Sunday, 26 June 2016
Autumn/Winter 2016 project: runway response
Saturday, 25 June 2016
BBB- Brexit from a Brit in Brussels
There are A LOT of B's in this blog post title... I actually considered adding a few more and calling it Becky Burns' Brexit opinion of a Brit based in Brussels... but I though 5 was a little too much!
For those who don't like reading lengthy blog posts turn back now- this one is about the Brexit.
In the lead up to the EU referendum, I chose to keep my political views off social media. I was still undecided and like to have all of the information from both sides before forming an opinion. I have never before been so torn about what to do, as you could probably tell in my 'to Brexit or not to Brexit' blog post. The EU referendum was brought forward from 2017 to avoid clashes with French and German general elections (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/11/david-cameron-european-union-referendum), personally I felt this was a mistake. I would have felt much more comfortable making a decision on the EU after finding out who would win the American presidential election and how the EU was going to change in reaction to the refugee and various monetary crises.
Since the vote results were revealed I have been so shocked and, quite frankly, appalled by the response of those who voted remain. Never have I seen so much anger, intolerance and resentment on my facebook news feed and for a group of people whose recent campaign motto was #strongertogether it seemed ironic that they didn't want to apply this notion to their own country, the abuse I observed was mainly coming from the remainers. I have included some photos of my news feed below to demonstrate the strength of emotion. I have also blurred out the names and photos as I don't want to name and shame anyone- that's not what this blog is for. Apologies if you read this and I have used you as an example, feel free to message me if you want the status removed.
If you choose to live under a democratic government, sometimes you have to accept that your vote might not represent the rest of your country. That's democracy. if you want a democratic government but only if that means your opinion is the popular one then that is the beginning of an autocratic dictatorship. I was so disconcerted by the people who openly voted remain on my feed and their response to the referendum results calling 52% of the country racist, stupid, 'little Englanders' without giving them any opportunity to speak.
One of the major problems I came up against in the referendum build up was with the people voting remain trying to persuade me into a remain vote and effectively telling me that if I had an opinion contrary to their own I was simply wrong. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that an opinion can NEVER be wrong. It is a personal viewpoint and if you presume to tell someone that their opinion is subservient to yours I think that represents an entirely different problem in the UK.
Many people were shocked at the referendum results, myself included, and I think that comes from the fact that those who voted out and those who voted in represent completely different groups of British society. This is a huge problem, if we want a united country(in the EU or outside of it) there should not be this level of dissonance.
I am still unwilling to engage in online conversations about my vote, if you want to know you can email me or message me on facebook and I will be more than willing to discuss. The deciding factor, for me, was my answer to this question- If the UK wasn't already in the EU, would I vote to join?
All I can say is that, regardless of your opinion of the referendum, I think we, as a country, need to avoid further discord and address the problems that the EU referendum has brought to light. Why is there such a gap in political opinion in the UK? Why did we let Britain get to a stage where so many people are so frustrated with the establishment and so sick of hearing the 'informed opinions' of people seemingly superior that they voted so unexpectedly? 72.2% of the UK turned out to vote compared to a low 66% for the general elections in 2015. There is a deep rooted problem here that needs to be properly addressed by whoever take over David Cameron's position as Prime Minister.
I don't believe that not being part of the EU will be as alarming as people think. I have spoken with many of the non-British friends I have met while living outside of the UK and, if their opinions represent those of their countries and their countries governments, EU member states' view the Brexit with sadness rather than resentment. The EU was formed as a solution to the unrest in Europe and as a prevention from any future European wars, we are now all so closely interlinked that I think the idea that the UK would be isolated with sanctioned trade and no allies is unfounded.
Yes, the uncertainty is scary.
Yes, there are negative economic implications of leaving the EU.
BUT(I was always taught never to start a sentence with but, but here it is necessary) we should view this with optimism and hope. not despair, anger and nostalgia. Maybe we will go into an economic crisis with hyper inflation, reduced trade and no allies, but maybe we will embrace our new status of independence, retaining our trade links with the EU while forging new alliances with countries outside of Europe. We really don't know.
