Month: May 2022

The Future of Fashion by Tyler Little: Eco Fashion. “Personal accounts of industry change-makers”. Basically a long, analytic (and hopeful) look at sustainable fashion, who is actually trying to make a difference, and how they’re doing it.

Shutting Up Shop by John Londei: photographs of small shops around the UK, taken by Londei over a 15-year period beginning in the early 1970s. And the stories of each and every shop, as well as the shopkeepers. What happened to them?

Absolutely Fabulous! by Ruth Hanisch: How designers and architects have used space to reinvent and enhance the retail experience.

Brand Spaces by S. Borges: “The future of spatial branding experiences. New concepts for communicating brands via architecture, trade show presentations, shops, and interior design. Brand communication is becoming increasingly sophisticated and diversified.”

There’s an app called By Rotation, which allows women to rent clothes from other women. It interests me for two main reasons:

• it is entirely peer-to-peer;
• its social aspect.

Users can follow each other on the app — and there are handy “by size” filters for profiles so you’ll know the stranger’s clothes are at least likely to fit you, even if their taste may be a little outré — idea being to turn a vicarious admiration of another woman’s style into actually paying her to borrow that dress you’re thirsting on.

Another feature By Rotation has in the app to pad out the experience — and try to avoid it feeling too nakedly transactional and e-commerce-y — is the ability to create Pinterest-style mood boards. It’s also working on more gamification features to keep users engaged, Kabra said.

This is an interesting model for me to analyse, thinking about how I could adapt it. This is what I want to achieve with my idea, the Controra Fashion Club: building a community where women can feel safe to seek advice, share tips, personal experiences, and also attend events in retail spaces where they can do more than shop for clothes (make new friends, discover new hobbies, etc.)

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/01/by-rotation-seed/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANx6JV202jIh9GtwdgrhQGX37B-cs5A1C7SvIVfzWDZicjdWK8UFmBASTjwkWPKBcY2V3yc-rXpOXD_ZPlKxlHO9CWi26r5lpqFAwVSAgBq86Cu1ku4AEHiSsQUhxcXa63t6zSCeLyAcuQZ99B3Hc7ufLFv7HIjs5wRl43Di7hJ3

Is upcycling becoming part of the future of fashion? Are brands embracing it? According to Louise Grant, founder of Pimp Up Your Plants, it would seem so.

 “People have become more educated about fast fashion and I think we now have a slightly better moral conscience when it comes to shopping.” Consumers are looking for more ways of being sustainable shoppers, which doesn’t necessarily mean buying clothes, but reverting to ‘make do and mend’ attitudes.

Why would fashion brands embrace upcyling though? What’s in it for them?

Nona Dimitrova, head of social media and community at Whering, says that upcycling initiatives: “Bring good to the consumer and the environment by extending clothes’ lifecycles, but [also] to the brand itself by promoting a longer-lasting piece.” Dimitrova describes them as: “A win-win situation for the planet, the people and the brand.”

source: https://www.shiftlondon.org/features/an-insight-into-the-brands-promoting-upcycling/

This reinforces my idea that upcycling can be incorporated into the shopping experience, and running an upcycling session can be a good way to talk about shopping with younger shoppers (particularly Gen Z).

I have found out that there are already some companies doing more or less what I want to do, which does not come as a surprise. This is, after all, the point of doing research before embarking on a (business) venture.

The Lone Design Club, for instance. Self-defined as the ‘antidote to fast fashion,’ they connect people to ethical, independent, fashion and lifestyle brands. They too started small, first by opening temporary pop up stores around London, then organising events and experiences. From their website:

^{Lone Design Club was founded in May 2018 as the result of emerging international fashion + lifestyle brands uniting with like-minded businesses in rising up, taking control and shaping the future of retail. It started by creating short term concept stores appearing for 1-2 weeks at a time, first around London and then internationally, where designers are in-store telling you first-hand accounts of how the product was designed and made. Experiences and events followed, allowing designers an intimate outlet to tell their story and the audience a chance to interact with topics ranging from sustainable fashion to individual empowerment and entrepreneurship. Shortly after, Lone Design Club launched its online store, giving their community a new avenue to further relationships that is open 24/7. Both physical and digital platforms allow consumers to discover + shop from independent brands with traceable and mindful practices, selling exclusive and one of a kind items incomparable to that on the high street. To shop consciously, knowing the story behind every purchase.}

Now I really need to do more research and think about what makes my idea different. I think the best way to do so is by talking to people directly. Organising a workshop should be a good way to get some feedback.

source: https://lonedesignclub.com/pages/events-experiences

I am thinking of organising an upcycling workshop at uni. I think it would be a good occasion to ask questions about fashion, and what people want from the retail space, whilst doing something fun and playing with clothes.

