Fashion Forever: Walking in a Value Wonderland

nyc-classic-american

Forever21 has become  folklore for fun and budget fashion in its native US, and now throughout the UK, Europe and the Far East after its recent and rapid expansion.

 

forever21-budget-fashionista-neon-invitation

Although its original stores  were only 100sqm its concept has blossomed to become “Fashion Wonderlands” of  over 9000sqm. These huge stores are segmented into a variety of sub-brands and  departments.

Forever 21 for the original  assortment of women’s and junior’s clothing, accessories, active wear, swimwear,  lingerie, handbags, and shoes. Forever 21+ carrying women’s apparel in extended  sizes. Love 21 with contemporary lines for women with styles more suited for  women 21 and older. Forever 21 Girls for girls moving into their pre-teen sizes  & 21Men, fast fashion and suited style for men.

The vast spaces are used to  create retail theatre through the use of extravagant and extended mannequin  focal points, introducing each area with distinctive and eye-catching colour,  pattern and displays.

Whilst the store has been  built arrange jaw-dropping category displays with endless racks of dresses,  blouses, T-shirts, trousers, denim and every other kind fashion apparel, the  retailer has worked hard to create outfits and silhouettes, brought together  with its individual and distinctive taste for coordination.

Stand-out departments  include the accessories area with its “boutique” atmosphere and the wonderfully  extravagant fixtures with crystal chandeliers and oversizes  lampshades.

For the fashionista on a  budget Forever21 truly represents a “Fashion Wonderland” of unparalleled scale  and extravagance.

 

forever21-budget-fashionista-mannequin-mountains forever21-budget-fashionista-wide-avenues forever21-budget-fashionista-local-flavour

Boardwalk Catwalk: H&M Turns over a New Leaf

Seven stories of summer heaven await the seasonal shopper at H&M, Oxford Circus.

 

H&M-jungle-summer-jungle-grouping

In another nod to the far away football festival in the jungles of Brazil H&M brings the fashion forest to Europe, adorning its store with a flourish of leaves and garlands of green.

Every floor is home to a showcase display greeting shoppers as they make their way up the escalator labyrinth on an exploration of new summer collections, perennial basics, value heroes, destination denim and the unfolding world of accessories and intimates. The high rise format is perfect for creating manageable stories on each floor, sure to satisfy without testing the patience.

The variety of plinths and props, mannequins and harlequins creates something unique on every level, from towering fashion stacks for the young and bold to the sedate boardwalk for the seasoned shopper.

H&M-jungle-summer-forest-window H&M-jungle-summer-boardwalk-catwalk H&M-jungle-summer-pink-jungle

Underpinned by price, and inspired by the world, H&M’s fashion forest offers something for everyone’s summer sojourns.

Amazon River Island: Blowing the Whistle on the World Cup

No stone unturned on the perpetually flowing river-bed of life at River Island.

 

river-island-amazon-summer-mens-window

At a time when ladies fashion stores may have turned to licking their wounds from a month fighting the football distractions of the Brazilian jungle, River Island embraced the colour and culture of the region, putting up a typically topical performance.

In a game of two halves, ladies summer assortment adorned with the Latin touches of South America was showcased in windows, whilst summer casual shirts and shorts competed with clarity in the menswear jungle. Vibrant window masks created a suitable setting whilst larger than life referee whistles adorned by mannequins, signalled the kick-off of the great River Island World Cup Carnival.

An island of fashion in the summer soccer scene of 2014.

 

river-island-amazon-summer-window river-island-amazon-summer-womens-window river-island-amazon-summer-blowing-the-whistle

Creative Souls of Fashion@ ASOS’s Fashion Finders

The mother of online fashion becomes a cradle for the daughters of today’s trends and looks.

 

asos-fasion-finder-rising-star-inspirations

In the ASOS Fashion Finder what was editorial and schedules has become responsive and dynamic in what is becoming the most informative and engaging relationship between any retailer and its customers.

Revolutionising and re-mixing the magazine formula the retailer sets the broad calendar of fashion seasonality, events and trends mapping out the expansive landscape in readiness for its readers and buyers to populate it with ideas, creations favourites and inspirations.

The role and relationship between ASOS and its advocates is symbiotic and sophisticated as the contributors change hats between buyers and sellers, between creators and admirers and between passive browsers to dynamic contributors. ASOS gives the best contributors the exposure and opportunity to develop through several embryonic stages from Style Rookies to Rising Stars and beyond.

ASOS keeps a firm hold on commercially strategic content, but down to the second-by-second live fashion feed, this is a startling tribute and testament to the creativity of the consumer.

 

asos-fasion-finder.most-popular asos-fasion-finder-festival-look asos-fasion-finder-festival-look-fashions

 

VM-unleashed works with retail businesses to create inbound retail marketing calendars combining off-line and online inspiration and opportunities.

Primania: Primark’s Personal Promotion Machine

E-commerce is not for every retailer, but social marketing certainly is.

 

primania-home

Primark has experimented with online selling in collaboration with ASOS, but with an average item value so low the economics just didn’t add up. So how can the Primark retail powerhouse engage with the digital world and sell to a wider audience?

