The Street Stylers so far....

Image analysis - Garage magazine

Balenciaga campaign - Garage Magazine

1. What are your initial thoughts towards the image?
-Modern, sharp
-Monochrome theme
-Shattered glass- anger/ harshness

2. What is the image?
-A double page spread Balenciaga campaign

3. Describe exactly what you see in the image?
-One main woman model
-Off scale
-Slanted mirror
-Mirrored image shown through shattered glass
-High fashion
-Modern styling
-Looks as though the camera lens is shattered yet it is just the mirror in shot
-Big oversized 'boyfriend' jumper paired with skin tight knee high leather boots- shows contrast between genders all in one look

4. What do these details portray?
-Having the whole image in a greyscale and monochrome theme but the name of the brand in a bold bright white in the centre of the advertisement page immediately grabs your attention and lets you know which brand the campaign is for.
-The shattered glass and reflective stiletto heel in the right centre of the image connect to one another and creates a story in the consumers mind as to how the glass was shattered.
-The use of the models slicked back hair and oversized jumper symbolises masculinity which is contradicted by the feminine knee high leather boots (gender contradiction).
-By repeating the boots 4 times in the shot all at different angles grabs the consumers attention and lets them know exactly what is being promoted in the campaign.
-The models demanding pose reinforces her as the main component and focus of the image.

#FCPreflection

Image analysis - Elle magazine

Working with both a magazine in which we read on a regular basis and the other being a magazine that we have never read before, we were asked to focus on image analysis and select an image from both magazine and pin point areas of the image in which we felt the designer had used to put across a particular message through the mise-en-scene and aura of what it was displaying.
I chose Elle magazine as the magazine that I read regularly and decided to analyse an image in which was advertising the CHANEL PREMIÈRE, CHAIN BRACELET (watch) in a steel and diamond setting.

1. What are your initial thoughts towards the image?

-Simple, old school glamour

-Love, happiness, care free attitude

-Use of off centred and centred images

-Textural range- blurred misty background

                         - high shine metallic car.

-Use of monochrome and greyscale theme

2. What is the image?

-A two page spread advertisement for a Chanel watch

3. Describe exactly what you see in the image?

-A man and woman both dressed in black

-Old fashioned car

-Pearl earrings

-1 white rose

-90 degree arm angle from woman

-Off centred image

-Grill panel at front- off centred

-Reflection on the car bonnet

-Romance

-Co-ordinating style between man and woman

4. What do these details portray?

-Both having the man and woman in co-ordinating black outfits and block square rimmed sunglasses adds a sense of mystery and blocked out hidden identity.

-Use of the old fashioned car with the woman wearing pearl earrings and a singular white rose symbolises the idea of an old school romance.

-The vertical stance of the woman's arm in which aligns with the grill pan in the corner of the image of the car, adds both dimension as well as acting as a grid within the image- it brings you to the focus point and centre of the image.

-Use of textural range- the blurred/ unfocused background against the high shine, metallic car juxtapose one another, making the two models the main focus of the image as they are a balance in-between these two opposing textures.

#FCPreflection

Yasmine Chanel

I was flicking through Instagram the other day when I stumbled across fashion blogger 'Yasmine Chanel'. I was immediately attracted to her effortlessly cool style and her average day to day style of blogging.

 

Her blog is full of fun and quirky images of fashion, styling, food, animals and places to which she comes in to contact with. I love the way that she highlights all of these areas rather than just focusing purely on fashion as I feel it makes for a much more relatable and interesting read.

 



 

 

I really like the way in which her photographs are compositioned as well, they have an almost arty feel to them which is given off by the different angles used and how certain elements are positioned within the shot. For example the photographs of her above against the graffiti wall, she is allowing the art to be the main focus of the image and allows herself to blend in to it with her almost matching baby pink coloured jacket against the fleshy pink face behind her. Its like she is allowing the background image to be the main focus point of the photograph which therefore makes herself part of the backdrop to enable it to stand out.

Colour Palette

I have created 6 examples of powerpoint presentations to which show off my colour palette story with different objects. I used repetition, mirroring and enlarging to show of the different ways in which you can show a colour story.

Overall I feel that this excersise gave me more insight into the production of a brand identity and helped me to see the different ways in which a colour palette can be used to create a brand story.

