Dissertation proposal!

I intend to research trends within fashion culture and the role in which trend forecasters plays within fashion. Going back in the history of fashion, Fashion was used to differentiate the classes and the power in which a person holds with “changes most commonly marked on fabrications and trims rather than overt style changes” (Lynch,A. Strauss,M,D. pg2. 2007) In the earlier days the court would often set “the trend” for the way people dressed. In 1920’s Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud) used his uncles psychoanalytic principles to adapt to consumer bahaviours. The idea of desire was replaced by need. Berneys changed the way consumers bought products “appealing to desires, and unrecognised longings, consumption became viewed as a palliative, with the expression of making people feel better about themselves.” (Lynch.A, Strauss,M,D. Pg20, 2007) For women the desire at the time was to have equal power to men therefore after World War 2 clothing was aimed at women for enhancing self image. “clothes were purveyed to women as an opportunity to reveal their inner selves” (Lynch.A, Strauss,M,D. Pg21, 2007)

The term street style refers back to all the iconic trends such as teddy boys, Beats, Rockers Mods etc. During the 1950’s “Mod” was used to describe anything fashionable or modern. This was a period of transition in the fashion culture as teenagers had the power of spending money. The attitudes towards fashion differed from pre-war times as people used to get garments repaired and altered rather than buying new ones. “Mass production, mass consumption and mass media characterizes the twentieth century” (Brucken.S, pg13, Ethical Clothing) The new fast fashion attitude didn’t properly take off until the late 1960’s when clothes were thought of as disposable. This change in attitude created a new market where companies did not depict what people wore anymore but companies now made what people want to wear. “fashion is by the people, for the people” (Prest,M,J.2009)

Fashion consumption moved away from conformance to mass culture” (Dichter,!985) Taking us to the current day when there is an alternative for people and they purchased for self expression, individuality and own way of thinking and acting. The freedom of choice created a new way of thinking for Trend Forecasters. Trends make people feel individual as their is a desire for newness. Fashion Trend Forecasters have to take many things into consideration when they are predicting the future of fashion. Their research is based on observation, intuition and interrogation of people in the streets, what is going on in catwalks, market and the economy. They split consumers in 6 groups which is mentioned in “The Trend Forecasters Handbook” These consist of the Innovators, Early adopters, Early majority, Late majority, Later majority and the laggards. The Innovators and Early adopters are the two main groups which Trend forecasters refer to when they think that a “trend is about to go viral or big” (Raymond,M. Pg19. The Trend Forecaster’s Handbook) These groups are important to trend forecasters because taking for example when their observing people on the street and they see a person(innovator) who is wearing skinny jeans when everyone else is wearing straight leg jeans, they have a feeling that skinny jeans will be the new and next trend. When a trend forecaster see’s what the trend is stirring, they will develop ideas onto a mood board consisting of “colours, materials, textures and social and environmental factors” (Sanderson,C.pg126. The Trend Forecasters Handbook). These forecasts are used by companies where many of them focus their efforts on the Late majority as they make up a high number of consumers compared to other groups. The late majority are the ones who are “keen to go for the “look”” and are easier to predict their taste.Designer Karl Lagerfeld remarks “Acceptance by a large number of people makes market important” Trend Forecasters look at the laggards as to when a trend is about to die out.

Street style was a way to determine class as the upper class people dressed differently to distinguish themselves from the lower class people of the streets. In the modern day, street style is a merge of all classes to the middle class. In the book street style Polyhemus refers to this merge as a “trickle down, bubble up” effect. This meant that high fashion was what the lower class wanted to be and the bubble up effect is what high fashion looked at for ideas on the catwalk. “without the Hipsters, Teddy Boys, Beats, Rockers, Rude boys, Mods, Surfers, Hippies, Punks, B-boys, Flygirls, Raggamuffins... most of us would be left without anything to wear” Trends in the recent years have been a reaccurance of all these trends but the high demand in fashion makes it harder for trendforecasters as they can only be one step ahead of the consumers. If their behind the consumers are bored and if their two steps ahead there not interested. Being one step ahead is where trend forecasters want to as recession in the current day has changed the consumers way of thinking, consumers don’t want to buy what is not “in fashion” yet or anymore. The next new trend socially is being eco-friendly and buying sustainably, “the figures and prognoses show a clear trend towards sustainability” (Giesen,B.2008.Ethical Clothing) People now don’t have to chose whether they should buy ethically as many companies now have a range of green clothing. Many consumers don’t buy these clothing to help farmers but mainly for their own comfort, the trend behind sustainability and being environmentally friendly is pushed towards these consumers so the more “social and individual benefits are paired, the more likely the consumer is to buy an environmentally friendly product”(Giesen,B 2008.Ethical Clothing) The future of fashion can go two ways, one being that fashion will be bigger and faster than ever or may slow down due to sustainability. There are mixed views on this subject as technology such as social networking and online shopping is a new way for quick and easy access to fashion.

