Fashion is where art and commerce most closely intersect. But until the clothes are sewn and put on the runway, they largely exist inside the designer's imagination. This where the explainer video isn't just useful, but often crucial.

Until the clothes are sewn and put on the runway, they largely exist inside the designer's imagination.

Explaining Fashion

To understand the use of explainer videos and animation in the fashion industry, first consider how anything in fashion is created; it's laid out on the page as a drawing, showing off the color, cut, and style. True, the drawing of a dress is often just the "first draft;" the finished garment may look completely different.

Animation kept simple, however, allows potential clients and corporate buyers to see more of the garment even at the conceptual stage. With animation, a designer can show off how a design will hang, how it will move, and how it'll be worn. A designer can use whiteboard animation, for example, to construct the garment from first concept, slowly drafting in the idea and explaining the goals and construction as the whole garment comes together.

Paired with the first design, animation allows designers to present their concept more fully, and bridge the occasional gap between a designer's flights of fancy and more practical concerns of corporate buyers and consumers.

Mix And Match

Another way explainer videos help in the fashion industry is explaining to consumers how a line goes together. Especially with lines designed to go together in multiple combinations, it can be difficult for consumers to fully grasp what pairs with what or what's intended to work with which accessories.

Animation can help fashion line users figure out how to put pieces together. It's especially useful for explaining how colors combine. While everyone knows that, say, red and black pair together, designers using more uncommon colors and patterns will often need a visual method to show their customers mix and match options that can be paired. It can also be useful for laying out patterns and explaining how each pattern combines, or clashes.

Animation allows designers to present their concept more fully,
and bridge the occasional gap between a designer's flights of fancy
and more practical concerns of corporate buyers and consumers.

Political Awareness

Fashion is increasingly becoming aware of the issues surrounding a seemingly apolitical artform. In the fashion scene, questions of labor sourcing, materials sourcing, ethical sales, and proper compensation are increasingly on the minds of consumers, buyers, and journalists.

Even the most ethical fashion company can struggle to explain how their supply chain works and why they've made the choices they do in text and photographs. Animation, however, allows you to, say, show where your textiles are sourced, how they're shipped, and why that's better for consumers and the planet with clarity; you can quite literally draw a map. Or perhaps you want to show how standard fashion practices need to be improved, and how your label is leading the way with ethical labor sourcing or sustainable practices. An explainer video can both clarify the issues at hand and make them simple for customers to grasp.

Animation is one of the most powerful tools for fashion houses from the smallest label just starting out to the biggest labels on the planet. And yet it's underutilized, often deployed only for Christmas cards or the occasional witty viral video. But with smart ideas and the right conception, animation can put any fashion house at the head of the runway.

Want to put your label at the forefront? Here's a guide to whiteboard animation and how it works.