Indie Fashion: How To Articles, The Latest News, Updates and Announcements from Clashe

Whether you are a fashion designer or a jewelry maker, a pattern cutter or a merchandiser you need a fashion designer look book. Competition in the fashion industry is intense so having your online portfolio in front of people will help you stand out from the crowd. By simply putting together a display of your best designs will give buyers a sense of your style and unique look. This website is your first step to effectively branding and promoting yourself.

Think of your lookbook as an icebreaker into conversations with your buyers. Whether you are an upstart or household name, your lookbook will tell the story of where you came and where you are going stylistically. You don’t need to include everything you’ve done, just give your an audience a glimpse of who you are and leave them inspired to want to see more.

Here are a few ways to use collections to tell your story:

• Upcoming Trends: Do you have a knack for knowing what is coming next? Create your own runway for next seasons style by putting together images of people that get it.
• Latest Pieces: Do you have a line of clothing already in production? Group them together so people can get a feel for your body of work.
• Cultural Style: Does your inspiration come from your own heritage and cultural background? Others can benefit from what you have to show them from your own experiences.
• Experimental Style: Ever feel like you wanted to try something new? Innovation can come from unexpected combination. With Clashe you have as much room as you want to play. What might look funky to some can be exactly what others need to grow.

Building your fashion designer lookbook is all about building your promotion platform to launch your brand. It is free to use and can only help. What is important is that you start today.

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If you are a stylist who is looking for clients or work, you definitely need a Lookbook. As you may know, a lookbook is a compilation of photos that shows off your abilities and creative juices. Having an online lookbook is your starting line to engaging clients and teaching them about who you are and why you should style them.

Your Clashe lookbook is your portfolio where you can clearly show the world your best work. Feel free to add clips of client pictures, press pieces, media placements; anything that will help your guests understand you. All of these elements create confidence in you as a person and a professional.

As is the case with any business, it is important to craft your message to your audience. Here are a few ways you can use your Clashe lookbook to address their concerns.

Upload a Clashe Avatar
Clients will be judging your work by the way you present yourself. They will need to see a person that is healthy, chic and confident. Don’t let them down by leaving a default avatar image.

Share your work history.
Clients will need to know about your qualifications. What beauty school did you go to? How many years have you been styling? At what salons? These are all questions that show you have the experience to style them.

Showcase your strengths.
What are you good at? Do you specialize in a certain look? Do you have a certain style? Clients need to know if they will like how they end up. Give them a glimpse of what you can do for them through your showcase.

Build Collections
Collections are images organized into groups. Here’s how you can use collections to tell your story.

If you are just getting started and are concerned that you don’t have enough photos yet, don’t be. Even two or three will get you started and as you gain more experience and exposure, you can easily add to it. The most important thing is that today you create your lookbook and start promoting yourself.

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A look book is a must have for any performer who is serious about promoting themselves.  Regardless of whether you are just starting out as a singer writing some tunes, an actress learning some lines or a model or that has always been in front of an audience, if you don’t have a look book then you need to begin to put one together today.

Selling yourself as a performer is all about showing others how you can move a crowd; how many emotions can you create using a variety of moods, lighting, outfits and settings.   Each of these events can then be captured through a collection of images and organized into your look book to recount your story. Taking the time to put together a look book enables those who weren’t at the event to share in your storied history and bright future.

The best part of building your online look book through Clashe is that it will grow as you grow.  As you have more shoots you will have as much space as you need to create new collections of shoots ensuring that your look book will always be well organized and current.

Here are a few ways to use collections to construct a performer’s look book.

• Singers can showcase different performances through an event photographer
• Models can highlight different poses and features through a collection of portrait images
• Actress’ can emphasize their range of personalities and character in context through lifestyle photography

Are you ready to create your lookbook?

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The online lookbook is a must for anyone who in the fashion industry. It is a compilation of your best works from current and past collections. Having one shows people that you are a professional and serious about getting exposure.

Let’s face it; people have to see things to believe them. The fashion industry is highly competitive, and if you don’t have an online presence, you are invisible. If people cannot see what you have designed with their own eyes, it will be impossible to convince them of your talent. So the online lookbook is the first step for the college student or freelance fashion designer to get their name and portfolio out to the public.

An online lookbook doesn’t have to be a fancy website with pages and pages of material. In fact, a simple one page website can easily have more impact than a multi-tiered complicated website. You want to hook people and impress them immediately with a strong first impression. If they have to search though many pages to find what they are looking for, they will probably skip over you by without even thinking about how talented you are.

While some people make grand plans of building their own website, this isn’t the best option because this will cost you too much time and money. It’s best to leave the technical details to someone who already has it all figured out. Your time and energy is better off spent designing. Of course, at a later time you can expand your site, but to start off with, all you need is a quality, one-page site that effectively showcases your artistic abilities.

The bottom line is that you have to have something that will get your name out there and build your credibility. Getting an online lookbook is one of the very best ways to do this, and it can be done easily.

Ready to create your lookbook?  It’ll take 10 minutes.

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The team has spent months coding and testing and now we’re proud to announce the Beta release of Clashe.

At it’s core, Clashe is a collection of profile pages. Here is a sample profile that we created for Indochino, an online suit designer, specializing in men’s suits, men’s custom suits, men’s tailor-made suits, and men’s made-to-measure.  It illustrates all the components of a Clashe profile put together.

Clashe Profile Pages

Basic Information

Your first impression is always an important one.  Your avatar and bio will be the first thing people will see when they view your profile page.  Fill in your personal or company information.  Make it compelling and people will have reason to scroll down for the more juicy stuff.

Your Press

Your Clashe Professional Page is your Online Press Room. An online press room is the area on your site expressly for the media, although other audiences may be interested in the content. Content here can include Coverage in Magazines or Newspapers, Promotional Announcements and Press Releases.

Your Entourage

Your Entourage is a visual list of people following you.  By following other people, you are joining their entourage and increasing the likelihood that people will see you when they’re searching for someone for inspiration or work.

Your Showcase

Your Showcase is a space dedicated to featuring your favorite images.  It’s a permanent fixture, so it won’t go anywhere as your look book and collections change.

Your Collections

Collections are a way to group your photos so that they are easy to organize and identify. Put some of your images in your winter collction.  Create a collection dedicated to bling.  Create as many collections till your heart is content.

Your Look Book

The look book is a catalog of images that you have uploaded and favorited.  You are telling the world that these images are remarkable to you and others should pay attention to them as well.  Here is where you can show off your styles and body of work to the world.

Join Clashe Now

The Clashe site is now live and free to use. Register here and you’ll be on your way.  Hope to hear from you soon!

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