2015 was a roller coaster ride for the fashion industry, as designers departed their posts at major fashion brands due to increased pressures to produce for the bottom line, Instagram stars prompted a new wave of millennial consumers to interact with brands in new ways, and brands raced to keep up with consumer demands that reached an unprecedented fever pitch. In order for fashion to become future-proof, it must adapt. As it currently stands, the industry is in a state of flux, which means brands that are embracing innovation are the ones who are likely to make it to the top of the heap. If they hesitate, they will perish.

In order to better understand fashion’s future, this installment of Fashion Decoded looks at disruptive innovation and what it means for the industry at large. Disruptive innovation is a theory that has often been misunderstood or mischaracterized. For instance, many regard Uber to be a disruptive model, when really it is an innovative model. The terminology gets confusing, because disruption is innovation, but not all innovation is disruptive.

According to Harvard Business Review, “‘Disruption’ describes a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses.” In other words, once the proposition of a new way of doing things is introduced, it renders the current model outdated, displaces current business practices, and streamlines efficiency. Disruptive innovation takes place in new market footholds, when a market is created where none had existed before. Uber is not a disruptive model, because the market for third-party transportation already existed; it simply improved upon it by streamlining the process by which transportation is ordered and paid for.

Because the standard fashion business model (lots of customer data with little interpretative means by which to turn the data into market oversight, slow to build social-media relationships, long calendar lead times between production and retail delivery, single- or multi-channel retail) has stalled, now is the perfect time for brands to revolutionize their businesses by introducing disruptive models into the current market. There are already a handful of brands that are attempting to disrupt the current way of doing things. It’s not surprising to learn that the following three brands are cashing in on their innovative new practices and building tremendous equity in their respective futures.