Imagine if we were in a situation where we had to do a quick turnaround job to know the street fashion acroos the globe.
What would we do?
Reach out to fashion experts/designers in different regions of the world and compile that knowledge
or
Reach out to experts in Milan or any other such fashion capital and attempt to paint the picture basis whatever they have to say
or
Go through a lot of fashion magazines from different regions of the world and attempt to paint a larger and meaningful picture of what we see as the emergent
theme.
All of the routes mentioned above are viable options that we could explore.
Ideally we could target captuiring information from more than one of the above-mentioned data points so that we cross-validate whatever we are concluding.
While waiting for a connecting flight at the newly made (and massively massive!) Suvarnabhumi International Airport at Bangkok, Thailand, I thought of another way to add to the list above.
I realised that if one were to deploy 4-5 hrs at all the key international airport terminals in the world, one could get a fair amount of idea of what people are
wearing, and what 'look' is dominating.
This could include a informed perspective on the colours, cuts, hair do, gadgets, accessories and even the kind of luggage that people are carrying. All the we might need to do to get to the colour would be to defocus our sight and look at the dominating shade(s).
If we can do this at Heathrow, Amsterdam, Dubai, JFK, HongKong & Singapore Internationals Airports we might end up with a whole lot of rich information.
It would then be equally interesting to compile inputs from different regions and see regional and international themes. The similarities and differences. These could inturn perhaps be linked to the variouis social & political developments (beyond
advertising or marketing) that are going on in the respective regions.
As I walked towards the security check area, I told myself "for some research excurtions I might not need to fly any more.. I just might need to go to the
airport.."
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Fashion in Motion
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3 comments:
Hey Saurabh I agree that there are lots of observatioins that one can make outside research groups, but if you really study fashion and have to predict trends, you have all the options that you mentioned and a lot more. The lines of fashion trickling down from their respected capitals or so called fashion temples is fast trickling down everywhere. Think about it when was the last time you told a relative or a friend, wow you are going to the US or going abroad can you get me this...Gone are the days... Today you know fashion with a click of a mouse...
The new mantra of fashion is 'wearable fashion'. Ramp fashion is passe. Maybe that is why the shows that do well at our desi fashion weeks also are now harping on 'wearable fashion'
New theme is wearable fashion, very well said and that's exactly the point Mansi.
Mass class, luxury for masses, 'sweetening the Cognac' (in China the new rich add sprite to the Cognac to make it more 'tasty') these are all examples of democratization.
You are right that fashion is much more decentralized; I do not get stuff from NY or London as much because a lot of it is already available here (and sometimes even cheaper).
The point that I was trying to make is that one place where you can get to know a lot about the fashion across the globe is a big and busy airport terminal (like the ones I mentioned in the post).
They are almost like the self-recruited and unaware respondents that are giving us information about the prevailing cuts, lines, colours etc.
Happy Blogging!
Hye Saurabh interesting observation, . My first visit to New Delhi airport was exactly the same eye opener. As u saw fashion I saw the change in retailing from PSUs. MTNL a so called PSU has a Wi-FI one stop shop at the airport. I was surprised to see PSUs getting so aggressive when it comes to image building and becoming new age "engaging PUBLIC Sector Undertaking". ePSU
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