World's top models?

While Gisele Bundchen may be the world's highest-earning, and Kate Moss is arguably the most famous, the world's top models by industry standards are rather less familiar names.

You may not have heard of the likes of Freja Beha Erichsen and Abbey Lee Kershaw, but the top five alone have collectively appeared on 265 magazine covers, walked 232 catwalk shows and have 115,000 Twitter followers.

According to new research by the Fashion Spot, Polish runway star Anja Rubik was the most in-demand girl between April 2010 and April this year. The 26-year-old posed on an impressive 59 magazine covers and appeared on 43 designers' runways.

But that is a small workload compared to Constance Jablonski, 20, who walked for an impressive 83 designers in the past year alone. That is in addition to appearing on 46 magazine covers.

Lara Stone, the Dutch-born model wife of comedian David Walliams is probably the most famous of the five thanks to her gap-toothed smile and bombshell curves.

The 27-year-old ranked third in the list of the most in-demand, but due to her contract with Calvin Klein, her appearances have been fewer than her peers, with only two runway shows and 47 magazine covers.

Danish model Freja Beha Erichsen is one of the industry's most popular names, having landed high-profile campaigns for Chanel and Valentino. In addition to appearing on 65 different covers and in 51 shows, she also starred in a short film by Karl Lagerfeld.

Abbey Lee Kershaw rounds out the top five. The Melbourne-born 24-year-old has also modelled for Chanel, as well as Tom Ford, and has been hailed Australia's biggest model export since Elle Macpherson.

While each girl's workload does not mirror how in-demand she is, their number of Twitter followers and Google searches echoes the ranking more accurately.

Numer 1. ANJA RUBIK

Number 2. FREJA BEHA ERICHSEN



Number 3. LARA STONE



Number 4. ABBEY LEE KERSHAW

Number 5. CONSTANCE JABLONSKI



Mui Mui's new campaign

Hailee Steinfeld and Mui Mui alike have sparked criticism for her use in these new campaigns in relation to the fact she is just 14 years old. They have been accused of using models so young, that the women who can afford to buy designer clothing cannot relate to them. And even though it is clear that she has not been dressed up to look like an adust, as so often happens with teenage models, it is hard to see that the 14 year old will convincingly sell designer clothes to grown women. After a leading role in True Grit, red carpet appearances led to Mui Mui becoming the teenagers favourite designer and has been seen wearing the label on a number of occassions.



Does age of the model really matter to such a well known high fashion brand? Or will the extra publicity be more beneficial and simply a good PR stunt?

Ballet Anyone?

Created by iconic shoe designer Christian Louboutin, he has designed a pair of eight inch, red sole stillettos based on the ballet shoe to be auctioned off to raise funds for the English National Ballet. Designers including Giles Deacon, Moschino and Julien Macdonald have also donated ballet inspired pieces to the auction and is expected to raiuse over £50,000 for the EMB.

Louboutin said: 'I could not help being inspired by English National Ballet... after all... isn’t the classical dancing ballet slipper the ultimate heel?
'The heel which makes dancers closer than any other women to the sky, closer to heaven!'

Alexander Mcqueen

At the age of 16, Mcqueen was offered an apprenticeship at the traditional tailors Anderson and Shepard, and then neighbouring Gieves and Hawkes, both masters in the technical construction of clothing. From there he moved to a theatrical costumiers where he mastered 6 methods of pattern cutting from the melodramatic 16th century to the razor sharp tailoring which has become a Mcqueen signature.

Alexander McQueen shows are known for their emotional power and raw energy, as well as the romantic but determinedly contemporary nature of the collections.

McQueen's early runway collections developed his reputation for controversy and shock tactics, earning the title “l’enfant terrible" and ‘the hooligan of English fashion’. He has been credited with bringing drama and extravagance to the catwalk. Mcqueen used new technology and innovation to add a different twist to his shows and often shocked and surprised audiences.   

McQueen was known for his lavish, unconventional, runway shows, such as a recreation of a shipwreck for his spring 2003 collection, spring 2005's human chess game and his fall 2006 show, "Widows of Culloden", which featured a life-sized hologram of supermodel Kate Moss dressed in yards of rippling fabric.

McQueen designed a range of dresses under the name of "manta", priced at around £2800. The line, named after the manta ray, was inspired by a holiday McQueen took in the Maldives in 2009. The designs have been worn by various models and celebrities, including Lily Cole.

Alexander's collections combine an in-depth working knowledge of bespoke British tailoring, the fine workmanship of the French Haute Couture atelier and the impeccable finish of Italian manufacturing.

 McQueen has been credited with bringing drama and extravagance to the catwalk.