High end to High street comparison

For the second half of the seminar we then had to discover our own High end and High street comparative brands.

I decided to go with Alexander Wang (high end) and Zara (High street). Here are the points of similarities:
-Campaigns promote a story with a narrative through the use of multiple models in a similar style
-Similar use of composition, size and depth of field
-Off-duty model
-Leather
-Muted tones
-City sophistication with a modern edge
-Simple logos

Alexander Wang

Zara

Premise:

"Off-duty model, leather, muted tones, city sophistication with a modern edge".

#FCPreflection

High end to High street comparison

In today's seminar we were looking into the comparison between a High end and High street brand in which translate their style/campaigns in a similar way.

We were asked to choose between a set of High end and High street brands to which we wanted to compare further. I decided to look at Celine (high end) and Whistles (high street).

Here are the similarities that I found between them:
-Clean cut
-Boxy/ bold square shapes
-Sophisticated
-Sculptural clothing
-Sexy-sporty
-Cute-flirty
-Girl next door imagery
-Images in centre with a white/black border
-Compositional layout
-Minimal/monochrome/neutral style
-Uptown chic
-Unfussy
-Simple/loose fitting cuts
-Simple elegance
-Day to night style
-Feminine within beauty and hair styles, yet masculine clothing style
-Subdued colour palette
-New York/Chicago

Celine and Whistles

With this comparative research we then came up with a premise surrounding subdued femininity.

"Clean cut, uptown chic meets masculine sports-luxe with a subdued colour palette".

#FCPreflection

Colour Palette Strip

Following on from the colour palette post that can be seen in my previous below, we have been working towards the final finished mood board for our piece. This week we have been learning how to use the basics of Photoshop. On Tuesday we were asked to complete a colour palette strip for our particular chosen colour theme. The strip had to be dissected into 3 different sections;
1. Essence- defining and refining colours depending on theme.

2. Sequence- Order of colours and how you want them to run. Aswell as sequencing them in their tonal ranges; either being dark to light, or light to dark.

3. Priority- decide which are the most dominant colours and order them in a way that reflects this through portion and percentage of the chart.

I chose to use 5 colours within my colour palette strip- a pale skin tone pink, an off white cream, a light mushroom brown, a soft teal/ lilac grey and a pale pastel purple.

I arranged the colours to be in the dark to light tonal range. This is shown in a rough example below.

Although I feel that the colours in the strip reflect my mood board well, I think I need to work on toning down each colour to make it fit in better with my colour theme, and also perhaps rearrange the colours within the strip to see if I can make the tonal range flow better throughout. Therefore I am going to continue developing the colour strip shown and see how I can move it forward to a standard that I feel truly reflects my mood board.

Reflection of Soap task

After presenting our findings and mood boards to 2 other groups we made a chart in which we reflected on the positives and negatives of our mood boards as well as thinking about what we would do differently if we were to do the task again. Here are our thoughts:

Positives

• Covered a wide range of brands
• Covered lots of information surrounding brands
• Understood target customers
• Understood brand message
• Good range of images- taken from both in store and online
• Understood colour schemes and what they symbolise

Negatives

• Need to find a more even ratio of text to image
• Have mood board on bigger scale
• Look deeper into the more scientific areas of each brands
• Understand how the brands advertise/ attract audience in more depth
• Continue colour theme within mood boards- create a colour palette
• Find out where the brands are selling their products globally
• Make the brand messages clearer on actual mood boards
• Look more into unisex/ mens brands
• Focus more on the brand 'behind the scenes'- find out where the products where made/ developed etc.

Overall, although the negatives outweigh the positives, I feel that it is a good way to look back and see where you went wrong and how you can move forward and improve for the next time you do a similar task, as well as turning all of the negatives into positives.

#FCPreflection

Group mood board research - Soap

In the same groups as we were in for our street style task, in our seminar we were set a task to research and find out about a specific beauty product in which would be designated to us- we were given soap.

As a group we decided to create 4 mood boards which would be in the categories of children's soap, teenagers soap, adults soap and soap for the older generation. We also decided to have a low and a high end example for each of these categories.

We began our research online and looked up which brands sold soap and in which age category they settled in with best. We then took our research into town and browsed in shops such as Boots, Lush, Superdrug, John Lewis and Debenhams to see what was on offer in those selected stores, as well as getting a few images of the packaging that was provided and the way in which the products were displayed.

