The Focus on Fashion
For many consumers, the model's short stroll is the first image that springs to mind at the mention of the word 'fashion'. The runway present - with its mixture of creativity, glamour and artifice - is one particular within the components that drive us, once more and once more, to order garments we do not actually will need. It is troublesome to believe of an business that does not have recourse to advertising and marketing in one kind or an additional, but only fashion has such an overbearing reliance on it. When apparel go away the factories where they're created, they're merely 'garments' or 'apparel'. Only when the marketers get maintain of them do they magically become 'fashion'.

But it's not only the outfit that is on offer. Over the past decade or so, fashion has stolen into each corner on the urban landscape. Our mobile phones, our vehicles, our kitchens, our option of marketing along with the places exactly where we meet our pals - these, too, have grow to be topic to your vagaries of fashion. It is not sufficient to wear the outfits; you have to don the lifestyle, too. Fashion brands have inspired this development by including their leaders to a wide range of objects, fulfilling every imaginable perform, and selling them in stores that resemble theme parks.

People will go to extreme lengths to consume fashion. Not so lengthy ago, there was a clutch of content articles about kids becoming mugged - even killed - for their sports activities footwear. While I used to be researching this ebook, an uncharacteristically sensationalist article inside French newspaper Le Figaro advised that teenage girls were selling their bodies to boost adequate cash to fulfill their habit to fashion. Over a less dramatic scale, couple of teenagers are unaware for the value of this correct brand, while in the best colour, worn while in the right way. And, as we're all youngsters nowadays, adults are turning out to be just as obsessive. The caprices of fashion are each exasperating and alluring. Its alchemy is mysterious. Most people today, even when they refuse to become seduced by it, are intrigued by fashion. If I hadn't written this guide, I'd certainly wish to learn it.

And who am I, anyway - your host for this tour behind the scenes of fashion? A year ago, I could make no claims to becoming an professional. I was just your normal trade hack, writing about complex but faintly geeky subjects this kind of as advertising and marketing as well as the press. Nor was I a fashion victim. Certain, I used to cruise second-hand emporia for those unique Levi's together with the red stitching around the inseam, but that was eons in the past, prior to 'retro' morphed into 'vintage'.

This was not an easy book to research. The fashion industry, as you would possibly expect, could be haughty and insular, and suspicious of outsiders. It was unlikely to open its arms to your journalist who desired to deconstruct its promotion methods. The luxurious brands, particularly, are built like chateaux - their stylish façades masking remarkable battlements. At very first I considered the community relations men and women working at makes such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton had been merely dismissive. I used to be incorrect - they ended up becoming tactical. Their inaccessibility is part and parcel of their image. The sportswear manufacturers, perhaps far more surprisingly, have been equally tough to penetrate. All these makes are continuously on the defensive, as they existing big and irresistible targets which the advertising adore to pepper with destructive coverage.

The book owes a lot to the real fashion experts - the consultants and academics who're constantly monitoring the marketplace. I was aided by the fact that I reside in Paris, which still sees itself as the capital of fashion. The French regard fashion in significantly the same way since the British see soccer - it's a national obsession. There is an unapologetically Francophile thread running due to these pages, and I would argue that my location gave me access to books and content articles that my Anglo-Saxon readers would possibly not have seen.

One thing is certain: fashion, even in the top finish of this scale, is increasingly about massive small business. Designers are admirably creative most people, but they work for an ever-shrinking variety of international conglomerates. Under-performing makes are sold without a hint of remorse, no matter how talented and artistic the many people behind them would possibly be. The outfits a designer sends out on towards the runway are worthless unless they increase sales of handbags, sunglasses and perfume. Thus, promoting has taken with a crucial significance, and no designer can find the money for to neglect it.

The designers are not always at ease with this situation. Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz - a man as softly spoken as he is sharply witty - relates an interesting anecdote. Elbaz learned his craft operating for that legendary American designer Geoffrey Beene. One day, Beene asked the young Alber what he considered of a specific dress. 'It's fairly commercial,' Elbaz opined. Beene took him gently aside and stated, 'Alber, you must never say a gown is commercial. You must say it's desirable.'

Until recently, I considered myself almost immune to brands and their influence. I was certainly suspicious of designer brand names that charged a fortune for his or her labels. I was convinced that their apparel were no better than individuals of any chain store. I scoffed when a well-known fashion journalist told me throughout the Paris collections, 'I have two jackets with me, 1 from Zara and one particular from Martin Margiela. The Margiela jacket was very likely five times the total price with the Zara one - but I really don't mind, because I like what Margiela stands for. I'm paying to the person, not the write-up.' Fine, I believed, you do that. But I won't fall in to the same trap. Then, a few months ago, I bought a pair of glasses. 'They're by Yves Saint Laurent,' mentioned my optician. And, instead of yawning, I considered, 'Ah, yes - the pioneer of prêt-à-porter in Europe.'

Working on this book enhanced my respect for fashion designers, earlier and current. There cannot be lots of creative professions by which you are expected to prove your talent with a big body of work at least just about every six weeks. In addition, numerous designers are involved not only with their own collections but also with those of other manufacturers. Certainly, they have significant design teams operating alongside them - to visualize otherwise can be absurd - but they are those who take the flack if the press reception is chilly.

For those outside the industry, it's probably easier to be cynical about fashion than it is to be admiring. As my analysis progressed, I found that I bounced like a pinball from 1 mindset to the other. I used to be surprised that quite a few with the men and women involved in fashion marketing - the photographers, the art directors, the occasion organizers - retained a sense of humour about it. However they enjoyed grappling with an increasingly mental challenge. Apart in the shops they're sold in - along with the bags we carry them home in - garments have no packaging. They just sit on shelves, waiting mutely to get judged on their own appearance. All the packaging has to become done externally; otherwise, how would we know that this certain shirt represents a whole range of emotions and messages that we are supposed to be buying into?
fashion design
fashion trends
fashion merchandising