The Future of Technology - Global Market Place

SPFW

Sao Paulo is known for its Fashion Week, happening twice a year, showing Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter, bringing Latin American fashion to Brazil's runway. You may wonder why Sao Paulo and not Brazil's Capital Rio was chosen for Fashion Week, SPFW is where the more directional designers show. Rio is not left out, there is Fashion Rio that is a representation of lifestyle, street and diffusion brands.

Brazil is a front running emerging country, just hosting the 2014 Fifa World Cup and soon to hold the 2016 Olympics, Fashion is now thriving in two cities and spreading all across Brazil.

SPFW

GUM - Moscow


Gum in Moscow is the most famous department store in Russia, with its facade existing 794ft along the eastern side of Red Square. When it reopened in 1953 it was one of the few stores in the Soviet Union that never had shortages of consumer goods. GUM was known for its vast queues of consumers stretching across the Red Square. It was renamed, in May 2005, when 50.25% was sold to the Russian luxurious goods distributor and boutique operator, Bosco di Ciliegi. It kept its original abbreviation yet the first word was changed, now translating into 'Main Universal Store'. It was known as a private shopping mall, only the most luxury of products are sold there.

The Future Of Technology - Gadgets

The Hijack App - Meat Pack


Meat Pack is a trendy shoe store in Guatemala, they are known for keeping up with edgy new fashion and now known for their incredible discounts. The idea of the app is that, using GPRS tracking, when you are located in a competitors store to Meat Pack the hijack app will alert you that you have 100 seconds to run to the closest Meat Pack store to claim your discount. The discount counts down with the 100 seconds and is the percentage that you will claim off your purchase when you reach the Meat Pack store.

The Stealth Pocket

The way to become invisible. The Stealth pocket blocks all Cellular, Wifi, GPRS, and RFID, for those that no longer want to be watched by 'big brother'. The stealth pocket has become widely popular and is used in brands such as THE AFFAIR in their clothing range. They have incorporated a removable stealth pocket into many of their designs.

http://1984.the-affair.com

The Future of Technology - Avoiding Mega Systems

Google, Amazon and Starbucks have been named and shamed for not paying corporate taxes. Starbucks sales were quoted at £400 million, just in the UK, in 2012, yet they paid no corporate taxes. Starbucks managed to dodge taxes by transferring money to its Dutch sister company, buying large quantities of beans from Switzerland and paid high interest rates when borrowing from other parts of the company.

Amazon were another international company that manages to dodge the taxes, not completely though. Compared to Amazon's £3.35 billion in sales they only paid taxes of £1.8 million, clearly way under what they should be paying. Google, the search engine used world wide, are also under scrutiny for the amount of taxes they pay. Google only paid £6 million to the treasury compared to their £395 million they took in sales, in 2011.

The Future of Technology - Age of Collaboration

Age of Collaboration

The age of collaboration has come, high end designers are looking to the hightstreet to market themselves to a different audience, and high-street brands are looking to the high end designers to give more exclusivity to their brand.

Last year Stella Mcartney launched a collaboration with Adidas where she designed a range of sportswear and footwear, this was available in the Adidas store and online. This allowed sports and fashion lovers to come together. You may often find that those related to fashion like to keep themselves in good shape, due to the expectations that come with working in the fashion industry. Mcartney and Adidas to coming together was a very innovative idea merging the two sectors.

Stella Mcartney for Adidas Spring Summer'14

More recent collaborations have seen Alexander Wang release a collection for H&M, this collaboration is between two market levels of fashion, luxury and economical fashion. This allows customers of H&M to have a taste of what it is like to wear WANG. The collection has the text of WANG all over it, showing off that it is designed by a luxury brand, this will appeal to those who may want wang, yet it is out of their price range.

Rihanna pictured wearing the Wang for H&M two piece.

