All My Own Stunts

My name is Amy. 20 years old. From the East Riding Of Yorkshire. This is a blog for my Fashion Communication & Promotion course @NTU. Currently in Year 2.

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"The Adventures Of Mr Paintbrush - Do It In Denim". Lord Whitney Stop Motion project for my course. We worked in groups over the course of 2 days to make props which we then filmed and edited into a stop motion movie.

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PERSONAL INSPIRATION.

    When Lord Whitney came to run their workshop they gave us a lecture on what inspires them to create their work. This inspired me to make my own personal inspiration board. These are the things that inspire me in everyday life and during creative processes.

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My moving manifesto for part of my self-promotion project. We were asked to research a part of ourselves and then document it in a sequence of images; I chose to document the different records I listened to in a week.

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OUR CONCEPT

After discussing a lot of potential ideas our group decided to focus on the subject of transgender as a concept. Here are some of our sketches of what we had in mind.

  We agreed that we wanted to present images that would make the viewer feel somewhat uncomfortable.

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WHAT IS BEAUTY?

Our new project is WHAT IS BEAUTY? With the end result being a photoshoot on our interpretation of this. Since researching Diversity now, myself and my group thought a photoshoot celebrating a diverse form of beauty would be a good idea. We discussed African tribe culture, transgender and different ethnicities as potential concepts.

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MALE GROOMING APP INSPIRATION BOARD

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WHAT IS BEAUTY: STREETSTYLE

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ALL WALKS: BEYOND THE CATWALK

We watched a lecture by Caryn Franklin on  All Walks: Beyond The Catwalk. We were asked to watch this lecture to help us with the What Is Beauty brief.

All Walks is about promoting diversity in the fashion and beauty industry and was founded in 2009 by Debra Bourne, Erin 'O' Connor and Caryn Franklin.

Quotes from the lecture....

  "Style is about being individual"

                                            "seeing diversity & individuality in our          media is good for self esteem"

               "men have body image anxieties too"

                                 "fashion is boring when everyone looks the same"

  "consumers are diverse and want to feel good"

  Things I took from this lecture...

  What models a brand chooses to use on a catwalk connotes what they want to say.

Perhaps fashion promotes conformity

Rick Owens has addressed fashion conformity on the catwalk by using diverse models in his shows.

Perhaps it is more interesting and inspiring for a brand to diversify in their campaigns and catwalk shows.

The power of the brand has increased due to new technology and digital platforms which can reach a mass market instantly. Were as in the past they had to wait for their catwalk shows and campaigns to be featured in magazines months later.

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Waste Studio Lecture (31.10.14)

https://twitter.com/WasteStudio

http://www.wastestudio.com/

  This was a lecture about Nottingham based creative agency Waste. Waste frequently work with fashion brands, and have in the past worked with the likes of Tommy Hilfiger and Tesco.

  We were shown examples of the graphic design work Waste have done. Below are some photographs I took of the lookbooks, posters and leaflets.

REALM&EMPIRE Lookbook

R&E Lookbook

R&E Lookbook

WHO Shoes (Chinese brand) Leaflet

WHO Shoes

Universal Works

Universal Works

I really liked the Universal Works booklet we were shown because of the use of shapes over the images as it gives an unusual element to the photographs.

I found this lecture to be quite inspiring in terms of the type of material I'd like to produce in the future. The seminar we had afterwards was helpful as I was given personal feedback on the self promotion brief which provided me with a lot more insight on what I need to create.

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Rock 'n' Roll take on consumerism.

Curtsey of Mr Gallagher.

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INNOVATIVE RESEARCH METHODS (Lecture)

Understanding different research methods is a part of this module.

  GENERAL RESEARCH - When you research what is already known

- Exhibitions

- Films

- Radio

- Magazines

- Journals

- Documentaries

- Books

- Websites

  SPECIFIC RESEARCH - Research which focuses on a specific topic.

- Consumer

- Retail environment

- Pricing

- Promotion

  RESEARCH CYCLE

  "The better you understand your customers the more likely you are to make good decisions and avoid bad ones".