Allocating jobs

For our business plan we gave each member of our groups jobs.

We looked at each others disciplines and strong points for each job.

Ailsa and I did the market research side for our business. We worked together as we are both reflectors and are textile based. We looked into skills which would benefit a post consumer such as knitting,sewing and mending which we could offer ourselves.

Ruth and Karen are graphic designers and we thought they would be best for doing the advertisement and visual identity side of things. They had to keep in mind our business plan and try to show it in a simple logo.

Graeme is based in IED which made him the right person for doing the interior and exterior sketches for our idea. He had to keep in mind the space which a bus has and how we could expand the size to accommodate large amounts of people and working space for the workshop.

Jennifer looked at the finance. She is good at spread sheets and has a good mind for money so we thought she would be perfect for the job.

Business Plan

Business Idea

In our recent meetings we have covered many points on our business plan.

We made mind maps of our ideas and drawing which helped bring our ideas together.

Our business plan is a service which would benefit a post consumer. This service is a skill based workshop on a bus. We offer skills such as knitting, sewing/mending, bike repair and many more. The idea behind this is for 3 main reasons,

1)The bus could travel to you so it would be more environmentally friendly than 20 cars coming to us.

2)People will benefit from learning new skills such a knitting so they could make their own garments, saving them from buyingnew ones. Bike repair would keep a post consumers bike up in good health so public transport can be avoided.

3)Bringing the community together and the ideaof knowing your neighbours. Also learning the skills which were once used often and now forgotten. (bringing back the past)

Market research

For market research we looked at local Dundee skills workshops held at the recycle center. (d-air) The offered workshops on Soil, Sew, and Cycle which we thought would benifit a post consumer. We looked at the way which they worked such as time organisations etc. We also did some interviews at local schools where we came up with some skills which we thought would benefit a post consumer. We interviewed o2 on their recentGuru roadshow which was held ona bus which went around different cities in UK. They were helpful in giving us an insight to how people react to a mobile service. They also gave us interesting points to consider such as safety, advertisement, target market, positioning (place the bus was parked).

Guru Roadshow

Local Dundee Skills workshop

Visual Identity/Advertisment

The idea around our logo is that it is in a shape of a wheel (our mobile bus) and is made up of people which relates to community. The primary colours are to show the primary skills in which we offer. The advertisement is posters of where we are going to be and on what dates. These posters will be stuck on local shop windows and on bus stops etc. The bus itself will be an advertisement as it will have our logo all over it and people in towns will recognise the bus. This will be where word of mouth comes in as it become more popular around the city. We also have a website which will allow people to go on to check up times and sign up for a workshop which they are interested in. It will also allow people to read up on recent workshops which have been taken place. We also offer a mobile phone app which will save paper to advertisement and will give people a quick and easy way to access our service.

This is our logo

Our bus

We looked at getting a second hand double decker bus and transforming it into a bus offering a lot of space for skills workshops. There are shelter bits which come out the side of the bus if there was an outdoor workshop such as bike repair. We thought of the safety issues which we would have in such a small space and how many people the bus could accommodate. The bus has two levels which workshops could be happening. We have a small storage space upstairs and a long table which people could work on. The interior of the bus wont look like a traditional bus as it would be modern and changed to suit our service.

