If Jill Fairchild has her way, when you want to know where to buy clothing or accessories -- or even health and beauty products and services -- your first source, if not your only source, will be one of her Where To Wear guides. Since she published her first guide in 2000 to New York, she has expanded her brand to cover 16 cities in nine books, each updated annually. The books are available both in bookstores and on her Web site, http://www.wheretowear.com.
Each guide starts with alphabetical reviews of clothing and accessories shops for men, women and children. Listings continue with such related services as spas, beauty parlors and even dry cleaners. The guides end with extensively cross-referenced series of indices for shirts or shoes or vintage fashion. While most the guides focus on one city -- London, say, or Paris -- some cover the fashion cities of a particular country. Italy includes Rome, Milan and Florence; Australia, Sidney and Melbourne. The books are $14.95 each.
Finding her Web site is easier than finding a book shop that carries all nine volumes. The URL is, of course, mentioned in each volume, but she also has columns in such publications as Departures and In Style, a clickthrough ad on Google, and a variety of links from other fashion-related sites.
An example of one promotional channel Fairchild uses is Vegas.com. If consumers book tickets on the Web site, they are not only offered a chance to buy the Las Vegas edition of Where to Wear, but also a chance to buy a second volume of their choice at a discount.
Mentions and articles in such publications as Vogue Paris, British Vogue, and Harpers & Queen also drive people to the Where to Wear Web site. A piece in Town and Country sent so many prospective purchasers to Fairchild’s site that she ran out of the boxed set of the Paris, London, Italy and New York editions ($49.95 a set).
Fairchild, however, has plans to further build her database by expanding the reach of her brand. Editions for more shopping cities are in the works. Florida and Asia editions will be introduced over the next two years. There are also plans for a bridal edition as well as for a luxury edition bound in leather.
In addition, she hopes to launch a monthly newsletter in the near future. People, she says, will sign up for up-to-date style and fashion tips and trends, hot spots and sample sales. The concept includes being able to link her readers to online retail markets.
More ambitious is turning her content around different way to further brand what she calls Where to Wear’s “tangible product.” Fairchild is looking into developing software that will function as something between a personal shopper and your mother. Using GPS technology, your PDA will not only inform you what shops are nearby and what makes them matter, but also remind you what you want to buy there, generically or by brand.
The Where to Wear reader is, not unexpectedly, usually a woman out in the world, but Fairchild adds that her database includes substantial numbers of men and teenagers. The target market is upscale travelers and shopaholics, though the individual reviews are precise enough to save the savvy shopper time and money.
