A recent Glossy article with the headline “Fashion Brands Are Using Customization” points to the industry’s growing trend of personalized products and, subsequently, the need for the production of more creative content.

Fashion brands are shaping their identity around designing pieces tailored to fit their customer’s personal style and image. Glossy article “Fashion Brands Are Using Customization” notes, “More fashion brands are following the beauty market’s lead by introducing product customization options that make each purchase feel tailor-made.” For instance, Bite Beauty’s philosophy is based on the concept of bespoke beauty. The Bite Lip Lab allows customers to discover “their own signature, unique lipstick.” At the Bite Lip Lab, customers are able to find their perfect shade on the spot by selecting their shade, texture, finish, and flavor. Bite Beauty is one of many cosmetic brands to harness the power of the customization.

The burgeoning fad for customization in the fashion and cosmetics industry is driven in part by a consumer-first marketing strategy, technology, and consumer behavior data. While personalized products and a customized consumer experience seems contemporary, these marketing and production strategies are not rooted in the digital age of the 21st Century. Forbes article “The New Size is Custom: How Retailers are Using Personalization to Win Consumer Loyalty” explains that customization isn’t unprecedented; Shamil Hargovan, CEO custom-fit footwear company Wiivv, says “Clothing and shoes used to be individually made for their users, by cobblers or tailors and dressmakers. When mass production hit, that’s when customization was lost.” Ironically, the hype for personalization of garments can be traced back to design approaches founded by the House of Worth in the 19th Century.

The ability to meet the demand for personalized products is not simple in a world of fast fashion and mass production. “People expect their favorite brands, products and apps to be smart and on-demand, so they can live better, easier lives. This is what custom-fit products are all about,” says Shamil Hargovan. Whereas bespoke tailoring in past centuries had the luxury of time, the modern trend of custom-fit products must meet the requirements of mass production and on-demand delivery. Moore in her recent Glossy article expounds on the challenges: “Fashion brands offering custom orders have to find a way to integrate one-off orders into their supply chain management and logistics workflows, all while considering its impact on production time and delivery as it relates to the overall customer experience.” The option for customized orders also generates the need for the production of more creative content across the brands’ website and social media platforms. All birds, a company designing environmentally friendly footwear, offers the same style of shoe in multiple colors to fit their customer’s personal style. The look in multiple colors requires more visual assets to be created for the customer to visualize how the shoe looks in that particular color. Louis Vuitton’s launch of the “Personalization Collection for Women” and “Mon Monogram Collection for Women” calls for more creative content, with additional visuals of how the purse would appear in 34-plus colors for both exterior and interior lining along with the placement of the monogram.

With the growing trend of customization and the need for more creative content, the importance and structure of creative operations continues to grow. Creative operations must be able to produce more visual assets for custom products seamlessly and deliver them in a timely manner. The need to improve workflows for efficiency and acceleration is vital to generate vast amounts of creative content showcasing personalization. Learn more about how your brand can stay competitive with customization and the efficient production of visual assets.