The 3rd assignment was a follow on from the 2ND which involved using the same designs we had produced & adding the swatch material & whilst relating back to FC collection board.
My aim was to to Create the Autumn/Winter 2010 Collection, the collection would be directly aimed to the
FC main target market who would be Working women who live a very fast paced life, there main priorities are work, and therefore they would want to eestablish a professional fashionable look which FC provides.
Another factor which was highly coconsidered in the collection would be how the economic situation is affecting everyone especially in 2010 with all redundancy , therefore promotion on the new collection will be highlighting how the new collection can be worn as work wear , casual or evening with different stylists highlighting how the look can be changed , this will emphasise how they are saving money with the new FC range.
Once the designs were put into practice such as designing the dresses and filling in with the desired swatch I realised ;
* I did not have many swatches
* The swatches did not perfectly represent my brand
After considering them points I gatheredd information which would help me create my collection in terms of colour and fabrics, I used WGSN to collect my future colour trends which will be shown in my collection
The Colours which appealed to me and I wanted in my Collection was The grey , blue , pink. And also I wanted to add Black as it a colour which will contrast other colours enabling the collection to look bold.
As the collection range had to have a mixture of the 3 categories such as work , causal and evening I decided that the ideal he materials i wanted was lace and floral prints , cheque print for dresses , I wanted denim for leggingsTweed for jackets , trousers , shorts.
Therefore I visited trend hub again and found the following swatches in the book called '' '' and scanned a wider range of fabrics which would represent my brand.
The second assignment involved starting the collection from basic steps such as Uploading clothing templates to Adobe Illustrator & exploring different colours and creating own designs.
The main company information which was gained from the website that I felt would help me within my role was ;
Brand & subrand
*French Connection is the holding company for two strong brands--the youth-oriented FCUK and the high-end Nicole Farhi brand, targeting an older, more affluent, yet still fashion-conscious market, Farhi not only handled the youth-oriented designs for the French Connection label, she also began to produce designs under her own name for an older, wealthier women's market.
Competitors
*Principal Competitors: Arcadia Group plc; Benetton Group Diesel Esprit Holdings GuessInc.; H & M Marks and Spenc er plc; New Look Group plc; NEXT plc; The Gap, Inc.
I also visited the French Connection website www.Frenchconnection.com & looked at the Women's department to observe the products sold & what type of consumers they were targeted at.
The main questions which relate to my role are reflected in the table below , 2 stores Manchester and Leeds were visited & results showed
Identify Lifestyle/ target customer
-French Connection target customers would be working class women ideally from 20-45, Mums as they have a baby range, there brand FCUK is targeted for the male category. But main targeted segment would be the 20-45 year old working class women
Range structure
-the lifestyle of the consumers would idea
ldeallly be customers who work therefore FC has the working range such as smart trousers, blouses, shirts, evening wear and party wear for certain occasions such as very sophisticated dresses for customers who have events to attend, the shoes are very classy such as appropriate wear for work, sandals and heels for occasions, and the winter boots, casual wear such as jeans and t-shirts with graphics or plain for everyday wear is also available.
Considering the target customer age majority of the consumers may have babies so FC has a baby range also
The brand itself relates to target customers as the range itself is explanatory and follows certain trends which customers rely on therefore choose French connection as there 1st option, such as if women need to purchase work wear FC would be considered.
Best sellers
- In FC the best sellers were the work wear and evening wear, this was found by interviews with the staff members at stores in Leeds & Manchester
A pie chart was constructed showing the 2009 best selling categories in terms of Work wear , Evening & casual.
Work wear range consisted of – Trousers, Dresses, Shirts, Jackets, Coats
The 1st assignment required me to visit the tred hub and scan fabrics which best reflected my brand French Connection. As a Buyer I researched my fabrics in terms of current trends and how they could be developed, I also researchd future trends which could be adpated by FC.
I scanned certain fabric swabs which I belive would be used as fabrics for certain garments in FC.
The Fabric Swabs I belive would be used as a smart jacket as it has a twead texture & was very soft with subtle but bold colours & yet very sophisticated
The second set of fabric swabs were selected for the casual dresses , floral prints are a season trend which have been very sucessfull and adapted by FC.