Another collaboration that particularly interested me was between Versace and Disaronno, created a limited edition bottle, with the Versace print. The bottle does not only look fabulous in its bright blue and yellow coating yet it oozes with the Versace style. Being limited edition the bottle has an exclusive ora about it, enticing the fashionistas in.

Versace limited edition Disaronno Bottle  

Political Issues in Fashion

Last year saw an increase in popularity of fur, it was seen in many designer's collections. Celine had furry sandals and Christian Kane used a lot of fur in his collection of AW 2013.  Fur was worn by fashion icons such as Kate Moss and Anna Wintor, bringing it back into the public eye. 

Kate Moss at the AW 13/14 Louis Vuitton Show

Anna Wintor is often a keen wearer of fur. 

There has always been controversey towards fur and due to this fur has not been as popular in England as it is in some of Europe due to the animal rights protests. In 1994 models claimed they would rather be naked than wear fur, making it completely unfashionable. McCartney is also known to have said that her "designs have shown that animals don't need to suffer for fashion".

Stella McCartney backed the Peta campaign for the ethical treatment of animals.

Although in an article Vogue claimed in September 2013 that 69% of designers used fur in their campaigns, it was also said by the RSPCA that 95% of women were said to refuse to wear fur. The controversy of fur will continue to go on, Zara, Topshop and Selfridges have banned it, yet luxury and couture brands seem to be promoting it. Which way the consumer swings is the deciding factor for the future of fur in fashion. 

Emerging Markets

Emerging markets covers the emerging national economies, and with this emerging fashion economies.

BRICS

BRAZIL, RUSSIA, INDIA, CHINA, SOUTH AFRICA

The percentage of social media and digital presence per country is displayed in this pie chart. Taking an understanding of this will help to explain the growth in the digital emergence of fashion. 

The past few years has seen a considerable increase in terms of internet usage over the emerging markets. South Africa was a new addition to BRICS in 2010 and has shown growing economy although in terms of digital emergence it has progressed less than the others. 

Due to the growth of the internet being used in these countries the fashion industry has taken advantage of this by penetrating the social media platform. 

Fashion houses started to cater to separate regions through the use of social media. Louis Vuitton have got separate Facebook pages that cater to each country, therefore they can channel what the consumer in each region is looking for. This also allows them to be selective in how they promote certain products in different languages so that the different countries can have a better understanding of their products. Louis Vuitton would be able to select what products to promote in terms of different price range in different regions and use the regions average wealth to determined this. 

Brazil and Russia's wealth is reflected in their taste for quality merchandise. Brazil has a growing middle class with real spending power and Russia has the 8th largest retail market in the world. 

TIMP 

TURKEY 

INDONESIA 

MEXICO 

PHILIPPINES 

&

MINT 

MEXICO 

INDONESIA 

NIGERIA 

TURKEY

TIMP and MINT are two newer phrases to describe the emerging markets. TIMPs all have an 'idiosyncratic' feature that adds appeal. Turkey's location bridges Asia and Europe along one axis and Russia and the Arab world along the other. Mexico brings appeal with its manufacturing 'renaissance', and Indonesia with its middle class that is expanding and growing. The Philippines' call centre industry is booming, creating lots of jobs.

PARIS - Fashion Cluster

PARIS TRIP 

The Paris day trip was highly beneficial to us as a group and meant we got not only an eye for Paris Fashion, but also the groupings of the fashion houses within Paris and the department stores.

The luxury fashion malls Pintemps and Galeries Lafayette were the first stores we visited, we notices both were fairly similar in terms of the layouts of the brands, having Prada, Dior, Fendi etc all in the same part of the store. 

The outsides of both stores were extremely different. Galeries Lafayette shop windows were filled with fuzzy creatures, promoting some sort of new cuddly toy. Pintemps windows were filled with Burberry, as was part of the inside of the store. This is a great promotional idea and you could not have left or entered, or even walked past Pintemps without noticing Burberry.