Along comes Primania at the forefront of social sharing and social selling, in a digital model that is perfect for a mass market value performer, hell-bent on an international invasion across Europe and now to the US. Blurring the boundaries of retail, marketing, PR and advertising Primania combines the “available to all appeal” of its assortment with the endless appetite for self-promotion.

The idea is huge, but the concept simple as customers sign-in, creating their personal bios, and then upload themselves with their Primark fashions.

 

The social scenarios continue with looks and outfits favourite and scored, and also the opportunity for any budding fashionistas to propel their profile to the level of guru, followed and revered across the networks.

Primania is used as part of the Primark site, pruned back to latest looks, ethical credentials and store location, with Primania, like its protégées, the real stars of the Primark rollercoaster.

 

primania-elena-g primania-trend-alert primania-upload-outfit

 

VM-unleashed works with retailers to create social network strategies for engaging and selling to their customers…

Nike+ Club: Running on Emotion

Find your way to the top storey of Nike on Oxford Street and find the Nike+ Club, a haven for all things feminine.

 

nikeclub-welcome

As the tourist throng recedes floor by floor the atmosphere here is rarified, intimate and inviting. Nike leads the field in womens fitness and time spent here re-enforces not just the technical clothing, the customised shoes, the exclusive training gear in limited edition World Cup colours but a whole world of intereaction and engagement with its customers that leaves other retailers trailing behind.

The Nike+ Club is present is several flagship stores from nearby Covent Garden to the further outposts of Nike UK from Manchester to Glasgow, but here in London’ heart it finds its most defined incarnation.

 

Nike + Club is built around Running, with weekly classes from the stores entrance through the streets of Central London, like a spiders web unfurling its latex ambassadors across a range of routes for all abilities.

Oxford Circus supplements running with a variety of services and classes from Yoga to technical clothing fitting, and a running assessment centre to find the right shoe for you.

What Nike Club represents, more than the proverbial “third place” is an environment to relax and explore where taking part is most important and “first place” is reserved for all.

 

nikeclub-activity-boards nikeclub-customised-footwear nikeclub-run-analysis

VM-unleashed works with retail clients on developing concepts for engaging and interactive store concepts…

Left of Centre Fashion: The Value of Digital Communication

Not so long ago Lefties was at the periphery of the Inditex empire, viewed generally as an outlet for the unsellable assortment cast down from Zara, Stradivarius and the like. The poor relation, with a poor proposition for the poorer end of the fashion market.

 

lefties-digital-frontage

Now Lefties is at the vanguard of value fashion, with its same low prices, but with an assortment that is now fashionable and desirable to a wider market. The latest store environments show the revolution full-circle, adding more value to the low prices, with a light environment, tressel tables and bespoke furniture and a revolution in digital communication.

Mannequin groups are complemented with large promotional images for hero price points, whilst a journey through the store introduces smaller digital promotions and dynamic price signage.

Most striking is the external logo, not only communicating the brand name but a host of promotional messages flashing from left to right, announcing to the world low prices, daily and weekly product heroes, promotional offers, and the arrival in the Spanish fashion scene of another serious contender in the value fashion market.

lefties-hero-products lefties-new-environment lefties-promotional-graphics

VM-unleashed work with retail businesses on visual communication strategies for stores.

Stand & Stare: Pull & Bear Take to the Road

pull-bear-glass-exterior

The anti-corporate momentum builds…

 

as recognised brands balance the safety of recognition and loyalty with the excitement of individual assortments, personal enhancements and store environments that look like they come off the back of a lorry rather than the end of the corporate conveyer belt.

Pull & Bear, from the biggest brand house about, have a new store, urban and improvised, re-stressed and distressed. The logo is viewed through the glass blocked windows of the municipal shelter, whilst tiles and timbers, the remnants of a ruined landscape, are used to create the tables, fixtures and focal points.

The assortment is mixed with originality, imagination and unusual juxtapositions away from historical categories, whilst unit depth, table piles and the order of colour and fashion position are all for experimentation for the pleasure of the modern customers delectation. The abandoned Beetle drives a solitary path through brand convention as this innovative emporium tests the limits of brand conformity, and the battle for loyalty enters an ever more familiar territory.

pull-bear-jeans-bar pull-bear-vw-shoes pull-bear-womenswear

…is your brand stuck in your corporate past, or responding to customer trends and forcing the market with innovative store environments and creative customer engagement?

 

VM-unleashed has worked with retailers to develop commercially based but innovative store environments.

Selfridges Denim Devolution: Browse the Pinterest Gallery

Destination denim stretched its legs and stepped out as the World’s largest dedicated denim studio.

No idle fascination this 2500 square metres throws a curved ball at the conventions of category collections with Selfridges claiming jeans from £11 to £11,000 in a range of over 11,000 pieces. Denim journeys unfold past acrobatic mannequins and parades of pillars bedecked in blue.

 

Follow VM-unleashed! Ltd’s board Legs 11: Selfridges Denim Devolution on Pinterest.

 

pinterest-gallery-bar