A Comprehensive Guide on How to Do Fashion Website Design

According to Statistica, the fashion industry in the US alone was worth $180.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to be $295 billion by 2025. There’s no doubt that running a fashion business is tough and not for light-hearted people, and that’s when the fashion website design comes in with great importance.

In this article, we will tell you exactly how to do fashion website design the right way and show you some store examples to learn from.

Not in Fashion business? Check out the website design tips HERE.

So let’s get started!

I. Ultimate Guide on How to Design an Outstanding Fashion Website

01. Keep Navigation Simple for Fashion Websites

Navigation of any website is like the basic structure of a building. If it’s not easy to understand and clean, you might see high bounce rates and lose potential customers.

Navigation consists of links that appear in the menu or sidebar of a website. It has all the pages that exist on a website.

Here’s an example of a clean and great navigation bar for a fashion website.

 

Sir has a clean and systematic menu, it has all the product categories listed that are revealed when a visitor hovers over the Shop option. This can turn visitors into buyers right away!

In a survey conducted by Small Business Trends, 94% of respondents stated easy navigation to be the most important feature of any website.

Now that you know what navigation is and its importance let’s see how to make your Fashion store easily navigable.

Components of Your Website that Will Need Great Navigation

1.1. Menu

Menus are the first thing any visitor will land on after coming to your website. If they don’t find what they want in the menu bar, guess what? You’ve lost a potential customer!

When it comes to fashion store menus, you have three types of menus you can go with:

• Tiered 
• Mega 
• Sticky 

A tiered menu is one that only has a list of parent categories when you first hover over it. But when you drill further down, it shows you other subcategories available.

A mega menu lays out all the parent and subcategories when you hover over it just for the first time.

Lastly, as the name suggests, the sticky menu sticks with the visitor until they reach the footer.

1.2. Footer

Footer is a rather less appreciated part of a website. Not many people know how to use footers optimally to drive conversions.

An easily navigable footer lets you redirect visitors to product pages.

Here’s an example of a perfectly designed footer.

1.3. Product Filters

Menus are not the only ones where you require excellent navigation. 

If you own a fashion ecommerce store, there’s a good chance you might be selling multiple products in various categories. 

Search filters are essential for customers to filter and choose a product they want to buy.

Having the right and personalized search filters can get you a lot of sales as visitors will be able to find their product with ease.

02. Quality Images & Videos

When it comes to fashion stores, images and videos are the design elements that can make or break your store. They are the real driving force behind conversion.

For example, if you sell apparel in your store but your images are all blurry and poorly captured, do you think people would like to buy from you? Of course not!

90% of buyers online believe that product image quality is the most important factor in online sales.

Here’s an example of how you can display product images on a page beautifully.

How to Take Quality Images & Videos for Your Fashion Store Design

• Shoot your images/videos with a proper camera and a tripod
• Either use artificial lighting or natural light, don’t mix both
• Use soften shadows to bounce light off of the product surface
• Use sweep or portrait mode to bring your product into the limelight
• Apply contrast the right way; for example, if your product is of light color, black background might work great

03. Create Stunning Product Pages

Among thousands of fashion websites on the internet, only a few successfully convince customers to hit the buy button. 

Why? 

We need to realize that buyers visit a website to buy products. That’s it. 

Quality product images that are reliable and appealing are the driving force for the customer to purchase from you.

When we talk about fashion ecommerce stores, product pages become all the more important. Want to know how?

Let’s consider you’re selling beauty creams. Beauty creams consist of chemicals that people might want to know about before buying.

Product pages are the best way to inform your customers about these chemicals and make them believe that the product is safe for them to use.

A good product page is informative, believable, and contains all information about the product. 

Moreover, online fashion websites should be highly conscious of the content they present in their product description.

Usually, customers thoroughly research before purchasing from a completely new website. They tend to read everything related to the product carefully.

Only then do they move forward and buy it. Hence, apart from a convincing picture, the product pages should also contain an in-depth product description.