Here is a short film showing the highlights of the burberry windows and displays inside:

Men in Fashion

Men’s fashion is often based on band members, sports personalities, etc. Getting a person in the public eye to wear your clothing will increase your sales more than catwalk shows in terms of men’s fashion. Tommy Hilfiger have taken this strategy on board and now stopped all mens catwalk shows and now focus men's sales through using promotional strategies using celebrities etc. 

Hairless men came into fashion and is reflected in media posts of Daniel Craig, English Rugby Team, David Beckham all topless and hairless to portray the younger man, this trend has been seen worldwide as to the big names that have taken it on, showing the impact that large stars have on men's fashion followings. 

David Beckham is seen as an icon to men, he has been used on multiple occasions in advertisement campaigns over the years and recently was the leading man in the new film advertisement for the Haig Club. The film was authentic using other famous faces, such as Jimmy Choo, staring as the friend of Beckham. The film displays an exclusive club of selected individuals giving the idea to the consumer that once drinking this whiskey you will then enter the 'Haig Club'. The members all enter in different ways. Beckham enters on a motorbike, linking back to his personal life and a recent documentary he did traveling on a motorbike across America. Extreme sports are shown through the final images displayed, Skiing, Fishing and Shooting, all adding up to create a type of man and lifestyle that comes along with the drink. The film backing track is by Alt J, the song is called 'Left Hand Free' I believe this links to the idea of drinking, having your left hand free, yet the whisky in your right hand. Using Beckham in any promotional video can have a great positive effect on the sales of that product due to his popularity amongst the public. 

Click the link to see the film: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaMuQPmzrrU

Fashion Clusters

Fashion Walk 

The fashion walk allowed us to discovered where the fashion clusters were in London. It was interesting to see where similar fashion houses have clusters of shops. I also looked at some of the shop layouts and merchandising. In Covent Garden the layouts of Dior, Chanel and Burberry, that are all next to each other in the square, were very similar with there own trademark. Dior and Chanel use a lot of black in their layout, with a similar simple regimented layout plan. All three fashion houses promoted a particular popular item. Dior used their items in real size to create one giant replica. Chanel had lots of giant Chanel No.5 bottles all around the store. Burberry had a whole room dedicated to their new perfume 'My Buberry', with an interactive board where you could put your initials on the bottle, to add the personal touch. 

The images above show all the locations we visited. Including the pop up Dior, Chanel, and Burberry stores in Covent Garden. These stores had large promotional factors to them. Dior has displays of mini perfume bottles making the larger perfume and lips tips arranged in the shape of a hang bag, these were all creative and visually pleasing to the consumer, drawing attention to that certain product making the consumer more interested. Chanel had multiple large bottles of Chanel no.5, due to the new launch of the perfume. When walking into Burberry the first room is completely dedicated to their new fragrance 'My Burberry' with an interactive monogram board where you can personalise your own bottle. I thought this was an innovative way to drive consumers in, adding the personal touch to their bottle. 

Intellectual Property Rights

Rouse 

Rouse is an Intellectual Property Rights company based in Asia. Some solicitors from Rouse came to talk to the Ravensbourne Fashion Promotion students and educated us in the legal world of rights to do with fashion. 

IP Rights:

Trade Marks – Logos, Words, telling you who has made the product. Trade marks must be registered, they are only trade marked in the country you have selected, it is possible to trade mark over whole of Europe. It cost half a million to trade mark over the whole world. Trade marks cover certain areas; e.g. Polo is cars, clothing & mints.

Examples of trademarks: Burberry check, Loubs red soles, nike tick, Gucci symbol, Esso Garage(Colour Layout), Theme tune(Music), Fred Perry Symbol and lines on sleeves and collar (certain positions).  _­

Trade marks must be distinctive and not descriptive, they last for ten years and can be renewed. Trademarks can be cancelled after five years if not used. They must be register with UK intellectual property office. It is £170 to register in the UK. Unregistered trademarks do have rights but it can prove costly when challenging this when it is not registered. Altering a logo or using a similar logo is classed as infringing on the trademark rights, which leads to court action.

