Introducing Design Sell Make
The next competitive advantage isn't a new tool. It's a new business model.
In my 20 years of digital transformation in apparel, tech got better every month. Export features were fixed. APIs were introduced, and with our team I managed to automate the full manual image creation. Even automated the tech pack creation, I know, the holy grail. And every year during budget planning for the coming year we concluded this must be the big turnaround in fashion.
And every year we came to the same conclusion. Designs look more realistic, adoption gets better but bottom line the business impact is disappointing. We don’t see shorter calendars, less inventory or significantly better margins.
This simple rule applies every time: New tools x Old process = same old outcomes. Tech alone is not going to change fashion.
That’s when I came across the work of Polish artist Edward Krasiński, who spent decades connecting shapes, spaces and objects with a single roll of blue tape. Six centimetres wide, always at the same height. By connecting things that didn’t belong together, he created something entirely new. It wasn’t about the tape. It was about the connection. That felt right. I called the project Edward.
I decided to stop chasing better tools. Instead I started asking a different question. Not how do we digitise what we have been doing. But with all of the tech and skills we have today, what if we could redesign the way fashion is made. From scratch. What would it look like? What if we stop being obsessed with new tech and shift the focus to how we could reshape the process.
Not slow and gentle, but redesign from the ground up for a new generation of fashion.
I interviewed a new generation of professionals in our industry. Designers, manufacturers, merchandisers. People with a career in fashion and apparel. The outcome of that research was not that they needed more tech. They betted on systemic change. They saw the biggest hurdles being our legacy processes and habits as the main slowdown of change.
Instead of designing what we think we can sell twelve months out, estimating volumes, committing to production, then doing whatever it takes to shift inventory, what if we flipped it?
Design - Sell - Make
Use technology to unlock creativity, stay closely connected to the market and manufacturing, and start selling ideas before you commit to the volumes that turn into waste and liability.
It is now 5 years later. Shein showed you can produce closer to market in smaller batches. With the right use of AI we can generate any type of product and make it look commercial before it is even made. The tools to change the sequence exist.
At EnhanceThat we’re convinced this is the next step for fashion. New tech × new process = business model change. We’re building it.
In the coming weeks we’ll share here the steps we’re taking, from design to manufacturing, and how we’re making digital-first selling a reality with Stieglitz.