Fragrance Trend Booklet

As part of our new fragrance module, our first task was to create a 12 page, A5 booklet, which forecasted the dominant and emerging trends of 2014/2015 within the fragrance industry. I have never looked into trend forecasting before, and so found this task to be quite challenging at first, but after researching on trend forecasting sites such as WGSN and Trend Hunter, I began to get the hang of it, and found it really enjoyable!  

Using Indesign has always been a favourite of mine! I am by no means an expert at the program, but I do feel comfortable using it to create pieces of work, and love how you can link Photoshop and Indesign together so easily. There are so many aspects I experimented with during this layout, for example using different layers and using tools which I didn't even know existed, like altering whether the text hyphenated or not (will save so much time and stress in the future!).  

This is my finalised trend booklet, and although I am happy with the outcome, there are some areas which I feel could be improved, especially after receiving feedback from a peer marking session. 

• Create more interest with front cover - could use more of the space to co-ordinate with the busy composition that is on the double page spreads.
• Check all images are of high quality to remove any pixelated images in booklet
• Reconsider the borders on the images - maybe too harsh? 
• Alter some composition to create more visual contrast, possible with front and back cover and maybe also with first double page spread, as these are most appropriate areas for this to happen.

I am going to consider these and alter my trend booklet in the future so that it has these improvements when I am ready to input this into my portfolio. I find these peer assessment tasks very useful and hope to have more of them, as they allow me to look at others similar work to gain inspiration, whilst also give a second opinion to my work before the final deadline. 

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Trend and Brand Moodboards

Getting my first set of results from the visual awareness module I finished the other week was very nerve-wracking. I've obviously never completely anything to degree level and I didn't really know what to expect. But after waiting around till Friday afternoon (the issues of having a surname which begins with a letter towards the end of the alphabet!), I was very pleased to find out that I received a 2.1!

There are a few areas I need to work on, like making my work less corporate sounding and also ensuring I use as many theories as possible, but overall I am really pleased an know what I need to work on for next time to keep up the grade and hopefully even better it. Now I've finished the module, I thought it was time to share my two mood boards on this blog. 

As mentioned before, I decided to look at the pop art fashion trend that is emerging across kitsch brands. For the task I created a colour trend entitled 'Radiant Retros', and also an adaption of this colour trend which could be used by the brand, American Apparel. I'm really pleased with the work as I tried to incorporated all different types of media such as buttons, magazine cut outs and my own drawings. Enjoy!

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Brad Pitt for Chanel

Chanel is one of the most famous fragrance houses in the perfume industry, and is home to possibly the  most iconic female fragrance to date, Chanel No. 5. With such a huge reputation to live up to, Chanel often use celebrity endorsements in order to express the luxury and glamour behind their quite expensive perfumes, reassuring consumers that their money will be well spent. With past collaborations with celebrities such as Audrey Tautou, Nicole Kidman and even Marilyn Monroe, the perfume has always been associated with female celebrities who represent class and elegance. 

However, in 2012 a completely different approach has been taken. The French fragrance house has decided to use male actor, Brad Pitt, as the celebrity face behind the huge perfume. As a black and white image, Brad Pitt is shown with shoulder length hair, and to be pulling a rather stern facial expression as the brand breaks their own traditions and attempts to be sensual and stand out from their other adverts. Although I understand that the brand are attempting to make connections with their "gender-twisting" origins, whilst also taking inspiration from their 1973 advert shot by Helmet Newton,  I can't help but think that another celebrity may have been a better fit for the ad. Especially as their most popular and iconic women's fragrance, I believe that Chanel No. 5 should continue to choose beautiful and sophisticated female celebrities to represent their products in order to comply with their brand values and to keep the classic scent associated with the brands traditional ideologies. 

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Banksy Rat

Whilst visiting my granddad in central London last week for the day, I noticed some interesting graffiti on the corner of the road he lives on - something I had definitely noticed in the media before. It was an authentic Banksy piece! On the corner of Cleveland Street in Westminster, stands the art work, which appeared during 2011 on Easter Monday. Now protected by a plastic sheet to preserve the art work, the wall is often photographed by passers by like myself, as it is so detailed and very impressive! I was however disappointed to see that some people had tried to ruin the work, despite the efforts to protect it, and graffiti over the top. This is my first live Banksy piece I have seen, and I'm definitely going to be look out for more, as the pictures really doesn't do the art work any justice! 

Fragrance Advert Groups

So lectures have begun again, and it is actually really nice to get back into a routine, rather than having nothing to do with myself! This module is looking at marketing a product, particularly looking at perfume, as this actually quite basic product allows lots of freedom for creativity. After watching the BBC documentary, I have began to understand the different ways in which different market levels reach their target audiences, and the first lecture of the module really helped me develop that further and look at the different categories and stories many fragrance companies use in order to sell their product.

There are key elements when selling a product, and the narrative and story is one of these. Although there are many different categories other than these four I have learnt about, these are the main groups which many perfume adverts fall into. 

Sensuality and Indulgence

Trust and Honesty

Humour and Kitsch

Tradition and Heritage 

After having a few hours to think about this, I put together some adverts, from magazines, which fit into these groups to look at the similarities between each. 

Sensuality and Indulgence

I found that with sensuality and indulgence themes, the advertisements tended to be seductive and passionate, using colours often associated with love and sexiness, such as deep reds, plums and golds. This may be because gold is associated with wealth and purple has often had a history of being the rarest dye colour to create, and so by using this to create a very forbidden and desirable story, the perfume sells itself as being superior and rare. You can often see many lingerie companies such as Victoria Secret also using this trend in order to sell their products. 