The next day we began our moodboards, Myself and one other girl in the group volunteered to make 2 research mood boards each to speed along the process. Here are the mood boards that we created;

Childrens soap:
We decided to use Johnson's Baby and Crazy for kids as our two examples. We found that whereas Johnson's was more aimed towards the parents due to its a well established and reliable brand, the Crazy for kids online range was aimed more specifically at the children themselves with its use of a bold, vibrant colour scheme, aswell as its online interaction elements in which allows the children to play games such as 'spot the difference', as well as meeting the cleverly alliterated characters who appeared on the soap bottles such as 'Milo the monkey' and 'Peri the peacock'.

Teenagers soap:
As a group we decided on using Simple and Soap & Glory as our two brands- Simple being the low end brand and Soap & Glory the more high end brand. We found that Simple used basic, 'simple' white, green and blue packaging to enforce the product as a unisex brand whereas Soap & Glory based itself predominantly as a women's brand with its memorable pink logo. However when researching online I found out that Soap & Glory also have men's gift sets available in which are blue and red- reinforcing stereotypical colours for males whereas the women's gift sets were pink and white- thus reinforcing the opposing gender stereotype through colours. The use of Soap & Glory's sexual innuendo's within the naming of their products such as 'sexy mother pucker' lip gloss, added a fun and playful edge to the brand as well as cleverly keeping up with their desired audience-this being teenagers.

Adults soap:
The two brands we chose to research for adults soap were Clinique for the high end and Lush for the lower end brand. With Clinique, we found that their colour schemes very much reflected the male and female products. For example the pastel green, cream and beige products for women reinforce the idea of their organic and fragrance free products, whereas the more vibrant pink and orange products reflect the idea of them being the fragranced and chemically enhanced products. This completely differentiating to that of the male Clinique range in which is entirely based upon metallic black and grey colours-symbolising the idea between a hard and typical 'mans man'. Yet with Lush we found that the design and layout both online and in store added a fun and exciting edge to the product, this mixed with the cool and quirky themed soaps that they offer, such as soap that resembles food, pink 'girly' soap for girls, dark 'chunky' soap for men, as well as soaps based for occasions e.g. the Christmas penguin soaps.

Soap for the older generation:
We decided upon using Estee Lauder as the high end product and Dove for the low end product for this category. We discovered that Estee Lauder was a more premium brand as the soaps were a little more pricey as well as having slightly more up market packaging in comparison to Dove which is simple and fairly reasonably priced. Estee Lauder is predominantly aimed towards a more female consumer with the exception of 2 or 3 mens products, whereas Dove caters to all with its unisex soaps and colour themes used such as blue bottled soap, to pink bottled soap with white bottled soap in between- reinforcing gender stereotypes but with a neutral medium to cater to all in between.

#FCPreflection

Colour palette

As one of the tasks for our course, we have been asked to research and create a mood board based on a colour theme of our choice. I have chosen to focus on the neutral, nude and pastel tones. I chose this theme as I really love the simplicity of neutral tones and how it is so easy to dress them both up and down depending on the occasion, as well as the tones being completely seasonal therefore being able to carry the colour through from summer to winter.

I have been collecting images on Pinterest surrounding my colour theme but I decided to not purely just focus on clothing alone but to intertwine other elements that the colour reaches into such as food, drink, home decoratives, animals and hair and beauty. It has been really interesting to see just how many areas involve neutral shading that goes by unnoticed such as the everyday cup of tea or coffee, or the eggs you eat for breakfast! Surrounding the text you can see a few of the images that I have selected!

Aswell as gathering images from the internet and Pinterest, I have also been using the old fashioned technique of flicking through magazines such as Elle and OK! and cutting out any shade of neutral that I stumble across whether it be an outfit, food/ drink, accessories or even just a background colour that linked to my colour theme!

#FCPreflection

Tuxedo two pieces

Seem to find myself completely obsessed with 2 piece suits at the moment. I am constantly flicking through the fashion sections in magazines and shopping online stumbling across these 2 piece attires and wondering if I'll ever find the guts to actually wear one!!

I loved this all white Saint Laurent suit in which Pixie Lott wore to her own album launch in which was hosted at the Langham Hotel in London. The smoky eyes and plum lips added an extra edge to the outfit and made it into more of a domineering look to ensure that the neutral tone of the suit didn't let her fade into the background. Yet the soft beachy waves and gold glitter court shoes added a feminine twist which I feel was needed.

