Kenzo Urban Suit – Part 5

Brand communication Definition:

It refers to the promotional mix available for communicating the brand’s presence, identity and the value through advertising and other channels (Hameide 2011).

NEW MOODBOARD

There are two ways of communicating with customers of Kenzo, online and offline.

Nowadays, social media is very important to fashion industry because it is very easy to have interaction between consumers and fashion brands. Kenzo Urban Suit has to connect with the world through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube because customers included potential customers can discuss the brand directly on these platforms. Therefore, accounts and channels have to be built on those popular platforms. Firstly, an introduction video has to be produced and uploaded to Kenzo Urban Suit’s official accounts or channels in order to let customers know more about the concept and style of this collection. After the customers understanding, advertising videos can be added to promote our products. On the other hand, since the high popularity of smart phone, apps and mobile site are also very important to the diffusion line. Everyone can update the new collection at once. Of course, the landing page on the official website is also important because this is an entrance page of the site. This page has to be designed very attractively and simply to let customers continue to browse the website.

For the offline promotion, a pop-up store can be launched in Selfridges since this is a good location and it has a large consumer flow rate to test the awareness of Kenzo Urban Suit. On the other hand, opening event and advertising campaign could help during the promotion time. At the same time, advertisements can be added on several famous fashion magazines such as Vogue and Bazaar to promote concept and products to readers. Also, inviting some celebrities, fashion bloggers and stylist such as Cara Delevingne to participate our events. Those methods mentioned above can help to build up awareness of consumers to Kenzo Urban Suit in an offline way. The theme of the advertising would be the Jungle since this is the main theme of the core brand.

London is an international fashion city in the world. Londoners are fashion and modern. This diffusion line can let consumers in the UK think Kenzo in a different way. Because of Kenzo Urban Suit added in the fashion market, in London, there is a greater competition in the suit market. Also, there are lots of visitors in London. This can be a great chance to expand the globalization. The competitiveness of Kenzo is becoming stronger due to the built up of Kenzo Urban Suit. This action can more easily to enter the other countries which Kenzo has not entered yet such as New Zealand and Canada (only one branch).

As a unique and special suit, it would affect the other markets where core brand is existed. For example, in China, Kenzo Urban Suit might take place of traditional suits due to the unique style. It might enhance the fashion concept of Chinese people.

Reference:

1. Kaled K. Hameide, 2011.Fashion Branding Unraveled. 1 Edition. Fairchild Books.P77
2. Rita Clifton with Sameena Ahmad … [Et Al.]. Brands and Branding, 2nd Revised edition Edition. Profile Books(GB).
3. Trey Songz. 2015. Slow Motion. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXTBbM21plg&list=PLFRSDckdQc1vSGAfqrDfeakxi9BTg-8-9. [Accessed 27 June 15].

Kenzo-Urban Suit （Part 4）

According to the positioning map, there are several brands which are making suit collection. Kenzo Urban Suit has a few competitors. However, its main competitors are Givenchy and Armani Collezioni because its price is lower than Givenchy and its material used is as natural as Armani. Paul Smith is the indirect competitor because consumers might buy Paul Smith’s shirt which has similar style with Kenzo to match with the Kenzo Urban Suit.

For example, I have found one suit jacket of each brand. The Givenchy’s price is £1275 and it is made of 100% wool, 100% of silk for trim, 100% of viscose for lining and 68% of acetate and 32% of polyester for sleeve lining. The Armani’s price is much cheaper which is £650 and it is made of 96% of virgin wool and 4% elastane.

Therefore, the diffusion line’s price should be set around £1000-£1100 and natural materials should be used.

For the silhouette of Kenzo Urban Suit, it would be straight because it shows androgyny style like Armani’s and Givenchy’s. However, the design is totally different from them. The interior of the suit, irregular, painted and hand-printed form which can avoid the perfect repetition of digital prints is used to show female style. Specific logo buttons would be used instead formal buttons to show the uniqueness of this collection. This kind of silhouette and design are very special. It shows that this diffusion line is recognizable. Therefore, since the similar style of the core brand, core customers would also be willing to purchase the new suit.

