mudpie speaks to new york times

Claire Miller, New York Times, speaks to Fiona Jenvey about leading UK based trend agency, Mudpie.  Fiona, CEO of Mudpie, started her business 18 years ago: Claire asks Fiona about the trend forecasting and fashion industry, and delves into how online web based services are a growing attraction for fashion professionals.

New York Times (NYT): Which demographics do Mudpie (and the website mpdclick.com) provide fashion info on? Is it just kids' and teen fashion?

Fiona Jenvey, CEO, Mudpie Ltd: The main demographic is actually male and female (young adults) in the 20-35 age group for all Mudpie trend services (trend books and online service). The website focuses principally on the 20-35 urban, young adult market for male and female, although it does extensively cover  boy, girl and baby (0-12 yrs) which makes it ideal for a mass market, multi-product retailer such as Walmart and JC Penny.

We introduced the website to address the needs of the faster moving teen and young fashion area, generation Y (the generation who are now teenager- late 20s). This is an area of special interest to brands and retailers because there is so little information available. This sector responds to fast fashion brought about by the music and lifestyle industries and so does the slightly more mature generation X (late 30s). Mpdclick is updated every day, meaning it can respond instantly to fast fashion generated by the runway collections, celebrity fashion and the styles of the music industry. This is not possible with a trend book which concentrates much more on longer term underlying trends. The trends for eco, Russia and South America for example is easily forecast ahead of the season and works well in a trend book in contrast to faster moving lifestyle trends.

Mudpie trend books: The five books are Cutiepie (0-1yrs), Minipie (1-5 yrs), Mudpie (5-10yrs) and MPK Female and MPK Male cover the teenage and youth (10-20yrs) market. Each service is purchased individually with a new edition every season. This makes a trend book ideal for the brand who want to specialize in information for specific areas of their business.

Mpdclick.com: This is a complete multi-product service for Men, Women and Kids. We also have large areas dedicated to accessories, denim and home fashion. The website is not split into categories (Stylesight and Fashion Snoops are in categories). The price quoted is for full access to the entire Mpdclick website and all its sub-sections. Mpdclick is a service for the creative designer which means it is important to make all areas available rather than just restricting the designers to one or two areas of the service. Some of the best designers work with our information and like intelligent trend information, not just a single market segment. As a complete design solution Mpdclick is the most competitively priced service on the market which is why it is competing with WGSN the other London based online service who currently charge $26,000 USD for a basic license.

NYT: In terms of price, what do you charge subscribers to Mpdclick and Trendbooks?

FJ: Single Trend book - $1,485 USD

Mpdclick (online) Subscription USD $   Full Prices (we do offer a discount for trend book customers)
1 year 
1-5 users           6,600  
6-10 users         11,000 
11-20 users       15,400 
21-50 users       22,000 

NYT: Please name the specific tools that your Web site provides for designers (examples would be interactive tools - and please describe what they do, downloadable garment shapes, real-time video, etc.)

FJ: Our USP is our established market position; we have been in the trend business for 18 years and over this time have built up a unique awareness of what a designer needs to work creatively in a fast paced environment. Our services are compatible with a range of practical tools as well as our expertise in trend, culture, colour forecasts and fashion analysis from every source our customers could need– e.g. lifestyle and technology trends, street art, architecture and the world of arts. Our site is not based wholly around libraries of images from trade fairs, runway, retail etc. 

Designers and buyers are working under extreme time pressure and restrictive budgets. Mpdclick and the Mudpie trend books are the most time and budget saving trend services in the market. All our art work, graphics and illustrations are all fully editable in vector based formats. None of our competitors offer such a usable solution and this is what has made our services so successful. Additionally the website offers full runway and retail reporting from all major fashion cities and emerging destinations. For the busy designer this saves time, enabling the designer to ’virtually travel' to all the important shows. It also gives the opportunity to check out retail hot spots before deciding which cities to visit as part of their in house research.

Additional tools include:

Downloadable garment shapes in AI and CDR vectorised file formats

Downloadable graphics in AI and CDR vectorised file formats

Downloadable prints in AI and CDR vectorised file formats

Downloadable clip art in AI and CDR vectorised file formats

YouTube video files

Reports containing downloadable pdf format image trend boards with text descriptions

Reports in magazine format

Online versions of our trend books (only for buyers of those books and not for Mpdclick subscribers).

NYT: When was Mudpie founded, when did was the Web site launched, and when did you start adding these new, more interactive tools?

FJ: Mudpie was founded 18 years ago, the trend books 10 years ago and the website was launched in 2006.
The downloadable elements were always there to begin with, but these aspects of the site proved so popular with subscribers and became a USP for the site so in the last 6 months the downloadable file libraries have expanded considerably and we now upload between 30 and 40 individual vectorised graphics, garments, prints and clip art files each week. These days the fashion industry is very graphics driven which has made this aspect of all our trend services very important.

NYT: When did you notice the fashion industry starting to make this big change toward embracing the Web?

FJ: The fashion industry has used technology since it was first made available, stock control has used an internet type system for over 15 years, technology moved into production areas such as pattern making and embroidery at about the same time. Programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator have been popular with designers from the start. However, the web as a research tool has been taken up late by fashion designers because they are creative and like to engage with the feel of fabrics and paper that they get from trend books, magazines and visits to important trade fairs such as Premiere Vision in Paris. However, the rise of fast fashion has made the web an essential tool as instant information is required. Also fashion itself has become more graphic orientated the web has become an important tool for the fashion industry who now understand the concept of working flat like graphic designers as opposed to with fabric and paper textures.

We decided to launch a web based product in 2005. The trend books still remain extremely popular and we remain the principle trend book publisher in terms of volume of sales.
NYT: Was there a moment, or were there a series of events, that made you realize that you needed to add these interactive sorts of features to your site in order to continue to provide customers with the tools they wanted?

FJ: No, no specific moment as when we launched Mpdclick our trend books had had their best ever season to date. As a business Mudpie wanted a new challenge, we also were thinking of the future. There has been no slow down on our trend book sales yet, it appears that designers want to work both on and offline.

NYT: Has your subscriber base grown since you did that, and can you give me some numbers to demonstrate the growth if it in fact has been growing recently?

FJ: The subscriber base has increased during 2008.  As of the end of August 2008, our subscription base is double what it was at the end of 2007. By the end of the year we predict a 150% increase on subscribers during 2008.

NYT:  Where is Mudpie's office located? Also, what are you doing in Germany right now?

FJ:  Mudpie’s studio is a modern barn conversion office building in a semi-rural location based just outside of London.

I am currently in Munich at the trade fair Munich Fabric Start, the leading preview tradeshow for fabrics and textiles.  I am not only promoting the Mudpie products, but Mudpie have supplied exclusive official colour and fabric trend information for the show’s exhibitors and attendees. In addition to this, we were invited to present our Fall/Winter 2009/2010 Trend Presentation – ‘Intelligent Futurist’ as part of MFS’s trend seminar program.  I regularly present seasonal seminars across the world in locations such as New York, Las Vegas, Sao Paulo, Bangkok, London and Paris.

For the New York Times article, written by Claire Miller, please click here.

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