Can you give us some history of Le New Black and why you chose to work with them?
In 2009, Le New Black was born from the meeting of Vidya Narine and Bernard Coulombel. Vidya is a graduate of the Louvre School and passionate about contemporary creation, Bernard is a self-taught techie and founder of a web agency. Anticipating the deep transformations of the fashion industry, the deseasonalisation of sales cycles and the advent of e-commerce, their ambition is to simplify the commercial management of brands. The platform allows them to enhance their DNA, show and sell their collections, and meet the new requirements of professional buyers.
What exactly is it you offer to your clients, and who do you work with?
Le New Black is a digital showcase that allows emerging designers, established brands or international multi-label agencies to develop a powerful commercial supervision and a sharp B2B communication thanks to a digital showroom solution and a suite of wholesale sales management tools. We collaborate with more than 400 French and international brands in the fields of Men’s and Women’s Ready-to-wear, Luxury, Accessories, Jewellery, Linen and offer our services to brands such as AMI Paris, Casablanca, Kenzo and institutions such as the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode or the Seoul Fashion Week.
When initially researching technology, what do you believe fashion brands are looking for?
Most of the brands that choose a solution like ours want to digitalise their wholesale sales processes. Whether for pre-orders or reorders, a digital platform like Le New Black allows many teams to save time and improve the quality of exchanges with their buyers! Integrating a solution like Le New Black to your brand allows you to structure your business, to promote collaboration between your teams, to push the restocking of previous collections and to develop your network of multi-brand retailers. There is a real need to focus on high value-added tasks!
Do you believe there is a higher or lesser demand for brands looking at tech solutions?
We observe a growing use in B2B of technologies used in B2C such as virtual reality, augmented reality or 3D prototyping. Since its creation in 2009, Le New Black’s user experience has been inspired by B2C e-commerce, so we continue to be attentive to market developments. A year ago, we developed a feature that allows buyers to virtually visit a brand’s physical showroom from their desktop and directly on the brand’s digital showroom.
Could you tell us what the future holds for Le New Black?
We’ve worked hand-in-hand with buyers and business managers to optimise the user experience on our platform. In the spring of 2022, we will offer a brand new interface to our clients and their customers, one of the biggest projects since Le New Black was founded in 2009. Stay tuned!