Calling all shoppers!

You may have noticed a rather long gap since my last blog post - unfortunately due to a very stressful period called DISSERTATION (and another called being lazy and enjoying the summer).  Since getting over the dreaded word and after a long period of procrastination, I have finally decided to kick myself into full gear and aim for that almighty first.

I am looking at the ways fashion businesses are changing their approaches to retail in order to remain successful on the high street – currently focusing on the relationship between online and physical shops.  

This is where I’d really appreciate it if all you lovely readers would get involved and contribute to my research.  If you could help with a few sentences on the following questions, I would be really grateful!

- What percentage of your fashion shopping do you do online? What do you find good/bad about this? 

- What percentage of your fashion shopping do you do in physical stores?  What do you find good/bad about it?

- Do you prefer to shop online or in physical stores and why? 

- How do you think you will be fashion shopping five years from now? 

I know blogger can be a pain to use so if you are having trouble leaving your comments below, please email me at lilliemcfillie@gmail.com  

Thank you in anticipation for all your help and for contributing to my dissertation (still hate that word).

Much appreciated x 

Bored with the High Street

Today, I literally picked up the same item of clothing in three different chain stores on the high street.  The only difference was the price. 

When, for goodness sake, will we start to see a bit more variety across the usual group of chain stores that make up our High Street?  Those of use who can’t afford designer labels, but still love to shop, don’t want to see repeats of the same clothes – we want to see some individuality in the stores; to know that a particular brand is pursuing its own fashion identity rather than copying the runways and regurgitating the same stuff as everyone else.

It is such a shame that 30% of independent fashion boutiques have been lost from our high streets.  This is where those of us who can’t afford designer, but want something more special than economy, would go to find special pieces to express ourselves as individuals. 

Message to the high street chain of retailers: Let’s risk a little imagination please!

The Rise of Luxury

We are all continually made aware of the difficult economic state in Britain and how our high streets continue to suffer.  In the past twenty years or so our obsession with bargain hunting has grown, feeding the market for cheap, disposable fashion and high street knock-offs from catwalk shows. 

But as many of us have had to cut back on spending in the last few years, it seems that there has been a rebirth of higher-end spending on fashion items.  More of us are now saving to buy quality investment pieces rather than spending less but buying more.  Perhaps buying more, cheap, poor quality clothes is finally being recognized as an unsatisfactory quick-fix that isn’t the best way to spend the fewer pennies in many of our purses?

For many of us, buying into a luxury or heritage brand feels both safer and an investment.  Collaborations between high street brands and luxury designers/celebrities - such as H&M’s collections with Lanvin and now Beyonce,  have struck a balance between style/quality and price, convincing buyers of their worth.  Although these clothes are around 20%-40% pricier than other collections in store, you get the designer or celebrity influence at a manageable cost - how clever!  That these high street brands are showing at fashion events alongside big designer names retains our confidence, encouraging us to visit the pricier areas of their shops and reach deeper into our pockets. 

The creation of luxury collections within high street brands is also proving successful.  We can see this with the sell-out of Topshop Unique’s clothing lines and with the main buzz at this year’s AW13 fashion week: River Island’s collaboration with Rihanna.  

Will we one day say goodbye to fast fashion shops?  I for one will be happy to wave goodbye to Primark and welcome a wardrobe of well thought out and beautifully made clothing.