Mulberry to die for

Now this is the brief I have been looking forward to the most...

Designing my own brand-zine is going to be so much fun! I love designing and creating things so this is right up my street. 

We got to choose any brand from a list the lecturers gave us so I chose...MULBERRY!

I've always wanted a Mulberry bag (Chanel comes first though) so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to learn more about one of my favourite brands. 

When we were in London I was going to go to Mulberry's store on New Bond Street but we ran out of time. Luckily for me we by chance walked past this store in Knightsbridge! I initially went into the store to try and take photos of their visual merchandising however it was difficult to do so with staff watching me from every angle! Instead I took photos of the window displays and attempted to sneak a photo of the inside of the store.

Even though the staff obviously weren't too keen on me taking photographs within the store they were extremely pleasant and helpful! I know people think this should happen in every store anyway but sadly it doesn't. Most of the times stores such as Mulberry would be very cold and almost rude to students walking into the store as its quite apparent we weren't going to buy anything. This is exactly what happened in Roberto Cavalli! As soon as we walked in we were almost followed around the store in an attempt to get us out of there! We got no 'hello' or we weren't even asked if we needed any help with anything. I have to say, out of all the stores we went into, the staff in Tom Ford were by far the nicest. The bodyguard on the door, the staff behind the counter and even the guard inside the store (even though he did follow us round quite a bit!) were extremely pleasant and were constantly asking us how we were, how our day had been and whether we needed any assistance! By far the friendliest staff we had met during our day in London. 

I admit I was slightly disappointed by their display especially after walking past Harrods about one minute before! I do love the 'simple yet effective' look but I just wasn't feeling it with Mulberry! Although as the brand was founded in England I did like the use of Buckingham Palace Guards and nutcrackers within their display. I thought having their advertisements on a large scale in the window was really eye catching and the bags were definitely still the main focus even though the images were busy with trees and owls.  

The trip to London has got me even more excited for this project and I can't wait to start looking at Mulberry's visual DNA, Mulberry's handwriting and any cultural references they use within their work which I am hoping will inspire my brand-zine!

London calling

London is a very magical place.

Ever since I was a little girl I've always gone to London and even now the magic still lives on, especially at Christmas. 

This is why the FCP trip to London was so much fun! We were going on the trip so we could collect primary research for both our group brand, which is Tom Ford and our own individual brand, which is Mulberry.

We started off by visiting the 'Club to Catwalk' exhibition at the V&A which was really interesting. It showed us all about how designers took inspiration from the club styles in London and how they transformed these trends into high fashion. Every time I go to the V&A it makes me see a part of the fashion world I'd never even thought of before. Maybe it's naive of me to think this but I had no idea about the connection between London club fashion and the catwalk shows. 

As I've just been on a two week holiday Ibiza I found it really interesting to read about how the coolest London clubs in the 90's recreated the sound and atmosphere from the drug fueled dance clubs in Ibiza and I can absolutely see what they mean. Of course people still get dressed up to the nines and make every night out a glamorous event but, as I read at the V&A, it's no longer 'dress to impress' in most cases and it's more 'dress to sweat'. I totally get this! Raves are so popular now with my age group with things such as the Warehouse Project in Manchester, festivals and underground parties. 

I've always absolutely loved Vivienne Westwood. I just think she is hands down one of the coolest designers around! Vivienne was one of the key designers within the punk era in the 70's and this is very much still referenced in her collections today. Whenever I see a piece of her work I can automatically see the cultural references to history such as pagans, hobo dress as well as modern art. She's still such a well known figure for re working fashion traditions and she is definitely not afraid to push the boundaries. 

The best part of the trip is yet to come...shopping in all the designer stores you could dream of! I'll write about that in a bit more detail on another post...