9. Fashion Films

Chanel "Remember now" by Karl Lagerfeld

YSL "Ain't nothin' like the real thing" by Bruce Weber

Prada "First spring" by Yang Fudong

Fashion and art are always well bond together throughout whole fashion history. Especially, films are always good inspiration sources for many designers but now many brands are making their own fashion films to inspire people. It is not a device for selling their products more and sometimes it doesnt even seem like there's any connection between the brand and the story of film. However, the fashion film is a great way to sell brand image and culture more than selling individual pieces.

YSL "Ain't nothin' like the real thing"



Prada "First spring"



and this is one of my friends fashion film "Beyond the curve"


Beyond the Curve from Simon Burrill on Vimeo.

8. Look book + Social media?!

Pics all from Lookbook.nu

Since the soical media has become one of the most significant influence on fashion people, many brands are trying to control social media to help their brand advertisement and image.
American Apparel is one of the first brand has collaboration with lookbook.nu(the biggest self uploading fashion website) to release their 64pgs "look"book in their stores. The LOOKBOOK.nu lookbook by American Apparel is a 64-page collection of 132 inspirational American Apparel looks created by 77 of Lookbook.nu's own members. Lookbook.nu members have submitted photos featuring their favorite AA pieces and now there are about 7,000 looks of people wearing AA pieces.


The way of AA's strategy to use their fans photo to make lookbooks instead of using models to feature their pieces gives us a good example of interacting with customers and also how to strategize social media.


Here's video showing how the lookbook looks like:

7. Trunk Shows



Picture from barneyscoop.com



Just having a typical one brand trunk show is not enought for Barney's Co-op.

In April 21, Barney's Co-op held simultaneous ten trunk show called "Trunk A Palooza" including hot contemporary labels like Alexander Wang, A.L.C, Richard Chai-LOVE, Helmut Lang, Vena Cava, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Rag& Bone, Shpley & Halmos, VPL, and Wayne. This trunk show kicked the old typical trunk show and brought more party-like event to give customers a chance to see limited edition items, preview and order fall 2010 merchandise and even meet some designers.

According to the article posted on WWD, Julie Gulhart, Barneys senior vice president and fashion director said, “The Co-op customer runs a little faster and dances to a different beat, so we are reinventing the trunk show concept for them,” “They are very fashion-hungry customers. The connection between the designer, the clothes and the customer — that’s a very big thing. The younger customer wants to know more about where clothes come from and who designed them.”

6. Creative fashion show

Have you ever seen an underwater fashion show?
In Aug 22, 2010, the world's first underwater Korean traditional costume fashion show was held in Seoul, Korea. This event was performed by synchronized swimmers and designed by Korean traditional costume designer Sulnyo Park. It was held publically out front of Lotte department store. Korean traditional costume called Hanbok is known for its simplicity and the beauty of contour. The models' performence underwater and the wave of water made the costumes softly flutter, it added the beauty of lines the costume has.

Here's the video of the show.

5. Color Trend

I recently went to Promostyl forecasting lecture held in FIT. For an hour, what I heard about color trend over and over again was Orange & Blue color family! It's not only from Promostyle lecture but also from the whole S/S 2011 runway shows. Catwalk was a flood of orange and blue colors for the next spring.
As I mentioned before Giorgio Armani did his whole collection with monochromatic dark blue color, and a lot of brands such as Prada, Celine, YSL, and Gucci showed a gorgeous orange color on runways. Also, I noticed many brands used both orange and blue color in the same garments or styling. A funny thing is that even this blogger website is decorated by blue with orange symbol! What a surprise!

<Orange>


From left; Celine, Balenciaga, YSL S/S 2011




From left; Prada, Gucci S/S 2011

 <Blue>



From left; Balenciaga, Peter Pilotto, Fendi, Miu Miu S/S 2011



 <Orange and blue together>




From left; Celine, Peter Pilotto S/S 2011



Fendi S/S 2011

Prada S/S 2011

4. Navy for fall 2011!

Navy tone is one of the key color for next fall season according to forecasting companies such as Doneger, WGSN, and Fashion snoops. Blue is definitely dominant color for SS2011 season since we can see the waves of blue colors on runways. For instance, Giorgio Armani SS2011 runway show was all about beautiful elegance monochromatic blue-navy color. According to WGSN, the colors in his show was explained as "A palette of moody blues ranging from lustrous prussian blue to rich inky navy and shadowy midnight blue-black in monotone matt/shine mixes."

Giorgio Armani SS2011

Giorgio Armani SS2011

And it is almost impossible to find any runway shows that did not use blue-navy color for the next spring season. The blue color is expressed as bright sky blue, royal blue, electric blue, and denim blue for the next spring season.

Versace SS2011

Stella McCartney SS2011

Blue-navy color will still be the key color for fall 2011, but it will appear more as navy, dark indigo blue, and blue-black which can replace boring black color for the next fall season. According to fashion forecasting company, Fashion Snoops, explained this color as "after many seasons of small showings, this season Inky blue really made a statement as a key base color in deep almost black shades, grayed expressions."

3. Animal prints from NY street

One of the many things I love about the city is that I never get bored by just looking at what people are wearing on the streets. Nothing can remind me of the fact that I live in NYC, the center of the world when I see someone who dresses gorgeous walking in a coffee shop or who is wearing neatly well fitted suit trying to catch a cab on the streets.

Each individual's beautiful and unique style is what makes this city more fascinating.

Animal prints especially, Leopard print is almost like steady classic item nowdays. A friend of mine scolded me once because I wanted to buy a pair of Leopard printed glasses in Germany couple years ago. He was like, "Don't even attempt to try them on. It's so out of fashion!!" Oh well, I think Leopard print is never out of fashion. It is classic now.

In fact, animal print was a symbol of power or wealth throughout history, for example, kings and high class people used animal prints rug and some other home products to show their power. We no longer use animal prints as the symbol of wealth, in fact, there are many widespread inexpensive animal prints items everywhere and I see a lot of people on the streets are wearing them.

More than one animal print item can be quite frightening but it can be a really fun point item when you feel like your outfit today is so boring.

(All the pictures above are taken from streetpeeper.com)

Leopard scarf is probably the most widespread animal print item. It goes well with pretty much any kind of outfit especially, you can never go wrong with leopard scarf with a black leather jacket in fall! 
(Pictures are from websurfing)