contents7.Contributors

8. Director’s Letter

9.Will Recession have a permanent effect on the way we shop? Are the Highstreet shops going to survive for much longer?

11. The Fashion Shoot Glam Rock, get your glitxy outfits ready for the Christmas holidays

CONTRIBUTORS

Covergirl Courntey DevineI loved working with the Company High Street Edit team. They were fun and unflappable. The photoshoot went smoothly and the clothes were all things I would love to have in my own wardrobe. If I could have walked off set with any one item it would have been either the glittery healed shoes or the black sequined sparkly top – both perfect for sprucing up

Stylist Jade O’DonovanI am currently studying fashion marketing at Northumbria School of Design. In my spare time I style for photoshoots such as these. I have developed an eye for it by following up and coming bloggers and I try to get as much styling experience as possible – often working with other, more experienced stylists. There is so much to learn outside the lecture hall. Working for Company High Street Edit has enabled me expand my knowledge at the cutting edge.

Hair and Make-upMake up and hair can transform from ordinary to ex-traordinary. Working with Courtney for the Company High Street Edit shoot was wonderful. The brief was to go from fresh faced, through to full on smokey eyes and rich lipstick. Obviously the outfits had to stand out so hair and face had to compliment the style not engulf it. Both Courtney and Jade were so easy to work with – I was excited by the end results.

LETTER

fashion

director’s

note

We may be in a recession, shops in the high street may be closing – see our Editor’s note for a

little encouragement – but fashion trends get better and better.

Sparkling heels and lots of glitter will give us all a boost of seasonal cheer. There are plenty of

wonderful clothes coming off the catwalk this season and being translated into affordable trendy

outfits. There is definitely something for everyone and prices we can all afford. I have not been

this excited about a winter collection for a few years.

What will I make room for in my wardrobe? Definitely those shoes with the glittering heels, gor-

geous sequined tops and jackets and a few fantastic knits for warmth.

OPINION

Not long ago shopping in the high street was relatively sim-ple. The branded names such as outlets in the Arcadia Group, Warehouse, Urban Outfitters, department stores like Selfridges and Debenhams, were the places for fashion conscious women to go and buy their new trendy outfits. Everyone knew which shop sold the clothes that suited them and they remained loyal to that shop. Now, however, we are so much more aware of what we spend that we have become rather fickle about where we shop. The cheaper shops have always jostled for space on the high street but never really invited you in to shop. May be that was why there was quite a high turnover of names which never stuck in the mind and the discerning shopper passed them by. However, because the recession has hit the high street and, more importantly, the consumers’ pockets, their time has now come. The customer has ventured through the doors of these shops and it does not have to be all doom and gloom. The bright fashionista on the high street has it sussed. None of us wants to wear the same outfit to two events in a row, a real headache over the coming Christmas social season, but for most of us needs must – or not as the case may be. It may be that in years gone by the look of a party dress could be changed by dressing up or dressing down with acces-sories. Of course, this still happens and shops like Accessorize do a booming trade in sparkly bits to add to our outfits, particu-larly those expensive dresses and suits in our wardrobes that come out on special occasions. But the high street shopper needs to be more savvy to keep up with the trends. Girls on a tight budget may now spend more time looking in the higher and middle end range of shops and then finding the copycat look that they want in lower end stores such as Primark. For example, clothes that might cost £40 in the more traditional high street store are often now getting no more than a pass-ing glance – that glance taking in style and colour – and then that information is being taken to Primark or similar stores to see if it can be replicated there for less than half the price. Cheap fashion inevitably means that some qual-ity is lost but it does mean that some items of clothing are more easily disposed of and replaced without guilt. No longer do we buy expensive items of clothing knowing they will last for a season or more, rather we buy

will the recession have a permanent effect on the way we shop?

little and often, making good use of bulk-buy deals. That way we can change our wardrobe combinations on a regular basis, creating a different look for different occasions. We are all so much more aware of what the fashion industry is putting out and we know that in a matter of weeks what was seen on the catwalk will be on the high street with slight al-terations. Then our individuality clicks in. None of us wants to go out looking like our neighbour, so money well spent on cheaper items of clothing enables us to create our own look without losing sight of the wonderful creations com-ing out of the fashion houses. And we feel good because we are, to all-intense and purposes, wearing something new each time we go out. We all know how important that is. Primark is a good example of a shop that has done well to find a huge corner of this market. Not long ago many of today’s trendy fashion shoppers would not have consid-ered even looking in Primark as the clothes sold there were thought to be lacking taste and style, were cheap imitations of ‘real’ fashion and would not last. However, over the last couple of years in particular, as the amount of disposable in-come becomes smaller, the discerning shopper has turned to shops like Primark realizing they can, with care, get more for their money. Primark claim they can keep the cost of clothes down because they “have no advertising costs, instead rely-ing on their customers ‘doing the talking’ about their prod-ucts”. They also have clearly dedicated marketing and buy-ing teams which are able to bring cheaper fashion to their cash-strapped customers. The shrinking global market ena-bles buyers to go abroad where clothes are manufactured very cheaply and these low costs can be passed on to the customer. The girls on the high street when asked about their shopping habits admitted “we have less money to spend on clothes and find we cannot always buy the more expen-sive outfits we might have looked at a year ago – but we can often find something similar in the racks of H&M, New Look or Primark.” Being able to buy say two outfits now for the same price as one a year ago means our ward-robes are more versatile and we learn to mix and match.