I see it as an alternative to conducting interviews or focus groups. Also, this type of workshop is the sort of thing that I envision taking place in the retail space of my dreams. So i think this could be a good occasion to test my ideas, seeing how people feel about the Controra Fashion Club.

I need to:

• Decide when – thinking first or second week of June, either in the morning or evening;
• Secure location (either at C&E or library learning zone);
• Being a keener, I’ve already purchased some materials (fabric glue, rhinestones). I would also need paint and clothes to upcycle.

The graph below shows the impact that digital technology has had on retail, and predicts future consumer trends.

“Between 2019 and 2021, three types of digital channels grew transaction share by nearly 40%: 1) brand websites and apps, 2) retailer websites, and 3) apps and online marketplaces.” (Solis, 2022)

For my research, I will have to look at both what consumers want (specifically young women), and how retailers are reshaping their spaces to meet these needs. The future of shopping in the post-pandemic era, in fact, looks like a hybrid experience – online shopping and in-store coexisting and informing each other.

According to Forbes, “shoppers say they value stores for the following reasons:

1.    Touch and feel merchandise 

2.    Get merchandise immediately 

3.    Avoid shipping fees for purchases 

4.    Take advantage of in-store discounts 

5.    Enjoy the shopping experience”

source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolis/2022/02/02/the-future-of-retail-is-hybrid-and-unified-around-end-to-end-connected-experiences/?sh=1a794fc563e1

I plan to start with a smaller intervention, possibly a workshop at CSM, talking to young women who have had bad (and also good) experiences shopping. Next, I’ll reach out to retailers who have been doing things differently – like the owners of Paper Dress Vintage in East London. A shop during the day, it turns into a music venue/club at night (actually one of my favourite places and sticky dance floors in London).

Keeping a copy of Vogue on my bedside table seems to have finally paid off.

I’m joking, my source of inspiration wasn’t Vogue. I don’t know what it was. Maybe thinking about the joy I used to feel as a child intent on crafting clothes for my Barbie dolls, or going into my mum’s wardrobe and make up a story for every item of clothing, imagining which special occasions they had been purchased for.

I haven’t changed much, and if I had any space at all in my small London flat I most definitely would still have some Barbie dolls around.

My previous post was about joy. What sparks joy? What am I passionate about? I kept thinking about that; joy and passion. I didn’t see any wind turbines. I saw my region, yes, but I didn’t necessarily feel excitement. I felt whatever I feel when I go back: I know I belong, I know I am home, I miss London, oh this food is so good, oh the sea, the salt, the music. And I miss London.

And I do, after all, live in London. And this is where I’ve been trying to build a future, which hopefully will look, taste or smell a bit of Puglia. But I think I am that taste or smell. I can bring Puglia into whatever I decide to do.

So, The Controra Fashion Club. Shopping should be a joyful, judgement-free, playful and empowering experience, particularly for women. I want to make it so. I want to create a space where women can feel safe, loved, and where they can share stories, cups of coffee or tea, read books, recite poetry. I want to combine shopping with what makes life worth living, starting from a small event (that will take place sometime in the next few months).

That is, after all, what Controra has always been about for me. A moment to enjoy life, slow down. Now I want to incorporate a bit of that into retail and shopping. Starting with an online platform/community where I can sell certain brands, organising events like the ones mentioned above. Selling clothes, but also creating a whole, fully sensorial experience. Now just gotta start somewhere, and see where (active) research takes me.

Today, after a very fruitful meeting with a tutor, I found myself searching “joy and the creative process”.

And that’s how I came across a very interesting article, titled Creative Joy: Process and Product, and written by poet and former teacher Jan Seale.

“Chance favors the prepared mind,” Louis Pasteur wisely observed. The Eureka! moment often comes during sleep or when reading unrelated material. Einstein had a breakthrough one day with his theory of relativity when he was simply observing a passing train. Descartes is said to have produced Cartesian geometry by observing the movements of a fly on the wall of his bedroom. And we have Percy Spencer, a military engineer, to thank for the microwave, brought about when he was working on a radar set and noticed that a candy bar had melted in his pocket.

At the moment I am still waiting for that Eureka! moment. In the meantime, I am going to try and focus on finding that joy, that spark of life which I will then instill into this project. And, hopefully, other people will feel it too.

Source:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1263097.pdf

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Salento’s not really a secret anymore…