Jungle Jap is the main heritage of Kenzo. The features of the heritage are colourful and natural such as flower-printed. Moreover, designers like creating symbolic icon such as tiger head (2012) and eye (2013) to show the uniqueness. For Kenzo Urban Suit, this heritage is still being used to maintain its core brand identity. Colourful and flower-printed are used in the interior of the suit and symbolic icons are used in buttons or collar to let the consumers know it is from Kenzo. Consumers have another brilliant choice if they want to show younger and do not want to wear suit with boring style and colour.

After searching the fabric’s detail of Kenzo, the main materials used are cotton, polyester, elastane and viscose. Apart of cotton, the other three materials are artificial. However, the main target of Kenzo Urban Suit is having healthy lifestyle such as eating organic foods and liking natural things. If artificial materials are still being used mostly for the suit, the target may not accept it. Therefore, natural materials such as silk, wool and cotton have to been major used in order to keep the target. On the other hand, for consumers wearing suit, they do not only concern about the fashion but also the comfort of the suit, so using natural materials is one of the attraction of this new line.

Appendix:

Appendix.1

Appendix.2 

Appendix.3

Reference:

1. VOGUE. 2015. TIMELIN Kenzo. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.vogue.co.uk/brand/kenzo. [Accessed 10 June 15].
2. Net-A-Porter. 2015. GIVENCHY Black wool jacket with satin details. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.net-a-porter.com/product/452704/Givenchy/black-wool-jacket-with-satin-details. [Accessed 10 June 15].
3. vogue. 2015. Kenzo / Resort 2014. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.vogue.com/fashion-week/862119/kenzo-resort-2014/. [Accessed 10 June 15].
4. vogue. 2015. Kenzo / Resort 2012. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.vogue.com/fashion-week/862687/kenzo-fall-2012/. [Accessed 10 June 15].
5. WGSN. 2015. The urban nomad in a magical forest at Kenzo. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.wgsn.com/blogs/catwalks/the-urban-nomad-in-a-magical-forest-at-kenzo. [Accessed 10 June 15].
6. WGSN. 2015. Story mfg. Spring/Summer 2015 Lookbook. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.wgsn.com/blogs/denim/story-mfg-springsummer-2015-lookbook. [Accessed 10 June 15].
7. paulsmith. 2015. Paul Smith Jackets – Black Blazer With Sheer Pleated Back. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.paulsmith.co.uk/uk-en/shop/womens/jackets/women-s-black-blazer-with-sheer-pleated-back.html. [Accessed 10 June 15].
8. KENZO. 2015. Coats&Jackets. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.kenzo.com/en/women/coats-jackets. [Accessed 10 June 15].
9. harrods. 2015. Armani Collezioni Stretch Pocket Blazer. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.harrods.com/product/stretch-pocket-blazer/armani-collezioni/000000000004602392. [Accessed 10 June 15].

10.harrods. 2015. Alexander Wang Collarless Crepe Blazer. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.harrods.com/product/collarless-crepe-blazer/alexander-wang/000000000004639744. [Accessed 10 June 15].

New Diffusion Line: Urban Suit

Demographic:

The target customer for the diffusion line is female who are from 25 to 40 years old. The customers are professional such as lawyer, banker, IT who are optimistic and smart. They like challenging new things in their lifestyle. Their salary is over £1000 per week after tax.

Geographic:

The primary target is usually working in central business district. Since Kenzo is based in Paris, most customers of Paris are working in La Defense which is the main business district in Paris. On the other hand, for London, its customers are working in Bank or Canary Wharf since these two places are the main banking and finance district. The main target customers are living in urban areas and they can purchase the products easily because many branches are located in developed countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, France, Japan, etc.

Psychographic and Behaviour:

Target customers are interested in fashion and luxury items. They usually do shopping in the central of city such as Selfridges, Harrods and Lafayette. On the other hand, they concern healthy lifestyle very much. Therefore, they prefer having healthy diet which is made by organic foods. Also, they often exercise at gym. They like travelling at some relaxing places such as Spain and Greece since they are under stress during they are working. They also focus on the quality of life such as when they do travelling, they usually book the luxurious hotel and choose business class or above on the plane. Target customers’ hobbies are very casual and relax such as gathering with friends in bar, browsing on the Internet, doing some leisure activities. Their holiday destinations are usually beaches or coastal cities.

