Fashion Promotion In 5 Years

What is the role of fashion promotion within the fashion industry, and how will it develop over the next 5 years?

Fashion promotion is the glue that holds together everything fashion related. It's all very well

having a great designer who can create stunning garments out of fabulous materials, but fashion

promotion is what advertises those garments, and sells them, and puts them out there for the world

to see. If there weren't photographers and buyers and journalists and stylists (who are all a part

fashion promotion) we wouldn't have ever seen a catwalk show, or brought a Fendi bag, or picked

up a copy of VOGUE. If it wasn't for fashion promotion we could all be walking down the street in

an oversized second hand sweater with socks and sandals and nobody would know any different.

Fashion Promotion is comprised of many different subjects, such as photography, styling,

illustration, graphic design, public relations, advertising and marketing. Even if at times we don't

realise it fashion promotion effects our lives almost everyday. Fashion-era.com states 'In England

you are never more than twenty or thirty minutes from a town with shops...And if you are

immobile, shopping TV will probably solve your need for a shopping fix.' In pre-World War Two

Britain, garments were made from rich and luxurious materials in which only the wealthy could

afford. However, fashion has come along way since then, and high-street brands such as Topshop

and H&M have made fashion accessible to everyone. High-street brands have promoted and

advertised their stores in a variety of different forms from magazines and television ads to

billboards and the back ends of buses in order to attract buyers. It's all about advertising new ideas

in which will benefit and interest consumers.

Fashion Promotion not only effects the way we dress, but also the way we think and feel about

ourselves. 'For you can indulge yourself with shopping, and you can show the world who you are

by the stores you shop at and the products (brands) you buy.' (Retail Branding, 2003:17). If we look

back in history we can see how fashion promotion has grown

extravagantly with time.

VOGUE magazine launched it's first issue in 1916, proudly

adorning it's illustrated cover (figure 1). The first issue was

introduced by designers stating 'the time has come... to talk of many things - of shoes and furs and

lingerie, and if one flares or clings, and where the waist-line ought to be, and whether hats have

wings.' (Vogue.com). Although VOGUE's motive has stayed much the same, the hand drawn covers

were soon replaced by photography in the 1920's, and to this day

VOGUE rarely uses illustration; instead it is the photographs of

celebrities and models we see on it's covers. The magazine itself

promotes fashion designers, clothing stores and fashion trends, as

well as books and make up, models and celebrities. Therefore this

simple replacement of illustration with photography indicates a

change in the way fashion is promoted. By focusing on fashion

photography and how it has developed over time we can begin to

visualise the future of fashion promotion and how it will continue Figure 1

to develop

Fashion photography first began to appear in magazines in the early 1900's when half-tone printing

had been modernised. Baron Adolf de Meyer is considered to be the first fashion photographer.

Ewing (1986:91) states 'There is no question that the man who Cecil Beaton once called 'The

Debussy of photographers' made a spectacular contribution' [to fashion photography]. In figure 2 it

is noticeable that de Meyer uses strong vertical composition to give a sense of authority.

Photographer Hoyningen Huene adopted some of de Meyers characteristics in his work, especially

his unique use of back lighting. Huene became renowned for his own use of lighting, using blacks

and whites and half tone colours to create stunning complex imagery. Along with the various

different lighting effects Huene also invented his own lightening devices in order to create

geometric shapes and patterns with shadows. His aim was to create the best possible lighting to

represent the fashion garments on his models. Huene's photographs were dominated by illustration

and were greatly influenced by sculpture. As we can see in figure 3 there is no movement; models