jewellery

I really enjoyed looking at the different type of jewellery was available, while looking on different trend websites at jewellery and on pinterest, I noticed two main trends which really stood out to me, they were pastel colours, using light pinks and light blue type colours, which gave a relaxing feel to the jewellery. The other trend I noticed was with watches, whenever I saw a picture it had matching bangles/bracelets next to it, the pictures included a lot of celebrities which wore there watches like this. Before researching jewellery online, I'd never seen the watch with matching coloured bangle look before, I did really like it,  thought it looked really nice, as I had never thought of wearing any other jewellery with my watch before, I think this could become a good look, and become very fashionable.

Here are two of the images that I found on pinterest, which included the watch and bracelet look, these were two of my favourite images that I found.

 These are two of my favourite images from pinterest which I found of the pastel colour jewellery trend, I found so much jewellery which included these light kind of colours, these are very summery colours, so I can see this trend becoming very popular in the spring/summer of 2013.

Bling research

When I've been walking down the high street lately, Ive been noticing a lot of diamonds/bling type items, anything recently has been customised with diamonds or crystals, for example converse, nike blazers, UGG boots, phone cases, nails, jewellery, bags, shirts and other types of clothing. It has become the fashion to customise fashion items with crystals, many people are starting to follow this trend. I looked around while I was out shopping, and also looked on pinterest where I found many different items which had been customised, I really liked the items that had been decorated with crystals. While looking on pinterest I noticed when I was researching crystals, that skulls kept appearing a lot, I know skulls were a big fashion phrase last year, so maybe they are going to come back into fashion this year too? 

Last year it was mainly skull scarfs that was fashionable, but after looking into this trend, I've realised that there are now lots of different items with skulls on, like bags, jewellery, shoes etc. 

I also chose my two favourite images that had been customised or made with crystals/diamonds, when looking at converses, I noticed that the most expensive converse had been customised, using swarkorski crystals, and also adding ribbon instead of the original laces. 

Egypt research

In the week we had of I went to Egypt, out there I really enjoyed looking at how different the people out there dressed,the majority of the ladies looked the same and obviously followed the same trends, the majority of women out their had long dark wavey hair with dark eyes, and wore long black clothing which covered everything and some had things that covered their whole faces and some just had a head scarf on. I found the trends in Egypt totally different to our trends, in England I think that their are many different kind of trends which people with different kind of personalities follow however on holiday I felt like it was just one big cultural trend, partly due to their religion. When I looked around the shops out their they were all mostly the same and sold the exact same things, so people didn't get much of an option of what they could buy.

This photo, I took of the Egyptian dancers at my hotel I stayed in. I found their outfits quite fascinating as it was totally different to what English dancers would wear.After spending a week looking at how different the Egyptians dress, I have come to the conclusion that they definitely like to cover themselves  up so not much, if any skin should be showing, they do this to show respect to their religion or their husbands, and this is completely different to England as English women do not dress according to their husbands wants. 

Heres an image, of a group of Egyptian women, all wearing very similar clothing, this is down to the fact they in Egypt they don't have much of a choice of different style clothing. I met someone in my hotel that had their on ladies fashion shop in Cairo, so on one of my days, I went to his shop so I could look at the different options women out there actually have. His shop was one of many down a strip of basically the exact same clothes at reasonably cheap prices, most tops that the women could wear worked out to be about 10 english pounds, although the majority of the shops were all the same at cheap prices, they did have a wide colour range in most of them. Also I went to Soho Square in Egypt  and here I found a lot of actually designer shops, they sold more luxury clothing, it was still similar styles however it was just better quality and decorated better, with beads/sequins etc, at higher prices.

I really enjoyed looking at the different styles, and how different everything was to England, at Nama Bay which was a strip of shops, I found really scary as outside the strip there was security men with guns which would be very unexpected in England so I found this very uncomfortable. Also as it is quite a poor country, as you walked down the strip there was constantly people coming out of their shops begging you to come in and trying to sell you products at a very cheap price, most of the shops sold the same kind of things, so the shops have a lot of competition and find it very hard to get people to come into their shop, because personally if someone comes outside and begs me into their shop I choose not to go, however if they just left me alone I would probably browse and have a look. The way they run the shops is completely different to England, you would never find people actually outside their shops persuading you to enter, you may only get that at a market place.  

Street style research

In todays lesson we spoke about street style research, where we could go round different areas and photograph the public in any outfits that we really liked or that caught our attention. This task would be very useful for our project, as it will help me understand the current fashion in other areas in London, and I would like to do a questionnaire so I can find out information about the trends the public are wearing, I want to find out how much money an average person spends on an outfit and how long it takes them to get ready etc, so I will ask all this questions on my questionnaire I will make and then take with me. We are going to go to 4/5 different areas in London which is known for fashion. I have made a plan for the day, and I have uploaded the plan below.

