Fashion trends

Fashion trends that never fades

One of the beauties about fashion is the many different styles. Fashion recycles itself and there are certain fashion trends that last forever and that are classic enough to remain with us. Here are some trends that have always remained with us.

The Classic
- a classic look is clean and proper look. It expresses elegance and do not usually carry bold statements. An example of something classic and elegant is the Little Black Dress, also known as the LBD meaning a simple but clean black dress paired with simple accessories. The classic nice and proper look has always been part of the fashion trend, you can never go wrong with that.

Bohemian/Hippie

- AHH! one of my favorite trends ever. When I think of bohemian and hippie I think fringes, round glasses like the one John Lennon glasses use to wear, I think of head bands and long maxi skirts. It is definitely a style that i can identify with. The bohemian style trend can also lean into a beachy vibes, stacked with accessories like bangles.

Preppy
- When we talk about preppy style, we can think of golf. Well that is what comes to my mind. I also think of Ralph Lauren clothing. Preppy clothing is more conservative, wealthy looking styles, some signature styles are collared button ups, polo shirts, khakis, and clean appearance.

Vintage
- Vintage is taking old trends and adding a modern twist. I think of high waist shorts and pants, and recycling old clothes and wearing them like its new.

Rock/Funk
- A way to express rock funky style is by hair colors, edgy clothing, chains. With black leather jackets and black shirts with designs.

Glam/Girly
- The girly glam trend consist of high heels and stilettos , loud bold colors, a lot of pink, sparkle and glitters. To dress for girly glam clothes are more form fitting like body con dresses.

Goth
- Dark black clothing, black lipstick, very dark and gloomy. People who follow this style usually add really dark lipsticks and paired with chains.

In Order to be Irreplacable One Must Always be Different

"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening" -- Coco Chanel

 I feel like there are more than one meaning to this quote. But I agree that fashion is not just clothes, its inspiration taken from life, street, and everything we do everyday. I can completely relate to this quote because the way I feel about fashion means more than putting a shirt and pants together. When I think of style I apply it with my everyday life, what I see in street style and everyday life. I also think this quote can mean that fashion is created from the inspiration of street, the  sky and our everyday activities. There is runway fashion, couture, and there is street wear; daily wear. While watching an episode of Project Runway, designers were inspired by what they saw in everyday life, art, and what they saw in the streets created outfits with their street inspiration.  I was amazed by what they were able to create just from looking at what we see everyday walking down the street. It definitely goes to show that without inspiration there is no vision and inspiration from everyday life can bring a simple idea into a beautiful garment.

The Search For The Next Big Designer

The media plays an important role to why the fashion industry is so popular and why everyone wants to be the next big thing in fashion. There are many new shows developed to find the next famous and creative designers. I love competition shows that showcases the talent of everyday people who have hopes and dreams like me to one day make it big as a designer or to just be apart of the fashion industry.

There are shows like America's Next Top Model, although they are models, but models also play a big role in fashion. There is Project Runway and the new show called Fashion Star. These reality shows really inspire me to become more creative and gives me an idea of what the fashion industry looks for and what it may take to make it. It motivates me to see so many people who have completely different visions and who can design makes me want to work even harder.

The concept of three of these shows are very similar, a group of people are put through different challenges to test their abilities as a designer and a model. They have to prove how versatile  they are, how unique, how well they can perform, how they can handle pressure and criticism and their overall personality as a role model. With the fashion industry being so cut throat, they have to be prepared for rejections and tough criticisms. Each week one person will be eliminated based on their performances. Because fashion is such a huge part of our lives there are so many other fashion reality shows, but I chose America's Next Top Model, Project Runway, and Fashion Stars because these shows are by far my favorites and I saw many talents on these shows. 


America's Next Top Model
-America's Next Top Model is hosted and created by well known Victoria Secrets Model and Angels, Tyra Banks. She created the show in search of Americas next top model. The winning contestant will be prized with a management contract with Ford Models, a $100,000 contract with CoverGirl, and a chance to appear in a top magazine. The show first aired in 2003, going on to completing 16 cycles. When the show first aired, I really liked it because they showed the realness and process of becoming a model and it is not as easy as what people may assume. Although I never aspire to become a model, I still felt inspired by their ambitions and it was awesome to see how they were styled each week. I thought to myself " I would love to style models for editorial shoots" it seemed so cool to be behind the scenes and being able to pick out clothes that will be on display on models for the world to see. It was quite intimidating to see how tough the model industry can be, it really is a competitive industry. 

