By  : Durba Ghosh

Who will design your favourite brand's nextline? You! Apparel brands such as Benetton, Wills Lifestyle, Pantaloons and VanHeusen are using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites as designcentres where the end users can play co-creators.

Fashion brands are increasingly usingpeer-to-peer networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Orkut, YouTube andFlickr to spot the latest fashion trends, find out what the youngsters want andjust to stay in touch with their target customers.

"Trends change very frequently, so the realtime research on these sites (social networks) are really helpful," saidAtul Chand, CEO of ITC's lifestyle retail business. "The contribution canwary from colour schemes to textures to designs," he added.

ITC's clothing brand Wills Lifestyle is usingFacebook and other sites to identify the latest trends among young members. ItsFacebook fans can upload pictures and use discussion forums as the companylooks to catch the young fashion vein.

Van Heusen, a US brand marketed by MaduraGarments in India, has even launched a new product line, Eco Range, based on inputs received from its community members.

"The range is one such example where wehave directly involved our consumers in the development process," saidShital Mehta, COO of Van Huesen.

"We gauged that awareness on eco-friendlyproducts among the youth is phenomenal, so we thought of commercialisingit," he added.

Van Heusen is also running a programme calledCoffee Mornings, where a team of about 20 online community members interactswith the brand's designing team on weekends.

ITC's Chand said Wills Lifestyle too is lookingat directly involving its consumers in product development and designing. Theband is also pushing online sales through its member community on Facebook."It's an additional revenue channel. Online sales are almost equal tobusiness made from one store," he said

Italian apparel brand United Colors of Benettontoo has deployed its creative team to spot consumer trends online and has alsoincorporated few suggestions in its product line like colour scheme and cuts,said Sanjeev Mohanty, its managing director.

He said using social networks to spot fashiontrends is an international trend that has spilled out in India too. Creating a presence on these social networking sites is vital to catch the pulseof the target consumers, said Mr Mohanty.

Kishore Biyani-led Pantaloons is currentlypresent on Facebook and it plans to extend it to other popular sites too.

"We regularly track the sites to be intouch with the latest trends," said Rajan Malhotra, president - retailstrategy, Future Group that owns Pantaloons. Although the brand is not directlyinvolving the consumers now, Mr Malhotra said it is definitely looking at it. "Ithas become essential."

Analysts say the trend is here to last. A numberof brands are concentrating on 'you' to build their images to woo the newconsumer empowered by interactive media.

"It (online presence) offers an informalresearch, which is real time unlike the earlier times, when retailers had todepend on second-hand research reports," said Pinakiranjan Mishra, retailanalyst at Ernst & Young.

With several netizens, particularly the geeks,preferring to shop on the net and also making revelations about their personaltastes without inhibitions, brands can ill afford to ignore the power of themouse and 'YOU'. All sales are not made on the shopfloor, after all.

Originallypublished in The Economic Times, Ahmedabad dated: April 13, 2010