Today Simeon Farrar the London based designer came in to talk to us about his work and his fashion career. This was a really good talk. I truly enjoyed listening to his journey from his art work to his fashion work. This session was very helpful for me because for the past few weeks I have been stressing and struggling to find what my target market is in the fashion industry.
At the assessment where I presented my work to Katharine and my group, I said that I wanted to create something that was high end. Katharine said that it was unrealistic and that my idea was not high end, it was more urban. I felt a bit disappointed because I wanted my collection to be quite high end, obviously I didn’t expect it to like Dior or Marc Jacobs but I still wanted to aim at a similar market. In the beginning, I did think of Givenchy this was because their men’s collection of late has been quite Urban and has been a hit with the men especially in the area of Hip- Hop. Such men are seen as trendsetters within the Hip-Hop community such as Swizz beatz and Kanye West who have being wearing it and because of that many people have also begun to wear it too. I’m not saying that I’m looking to market towards the Hip-Hop community but I like the fact that Givenchy is so diverse to different clientele. Also another influence of mine is British Designer Alex Mattsson I did my internship with him in the summer. He is an independent designer who inspires me with his work ethic and how he markets himself and his brand. His inspirations are quite urban but his designs are fun, smart and commercial.
Simeon helped me realise for me to be successful I need to find my market and kind of build my brand towards that. The only thing I don’t want to do is to compromise too much of my design aesthetic to please my chosen market. Simeon converted from being an Artist to a Fashion Designer and he has made a success of his work as a designer, I believe, only because he has changed his mentality from when he was an artist and did not want to sell his art work, but now as a designer he does not mind. It is weird because I actually preferred his art work and how it was transferred to his earlier work when he started as a designer. I think that he has refined his work A LOT but it still has the same technique that he started out with (screen-printing). His work now is very different and in a weird way I feel like it lacks the depth that he first started out with. I just don’t want to feel like I have ‘dumbed’ down my ideas so that people will buy my garments because in a way it will feel like I have sold out and I have not been true to myself. I want people to buy into MY brand, in to the life style I am presenting to them. I want to feel I have control of what I put out there. I do want to be a commercial designer put still put my own twist on the things I put out. At the end of the day Simeon feels happy with the designs he has put out and he enjoys his life as a designer, which I really appreciated. I hope that I can have that same feeling and success plus more in my career.
Overall I know I have got a lot of work to do and a lot of research to do about my chosen market.
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