Tips to Create a Stunning Product Page

• Always use high-quality product images
• Cover every minute detail about your product, its features, and how it solves a problem
• If there’s an offer like 50% off or your brand provides free shipping, ensure you mention it above the fold
• Leverage social proof to gain visitors’ trust

04. Color Scheme to Have for Your Fashion Website Design

A lot of thinking is done before choosing a color scheme for any brand. Color schemes represent the brand and its motto. 

For example, clothing brand Zara has an absolutely white theme.

 

The brand’s apparels are minimalist and classy. Thus, the white color scheme on the website suggests the standard and quality of its products.

Whereas Nykaa Fashion’s website portrays a black, white, and pink color scheme. The clothes and accessories on the website are women-oriented, chic, and classy.

So definitely, while choosing a color scheme for your website, you must consider the kind of products you are selling and your target audience.

Choosing the Right Color Scheme for your Fashion Store

Think about the first thing you notice on entering an online fashion store. The product, right? Do you notice the same color product every time you visit a fashion ecommerce store? We don’t think so. 

That’s because fashion brands choose a specifically themed color palette for their clothing collection every season. 

This gives variety to the brand throughout the year and makes the customers curious about what new color theme the store’s going to bring next time.

Color schemes for your fashion collection should be according to the season. Choose a particular set of colors that will complement it. 

Many brands choose a base color that sets the tone for the collection. 

You might notice that the winter collection in many stores is inspired by black, white, and gray. At the same time, summer collections are colorful and light. 

You cannot ignore the impact color schemes bring to your fashion store. So choose it according to occasions and seasons.

05. Have Minimal Written Content on the Homepage

Having less written content for a fashion website, especially apparel websites is a good thing. 

Visitors want to see graphics, product images, and CTAs as soon as they land on the homepage.

Navigation becomes all the more important in such cases. 

Seeing all the images, visitors should be tempted to visit different pages and at least check out the website’s product pages if not buy from you.

To keep your visitors hooked, create stunning, real-life graphics, effective CTAs, and a jaw-dropping homepage. 

Here’s how Negative Underwear did a great job designing its homepage.

As you scroll down further, you see some products where you can start shopping and then dig the site further.

06. Have a Mobile Responsive Fashion Website Design

Mobile responsive websites are nowadays common and a must to rank well. 

When it comes to shopping, it’s even more important. Why? 

Because more than half of the customers online buy from a mobile (M-commerce).

Source

Pro Tip: If you’re just starting off with your store, try a mobile-first approach rather than a mobile responsive approach.

How to Make Your Fashion Website Design Mobile Responsive

• Ensure that the theme you choose is mobile responsive
• Try minimizing written content on mobile
• Minify Javascript, CSS, and images as much as possible; the lighter the website, the better
• Avoid using Flash to create animations for your mobile version of the website as it’s not supported by all mobile devices
• Resize and reposition CTAs for mobile phones
• Use a large and readable font & leave enough space between content so that a visitor can tap on it easily

07. Leverage Diversity & Inclusion the Right Way

Diversity and inclusion help relate your brand to different audiences and build a connection with visitors.

Using diverse photos for your product and homepage is the best way to connect with visitors on an emotional level.

Another advantage of being a diverse brand is attracting LGBTQ+ customers. 

When it comes to shopping, the LGBTQ+ community is the most undervalued. It has a purchasing power of $3.7 trillion. Yeah, you read it right, Trillion with a ‘T.’

Here’s a fashion website – Revelry that uses diversity the right way. 

They get around 250,000 visitors a month, which isn’t a small thing.

08. Leverage Social Media to the Fullest

Social media platforms are one of the most popular ones worldwide. The number of active social media users has surpassed the 4.55 Billion mark this year.

Do you know the best way to use social media to your advantage when you have a Fashion store?

The answer rests in these 3 words: User-Generated Content.

When your customers post a social media post appreciating and using your product, user-generated content (UGC) takes birth.

It’s like virtual word-of-mouth marketing. When people see how their friend or even a stranger’s life has changed using your product, they connect with it instantly.

UGC is one of the strongest mediums of marketing as it costs you nothing, and it connects a person to the brand on the most emotional level.

By requesting your customers to post product reviews/guides on social media, you can get new customers and sky-rocket your revenue in no time.

