NYC Trend Booklet

After we came back from New York we had to create a trend booklet using InDesign. I had never used InDesign before so my skills on the programme weren't that great but I kept it simple and classy. I also cut out the letters NYC on the front cover so the city scape would show through.

Whilst in NYC I noticed two prominent trends in the fashion industry, graffiti and mini window displays.

Graffiti. 

We went over to Brooklyn whilst in New York and noticed that there is a big culture of graffiti there. 

Ranging from simple tagging to incredible pieces of art.

This trend then followed through to visual merchandising.

In Forever 21 they had a taxi covered in graffiti to create an urban edge into the store.

In Brooklyn they even had an advert from Red Bull graffitied onto a wall in the streets.

All These Little Things.

 I also noticed that jewellery stores were using more interesting visual merchandising. 

The windows were only small yet they’ve managed to create the character of the brand and feature products all in this space. 

Most jewellery stores I’ve ever seen have very basic and not very artistic shop windows. 

Maybe this is the start to a new way of advertising jewellery.

After presenting I got given some feedback to improve my booklet for our final hand in.

Nottingham Research Day

When we went into Nottingham we looked for the ideas we had in mind to see what already existed and where there were any gaps in the market. We went into mostly beauty stores such as Space NK and Jo Malone but also had a look around Debenhams.

We found the most innovative and up and coming products in Space NK, they had a hair perfume by Percy & Reed as well as laundry perfume by Tocca. In the department stores such as Debenhams they didn’t tend to have as innovative products.

We also saw that social media is being used more in fragrance for example in Fragrance Direct they had an advert to ‘selfie your scent’ to have a chance of winning a prize.

Challenging Brands

Today we looked at challenging brands and how to go about thinking of new ideas into creating or improving brands.

• Find a space to compete.
• Don’t go head to head.
• Understand the competition.
• Be the underdog.
• Understand what you offer.
• Understand the next generation.
• Create a broad product offer around one focused area.
• Embrace intelligent naivety.
• Build a lighthouse identity.
• Become the thought leader.
• Create a symbol of re-evaluation.
• Sacrifice.
• Overcommit.
• Enter popular culture.
• Be ideas centred.

It looks so simple when written down like that but it clearly takes a lot of work for each of the points above. These will help me and my group on our fragrance project into thinking of new brand ideas and how we should work as a group. Not only will it help in this project but it will help in the real world of work!

Taste Makers

Earlier in the week we had a lecture on Taste Makers, including icons like; Diana Vreeland, Iris Apfel and Gloria Guinness to name a few.

We then had to pick 2 of our own taste makers, as the lecture mostly featured icons from the past, I thought I'd pick more present ones. 

Fearne Cotton

Cool, chic and laid-back. The radio presenter is a taste maker to me because I find her style achievable and flaunting without being uncomfortable. She mixes high street with label instead of just one or the other. You can tell that a lot of her style is inspired by the music she listens to, as a radio presenter she listens to a wide variety of styles of music so her outfits are similar too. From band tees with jean to a bright fun dress and coat.

Katy Perry

'I just dress for myself and it makes me happy.'
She's not afraid to wear what she wants, she likes both super quirky and the more classic styles. Her fun, confident personality comes out clearly in what she wears. For her shows she does have her own stylist but she has the biggest voice in what she wears. She loves to dye her hair plenty of different colours but that won't stop her wearing the same coloured clothes to her hair colour, many would stay stray from doing that.

10 Commandment of FCP

We had a really helpful lecture where they told us the 10 commandments of FCP, instead of just leaving it in my notebook, I decided to write it up and print it off so it's on my wall and is easy access for when I am creating a piece of work.

Book: Fashion Brands - Branding Style From Armani to Zara

During reading week we were assigned to read this book to prepare us for our next module.
I'm not the biggest reader out there so I was dreading it at first even though it wasn't even that big of a book. However, the content is so well put together and is broken down into many chapters so that you don't just go brain dead.

The contents are;

1. Introduction
2. history of seduction
3. fashioning an identity
4. when haute couture meets high street
5. the designer as a brand
6. the store is the star
7. anatomy of trend
8. the image-makers
9. they shoot dresses don't they?
10. this years model
11. celebrity sells
12. press to impress
13. the collections
14. accessorise all areas
15. retro brands retooled
16. targeted male
17. urban athletes
18. virtually dressed
19. rise of the bloggers
20. the faking game
21. trendy toddlers
22. style goes back to the future 
23. behind the seams
24. conclusions

 There's such a wide variety of content, this book will be so handy for so many different projects, whilst at university and into the working world. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to get into the world of fashion.

I noted down a bunch of quotes I particularly liked from the book because to me they were so true. My favourite has to be the first one I've listed below. 

'You can dress head to toe in Gucci if you like - that proves you're rich, but it doesn't prove you have taste.' - Jorgen Andersson 

'What colour is your mobile phone this season?'

'The fashion industry is the ultimate fashion victim.'

'It's not a theory. When a celebrity wears something, it has direct impact on sales.'

'Fashion has a vampire-like lust for novelty.'