As Topshop teases its comeback to high streets, Bob Sheard, brand expert and co-founder of FreshBritain, reflects on whether the brand can leverage its ability to inspire desire and brand loyalty to promote more responsible consumer habits. Can Topshop reinvent the concept of “desire” in the fashion world by aligning with sustainable, eco-friendly values? Or, will it simply continue as another fast fashion brand contributing to environmental damage, with synthetic fabrics polluting our seas, filling landfills, and releasing microplastics?
Bob is co-founder of brand design business, FreshBritain. Over the last 20 years he has worked his magic building financial value in iconic brands. He’s an ex-client marketer – time at Converse, Karrimor, Levi’s (he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Levi’s and thinks jeans hold an important clue as to how to change the DNA of desire in fashion!) and went to London College of Fashion.
Today Bob is embarking on one of the biggest challenges of his career; helping brands become “regenerative” so they can help save the planet.
In the fashion sector Bob is working to build imperfection, elegant decay and “patina” into the DNA of desire; fashion marketing should be looking to sell consumers a new kind of desirability. Fashion needs to build around longer lasting design trends as opposed to short-term fashion trends. The end goal is circularity – i.e. I’m a jacket but I used to be a bottle and I’m going to end up providing a nourishing environment for a carrot to grow.
He’s just written a book, “The Brand New Everything – how brands can save the world” out in mid-May. He believes where politicians have failed in the face of crises such as climate, covid and conflict, brands can step in and do a better job. Bob believes “regenerative brands” allow consumers to buy the change they want to see and therefore feel they have some agency.