This week in Fashion

 

What’s Next For American Apparel?

american_apparel logo

After CEO Don Charney was ousted last month for alleged misconduct, all eyes were on American Apparel this week as it named 4 new board directors and will begin to decide on Charney’s future with the company.

 

swim week 2014Swim Week 2014

Swimwear in Miami happened last week… check out the runways at style.com

Real Life Feels Right.

bongo campaign

With recent controversy over unachievable standards and the over-use of Photoshop, many brands are getting on board with the “real life”, “real people” marketing trend. Aerie launched their unretouched Real Beauty campaign earlier this year with the tagline “The Real You is Sexy.” Following suit, Vanessa Hudgens rejected retouching her most recent Bongo ad campaign. The most recent retailer to embrace “the real” is Hudson jeans who has vowed to exclude both models and photoshopping from their newest creative campaign.

 

Jason Frank Rothenberg_somamagazineWill Fashion Calendar help the CFDA streamline NYFW?

The New York show scheduling has become a growing area of concern in the past few seasons. Will the CFDA’s recent acquisition of this industry leader help reduce overlap of significant shows and give fresh young designers a greater chance at being seen?

Read more here 

 

 

 

 

Resort 2015 Trend: Matching Sets

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(Images: Style.com)

Since Yves Saint Laurent introduced le smoking, the “power suit” has evolved and has left a permanent mark in women’s wardrobes. This season, the suit was reincarnated across multiple Resort 2015 collections. All over matching prints modernized it at Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Oscar de la Renta’s take on the classic added an allover silver print on a modern slim cut blazer with cropped ankle trousers while Tomas Maier opted for an androgynous tailored look. With so many iterations of the suit for Resort season, we are interested to see how this trend will translate to Spring and whether it will catch on within the younger markets. As a great transitional piece we have a feeling that with a few changes this classic could become the must-have transitional item for Spring 2015.

Matching-Croptop-and-Skirt-2Matching-Croptop-and-Skirt-19661633219_6c9e4886b3_b

(Photos 1 and 2 – http://dressmeblog.me/perfect-partners-cropped-tops-skirts/matching-croptop-and-skirt-2/ Photo 3 –  http://apairandasparediy.com/2013/09/before-after-cropped-top-and-skirt-set.html )

 

We are asking you, our designers, how would you change this modern day suit to make it translate into a Spring collection. With the matching crop tops, skirt and short combos we have been seeing on every “It girl” this Spring, do you think this means a resurgence of the matching trend. Is the suit still too mature for a younger client or is this the next level of a fast fashion trend?

 

We would love to see how you’d make this work for next Spring and the different design choices you’d make to place it within the contemporary, juniors, women’s and missy markets.

 

Ready, start, sketch!

 

Who is driving my inspiration?

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(Images: Stylesight Blog, Google Images)

 

As designers, we have all been asked this question countless times before: “Who is your customer?” And we have all heard a similar answer, the specific details may change but the over-all picture often looks the same.

 

“She’s in her mid-twenties to thirties, she works for an art gallery. She looks to Erin Wasson for her street-style inspiration; she knows the words to every classic rock song and attends Coachella every year. She wears Alexander Wang and The Row to work but searches flea markets on the weekends for vintage t-shirts. She’s the kind of girl that drinks whiskey sours. She has an independent spirit, she’s a woman of extremes.”

 

This answer certainly paints a nice picture, doesn’t it? We can all imagine that woman and exactly what her perfect wardrobe would include; but is this truly your customer? Our industry expert says, “no” so we asked her to help us define the difference and bring clarity to this common misconception.

(more…)

{Inspiration} The Gap by Ira Glass

There was a day when even the greats were just starting out.

THE GAP by Ira Glass from frohlocke on Vimeo.

Creative work is tough and sometimes inspiration isn’t enough to make us the best at what we do. Don’t worry, any successful artist or creative mind you talk to will reiterate this point that at one point or another we just didn’t feel the ideas in our head lined up with what came out of our hands. Once we have developed the ability to translate our thoughts and ideas visually we have begun to truly excel at our craft. This speech by Ira Glass has been circling around the creative blog-o-sphere for over a year but this may be one of my favorite visual versions. Listen to his take on “The Gap” and then continue to develop your own work.