Check out How To Sell Clothes Online: A Tactical Guide To Fashion Lovers

Let’s now look at some fashion website design examples to take inspiration from.

II. 4 Fashion Store Examples to Learn From

01. UNCONDITIONAL

Philip Stephens founded UNCONDITIONAL in 2003. The store was initially brick-and-mortar and started with the launch of just one capsule collection for men’s knitwear and Jersey.

This collection had great success that made Philip launch the women’s collection next. Their collections were shown in the London Fashion Week for 8 seasons.

The brand doesn’t target a specific age group instead targets the mindset. The buyers of UNCONDITIONAL are early teenagers as well as older people (one of their customers 80). 

What We Loved About UNCONDITIONAL Online Store

The website design ideas put into building UNCONDITIONAL are flawless. It’s minimal yet impactful and represents modern fashion.

They’ve used diversity in their homepage, and it’s built in a manner that tempts people to explore more pages.

The color scheme used is the good old black & white, which always works!

02. Taylor Stitch

Taylor Stitch launched its online store in 2010. The brand sells custom and tailored menswear.

They’re on a mission to make sophisticated menswear affordable to everyone.

The company considers it as a shirting company at its very core. 

Taylor Stitch cares about the environment, that’s why it tries using recycled and regenerative materials wherever possible.

The company also has 2 brick-and-mortar stores in Valencia and Chestnut.

What We Loved About Taylor Stitch Online Store

Taylor Stitch leverages user-generated content to drive sales.

When we looked at the Tagged section of its Instagram page, we saw a ton of customers tagging Taylor Stitch and posting images of them hiking, partying, riding, and whatnot.

Apart from marketing, their store navigation is great. Every page a customer might want to visit is on the homepage menu. 

They use a tiered menu that reveals their best products – category-wise when you hover over the shop option.

03. HELM

The company sold its first pair of boots in 2009, and since then, HELM has been manufacturing versatile, timeless, and functional boots.

Every pair of boots they manufacture goes through a checklist of 153 steps performed by 14 bootmakers. So you know when you buy HELM there’s no worry about the quality.

The company makes leather boots with just one purpose in mind: Endurance.

What We Loved About HELM Online Store

The above-the-fold content of the website has a CTA selling their most demanded boots. So they’re trying to bring in sales right off the bat.

If you ask us, it’s one of the best fashion website designs we’ve seen.

They have done a great job capturing product images and writing product descriptions.

Lastly, many companies offer free shipping and return but fail to cater to their audience. 

By sticking it to the top of the homepage, HELM made sure every visitor who comes to their store sees it first.

04. Minaal

Minaal is a company selling high-quality travel gear all across the globe. Two New Zealand residents, Jimmy & Doug, founded Minaal in 2013.

The company has been completely community-funded since day one. In 2015, Minaal launched its second Kickstarter campaign and raised ~$700,000 from over 2,400 people.

This was shocking to them as their campaign’s goal was just $10,000.

When Covid hit the world, their business was affected, but they kept hustling. Fast-forwarding to 2022, Minaal is now a 100% remote working and profitable company.

What We Loved About Minaal Online Store

With minimal text, clear structure, and great product images, Minaal has done a great job designing the Shopify store.

When you go to the product page, you see multiple images showing the use case of each of their products. They even describe each part of their product and show its significance.

Learn from more outstanding Shopify stores in Fashion HERE.

III. Conclusion

When we talk about a fashion site, design is one of the most important parts to make a positive impression. 

Being a fashion brand, your website should be stylish, modern, and attractive.

The tips mentioned above have been tested over the years, and when you implement them, you will definitely see positive results. 

The examples mentioned in the article are also a great web design inspiration.

#Bonus: Take one step at a time – don’t try implementing all tips and tricks at once. Take one strategy, implement it, test and optimize it, only then move on to the next one.

Fashion is undoubtedly a competitive niche. Your website design has to speak for your brand. If you fail to do so, you might end up becoming “just another fashion website” instead of a good website. 

So follow the tips and let us know which one worked the best for you.

Till then, happy designing!