John Lewis Live Project
Zainab Shah Jehan | Final Fashion Project | Student ID 26012833
Research & Group Concept
The Brief
Working as a team, create a fashion event to be held on Thursday 29th November 2018, 6.30pm to 8.30pm, at John Lewis & Partners Sheffield, which effectively celebrates JL&Ps desire to reach a new audience whilst maintaining their original philosophy.
John Lewis Retail Report 2017
The Concept
The concept for this fashion event was a combination of LIVE, a concept centred on interactivity with its customers with experiential workshops to engage and attract young consumers, and ‘Spice up your Life’ a vibrant, festival theme encouraging diversity and celebrating all shades, ages, sexualities and shapes.
Event suggestions
- Utilise central escalator in store for a catwalk as inspired by Louis Vuitton’s Spring Summer 2013 catwalk in Paris. (This suggestion was rejected by project manager due to Health & Safety.
- Premium gin tasting workshop to appeal to millenial consumers. According to studies by Beefeater Gin, the millenials ‘obsession’ with social media means they are more ‘tuned-in to premium spirits labels’. (Hancock, E, 2017)
- A live window display featuring a live marionnette style choreography with a Christmas theme. This is to generate engagement with passersby, encouraging them to find out more.
- Goodie bags to acquire by posting on Instagram with supported hashtag to encourage online interaction and marketing
L I V E +
Trend Research
Retail Analysis Women Winter 2018
Consumer/Market Research
‘The 25-34s also show the most loyalty towards the department stores. Again this aligns with their greater usage of department stores, with 63% of 25-34s having shopped with a department store in the last year’. (Dover, S. April 2018)
Mintel states in their Department store report that ‘74% of department store shoppers in the UK think such retailers are good for inspiration, with this figure similarly high across all demographics’. (Dover, S. April 2018). This demonstrates the importance for creating inspiring and innvoative window displays to spark enthusiasm in shoppers.
‘The trend for more experiential stores is something we discuss in the Launch Activity and Innovation section, with a variety of different fashion retailers looking for ways to elevate the customer experience by creating more immersive stores. This is helping such retailers to not only stand out from the crowd, but also helping to maintain footfall and giving shoppers a reason to visit a store at a time when online purchasing is becoming more pronounced’ (Dover, S, October 2018).
Colour Palette
Logo Remake/Design credit: Paul Luke
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Logo (Dover, S, April 2018)
WGSN
Professional Role Planning
Moodboard for the editorial role demonstrating font style, colour and layout ideas.
Professional Role Development
For my professional role I produced a magazine to supplement the fashion event. The aim was to highlight John Lewis’s endeavour to reach a new audience through a written magazine article and visuals that would appeal to the younger consumer whilst keeping with the John Lewis design aesthetic.
Photoshoot & Individual Image
Photoshoot & Image
Professional Role Realisation & Evalutation
We began this journey with nothing but a side of a4 titled ‘THE FASHION EVENT’, outlined in bold spanning half the page. Abstract as it sounded at the time, it somehow ended up with a fully orchestrated event, with an eclectic catwalk show, a live window display, something you would associate with the likes of Selfridges London not John Lewis Sheffield, a gin tasting corner, a contemporary live illustrated window created with raw student talent, a shoe customising workshop and to top it off goody bags to take home as a memoir of the day Sheffield Hallam Fashion Management and Communication students organised a fashion event at the prestigious John Lewis and Partners.
It began on an overcast October morning, forty-eight twenty something year olds trekked through Sheffield’s bustling town centre to the 3-storey John Lewis and Partners store, but we didn’t go through the front entrance, we were led to the side staff entrance. We all piled into a tiny room in the back office of the store, lined with rows of chairs, it finally occurred to us that we were about to receive a task that will hold some serious weight.
After an hour or so of briefing, a free Ribena and digestive biscuit later we left the building with a slight overwhelmed feeling and some scepticism as to whether we will pull this ‘event’ off. We were told some were surprised John Lewis, a brand with such high esteem, had left the organising in the hands of undergraduates. So, it goes…
The initial step taken was to decide the all-encompassing concept that would underpin everything about the event. This was important, and it bought some concern and disagreements within us, but after a unanimous vote, two concepts were chosen which then morphed into a super-concept. The first, LIVE, all about interactivity, experiential workshops and customer interaction. The second, ‘Spice up your life’ a festival themed, party inspired concept with a focus on diversity, embracing and appreciating every shape,
size, colour and sexuality, something that the fashion industry still hasn’t fully got the grasp of… yet.
Next was the task of splitting roles for all forty-eight of us, inevitably not everyone was going to have a main role and some of us were left doing the bare minimum and some with more workload. It would have worked better if the roles were evenly distributed and everyone had an equal workload. The editorial role was something that I was interested in as I had done well with this in past modules. I enjoy making layouts and the freedom to write without a clear structure. As I am good at observing what goes around me, I was able to listen to other people’s ideas for the night and my own ideas to come up with a mock magazine to supplement the event. The aim was to conclude everything that happened into a physical, visual format but is also personal to me, such as the use of my photograph, from the photo shoot task, as the front cover etc. I think it was successful as it correlates with existing John Lewis and Partners publications and aesthetics, but it also has a younger outreach. I tried not to stray too far from the brand’s design philosophy, instead wrote and designed in way that was specifically for young consumers but also just as easily appealing to all ages, something that the brand aims to do anyway.
In conclusion I think the event was a success and everybody had pulled all their talents and effort together to organise something that would have a lasting impact on everyone who attended that night as well as all of us who were part of such an unforgettable, rewarding experience.
I have learnt that working in a team means making compromises that are for the good of the team and that negative thoughts and attitudes never lead to a positive outcome. By being committed to a concept and going with the flow, the more likely it was that it would be successful.
Photo Credit: Kaylea Smith...Negative thoughts and attitudes never lead to a outcome.positive
It began on an overcast October morning...
Photo Credit: Kaylea Smith
Image References
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John Lewis (2017). The John Lewis Retail Report 2017. How we shop, live, & look. Retrieved from: https://www. johnlewispartnership.co.uk/content/dam/cws/pdfs/ media/how-we-shop-live-and-look-2017.pdf. John Lewis and Partners.
Dover, S. (April 2018). Department store UK April 2018 Retrieved from: http://academic.mintel.com/ display/891989/. Mintel Academic.
Dover, S. (October 2018). Clothing Retail UK October 2018. Retrieved from: http://academic.mintel.com/ display/926192/?highlight#hit1. Mintel Academic
Vlamis, Y. (2013). https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/ spring-2013-ready-to-wear/louis-vuitton/slideshow/ collection#33 Yannis Vlamis.
Hancock, Edith. (October 2017). MILLENNIALS ARE DRIVING GROWTH IN PREMIUM GIN SECTOR. Retrieved from: https:// www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2017/10/millennials-are-drivinggrowth-in-premium-gin-sector/
Scullion, C. (November, 2018). Retail Analysis Women’s Winter 2018. Retrieved from: https://www-wgsn-com.hallam.idm.oclc. org/content/board_viewer/#/81841/page/16. WGSN.
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