Fashion by numbers

The job of buying clothes might seem glamorous, but as Gan Tian discovers, it has more to do with a spreadsheet than the catwalk.

What makes a good fashion buyer? Glamour? Being fashion savvy?

The mundane truth is, the job might be best suited to geeky people who are specialized in numbers and data.

Winnie Foon, the fashion buyer who used to work with prestigious fashion retailers Lane Crawford, Seibu and I.T, joined local e-commerce website Shangpin.com in 2011. She is now looking for new talent to join her team.

"Though this job is comparatively well-paid, there are not many qualified people in this market," Foon says.

As a veteran fashion buyer for nearly 20 years, Foon says the most important skill for the job is the ability to make connections and predictions from a large amount of numbers, data and charts.

She cites an example of the importance of this ability. At the end of last year, Foon's team bought X number of blue skirts for the company, but only Y number had sold by the end of summer. When she plans this year's purchasing, she will only buy Y number of skirts.

The skirt of this season should be similar in style but different in color, she says. The simple X and Y example will become much more difficult when multiplied by numerous items, taking in different colors, styles, genres, and other fashion catalogues.

Xue Shaohuan agrees. The 29-year-old Beijing local, who frequently flies to Paris, Milan, London and New York to buy garments from independent designers, has two stores in Beijing and Shanghai.

"For independent fashion buyers, profit-making products are much more welcoming. This requires good ability in numbers and data," she says.

Her buying team consists of herself and her husband, a program writer, who helped her set up a computer program which can calculate what kind of garments should be bought.

Xue and Foon claim that good taste is of secondary importance.

By "taste", they mean what they buy should match the style of the store.

Xue's stores, Fast and Slow, provide a chic, casual and comfortable style for her consumers, so she says she would never bring back evening gowns from Tadashi Shoji. But last October, when she was in New York, she picked out a stylish white asymmetric skirt from Jason Wu. She bought 40 pieces, all of which sold out within one month.

"Customers who come to my store do not expect to find a floral print skirt from Marc Jacobs," Xue says.

Foon has a secret to choosing qualified buyers for Shangpin.com. When she interviews the applicants, she will always ask what labels they like personally.

Those who say they love Gucci or Prada will always be turned down, as they do not have their own style. One young woman who was applying for a job said her favorite brand was Proenza Schouler, Foon soon decided she was the person her team was looking for.

"We are looking for people who are special and have their own taste, and at the same time, his or her style should match our taste," Foon says.

Sarah Rutson, fashion director of Lane Crawford, says the relationship with the fashion industry is also very crucial for a fashion buyer.

It creates the biggest difference for the consumers: If the buyer has a good relationship with different brands, her consumers can buy those limited editions, or products which cannot be found in the local market, especially in the Chinese mainland.

Rutson introduced American label J Crew to Lane Crawford stores, which made the brand accessible in the Chinese mainland for the first time. Lane Crawford is the only place where Chinese fashionistas can buy J Crew jackets and sweaters.

"Because of our relationship and respect in the fashion industry, we got J Crew but no one else did ... the good relationship between Lane Crawford and designers made 'the dream come true' ... It's a mutual respect, so the relationship does really help in the market," Rutson says.

Today, with the development of e-commerce, the role of fashion buyer has changed, and become increasingly challenging.

Traditional fashion buyers are more specialized in predicting trends and reading data, but for digital buyers like Shangpin.com's Foon, mix-and-match skills are much more important.

In a store, shoes are displayed in one place, and pants in another, separate area. There is limited space to mix-and-match all products into different styles.

Foon also questions the capability of shop assistants, who will basically stick to one stereotyped concept of fashion and present it to the consumers.

Their mission is not only to attract a loyal fan base for the e-commercial platforms, but to influence those consumers who are not in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. These customers basically rely on styles created by newly emerging digital fashion buyers.

That is why the fashion buyer's task is daunting. The job pays comparatively well, but there are still not enough people who are qualified, especially in the Chinese mainland, Foon says.

Contact the writer at gantian@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily USA 09/02/2013 page8)