Moodboard

Concept of diffusion line:

The name of new diffusion line of Kenzo is Urban Suit. It is believed that androgyny style would be the future trend. The existed lines are not suitable to professional customers since the products of those lines are too fancy. For this new line, it is kind of different style comparing with the other lines since it is related with suit for the customers who have jobs in office. However, it is different from the formal suit because special and fashion pattern would be added and it looks more casual. Moreover, the core style and design would be kept in this suit wearing. For example, the suit may be in dark colours with fashion and special pattern. Symbolic logo such as tiger head and eye would be shown inside the suit. Tie clips and buttons are the logos also.

Brand Architecture

The price of Urban Suit has set higher than the other existed line because the main customers of Urban Suit are professional. Since they would request that the suit is comfortable, better material and fabric would be used. Therefore, the price is the highest among all the lines.

Reference：

1. LIZA DARWIN. 2015. How Retailers Are Responding To The Gender-Neutral Fashion Trend. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.refinery29.com/2015/02/83003/genderless-clothing-retail. [Accessed 27 May 15].
2. Kaled K. Hameide, 2011. Fashion Branding Unraveled. 1 Edition. Fairchild Books.

KENZO (WEEK 5)

Customer Profile

Kenzo which is based at Paris is a famous and high-end luxury brand in the world. According the head designer of Kenzo, Humberto Leon, said the main marketing target is the people with youthful spirit and full confidence. Moreover, they have to like fun. Among all luxury brands, Kenzo is relatively lower price, so it is suitable to less wealthy people.

Customer Profile

There are three main collections of Kenzo:

1. Kenzo Paris – Its main target is aged 20-45 people. It has the highest price among three collections.
2. Kenzo Jungle Fever Line – Its main target is aged 15-30. All products show young spirit since it is very colourful.
3. Kenzo Jeans Line – The people who like wearing in a convenient and comfortable way should select this line since all the products are made of jeans. Of course, they should be with youthful spirit and full confidence.

Competitor Analysis

Kenzo has many competitors. Among all competitors, Givenchy is one of the biggest competitors to Kenzo. Kenzo and Givenchy has similar marketing target which is young people with confidence, same based in Paris and both are in LVMH Group. However, the reason why Givenchy can be one of the biggest competitors of Kenzo is that the design and style of Givenchy is quite different from Kenzo. The style of Givenchy is simpler and not as colourful as Kenzo’s. Not all young people like colourful so Givenchy can occupy this kind of market. There is a risk that Kenzo may loss customers because Kenzo’s designs are too colourful and it is not suitable to the women who are aged 30-40 because most of them are mother or career women and they would not wear this kind of clothes to their work places. Moreover, Givenchy has more collections than Kenzo and it can attract more customers than Kenzo. However, Kenzo can still maintain its status in the market because its unique and special design can still help it to keep its customers.

GIVENCHY Fall Winter 2015 Women’s Show

KENZO Women Fall-Winter 2015 show

Current Brand Architecture

As the Architecture Graph shown below, it represents that there are three main lines of Kenzo: Kenzo Paris, Jungle Fever and Jeans line. Kenzo Paris has the highest price. After that is Jungle Fever and Jeans line has the lowest price. They have different price range since they have different marketing target according I mentioned above and different fabric and materials used in each collection.

Architecture

Brand’s Position

For the positioning map shown below, there are a lot of brands in the same market of Kenzo. Kenzo aims for hip, democratic luxury positioning. Therefore, its price should be between high street brands and luxury brands. Although it is a little bit higher for young people, they can still afford to purchase it.

As we see, All Saints and DKNY are not the direct competitors of Kenzo since they have lower quality and price and they are high street brands. Kenzo’s direct competitors are Lanvin and Givenchy since they have similar level of luxury and price respectively.

Reference:

HARRIET WALKER . 2013. Kenzo: it takes two to make a brand go right. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/kenzo-it-takes-two-to-make-a-brand-go-right-8555526.html. [Accessed 15 May 15].

Andrew Roberts. 2012. Kenzo Aiming to Get Hip Again Under New Leadership. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-28/kenzo-aiming-to-get-hip-again-under-new-leadership. [Accessed 15 May 15].

