How quality, identity, and connection can shape a fashion brand’s success.

With fast fashion and TikTok trends being the cogs turning the current fashion cycle, how can new brands stand out and build a loyal customer base? For emerging designers, the answer lies within the crossroads of craftsmanship, sustainability, and smart marketing. From ethically focused production, social media, and pop-up shops… brand owners are now plagued with the task of finding innovative and cost-effective ways to carve-out their niche in a mountain of competition.

Online streetwear brand, Finefibers, believes that in order to reach the summit, you must first build a loyal audience. Which they’ve achieved by choosing to produce high-quality garms over cheap, corner-cut pieces that dissolve into the stratosphere after taking them outta the bag.

Owner, Jason Bradbury, prides Finefibers for only using genuine, eco-friendly materials that prioritise their wearers and the environment. Caring equally about environmental health as he does his own, Bradbury posts workouts on his Instagram frequently, showing his followers how he puts physical health at the forefront of his life.

He warns about detrimental health impacts from wearing synthetic fabrics: “I’d go thrifting, and there’d be so much polyester and spandex… clothes that just ruin your body. Certain things have been shown to destroy your endocrine system or disrupt hormone production, and materials like plastic can lower your testosterone and fertility.

I mean, it’s been going on forever, but the best thing we can do now is be in control of what we’re wearing.”

Offering a contradictory perspective is designer mariominajj of mariosarchive – who believes that customers prioritise brand identity over quality or craftmanship, that “nowadays, people overlook quality as it’s hard for someone to really know what goes into making a garment. The name and identity of a brand will always be the primary factor in sales no matter the quality”.

mariosarchive produces pieces inspired by classic Nintendo games, creatively warping them to fit into a BAPE-esque style mold.

Despite his opinions, mariominajj championed his use of fair production practises: “I believe in sustainability and eco-friendliness for sure, I inform my audience that I only work with factories that take care of their staff and leave minimal waste by upcycling. With consistency, you eventually build a strong community… [if you] pair that with unique products and good marketing, you’ll always keep customers engaged.”

He touted to be in a lucky position to have a 20% return rate for most releases, saying that “the key to returning customers is a consistent design language”.

Mason Kane Sheridan of artisanal brand Denim Kane, sees quality as something that goes hand-in-hand with his brand’s identity: “My approach to fashion has always focused on learning how to create garments in order to produce the best product possible. Quality is always the number one objective, and the reason why I waited years to actually release anything. If a brand only focuses on making a quick buck and following the latest trend, they may see short-term success – but will likely fail in the long run.

Building a brand is a marathon. Not a sprint. Establishing quality as a priority births a dedicated customer base.”

Kane creates made-to-order pieces, giving customers the opportunity to come directly to him, which he argues fosters a greater sense of value to purchases. “I believe doing it that way creates a more personal experience and establishes a connection with the customer. I put lots of time into creating and sampling pieces, and I hope people feel that when they wear them.”

Despite pricing conflictions, customer feedback validates Finefibers’ quality control efforts, with many praising the craftsmanship and value of their products: “It takes a lot to buy from someone you don’t know. But almost everybody who I’ve sent a piece to has the exact same reaction, saying these actually blew my mind.”

Bradbury acknowledged the challenge of balancing quality with affordability: “I’m appealing to people that don’t have money to be spending on clothes all the time. I feel bad charging so much, but producing 100% cotton, 14-ounce denim that’s gonna last isn’t cheap. The value goes a long way, but I want to find a way to make quality cheaper so people stop buying SHEIN and Zara. 

Sometimes things are even free on Temu – it’s like, how am I? Like, nothing’s free!? That’s gotta have malware in it.”

Great, so you’ve retained your customers… but how do you even acquire them in the first place? Well, the answer isn’t as straightforward as you might think now with the oversaturation of brands plastered across users’ hyper-personalised social feeds, making it more overwhelming than ever for consumers to choose where to buy from.

With such fast-paced trend cycles, brands struggle to stand out – something mariominajj admits caused him to take a step back from releasing collections, instead choosing to observe trends and develop timeless designs.

It’s a sticky space when you have a large portion of influencers happily promoting fast fashion to millions of impressionable followers – and who can really blame them? Free clothes, a check in the mail, and a handjob from SHEIN must be a pretty appealing deal… But amidst the soulless money snatchers, some remain selective in their endorsements – and these are who many designers aim to collaborate with.

Denim Kane provided a custom pair of jeans to rapper ian, which fans mistook for a high-end luxury label: “I hand delivered them to him after a show in Orlando – I felt his clean, simplistic style of dressing fit my brand image really well. When my girlfriend and I saw posts following the concert, tonnes of comments were bringing up his jeans. Saying that they were Marni or Rick Owens… which I was flattered by. My girlfriend responded in the comments saying that I was who’d actually made them, and we got a few followers from it.”

Kane still confirmed that despite the attention, he still values long-time supporters over follower counts.  

mariominajj added that he thinks it’s great when customers produce user-generated content like fit pics with his pieces “because they’re organic, and shows the market that there are people wearing your clothes, which helps induce FOMO”.

Bradbury’s no stranger to social media and influencer marketing tactics, too: “I sent out 22 pairs of the mustard shorts to influencers who I like, and 60% of the people that I sent stuff to took pictures. But then some were actually just out wearing it, and soon I had people buy pairs off of me because they’d met someone wearing my shorts at a market or something like that.”

Even for promotional content, Bradbury has a plethora of tricks up his sleeve. He highlighted how the “tv off” trend on TikTok, featuring Kendrick Lamar screaming “MUSTAAARRRD!” poetically aligned with the release of the brand’s Mustard Jawns: “Kendrick dropped the song a week after they released… I made this one TikTok before, where my girlfriend and I walk down the street with earbuds in – and a buddy asks what we’re listening to. And I pull a bottle of mustard from my pocket, with the earbuds plugged into it.”

But effective promotion can often simply come down to connections, as Bradbury explained: “A friend of mine [@eeernie] is a talented photographer, and wanted Finefibers to be a test project for his marketing agency. I agreed, and now he shoots my photos for free whenever I need them.”

Believe it or not, some designers still bring some of their promotions offline and use more traditional methods of gaining buzz, with a big trend being pop-up shops where brands provide limited-time/exclusive pieces for fans who make the effort to show up in-person to support them.

Kane said: “Pop-ups definitely help bring a new local audience and establish a face-to-face connection with long-time customers/followers. Still, for smaller brands like myself, there’s a huge undertaking with keeping inventory on-site and affording to open a physical location. But I’d definitely like to do it in the future if possible.

Finefibers combats costs by collaborating with hosts of fashion pop-up events like @eastcoastfits_, who invites multiple brands to showcase their latest drip to passing traders – with their next event being in tandem with New York Fashion Week.

mariominajj sees traditional marketing like pop-ups to be ineffective compared to cheaper digital efforts, saying that “success can only be measured with statistics. Social media advertising offers you a chance to gain traction organically, and for free… if what you’re putting out is up to scratch. Traditional marketing is still effective, but can be costly”.

As fashion continues to evolve, creating a successful brand isn’t just about following trends or churning out products. Whether it’s through meticulous quality, strong identity, or fostering personal connections – designers have to redefine what it means to be a fashion brand in today’s saturated market of characterless, sugar-free, low-fat diet fashion brands.

The ones that truly stand the test of time are those willing to go that extra mile – for their craft, their customers, and the values they represent.