Graduate Fashion Week - University of Chester

Figure 1: Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). IMDB, n.d.

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THE BRIEF & OUR AIMS

The brief for this element of the module was to work in groups of five to create a 360 degree, multichannel concept to launch the University of Chester at

Graduate Fashion Week; in London, June 2019. Each group was to divide out

To come up with ideas for our concept,

job roles, according to their personal

our group had an initial brainstorming

strengths and future career goals,

session at the beginning of term, to

with an overall aim to work together

ensure we had a clear direction in

and come up with a well-rounded idea

which we wanted our GFW campaign to

that successfully communicates both the

head in. From the beginning, and after

Fashion Marketing and Communication

doing minimal research into successful

course, as well as the Fashion Design

stands from previous years, (including

course, in an exciting, new and

Edinburgh and Ravensbourne as well as

contemporary way.

stores such as Dover Street Market that Figure 2: Best of GFW: Mojadesola Ayemobola. Berry, 2018.

compartmentalises its brands and creates their visual merchandising based on that brands individual aesthetic), We came up with some introductory pointers that we wanted to ensure we brought into every element of our campaign that we created. I believe that we’ve managed to successfully stick to and adapt with these points throughtout our project, leading us to an amazing, ahead of the game outcome, that I think would be the perfect way to launch the University of Chester at Graduate Fashion Week 2019.

The aims that we stuck to throughout were:

GFW

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Figure 4: Augmented reality apparel at New York Textile Month. Dezeen, 2016.

Simple colour scheme: We decided that not sticking to a colour scheme always tends to look quite unprofessional and messy. Right from the get go we decided on having black, white and an accent colour throughout our stand, branding, promotion and anything else we created, to keep it looking cohesive, polished and recognisable. After discussing what colour to use for our stands accent, we decided on red. Not only is red described as being asserting, determined and daring (Bourn, 2011), but it also links in with our universities colours and is a nod to our quintessentially British city, without being too obvious and patriotic. It’s boldness also helps to bring contrast between the black and white.

Technologically advanced: With technology advancing in the fashion industry day by day, as a group we agreed that it was essential we utilised technology at our stand in some way. Some initial ideas that we came up with included 360 degree video, virtual reality and augmented reality. Not only would this showcase our students work to industry in a hi-tech and modern way, but it would also provide an exciting and attention-grabbing aspect to our stand. This element would also help us to be completely unique at GFW, as from my research I haven’t found anything similar being implemented to this extent, at Graduate Fashion Week.

Figure 3: Own image taken of mind-mapping from group work, 2018.

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Figure 5: Justinas Vilutis for Faber Futures, 2018.

Sustainability: For our group, it was also important to have sustainability as a main facet to our stand.

Not only because of our ethical beliefs, but also linking back to the technology factor too. With the fashion industry being the second biggest polluting industry on the planet (Sustain your style, 2018.) and with renowned fashion designer, Stella Mccartney announcing a UN Charter for sustainable fashion (O’Connor, 2018.), aside from our beliefs, we also realised that its becoming an extremely important factor to include and to project our courses as being to the industry.

Showing Chester in a modern light:

Figure 6: Stella Mccartney Portrait. The Ecologist, 2009.

early on is that we want to ensure our campaign reflects the university in a future-forward way, in everything that we create. Although we wanted to have some odes to our historical background, such as the tudor-style lines (as seen in Figure 7), and the red accents, we didn’t want to be completely fixated on our past. We believe our courses are extremely innovative and ahead of the times in comparison

Figure 7: Photograph of walls in Chester.

Taken by me, 2019.

The last component that our group decided on,

to some, so to make a big impact down in london we knew modernity and technology was key.

These crucial guides that we’d set for ourselves, also enabled us to come up with the next important element of our campaign; the concept statement. I definitely feel like we touched on every important element and condense our idea down into a really successful and concise declaration, which also helped to keep us on track when working as a team.

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Figure 8: 2001: A Space Odyssey still. Are.na, 2018.

CONCEPT STATEMENT For our GFW stand we are going to communicate Chester and both the fashion communication and fashion design courses in a digital, fashion forward light. Using technology and following a modern, futuristic theme. We want to show that although we’re a new course from a small city, we can still make a big impact on the London fashion scene. Ways that we’re doing this is by utilising technology such as Augmented Reality, using elements of sustainability throughout our stand and choosing an overall modern/tech based look by focusing on our theme of space and stepping into the future.

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Figure 9: Mock-up of stand on Sketch-up, with annotations by myself. 2019.

Figure 46: Chester Chronicle newspaper collage 3. Created by myself, 2019.

CONCEPT OVERVIEW

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Figure 11: Zine spread from a choreography company.

Bench.li, 2012.

