India's models accuse fashion industry of racism

This week there is the news that there is racism within India’s fashion industry.

Several of the country's top models have spoken out about prejudice and discrimination in the Indian industry. They say India has an obsession with pale skin that dates back to British colonial rule.

This is awful news for Indian models that in their own country they are not accepted and used for modelling and catwalks. However does this mean in the west that a trend may begin to emerge that Indian models will become more popular and more accessible as they will travel to get the work? Only time will tell.

The soft dark complexion of a Indian model is a nice change to the white models we have as they have a different look which is not used so often.

Menswear Beach Photoshoot

I have been working towards this photo shoot for the last few weeks now and I had the insight today that I may need to research mens poses for a fashion shoot. As I am not a man I know it will not be easy to just think of manly positions so I created a page of shoot poses and ideas I have.

I have also taken photographs of most of the outfits I have been able to get for the shoot, some however I am unable to get my hands on until tomorrow.....

I am so lucky and grateful to the buying team at animal as they were kind enough to let me borrow some samples to use for my shoot! So excited to see how the shoot goes!!!

Michelle xoxo

My Third Exhibition.....The Assembly Rooms Bath

The Assembly rooms in Bath is a fashion clothing museum. I visited museum over a year ago in October 2009 however I wrote back then what I still believe......

"I'm hoping to use all the museum was able to give me, in my fashion years to come.....!!!"

The museum was the first fashion exhibition I had visited so it has stuck with me through this course. I came to the course thinking that I already knew quite a bit about fashion but soon came to the realization that was not necessarily the case and I found through this museum that it taught me about the important events and influences of fashion history.

I particularly liked and remember the Dress of the year display. This really showed exactly what a difference and impact an era or a few years can make. I have always remembered this and always tried to use this, especially when I am doing promotion work and need to make sure a shoot captures a current trend and cannot be mistook for being out of date.

Michelle xxx

Manga Exhibition

Only the other day I was at a loss for another exhibition to see and with no plans to visit London I explored what exhibitions were currently being shown locally. I came across a Manga exhibition being shown at the Red House Museum in Christchurch which really interested me.

The exhibition was really very interesting and very colourful....It was especially interesting as it had photo's of people wearing clothes inspired by Manga and also had a selection of wigs and clothes at the exhibition that could be tried on really giving people a hands on experience of Manga fashion.

I was also particularly interested in the comic strips they had displayed, as for my current professional project I am planning to attempt to include a comic strip I have had the inspiration that I could attempt a Manga Comic strip as its modern yet fun which I really like. They had several books at the exhibition also which showed how to illustrate a manga cartoon which I attempted which is shown below.

The Most common Manga that you might remember is Pokemon which was a huge comic illustration in the 1990's! What I found amazing is that Manga is now the fastest growing segment in the publishing industry with sales. 

After much persuasion I managed to get David to put on a mask and get into the spirit and he certainly had a good pose :)

I also recorded the exhibition to share (below), I hope its not too wobbly for you! :)

Michelle xoxo

How to make the budget fashionable? Avoid budget fashion

The Telegraph has released an article lately about how budget fashion is no longer fashionable. This has been something the fashion houses have been trying to promote for a very long time but with the likes of the Telegraph publicizing it could lead to people standing up and taking notice.

With this being something that is becoming more and more common in magazines and headlines I to need to stand up and take notice. With the line of employment that I want to follow in Buying I need to be paying attention to this issue and to understand that there could be a trend to follow that people will begin to again pay for quality over quantity.

Japan Fashion Week officially cancelled

The Tsunami disaster is not only affecting Japan and its residents it has had a massive hit on fashion.

Many fashion labels and brands were forced to delay and even cancel the trend of fashion show Fall / Winter 2011 tsunami damaging aspects of the apparel industry. Sales of clothing and cosmetics estimated to fall 10.6 percent since two days ago. For example brand Uniqlo is down 17.5 percent, 13.79 percent of Takashimaya shopping center until the losers Shiseido 9:18 percent.

This has just shown me how quickly as a buyer or fashion worker the wheel can stop spinning causing real damage and time delay to a certain line or collection.

There is obviously rare cases that this can happen on this scale but this would mean delaying a line or finding another manufacturer to complete the order which in itself would delay the order.

With the chance although very minimal chance of this happening I wonder if the best idea and back up plan is to have connections with several factories so that if one were to fall through you have already the rapport with another to get your orders in to minimise delays further.

Focus Photography Exhibition

So on Sunday Dave and I took the trip up to Birmingham to visit the focus photography exhibition. Dave was very excited to go being a photographer but I was also excited to see what new equipment and ideas they had to show me and they didn't disappoint!!!

The exhibition was vast and it took the whole day to get around it and I still don't feel like we even touched the surface with all the stalls and displays.

I was particularly interested in the talks and displays they were giving.....I was able to catch an adobe talk (below left) which was really interesting about how he set prefixes when adjusting photography so that when it came to editing several photo's there was a saved preset to make the images all have the same effect.

There was also a top photographer (above right) who spoke about being a photographer and how he achieved his images but what I found more interesting is how he spoke about copy-write and how he never gives away his copy-write as that can restrict the amount of money he can make. The photographer was quite arrogant but he had some great advice! What photographer isn't a bit arrogant?!!!

There was a couple of great displays on photography and lighting which Dave and I stood around for ages for as they were so informative. It really taught me about how much difference a light box can make and how best to use it. It was especially great as they had a model and the experimented with the light and allowed the audiences to take pictures of the different lighting!

The real find for the day for me though is topaz labs!!!! Wow what an amazing display and package they offered! I bought the whole package topaz labs for £90 for a show price offer rather than the RRP $199 online! The package is a plug-in to Photoshop and it has all the tools which would usually take you hours it now takes minutes.....so happy to have found it! I can not do it justice by just explaining it so I have attached a video to show just how amazing it is!!!!

I'm very glad my boyfriend dragged me up to Birmingham to this amazing exhibition!!!! hehe!

Michelle xx