might have made it difficult for visitors to read a certain identity off of it. Especially for visitors who didn’t know me in person it must have looked like a hotchpotch of different items and styles, and certainly not stereotype gothic. I can relate to the fact that some visitors couldn’t read any identity from my offer and didn’t know what to do with it, so walked on to the next boot. But mainly, I knew who my customers were and I knew how to reach them and they knew how to find me.
At the present time, this question is a lot more complicated to answer. And if it is a lot more complicated to me, at that to the complicatedness for the visitor in relation to the complicatedness I had before, when my brand was just too colorful and too versatile in designs, but still within the gothic-scène. I don go out anymore, being a mother and just finished my master 6 months ago. I would like to go out to parties now my study is finished, but in the past 6 years the entire gothic-scène in The Netherlands has completely collapsed. And with this a lot of the fairs lots the gothic part of their identity, they evolved. Now I sometimes visit a theater, twice a year I go to the movies, I don’t look gothic anymore (I actually look like a hipster…), my hair has its natural color again. I do still listen to my favorite music, which happens to be a German gothic radio-station: http://www.schwarze-welle.com, but in the past 4 years I visited just 1 concert: Asrai. Also in the past 10 years I only visited 3 fairs/events (Castlefest 2015 summer-edition and Castlefest 2017 winter-edition – http://www.castlefest.nl and Archeon Midwinterfair 2017). Ok, I barely went outside at all, except for groceries or colleges in the past period, for a range of reasons… But the fact remains that I look completely different, even more colorful, and so are my designs. They are some kind of alternative and overall very romantic, like me, but lack any other definition.
In technique my skills have improved, but I remain to design with my heart, not with my reason. And since I now work with a lot of recycled materials, my products differ even more. I know that it would help a lot to stick to 1 design and make different versions, but I don’t do that. My mind is still in overdrive about ideas and I want to make it all at the same time.
So, who are my potential customers? I do notice that the majority of people head to recognizability. I wrote my paper on this: people dress the way they want to profile themselves or the way they recognize aspects in themselves, that are reflected somehow in their clothing (by the way a piece of clothing is advertised or some famous person or character dresses). Within a subculture this is not any different than in mainstream fashion, except that there is a smaller variation in choice if you remain within the borders of one subculture. The unity of fashion and fashion-designs can be explained by this need and want for recognizability. It is not easy to break free from this, because that leads to the fact that people cannot ‘read’ you anymore. This reading is always done from the point of view of the reader, the observer. And the reader can only refer what he sees to his own memories, experiences and his own knowledge of the world. And yes, even the gothic-scène has fallen for this. There are, however a lot of streams within the gothic-scène, which differ greatly from each other, but within such a sub-stream there reigns an even greater sense of uniformity in style and color-schemes. Some of the sub-stream that can be added tot the gothic-scène in the past 20 years are lolita, cyberpunk and steampunk. What keeps me wondering that there is such a strong sense of uniformity within an “alternative” scène, because alternative means being different. And for me personaly there is just not enough room for creativity within this kind of uniformity.
I have spend the past couple of months orientating where I (or my designs) fit in the best. And here is my biggest surprise and therefor also my biggest regret. I don fit in anywhere, and if I HAVE to choose a style that defines me the most, I still come out with … Gothic. The reason why I really regret this, is because I fully realize that my designs won’t fit its uniformity. They will not be recognizable for my potential customers within the scène, just the way that I am no longer recognizable as a goth. This makes my concluding findings very ironic and a bit painful. Should I alter my designs according to reason, or keep following my heart? Well, I made my choice some time ago to always follow my heart, but as a Shop-owner, this decision will make it very hard to find my customers. And would this be a physical shop in some city, people could walk by all the time, but I have an on-line Etsy-boot on the world largest fair (a fair with its only characteristic that everything boot there sells handmade products). People don’t just “walk by” when there are literally tens of thousands boots. You have to make your potential customers find YOU with the use of tags and keywords. But my tags and keywords might give them the wrong expectations of attract people that are not interested in my product…
Breaking out of the metaphorical box is now my biggest risk: I don fit in, but are not capable to give my products an other fitting description, for the only reason that every other description is even less fitting. I don know for whom I make my designs, I have no picture or description of my potential customer. And therefor I don’t know where to advertise and how to sell. If you are not able to describe properly, you cannot sell. Before I got a boot on fair, but now, certainly after visiting the last events, I know I wouldn’t sell anything nor find enough customers to make it worth-while to spend a lot of money, time and effort in standing there with a boot, promoting my Etsy-shop. After the collapsing of the Dutch gothic-scène there are no singular gothic-themed events anymore. The last one was Summerdarkness, which had its last edition 5 years ago. So I will have to make a very huge gamble to have a go at a gothic-event abroad. This raises the bar in a very significant way to try and promote myself (my brand and shop). I have no idea why the Dutch gothic-scène collapsed, but depending on it, while not even fitting in, is not helping in giving it a decent try.
I have also looked to the hipster-concept of shop-in-shop. A lot of these shops within a shop have very nice locations within cities, but after entering, it is soon very clear to me, that I will make a huge loss if I try to sell my products there.
So for now I remain with a problematic identity-crisis, problematic for me as a shop-owner. Yes, it is important to remain true to yourself and to follow your heart, but it will not make having a business easy, on the contrary! If you aim at being successful, run your business with reason, don’t be like me.
