EMMA CROYDON

For my current project I was allocated the trend story 'Bright and Bold', a trend story which I like and have enjoyed researching, which inspired me to dedicate this blog post to my findings. I have explored the context behind this trend story, starting with the visual, historical and cultural background of my trend story, its origins, connotations, development updates and subversions, and how it has been re-interpreted over the years.  The focus of Bright and Bold is colour, vibrancy, saturation, shades, palettes and block colour. I began exploring colour in fashion over the years, starting with the florescent colours worn in the 80's and the iconic vibrant appearance of this decade. Bright colour has been popular ever since and has  created trends such as the neon hype we have today; Prada's recent womenwear campaign 'neon dream' is focused on florescent highlighter shades, capturing the vibrancy of Los Angeles with billboards, convertibles glowing technicol...

A big talking point in the world of Instagram and fashion is Balenciaga's Instagram account. As a luxury fashion house, the account completely isolates itself from the others by having it's own extremely abstract personality, excluding celebrity endorsement and the typical high-end fashion advertising you'd expect to see. On several occasions whilst browsing my newsfeed and coming across a Balenciaga post, I've seen comments simply asking: 'who the f*ck is running this account?'. The account displays images of random people, video illusions, poor quality and candid shots, objects and animals, and so on... it is hard to explain the extent of the quirkiness without exploring the page yourself. In my opinion the page is weird but wonderful, and I like the way they subvert to the typical standards of luxury fashion brands. Perhaps the concept was an intentional way of drawing attention to the brand - and if so, Balenciaga have definitely succeeded in their mission. ...

I have always had an interest in interior design. When i'm in an interesting room I become so fascinated with my surroundings and I discovered that it excites me, which is why I considered it as one of my potential subjects to study as a degree before steering towards fashion communication and promotion. Due to my strong interest in it, I watched an episode from a Netflix series called 'Abstract: The Art of Design' based on an interior designer called Ilse Crawford. The series offers various episodes about a range of design sectors such as graphic design, footwear design and stage design, but the interior design episode first captured my attention. I was inspired by what Crawford taught me in the episode as I wasn't aware of the true depth of interior design, and so I want to share the key interesting information she discusses to you in this blog post and how it has changed my perspective on the subject. Many people see interior design as just a 'look', but Cr...

As a recent part of my degree work, we were put into groups and allocated a Vogue shoot. After deep discussions and analysis we selected five words or phrases which we felt most strongly represented the shoot. These five words/phrases were then used to inspire our own photoshoots based on a fashion accessory we were allocated, from which we selected three of the most successful images to display in a mini exhibition in the Barnes Wallis studio. I thoroughly enjoyed this task because of the level of experimentation and freedom we had with it. As shown belown, the Vogue shoot that my group were allocated was 'Let's Dance', photographed by Corrine Day, 2004: As a group, our initial response was that the brief for this shoot was something along the lines of "Include three eras worth of dance dresses into an urban and aggressively sexual theatrical dance hall, consider the fluid nature of dance, circus and performance". From this perception, we gathered ...

Leopard print, the most popular animal print for clothing, first became popular in the 1960's during the bohemian movement and has been an iconic fashion statement ever since, made favourable by various icons from Elizabeth Taylor to Kate Moss. However, the print has become so excessive that in almost every retail store I go in today I see not one, but multiple, leopard print items of clothing. Not only has the print stood strong, but new versions of the print have been created and popularised, such as the red leopard print trend which you'll probably see in every other retail store window you walk past. What strikes me about this ongoing macro-trend is how it does not seem to be dying down, but only becoming more and more popular by day, despite how overdone it is. Although I own leopard print clothing myself and must admit I do like it because of it's quirk and the way it can spice up a boring outfit, I am currently influenced to not wear it and am honestly becoming extre...

From wrapping paper to home decorations, Christmas trees, food, gift sets and beyond, what originated as a meaningful religious holiday has taken on major commercial significance. Christmas is one of the most expensive times of year, and therefore the most profitable for the businesses we give our money to, the ones that slyly take advantage of us and use this holiday of togetherness and love to advertise their products in a sugar-coated way. Although Christmas is still a fun and happy celebration to me, I think that Christmas now generally seems to be mainly about presents and has lost it's true meaning because of this. This year I was seeing Christmas products and Christmas themed window displays in October, TWO WHOLE MONTHS before Christmas, before Halloween had even occurred; in my opinion, this is way too early to celebrate and promote Christmas, making the build-up to Christmas too long and eventually just boring. What do you think?

If you haven't heard already, a storm has recently kicked up in the fashion industry after the luxury Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabanna caused a racism scandal, offending the Chinese culture and losing thousands and customers worldwide. The disaster occurred after the brand released a new advert featuring an Asian model eating with chopsticks, which many critics labelled 'utterly racist'. The "D&G loves China" campaign was described as incredibly offensive which lead to the cancellation of the brands upcoming fashion show in Shanghai. Just as it seemed that the scandal couldn't quite get any worse, founder, Stefano Gabanna, was completely thrown under the bus when screenshots of an Instagram direct message conversation were released on the internet, displaying messages of Gabanna slating the Chinese culture in an extremely disrespectful way. After this, many retailers removed all D&G products from their stores and websites whilst hundreds of ...

Ted Talk: How fashion helps us express who we are - and what we stand for // Kaustav Dey. In this inspirational Ted talk by head marketer for Tommy Hilfiger in India, Kaustav Dey, he explains to us how fashion is much further beyond what it is usually thought to be. Dey begins his talk by reflecting on his childhood, in which he felt out of place as early on as his primary school days when he discovered at a very young age that he didn't quite conform to the typical male stereotype; sadly, Dey's school uniform enabled him to feel like he blended in to his school, which made him feel more comfortable than standing out. When he discovered a pair of corduroy trousers in a box of his father's old belongings, which he fell in love with at the age of ten, he realised that pieces of materials, or 'clothes' as we know them, can empower you. He put on the corduroys and tied them tightly round his waist with a belt to make them fit him. When he put them on, he felt a sudden...