Trust and Honesty

Trust and Honesty adverts all sell their products as if they are pure and natural. Many of these companies therefore use earthy colours such as greens, browns and blues and often include many natural objects like trees, water and sky to create a sense of authenticity to their product. Many of these adverts also strip away all colour to emphasise this natural form, having their adverts mainly in black and white, and others will also use bare skin, blush colours and nudity in order to stress the minimal look they are trying to achieve. I think that skin care companies such as Dove and Clinique are also great at using this trend as it links to their brand values very well. 

Humour and Kitsch

These types of advertisements take a completely different approach, using lots of bright colours (oranges, yellows, blues, hot pinks) in order to create a playful atmosphere to their adverts. Using outrageous props and facial/body expressions, the adverts portray fun and laughter, whilst can also have a surreal aspect to them. Many companies choose to use kitsch to their advantage, however others do not mean to come across in this way, but due to over exaggerated features in a bottle or advert, the images may come across in this manner by mistake. Many photographers, such as David Lachapelle have mastered this look for different types of brands, and I also think that Kenzo use lots of humour in order to advertise their product. 

 Tradition and Heritage

For me, tradition and heritage was the hardest to categorise, as I feel many perfume ads are moving away from this trend as it can often become quite hard to brands to constantly play on their pasts when they are trying to be innovative and ahead of the trend. However, I did find that with this category, soft, pastel colours are used in order to create a romantic and vintage ambience. The clothing brand, Jack Wills, are incredibly known for their traditions and so use this brand value as an aspect in their adverts. 

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Fragrance Film

Perfume has always been seen as a luxury, but with more and more being released by different companies, perfumes are now having to shout in order to be recognised over the rest. And with older generations continuing to buy their favourite perfumes, the new task is to get a new generation hooked at a young age, so they continue to buy for life. But is perfume a thing of the past? Can perfumists lure in Generation Y. Watching a 3 part BBC documentary series on Perfume has introduced me to the world of perfume in preparation for my next module, all about this large industry. But the business is something which previously I did not think about, I only ever thought about how beautiful it smelt! 

Jean-Paul at Guerlain in Paris, france has always been taught that his inspiration should come from the people close to him. He suggests that the best way to create a beautiful perfume is to design one for the woman you love; something that will make her feel stunning. I think this adds a personal touch to perfume, and makes the perfume seem more luxurious and classy, as the frangrance is about the scent and the glamour behind it, rather than purley about making sales. the scents also have history behind them, witgh the same recipe used jow to the written 100 years ago. But, on the other side of the atlantic in New York, it is the big name brands which dominate the industry, and therefore these independant perfumes are begining to fall behind. Here, in Manhattan, perfume is not an accessory which needs to be kept for life, but should be changed regularly to match the customers changing preferences. Chandler Burr, collumn writer for the New York Times, the largest metropolitan newspaper in the US. suggests that this however does not keep customers hooked to  a certain brand. Instead, he thinks that by shouting and forcing too many products on a consumer does the opposite, and makes a person confused and not want to repurchase. 

I think in a way this can be true. As a consumer, you can sometimes have too much choice, and this puts you off all together. But as such a demanding generation, we now want this massive choice, and we all look for something different from our scents. But with so many perfumes, how do you make a new product stand out from the crowd? Scent is invisible, and so the documentary emphasises the importance of perfume marketing and packaging, with the bottle standing out as the most important aspect in perfume sales. But promises to some of the biggest brands in NYC include that it shall smell fantastic. Although the bottle and packaging is important in enticing the customers to buy the perfume at first, it is what is inside, the scent, which persuades them to keep buying again and again. 

Therefore, it may be the people who make these scents who really need to be praised for creating these amazing scents.  For example,  New York's Christopher Brosius uses real life scents in his perfumes, one of his creations being the smell of a musky human body! Of course this is not everyones taste, but I believe that just being able to create these types of challenging scents is amazing. Christopher experiments with memories, letting smell evoke emotions which have a strong meaning or memory attached to them, something which personally I think is amazing as really turns perfume into more than just a fashion accessory. There are certain smells that transport us to happy times, or help us remember people who we don't see anymore for so many different reasons, and I love the idea that you are able to capture this scent, whether it be food, alcohol or possessions, and be transported back to these happy memories. 

The series also looks at non-western countries, and how the perfume industry is affecting them. Looking at Brazil in particular, it is clear to see how the importance of perfume is growing, as sales are rising massively. The poorest half of the country now spend as much on perfume as the richest half of the country do, therefore stresses how companies can target both market levels and be popular and successful in these growing areas of the industry. I think it was really interesting to see how these peoples spending habits differ from western countries, and this really stresses the potential for fragrance success in the future in even more fast growing countries like Brazil. 

Overall, I think the documentary series had very interesting points which really got me thinking more about fragrance and the way in which it is sold. The product is infact just scented water, and so it is extremely important to market the product in the correct way to suit market value and target consumers and in order to be a success! However, although this has got me really prepared for the fragrance part of our next module, I did find the documentary quite repetitive. By flipping between just the two perfume companies, many facts were repeated across the series, and I think that this did not give an accurate representation of the perfume market as a whole. I would've like to see some more companies point of view to really get a great understanding of a variety of market levels, not just mass and high end.

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Punk and Pain

I love retro london fashion, and that is why I am completely drawn to the 1975 Punk fashion era. Centering around London, the trend expresses the pain and anguish of adolescence, with clothing featuring rips, tears and slashes to project a violent rejection of prettiness. Putting together a little mood board surrounding this fashion trend, I have focused on key colours and designers which were popular during this time, whilst also incorporating one of my own fashion photographs into the work. 

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