The Fashion Industry- Reflective Journal

The Fashion industry holds many opportunities including marketing, PR and social media. We looked into each role further by watching a documentary by Alexa Chung, a fashion editor in British Vogue. Events or journalism stood out the most to me. Every business has to think about the FCP process, a series of steps taken in order to create innovative fashion communication. It is key to all context areas, internal factors which include the 7Ps (product, price, promotion, physical evidence, place, people and process), the market, trend, competitors and consumers. For any product a business must consider context, the big idea, creative concept and the execution. The was shown in the Grayson Perry documentary where he took individuals identity and personalities and tried to mirror this through art by collecting primary research and sculpting a piece of art that best reflected them. I have learnt how every brand has its own vocabulary though pattern, motif or colour palette on a product, promotional element or in store. For example, Tiffany is known for the blue box which is a specific shade made personally by pantone.

After getting an in-depth insight in these key areas, we had to put it into practice with a 4-week project. We looked into the predicted trends for A/W15 from secondary sources such as WGSN and create visual mood boards with common narratives. Brand analysis consisted us going into all market levels to look at a selected trend, for me this was denim jeans, and how the brand used the 7 p’s to communicate and promote the trends.  Areas such as the layout, VM, pricing and labelling. We looked at what worked well, what didn’t and the comparison to how they promote the trends through value, mass and high end markets.  Next we took to the streets of Nottingham and collected primary images on what trends had trickled down from in store. We discovered there was a strong focus on colour, pattern and silhouette. Finally, we analysed a brand of our choice who demonstrated the trend of denim and looked into their values, identity, marketing mix and what we would change or add to the brand. We chose Urban Outfitters who sell for the urban minded edgy individual, a store that knows how to promote through social media, interior layouts and makes “every store an experiment”. With their marketing mix being of a high standard there is no wonder it is such a successful store worldwide.

Fast fashion was very interesting to me, learning how some stores have 52 seasons a year putting huge pressure on manufacturing countries to produce mass items cheaply and quickly within 6 weeks. I blogged about the importance to think about who, what and where every product came from.

I have continued practice on Photoshop and InDesign. Learning how to master magazine layouts, photos and text layout. I look forward to experimenting with on our next brief. I have become confident in the areas taught and look forward to using these skills continuously in the future.