He used new technology and innovation to add a different twist to his shows and often shocked and surprised audiences. The silhouettes that he created have been credited for adding a sense of fantasy and rebellion to fashion.

Biostoning

Used to give a distressed look to denim. Used to use pumice stones but it damaged the clothes, hems and machinery. Most manufactures use enzymes instead. This is suitable for denim as the indigo dye hardly penetrates the surface of the fibres staying mostly on the surface where it can be removed.

Benefits

-         Less damage to fabric and machines

-         Reduced product variability – more control

-         Reduced labour costs

-         Reduced environmental cost – no abrasive sludge left in waste water.

Body Scanning

Its aim is to accurately measure an individual customer, automatically develop flat patterns and mass customise a garment. another application is the development of cyber mannequins that can be used to try on clothing for fit size and look.

Body scanning uses a white light to capture a persons silhouette from which measurement data can be extracted. Fast and painless it means less error when taking measurements, as long as the person is wearing a body suit or a snug fitting garment during the process.

Benefits

-         Produce better fitting clothes

-         Exploit internet shopping

-         Increase sales

-         Reduce returns of wrong sizes

-         Automate measurements and pattern development of rtw clothing.

Most organisations that use them are interested in in store measuring booths and potential for offering  made to measure service. Current body scanning technology works by exporting measurement data to a cad system. This is then used to grade a chosen design of the nearest size to the individual measurements so that an accurately fitting custom tailored garment can be quickly manufactured. It's currently being used in a Japanese lingerie retailer to help with bra fitting and other stores in Germany, Holland and Slovenia.

1920's - Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel, a French fashion designer, epitomised the modern women. She designed comfortable loose blouses, chemise dresses and clothes that were sporty, relaxed, wearable and well suited to the outdoor lifestyle that was being promoted as healthy in the 1920’s. These clothes were designed to be worn without corsets and were make with fewer linings to make them lighter and more flexible. Chanel believed that fashion must meet the needs of modern lifestyles and give women freedom of movement. In 1916 she began using kitted jersey fabric, a relatively cheap fabric used for underwear and by the 1918 was producing cardigans and twinsets. Chanel was one of the most influential designers of the 20^th century. Her clothes broke away from the fussy over decorated clothing of the 19^th century.

She adapted men’s tailoring and produced classic suits with short skirts, always relying on good cut, finish and high quality fabric. What we all now consider to be normal part of women’s clothing – trousers, tweeds, pea jackets, blazers and the little black dress were all introduced by Chanel.

Fashion became more widely available as clothing by designers were copied for RTW – ready to wear. Clothing that had once only been available for the wealthy was now available to women on the street. This was a dramatic change for ordinary people who had previously only had every day and ‘best’ clothes that had to last for years. Even though it was still unaffordable to most, this gave it a desirability factor.

The production of RTW was an important turning point in the democratisation of fashion. The very styling of the clothes themselves, together with the lower prices means that social class was now immediately shown by what you wore.

Batik

Traditional technique produced all over the far east. The process is done by hand to produce pretty, expensive fabrics and by machine for mass produced fashion fabrics.

Hand produced batik:

1.       Draw the design with melted wax onto white of undyed fabric using a brush to cover the areas of the fabric that is desired to be left white or undyed. Wooden or metal blocks can also be used.

2.      When the wax is hard, crackle it, brush it with coldwater dye or dip dye then rinse off the excess dye.

3.      Repeat the waxing and dyeing process to produce more complex patterns by over dyeing.

4.      Dry the fabric then iron between absorbent paper to remove the wax and heat set the dye.

Industrially produced batik.

Mass produced batik fabrics incorporate the use of machinery for fast, automated production which reduces costs. This can be done by using various methods.

1.       Print gum or wax resist paste onto the fabric surface from hot rollers to form a resist. Dye the fabric and use a heat finishing to remove the surplus gum or wax and fix the dye.

2.      Print resin onto white or coloured fabric as a resist. Dye the fabric and use heat finishing to remove resin and fix the dye.

3.      Print a batik style design onto the fabric from engraved rollers, using photographic methods or CAD CAM. Apply finishing to fix the dye.



Tie Dye

Resistance dye technique involving manipulating the fabric by twisting, tying and crumpling the fabric to create the desired technique before being put into a dye bath. The ties are then removed to reveal that these parts of the fabric have resisted the dye and leave an effect such as circles, stripes or a random effect.

how to tie dye!

Dyes

Modern dyestuffs use chemical dyes in solution and require large amounts of water. Dyeing can cause pollution when wastewater is released into rivers.

Textiles can be dyed at the fibre, yarn, fabric of product stage.

