Creative Concept

All teams got allocated a Creative Concept taken from a existing editorial shoot from the vogue achieve. My team got given 'New Nomad' from Vogue- March 2015. We first went to the vogue achieve in the library to find the magazine, and here is the issue:

These are a couple of the series of images we got given from 'New Nomad'.

We thought of a few words that we felt like represented the images: 

-isolated
-abandoned
-random
-rural
-nature
-shadows
-natural
-pops of colour
-disposable pictures

-contrast

Juergen Teller is a german artist whose photography stands out from the rest in the fashion industry.  

''The imagery he produces is always immediately recognisable due to its innate starkness. His photography is often over-exposed and regularly features the photographer himself in various stages of undress.'' - https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/juergen-teller?collections=7&query=Juergen%20Teller&offset=0. Tellers fashion photography have been featured in Vogue (US, France, UK, Italy) swell as W magazine, I-D, Details, The Face and many more magazines. He has collaborated with many big names such as Yves Saint Lauren, Helmut Lang, Vivienne Westwood, Céline and in particular he worked with Marc Jacobs from 1998-2014 shooting all his campaigns. 

When we first got given these images, we thought of words that we felt like represented the photographs, such as the theme and the message. It was really interesting analysing the images as the more you look at them, you notice lots of different factors. Each of the photograph have a contrasting background to the model, the scenery looks abandoned and isolated; whereas the models are dressed in very vibrant clothing with colourful wigs, this is very different to the background. Even though they're dressed like this the model they choose for this shoot are not glamerous or very feminine looking.

         

In the magazine, the images are printed with a white boarder, which looks like disposable pictures, almost like the magazine is a scrap book of holiday photographs, however they differ from usual holiday picture as they look very random and unexpected. This also linked to the name of this collection 'New Nomad' as Nomad represents a person that doesn't stay in one place, and travels to unexpected places. 

For the next part of this project as a group we need to take 3 final images inspired by 'New Nomad', swell as using the object makeup within the photographs

Thank you for reading

Charl 

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Slow Futures // Collages

Following on from my last blog post on the 'Slow Futures' trend, i wanted to create some collages with my interpretation of the trend. The first one is created with different textures and is inspired my 'Mercury Rising' a very futuristic trend, this is why i used monochrome colours swell as silvers and metallics. i layered a grey image under the womens face and cut parts out so you could see it, i felt like this made it look more robotic which linked to the trend. 

This collage is inspired by the trend as a whole, i used textures like wire, foil and string as well as metallic, pastels and monochrome colours. The wire and silver make it link really like to the futuristic part of the trend. I didn't want it to look perfect so i left in rough edges so it went well with the minimalistic part of the trend. 

 I created a colour board which is the most used colours within this trend, you can tell they're a range of very muted pastel colours with some neutral dark colours. 

So here is a quick little post about some collages I've been working on! i hope you liked them.

Thank you for reading

Charl 

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Creative Concept: Re-Cycle Tyrrells

For the creative concept part of our course, we got put into groups and were given a brand and a product. Our brand was Tyrrells (the snacks) and our product was a cycle helmet. These are both very random so at first we were confused at how we could combine them, however once we done our research we began to find similarities between both the brand and product. We first done research on the brand and found information about it, we then combined all we found started thinking about the purpose, values, positioning and the personality of Tyrrells as a brand.

This was the start of a mind map showing the connections between Tyrrells and a cycle helmet. we felt like words such as rural, local and traditional linked to both. 

This was our first moodpboard on the brand Tyrrells, we collected a variety of images and wrote about each one. we also linked the research to our key words which were handmade, vintage and playful. Tyrrels has only 25 different flavours of there snacks, which are all different colours, this makes the brand appear playful as well as traditional. We kept in mind all these factors when creating our product as we wanted it to visually look similar.

This is a few images and key words we collected to give us an idea of what most cycle helmets are like. The most popular helmets are very masculine and ordinary. This gave us inspiration to create a unique helmet suitable for both males and females and a variety of ages, but still with the safety purpose. 

This is our main moodpboard showing our final idea. We wanted to create a cycle helmet in the style of a famers hat, but still with the safety purpose; which linked to the rural, traditional key words we came up with. We would recycle lots of Tyrrels crisps packets from place special bins around in many citys. Once we collected them we would wrap each hat in the packets professionally so it would have a playful look. We also created two colour palettes- the dark colours for the older generation and the bright colours for the younger generation, these colours were inspired by the crisp packets. We showed our photoshop skills on this board by actually creating our product and layering crisp packets on top of hats.

