Digital Fashion Dialogues

Digital Fashion Dialogue was a careers and networking event organised by our senior as part of their final project before graduation. The event was held yesterday on the 4th floor in the fashion studio in CULC given fashion student an opportunity to meet with fashion industry experts from a variety of areas, such as marketing, buying, design, media and some entrepreneurs.

Every student had been allocated into two meetings according to their interested, allowing them to meet the experts and asked any question regarding their query about the fashion industry, how digital is changing the dynamics and to consider about our future job roles and prospects.

I had been assigned into the meetings with Elisa Fogli, a Digital Marketing Strategist, and Ash Allibhai, a Fashion Consultant. I began the meeting with Elisa, she was Italian working in London under a fashion company who owned a wide range of brand (cannot remember the name). Her job role is to manage and observe the company’s social media sites, as well as finding the suitable and popular fashion bloggers to corporate with to promote the products. Furthermore, she showed us her dissertation work whilst she studied master in fashion marketing and management, helping us to understand what it might be required to achieve if we decided to go for the dissertation in the final term.

The second meeting with Ash Allibhai was interesting as well, he shared with us about his working journey being a fashion consultant for over 10 years. He explained that forecasting the fashion trend was not an easy task. Due to the changeable fashion world, this job required lots of reading and updated of the latest news about the industry. I asked him a question regarding whether it is important to have a good statistical skill in order to work in trend forecasting role. “Many people have misunderstood about this role, you don’t require to have excellent knowledge about statistics, instead you must have a strong passion towards fashion in order to thrive in this tough industry”, he replied.

Overall, although the one-hour meeting was not enough to figure out which is the right path or direction we should go in the future, this event indeed helped me somehow understand what I more or less willing to work at in the future. Thanks for our lecturer and seniors for organising this wonderful event for us!

An Entrepreneur talk with Auria Swimwear

Today CULU invited the second guest speaker Diana Auria who is the Founder/ Manager & Creative Director of Auria Swimwear. Diana set up her sustainable swimwear brand in 2013 after graduating from London College of Fashion. She shared the journey about setting up her business, and how to market her brand.

 

Diana aims to develop the fashion and innovation swimwears made by the sustainable material for modern women, as she believes that style and substance should be coexisting (Auria, 2016). The raw material she used on her product is made by the fish net, which producing and manufacturing in the countries such as Slovenia and Croatia. This sustainable material can not only help to reduce the harmful impact towards the marine environment, but also helps the local community to generate an additional income. Moreover, Diana believes that as a designer, she has the obligation to tell her consumer, they have the choices on what they purchase and understanding the manufacturing process of the products they bought.

Moreover, Diana believes that as a designer, she has obligation to tell her consumer, they have the choices on what they purchase and understanding the manufacturing process of the products they bought. Overall, it is an interesting event for those students who would like to have their won brand in the future, and it is understandable that the corporate social responsibility is becoming a main trend in the fashion industry.

 

In-Store Research of the Androgyny Trend

Our tutor brings us to Oxford street today for an observation of the in-store confirmation of the androgyny trend. My group has selected four distinct fashion brands, namely Primark, Zara, COS, and Saint Laurent. The reason why we chose these brands are because they represented the different market position in the fashion industry. Furthermore, we elected three different androgynous styles from WGSN for the research investigation (see the following pictures below).

The outfit we chose for these three looks including suit, cropped trouser, loafers, leather jacket, jeans, and beanie hat. The result shows that most of the clothing and accessories can be found amongst these brands; however, Primark and Zara have provided more options for the customers in terms of the colours and designs. We had also recorded the production tags of those clothing and accessories in order to understand the sourcing information of the products.

