VERSACE FOR H&M

Versace have collaborated with H&M to bring a unique collection to the brand this November. Prints, prints and more prints are the main focus of the collection, with bright clashes of leopard print, flowers, oranges and reds, the collection is definitely not for the faint hearted.

"The collection for H&M is the essence of Versace. For the collaboration we've brought back from the archives, as well as from more recent collections, some of the icons of Versace, such as the bright prints, the Greek key and daring cuts. I can't wait to see how H&M's wide audience will make these pieces their own,"

Donatella Versace

£24.99

£69.99

£24.99

Love this scarf so much.

£129.99

And it just so happens I am in London when the collection is released on November 17th! Really want that scarf, only £25 to own some iconic Versace. Don't mind if I do.

photos from vogue uk.

Boxfresh

For our University summer project we had to take two brands from the Pentland group and swap expertise between the two. I love the way Berghaus have a clear brand identity, through their brand values, quality and technology they use. They then continue this through all their promotional material, resulting in a coherent brand message which is consistent throughout. I chose to work on Boxfresh, and make them an expert in their own field, as the innovators of youth culture, promoting a British way of life spanning over two decades.

I felt they didn't live up to their brand values and ethos, they say they were born out of this hedonistic generation from dubstep, drum and bass, acid jazz and the UK grime scene, but they don't seem to be following their own brand ethos. When I think of youth street culture in the UK, I think urban, cool, edgy and original, not the clean cut - almost there image they seem to be portraying through their website images.

You don't feel their presence on the Highstreet or through word of mouth, which is a shame because the brand seems to embody British culture, especially through their blog, which highlights up and coming acts and dj's from the UK.

These are just some of the material I came up with for this project. I produced mock up advertising for Boxfresh, making their advertising more fun, cool and British will highlight their brand values and how much expertise they've got in the Streetwear market. They say very proudly, 'we are the British Steetwear originators', so the public need to see this. I think a strong advertising campaign is a great starting point for the brand, it would gain public interest and hopefully make them see what Boxfresh is all about, a LIFESTYLE brand that British youth can aspire too.

M&S

I think its really interesting what Marks and Spencer have done with their advertising. Back in 2004 they under went a massive new advertising campaign and introduced a new strategy, one that would appeal to the public and change people's perceptions on how the brand was perceived. Has their efforts worked?

And just how was M&S seen by the public back in 2004? Words on consumers minds were last resort, frumpy, old, boring and middle aged. Not the attitude you want for a Departmen

t store that is meant to epitomise British fashion with their high quality products. B

y not having a specific USP in the market, M&S seemed like a fading Department store that was more drip than dapper. To make themselves relevant in the market again, they needed to target where they were going to be the most successful, and at this point they focused on womanswear. This was at the heart of the brand's recovery strategy.

"I believe Womanswear is the key to the whole brand" -

Stuart Rose (Executive Chairman at the time)

By introducing a new logo and advertising campaign, M&S hoped it would win back the public's trust. The simple but effective, 'Your M&S' said it all in two words, they needed something that would appeal to the whole nation, something which gave Marks and Spencer back to the public and made them as a brand appeal more approachable, accessible and contemporary. This along with the clever food adverts and one line which I think we all know by now.

"These are not just berries, these are the sweetest naturally ripened summer berries.."

"This is not just a chicken...this is a farm assured naturally fed, extra succulent oakham chicken.."

"This is not just food..this is M&S food.."

I think it really is amazing how one line, 'this is not just..' can become such a cultural reference in society, so many jokes have been created from just their one cleverly wrote (and spoken) line. That was what made M&S appeal to consumers again, they were oozing quality and passion, qualities which shoppers love to see in a brand. They had to make consumers pick them over the hundreds of other brands who might be doing it cheaper, and they proved that quality does win out in the end.

And these flashy, high profile adverts featuring the likes of Danni Minogue, Myleene Klass and supermodel Noemie Lenoir seemed to capture a new audience for the brand, transforming M&S in to something which was modern, young and aspirational.