To conclude we had to present, it went really well and the feedback was very positive. We were told that you could tell that we new what we were talking about as we really went in-depth with the research. The lecturers also liked our use of photoshop to show our idea as well as our tag line ''Re-Cycle Tyrrells''.

Thank you for reading

Charlotte

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Slow Futures

While i was on WGSN, i came across 'Slow Futures' which is a predicted trend for S/S18. Its going to be a very popular trend within fashion, lifestyle, hair and makeup. 

''Is “slow futures” a shift from the super high tech athleisure looks we’ve been seeing? Actually, athletic clothing is going to get even more high-tech, and the innovations there will filter into the fashion realm, and the world of design in general. Design and technology are becoming more seamless, and thanks to projects like Google’s Project Jacquard we will soon have clothes with technology woven into the textiles, giving us constant information about our health and performance, as well as an interactive surface with which to connect with others.''

- http://observer.com/2016/06/a-wgsn-trend-forecaster-explains-what-everyone-will-wear-in-summer-2018/

It is a very minimal trend, however with luxurious items of clothing. High tech aspects are also included which creates a very futuristic and innovative trend that is going to be massive. One part of this trend 'Mercury Rising' that visually looks like space, this is very futuristic with the use of metallics, silvers and metals.

Raw Minimalism is a very clean, neutral trend with raw edges- such as frayed edges, rips and unique textures. This trend has been around for a couple of years, as it is very similar to Kayne West brand 'YEEZY' which is very popular for both genders and all ages.

''The meat of the matter, of course, is the clothes and the accessories, and as for them, the Yeezy look remains consistent, based on surplus basics, knits of many kinds, and, certainly, the smash-hit sneakers. As he said in a Vogue.com interview before the show, “I want to make pieces that can be timeless.” Where the look of Season 4 did evolve was in the color palette. The show cycled through whites to blacks, with a concentration on pale colors that looked bleached or sun-faded.''

- http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2017-ready-to-wear/kanye-west-adidas-originals

Yeezy Spring 2017

            

Overall this trend as a whole has been influenced by different artists such as 

Clara Daguin- from mixing technolgy with fashion

Oma- from his futuristic resort 

Ms Min- from there modern clothing

Kaman Yoo Hye jin- from there minimalistic yet busy designs

i want to create some trend boards inspired by this trend which i will post about soon. Thank you for reading.

Charl

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The Big Idea

After watching 'The True Cost' we went away and done all our own research. We created two posters, the first one showing our idea generation process. We wanted to base our Big Idea on Ethical fashion and workers right, so initially we focused our research on that. we collected different articles so we found the main issues and events, we then done primary research where we created a survey to find out what the consumer would like our Big Idea to be like and to give us inspiration on our target audience. It helped us see there views and opinion about issues in the fashion industry. It was really interesting as we asked 'Have you ever bought an item of clothing from an eco friendly company' and a higher percentage said never. This made us think that it would be a good idea to create a stylish yet eco- friendly clothing line. We also found out that only 7% considered environmental and ethical issues whist shopping, this really inspired us to create a very interesting 'big idea' so everyone would consider these issues.

Idea generation process poster:

The 2nd poster summarised our big idea, we wanted our big idea to raise awareness to students of ethical and environmental issues connected with the fashion industry. Our big idea is to have a fashion show displaying all our eco friendly clothes in collaboration with Topshop. It will also be put on in the student union so all our target audience of students will be able to come and get inspired. The twist is at the back of the stage there will be workers making clothes, so you can see exactly how your clothes are made and by who.

 The Big Idea poster: 

TOPSHOP X #BEHINDTHESEAMS

Here is an illustration i done to see more visually what the event would look like: 

Thank you for reading. 

Charl

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The True Cost

For our next project we first watched 'The True Cost' to get relevant information about the environmental and ethical issues affecting the fashion industry. This helped me gain insight into what is happening in the world.

ABOUT

''This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?''

''Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums, and featuring interviews with the world’s leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth and Vandana Shiva, The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.''

http://truecostmovie.com/about/

This was a very moving film that helped me get secondary research for my next project 'The big idea'. There are around 40 million garment workers, where 97% work abroad, where a lot of them are some of the lowest paid workers in the world. There is two sides to a story and some people say that they choose to work and that theres a lot worse they could be doing; however after many incidents such as the Rana Plaza Disaster- (which killed more than 1000 people), it really proves that the industry needs to change, especially as its such a popular industry to work in. 1/6 people in the world today work in the global fashion industry. 