Kenzo Takada. 2006. Japanese Fashion. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.chinatownconnection.com/kenzo-takada.htm. [Accessed 15 May 15].

marybawa. 2005. history fashion of kenzo. [ONLINE] Available at:http://marybawa.com/historyofashion/kenzo.html. [Accessed 15 May 15].

ARAB NEWS. 2013. Rubaiyat lines up Kenzo’s ‘Jungle Fever’ collection. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.arabnews.com/news/451652. [Accessed 15 May 15].

Fashion Encyclopedia. 2015. Japanese designer working in Paris. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/Ja-Kh/Kenzo.html. [Accessed 15 May 15].

Givenchy. 2015. Givenchy Explore. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.givenchy.com/en/explore. [Accessed 15 May 15].

SPLAY BUSINESS PLAN. 2014. KENZO MARKET MIX. [ONLINE] Available at:http://splay.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2014/02/13/kenzo-market-mix/. [Accessed 15 May 15].

kenzo

Brand Brife

Kenzo is a luxury house from France and found in 1970 by a Japanese Designer Kenzo Takada. Kenzo was born in Japan and he went to Paris to develop his own fashion work in 1964. He created a unique design style called Jungle Jap to make his own brand outstanding and different with the others. This kind of design has been using until now.

Recently, the head designers of Kenzo are Humberto Leon and Carol Lim since 2011. Their main goal is to shake up the ‘jungle’ world of fashion. There are two reasons that Kenzo is becoming popular. First, the outstanding and unique style attracts lots of people. Second, because of star effect, many celebrities and fashion bloggers worn its iconic tiger shirt and clothing such as Beyonce, Andy from Stylescrapbook etc. Now, there are 73 retail stores in 25 different countries.

Kenzo’s prairie look, 1973

 

Selection of Kenzo’s designs from the 1980’s

Kenzo during the period of 2000–2007

contemporary(last 6 months)

Kenzo presented an campaign in January to show the products, style and concept of Spring-Summer 2015. The theme of the campaign is the spirit of Utopia, the city. Since Kenzo is good at playing with surreal, for this campaign, Mona Matsouka and Qing He are invited to take the surrealist video and show the creation of ‘Cold city structure, colourful and lively, humorous and optimistic art to convey the main theme of this campaign.

Also, Kenzo launched a catwalk show in March to present its new winter product and concept in 2015. The theme of the show was Robotic Modernity. All products were made in modern fabrics and pattern to present the digital age. The head designers also decided to bring the style back to the Japanese DNA founder Kenzo Takada.

On the other hand, Kenzo retail store is opened in Beijing China on 17th April.

Brand Identity

When Kenzo Takada developed his own fashion business in Paris, in 1970, he installed a patch of jungle in the heart of Paris, Galerie Vivienne. Kenzo broke through the field and rules of couture code with colourful pattern designs and declaration of freedom at that time. In 2011, both of the head designers, Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, have been keeping this joyful and colourful heritage alive. This creative duo rediscovered  the pioneering and offbeat spirit which lies behind the success of the founder, Kenzo Takada.

Discussion of brand equity Kenzo has a unique style and design. Designers love to add natural things such as tiger and eye in their products to increase Kenzo’s awareness. Customers can easily identify the products since the unique theme or logos presented on the wearings.

On the other hand, Kenzo built a concept retail store with Samsung. Kenzo noticed that all teenagers enjoy online shopping nowadays. Therefore, Kenzo wants to let customers have illusion which they are doing online shopping in store. This idea can increase the brand loyalty of customers to Kenzo.

There is legal protection to protect the reputation of Kenzo. One of the way is to register the trademark. All the brand and non-brand marks, including all appear in Kenzo’s products are all properties of Kenzo.

Reference:

1.kenzo. 2015. Prints of the Season. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.kenzo.com/en/prints-spring-summer-2015. [Accessed 02 May 15].

2.kenzo. 2015. A-La-Capitale. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.kenzo.com/en/a-la-capitale#. [Accessed 02 May 15].

3.kenzo. 2015. Women Fall/Winter-2015 Collection. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.kenzo.com/en/collections/women/fall-winter-2015. [Accessed 02 May 15].

