The Textile and Fashion Federation (Taff) is the industry association dedicated to support the development of the emerging and established fashion labels and designers in Singapore. Since its establishment, Taff has successfully introduced a wide range of programmes including capability development initiatives, overseas mission trips, showrooms, pop-ups, and tradeshows which aim to raise the visibility of homegrown brands and support their international expansion.

Increasingly, the global fashion and apparel industry has been experiencing disruptions such as the rise of omnichannel retailing, application of technology in textile manufacturing and fashion design, increasing consumer pressures on fashion firm to become more sustainable and novel. Closer home, local designers, retailers, and manufacturers are also facing a mix of mutually-enhancing challenges; Limited potential for local sales given the small consumer base, coupled with high penetration of international brands, and rising costs of production which makes it difficult for local fashion enterprises to scale and succeed.

Taff engaged Eden Strategy Institute as its partner to review their current programmes and outline a holistic strategic roadmap to guide the association in helping its stakeholders to navigate these disruptions and challenges for the next three to five years.

APPROACH

Eden’s methodology included a comprehensive landscape scan of the current trends and best practices, in-depth interviews with key stakeholders including manufacturers, designers, retailers, regional trade associations, and industry veterans, and focus group discussions to surface challenges faced, perspectives on Singapore’s differentiators and industry outlook, as well as co-create solutions.

We analysed the fieldwork insights and designed a multi-prong strategy which focused on strengthening local design fundamentals and deepening digital capabilities by aligning with local schools, facilitating access to key infrastructure such as prototyping tools and reliable manufacturing partners to ease the design process, as well as unlocking new opportunities of growth for the broad-ranging fashion enterprises to scale and expand overseas through engaging international venture capitalists.

Beyond the strategy development, we also worked with Taff to map out an operationalization plan which further details its resource requirements, costs, business models, and partners for the successful implementation of each initiative.

IMPACT

Eden’s holistic approach helped to align the roadmap with industry stakeholders and also relevant government agencies to ensure that the initiatives were fully supported and thus accelerated the implementation of the initiatives.