What to do and what not to do

21/03/2018

On Monday we had a meeting with our client Iain who is our head of year in charge of the fashion department. We proposed all of our ideas to him and Karen, showing them the moodboards we have created, what aspects we would like the stand to have this year as well as the hair and makeup for NIL and the shows.

Iain has approved of the colour palette we chose including; blue, orange, pastel pink and hints of white and grey. These colours will be used across the NIL Magazine, GFW Stand and the Film. I proposed the idea of using rails this year instead of mannequins, I feel this way of displaying the third years collections would be a lot more effective. People will be more inclined to go up to the garments, touch them look at them and appreciate how well they are made however Iain said some of the garments and or accessories will need to be displayed on a mannequin. After looking at the rails in Bicester Village we all really agreed on the appearance of metal / steel poles for the rails. This gave me the idea of creating the clothes rails out of scaffolding poles which will fit with our whole idea of making the stand quite industrial with pops of colour. Iain really liked this idea therefor we have started to look at scaffolding poles made into rails and different types of furniture. I found a website online where you can buy scaffolding from, which just so happens to have a site very local to us. At some point we may need to take a visit to have a look at what they have to offer if we go ahead and buy them ourselves to assemble or have someone make it for us. This is something we need to have a discussion with Karen and Iain about as will all depend on the budget and what we want the rails to look like.

Another idea that we had was to have a comfy seating area in the stand which would include a couple of chairs or even a little sofa with a mini coffee table. We had this idea as we thought it would be great to have an idea where students could have talks with people from industry in a more formal situation. However when we mentioned this to Iain he was concerned with the little space that we have on the stand therefor this idea will not be going ahead. Last year they had a few stalls around the middle tables which people sat on however he said there was not enough. We will now look into sourcing some metal stalls roughly 8 which could be placed around the tables for people to sit on and have discussions.

Due to the LED lights we have in mind we were thinking of having the lights spelling out AUB or one of the hashtags that we use for the university. Iain stated that one year they used LED lights which unfortunately did not stick to the tables due to the heat. If we want to pursue this idea we need to think of a way to either have the LED lights on a plinth or up on the wall.

An idea that we got from a few shops in Bicester was to have a feature wall of picture frames which framed photos of the students work in. Iain really liked this idea and suggested to have it on the back wall which initially we had also thought of. Following on from this we now need to look into some shops and see where will be best to buy a bulk of frames in multiple different sizes.

Due to the hair and makeup he approved of the bold lines, exaggerated eyeliner and sleek hair. These make up looks have recently been seen on the catwalk shows including the likes of Dior, Marni, Cividini and Missoni. We will look into this further and choose a handful of selected make up looks and hair styles for both males and females. Iain suggested the makeup to be monochrome to match everyones designs, as in a previous year they used colour which did not work.

The moodboard below is one I created of a selection of photographs from Pinterest as colour and style inspiration which Iain liked.