Inspirations

Been busy this week, written my Statement of Intent and the presentation for it. Hope it all makes sense and gets approved! Thought I would share a couple of my key inspirations for the FMP.

I read a very interesting interview in Drapers (March 31^st) with Nick Robertson, the founder of ASOS, and a couple of the things he said in it really justified my FMP range idea.

Source: www.retail-week.com

Here’s a couple of quotes from his interview:

‘the biggest challenge is international...as the UK market slowed we had to look to international. Now 97% of the opportunity for ASOS lies outside of the UK.'

‘we were paranoid for years that a competitor would swoop in, but roll forward 12 years and there is no new Asos but the high street has got much better online ... we have to keep trying new things to stay ahead’

What ecommerce trends do you see in the future?

‘with the 20-something customer it’s the more choice the better, but going forward it’s about editing that product down to a personal level. In terms of technology we know mobile works. 19% of ASOS traffic on Christmas day this year was via mobiles and we only see this growing’.

These points relate really well to what I’m going to be doing with ASOS Edits:

• Nick Robertson sees a massive opportunity in international sales and that is the key focus of expansion over the next few years. Street style is a very international phenomenon; go on a blog like the Sartorialist and on the first page alone there will be shots taken from all over the world. Therefore I think my range will appeal to the international market!

• Robertson highlights the importance of innovating – hopefully my concept is a good innovation!

• Finally, Robertson uses the same word I had in mind from the very start – ‘editing’ the ASOS range!

The second major inspiration which I look at every day is The Sartorialist, an amazing street style blog created by photographer Scott Schuman. Here’s my favourite shot of the week:

Source: www.thesartorialist.com

I love how classic this look is – this picture could have been taken fifty years ago and the lady would still have looked stylish. I’d love for my range to be this kind of modern yet classic style.

One last thing – which I think really relates back to this idea of the democratisation of fashion I was talking about in the last post, and shows how designers look to the streets for inspiration. This is what Schuman describes his aim as:

“I thought I could shoot people on the street the way designers looked at people, and get and give inspiration to lots of people in the process. My only strategy when I began The Sartorialist was to try and shoot style in a way that I knew most designers hunted for inspiration.”