Finance

There were many things which we had to consider for the mobile bus. We have been looking at getting grants and loans which will start us off for equipment advertisement and buying the bus. Also we would need petrol etc for the bus itself. We looked at ways in which we could save money such voluntary work from local people and getting equipment from recycle center. This would all count towards saving money. We figured we would lose money for the first 2 years but on the 3 rd year we would start making money. We would make money from people paying fees for each workshop, when our name goes abut we were hoping that other cities would be interested and schools would want to rent us out to teach children on a certain skill. after speaking to a school head teacher they said they would be interested so the concept would be very successful if it takes off.

Post Consumerism

Below is the poster we made at a group meeting on post consumerism.

Each member of the group researched post consumerism. The main questions we had to answer were, what does post consumerism mean?, who are post consumers and what do they do?, what do post consumers look like?, why do people post consume?

Post consumerism is an idea that an item that we've purchased has many lives. It is about recycling and reusing things. People who post consume usually think ethically and sustainably and about the environment. They look for satisfaction and quality of life without a price tag. They are usually green thinkers who do not waste and buy items due to the quality and how long an item may last. They would often want their products to have as long of a life cycle as possible so they would most likely shop in charity shops for garments and local stores for food. They would most likely use fairly traded products and encourage the idea of home grown food.

In our group we decided that post consumers are middle class and age around 30 years and above as poorer people would not have the chance to choose whether or not to be a post consumer. Post consumers will not be 'trendy' as they don't follow fashion (they might be in fashion at some point as designers are designing vintage looking garments which may be found in charity shops) We also discussed that post consumers were probably influenced by parental values. Post consumers have in their minds to save the planet (green thinking) Rather than driving cars they would try to find a more eco-friendly way to travel such as cycling ,walking or taking public transport. This is so because they are concerned about the pollution in the air and emissions produced by cars. Post consumers will recycle as much as possible as this also counts towards their belief of saving the planet.

On our poster we have found polyethylene bag which held a pair of shoes, this bag is biodegradable if is left for 30 days. We also found a shoe box which was made from 100% post consumer material which was interesting as companies are thinking about wasted packaging and using recycled materials.

Learning Style Survey

Our first Design studies task was to take a questionnaire and it determines what kind of learner you are, whether your an Activist- a person who act before they consider the consequences afterwards, a Reflector - a person who likes to take time to think about things before acting on it, a Theorist - a person who are perfectionist and act rationally and Pragmatist who is someone who likes to seek out new ideas and use in practice.

Before taking this test I looked at the four types of learners and I put myself down as a Reflector because im the type of person who likes to write lists and plans. I feel it gives me a line of thought and I find it easier to work this way. I could also see how i could be a but of each because I do ask questions such as Will that work? and that makes me a bit of a theorist and I do like to try out new ideas and I do them quite quickly which makes me a bit pragmatic.

After taking the test I found that I scored very high on Reflector and Pragmatist and moderate on activist and theorist. the results was spot on with my learner behaviour as I thought i had qualities from all learning types.

Our second task was to guess what our group members styles of learning and to see whether we got each other right and also to see if our group was balanced and if not what we could do so that there weren't too many of one style. From our guesses on each other, we had each other 80% correct so we had a rough idea on each others way of working even from the short time we had together.We found that our group was very balanced, we had 1 Activist, 3 reflectors, 2 pragmatists and 2 theorists. I feel this has worked out well for our group as we have high qualities from each learning type and we can learn from each others qualities. It has also worked well in that each person could work on different areas of group tasks.

Summary on "Consumer Culture"