  TRADITIONAL PARADIGM

TRADITIONAL RESEARCH METHOD

"Few designers today have the luxury of creating their own vision with no input from others. If they desire to attract and delight their customers or audiences for their work, they need to understand for people for whom they design" - Christopher Ireland, Design research methods and perspectives.

SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH TRADITION?

" A fundamental tenant of market research is that when you ask the consumer a question they will tell you the truth" - Phillip Graves, consumerology.

  TRADITIONAL PARADIGM

THE FCP PARADIGM

WHAT IS THE ALTERNATIVE (THE FCP WAY) ?

  Context

Only ask consumers factual information

Observations / in the moment

Experiments

Happy recruitment

Visualise and display

From this lecture I have understand that different and alternative research methods are required to get a better and more tailored response from your consumers.

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Oh! You Pretty Things - TRIBES (BBC4)

This is a BBC4 3 part series exploring the story between British fashion and music. This particular episode focused on the 1960's and 70's. Beginning in the early sixties and starting with mod culture and how it became a harmonious relationship of clothes and music. The band The Small Faces were so engrossed in style that they got paid in clothes from the Lord John boutique. It was a fusion of style and sound.  Mod is the most iconic of British music looks; spanning from The Jam to current artists like Miles Kane. Mod style also influenced a generation of young British females and pop culture princesses like Twiggy and Cilla Black were their icons.

Cilla Black's London Palladium dress was designed by high street designer - Barbara Hulanicki (Biba). Biba tapped into the female side of the post-war baby boom generation and sold small, cute clothes for 'skinny girls' in mostly rich autumnal colours.

On the other side of the spectrum came Arthur Brown who took inspiration for his on stage outfits from African tribal masks and Native Indian headgear. This sparked the age of psychedelic, were clothes took on inspiration from Victorian baroque and was mixed with 'trippy' LSD inspired patterns. Nigel Weymouth owned the Granny Takes A Trip boutique in London which was home to clothes of dandy extravagance and youthful ideas.

The 1970's saw a rise in racism as black migration to Britain increased. In 1970, Wembley's reggae festival hosted acts that celebrated Jamaican culture and music and saw Desmond Dekker to take to the stage in a smart suit and 3/4 length trousers, designed for easy foot movement on stage; this sparked the rude boy look. The rude boy look inspired the white working class British to develop their own version - the Skinhead. Skinheads wore a uniform of rolled up skinny jeans, tight fitted tucked in checked shirts and brogues, loafers or doc martens. 

The cultural harmony between the black rude boys and the white skinheads allowed for the song 'Skinhead Moon Stomp' to become a dancefloor hit. Although not everyone agreed on the racial harmony. Rude boy and skinhead culture inspired the ska and two tone scene of the late seventies and early eighties.

1973 saw Status Quo ditch the politics for a good time and thought out fashion for a uniform of denim on denim looks.  They became poster boys for Levis and were regarded as having a down to earth style. A band who countered this laid back image was the band Roxy Music  who blended 1960's pop art with 1970's pop music to create a futuristic music blend. Roxy Music involved designer Anthony Price to create outfits for them to match their sound 'the roxy look'. He responded with sequins and bold fur jackets.

  The next episode focuses on the relationship between fashion designers and musical icons.

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Communication & Message

Introduction to first module of Year 2. Communication and Message. Over this module we were told that we would have a number of guest lecturers. John Lyle, Bob Hurlington, Lord Whitney, Nous Vous, Morgaine Gaye and Jonathon Armstrong. I am especially looking forward to the Lord Whitney art direction work shop (http://lordwhitney.co.uk/). This module includes: SELF PROMOTION & DATA VISUALISATION -Research & teamwork -Question forming & consumer profiling -Data visualisation BEHAVIHOUR CHANGE -Commentary & journalism -Styling & fashion image -Life drawing -Photoshoots -Image analyis -Retail theatre -Changing behaviour -Celebratory exhibition From attenting the module breifing I am looking forward to this first module as it appears it will allow for more creativity.