Fashion Blog

Does your favorite sweater need to be freshened up? Before you fork over money to the dry cleaners, try this simple, affordable hand washing method.

The beauty of the little black dress is that you can accessorize it to reflect your personal style. A fashion designer shows you how to incorporate funky and classy pieces into your wardrobe

Do you wish you could make your bust look smaller? A clothing designer shows you the insider tricks for using clothes to minimize your bust line.

Sometimes it’s the wrong color, not the wrong outfit. A Los Angeles fashion designer explains how to find which fabric colors goes best with your skin tone.

Do you love your curves but want to downplay your hips? A Boston-based clothing designer shows you how to use clothes to minimize larger hips.

Fashion is a term that usually applies to a person that is often wearing the ‘in’ clothes , but quite often applies to a personal mode of expression that may or may not apply to all. Inherent in the term is the idea that the mode will change more quickly than the culture as a whole. The terms “fashionable” and “unfashionable” are employed to describe whether someone or something fits in with the current popular mode of expression. The term “fashion” is frequently used in a positive sense, as a synonym for glamour, beauty and style. In this sense, fashions are a sort of communal art, through which a culture examines its notions of beauty and goodness. The term “fashion” is also sometimes used in a negative sense, as a synonym for fads, trends, and materialism. Current global fashion centers are Paris,London, Milan, New York and Los Angeles but other cities like Rome, Tokyo and Sydney are also becoming well known.

So, what do you once you get your fashion design degree? The path is simple: market yourself, market yourself, market yourself. You know that you are talented, and armed with your fashion design degree, it is time to make sure everyone else knows this too. While you are in school, decide what aspect of fashion design you wish to focus on, and then do what it takes to get there. It is no secret that fashion design is a skills-based industry - creativity is crucial, but your applicable skills are just as important if you want to get your foot in the door. Potential employers want to see what you know, and what you can do. Show them!

The first way to properly marketing yourself involves building out a thorough, professional-looking portfolio. Do not fret if you are a recent graduate, employers understand this and are happy to consider your best student work as an example of your abilities. Spend time carefully tailoring your selections because the portfolio you present is your chance to make a memorable first impression.

It is also important to have versatile skills. It is likely that you won’t start out as the head designer or the creative directory - no matter how wonderfully talented you are. You want to be seen as an asset no matter what position a potential employer has available. So, make sure that you have the creative skills, the ability to troubleshoot, devloped critical thinking skills. Impress your employers no matter what role you fill and you are well on your way to a successful career.

Okay, so the most important advice we offer budding fashion designers is to be prepared for and willing to do anything. Don’t be afraid to take a job answering phones for Calvin Klein or manning the copy machine for Prada. Just view any opportunity as a way to get started. Keep your eye on your long-term goal but be willing to settle for less in the beginning.

Just for a little extra boost of encouragement, consider the first jobs of same of the most famous designers in the industry. Ralph Lauren was a door-to-door tie salesman. Coco Chanel worked as a retail saleswoman in a hosiery store. Salvatore Ferragamo worked in a boot manufacturing plant, and Marc Jacobs was a stock boy for a New York clothing store. Laura Ashley was a secretary and Manolo Blahnik was a jean buyer for a department store. Humble beginnings? Certainly. The talent of the household brand names mentioned here didn’t just suddenly pop out of out nowhere. Instead, these designers believed in their talent and were willing to do what it took to break into the industry. Remember this.

Whatever you do, pursue your career in fashion with passion and intense dedication. Start each day with a healthy dose of optimism and know that if you work hard enough for long enough, your dream job can happen. See you on the runway!

Retail visual merchandising shares many of the same principles as advertising, graphic design, and interior design — the purpose of visual merchandising is to create a logical and visually pleasing environment that will grab attention and translate into increased sales. Visual merchandising basics are pretty easy to understand - a clean store, well lit, with merchandise displayed in neat groupings. But as an industry, visual merchandising delves a lot deeper, focusing on the psychology and motivations of the target customer. The following are the top five tips for retail visual merchandising:

1. Entice - Visual merchandising actually starts on the street outside the store. Creative and interesting window displays will catch the eye of people walking by and will draw them into the store. Many store owners make the mistake of cramming in lots of merchandise (to indicate the variety of items they might carry,) but the most successful window designs create a theme, mood, or “lifestyle” that piques curiosity. Change the window displays with the seasons, and always reflect your newest or best-selling items.

2. Impact - We’ve all done it - you walk into a store, take a lap around, and leave. Maybe you were “just looking” — more than likely, though, something about the store or the merchandise displays turned you off. The experience of visiting an establishment should be as rich as is appropriate — any prospective customer should be able to walk in and feel respected and comfortable. Whether it’s music, product displays, lighting, or even the climate control, everything in the store can impact the shopping experience.