Patents – Protects inventions, applied nationally, granted by individual companies. They last for 20 years.

Copyright – Protects the expression of creative and artistic works. It must be original, made up of some skill, effort and judgment. There is no requirement of artistic merit yet it cannot be copied although derivative works can be allowed. Depending on the base of the product it is different owners of the copyright. As a general rule the creator, and first owner of the company own the copyright. Within films the producer and principle director own the copyright. The company will own the copyright not the person who is employed and has actually created it. A copyright must be assigned to the company when a logo is being created.

Design Rights – Protects the appearance of new products, or parts: lines, contours, colours, shapes, texture or material. Registering designs can be a good marketing tool. Croc’s, Louis Vuitton and Sports Bra’s are examples of registered designs. To have it approved it is not checked against other designs.

Louis Vuitton: Fake Vs Real

Confidential Information – Information capable of protection. An obligation of confidentiality exists.

Diversity in Fashion

Fashion Week The Big 4

Paris

Milan

New York

London

Where does London get it wrong?

London is chaotic; they don’t organize their show rooms. Show rooms should be ordered in the same way as the catwalk. The show rooms should have garments in the order that they are displayed on the catwalk to create easy and appeal to the consumers and fashion critiques. 

The Changing Role of Fashion

The face of fashion has changed over the past 20 years. These changes have left us questioning whether fashion institutions should educate new designers/design students to think about diversity in order to make them commercially viable? and if contemporary British fashion/High Fashion reflects modern Britain?

The Brand is now the king, not the designer; the designer is despicable. A brand has many different designers over the time yet the brand essence it kept the same. Such as Raf Simmons taking over from John Galliano in 2012 The message of the brand needs controlling so that it can be enhanced by the younger generation.

Age

Age has been a disputable topic within the fashion world. It has changed over the years as to whether having a person above a certain age on your campaign is a positive or negative factor. Isabella Rossellini was the face of Lancôme from 1982-92 yet was sacked as she was classed as too old. Since these times fashion has changed so considerably that Carmen Dell’orefice is still working for Valentino aged 80, she still appears on their catwalk shows. Mary Portas, a massive name in fashion, widely known for bringing Westfield to England had her own 'Mary’s Boutique' specifically 'for women not girls', this showed a large fashion following. The older generation are becoming more popular in the fashion world as to be faces of campaigns etc, this reflects what fashion used to be like. In the 1950's the High Fashion market was dominated by women 40+ as they had the wealth, therefor the models of this era were a similar age to its consumers. 

Size

The height and waist size of a model has been as massive part of the fashion world over the past 50 years. Some say the models of campaigns, catwalk, etc, should reflect their consumers. 46% of women are a size 16. This shows no comparison to the size 6-10 models that we see today. 

There have been some outbursts of fashion businesses using larger women to promote or create a shock factor. LOVE magazine used Beth Ditto on the cover of this magazine and using photoshop increased her size to make her look larger as she was not large enough for the look the editor was going for. 

Ideas 

ALL WALKS: Beyond the Catwalk is a fashion activism in pursuit of emotional considerate design and achievable body ideals, founded by Debra Bourne, Erin O Connor and Caryn Franklin in 2010. This is helping to promote fashion away from the typical stick thin culture and channels diversity in fashion through the way we dress and look. 

Race and Class

Donyale Luna, Naomi Sims, Iman and Naomi Campbell are all well known black models. Black women on the cover is rare and this is why their names become so big and iconic where as your typical blonde white girl is going to disappear amongst all the other blonde white girls. 

American Vogue refuse to use Christy Turlington as she is Latino and Latinos are seen as the second class. This shows the prestigiousness of Vogue and how much its appearance means to it. 

  

The Global Market Place:

Designers need good editorial coverage and write-ups, this can promote them to go global. An example of an emerging fashion location is Sao Paulo, is is not Brazil's Capital but in terms of Fashion it now is, holding Brazil's Fashion Week.