One of my favorite model form America's Next Top Model was Sheena Sakai from season 11. Although she did not win, she was one of my favorites because I do not see a lot of  Asian models on the show. Also because she was really unique in her size and features. It inspired me to one day become a big name in fashion as a Cambodian woman.

Project Runway
-Project Runway was originally created by model and also a member of Victoria's Secret Heidi Klum. Project Runway was created to find the next up and coming designer and to give designers a chance to display their talents on television. each week contestants have a fashion design challenge where they will design an outfit in matter of hours. In some contest they are challenged to construct an outfit made from recyclable materials, edible food, apartment furnishings, plants and flowers, materials from a party store and the actual clothes off their backs. Each week their garment will be seen on the runway by a panel of judges: Heidi Klum herself, Nina Garcia, Michael Kors and occasionally a guest judge will evaluate their design and decide who will be the winner of the challenge and who will go home. The winner of the challenge will get immunity and will be safe from elimination from the next challenge. When there are three finalist left, they have the opportunity to design a whole collection that will be viewed during fashion week! I know right? how awesome is that. Win or lose, not a lot of designers can actually say that they had their collection debut at fashion week in New York City. The winner of the Project Runway receives an editorial feature in an issue of Marie Claire magazine, a cash prize of $100,000 to start his or her own line, an opportunity to sell the line on Bluefly.com, and a $50,000 technology suite from  Hewlett-Packard to create, design, and run his or her business. 

Watching the show I was so inspired by the designers creativity. They created outfits from things we do not see everyday and ideas that we would never even think of. Their garments were so beautiful, so unique and so them. From watching the show I learned that the fashion industry is really competitive and you will have to learn how to face rejection. It was very uplifting to see how you can take fashion in so many different directions because with every designer comes a new and different vision and that is the beauty of it because each designer has the ability to create one of a kind garments. My favorite winner from Project Runway was Anya Ayoung-Chee from season 9. 

Fashion Star
- Fashion Star is a new reality show on NBC created to find the next up and coming fashion designer. The show is hosted by Elle Macpherson, Jessica Simpson, Nicole Richie, and John Varvatos are mentors to the contestants. Contestants are to compete with each other to create the best clothes in a limited amount of time and each week one or more contestant is eliminated. What makes the show unique and fun and cool is that each week a buyer from Neiman Marcus, H&M, and Macys bid on the winning design and customers can actually buy the garment the next day.

Forever 21

Holding the dream of making it big in the fashion industry can be a risky and expensive dream. It will take hard work, some patience and money. But to gain experience working around clothes and gaining knowledge from fashion buyers and fashion visuals would be awesome. I have to start my knowledge somewhere and I gain my experience by working at a retail store.  I work at one of the biggest and most popular clothing store, Forever 21.  This store has come along way from being a small-owned clothing store to opening so many more, even expanding to different countries. As a person who loves to shop there and who loves fashion and shopping in general, I was really excited to get the job. I took this as a learning experience. Sometimes you have to work your way from the bottom to get to the top. So far working there I learned a lot from watching the fashion visuals work. They are responsible for deciding what products are placed in the store, they also decide where the items go and they create different themes for the entire store. The coolest part about being a visual are that they are able to design window displays, mannequins and different sections of the store. It is awesome that their vision are displayed for all of the customers to see. It is because of their display that customers are persuaded to enter the store and buy the garments. So the way they display garments are really important. Working at Forever 21 I get to see new trends come in first hand which is also pretty cool. I am able to witness what goes into designing store displays and the process of deciding what trends to put out onto the floor

 

One of the aspect that I like about working at a clothing store is seeing the store transform themes from one season to the next. Every so often, depending on the products we have, the season, or the trend, the whole entire store have a change of floor set. These groups of pictures are the floor set board for season of Spring. Parts of the stores are divided into themes. These boards are on display at work to give us an idea of what we should expect from the changes and also to give us an idea so we will not come to work confused. I really like that as a sales associate I can still be involved in some visual work. It is pretty cool to see where the inspirations for the colors, textures and styles come from. Before working at Forever 21 I never realized there was a process behind it all, I also never knew they changed concepts according to seasons and style. Seeing the boards and the floor set come to life inspires me to want to learn more, not only about retail, but also learn about the inside job and about what it takes to make the store look as amazing as it does. These groups of pictures are just a few of the themes in the store, we have three floors so there is a lot of themes and spaces to cover. In the photos we have: Gatsby Garden, Totally Nineties; fashion inspired by no other than the 90s era, and Retro Rivera; retro clothing, a bit vintage with a lot of polka dots and stripes.