Fabrics are often produced in a greige – undyed state and then piece dyed to meet the colour requirements of the maker up and the selling season. The fabric is passed through a bath of dyestuff and then squeezed between rubber rollers to ensure even and consistent dyeing. Continuous fixation machinery fixes the dye in the fabric. This process enables continual dyeing but also reduces the costs of setting machines up for producing colour woven fabrics.

Over dyeing is used on fabrics made from different fibre types to produce colour effects, depending on the dye that’s used. Different dyes are suitable for different fibres and need to form a physical or chemical bond with the fibre.

Garment dyeing enables colours to be chosen late in the manufacturing cycle, as dictated by fashion. This is desirable and cost effective for some manufacturers because colour decisions can be made close to the selling season. This is often used on fashion products.

Colour fastness is the resistance to colour loss during the manufacturing process and in use. A wide range of colourfastness exists for different fibre type and blends. Fastness depends on the type of dye and fabric and there is no universal colour that has the same level of fastness on all types of fibre. Also, different end uses have different fastness requirements. Underwear needs to be fast to perspiration.  The ISO 105 standard for fastness: resistance of the colour to rubbing, resistance to washing determines the wash programme that can be used – dyes are expected to be fast to the wash programmes at 60 degrees.  Resistance to perspiration is very important in underwear, outerwear and sportswear.

Standards and Testing

Consumer rights are protected and promoted by a range of organisations that provide guidance, discrimination, and approval. These include consumer organisations, BSI and the trading standards.

Consumer organisation – which? Provides reports on product testing and best buys. It’s a good source of product info and is regularly updated. Products can also be reviewed though the internet, digital media and printed media such as magazines and websites.

Standards ensure that products fulfil the quality and safety requirements of consumers and the environment and the standards are set at the request of industry or to implement legislation. When you see a product that displays the kite mark, you know what it has been independently tested under controlled conditions to confirm that it complies with a relevant British standard. The manufacture has to pay for this service and must have a quality system in place because the product tested and assessed at regular intervals. This means that every product is made to the same standard. The kite mark symbol provides the customer with the assurance that the product meets the BS and is safe and reliable.

The CE mark shown on a product means that a manufacturer meets essential safety requirements set up by a directive of the European commission. It is used on products that are sold across Europe that are required to meet the common ec legal technical and safety standards.

ITSA

Institute of trading standards administration. They have the power to enforce and advise of a wide range of legislation relating to consumer protection. They have the power to investigate claims about

-         False of misleading description of prices

-         Inaccurate weights and measures

-         Consumer credit

-         Safety of consumer goods

Quality control

Categorised by inspection and repair when used without quality assurance and can be very wasteful in terms of material usage and time.

Quality assurance

Manufacturers use feedback to trade faults to the production process and eliminating the cause, possibly by adjusting existing machinery, by using more special equipment or by retraining a machinist to acquire a new skill.

Using TQM system to promote sustained quality based on the British standard. In TQM system, all the areas of an organisation and its suppliers use agreed specifications and quality control methods.

Makin quality the responsibility of everybody in the department of a company, not just the production.

TQM

To build quality into the design and manufacture of a garment rather than relying on inspection and to reduce the need of inspection on every garment. in other words it is proactive rather than reactive.

ISO 9000

An internationally agreed set of standards for the development and operation of QMS. All industrial QMS use structured procedures to manage the quality of the designing and making process. The steps included in the management process is the use of modelling, evaluating the product to the spec, and use research and questionnaires.

Legislation

Statutory rights protect customers eg,

-         Trade description act – cant lie

-         Weights and measurements act

-         Sale of goods act

Children’s clothing

-         Cords and ribbons must not be accessible to the child’s mouth

-         No cords in hoods

-         Fastenings must not imitate food

-         Non ties or zips for boys under 4 years old

Product Proliferation

Many companies produce similar products aimed at the same market segment for customers with similar needs. Apart from aesthetics, price point is what customers usually base their decision on. Even though high end brands are very expensive however, they still sell well. Many consumers are not aware of every product and price on the market. Also the pulling power of the brands means that many of the consumers are prepared to pay a price for what they perceive as a must have.  Even so, manufacturers still try to make their products different from the competition to ensure they have successful market share. Different price levels may then be set which are often based on the value that the customers put on special features or qualities.

Branding

A brand is a name or logo – a marketing identity – that sets a product apart from competitors products. It protects and promotes the identity of the product. Branding is a key marketing tool because it promotes the concept of brand loyalty. Consumers by the chosen brand because it provides a perceived reliability, special features or added value which makes it special in the eyes of the consumer.