In contrast to Pixie Lott's all white ensemble, reality TV star (Made In Chelsea)'s Millie Macintosh opted for a vibrant Zara red two piece for the Samsung Galaxy event. The use of the slip on leapord print heels added an extra pop to the outfit that made for a more exciting and memorable look. The use of soft curls and neutral makeup also helped not to make the outfit too OTT or 'tacky'.


Trying to match these looks using the highstreet can be difficult as it's as much about the overall styling rather than just the outfit itself. I was looking at Topshop online and stumbled across this chic grey two piece suit. I loved the kind of slouchy, oversized feel that it had. It appears to be one of those looks that you will be able to transform from a day to an evening outfit with just a few simple changes of key pieces. The shade of grey is also great with all skin tones and the oversized feel helps to suit all shapes and sizes.

Strength and Weaknesses Reflection

In today's seminar we had to reflect on our own strengths and weaknesses and what we wish to achieve by the end of the course.

Strengths:

• Knowledge of cultural fashion due to the 5 months I spent travelling around NZ, Australia and South East Asia in my gap year.
• Photographic skills due to my 4 years studying photography during both my AS and A levels. Aswell as the use of Photoshop.
• Keeping up to trends by continually checking online and in fashion magazines..(slight obsession).
• Blog work; following my Media AS and A level blog surrounding a film that we created and filmed in groups that we then had to continually track, analyse and evaluate throughout the whole process.
• Writing skills helped by studying A level English literature and language.
• GCSE Textiles-helped with the design and creating process within the industry.

Weaknesses:

• Learning and teaching myself how to use other forms of online media such as Pinterest and Dropbox other than Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
• My presentation skills.
• Starting to use other forms of inspiration such as Art Galleries and Museums rather than just garments themselves.
• Learning how the business side of the industry works rather than just relying on the more creative side.

My aim is to improve my presentation skills in order to be more comfortable and confident within myself when trying to put my point across and pitch my ideas to others. The strengths that I would like to focus on is my experience within the area cultural fashion as I feel it will be more personal to me as I have been lucky enough to experience it first hand and therefore will be able to expand further surrounding the global market.

#FCPreflection

Pre Arrival Activities

Before starting at NTU we were set a few pre arrival activities to do over summer in order to help give us a better idea of what the course would involve. We were asked to find examples surrounding the fashion communication and promotion touch points of the digital, print and retail areas of the industry.

I decided to focus on Fashion bloggers and how they worked online, as well as ASOS both online and  how they worked digitally, in print and their style of retailing in both these areas. I also focused on Moschino's Barbie and McDonalds inspired runway shows. I made 3 mood boards for each of the elements that I focused on, shown below:

Fashion Bloggers.

 I focused my fashion bloggers mood board on the 3 bloggers featured on my page already-Charlotte Martin, Sarah Ashcroft and Hannah Louise. Creating a mood board allowed me to look deeper into their actual blogs and backgrounds so that I had a wider knowledge of where they came from and what they have studied previously etc, rather than just purely focusing on their styling alone.


ASOS    The things that I found out about ASOS and how they worked online was the variety of different areas to their website that add a more personable effect, for example; they have a 'Personal Stylist' section in which you can search what type of style you like and an online stylist will help you to choose clothes that suit to that particular style that you have chosen as well as helping you decide how to put certain looks together.
 The Marketplace allows you to sell your own unwanted vintage clothing which I feel gives a more interactive approach which ultimately gives the buyer a more interactive position in the buying and selling of clothes. Aswell as this they also have a 'Live Feed' streaming constantly, which allows you to see what trends people are enjoying the most as well as generally clothing from the website that is most popular at that moment in time.

Moschino.

I first became interested in this particular collection by Moschino after seeing it on the runway. It intrigued me as I immediately fell in love with the way that they took something stereotypically seen as 'tacky' and 'childish' and made it into an entirely unique and really fun collection. The use of peroxide blonde wigs and 'doll like' makeup made the Barbie theme even more believable. I feel that if the collection was to be copied by high-street brands that it just wouldn't have the same effect as it did on the runway as I think the use of the clever props and monochrome catwalk contributed greatly to the fun, bubbly and bold collection and show that was put on for consumers and buyers.