4.Emily Farra . 2014. Shop the Look: The Eyes Have It. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.style.com/trends/fashion/2014/shop-look-eyes. [Accessed 01 May 15].

5.Emily Farra . 2015. Intergalactic Chess, Anyone? An Exclusive Look at Kenzo’s Trippy Spring ’15 Video. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.style.com/trends/fashion/2015/kenzo-spring-2015-ad-campaign-video. [Accessed 01 May 15].

.Jessica Bumpus. 2015. KENZO AUTUMN/WINTER 2015-16 READY-TO-WEAR. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/autumn-winter-2015/ready-to-wear/kenzo. [Accessed 03 May 15].

7.SUZY MENKES. 2015. KENZO: ROBOTIC MODERNITY. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.vogue.co.uk/suzy-menkes/2015/03/suzy-menkes-paris-fashion-week-day-six. [Accessed 03 May 15].

8.samsung. 2014. Samsung delivers an innovative in-store experience for KENZO shoppers. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.samsung.com/de/business-images/insights/2014/Samsung_Kenzo-0-0.pdf. [Accessed 03 May 15].

9.LVMH. 2015. kenzo. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.lvmh.com/houses/fashion-leather-goods/kenzo/. [Accessed 03 May 15].

Learning Outcomes

1: Identify a range of learning styles and the factors that influence successful study.

I have done the learning style quiz online. The result is that for the Auditory 50%, Visual is 29% and Kinesthetic is 20%. According to this result, I believe that I am an Auditory and Visual Learner. I prefer having lectures and borrowing books with pictures such as magazines and newspaper which can help me to remember all the details. I like the every-week trips the most because it contains briefing and visiting which suit my learning style.

2: Consider a range of academic skills as appropriate for the programme of study.

In my academic life, since all of works are in English, so I think improving academic writing and presentation skills are very important. I would like to borrow some books which are related to this topic. Moreover, I would also like to watch TED online since it is more interesting and I can learn the skills of the speakers.

3: Critically assess current academic skills and present a plan for the development of academic skills.

After my first term, my academic skills, especially the lesson of APS, has had a lot of improvement. However, there are still many aspects that I have to improve more such as critical thinking and communication. Therefore, I would like to improve and focus my communication skill in the future work. For example, I will prepare all the material that I need before the group meeting and discuss with group mate during the meeting. For the critical thinking, I will make a reflective brief after every lectures and group meeting so my writing skill would also improve.

4: Demonstrate a critical appreciation of the importance of independence, reflection, self-evaluation and the need for a ‘growth’ mindset as a learner.

I can finish my responsible part fully after every group meeting. During the trips, I could totally follow the instructions provided by tutors. During the lectures, I could mark down all the main points and notes mentioned by teachers. However, my critical and reflective thinking are not good to me. That means my skill of analysing is not good. Therefore, I will focus on training my critical thinking and conclude what I should improve.

5: Prepare a Personal Development Plan to address areas in need of development throughout the programme of study

After the last two presentation, I have to improve the skill of using computer. When I was preparing the powerpoint, I wasted plenty of time to learn how to use softwares. Therefore, I need to complete reading chapter 3 of the book called ‘The Good Study Guide’ since the chapter describe how to use the computer to study. Moreover, during holiday, I would request classmates who are good at using softwares related to representation teaching since it is important to present accurate datas and beautiful pictures to have a perfect presentation.

Pyramid – COS

Both pictures shown above represent the pyramid of COS in the UK (first) and Hong Kong (second) respectively. For both pyramids, products are separated by three categories which are directional, fashion and basics. We could see that there are differences between these two pyramids.

The first difference is the variety of colour. In the UK COS, only black, grey and white colour can be found in retail shops. In contrast, more various of colours can be chosen in Hong Kong’s COS such as yellow, light blue, light brown, etc. it is because of the different weathers of both regions. The weather in the UK is much colder than in Hong Kong. Because of this reason, COS in Hong Kong provides warm colours option to people choose and match its weather.

Second, their targets are different in both regions. In the UK, the sales target is mainly office ladies. They usually wear clothes in a professional way, so the clothes are mainly is black, grey and white colour. In contrast, the sales target of COS in Hong Kong is mainly young people. They buy the clothes from COS for casual wearing. Therefore, various colours can let them to choose.