After we had done all the research, my groupmates and I three of us decided to have dinner together in Chinatown. We talked a lot about the teamwork issue and our upcoming presentation for the APS module. In fact, there is an accident happened before we travelled to Oxford street today. Another three members (total should be six) decided to split out from the group, as they refused to take underground with us due to the rain, even though I had made my effort to convince them to stick with the group. Anyway, it is hard to work in a group if some members do not willing to interact with other members, especially those members who are less willing to speak in English is the most challenging task we found throughout all the group works.

An Entrepreneurial Journey with Piñatex

Today CULC Fashion team invited a special guest, Dr. Carmen Hijosa, the founder of the Ananas Anam a pioneering enterprise, which has developed Piñatex as a non-woven textile alternative to leather derived from pineapple lead fibres.

Ananas Anam has been recognised within the fashion industry as a pioneer in the development of innovative and sustainable textiles. The vision of the company aims to develop textiles and materials created using processes that boost the well-being of the earth and its people through the entire life cycle of the products. This leading the company to developed an innovative, natural and sustainable non-woven textile, Piñtex.

Ananas Anam carried out the original development leading to Piñatex in the Philippines. Its finishing, research and continuing development are now being undertaken in the UK and Spain. The idea of creating of Piñatex was inspired by Dr. Carmen Hijosa’s long-term working experience in both the design and manufacture of  leather goods. She believes that textile could be made by sustainable material, and also should be able to promote social, cultural and ecological development. This belief had led her going to

She believes that textile could be made by sustainable material, and also should be able to promote social, cultural and ecological development. This belief had led her going to the  Philippines  to  carry out further research into the development of products made. Eventually, she found out that it is possible to turn pineapple leaves into non-woven textile, a fabric bonded together without knitting or weaving.

The creation of Pińatex has benefited several stakeholders and the environment. It provides new additional income for local farmers in Philippine and other pineapple planting countries. There is no extra land, water, fertilizers or pesticides are required to produce Piñatex fibres, as they are the by-product of the original pineapple harvest. Thus, no pineapples are harmed whilst producing of Piñatex. This is the Piñatex magic!

Week 2: MUJI Poster Exhibition – 25 Years of MUJI Europe

London is a real fashion capital. I love the street styles and the many looks you can see people wearing. I think London is very diverse and experimental in its fashions. This week I saw  a post from one of the tutors named Nathaniel, he told us about the MUJI Poster exhibition. I decided to go and have a look at it.

Muji opened its first store outside Japan in Central London in 1991, introducing understated Japanese minimalism to Europe. Now Muji owned over 50 stores across Europe, and this year October the company was celebrating its 25 years milestone with a curated exhibition of archival MUJI posters.

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Source: the second photo was taken from Muji 25th anniversary Facebook (2016)

  The exhibition venue was not large that located in a small shop at St Martin’s Courtyard. Muji had invited six design and lifestyle bloggers for a daily #MyMUJI window takeover, which including Sarah Akwisombe Blog, Bryony Blake,  Interior Style Hunter, decor8, Martyn White Designs, and Liberty London Girl. These designers and bloggers had been invited to style, personalise and showcase their favourite MUJI products in a unique display for the day over the exhibition period. The window decoration on the day I visited was done by Martyn White Designs (see the second photo for detail). Through this activity Muji enable to deliver the message to consumer of their products variety and diversity.

  On the other hand, the posters displayed in the shop illustrate Muji’s trajectory as one of the leading global design brands. Individually each advertisement poster provided a perspective on how the company gained their reputation for innovation, charm, humour and an lasting commitment to their three founding principles: selection of materials, streamlining processes and simplifying processes.

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Welcome to A Not do Fashion Student’s Diary

To reader(s),

My name is Andie from Taiwan, I am a postgraduate student studying International Fashion Marketing from Coventry University London Campus. The purpose of creating this blog is to share my learning journey as a fashion student, as well as my observation of the fashion industry.

This blog would be updated on the weekly basis, the topic can be broad across the areas including fashion, beauty, travel, and my school life, I hope you guys will enjoy reading it.

Best wishes,

Andie Chang (: