The future of fashion with Alexa Chung

British Vogue collaborated with Alexa Chung in order to give viewers an insight into the future of fashion. The documentary starts off with Alexa explaining her journey as a young girl and how she became an inspiration to fashion lovers. I found this interesting because in the documentary, she talks to successful designers, art directors and speaks with current/past students studying at Central Saint Martins, modelling agencies and journalists. This allows us to get an all round view of fashion and its future from different levels of profession. As the brand Balmain has recently featured in most magazines and articles (due to their collaboration with H&M), I found the mini interview with Olivier Rousteing captivating, although this collection is not his best, I believe he is the current king of communication.

Rousteing promotes Instagram in the interview, vouching that it is the perfect way to communicate and as the majority of the nation are on social media, why not use it at a platform for communication. Many criticise Olivier for his choice of models and the frequent famous faces, however, after watching the clip, Rousteing reveals that he uses women such as Kim Kardashian and Rihanna because these women are strong and his collections represent strong willed women. Olivier strongly believes that using diverse models is important for the future and he encourages women to show their personalities and this can be done by showing the confidence in their body shapes. “Fashion is open minded” and models should be too, he states that he will continue to “push the boundaries of ethnicity”.

Considering Olivier was designing for H&M, I thought his collection would have been more affordable, less catwalk and more high street. Having said that, here are my favourite pieces from the H&M X Balmain Collection:

The focus in the interview was the idea that social media and the revolution of fashion is evolving. However, with this, there is the fear of print, what does the future hold for printed magazines? Will they slowly die out? The world of technology is moving in the right direction but I still think there is a need for printed magazines, they offer a different experience to online magazines. I would definitely recommend this documentary, it expands on what the future holds and is useful to those thinking about pursuing a career in fashion, or those are just interested in the industry. 

Check it out!

Photo Credit - Google Images
Quotations referenced from the documentary: The Future of Fashion with Alexa Chung

Is Barbie really a good role model for children?

The new Barbie advertisement focuses on young girls and their wishes for the future. Initially, I loved the advert and thought it was so much better than previous advertisements for Barbie. The little girls featured in the advert are dressed as their dream professions and put in front of adults, expressing their imaginations as if they were playing with their dolls at home. The concept behind this advert is very clever and everyone can relate to it. 

What do you think?

The idea of promoting the message that any dream can come true is great for the target audience, however it could also be seen as controversial. Personally, I believe Barbie is not a good role model for young girls. Her figure is unrealistic and promotes obsession with a skinny frame, big breasts and a face full of make up. Although the advertisement captures a lot of attention, is Barbie really the best character to promote this?

In my opinion - No! Everyone is different and a role model for young children should promote this and embrace that everyone is different.

Although dreams can come true, not everyone can look like Barbie.

Creating colour palettes

Still unsure on what route I would like to take within the fashion industry, I thought it would be a good idea to find out more about each role. I discovered a book called  "The Fashion Careers Guidebook" by Julia Yates which was very useful and had a very detailed description of what each job entails. The trend forecasting description was really interesting, currently, I have been learning about trends and i have enjoyed this so far. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to go into fashion but is unsure on what type of job they actually want to do.

Colour has a massive role to play in predicting trends. Using Photoshop, I selected an image from Pinterest and created colour strips to match the image, picking out all the colours that I thought were interesting and dominant. I found this task really fun, I did not realise how many colours were actually featured in one image. Below are my favourite colour palettes that i created using the images:

The first colour strip is selection - the colours that I chose to be part of my colour strip in a random order. The second strip is relationship - the colours in order, the order that I thought looked the best visually. Lastly, the third strip is proportion - changing the sizes of the colours (the more the colour appears, the bigger the strip).

Photo Credit - Pinterest

My admiration for Stella McCartney

Stella McCartney is one of the most sustainable producers in the UK and as an animal lover, her main concerns lie amongst the leather and fur industry which has influenced her feelings towards the production on clothing and this made her want to be as ethical as possible. You can see the passion in Stella McCartney’s company statement; “We understand that it is our responsibility to do what we can to become a more sustainable company. We are responsible for the resources that we use and the impact that we have. We are always exploring new and innovative ways to become more sustainable”. They refuse to use leather, skins or fur in any of their collections/collaborations with other clients or companies. I find this admirable because as a company you want to appeal to a mass market and a large majority of consumers love the look of animal skin and fur on their clothes. 

However, Stella went with her passion and continued to remain sustainable, adamant that she will make luxurious sustainable clothing. Animal skins are filled with toxic chemicals which prevent them from decomposing, just like leather, the process of making leather stabilizes the fibers so they stop biodegrading. This ruins the environment and McCartney is right to be going against these industries. One brand cannot abandon this issue so Stella decided to join the Kering Group (a group that promotes sustainability) with the goal of reducing the impact on the environment by 25% over the next four years. In a recent interview, Stella McCartney said “I don’t think that ‘eco’ should be a word that immediately conjures up images of oatmeal-coloured garments … I don’t think that things have to look ugly because they’re organic; why can’t they be beautiful as well?” As you can see from the majority of my blog posts, I always admire people that stick by their mottos and take risks! 

Why be like everybody else?

Quotations referenced from the website: http://www.stellamccartney.com/experience/en/stellas-world/sustainability/stella-interview/