Actually working as a data analyst in fashion

What the job actually looks like (your Qs and my As)

A few months ago a fashion tech creator made a post promoting a number of data analyst roles at fashion tech companies (they’re doing god’s work with these job boards, really). And at the end, she recommended my account if the viewer wanted to “see what it was like to work as a data analyst in fashion.”

However, the Style Analytics Instagram page (and this Substack) is just answering questions about fashion that I have, that came out of my own brain. With no shepherding or business goals or strategic outcomes or even second opinions. So, was I a good representation of “working as a data analyst in fashion?” At the time, I couldn’t tell you.

Back in January, I signed a contract to start as a consumer insights specialist at a fashion brand (that, according to internal research, ~70% of you have probably heard of). The actual role was not so dissimilar to what I had been doing work in advertising up to that point - using quantitative data to answer business questions about consumers. Kind of vague (like every role description has been) but my favourite thing is to get a random question or business problem and figure out what data and analytics we can use to solve it – and this job perfectly fit this love of mine.

And while Style Analytics was maybe at a point where I could do it full-time (maybe is the operative word here), I wasn’t ready to let go of the personal development and learning that comes from working with people who are way smarter and more experienced than you Especially in an industry that I talk about all the time but had never actually worked in. And man – I am so glad I did.

Working in corporate fashion has really illuminated a lot about the industry, and I now think it’s crazy how freely people spew takes online about brands or runway shows or activations without the context of actually working in fashion. Like understanding what kind of effort, intention, and strategy goes into all of it. It’s really been a great experience to peel back the curtain and see how the industry actually works. Like, do you know how many people are in a fashion week planning call? Or how many stakeholders have to get their say on a campaign? Or how a product handover really works? There is way more going on behind the scenes than I was previously privy to.

The one thing I want to flag before getting into the Q&A: there are so many ways to be a “data analyst in fashion,” and it isn’t owned by one person or one type of job. Maybe this sounds crazy and maybe I’m just too deep in my little niche of fashion-data creators on social media. But on my office floor alone there are probably a dozen people whose roles would fall under that description: people whose job it is to build marketing KPI dashboards, do search data reporting, handle web analytics that informs UI, analyse social media performance, work under marketing strategy (me), work under product strategy (also sometimes me), manage consumer response data, the list goes on and on. And if you are a data analyst (or in some related role) there is a ton of different ways that you could apply that skillset to fashion. (Promise!)

Now to get into the Q&A.