Meeting 2 12/10/10

Attending: Beka, Hannah, Roxy, Cheryl

Discussed Roles:

 Designer

• Inspiration
• Future trends
• Trend boards
• Sketches from trend boards

Technologist

• Quality Control
• Problems facing industry e.g. rise in cotton prices
• How garments will be produced
• Technological advances in fabrics / manufacturing etc

Buyer

• Trend research
• Store visits
• Company research

Merchandiser

• Sales analysis of company
• Costings
• Logistics

Managing Director

• Record meetings (minutes)
• Create online space for idea sharing (blog)
• Lead, organise and motivate team
• Develop brand image
• Profile target customer

We decided to choose Marks and Spencer as they have lots of easily accessible information including financial reports. Marks and Spencer have many sub brands including Autograph, per una and Portfolio. We chose to focus on producing a range for the per una sub brand as they are for a younger, more fashion concious customer. This would allow the Designer and Technologist to be more creative with the range, which could be justified.

Marks and Spencer are renowned for promoting 'Green' business- reducing their carbon footprint, supporting sustainability and using 'Green' resources e.g. organic cotton. In today's society, this is an issue of major focus for everyone - customers are becoming more aware of these issues, so retailers are becoming more 'Green' as a result.

We want to research into making our range - from fabric sourcing to logistics - as 'Green' as possible. We discussed looking into local factories (around the Huddersfield area) that reconstruct or recycle garments.

The 6 garments we chose to develop are (preliminary):

• Trousers
• Jeans
• Little Black Dress
• Coat
• Blouse
• Cardigan

These items will be modified to demonstrate the trends of a/w 11/12.


By the next meeting (19/10/10):

Beka 

• Set up blog
• Upload minutes
• Profile the per una customer

Danielle

• Research problems / advances in industry e.g. new smart fabric or availability of cotton etc

Cheryl

• Research 'Green' trends - recycling, sustainability / advances in industry
• Investigate how trends could be toned down to be produced for Marks and Spencer

Hannah

• Mini comp. shop (online?)
• Perceptual map
• a/w 11/12 trend research (fashion especially 6 basic items)

Roxy

• per una brand research
• Store visit to investigate best sellers

N.B. Just to let everyone know, I (Beka) will not be present at next week's meeting. I have messaged you all on Facebook and will email/ hand in all work to Hannah so you can all see what I've done, I will be available by email if you need to discuss anything or ask any questions. Thanks!