Frank Zambrelli may not be a name you’re familiar with, but for over 25 years, Zambrelli has been a key player in building some of the world’s top fashion brands including Chanel, Cole Haan, Coach, Reebok, and Judith Leiber. Most recently, he’s been serving as Chairman of The Accessories Council and Senior Advisor to the Fair Fashion Center of Glasgow Caledonian University New York, while overseeing business at Banfi Zambrelli, his brand development and strategy studio. We’re thrilled that Frank was able to lend us a few moments of his time for our SXSW Spotlight Series in partnership with Decoded Fashion.
FN: You are involved in many different projects and businesses. Can you give us a brief summary of what you are most excited about at the moment?
FZ: How to pick a favorite child? Because I’m heading to SXSW, my head is definitely wrapped around the topic of leveraging fashion as a force for positive change. The efforts underway with the Fair Fashion Center are ground-breaking, game changing initiatives for the Fashion industry, and it’s always thrilling to be be a part of something so innovative.
FN: How has technology changed the industry of fashion over the past 5+ years?
FZ: Connectivity equals choice. There is something immensely democratizing about having access to that much information at all times. The pros are numerous… it creates a medium for more equal use by all, it allows a greater interpersonal relationship with your customers, and it encourages a certain transparency by putting it all out there.
Negatively, connectivity can also breed contempt. When there’s always a message, we build an immunity to messages. I don’t think we’ve come through the other side of this reimagining of how we talk about and shop creativity just yet. As an industry, the technology acceleration has pushed us into the bumbling, gangly, all limbs early teenage years, and we have some growing to do.
FN: How has e-commerce impacted your deliveries and the “seasons”?
FZ: The evidence is all around us. When I can order something I read about while I’m home having breakfast, and have it delivered to my design studio 4 hours later, I get used to it. We have either created an epidemic of impatience, or finally awakened to the reality of efficient consumerism, and it doesn’t really matter which. From Burberry and Tom Ford to the recent Monique Lhuillier show, the fashion sector is offering some or all of its collections to consumers when they see them, and that changes the relationship with fashion. We will still have seasons, because we still have weather to contend with, but many of the “constructs” of our business will diminish as the rules apply less and less.
FN: Fast fashion companies like ZARA have made high-fashion designs rapidly accessible and at very low-price points. How do you think this has impacted luxury fashion and design?
I think it’s had little impact on luxury revenue, but it has raised the taste level of world! What was once limited has been opened up, and now blended. High/Low is a typical mode of dressing for many people in our business, which is testimony to the successful democratization of fast fashion. What we need to work on, however, is how we handle all the by-product. How to we keep all of that apparel in motion, and allow it to be re-used, recycled, transformed into something else? These are questions the Fair Fashion Center is helping to answer, and that is exciting work.
FN: What are you most excited about when it comes to the future of fashion and technology?
FZ: That there are no limits. Creatively, we’ve only just begun, so as a designer, it’s like someone invented a new color… As a business owner, and the Chairman of the Accessories Council, I see enormous potential for new business to cultivate the sector in ways we haven’t even considered, whether you’re a start-up or multi-billion dollar luxury holding company. That’s thrilling to comprehend as an entrepreneur. As a consumer, it creates a freedom to incorporate something I love on my own terms. That really is the future.
Perhaps most importantly, as an advocate of a more sustainable future, technology allows us to rethink every element of our business from its agricultural origins, through the supply chain, into the retailing environments, and ultimately how we manage the entire lifecycle of the products we create and use. Technology gives us hope, and frankly, the opportunity for a future in which we have less impact on our world, and a better outcome for it’s citizens.
Find out more about Fair Fashion Center here.