Figure 12: Buffalo, shot by Nicole Loucaides. Fucking Young!, 2018.

Figure 13: Screenshot from Layar.com homepage, 2018.

MY ROLE Figure 10:

Design for Spare Change News. Chao, 2016.

My role throughout the project has been to create predominantly all of the creative and visual aspects to our stand. For the formative submission, I created the visual mock-ups of

The next stage of the brief was to split off

what we wanted our stand to look like, on both

individually and to develop our own areas of

Adobe Photoshop and Sketch-Up. I also began

the campaign further. As for what I wanted to

working on the digital zine (72b) that would

develop further, I decided that I’d pretty much

feature the use of augmented reality and our

completed the mockup designs to the best of

student profiles, which would then be projected

my ability and was happy with them. However,

onto the wall of our stand throughout GFW.

there was definitely a lot of room for growth

Another element I created was the overall

and development in terms of our digital zine.

design and front cover artwork that has been

At formative, I had pretty much only researched

used across our groups presentations and

into who our competitors are, such as Central

reports, to help convey our idea in a unique

Saint Martins’ 1 Granary and London College of

and intriguing way yet also showing continuity.

Fashion’s, Pigeons and peacocks, and came up

Overall, I feel like I had an extremely

with a couple of possibilities for our student

important role in producing the design and

profile pages, as well as some development into

overall creation of our whole 360 degree

the use of augmented reality.

campaign.

However, after discussing with our course leader, Tracey, she stated that she likes the idea of 72b zine continuing after our GFW debut. So, I wanted the ideas that I produced for this part of the project to be exciting, visually impressive and show Chester in a hitech light, yet still have the option to hold longevity and not date too much.

Figure 14: Sketch-up design of stand by me, 2018.

Melissa; Art direction. Melissa was the one ensuring everything was sticking to theme and working well as an overall concept, as well as with our concept statment. She’s extremely organised and wants to go into creative direction in the future, so this was te perfect role for her.

Emma; Instagram and Sustainability. Emma’s main tasks included researching into sustainability for our stand, bringing in ideas of what we can do to make sure its as sustainable and eco-efficient as it can be. Emma also created and began to post on our Instagram page; @72bchester.

Leanne; Prop/lighting pricing, and background research. Leanne’s future goals include going into the fashion buying industry, so she wanted to take on the role of planning out the costing of everything we would need to hire for our stand. She also played a big part in the beginning research stages, looking into Chesters history and background. After my idea of having a huge, red, neon 72b sign as the main focal point to our stand, Leanne had a real, neon mockup created to show an example of what was to come from our campaign.

Shannon; Promotion. Shannon has created a few ideas of possible competitions and promotions we could run across our social media. Following on with the sustainability factor, we want to keep all of our stand promotion digital, so these would mainly run on our Instagram and hopefully attract more foot-fall to our stand.

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Figure 15: Screenshot of teammates slides from group presentation, 2018.

GROUP ROLES

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Figure 16: Interactive/Moving image 72b zine cover option 1. Designed by me, 2018.

With the opportunity to carry on the magazine after GFW, I thought the best option front cover wise, was to create a limited edition cover for the launch at graduate fashion week. I started by researching and gaining inspiration from publications and designs that I felt fit our theme, colour scheme and would work well alongside the rest of our stand.

One design by Astrid Vorstermans (as seen in figure 23) really inspired me, not only was the colour scheme perfectly in keeping with ours, but I also loved the cosmic effect that the background gave. Moving forward, I bought

FRONT COVER

some black card and white paint, which I then flicked over the card, using a paintbrush, trying to achieve a starry/abstract effect.

After scanning in, and manipulating the colours on Photoshop, I managed to achieve an outcome I was happy with. After adding in different graphic options, the next step for me was to add in another exciting and interactive element, to really help grab the audiences attention. I carried out a lot of research into moving image editorials and posters and was influenced by Wonderland Magazines recent range of moving editorials. I thought by adding in a moving image element, it was also the perfect fit to go along with our stepping into the future theme. After using apps and software, I came up with a couple of really intriguing examples for our first front cover. The most successful being figure 16. I believe by having an interactive front cover its not only attention-grabbing and extremely innovative, but also again coveys Chester to be ahead of its time, in terms of what competitors are currently producing.

Figure 19: “Cosmic”. Painting by me, 2018.

Figure 17: 72b zine cover option 2. Designed by me, 2018.

Figure 18: 72b zine cover option 3. Designed by me, 2018.

Figure 20: Music event poster. Dittmar, 2015.

Figure 23: Moving Together - Astrid Vorstermans. It’s Nice That, 2018.

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Figure 21: The Genius of the Wilderness - A Genius of Pain. Paika, 2016.