This is the handout we got in the lesson, which told me some information and a definition of 'street style research' and it tells me the things I need to take. I found this sheet very helpful to me, because before this lesson I didn't even know what 'street style' actually was.

'Street Style

Many forecasters use street style to inform their opinions of trends.  The key to carrying out street style observations comes through 3 processes:

Observations

Intuition

Interrogation

First chose an appropriate place to carry out the street watching.  Look at the streets façade (the retail business & leisure space it contains) look at the people walking by (their style & ethnicity) and define the streets purpose (for recreational use, retail, leisure, business).  If a street is located in a popular “Innovator zone” then note the technology people are using.

Always take a notebook to record your findings, intuitions about the scene & people & record any questions & answers when approaching public.  Take a camera to capture imagery of both the street scene and the people.

Be prepared with a list of questions you may ask the public.  Do not ask too many questions but be direct with relevant questions.

Ask to take their photo and advise them how you will use image – i.e in your own private work, on a blog, pinterest etc

Look at how to set out your findings.  Is this written up in the style of WGSN street style report, or a magazine article etc.'

In this lesson we also go a few handouts about Trends and Trend Forecasting, which made it really clear to me in what these words actually meant. There was also a handout called 'Diffusion of innovation' which I had never heard of before, I found this information very useful to me, as it really broke down the different stages of Trends, and how they come about.

'Definition of a Trend Forecaster

Trend forecasters are lifestyle detectives: men and women who spend their time detecting patterns or shifts in attitudes, mindsets, or lifestyle options, that run against current thinking or how people normally behave, live, dress, communicate, and trade.

Definition of a Trend

A trend can be emotional, intellectual, and even spiritual.  A trend can be defined as a direction which something tends to move and which has consequential impact on the culture, society, or business sector through which it moves.

The words “style” or “movement” are sometimes used to describe the changes taking place over a period of time.   Style is a distinctive manner, aesthetic, method, or way of expressing something “new”, while a trend is the “direction” in which something new or different moves.  So a style is about difference, while a trend is about difference and the direction along which that difference travels.

                                                 

 Martin Raymond – The Trend Forecasters Handbook'

'Diffusion of Innovation

The “Innovators are the individuals who are responsible for the development of an innovation or the introduction of a new idea.  The Innovators may not have created the original idea but they are the people who articulate it in a way that makes sense to other members of their tribe or group.

The” Early Adapters” are connected to the Innovators, either close friends or colleagues and are happy to be exposed to new ideas as they trust and respect the Innovators.  The early Adapters usually have a high degree of interconnections or involvement with other groups and are essential for spreading the trends.  Forecasters use the term “critical mass” to describe the point at which a trend becomes infectious few people can resist it.  This is also known as the “tipping point”, or the point at which a trend tips over from being a minority concern to a majority one that is highly visible and influential.

The “Early Majority” respects the Early Adapters and therefore take on the trends.  These are usually highly sociable people, usually active on-line.  Making up a large percentage of the public they are followers but will follow opinions of those they trust.  These people will stay with a trend for quite some time which will filter through to the “Late Majority”.

The” Late Majority” are conservative by nature and require high levels of reassurance and explanation about how a new idea will work and how they can benefit from it before they buy into it.  They are a large percentage of the population.  Quite often the trend would have been adopted by this crowd in a watered down format.  This crowd are easier to target and their tastes easier to define therefore many companies concentrate their efforts servicing this group because it is easier to imitate than it is to innovate

“Laggards” are the slowest to adopt new ideas.  They are usually conservative and traditionalists, and would need a lot of reassurance to try something new.  When a trend has been adopted by the Laggards trend forecasters refer to it as being “flat-lined”, the end of a trend being useful to a forecaster.

 Diffusion of Innovations – Everett M. Rogers”

                                                     

After reading these two sheets as a class, we then picked a product and then discussed the different stages of the 'diffusion of innovation' we wrote on the board and took turns in coming up with something to say about the stages the products trend goes through. I took a picture of the information we gathered and uploaded it.

Bodycon Dresses

I looked on WGSN at womenswear trends, and I found a trend that I really liked, it was body con typed clothing, which is really fitted. I found the below information on the WGSN website, http://www.wgsn.com/content/report/Product_Updates/Womenswear/Commercial_updates/2012/August/commercial_update_contour_seams.html

WGSN ANALYSIS

• Silhouette: Remains slim, with sleeves for the most commercial interpretation
  
• Details: Use print for contour seaming, leather highlights or sheer inserts for the more directional customer
• Colour: Use dark bases with lighter colours and prints for contouring to achieve maximum optical illusion
  
• Key influences: Stella McCartney, Hervé Léger, Alexander McQueen

 I found these two images on the WGSN website, for 'pre summer 2013' I did like this images, as this type clothing has already been very popular as the shaping of the dress emphasis your body shape, and shows of hips and bums, so it has been very popular with the public in late 2012 too. These images are making it clear that this shape will stay in fashion until at least summer 2013, however in these pictures on WGSN the dresses have detail on them, and the main dresses which are similar to this style at the moment are mainly plain.









