Designers and Musicians Do It At Home

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A couple of weeks ago at one of the Nashville Fashion Week panels, there was discussion about the way many fashion designers are getting their start these days, and the stories sounded so familiar, much like the stories of how many up-and-coming recording artists are getting their start in music during this era.

Instead of moving to New York or LA to try to compete with both established and other aspiring designers, many new fashion designers are setting up shop in their hometowns and building a brand in their local community.  Once establishing their brand in that community, they can expand outward from that home base.  This is what so many recording artists, including many of my up-and-coming artist clients, are also doing with their music.  Instead of moving to Nashville or LA, they are establishing their act and securing fans in and around their hometown, then building out and growing that fan base regionally and nationally.

I think of course one of the reasons why this is happening more in both the fashion and the music industries (and I'm sure in other industries) is because we now have the tools of the Internet to spread the word to the far reaches of the world about great gems that no longer have to remain hidden in small town America.  With social networking and other online means to make the word spread virally, anyone with talent, drive, and initiative now has more opportunity to grow in their art than their counterparts of 20 years ago did.

Music and fashion has always gone hand-in-hand.  So why wouldn't it be any different in both industries' emerging methods of establishing and growing new talent?

Related blogs:

Elle Magazine: Can Fashion Save the Music Industry?

A Close Friend Sympathizes With the Music Industry

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