TOME. Rachel de Joode: Porosity — Thisispaper — What we save, saves us. Industrial Facility. About : the validation junky. Today we are witness to a constant flux between science, design, art, philosophy and other realms, which have merged into new disciplines through digitalisation and globalisation. Designers are confronted by new questions requiring different methods of design thinking to respond with previously unexplored outcomes. The digital frontier is changing culture on a rapid level; streamlining ways of living, having what you think that you might want quicker and more of it, opening new paths of living often ushered by the interests of brands and businesses. We adapt with our digital network to need more and want more, but not necessarily leading us to higher contentment. We are still complex with the need for comfort, love, validation; now with the constraints of time and location removed by digitalisation and globalisation, replaced by self branding and the constant lure of comparison to everyone, everywhere worldwide.
SayItWithSilence | SayItWithSilence | Photography Art Architecture Design Graphics Fashion & Lifestyle | Page 2. ‘Things Get Better’ series by Scott Campbell Watercolor on paper ‘Tranquil A’ chair Bahk Jong Sun, 2012 White oak H34 x W24.5 x D25.75in. H86 x W62 x D65cm Seat height: 13.75in. (35 cm) Available at 1stdibs here ‘Hillsden House’ by Lloyd Architects, Utah Photos Mark Weinberg and Leah Miller Boyd Holbrook by Beau Grealy for ‘Man of the World’ Issue 14, 2015 NuAns phones Available here ‘Amoureux de Paris’ (‘Lovers of Paris’) by Léon Herschtritt, 1960 ‘Flux’ by Frederik Scheve, Janno Ströcker and Dieter Pilger an illuminated 3D-printed zoetrope designed around the mathematics of the Fibonacci sequence ‘idear ideas’ branding by atipo.
The Locals — The Locals – Street Style from Copenhagen and elsewhere. The inspiration provider. SayItWithSilence | SayItWithSilence | Photography Art Architecture Design Graphics Fashion & Lifestyle. Georgina Santiago. Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne 2015 - Vous-avez dit bizarre? Vous-avez dit bizarre? The Vous avez dit bizarre ? (Did you say bizarre?) Exhibition explores the notion of the contemporary grotesque through a selection of about forty designers.
Co-directed and co-designed by Dutch artist Bart Hess and art historian Alexandra Jaffré, the exhibition brings together design projects that play with the codes of the grotesque style to demonstrate the social implications of behaviours that can sometimes be over-the-top. Bart Hess (1984, Geldrop, The Netherlands) is a genre defying artist currently living and working in London, UK.
Posthuman Futures | abhominal | experimentations on the human form. EDITD - analysing Whistles' commercial success through trend data. Long-time readers will know we’ve previously looked into the failings of well known retailers and brands, but our data isn’t limited to exposing poor performance, it also gives a comprehensive view of when things are working well. Last month British premium fashion retailer, Whistles, bought back the majority of shares owned by the Icelandic government (following the banking crash in 2008, Icelandic bank Glitnir’s shares were handed over to their government). This follows on from 2011’s 13% increase in sales and company indications that this year has seen “double digit like-for-like sales growth”. Whistles are riding high right now – so let’s look at their recipe for success. 1. Giving Customers What They Want Season after season, Whistles garments get picked up by the press and run as must-have pieces, selling out fast. The reality of this for most retailers is simply a swifter than anticipated sell through, not company-changing floods of cash. 2. 3. 4.
EDITD - analysing Whistles' commercial success through trend data. Doc 6217. Fashion retailer’s radical change of clothes. Whistles’ existing customers were not happy with her decision to overhaul the company’s collection of dowdy dresses. However, the move did attract younger shoppers. And Whistles’ latest results show the strategy has paid off. Underlying UK sales rose 20pc and the company returned to the black with pre-tax profits of £1.1m.
The brand has also won strong reviews from the fashion press for its mix of contemporary casual and workwear for women. The company’s customers are now typically aged between 25 and 50. “When we took over it was a brand that had lost its relevance with contemporary women,” she says. The retailer has 90 stores and concessions in the UK, including 48 standalone sites, and after reinventing the company Ms Shepherdson now aims to grow it. Ms Shepherdson believes that Whistles could grow to 60 standalone stores in the UK. There is an obvious doubt about whether this will work, but Ms Shepherdson is reassuringly level-headed. And the reasons for the move are sensible. CEO Talk | Jane Shepherdson, Chief Executive Officer, Whistles | CEO Talk. LONDON, United Kingdom — Perhaps it’s not surprising that, in her spare time, Jane Shepherdson does flying trapeze in Hoxton, smack in the heart of achingly hip East London.
Right from her earliest days in the fashion industry, Shepherdson has been known for taking risks and having her finger on the pulse of what’s cool. After getting her start as an assistant buyer at Topshop, back in 1984, Shepherdson spent twenty years working her way up the ladder to become Topshop’s brand director, effectively overseeing the retail, product, finance, HR and property departments of a company that, under her leadership, was transformed into a globally recognised brand, emblematic of the dynamic nature of British high street fashion.
But in 2006, one week after Topshop boss Sir Phillip Green announced a now-defunct fashion collaboration with Kate Moss, Shepherdson abruptly resigned. Shepherdson’s next move was closely watched. BoF: Let’s start with the results. JS: The results are good. They are fine. How Whistles Reemerged as One of the Most Exciting Contemporary Brands in Fashion. 2008 was not an easy year for many in the fashion industry -- least of all, perhaps, for Jane Shepherdson. The former Topshop brand director, once described as "the most powerful woman on the high street," had just become chief executive of (and a substantial investor in) a fading British brand called Whistles. Days before the brand was scheduled to unveil its relaunch, Lehman Brothers collapsed. "It was terrible," Shepherdson recalls.
"The whole year was just really, really stressful -- I lost about a stone. " It's clear that things are not so terrible for Shepherdson now. To say that it's a busy time at Whistles is an understatement. We asked Shepherdson about how Whistles survived -- and reinvented itself -- during those tough early years, its plans for international expansion and its hopes for a show at New York Fashion Week.
You started at Whistles seemingly at the worst possible time -- right before the Lehman collapse. Yes, it was terrible. What was the turning point? No, it isn't. Jane Shepherdson at Whistles: peep-peep show. BY Sally Williams | 13 September 2008 The fashion chain Whistles seemed to have run out of puff, but with Jane Shepherdson - the woman who breathed fresh life into Topshop as its brand director - it is dancing to a lively new tune, says Sally Williams. Fashion by Clare Richardson Last time I met Jane Shepherdson , 45, she was the queen bee of Topshop, sitting in an enormous office surrounded by assistants of daunting youth and beauty.
Three years on, she is running the women's fashion chain Whistles, and we meet in a shabby building behind a scuffed and numberless door. Shepherdson's departure caused widespread speculation. What next? Set up by Lucille Lewin in 1976, Whistles was venerated in the 1980s for its stylish own-label collection, not to mention the next-big-fashion-things that it stocked (Lewin practically discovered Dries Van Noten). Topshop has 227 outlets in the Britain alone and is feted by fashionistas.