+ Wednesday January 27 Jennifer Cassel Veronica Cetnar 500 Days of Summer. Write down three relationship trends you find in this film hand in at end of.

+Wednesday January 27

Jennifer Cassel

Veronica Cetnar

“500 Days of Summer.”

Write down three “relationship” trends you find in this film—hand in at end of class.

These may become the basis of your first assignment, which we will discuss next Wednesday.

+Fashion

So what will be the next big fashion swing if you follow the guidance of our author?

Or should we look to your trends—a bit of crowdsourcing?

Nerd glasses—party glasses?

Flannel shirts

Thigh high boots

Loud patterns

Tattoo fashion

+Monday

Where should we go?

Meet at the classroom for a quick lecture and your assignments.

+

Fashion Trends

Crocs, Burberry, Jeggings, Keffiyahs, Climbing Carabiners

+Coercion—Atmospherics

At a time, when traditional advertising and marketing (television, newspaper, radio) is receiving less and less of our attention—atmospherics (where we buy) plays a bigger and bigger role.

As Doug Rushkoff says: it’s cutting out the middleman We’ll look at how Crocs and Burberry did this. But think about where you shop? How do these places get you to buy?

+Nike and Gothic CathedralsIs shopping our new religion?

Niketown Chartres Cathedral

+How does your brand—retailer, product, service—create desire? Through Affluence?

The customer is unworthy—so they feel they want it more. “You can’t have this.” The red velvet ropes in front of a

nightclub. The bouncer who won’t let you in. Being “in the know.” Special sales, trunk shows, invites to

special events. Sales clerks who make decisions on who is worthy—and

who isn’t Use of specific types of sales clerks to set the standards

for who can shop there—and who can’t.

+Creating desire?

What is the Gruen Transfer? How does Abercrombie & Fitch take you from being a

customer to one who will impulsively buy? How did shopping become more about the customer than the

product? Do you buy something because it’s high quality or because someone else is wearing it?

The shift from climate controlled malls (Somerset and Briarwood) to “historical” places like Quincy Market or South Street Seaport or Times Square—minus the sleaze? Anything like this in your hometown?

Now the shift to “authenticity.” Fake Main Streets and downtowns when they are actually malls? So what keeps Ann Arbor from becoming this? Why is there

no Gap downtown or Anthropologie or A&F?

+Carpet and Muzak

Hard material on the floors versus carpet in the stores.

Muzak: not just for elevators anymore.

Now we even buy the music that we hear in a certain place i.e. Starbucks mixes, W Hotels, and?

We have gone beyond the concept of “third places”—not our work or our homes—but to the creation of brand “places” that characterize who we are and what we want to be.

Examples: REI, Whole Foods, ????

+For the Field Trip

Where could we see the “Decompression Zone?”

An example of the “Invariant Right?”

The Butt Brush? Or lack thereof?

The Gruen Transfer?

Music and furnishings?

+Anatomy of the Burberry Trend

+Burberry Trend from 1856 to 2009

+Burberry Trend

The coats are worn by the likes of Robert Scott who traveled to the Antarctic. Roald Amundsen goes to the South Pole. Explorers’ endorsement lead to the leisure classes wanting to

“look” like them. So they buy Burberry coats. Not unlike guys buying Nike Airs to be like Mike. In 1997, the company underwent a revolutionary change from

stuffy, boring British raincoat brand to high fashion and beyond.

Hired Rose Marie Bravo to “transform the company into a “modern luxury brand.”

Changed the name from Burberrys to Burberry and hires famous photographer Mario Testino to shoot ad campaigns.

Gives trenchcoats to 30 New York fashion editors when Hurricane Floyd hit New York. Each coat costs $1795

+Burberry continues

In 2002, the company goes public—which can be a bad habit for fashion brands because now they must show growth every single quarter.

What does that mean?

+Is it real nor not?

+Bikini anyone?

+Real?

+And my favorite: Burberry for dogs

+And that’s how a trend can go oh-so badly

In 2002, East Ender actress goes on a Burberry buying spree after having her septum repaired because of too much cocaine use. She is wearing is a vision in Burberry and so is her one-year-old daughter.

In 2008, a poll by a London newspaper ranked the Burberry plaid as the worse fashion faux pas…”beating out puffy jackets and even Crocs.”

Burberry has to discontinue a $90 checked cap because it become the favorite accessory of a “chav”—people in England who like their football. And also in the U.S. Burberry becomes a fashion accessory among gang members and urban youths.

+So how does it stop this?

It has discontinued many items.

Hit hard at counterfeiters.

And hired new designers and executives who…you guessed it are going back to the good old days of explorers for inspiration. Going for a “drab fab” look May 28, 2009 was named “Burberry Day” by the Mayor of

New York

+Crocs 2002-2009

A much faster rise and fall than Burberry

Starts out as a shoe for sailing designed by Lyndon Hanson

Raised $239 million for its IPO in 2007

Ben Affleck and Paris Hilton seen wearing Crocs

New book on President Bush says he liked to wander around the White House in Crocs

100 million pairs have been sold

+Crocs rise and fall

By 2009, they were “over” The Washington Post quoted a fund manager as saying "the

company's zombie-ish. They're dead and they don't know it." in the summer of 2009

No style icons—and how could there be—they were ugly. But how did they make an ugly shoe seem not so ugly. A few ideas? Passed them out at volleyball tournaments.

Nice looking folks wearing ugly shoes.

+Perfect example of:

A brand that becomes less about the product and more about the customer Starts off as a shoe that is lightweight and resists bacteria. It

makes it great for sailing A team of three friends start taking the shoes to boat shows They bring in a new executive who speeds up manufacturing

so when a color goes “hot” they can make it under four weeks.

But is this more than a fad? Can they make it into a company?

Crocs stores Crocs high heels Crocs with furry linings?