Personal Branding

Can Skim.com turn fashion of the future into the future of fashion?

The world of “online communities” has a brave new concept facilitated by clothing and accessories called Skim.com. The Zurich, Switzerland-based site blends online communication with street communication by tagging all products with prominently displayed numbered codes. These numbered codes correspond to e-mail addresses on Skim.com—and ultimately connect the purchaser to anyone who wants to make contact.

The goal is to create a worldwide community of “skimmers” who wear the numbered clothing, travel and communicate and flirt effortlessly via a modern digital lifestyle. The concept may be far-fetched to the pre-Web consumer, but the appeal is obvious and compelling to a younger and more Web-savvy audience.

Skim.com carries clothing and accessories created by designers from a variety of interests—fashion addicts, skaters, snowboarders. Its first collection, “Airport,” celebrates the theme of travel and movement. A collection (actually two collections) called “Networked Denim” has recently been added and is described as “retro in its inspiration, yet futuristic in its treatmenthellip; clothes with a distinct, modern utility feelinghellip;to be worn with pride.”

The multi-channel marketing approach is practiced in full at Skim.com. In addition to its online store, there is a real “offline” home store (or “Web-shop”) named Davos, high in the Swiss Alps, with live deejays and a cyber-cafe. In addition, more than 20 stores carry the lines, in Europe, as well as in X on Melrose in Los Angeles and Barneys New York. Skim.com is also a “magalog,” with content devoted to art, style, design and modern communication.

The Web site is cleanly fresh, techno-slick and innovative, featuring Apple’s QuickTime streaming video for product presentation. A display feature shows items on models from north, south, east and west points of view. Both the publication and the Web site feature artful personality profiles of the coolest “skimmers” and some of their e-mail communications (with permission, of course) to proliferate the generally youthful Euro-tech feel and attitude of the project.

The Web site currently has three main components: shop online or via the Davos livestream for skim.com fashion and other selected products (a recent co-branded effort with Adidas offers a special line of its famous sports slipper); a communications center where you can set up your free e-mail, check your Skim.com number accounts and send free SMS (Short Message Service, wireless phone service available in parts of Europe only, so far) all over the world; and “webend” where streetstyle meets digital expression—a potpourri of games, digital art and music; plus, links to like-minded sites, abound here.Success or Excess?

Skim.com launched in November of 1999. The company developed from a loose network of people who worked with their own money to develop stage one of the project, but have since secured venture capital for the site.

Success of this vast fashion-focused vision, especially in the United States, will take all of the marketing savvy that a cutting-edge PR firm can muster. “Euro/ Techno” in music, the club scene, architecture and fashion has not translated into American culture with overwhelming enthusiasm.

In addition, the “flirtatious” hook—that the wearer of the garment will attract the interest of an anonymous suitor or fan who will log on to Skim.com and enter the garment’s e-mail number, send a message and initiate a private communication process—is one Americans are likely to reject. Such a scheme brings up privacy and safety issues that Skim.com does little to address or prevent.

Be that as it may, the project represents a whole new level of branding that opens doors and suggests a wide array of new possibilities. If nothing else, it remains noteworthy because it is the first of the Web sites we’ve seen to truly be hatched from a new consciousness, where the world is “online” and the exception is “offline.”

An elite jet-setting niche market fostered by strong word-of-mouth (and click-of-mouse) may be just the ticket for creating a significant network of American skimmers.