Is this Ready-to-wear Collection a Success? the Outlook of International High Fashion Brands on Performance

Abstract

The capability to develop new products has been shown to be a key success factor of competitive advantage (Brown and Eisenhardt 1995; Rosenthal 1992). In the fashion industry, innovation appears even more critical because the rhythm of product obsolescence is seasonal and thus particularly high (Le Pechoux et al. 2001; Maramotti 2000; Rothwell 1992). To improve their practices, firms are advised to evaluate the performance of new products adequately (Beaumont 1996; Griffin and Page 1993). Prior studies addressed performance measurement in clothing (Jang et al. 2005; Mattila et al. 2002; Senanayake and Little 2001), but none of them focused on the particular case of ready-to-wear. By ready-to-wear, this research refers to its meaning as a price level, i.e. highly fashion-forwarded, high quality, innovative products sold at prices between three and five times the average market price (Saviolo and Testa 2002; Simoni 2003) and contributing to set new trends to be followed by firms in lower market segments.