Weekly Round Up: Two

On Tuesday I attended a session on trend where we split into groups and began to piece together our ideas for trend and our forecasts. Tiffany and Linda sat with us and talked us through our briefs which we were all a little confused about and gave us a starting point in which to start identifying our trend. I looked at some trend journals from the trend hub and browsed through a Pantone colour wheel chart. I also looked at the past work of some students who created a trend handbook for MAC to get ideas on layout which have inspired me. Nina Ahmad also took us for our last session and we did a lot of interesting activities on how to write features. These activities included brainstorming our own angles of existing features in a series of different newspapers and magazines, and watching different video clips about writing in the fashion industry. 

When browsing our given newspaper, I saw an advert for the new Calvin Klein by Appointment collection starring Millie Bobby Brown which made me question her suitability for the role - knowing that Calvin Klein has a history of featuring young models like Brooke Shields and Kate Moss but finding it somewhat uncomfortable that Millie Bobby Brown is only twelve, especially when the brand is so infamously sexy and provocative. I've also found it inspiring to have Nina here for the past couple of weeks, as she has so much experience and expertise in an area which I would love to pursue and be half as successful in. She and Emma asked us to have our feature articles written in the next couple of weeks, so I'll be looking for inspiration everywhere during this time on which to form the basis of my work. 

On Wednesday we watched lots of fashion films and videos to get an idea of what's expected of us during our lookbook project. 3 members of my 5 member group were unfortunately absent, but myself and the remaining group member discussed our ideas and started to narrow down our photographer and set options as well as solidifying our brand theme. Our chosen jacket evokes a feeling of country/equestrian vibes, so we're exploring this and building towards an outdoors shoot.

On Thursday we began the day with a briefing on our Strategic Fashion Communications module which involves creating a brand handbook for our Bonmarché sub-brand, linked to the lookbook project. We went over Stephen's presentation and then looked at handbook examples to gauge exactly what kind of content we need to include and what makes a handbook particularly good. Then we were assigned a the brand Versace to discuss its values and symbolic identity/personality, in order to prompt us to consider the personality we need to communicate of our Bonmarché sub-brand. I also arranged a group meeting so that we can discuss our ideas in preparation for meeting photographers next Tuesday and discussing our ideas in next Thursday's seminar discussion.