Figure 22: NTU Degree show. Townsend, 2009.

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STUDENT PROFILES to make sure that the augmented reality aspect we discussed as a group was actually feasible and doable, as well as making the student profiles interesting, youthful and unique, as they’re such an integral part of the whole digital magazine.

Figure 26: Buffalo, shot by Nicole Loucaides. Fucking Young!, 2018.

Carrying on with the Zine development, I wanted

In terms of the design of the student profiles, I wanted to stick to the colour scheme but also give every student an opportunity to customize their own page to be unique to them. My research showed me that I was drawn towards some handwritten elements, layered over something more hi-tech and digital and Figure 24: Love me two times babe. Stories Collective, n.d.

I was heavily influenced by designs from Fucking Young! Magazine (Figure 26). You can really see that there are personal elements in there, yet the design is still extremely modern and exciting. I came up with a couple of my own examples. One, by scanning in black card, masking tape that I wrote on myself and passport photos, which I then arranged in Photoshop and added in an example of my digital work (Figure 28). And another more simplistic, one with handwritten elements (Figure 25). I decided to take forward Figure 28 as, I liked the idea that each student would be able to

Figure 25: Student profile mock-up 1. Designed by me, 2018.

choose what work, picture of themselves and information they wanted to display.

Figure 27: Screenshot/Video using the Layar AR app over my designed profile, 2018.

those visiting that may not be as tech-forward as we are. Using the website I managed to upload the profile example I created, and I personally chose to add in one of my films as the AR element. This would allow each student to pick what they wanted to pop up as their AR element, whether its a 3D render of a garment, fashion film, website or social media page.

Using the App I could then scan the page I created and my video pops up as a AR watchable aspect (Figure 27). When creating the rest of the profiles for GFW, we would most likely need to buy an account through this site or find ways As for the AR Factor, after some research, I came across a platform called Layar which allows you to easily create your own personalized augmented reality experiences,

of developing the augmented reality ourselves, however I think its clear from my creation that its easily achievable and would allow our courses to really stand out this coming June.

that can be accessed via an app which is accessible and simple to use (Layar, 2018).

Although this element shows how digitally advanced we are as courses, I also thought it was important to be easily accessible for

AUGMENTED REALITY

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Figure 28: Student profile mock-up 2. Designed by me, 2018.

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Figure 29: Still from CSM, MA Fashion Communication: Fashion Image [Video File]. 2018.

Although we want the main focus of our zine to be on us as the students and promoting us and our work to industry, as our courses are relatively new and this is our first year attending Graduate Fashion Week, we believe it’s important for us to also ensure we’re pushing the courses in the most positive, modern light that we can.

For this section of the digital zine, I looked into what other universities, that are already extremely well-known and established have created to promote their courses, which is when I came across the likes of Central Saint

Figure 30 & 31: Stills from Ravensbourne, Meet recent BA (Hons) Fashion graduate [Video File]. 2017.

Martins (2018) and Ravensbourne (2017) who regularly make videos interviewing students about the course, either individually or by including many different students. These videos often also include cutaways, showing the behind the scenes of garment creation, what the course entails and also final outcomes (Figures 29, 30 & 31). I liked the fact that it comes from the students perspective, making it much more relatable and allows such prestigious course and universities to come across genuine and personable. This option would definitely be able to be shot and produced by us as students,

COURSE PROMOTION

and for quite low costs too. However, as

15. we’re wanting to be seen in a hi-tech and digital way, to make a bigger impact, I also looked into more abstract ways that we could promote our courses that would enable us to further showcase our skills. I came across a film by MACHINE - A & VOID (2018), a 2 minute long film which is shot in a much less literal way than the earlier two, yet still allows you to get to know 5 graduates and see their collections. It’s much more fashion and techforward, and although there’s no speaking, it really captures your attention with the sound affects and imaginative editing (Figures 32, 33 & 34). This would also be another oppourtunity for both our fashion communication and the fashion design course to work together and collaborate on a fashion film, we could overlay speaking about the courses, shoot some elements in our 72b studio but also make it extremely visually strong and exciting. This section in the zine would allow us to display our courses to industry from our point of view and prove our talent, showing that we’re not just small start-up courses. As well as allowing prospective students to get an taste of what they can expect from applying to Fashion Communication and Fashion Design at the University of Chester.

Figure 32, 33 & 34: Stills from MACHINE-A & VOID Present: The Graduate Project [Video file]. 2018

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PROMOTING CHESTER The next important element for the zine is promoting Chester as a city, and showing that we’re proud of our historical roots.

Chester, being a Roman city, is a typical tourist hotspot. Famous for its historical aspects such as the cathedral, the rows and its overall quaint, traditional image.