Overall I feel that the pre arrival activities were really helpful in getting a better insight into all of the different areas surrounding fashion as well as being able to present the research in an innovative and unique way.

#FCPreflection

Fashion Bloggers

Charlotte Martin

http://www.iamcharlottemartin.com/

Safe to say I am well and truly obsessed with fashion blogger Charlotte Martin, a previous FCP graduate from Nottingham Trent University. With her self proclaimed obsession with bleached hair and monochrome clothing, she is a girl after my own heart. I started following her blog a year or so ago and immediately found myself obsessed with her effortlessly cool, quirky highstreet style with a hint of sophistication.

Sarah Ashcroft "That Pommie Girl"

http://www.thatpommiegirl.com/

I love how Sarah Ashcroft's style is stereotypically 'girly' yet with an alternative edge. Her style looks so effortless but seems so well put together and thought out at the same time, her love for pink, daring bralets and anything fluffy is what makes her one of my favourite bloggers. Her styling is so interchanging and I think it's so fascinating how she manages to change an outfit from a casual day time look to an entirely juxtaposing night time look with just a simple change of one garment such as shoes or a stand out bag.

Hannah Louise
 http://www.hannahlouisef.com/search/label/Lookbook

I love the way that Hannah Louise is so unique with her pale skin and red hair mixed with her out there gothic chic style which is so different to many other fashion bloggers out there. With her mix of street style photograph's and own styling photograph's, she seemed to make me want to release my inner fashion photographer from back in the day when I did A level photography! Hannah first became noticed when journalists discovered her during her first few months as a blogger as she helped people to get designer looking outfits for under £50. Her look is so interesting as it varies from extreme sophistication in the evening to day time casual in a snap of the fingers, she appears to always be perfectly put together from head to toe- not just in what she is wearing but her hair and makeup also, as well as always looking runway ready even in her more casual outfits.

Starting at NTU

Induction Week:
I think it's safe to say that I was a little apprehensive about starting the course as you walk in on the first day and see a sea of fashion forward people dressed up to the nines and sporting their own unique style.I couldn't help feeling a little lost about the whole concept of entering myself back into education after taking a year out and travelling around New Zealand, Australia and South East Asia for 5 months which pretty much filled my brain with cultural overload and found myself forgetting about any sort of routine that was there beforehand!

For the first tutorial we all had to stand up and say our name, where we were from, what we had been doing prior to starting at NTU as well as an interesting fact about ourselves, safe to say panic just took over and I found myself randomly blurting out that I rode an elephant as my interesting fact, not entirely sure that counts but oh well!

Following this we spent the rest of induction week just getting to know our tutors and eachother a little better as well as introducing ourselves to Nottingham by completing a 'Treasure hunt' around town to help us get more comfortable with our new surroundings in groups, as well as taking part in a Street Style task, in which we scouted people on the streets whom we thought had interesting style and photographed them before uploading the photos onto a joint Pinterest account for others to see. One girl I found had the most amazing Yves Saint Laurent electric blue clutch bag which I instantly fell in love with and now cannot stop thinking about!




So far we have watched two documentaries; one on street style photographer Bill Cunningham and the other on Fashion editor Carine Roitfield (Mademoiselle C). It was really interesting to see two different sides into the fashion industry from two highly influential people while they're just going about their everyday lives.






Week 1:
This week we have taken part in tasks in which are helping us to discover which role we aim to achieve by the end of the 3 year course at this point in time. So each of use split ourselves into either PR, Marketing, Buying, Management or Styling. Personally, I chose the Styling element as the thought of being able to give guidance to people with a certain style on what clothing suits them and how to wear it, as well as possible involvement on photoshoots etc really interests me as I feel it's more of a personable role which requires more involvement rather than being behind the scenes most of the time. It was interesting to share thoughts and ideas surrounding Styling with other people who are interested in the role also, as well as getting to know new people whom you haven't spoken to before.

So overall, so far so good!!

#FCPreflection

About Me

So here's a bit about me! I'm 19 years old and live in Hertfordshire, England. I am a current student at Nottingham Trent University studying Fashion communication & promotion. My blog will be a compilation of style, inspiration and thoughts as well as the odd bit of insight into my course being thrown around now and then!