Fashion Brand Marketing: Our Real Experience Building REPULO’S

Fashion marketing is often presented as a polished storefront. On social media, we see flawless photoshoots, packed fashion shows, and stories of “success in one year.” What is rarely discussed is what happens between those images: failed assumptions, wasted budgets, wave-like sales cycles, and the constant feeling of starting over.

Together with Kateryna Nechyporenko, the chief designer of REPULO’S, we are not theorists. We are building a fashion brand in real time — across Canada, Ukraine, and Poland, balancing online and offline channels. That is why we want to share our practical experience of fashion brand marketing as it truly is, without simplifications or shortcuts.

Founders of REPULO’S: Dmytro and Kateryna Nechyporenko, a women’s special occasion wear brand

This article is for those launching their own clothing brand, developing a designer fashion label, or trying to understand why sales remain unstable despite doing everything “right.

However, it quickly became clear that simply having a website and social media presence does not create demand on its own.

Website and Instagram: a necessary foundation, but not the start of sales

One of the most common mistakes in fashion is treating the launch of a website and Instagram as the start of the business. In reality, this is only the creation of infrastructure.

In our case, building the website required significant time and resources, even though we did everything ourselves. Very quickly, however, it became clear that having a website and social media presence alone does not create demand.

An online presence is the foundation. But it is not marketing.

Multi-brand online: why the model did not work

At the beginning, we planned to launch a multi-brand online store featuring Ukrainian fashion brands in Canada, alongside the development of our own brand. The idea sounded logical, but practice proved otherwise.

A multi-brand online model without a physical space has weak economics:

advertising budgets promote other brands rather than your own

• brand awareness does not accumulate

• margins do not cover the cost of traffic

• partners rarely invest in joint growth

In fashion, this is critical, because the brand itself is the key asset.

Product as a growth driver at the early stage

The first in-house collections of REPULO’S were very small and far from perfectly packaged. However, one of the suits unexpectedly became a bestseller.

This led to an important insight: at an early stage, a strong product can carry a brand even when marketing is weak.

But this effect is short-lived. Without systematic marketing and brand-building, momentum eventually fades.

Paid advertising: real limitations

We actively tested paid advertising on Instagram and Facebook across Canada, the United States, and Europe. The conclusion turned out to be quite straightforward.

For a fashion brand in these markets, advertising is:

• expensive

• highly sensitive to seasonality

• dependent on consistent budgets

• unable to guarantee repeatable results

One successful campaign does not translate into long-term stability.

Wave-like sales as a fashion norm

Fashion brands tend to operate in waves.

A single Reel or a well-performing post can:

• generate sales from dozens of countries

• create a sharp spike in orders

• give the feeling of a breakthrough

But this effect can disappear just as quickly. Algorithms do not replace strategy, and random peaks do not build a stable business.

Physical presence and trust

A real turning point in our development came with physical presence:

• multi-brand boutiques in Ukraine

• brand studios

• pop-up formats

• live events

  
  

People want to see, touch, and try on products. A studio works differently than a traditional boutique: clients arrive with intent. This fundamentally changes conversion rates and the overall marketing logic.

Markets operate differently

Ukraine, Canada, and Poland represent three very different fashion environments:

• different consumer cultures

• different expectations toward brands

• different roles of offline presence

• different price sensitivity

Copying strategies from one market to another almost always leads to disappointment.

Fashion brand marketing is not a set of tools but a continuous process of adaptation:

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• to the market

• to the budget

• to the season

• to the customer

Online without offline works weakly.

Offline without online has clear limits.

A product without a brand delivers only a short-term effect.

A brand without a product has no meaning.