Over the past two weeks we have been working on the first stage of the FCP process- CONTEXT (first of four; Context, Ideas, Concepts, Outcomes).

Out of a possible four trend stories, Purity/ Rebel/ Active/ Romance, my group was allocated Rebel. The aim of this task was for us to develop the skills to research the context surrounding Rebellious Fashion. We started by brainstorming what rebellion meant to us, and key words that came to mind such as anarchy, colours (black/dark shades), chaos, studs, Doc Martins, brave, Rock ‘n Roll etc. We shortly realised that rebellion fell into two categories, Cliche rebellion and Innovative rebellion. These two categories were the basis of our research.

The research was split into 3 sections: Shops, People and History and being a group of 7, we decided to split up into three groups to create the outcome which was a ten minute presentation consisting of 3 mood boards. The three people researching history were involved in collecting secondary research from internet sources and books/ magazines from the library. The pair in charge or shops started off heading into town to gather some primary research but quickly discovers there was little real rebellion present in the mainstream high street stores of Nottingham. They researched into campaigns and visual merchandising that stood out from the normalities of typical shops, e.g. guerrilla marketing- true forms of rebellion and not just a cliche dark interior or dim lights. Myself, along with Millie were in charge of people and the public eye. We started off with primary research, wondering around Nottingham, asking the public that we thought dressed rebelliously for photographs and why they wore the clothes chosen. We quickly realised, similarly to the ‘Shops’ team, rebellious clothing was hard to come by on the streets and it was more common in high end designers and catwalk shows, willing to take a risk and be innovative. We researched some designers we believed to be bending the rules and changing the norms, such as Alejandro Palomo and Alexander McQueen. Palomo dresses his seemingly female clothing range on male models with feminine backdrops, blurring the lines on gender stereotypes, something I believe to be a lot more rebellious than a cliche ripped jean or a leather jacket.

-Kirsty