Everyone’s following a trend these days, and one of the bigger trends is the 2.0 trend. At Blank Label, we’re part of the co-creation trend, empowering consumers to co-create their own custom mens dress shirts (you design it, we create it). The trend is synonymous with the mass-customization trend. But we can also identify with the Fashion 2.0 community. We engage with our consumers to allow them to have a bit more say in what the fashion community produces.
We’re at the intersection of fashion, technology, and consumer empowerment. We’re looking to change the way men shop through co-created apparel. It’s hopefully not going to stop with dress shirts online, but that’s where we’re starting. Many other companies are jumping on the trend to shake up the retail world.
Laudi Vidni is co-creating women’s handbags, and they have a magnificent online design application.
Sole Envie is getting ready to launch their design platform that’ll allow women to co-create their own shoes.
Paragon Lake has been working for a few years now to allow consumers to co-create jewelry. A luxury product indeed, but amazing nonetheless.
I’d also like to give a special shoutout to friends CreateMyChocolate, who just soft-launched, who make personalized chocolate bars.
Us co-creation companies are looking to give back the power to consumers who are tired of mass-production companies making things that they don’t necessarily like.
The inefficiencies of mass-production include:
-always improperly gauging demand, and therefore oversupplying or undersupplying
-producing product that doesn’t properly satisfy every consumer. Individuals have special needs, and mass-production cannot cater to each and every one of those needs
-waste from oversupplying (which happens often) which is also an atrocious crime when there are many needy people out there who can benefit from the surplus of goods within the market
It seems like an oxymoron to say mass-production is inefficient, but it is. “Mass customization will do for manufacturers in the 21st century what mass production achieved in the 20th century,” says Dave Gardner, mass-customization expert at Fast Company. Mass-customization and co-creation are the future. Are you ready for the wave?
source: doegox
This post was written by Danny Wong, Blank Label's Lead Web Strategist, blogging for the Co-Creation blog since it started in the summer of 2009.