hey if anyone's interested to know more about fashion branding/marketing then i suggest u go and read "fashion brands - branding style from armani to zara" by mark tungate.. (i got my copy from virgin megastore at emirates mall, dubai).. anyway i really think that its a very interesting book.. im readin it these days .. still haven't finished it yet though.. anyway if u'd like to know more about it then here's a bit of the description of the book that's provided on the inside cover:High street brands such as Zara, Topshop and H&M have made garments worthy of Prada and Gucci accessible to students and the mass market.
Sports brands such as Nike and Adidas have transformed the image of their products from practical sportswear to “hip” fashion, attracting customers who have no interest in sport.
How has this transformation occurred? Fashion Brands explores the popularization of fashion and explains how marketers and branding experts have turned clothes and accessories into objects of desire. Mark Tungate examines how the use of advertising and the media has altered our fashion “sense” and looks at how store design influences what we buy.
i also thought i'd share some quotes with u that i really liked:
"clothes and accessories are expressions of how we feel, how we see ourselves - and how we wish to be treated by others" - mark tungate himself.
"fashion is too prevalent to be considered trivial. even when you say you're not interested in fashion, you've been forced to confront it. fashion is everywhere. what you choose to wear or not to wear has become a political statement. you don't buy clothes - you buy an identity" - vincent peters (fashion photographer).
"traditional marketing is based one need. you take a product that corresponds to an existing demand, and attempt to prove that your product is the best in its category. but fashion is based on creating a need where, in reality, there is none. fashion is a factory that manufactures desire" - bruno remaury (fashion scholar) .
"i always have a hard time thinking of myself as a brand, even though i occasionally talk about this entity called 'paul smith', as if its not my own name. i got into this business because i loved it, then woke up one day and realised i was locked into this system of marketing. i suppose we'll just have to wait and see. the business is structured so that everything is taken care of, except my own personality" paul smith (the designer) on what will happen to paul smith, the brand, when paul smith, the designer himself, decides to retire.
hope this was useful to whoever's interested ;)