However, with fear setting in that they were losing their core audience, Marks and Spencer’s loyal customers from years before began to feel alienated by the glitz and glam of the new M&S. And this is when M&S began to change their campaign. By getting rid of their famous faces which started their relaunch, they have produced a new advertising campaign which focuses on the ‘older’ woman. By putting the focus back on the clothes, they have stripped back the celebrity status and tapped in to their real consumer. A woman who stands in the mirror and tries on a million outfits before settling on one, a woman who is 'still turning heads'.

I love the new adverts, they show real woman, woman in their 40's, woman who are actually going out with men their age, I like how M&S are showing the reality, not the Hollywood version where the woman dates a 20 something and are painfully thin. Reality creates a connection between the brand and the consumer, which I think M&S customers are going to love.

“They feature a moment in time when clothes matter more than ever. They tap into the universal truth that woman don’t just wear clothes to cover up or follow a trend. They wear them to feel good, to feel more confident or glamorous. To bring this to life, we decided to use lesser-known faces, so our customers will relate to the scenarios and feel empathy with the characters.’
- Steve Sharp, M&S executive director

Promotion

For our first presentation at University, we were asked to produce self promotional material for one of our lecturers. This included a business card and event idea. To give us some ideas, the whole course could ask one question to gain more of an insight in to their personality, taste and style they like. From one of the questions asked, our lecturer Michelle said she loved the Illustrator Wayne Pate. I had never heard of him before, but I am so glad I've been introduced to him. His style is very playful, fun and whimsical, the colour palette very vibrant with bright reds, yellows and blues. Taking Wayne Pate as our main inspiration, we produced a business card for our lecturer Michelle.

Visit Wayne's Portfolio and Blog

To begin, I drew a sketch in the style of Wayne's work, now I'm no illustrator but I enjoy drawing so it was fun to try a different style of drawing, usually I do more realistic biro and pencil drawing. We chose to include a magnifying glass in to the image, as this was our theme throughout our promotional material. From this, I then scanned the image in and edited it on Photoshop (I need to download illustrator soon!) and added colour. I'm quite pleased with the end result, its very eye catching and vibrant, similar to Pate's own work. Although I probably would have changed the one eye to two eyes and made it less Cyclops like! The back of the card was kept simple, the writing purposely small so the recipient has to enlarge it with a magnifying glass (again, keeping with our mystery theme we chose). It was fun drawing again, felt like I hadn't done it in ages.

Feels like the first few weeks in University have been really helpful, already started being more creative and getting involved in different ways to promote yourself, which will be helpful when creating my own business card in the coming weeks. One of the first things we did to help us with our promotional material was to create a 'What I Like' moodboard representing your favourite things. I chose to draw mine in biro and add watercolour.

What I Like..

Posession Poloroid camera

Music Acoustic

Place Home

Book Banksy: Wall and Piece

Comfort Bed

Food Chinese

Aversion Driving lessons

Shoe Converse

Weather Sunny/cloudy/not too hot

Animal Cat

TRAVEL

A few images of my time in Amsterdam.
Summer 2011.
I would really recommend you go there, it was such a beautiful city with a lot of different culture. The art throughout the city was really interesting too. I would upload pictures of me, but in the majority of them I'm wearing a horrendous orange mac, which if you have me on Facebook you have already witnessed and laughed at. 

Back to Uni

One of the first projects we have been given is to produce promotional material for our lecturers/tutors. We had to ask each the same question and collect the responses. The way we asked the question to our tutors had to be different for each person. The methods we chose were through twitter, a postcard, a Poloroid camera and a package with materials so they could illustrate their answer.

And you can see the blog post below which we posted on twitter to one of our lecturers.

We now have collected all the other questions from different groups in the year and have been given a lecturer to produce a business card and event to promote them.

We then have to present our promotional material in a presentation, giving our reasons why we chose the design and event. Enjoyed this project so far, think it will be really helpful when I have to produce my own business cards and visual C.V later in the year. Will post our finished products in a later post!

blog

The Handbag Fairy have published my blogpost;

http://www.handbagfairy.co.uk/blog/fashion/through-the-looking-glass/

It's about Vera Wang at NY Fashion week, which I know has been and gone, but just wanted to put the link here to check it out and check the whole website out! Hopefully more will follow, how exciting!