Third, they have different competitors in both regions. In Hong Kong, there are less high street brands than in the UK. The high street brands having similar sales targets in Hong Kong are only Zara, H&M, Topshop. In contrast, except the brands I listed just now, more high street brands are the competitors to COS in the UK such as River Island, All Saints, NEXT, etc.

However, there is one common point for both different regions of COS.

The tailoring of clothes are the same in both regions. Since COS is selling products in androgynous style, all products are designed in an inverted triangular shape which is suitable to androgyny.

Aps Presentation

This is the PPT. http://prezi.com/hv8oq08yi7os/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

The fashion industry can be defined as a business and cultural system of creating and selling clothes. It refers to the cogs of the fashion industry: branding, retail & merchandising, sourcing & manufacturing, trend analysis, media & communication, design & product development.

Moreover, the fashion industry uses trends in order to cope with an ever-changing environment : technologies, markets, consumers, lifestyles. Each new seasonal collection – Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter – is based on consumer’s buying habits, behavior, culture at a specific time.

Furthermore, Androgyny can be defined as having physical traits of both male and female.

Now for our presentation, we choose high street as our market segment.

High street’s popular culture fight for gender equality, gay marriage and more women to access a high position at workplace.

Plus, we can say that Androgyny fits in the high street’s market segment. These consumers embrace the androgyny trend because of unisex symbol as a manifestation of their ideal of the society and also a statement of liberty and equality.

Is Androgyny a trend? Androgyny existed before it was a trend. It appeared with the women liberation. On this mood board, we can recognize famous people who adopted androgynous characteristics through different period of time.

We went to these four stores for our grid data research. Zara, COS and Topshop which are in Westfield Stratford and NEXT from Frechurch Street.

After that, we realised different characters in these 4 stores.

So it’s the look we used for our grid data collection.

Zara has wide choices of androgynous wearing, especially for their trousers together with like workplaces and events clothes.

As for NEXT, it  provides wide ranges of colors for trousers.

With respect to Cos, it’s one of the most representative high-street brands in our survey, they provides androgynous style clothes such as blazers  and trousers but mainly are in black and grey colours. And my partner Koey will show you more details about Cos later.

Regarding Topshop, we found out that it has limited choice of androgynous styles. The result dosen’t fit with my expectation. However there are special colors and patterns for some androgynous suits such as light blue, wine red and stripes. And they have large variety of androgynous shoes as well.

In addition, we made a conclusion about the trend on the high street brands. Nowadays, androgynous style actually appears in most of the high street brands. And choices of colour and amount of the styles in-store almost depends on the brands individual image.Therefore, Androgynous style is becoming a key element in fashion industry. So we should notice that the iterms sold by high street brands doesn’t only fulfil the appearance of a person, but also shows the modern lifestyle and standard with the acceptable price and various fashion styles for general market.Therefore,it raised the society’s attention about this style.

that is  the questionnaire methodology we used. We did both online questionnaire and on-the-street questionnaire .

First, there were 140 people completing the questionnaire. Among the people, there were about 70 percent of female.

Moreover, the majority age group is from 19 to 25. It occupies half of the respondents. The other age group is from 26 to 30.

In addition, we would focus on european and asian as they r the majority.

First, the pie chart shows there are more than half of them wearing in androgynous style. Also, there are 41 percent of respondents wearing in this style sometimes.

The next bar chart showsThey think that people should wear in androgynous style during events which is about half of them, daily life and workplace. Unexpectedly, less respondents think that catwalks is appropriate of wearing in this style.

Lets move on the next, why androgynous style? Well, there are three main reasons of it. First, it is because of the celebrities such as Cara Delevingne, the new face of Topshop’s advertisement campaign during AW14, Grace Jones and Tilda Swinton.

Secondly, it is the social media network such as Facebook, twitter because some celebrities or High street brands might post their photos on the networks and share with people.

At last, mass mediia such as WGSN, Style Bubble and fashion magazine like VOGUE,and bloggings can provide information of androgynous wearing.

we chose COS as the brand we will focus on. COS (Collection of Style),which is under H&M group.It was created for 7 years.

