The mood was further enhanced by the numerous notable speakers that took to the catwalk including wacky British Fashion icon Zandra Rhodes who has been a regular at the event for many years and has an historic connection with the London Olympia venue dating back to the early 1970s when she used to stage her outrageously eclectic shows.

Also present was the model and DJ Lauren Pope who unveiled her new Little Mistress collection which includes a range of affordable dresses, tops and jumpsuits.  The TOWIE star was tweeting live from the event moments after appearing on the catwalk.

It was an extremely productive day for Progexus Systems and I was interested to hear how many fashion brands are sharing similar business system problems, usually relating to information flow and the need for up to the minute availability schedules to maximise the sales window opportunity.

Fashion footwear and apparel require a specialised system to monitor the production process of a large number of items that need to be tracked down to size, colour, fit level; shoes and garments are far more complex than, say, yoghurt pots which is why we recommend purchasing a bespoke ERP system that meets the industry’s needs.

After a very successful visit to Pure I am highly anticipating an equally charged atmosphere at the Moda exhibition in Birmingham next week, highlights include Phil Vickery who will be talking about his success with menswear label Raging Bull.

Traders have also become more involved in manufacturing of goods, or at least have started to influence directly what suppliers produce. Additionally, there have been new forms of retailing that sidestep the traditional shop and make use of telecommunications and information technology to enable further transactions with a greater number of consumers.

One of the most significant advances in the tools used by retailers is the use of electronic information technology. Bar-coding and electronic scanning of products is central to this process. There are many reasons why this improves efficiency, including:

• Trading along supply chains can be made paper-less and automatic.
• Improved information for stocking allowing just-in-time (JIT) stock management systems to be employed.
• Improved information on sales allows more efficient allocation of stores’ labour force.
• Better information regarding new product development.
• Quicker checkout throughput times, and reduced queuing.

The cumulative amount of data gathered and analysed by retailers has enhanced their ability to gauge how customer preferences change over time. It has also facilitated direct marketing to target consumers and stimulate specific sales campaigns whether by regular post or electronic communications.

This was the classic black and green screen with its simple boxed menu structure that I came to know and love. STYLEman has always scored highly for its intuitive usability; you can access the programs through cursor key selection, hot numeric keys or jumping straight to the program by its unique code. It’s hard to imagine how a web-based version of the system can improve on this interface and I am relieved to report that bringing the mouse into play has not resulted in a loss of the familiar functionality.

The most striking improvement in the web-enabled STYLEman v10 is its use of the increased screen real estate, rather than having to jump from menu to menu it’s now possible to have access to many of the most commonly used programs all in one place by way of the tabbed enquiries that have been incorporated to display style and customer data.

Reporting is radically improved with the option of outputting all system generated reports to either Adobe or Excel format. The customisable My STYLEman desktop employs the familiar Internet trope of “favouriting” your regularly run programs as well as providing a central area to review spooled report data.

STYLEman’s beauty for me is more than skin deep, it’s the way in which the data has been structured with the apparel and footwear industries so clearly in mind, particularly the ability to manage SKUs at a style, colour, fit, size level long before competitors such as SAP contemplated offering their cumbersome AFS grids.

It shall be interesting to see what the next 20 years of development brings but as long as businesses require systems to purchase, warehouse and merchandise their garments and footwear I foresee the need for STYLEman.