It looks like that the same style dress is going to be back in fashion this summer, however this time round the dresses will have more detail and have patterns on them,  probably to make them look more attractive and draw attention to them. I do really like the idea of adding details to a style which has already been very popular however personally I wouldn't wear a patterned dress with this shape as I don't have the confidence to wear something that draws this much attention to you.











I looked on the Topshop website so I could see how up to date they was with the current fashion, and they already had this style dresses on their website, and they also had a couple of this style dresses which were patterned, so Topshop is a very up to date shop, which keeps up with the current trends. This is the link to the Topshop website which takes you to the page with all this style dresses on. http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogNavigationSearchResultCmd?langId=-1&storeId=12556&catalogId=33057&beginIndex=1&viewAllFlag=false&pageSize=20&searchTermScope=3&searchTermOperator=LIKE&searchType=ALL&sort_field=Relevance&searchTerm=bodycon&x=0&y=0#langId=-1&storeId=12556&catalogId=33057&beginIndex=1&viewAllFlag=false&pageSize=200&searchTermScope=3&searchTermOperator=LIKE&searchType=ALL&sort_field=Relevance&searchTerm=bodycon&x=0&y=0

Identifying new trends

In todays lesson, we looked at different ways of identifying new trends, we came up with lots of different ways in a group discussion and wrote all out ideas on the board, we looked into it very briefly, so I plan to explore different ways of identifying new trends in more dept, so I have a clear understanding with the new trends, to make sure I find out all the relevant information I need to. to complete this project.

Alex also gave us a list of useful websites that we could use to look at trends, the websites were:
http://www.trendhunter.com/cool-hunting/category/Style-and-Fashion-Trends
http://www.trendstop.com
http://www.style.com
http://www.newdesigners.com/page.cfm/ID=1Artsthread
http://www.fashionmonitor.com
http://www.drapersonline.com
http://www.fashioninformation.com/index2.htm


I have not looked at all these websites yet, but I have been on the top two and I found them very useful and easy to use. I will go on all of them over the next week, so I can highlight the ones I find the best and the most useful to me.

Over the past week I have been looking at current trends, I have looked at colour trends for S/S 2013 and S/S 2014 and looked at what sort of materials or patterns will be in fashion, I have found all this researching very interesting and look forward to researching more for this project.

Floral report

Today I looked on http://www.trendhunter.com for the first time, to look at any trends, the main particular trend that stood out was the 'floral opulence apparel' which was based on trends for summer/spring 2013. I looked through the whole shoot and picked out the pictures that I liked, I then put these on my pinterest in a new board. To find more images of floral trends, I looked on pinterest, and 'repined' any pictures to do with florals that I really liked, I also went on WGSN and looked at summer trends, and a catwalk based on florals for Oasis came up, so I found a few images on there which I liked so then saved, and added them to my board on pinterest.

I found these images really interesting, and some of the clothes I found especially this jacket on the right, started to become fashionable at the end of summer 2012, so does this mean the same clothes are going to be fashionable for summer 2013 aswell? Personally after looking on a number of different trend websites, I think florals' will be a big hit this summer, as people like to wear standing out type clothing which is going to get them noticed,  and this type of clothing is just the right thing. I wouldn't wear any of these clothes that I have uploaded however I do think they could look really nice on the right type of people. 

After I looked at these clothes, I went on http://www.wgsn.com/content/section/home.html  to look at colour palettes for summer 2013 to see if they matched with the usual colours that would be used for florals, and the colours that have been used for the shoot I found. The colour palettes I found were for 'S/S 13:colour direction' and I found a couple of colour palettes that really matched the floral look for this summer. 

This image was found from stylesight.com, I thought this colour collage was suitable for the colours which are used for summer/floral clothing for this year.











The majority of colours are quite bright, floral patterns are usually thought to be calm colours and relaxing but by looking at the trends it looks like this season it will be floral but the colours will change to bright colours which stand out more and are more 'in your face' type of colours. 

First time on WGSN

Since our last lesson, I have been looking at current trends on WGSN, I hadn't used WGSN before, so this was my first time at using it properly, at first I found it really confusing to navigate around the website as there was so many different links and when I clicked onto a page I could never seem to find it again, but after a few different attempts I started to get the hang of using it, and I am becoming quite confident at using it and finding out the appropriate information I need to help me with this project.
While I was on WGSN looking at colour trends, and catwalk trends, I noticed a lot of metallic colours appearing, so I decided to make a board on pinterest to gather all my ideas and images that I found into one place, I found pinterest very useful and it was really simple to use, I think it will really help me gather information together for this task.

Here are some of the images of metallics that I found on WGSN, that I found interesting and nice to look at. All these images caught my eye while I was scrolling through the website, I found them all interesting to look at. and enjoyed looking at how metallics are used in clothes and objects.