Marketing

Aim of all marketing is to satisfy customer needs, generate product sales, increase market share, and ensure that a company remains profitable. Successful marketing can also include promoting a brand image and developing new markets for the product.

Marketing plan

-         Background and situation analysis including SWOT

-         Analysis of PEST

-         Info from target markets, consumers and competitors

-         Action plan and advertising strategies

-         Investigating and planning marketing costs

-         Best time to market the product

-         How to monitor the marketing campaign

Market Research

Identifies info on:

-         Patterns and trends in the population and society such as age gender and income

-         Trends in employment, inflation and interest rates

-         The size, buying behaviour and preferences of the market segment

-         Styling trends, colours, and fabric trends for the season

-         Pricing strategies

-         Competition

Either from primary (shop or trade fair surveys, questionnaires, consumer surveys) or secondary resources – already published information (newspapers, trend forecasting companies, commercial reports, internet)

Primary research is either:

Qualitative

How people think and feel about an issue and why they take certain decisions – written form. This kind of research is usually concentrated among a few individuals to explore in-depth their behaviour. Further research then done to see if this is representative of the whole market group.

Quanative

How many people hold similar views or display similar characteristics, such as how many people watch sport on tv or how many belong to a sports club. This kind of research uses surveys to collect data about the attitudes and opinions about a sample of the TMG. The responses are then used to determine the views of the whole target market.

Questionnaires

Need to make sure they:

-         Avoid jargon and be clear and easy to understand

-         Only include relevant questions

-         Short questions with fewer than 20 words

-         Make sure each question is precise and tackles one subject at a time.

-         Avoid leading questions

-         Not offensive

Product analysis

Enables the analysis of a competitors product. This provides info about the construction, price, materials, components. This also helps in the development specifications of a new product and also provides with marketing information in the form of a SWOT analysis. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.

Advertising Media

When choosing advertising media, many companies subscribe to national surveys such as the Target Group Index, which is an important source of information about consumer consumption patterns – the types of product they buy and use, what TV they watch, which newspapers they read and which radio stations they listen to. Using this kind of survey enables a marketing organisation to match a products target market group with the media it uses most.

Press – 60%

J provides detailed product information, can use reply coupons for direct response

L need to be timed to match a marketing campaign, not always read by consumers

Television – 33%

J large audiences, but spread over different channels and can show products being used

L limited by short time span of commercials and viewers may not be the target market

Posters – 4%

J cheap form of advertising, widely available

L low impact form of advertising, seen as complicated to buy, liable to damage and defacement

Radio – 3%

J can accurately target geographical areas

L low audience numbers compared to other media

target market index website!

Advertising Standards Authority

ASA – advertising standards authority

In the uk, the ASA regulates all media advertising in non broadcast media, such as newspapers or magazines. There is a code of practise where adverts must be

-         Legal, decent, honest and truthful

-         Show responsibility to the consumer and to society

-         Follow business principles to fair competition

Example of a banned advert:

source: Daily Mail

A TV commercial featuring Georgia May Jagger gave the impression a Rimmel mascara had miraculous results in creating longer, thicker eye-lashes.

However, the images failed to make clear that the effect was enhanced with artificial lashes.Today, the Advertising Standards Authority(ASA) has banned the maker of Rimmel London's '1-2-3 Looks Mascara' from running the commercial again.

Separate magazine advertisements using the same techniques have also been banned for failing to give clear information that the improvement was achieved with false eyelashes.

The advertisements and commercial showed Georgia May Jagger, the daughter of Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, in profile.  The text and voiceover gave the impression that turning a dial on the mascara would provide thicker, longer lashes on a scale of one to three.

In fact, the longer, fuller eyelashes seen in each image were actually created using artificial inserts.



Advertising

The aim of all advertising through any type of media communication is to influence potential customers to buy products.

For product manufactures the cost of advertising is a major but necessary expensive in the competitive world. Two different approaches.

Hard sell

Simple and direct message about the products unique features and advantages over competitors products – their USP. The hard sell approach is used to advertise functional products, for example rucksacks, tents or climbing ropes often have features that make the product superior to other similar products on the market. Most textile product advertising however includes references to the look of the product whether overtly or indirectly since this can often differentiate one product from another.

Soft sell

Most advertising related to textile products associated with a softer approach, with which consumers can identify. Soft sell advertising promotes image and style and is often associated with brand advertising. This focuses on creating a positive product image combined with the benefits it can bring to consumers. The aim is to promote brand loyalty.

Soft sell works best with expensive high status products such as designer clothing or luxury interiors product. However, basic items such as men’s boxers can also be given a glamorous image.