My Golden Ticket

I live for fashion; I breathe fashion, so I guess it is safe to say that I am in love with fashion! With my dying love for the trend, the creativity, the risk, and the expression that fashion can give, I should take my love for it to a whole other level. Why not start a career in something that I love to do? Starting a career in such a competitive field will not be easy, it takes time, education, motivation and a passion for the art of fashion. There are several of jobs I can obtain such as: fashion writer; people who write for magazines, newspapers, fashion/design, fashion merchandiser, who are the ones who analyze market trends and production cost of a product or opening up my own boutique, I can decided what trends to sell in my boutique and have my vision come alive. Those are some careers just to name a few.

There are a lot of directions I can take in this industry, because there are so many careers to chose from. The top three careers I aspire to become are; Fashion illustrator, fashion stylist, and fashion buyer. Having a career in fashion opens many other opportunities as well, I get to travel the world, attend fashion shows, meet so many new people, and have the chance to make really good money and live a good life.

Fashion Illustrator

  Ever since I was a kid, I loved to draw. I loved to express my mood and creativity through drawing whatever I saw. Drawing gave me the opportunity to take my perspective on what I saw and make them come to life. I started off drawing images of my favorite cartoons and I soon got into drawing my own clothing design. I imaged what types of outfits I would love to see my dolls in and drew amateur sketches of different wardrobes. I also thought ahead of time by sketching out prom dresses and wedding gowns for myself. As I got older I grew out of drawing, I wounded up busy with school and hanging out with friends, but I feel that somewhere inside of me my artistic ability still remained, so why not build a career with two of the things I love; drawing and fashion. That is why I feel that developing a career on fashion illustration will be good for me.

As a fashion illustrator I have the chance to work closely with fashion designers and art directors to create creative and unique visual images. I can use my skill as an artist and my love for fashion to bring these visuals to life. Fashion illustrators have the task to develop eye catching images to impress buyers. 

Fashion Stylist

Ever since I can remember I have always love the idea of dressing someone up. The imagination came from dressing my dolls up and developed into the idea of dressing up my siblings, models, celebrities, and actors. I feel in love with the idea of helping someone who had a vision for the way they desire to look, but did not know how to achieve the look. I wanted to bring people's vision of themselves to life with my sense of style intertwined.

 To love fashion most likely means you have a huge love for picking and choosing outfits and accessories to complete an awesome outfit. If you share these interest then what better job is there than becoming a fashion stylist. I love the idea that people trust my idea and style sense enough to help me help them look good and help bring a photographer or director vision into a reality.  Fashion stylist has the great opportunities to work in photo shoots, commercials, movie sets, print advertisements, and music videos. It is pretty cool because as a stylist you can help translate your clients’ personality into their wardrobes. It sounds like such an exciting feeling that you can help others feel confident in themselves all while enjoying and doing what you love to do.

Fashion Buyer
 I mean who wouldn't love the idea of shopping for a living? not just shopping, but shopping for the next latest trends for the next biggest stores in the world. I would love to have an opportunity to do that. Every girl who loves shopping can understand my enthusiasm for this job.  

Fashion buyers are responsible for deciding what garments will be sold in a store, they are important to their company and the brand. They are also responsible for looking at the clothes and paying attention to the target shoppers. It is an exciting job to know that you can have a vision and are able to make that vision a reality because you can decide which products to place in the store

Endless Possibilities...

The types of jobs you can obtain with a fashion degree:

There are numerous of careers you can obtain with a fashion degree. It is truly all up to you to make the decision and go for it. Fashion is not only diverse in their styles, but also in their careers no matter your interest. Whether you enjoy drawing, writing, or snapping photos there is a job title waiting for you!