“Consumer Culture” by Douglas J. Goodman and Mirelle Cohen is an evidenced based book which in chapter one “From consumption to consumer culture” outlines the main reasons for consumption. The main points which the authors try to put across is that consumer culture is a way of life and consumption is an act. The authors explains how consumer culture came about from the beginning to the consumer culture as we know it today. The authors explain that before the industrial revolution people consumed for the family and bought from local shops, things started to change when social competition became popular and the upper class people used fashion as a means to differ from people in same or lower social ranks. “the Elizabethan nobleman now began to spend less for his family and more to secure his place in this new social competition.”(Goodman, DJ. Cohen, M. Pg7) The authors go on to say that the “competitive consumption spread beyond the court to create new institutions and lay the foundation for a consumer culture”. (Goodman, DJ. Cohen, M. Pg7) The authors have interesting facts on fashion consumerism as they say that it has in a way shaped the way people consume out with fashion. Examples which they give is Wedgewood who was a manufacturer and retailer of pottery. He was one of the few people who understood the fashion phenomena and new it can be controlled. He knew that fashion was “characterised by trends and cannot exist without people” (Goodman, DJ. Cohen, M. Pg12) so he adapted this sort of thinking to his own company staying close to the next fashion trend in order to know what people are going to buy next. Many people then followed this sort of thinking and when one fashion began another would follow such as hot drinks which required cups to hold in.
In the 1st chapter Goodman and Cohen try to identify where consumer culture came from and how it evolved into what it is today. The Authors use interesting facts such as links between fashion consumed products to everyday products and the idea of evolution in shopping such as local stores to general markets and from department stores to shopping malls. The idea of people consuming more and more is supported by the way we live now.
In chapter 2 The authors back up their views on fashion consumption as they state “consumption is the sole end of all production” (Goodman, DJ. Cohen, M. Pg28) and go on to say that the reason people consume is due to either increase in salary or were led to “unwholesome desire” (Goodman, DJ. Cohen,M . pg28)
The author is trying to put across that the way we consume has come from the changes in society and is shaped by peoples new way of thinking. Before people would buy because they needed but nowadays people buy because they want and desire. The idea behind consumption is if fashion culture did not exist in society that the economy may not be the way it is today because fashion plays such a big role in the way people live.


Goodman, D J. Cohen, M. 2004. Consumer Culture. ABC-CLIO. Santa Barbbara, Calafornia.

Summary on Compulsive Consumption Behaviour"

“Compulsive consumption behaviours” is a journal by Julianne Trauttmann-Attmann and Tricia Widner Johnson who try to determine if “bulimic behaviours, Fashion interest and and the importance of being well dressed had a casual relationship with compulsive buying” the research is based on the relationships among “binge eating, compulsive clothing buying and fashion orientation”. From this research the authors are trying to find the importance of consumption and whether one behaviour will link to another. “compulsive behaviour may be reached by an examination of whether or not one compulsive behaviour leads to another”. It is important to understand that this article is not just made up of the authors thoughts and opinions but refers to a large amount of other research on similar topics such as Bullimia, compulsive shopping behaviour, self image and many more. The authors use techniques such as questionnaires and the BULIT-R (Thelan et al., 1991)bulimia test given to a group of students in order to gain valuable information towards their topic. One particular test which the authors refer to is a research method by Edwards (1993) where he uses a 13 item Likert-Like scale. With Edwards permission the authors changed the scale slightly from general compulsive buying to compulsive clothing buying to fit the purposes of their research. In the results of their tests they found that there was a positive link between “disordered eating behaviours and compulsive clothing buying”. They also discovered that there wasn’t a strong link between “binging behaviours and interest in fashion or the importance of being well dressed.” This shows that people who have binging tendencies do not necessarily have a great interest in fashion as such but rather they have an interest in buying clothes for the sake of buying. Although eating and buying clothes are two completely different activities, the results show that people adopt the same behaviours for both. This is particularly true in female consumers.
When reading this article it is important to understand the idea of consumption and reason why people consume fashion. Also knowing the difference between people who are interested in fashion and those who are binge eaters who buy the sake of buying. In understanding these point it becomes clear that consumers consume for different reasons.
The authors have put forward very interesting facts and research and although they did mention at the end that gender should be a variable for further examination, it would have been a fairer test if males took part in the research. “the present study utilised female college students in the U.S as participants” Their assumption that female are mostly “ at risk “ could well be true but may not always be the case as their reference was taken from 2002 and the journal is written in 2009. Over a 7 year period the most at risk people may have changed. The authors also mention that people who suffer from binging disorder are often recommended by therapists to take up shopping as a solution but in fact they are probably passing them onto another disorder. If binge eaters read this journal this may be of help not to shop compulsively or vice versa.


Trautmann-Attmann, J. Johnson, T W. 2009. Compulsive Consumption Behaviours: investigating amoung binge eating, compulsive clothing buying and fashion orientation. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 33.