3. Inspire - Create product displays that will show the customer how an item might fit into their everyday life. In a home store, that might mean a sofa-chair grouping or a complete table setting. In a clothing store it might mean dressing mannequins — whatever the store type, customers are more likely to purchase if they can imagine themselves using/wearing the product.

4. Identify - These days, many shoppers are busy people. Perhaps they’re popping in on the way home from work, or on the way to the party — whatever the case may be, shoppers are more likely to purchase if they can find what they are looking for, easily identify the price, and then find the register and check out. Product should be organized in logical groupings — whether by item type, color, or some other characteristic, and signage and product descriptions should be clear and easy to read.

5. Add-on - Point-of-sale add-ons (also known as “impulse buys”) can generate extra dollars in sales. Think of small items that people usually forget — batteries, light bulbs, gift wrapping, etc — these small items can be placed near or at the register as a gentle reminder to the customer.

You are sitting at home in your comfortably flannel pajama pants and a pizza stained t-shirt. With a bag of potato chips in one hand and the remote in the other, you excitedly switch on the tube to watch the event of the year… well, at least of the week … the Academy Awards.

Which films have been nominated? You are not sure.
Who is the Oscar favorite for “Best Cinematography?” You do not care.

What will Halle be wearing?
How many diamonds will fit around Nicole’s thin little wrist?
Yes! Those are the questions!

And thus we see the reason for the relationship between fashion designers and our favorite A-list celebrities. Calvin, Donatella, Marc, and the rest of the gang are certainly not fools! Fashion designers are aesthetically driven – they seek to create physical beauty inspired by their thoughts, ideas, and visions. This physical beauty is known to us as clothing. And how beautiful it truly is!

And what can be better than a meticulously constructed and designed floor length Vera Wang gown? A meticulously constructed and designed floor length Vera Wang gown on Julia Roberts! Fuse the most beautiful fashion designs with some of the most beautiful faces, bodies and people and the result borders on sublime – a sensory delight that keeps us tuned in and left wanting to emulate.

Flashback to the months leading up to my senior prom…just weeks after Gwenyth Paltrow won her Academy Award for “Best Actress,” the racks of Macy’s were overflowing with replicas of Paltrow’s bubblegum pink ball gown. As much as we value our individual tastes and fashion sense, there is at least a part of us (no matter how small), that emulates the beauty we find in the world. This is natural, right?

I have heard that a celebrity wearing your gown/tux/creation to a red carpet event is worth over a million dollars in advertising. Further, they tell me that slipping a gorgeous frock onto an Academy Award winner is worth tens of millions of dollars in advertising. This does not seem to be much of a stretch. Beauty sells – making the relationship between fashion and celebrity brilliant.

This summer it is “boho” chic. Last summer, it was preppy sailor simplicity. In the late 90’s it was the grunge look. Yellow is the new black. Jeans are the new business casual. And on. And on. Yes, I am writing of fashion trends. The latest look, style, and color floods the covers of magazines, the shelves of retailers from Saks to H & M, the bodies of celebrities and television characters and, undoubtedly, is able to get enough of us to buy into it (literally and figuratively) to validate the whole cycle. So, while most of us are easily able to grasp this continuously perpetuating cycle of saturating the public with the latest, greatest duds, questions remain: how does a trend start? Who makes this decision? Why does it work?

Well, to be perfectly honest, there is no definitive answer to the myth that is a fashion trend. But, while the exact formula is beyond the consumer, we can be sure that it takes the work of several different interdependent fashion industry professions to convince us that espadrilles, suspenders, and terry-cloth suits are worthy of our dollars and donning.

Fashion designers gather their inspiration, whether it comes from popular culture, music, politics, a celebrity muse, or something else entirely. Then, they design – usually a spring and fall collection. With a slew of inspired, perfectly crafted designs ready to hit the runway, they show their collections.

It could possibly be said that the trend begins at the fashion show. Fashion writers, buyers, photographers and celebrities line the runways, waiting to take in, criticize and praise the designer’s work.

Writers go back to their offices and verbally comment on the design they have seen. If a collection is deemed great, the editor may be persuaded to feature the clothing on the cover of the month’s issue. This is also influenced by fashion publicists - professionals who are paid to get the designer’s duds in front of larger audiences. Thus, we read about the latest fashion trend.

Photographers snap photos as the models parade down the runway and sell them to parties interested in the designer’s work. The photos show up in newspapers, industry magazines, fashion magazines and various other media outlets. Thus, we see the latest fashion trend.

Buyers, if impressed, order pieces that their clientele will be willing to pay hundreds or thousands to own. Other designers, those focused on mass production of more affordable versions of the latest trend, gather their inspiration here too. Thus, we can purchase the latest fashion trend.

So, as you can see, it is impossible to pinpoint exactly how a fashion becomes a trend. What you can know, with certainty, is that it took many professionals in the fashion industry to get you to the cash register with your bohemian-inspired peasant blouse.