Fashion designer
- A fashion designers job duties are to research fashion trends, sometimes from the past and the latest trends and staying current on toady's styles. Fashion designers are also responsible for creating sketches and samples for their outfits, having the task to choosing materials, attend fashion shows to be updated on the latest trends and get inspired. Fashion designers also market products and lead and work with design teams.

Merchandising
-A fashion merchandisers biggest job is to make customers relate to fashion through the garments by attending fashion shows, buying clothes, making deals with suppliers and manufacturers, bringing displays to life for stores, and advertising and marketing.

Visual
- A visual designers job descriptions are to develop design ideas, present them to clients, meet with clients to get the approval of the design, creating budgets and schedules, execute designs by using computers, working with different technology to complete the design.

Buyer
- A fashion buyer have the important job of how much product the company sells. Fashion buyers are important to the brand and the company. They are responsible for developing a price reasonable for the targeted customers. Fashion buyers usually work with fashion designers and merchandising team, and department managers to decide on what products will be sold in stores.

Stylist
- Fashion stylist have opportunity to style celebrity clients, models for photo shoots. Fashion stylist can express their visual ideas with music videos, advertisements, television shows and movies. Stylist can use their talents to bringing out their clients personality, creativity, and mood just from their outfits. There are a lot of people who have an idea of how they want to look but do not know how to achieve that look and stylist can give their clients everything they are looking for with a touch of the stylist's visions.

Fashion marketing
- Fashion marketers use their math skills to determine profit rages and pricing strategies and make sure they are reasonable for the targeted audiences.

Fashion photographer
- One of the biggest perks of being a fashion photographer is being able to travel the world to beautiful and exotic places. Fashion photographers  help fashion designers bring their vision to life and help market their products. 

Fashion writer
- Fashion writers are responsible for producing editorials for fashion magazines, newspapers, fashion websites and blogs.  

Fashion Illustrator
- Are responsible with helping designers sketch and draw outfits. 

Now, I hope your perspective have broaden! You may not want your name in spotlights and be the center of attention, you may not want to design the outfits, you may have a bigger interest in styling celebs. There are several of careers to chose from that can fit what you aspire to become. I feel like many people may look at a fashion degree as pointless, but there are so many jobs you can get from becoming a fashion major that many people are not aware of. You can definitely find a job that will suite your liking. The possibilities really are endless!

Knowledge is Power!

In the competitive world of the fashion industry it does not just take your love of fashion and your creativity to make as a big top designer now a days. You have to have experience and some sort of credibility that you have the knowledge to succeed in what you are pursuing. There are fashion designers who have made a huge name for themselves without having an educational background such as Ralph Lauren, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Marc Jacobs just to name a few. These designers are one of the most successful designers in the industry today. We may not all be as fortunate as them to have the opportunity to succeed without any fashion experience, but with this career field being so cut throat we all have to start at somewhere. A definite way to start is to attend a fashion school to gain experience and to fully learn about what it takes to make it.

Are you feeling a bit ambiguous about which school to attend to further your career in fashion?

-Here is a list of schools you can chose from:

FIDM

FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising) is specialized and dedicated to educating students for fashion, graphics, interior design, and entertainment industries etc. FIDM works with students to achieve their goals and help to obtain their choice of career jobs. They are small enough to know their students names, but big enough to have connections to help reach their dreams. FIDM has four locations within California; Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Irvine. FIDM covers several majors that students can be interested in.

Majors:

-Advanced fashion design, apparel industry management, beauty industry merchandising and marketing, business management, digital media, fashion design, footwear design, graphic design, interiors design are among the few majors that are listed. There are about ten more majors that are also listed on the FIDM website.

How to apply?

1.     Talk to an advisor

2.     Send in ad official transcript from high school/secondary school or colleges/ Universities

3.     Three recommendations from teachers counselors or employees

4.     Admissions essay (2 page maximum)

5.     Portfolio and Entrance project.

6.     Application fee

You must complete these requirements. To learn more visit their website under admissions and how to apply.

Tuition:

You can find out about tuition on their website by checking by which major. Fashion schools are pretty known to be really expensive but there are financial aid and scholarship opportunities you can apply for.