The customer profile of COS are mainly the mature and middle-class group who seek for simple androgynous styles clothing .COS always provides their consumer a good quality of garments such as wool,leather and silk.

Besides,this is another findings from our questionnaire which is about if people think Androgynous style is uncommon. We mainly concentrate on the European and Asian group as they r the majority of our respondents . For both nationality , most of the people think it is common. However, a lot of European still think it is uncommon and quite a few Asian are unsure about this trend more than thinking it is uncommon probably they still don’t know what Andgrougyny exactly is.

So this is the trend consumer board of COS, COS does direct marketing  about their trend through the website and printed publication. They don’t do advertising ,instead, they hold a lot of events.For example , Cos is currently running an event with Palais De Tokyo.(pic) They created something like a spider web and people can have a physical expereince in it . So here is the video ( video time 15 secs)
Cos wants to show the people the texture of its 2014/2015 winter collection DNA which they are going to stick with Androgynous style by using the quality fabric such as wool ,felt and linen and they will do some extra colour like sky blue and soft yellows apart from those basic colour they normally have.

Dressing in an Androgynous way is a more popular and common choice in the world today. Androgyny is a macro trend this is a large-scale sustained shift in consumer interest. Forcing brands such as COS to cater to this sector of the Fashion Industry in both there spring/summer and Autumn/winter collections, COS could add a diverse colour pallet to there collection in order to make it relevant for the spring/summer collection allowing the brand to evolve but stick to there brand image.

Conclusion:

Androgyny is common and acceptable in most society’s today, through our findings we’ve learnt that Androgyny is common in Europe and becoming more popular in Asia. Androgyny is relevant and influential to the Fashion Industry forcing High street brands to cater to this sector of the market. In society today the lines and boundaries between masculine and feminine are being blurred. Androgyny’s influence on society gives women power and raises the idea of brands creating unisex collections in the future.Designers are now investigating the idea of unisex fashion allowing there focus to be genderless, From Men wearing wigs in the 1700’s and the likes of David Bowie in the 1970’s fashion has long toyed with gender boundaries, The industry is heading in a direction that will not be about men wearing skirts but more about men and women sharing skirts in the world of gender neutral fashion. Will this concept be accepted by society?

 

Bibliography

 

Adil, N. (2014). History of Androgyny in Fahsion. Available: http://mancunion.com/2011/11/16/history-of-androgyny-in-fashion/. Last accessed 19th Nov 2014.

COS X PALAIS DE TOKYO. (2014, Nov 13). Retrieved Nov 15, 2014, fromdailyshopwindow.com: http://blog.dailyshopwindow.com/en/cos-x-palais-tokyo-2/

 

Coachrane, L (2013, Sep 20).  How to wear Androgyny. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2013/sep/20/how-to-androgynous-fashion
“Design and architecture has been a key influence” says COS managing director. (2014, nov 5). Retrieved nov 10, 2014, from dezeenmagazine:http://www.dezeen.com/…/cos-marie-honda-interview-fashion-…/

 

Leo. (2014, sept 1). COS FALL-WINTER 2014-2015 WOMEN’S LOOKBOOK. Retrieved oct 25, 2014, from THE BEST FASHION BLOG:http://thebestfashionblog.com/…/cos-fall-winter-2014-2015-w…

 

Leona. (2014, may 15). Top 10 Most Androgynous Celebrities . Retrieved 10 20, 2014, from Uncoverdiscover: http://www.uncoverdiscover.com/…/top-10-most-…/glenn-close7/

 

Mags. (2013, Jan 10). Can Men Wear Dresses? Retrieved Nov 1, 2014, from girlsfashionguide: http://www.thesmartgirlsfashionguide.com/can-men-wear-dresses/

 

Marriott, H (2014, Sep 5). Why Unisex is the new Androgynous. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2014/sep/05/why-unisex-new-androgynous-1205

McKenna, R. (2013). The meaning behind androgynous fashion. Available: http://fashionhistoryarchive.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/the-meaning-behind-androgynous-fashion/. Last accessed 19th Nov 2014.