"Which came first, the skint customer or the shop that saw an opening in the market?"

fact that well known designers are in league with high street stores means exciting new lines at lower prices will help beat the recession blues and we can all become fashion icons in our own way. Necessity has dictated this and the girls in the high street have embraced it. Long may it last. It is good to concentrate on the positive and not dwell on the negative.

Both shop and customer have always been there, but with the help of magazines like this one we would like to think we have helped that same skint customer become more aware of fashion which can now be made more individual than before. That customer is more likely to scout round for bargains and combinations that even we may not have considered. We therefore think it is a joint effort – me-dia, customer and shop all working together to overcome the feeling of despair recession brings. After all, if we can find fashionable clothes at a bargain price, we will all have more of a feel good factor, and as we spend our small sums more often it must have a knock on effect on the economy. There is also another very exciting new trend. Stores are beginning to collaborate with designers to produce cut-price lines. These have proved to be very successful and shoppers find themselves in a win win situation of owning a designer label outfit at a high street price. So often when these collections are announced they are an immediate sell out, sometimes even before they hit the stores. Couture fash-ion is now not just for the catwalk of the international fashion shows in Milan, Paris and London. The high street window is rapidly becoming the new catwalk. This is the exciting brave new world born out of recession and the need for de-signers to sell their clothes and for shoppers to have access to clothes they can afford. The shops also benefit from increased footfall through their doors. A recent survey conducted on Oxford Street revealed that many of the women shopping for clothes were hugely excited about designers “coming to them”. One said she had “heard about a designer dress be-ing launched in H & M, went on line only to discover that it had sold out!” She added “this is definitely the way to go, I shall just have to be quicker off the mark next time.” The fact that H&M have recently collaborated with Versace for a designer range of clothing shows they understand the need of the struggling consumer to own something special – with a la-bel attached. It will not end there, other stores have followed. The higher end shops will, we hope, always be on the high street. They now have to learn to live side by side with their cheaper competitors whose share of the market is growing steadily. There is room for both.

"There is of course, another way of shopping now - the internet" As shops close, on-line sales are growing. They account for nearly £59bn, or one-fifth of sales – and this will grow. Why trudge round shops when we can sit in the comfort of our homes and trawl through endless websites choosing our next outfit? This suits some, some of the time, but there is nothing quite like handling clothes - feeling the texture of ma-terials and trying on before buying, thus saving trips to the post office to return goods which do not quite fit. The high street still has an important part to play in our shopping habits. Now that we have all discovered we can create our own style and not be slaves to the fashion houses we are not going to go into reverse and be told how to wear our clothes. Fashion has become much more flexible and fluid. It encour-ages individualism without, necessarily, eccentricity. Being able to buy lots of different items of clothing relatively cheap-ly but more often does wonders for our self-esteem – a few pounds set aside each week for a cheer-me-up purchase does not seem so drastic as a larger sum on one item less often. Although fashion has less “snob value” than ever before the

THE FASHION SHOOT

Courtney Devine in Glam Rock

Hottest trends of the season = sequins, glitter = GLAM ROCK

PHOTOGRAPHER: CHARLOTTE LEVIEN

Sequined top, £42, Topshop.Blazor, £15, H&M.Black Shorts, £7, Primark.

THE SHOOTS

White T-Shirt, £5.99, H&M.Sequin leggings, £11, Primark.Red Wedges, £16, Garage Shoes.

THE SHOOTS

Bralette, £22, Topshop.Jeans, £16, New Look.Shoes, £45, Schuh.

Blazer, £30, Warehouse.Denim Shorts, £25 River Island.Tights, £7, Marks and Spencers.

Blazer, £110, French Connection.Elasticized Shorts, £40, Asos.Heeled Boots, £58, Office.

THE SHOOTS

Sequined Top, £40, Miss Selferidge.Leggings, £16, New Look.Shoes, £35, Zara.