Academy of Art University

Academy of Art University is located in the heart of San Francisco. Just like many other fashion schools, their goal is to help you reach your dreams as a successful designer. It is the largest private school of art and design in the united states.

Majors:

Some of the majors Academy of Art University offers are: acting, advertsing, animation and visual effects, architecture, art education, fashion, fine art, multimedia communications and photography are just some of the majors they offer. To learn more you can visit their website

How to apply?

Applying is simple!

1.     Complete an academy of Art university application form

2.     Turn in application through mail or online. (Application fee is $100)

Visit their website to follow step by step instructions and to learn more about admissions and when is the recommended to apply.

  Tuition:

There are scholarship and financial opportunity that you can apply for.

The ArtInstitutes

The Art Institute’s mission is to give you the education, skills and you to fulfill your career. With 45 campuses and an impressive contacts list, The Art Institute will give the tools to prepare you for a bright future.

Majors:

The Art Institutes offers and impressive list of design and fashion majors to chose from

-Graphic design

-Interior design

-Advertising

-Fashion design

-Fashion management 

  How to Apply?

-You can conveniently apply online by picking location of the school and design major.

 School is the definite way to build and start off your career to entering any field you would like to be a part of in the fashion industry. There are plenty of schools to chose from like FIDM, Academy of Art Uiversity, and The Art Institute as I mentioned. I chose to discuss these three schools because I felt that they are the ones who have an impressive reputation, they all have campuses in the Bay Area, and I have heard a lot of good things about these schools.

Fashionista...Fashionisto?

Fashion! Fashion! Yes everyone wears clothes but how do you define your style? How do you wear a garment that everyone else have and own it to make it completely unique and you? There are so many ways that I can define my style because there are a slew of ways that I can wear an outfit to make it my own.  I am really interested in vintage clothing, but with a modern twist. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong era because of how interested I am in vintage fashion. I grew up loving the movie “Grease” because of the pencil skirt and poodle skirt style with big hair. Although that type of vintage style does not translate into my own style today I still am intrigued by old time classic looks. What really inspires my style is hippie 1960s era. I love fringes, high wasit shorts, headbands, rock band tee shirts and maxi skirts. I would say that 1960s vintage with a modern street style edge defines my style the most. I get my inspiration for this style from looking at magazines, off of what I see people wear, my mother’s closet, and from searching old photos to get ideas. Style from the 60s is not my only inspiration to what I wear, but it is what I feel I can relate to most. What makes fashion so fun is being able to mix and match outfits to fit my mood and expression. Also being able to take a shirt that someone else may have, but wearing it differently to fit my personal aesthetic. With fashion you don’t have to just have one style, there are so many different ways you can experiment with fashion. Maybe for many people garments are just clothes you wear to cover up, but for me it is so much more than that.

To other,s fashion is art. There are people who live and breathe fashion and express their creativity through fashion. I feel that fashion is definitely a way to express yourself. When you first meet someone, before actually talking to them their appearance is what you notice first. What does your style say about you? I want my fashion sense to translate that I am mature, mysterious and you can see by my appearance that I am into fashion because that is what I love!

My interest in fashion developed when I was a kid. I think it started first with my love of art and creativity.  As a kid I loved to draw, that was my ultimate way of expressing myself and I just found it so fun to challenge myself as an artist by testing my ability from drawing smaller pics to bigger and more detailed sketches. I began to draw sketches of outfits, thinking ahead and drawing dresses for prom and weddings. I just never thought of fashion as a career until I grew older and discovered that there are many careers I can obtain with a fashion degree. As a teenager I found all of my inspirations through magazines and I have always wanted to be either the designer who made  those outfits, the person who dressed the models or just anything that can draw me closer to my love of fashion. Why fashion and not an artist? Well because I feel that fashion combines my interest in art and clothes. I just felt that making garments was a way to bring my vision and creativity to life and to be able to make someone feels good in the garment they  wore became a dream for me.

I created this blog as an expression of my love for fashion and creativity. Everyone is different in so many ways and although there may be millions of other people who may love fashion just as much as I do, but the fact that I am my own person I can tell my story and spread my creativity different from the next fashionista. This blog is also a way for me to gain more knowledge about something I really love to do and hopefully build a career off of.