For many consumers, the model's short stroll is the first image that springs to mind at the mention of the word 'fashion'. The runway display - with its combination of creativity, glamour and artifice - is 1 with the components that drive us, again and once again, to invest in clothing we don't genuinely require. It's hard to believe of an market that does not have recourse to marketing in a single kind or an additional, but only fashion has this kind of an overbearing reliance on it. When garments go away the factories exactly where they're made, they're merely 'garments' or 'apparel'. Only when the marketers get hold of them do they magically turn into 'fashion'.

This was not an easy book to research. The fashion marketplace, as you may well expect, could be haughty and insular, and suspicious of outsiders. It was unlikely to open its arms to your journalist who wanted to deconstruct its marketing methods. The luxury brand names, particularly, are constructed like chateaux - their elegant façades masking outstanding battlements. At initial I thought the general public relations individuals operating at brand names such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton were simply dismissive. I was wrong - they had been becoming tactical. Their inaccessibility is component and parcel of their image. The sportswear brands, maybe a lot more surprisingly, have been equally problematic to penetrate. All these manufacturers are continuously around the defensive, as they existing large and irresistible targets which the advertising adore to pepper with damaging protection.

The designers are not always at ease with this situation. Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz - a man as softly spoken as he is sharply witty - relates an interesting anecdote. Elbaz learned his craft working for the legendary American designer Geoffrey Beene. A single day, Beene asked the young Alber what he believed of a unique dress. 'It's quite commercial,' Elbaz opined. Beene took him gently aside and stated, 'Alber, you must never say a dress is commercial. You must say it's desirable.'

For those outside the industry, it's probably easier to be cynical about fashion than it would be to be admiring. As my research progressed, I found that I bounced like a pinball from 1 mindset on the other. I was surprised that a large number of with the folks concerned in fashion marketing - the photographers, the artwork directors, the event organizers - retained a sense of humour about it. However they enjoyed grappling with an more and more mental challenge. Apart on the stores they're offered in - plus the bags we carry them home in - garments have no packaging. They just sit on shelves, waiting mutely to become judged on their own appearance. All of the packaging has to become done externally; otherwise, how would we know that this special shirt represents a whole range of emotions and messages that we are supposed to be buying into?
fashion design
fashion trends
fashion merchandising

The model struts towards the battery of cameras, profile held slightly aloft, walking with the curious avian gait that has evolved to flatter the lines of her dress. She does not spare a glance for us mere mortals in the wings; her attention is utterly focused on the arsenal of lenses at the finish of your catwalk, which will whirl her picture into the global maelstrom of this advertising barely an immediate after she has changed away.

She pauses at the end of her purposeful march, a thigh thrust forward, a hand on a jutting hip, smiling at last as the flashes crackle around her like summer lightning. When she has given her audience what they came for, she swivels imperiously, flinging a contemptuous vestige of inaccessibility in their direction, before marching just as determinedly back to the oxygen-starved planet where only models, fashion designers and billionaires live.

This identity is linked to brand values that have been communicated via marketing. Are you elegant, flighty, debonair, streetwise, intellectual, sexy. . . or all of the above, depending on your mood? Don't worry: we've got the outfit to match.

But it's not only the outfit that is on offer. Over the past decade or so, fashion has stolen into each and every corner on the urban landscape. Our cellular phones, our automobiles, our kitchens, our option of press and also the places the place we meet our close friends - these, too, have develop into subject to your vagaries of fashion. It's not sufficient to wear the apparel; you need to don the way of life, as well. Fashion makes have encouraged this advancement by including their names to a wide range of objects, fulfilling each imaginable perform, and promoting them in stores that resemble theme parks.

And who am I, anyway - your host for this tour behind the scenes of fashion? A 12 months in the past, I could make no claims to becoming an professional. I used to be just your typical commerce hack, writing about complex but faintly geeky subjects such as advertising as well as the press. Nor was I a fashion victim. Certain, I used to cruise second-hand emporia for those special Levi's using the red stitching to the inseam, but that was eons ago, before 'retro' morphed into 'vintage'.

The book owes a lot to the real fashion experts - the consultants and academics who are constantly monitoring the business. I was aided by the fact that I live in Paris, which still sees itself because the capital of fashion. The French regard fashion in much the same way since the British see soccer - it is a national obsession. There's an unapologetically Francophile thread running thru these pages, and I would argue that my location gave me access to books and content that my Anglo-Saxon readers may not have seen.

It is a good time to write about the fashion marketplace. The market is within the midst of an important phase shift. For one thing, it's still struggling to absorb the impact of changes to textile trade regulations in January 2005. The scrapping of a long-standing quota agreement allowed China - which already dominated the marketplace - to increase its exports, forcing the price tag of textiles down even further. Lots of fashion brands are trying to benefit from improved profit margins while resisting downward pressure on their prices. Mid-market chain stores are losing out to cut-price supermarket attire and cheap and cheerful newcomers like Japan's Uniqlo. The gap (no pun intended) between added-value 'fashion brands' and everyday outfits is growing to be additional evident. Hence, much more promoting imagery is needed to create the necessary aura of exclusivity.

The designers are not always at ease with this situation. Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz - a man as softly spoken as he is sharply witty - relates an interesting anecdote. Elbaz learned his craft operating for your legendary American designer Geoffrey Beene. One day, Beene asked the young Alber what he considered of a special dress. 'It's rather commercial,' Elbaz opined. Beene took him gently aside and stated, 'Alber, you must never say a gown is commercial. You must say it's desirable.'

Fashion design may perhaps be an ephemeral business enterprise, but it's a complicated and endlessly fascinating one. How does 1 flip a mere 'garment' into fashion merchandising with seemingly mystical transformative powers of fashion trends? Clearly, let's hear it through the experts.

Working on this book enhanced my respect for fashion designers, recent and present. There cannot be quite a few creative professions during which you are expected to prove your talent with a big body of work at least each and every six weeks. In addition, a lot of designers are involved not just with their own collections but also with individuals of other makes. Definitely, they have significant design teams working alongside them - to picture otherwise can be absurd - but they're those who take the flack if the press reception is chilly.