Aswell as human rights, environmental problems are also a massive impact on the world. Cotton produces the fibre that is responsible for most of the clothing worn by the world today, as its in so much demand the cotton plant is being reengineered to keep up with the industry. Textile waste is also causing a massive problem, its non bio degradable which means it just sits on land fields while releasing harmful gases into the air. With all these problems considered fashion today is the 2nd most polluting industry, just behind oil.

Many fashion designers are now trying to change this, such as Stella McCartney who is ''trying to do it in a way, less harmful to the planet''.

FACTS

• 20% of the global industrial water pollution comes from the treatment and dying of textiles.
• 20,000 deaths per year as a result of pesticide poisoning. 
• 350,000 tonnes of clothes go to the land fields each year, which take around 200 years to decompose. 
• 2nd most polluting industry- deaths are cause from air pollution.
• 750 million people around the world lack water, however loads is used to produce clothing.

After all the research i found out, we now need to produce a 'Big Idea' to help raise awareness of the environmental and ethical issues connected with the fashion industry. 

Thank you for reading

Charlotte

Serious slashes // final mood boards

For our final piece we had to compose 4 mood boards on trend forecast, media, retail and consumer based on our trend serious slashes. 

TREND FORECAST

For the first mood board we analyse our A/W forecast serious slashes and put all our research into a physical mood board. We went on Buisness of Fashion and WGSN and found all examples of our trend, aswell as history or the trend. We found lots of different examples of this trend for all different styles of clothes.

 

MEDIA 

For the second mood board we found secondary research about the trend and found the publics opinions on it. We found many articles negative and positive about the trend, there was a lot of negative comments on Kylie Jenners jeans with rips at the bum. For slashes in evening wear, we found many articles mentioning how this trend is very up and coming and suitable for all ages.

          RETAIL 

For the retail board we went into many shops and found how slashes have been adopted by retailers and brands. This helped us see what kind of shops sell our trend, evening wear with slashes was being sold in high end shops, such as House of Fraser and Selfridges. Knitwear with slashes was being sold in high street brands with a consumer of a older age, such as Marks and Spencer's and ripped jeans were being sold in shops such as Topshop and River island.

CONSUMER

For the consumer board we wanted to see how the consumers have adapted our trend slashes. We took street style photos of the public adopted our trend. we managed to find quite a few examples for all the categories such as evening wear, casual wear and denim. We also had a survey so we could see the opinion on the trend.

So these are our final 4 mood boards showing everything about the trend 'serious slashes'. I really enjoyed this project and it was interesting having to go and find the trend your self in the shops and from people wearing it. 

charl 

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Serious slashes // primary research

So carrying on from my last blog post, it was now the stage at where we had to find our own research.   This proved to be quite difficult finding people wearing slashes considering it is winter, however somewhat relating to slashes are ripped jeans, these are a massive trend recently so we managed to find a variety of examples on the high street. Slashes are a very recent trend so perhaps they evolved from ripped jeans as they have been around for ages.

     

We first found lots of pairs of ripped jeans used for visual merchandising. The example to the left is how they could be styled for the winter and the image on the right is jeans styled for a night out; this proves that they are very versatile for different occasions. 

     

 I then went to find some street style of the public wearing slashes, above i took a photograph of someone wearing ripped jeans styled with a bomber for a more casual look.

     

For this next outfit the girl was wearing ripped jeans and a slash in her jumper, however the slash on her jumper was a bit different, they added a zip so you could choose if you want it undone or done up- this is a nice alternative to a normal slash. 

We also found many other example that we're going to include on our 4 posters! 

Thanks for reading

Charl

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Serious slashes // secondary research

For my first project at uni we got put into groups and got given a trend that we would have to research in order to create 4 mood boards. We had to compose the mood boards on trend forecast, media, retail and consumer.

Our trend was 'Serious Slashes'; I've never really heard of this trend however once i started looking into it i released how big it is getting. Slash means "cut with a wide, sweeping movement, typically using a knife or sword." This trend is very similar to slits and rips however slashes are more clean open cuts in a garment.

    

These are some examples of the trend being used. Above both Taylor Swift and Cara Delevingne are wearing slashes incorporated into a dress, this is promoting it to everyone who looks up to these celebs. 

Slashes in knitwear is usually put in for a more practical reason, the slashes at the side of the jumper make it more comfy with a loose fit. 

Overall i found a range of different examples where slashes have been used, including both evening wear and casual wear. For my next part of the project I'm going to find my own examples of primary research where I've seen slashes being sold in shops and wore by the public.

Keep an eye out for my next post on serious slashes

charl 

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