Although giving a nod to our roots is important to us, we decided that as our courses are so future-forward and and always looking towards the next trends and technologies, that we wanted to represent Chester in that way too.

For us, a few different elements feed into that new, contemporary image. Such as, how Chester is working towards being more fashion-forward way through the zine featuring a street style section and just generally using photography and graphic design to show representations of Chester around our stand and throughout the zine in a way that fits how we want to be seen at Graduate Fashion Week.

Figure 35 & 36: Photographs of Chester. Taken by me, 2019.

more sustainable, conveying Chester in a

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Figure 45: Chester Chronicle newspaper collage 2. Created by myself, 2019.

SUSTAINABILITY: For sustainability, as it is such an important factor to our stand, I think it’s important to discuss it in our zine and link it back to Chester and the university. Not only does this show that its something that we’re trying to proactively change, but it also links into how big of a topic sustainability has become recently. According to Chester Universities website 2018, we already have a sustainability unit in place at the university, who claim that sustainability is at the heart of every decision made and is pushed through all educational activities. This project also links in with Green Chester, a larger organisation ran by the University of Chester, that’s focused on sustainability throughout the whole city, organises events, runs campaigns and gives the option for people to sign up to the community (Green Chester, 2018). I believe Green Chester is integral for us to bring into our zine, and could arise opportunities for fashion students to collaborate with the sustainability unit to create something for the zine too.

“We want to promote awareness and engagement, in order to achieve social and environmental sustainability through all of our educational activities.”

- University of Chester

Taking inspiration from Vogues infamous street style section on its website, I thought this would be a really interesting way of pushing a more fashion-focused side of Chester. This would allow any students interested in fashion photography to take to the streets and get their skills and work out there. This would be a really interesting edition to the digital zine, and again, will help to link together the fashion scene and Chester, which to some people may not be an obvious pairing.

Figure 37 & 38: How The Street Style Set Wear Suiting. Shot by Jonathan Pryce, 2018.

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STREET STYLE:

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PROMOTIONAL IMAGERY: Another important element to promoting Chester that we touched on in the formative assessment was the imagery we would have throughout our stand and across out social media. We knew that we wanted to show a clear juxtaposition between our old, historical roots and the new, modern image we want to paint of Chester.

With a lot of use of lines and structure throughout our stand, I began researching into ideas to take inspiration from that we could adapt and change to fit in with our theme but still give a nod to where

our journeys began. A couple of artists I came across who produced work with a lot of structure, lines and simple colours are Felice Varini and Alexey Bogolepov as I thought the contrast between the Chester’s architecture and the structured lines will work really well alongside our stands theme and to put forward a modernized view of our city to industry. After undertaking my own photography session around the city, I loved the contrast between the old and the new modern perceptions of Chester that I want to ensure we put forward. This lead me to producing the images shown in

Figure 39 & 40: Photographs of Chester. Taken and edited by me, 2019

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figures 39 & 40, which are the beginning of a series of images that I would want to produce for use throughout the zine and our GFW campaign.

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To round off the launch edition of 72b zine, I thought it would be apt to include a behind-the-scenes look at our journey to graduate fashion week. From coming up with concepts and blue prints,

ROAD TO GFW

to making elements for the stand and showing the making of fashion designs graduate collections, I thought it would be interesting to show the making of Chester at graduate fashion week, as a new course coming onto the London fashion scene. Again, keeping to the digital/ technological theme, I think a video popping up alongside imagery of our plans showing the behind the scenes would be the most effective and interesting way of showing the behind the scenes of our journey. Taking inspiration from LOVE Magazine’s collaboration series with Central Saint Martins,(The Secrets of Central Saint Martins, 2018), in which they documented students paths to their degree show in a way that was quite candidly shot and felt like the students had shot it themselves. I think what would work best would be to still be able to show all of our students skills, but in a way that’s personable and makes the audience feel like they can connect with us.

Figure 41, 42 & 43: Stills from LOVE Magazine, The Secrets of Central Saint Martins | Episode 5 [Video file]. 2018.

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In conclusion, I want 72b zine to be an all encompassing centre point to our graduate fashion week stand and hopefully, our courses too. My aim was to make it as digitally exciting and innovative as possible, which I believe I’ve achieved through moving image, film and augmented reality. The zine I’ve put forward works alongside all our aims of being sustainable, promoting our students as much as we can to industry and being extremely technologically advance, which in my opinion is unique to not only student-produced magazines on the market, but also a lot of more established 72b zine is going to launch us into the industry in an extremely exciting way, but I also think it’s a great way of bringing together our two courses and everyone’s individual strengths and skills, allowing us to all collaborate together on something really special.

CONCLUSION

Figure 44: Chester Chronicle newspaper collage created by myself, 2019.

publications too. Not only do I believe

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