Fashion and the Purple Cow

Be Remarkable:

Heilyke is a small clothing company that does not distribute to many boutiques. It does not have the distribution power and connections that many other clothing lines have. However, the line's small size does make it possible for the owner to focus on creating a small number of beautifully crafted and well designed pieces per season. After reading about "Purple Cows", I realized that success is not contingent upon spreading the brand as far out to as many people as possible, but is contingent upon maintaining, and even improving the design and make quality of the clothing. This increase in quality will create a fan base that will hopefully include successful sneezers.

Sneezers:

Winning over and finding successful sneezers would be extremely beneficial in establishing Heilyke as a premier local clothing brand. Sneezers such as fashion bloggers and those connected to the fashion industry would seem like an obvious choice to be the most influential sneezers, but I feel that many women look to their friends and coworkers for fashion cues, and tend to purchase similar brands and styles that they see on their friends. Keeping this in mind, Heilyke has a vast population of sneezers to tap, and the simple act of wearing a piece of Heilyke clothing serves as an influential "sneeze".

Fearless:

Heilyke is in a good position to exhibit its fearlessness in design. Unlike larger brands that need to cater to a large audience (and therefore take less risk in design), Heilyke is free to experiment and create designs that stretch the boundaries of what many people are looking for in clothing. Although this may translate to a smaller audience of potential buyers, I believe that this is the route that will lead to success for Heilyke. I believe the Heilyke will not be successful be simply playing it safe with conventional designs, but must inspire a smaller niche of fans with bold, innovative, and uniquely beautiful design work.

While reading the Purple Cow piece, I found it very inspiring to think that the role of a marketer/marketing has shifted from following the 5 P's towards a more involved role in developing, shaping, and evaluating a product/company.