28 August, 2012

Q&A: River Island’s brand director Farida Kaikobad discusses social media, the future of fast fashion and that blogger collection

A few months ago, there was a big old hoo-ha when Fashion Editor at Large published a post about River Island’s blogger-inspired range. The range is part of the River Island AW12 collection and was presented during the press preview but there was a bit of an uproar from bloggers feeling they were being lumped together in a ‘blogger style’ of clashy prints and OTT ‘please-photograph-me’ accessories. The collection is now trickling onto the shop floor so to coincide, I emailed some questions to River Island’s brand director, Farida Kaikobad to find out how a high street brand puts its collections together in these crazy speedy-to-market times, how blogging and social media affects the brand and how that blogger range came about… (more…)

Disneyrollergirl 2 Comments Bloggers, Brands, Business of fashion, Design, Online shopping, Trends AW12, bloggers, Farida Kaikiobad, Q&A, River Island, social media, Susie Bubble, Tavi, trends

19 August, 2012

Introducing: Work Out Life

In the post-Olympics afterglow I’m sure there will be thousands of people catapulted off the sofa into a life-affirming fitness regime. If you’re one of them (I’m not…yet), this might help get the pulses pumping. Newly launched WORKOUTLIFE.com hopes to be a bit of a game changer in the fashion-sportswear space, simply because it doesn’t want to be slotted into one neat box. Founded by Rebecca Quade and with design headed up by Ebru Ercon (formerly of Hussein Chalayan for Puma and Stella McCartney for Adidas), WORK OUT LIFE is all about multi-tasking for the overlapping areas of life, so think working out, workwear and everything else.

With her background in high end sportswear (as well as working on New Power Studio, her own line, and a collab with Asos), Ercon has brought a knowledge of cut and quality tech fabrics together to produce a collection of handsome pieces that tick multiple boxes. My favourite pieces from the website are the tailored ‘Gigabyte’ cropped trousers, the ‘Sidelined’ gathered mesh skirt and ‘Get Sophisticated‘, the poshest cropped sweatshirt you’ll see this side of the catwalk. Quade, a former marketing pro, is keen for the website to be more than just a clothes shop, her vision is for a global portal to promote a healthy body image in the fashion space. For starters then, here’s a video of Bambi Northwood-Blythe looking divine while getting her yogi on…

www.WORKOUTLIFE.com

Disneyrollergirl 5 Comments Brands, Design, News, Online shopping, Retail concepts, Trends Bambi Northwood-Blyth, design, Ebru Ercon, etail, lifestyle, models, Rebecca Quade, retail concepts, sportswear, Work Out Life

13 August, 2012

How Nike won gold in the fashion Olympics with Martin Lotti’s Volt shoe

At a press event at the Nike athletes’ hospitality suite at the British Medical Association, I was told that there are secretive corridors at Nike HQ, where its genius geeks experiment in their out-of-bounds labs. Performance materials, electronic fitness monitoring equipment, future fashion hero products, they’re all thought up and figured out here, possibly years before coming to market. (more…)

Disneyrollergirl 2 Comments Brands, Design, Trends Nike, olympics, trainers, trends

12 August, 2012

Buy it now: August fantasy shopping list

As a self-confessed knitwear addict, aw12 is looking most exciting – may I draw your attention to Rochas and Acne for starters? I’m also happy to see so many kilts and mid heels appearing – possibly the after-effects of our Jubilee summer. For the August-to-September transition, I like this Chanel ‘Holiday’ nail polish – an optimistic all-year-round shade that looks like summer in a bottle.