https://www.discovery-studios.com/

Takeaways:

First, bedroom producers. Now, bedroom fashion designers.

The music industry experienced a massive shift with the democratization of production tools such as Ableton, Logic, and Fruity Loops. It gave musicians the ability to create and share quality work with the world without spending their life savings at a recording studio.

Now, with CALA, Andrew Wyatt hopes to bring the same reinvention to fashion. The platform gives users the ability to design, produce, and deliver fashion items — all from a phone.

Transitioning from merch to lifestyle.

“Merch has become so optimized that it’s lost the soul and body and things that make it exciting.”

Anyone can slap a logo on a t-shirt or mug. Merch has become an almost thoughtless add-on for brands and individuals to make a couple of extra bucks and increase visibility. Your favorite band has merch. Your local deli probably even has merch. But what about those who have more of a lifestyle brand vision?

Kanye West as a proof of concept.

“Anyone who can articulate what they want will get it.”

If anyone has an outspoken vision, it’s Kanye West. And one of his achievements is elevating his tour merch to a cherished fashion zeitgeist. He successfully willed his concept of fashion into an entire lifestyle.

But beyond Kanye’s ability to use brute force and creativity to realize product innovation, Andrew is inspired by Ye’s production workflow. At the Yeezy design studio, there are massive video walls that collect Kanye’s ideas in simple photo form. From there, his designers begin sketching and further developing the garments. Kanye brings the idea. His team brings the details.

CALA looks to simplify the design process in the same way — taking out the hurdles and leaving the technicality to the professionals.

The future of fashion is on-demand.

“If I could just stop what I’m doing today and just work on one thing, it would be the actual on-demand production element.”

Like Amazon, Andrew hopes to operate with regional fulfillment centers across the globe that deliver fashion in a more sustainable way. These on-demand facilities would enable anyone to create a design through CALA and have it produced closer to their end customer.

Not only does this make the process of creating a line more logistically efficient, but it also makes it faster. Speed in the fashion industry has never been so important.

Big labels no longer create cultural change. They just try to keep up with it.

Before social media, old-school tastemakers held all of the fashion power. Buyers at department stores were the gatekeepers of what was deemed “fashionable.” But now, everyone can sit front row at any fashion show from their phone. Everyone can see everything at all times. So tastes change more rapidly. Brands now drop new looks monthly instead of seasonally, and whoever reacts to culture the fastest becomes the chosen destination.

But despite the battle for fast, optimized fashion, we will continue to see individual visionaries who create meaningful brands more sustainably. But the important bit is that they’ll be able to produce and distribute as efficiently as the top dogs. That’s CALA’s mission.

To get the full story from Andrew Wyatt, listen to his episode of The Creator Economy Podcast here:

LISTEN

https://www.discovery-studios.com/