 

Morwenna, F (2014, Aug 11). Gender-neutral fashion: beyond menswear and womens wear. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2014/aug/11/-sp-the-rise-of-gender-neutral-fashion

Style edit team. (2014). A short history of modern androgyny. Available: http://www.styleedit.co.uk/blog/2014/07/a-short-history-of-modern-androgyn/. Last accessed 19th Nov 2014.

Calendar

It is the link of Calendar:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hRpUUDrqRf3Uoxu4H6KnwTAyYiMYjY_ztCjux9BHoE0/edit?usp=sharing

REFERENCE

 

Magazines

 

Drama Club. (2014). Marie Claire UK, (316 December 2014), p.61.

 

The edit: Luscious berry & pink. (2014). Cosmopolitan UK, (December 2014), p.162.

 

Video:

 

Ted Baker AW14 launch: Take The Lead. (2014).

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoEbWH565No

 

Websites

 

Bayle, T. (2014). 2014 Trade Shows (Magic, Bread & Butter, Whos Next). [online] Globalfashionmanagement.com. Available at: http://www.globalfashionmanagement.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=133&Itemid=208

 

Beverly Hills, California Patch, (2014). Ted Baker London Sample Sale. [online] Available at: http://patch.com/california/beverlyhills/ted-baker-london-sample-sale

 

Tedbaker.com, (2014). Ted Baker AW14 | Ted Baker ROW. [online] Available at: http://www.tedbaker.com/row/tedbakeraw14.

 

Tedbakerplc.com, (2014). Sustainability & the Environment. [online] Available at: http://www.tedbakerplc.com/teds-responsibilities/sustainability-and-the-environment

 

Ted Baker Blog, (2014). Enter Ted’s Winter Wonderland With #TedsElfie – Ted Baker Blog. [online] Available at: http://tedbakerblog.com/2014/12/christmas-arrived-ted-baker/

 

Tradefairdates.com, (2014). Fashion Trade Shows – Dates from December 2014 | worldwide. [online] Available at: http://www.tradefairdates.com/Fashion-Trade-Shows-Y248-S1.html

 

Carrie Parry. (17th September 2014). Traditional fashion calendar fuels overconsumption and waste. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2014/sep/17/fashion-calendar-sustainable-climate-change-london-fashion-week. Last accessed 30th November 2014.

Nesta. (2014). Alliance Fashion and Manufacturing Toolkit. Available: http://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/alliance_fashion_and_manufacturing_toolkit_designers_ed.pdf. Last accessed 30th November 2014.

‘look’ data collection grid

APS Week 4 learning:

Teachers taught us how to check trend in store and use observation to confirm as to whether a trend is bing ‘moneytised’. Therefore, he brought us to commercial street which is near school. Under his teaching, our group finished the process of data collection smoothly. After that, we put our data in my trend confirmation grid.

I had been to 4 shops included M&S Bishopsgate, NEXT – Fenchurch Street, NEW LOOK – Bishopsgate and Hobbs – Leadenhall.

First is M&S. Teacher had an introduction of the type of data that we had to collect and fill in my grid. There are two floors in M&S and a lot of collection in the shops such as bags, shoes, casual wearing and suits etc. I chose the tailoring collection because I think this collection showing androgynous style. I used 5 factors which are fabric, colour, cutting, size and price and compare with the clothes in this collection with these 5 factors. I found that the jackets were made of polyester more. Therefore, the price of this kind of jacket has a higher price than the other same type jackets in M&S. For this jacket, there are only two cuttings and two colours only. On the hand, M&S is the only store that LED lighting is used in window display for merchandising among 4 shops.

NEW LOOK is the only branding for finding shoes in androgynous style. The types of colour, fabric and design are rich and the price is cheap. Because of the low price, the size is limited. Size 6-9 are easily found.

Most of the androgynous style wearing can be found in NEXT included trousers, blouses, jackets, shoes and shirts. The types of colour are rich and not like the others shops only exist black, grey and white. Pink, blue, green and red colour can be also found in NEXT.

Hobbs has the best fabric quality among 4 shops. Unfortunately, I could only find one trousers that is androgynous. The other products are more girly.

In a nut shell, NEXT has a various androgynous style wearing and I know how to look data and create a questionnaire to collect primary data for the research.

Trend Store confirmation grid Sissi