The current situation reminds me of some advice my parents used to give me when I was younger. As a child I was forced to go to piano lessons and I really hated it, I was no good at piano and a general theme in my life is that if I realise I'm not good at something, I stop doing it. Anyway, whenever I used to reach moments of despair and frustration I would loudly claim "I can't do this", I was always met with the response "not with that attitude you can't". I know I'm simplifying things hugely here, but I think this is the attitude the UK should now adopt. Regardless of your chosen vote, we need to unify and look to the future with a 'can do' attitude. The future is uncertain regardless of our status in the EU, that is the only certainty.
It will definitely be extremely interesting to see how things pan out in the relationship between the UK and the EU over the coming months. I am particularly interested to see how negotiations around the Article 50(the article to decide the terms of the separation)pan out, let's hope and pray that we can have an amicable divorce. I also extremely interested to see what happens in October as a president will be elected at the same time as we get a new Prime Minister, which is interesting to say the least.
For those who don't like reading lengthy blog posts turn back now- this one is about the Brexit.
In the lead up to the EU referendum, I chose to keep my political views off social media. I was still undecided and like to have all of the information from both sides before forming an opinion. I have never before been so torn about what to do, as you could probably tell in my 'to Brexit or not to Brexit' blog post. The EU referendum was brought forward from 2017 to avoid clashes with French and German general elections (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/11/david-cameron-european-union-referendum), personally I felt this was a mistake. I would have felt much more comfortable making a decision on the EU after finding out who would win the American presidential election and how the EU was going to change in reaction to the refugee and various monetary crises.
Since the vote results were revealed I have been so shocked and, quite frankly, appalled by the response of those who voted remain. Never have I seen so much anger, intolerance and resentment on my facebook news feed and for a group of people whose recent campaign motto was #strongertogether it seemed ironic that they didn't want to apply this notion to their own country, the abuse I observed was mainly coming from the remainers. I have included some photos of my news feed below to demonstrate the strength of emotion. I have also blurred out the names and photos as I don't want to name and shame anyone- that's not what this blog is for. Apologies if you read this and I have used you as an example, feel free to message me if you want the status removed.
If you choose to live under a democratic government, sometimes you have to accept that your vote might not represent the rest of your country. That's democracy. if you want a democratic government but only if that means your opinion is the popular one then that is the beginning of an autocratic dictatorship. I was so disconcerted by the people who openly voted remain on my feed and their response to the referendum results calling 52% of the country racist, stupid, 'little Englanders' without giving them any opportunity to speak.
One of the major problems I came up against in the referendum build up was with the people voting remain trying to persuade me into a remain vote and effectively telling me that if I had an opinion contrary to their own I was simply wrong. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that an opinion can NEVER be wrong. It is a personal viewpoint and if you presume to tell someone that their opinion is subservient to yours I think that represents an entirely different problem in the UK.
Many people were shocked at the referendum results, myself included, and I think that comes from the fact that those who voted out and those who voted in represent completely different groups of British society. This is a huge problem, if we want a united country(in the EU or outside of it) there should not be this level of dissonance.
I am still unwilling to engage in online conversations about my vote, if you want to know you can email me or message me on facebook and I will be more than willing to discuss. The deciding factor, for me, was my answer to this question- If the UK wasn't already in the EU, would I vote to join?
All I can say is that, regardless of your opinion of the referendum, I think we, as a country, need to avoid further discord and address the problems that the EU referendum has brought to light. Why is there such a gap in political opinion in the UK? Why did we let Britain get to a stage where so many people are so frustrated with the establishment and so sick of hearing the 'informed opinions' of people seemingly superior that they voted so unexpectedly? 72.2% of the UK turned out to vote compared to a low 66% for the general elections in 2015. There is a deep rooted problem here that needs to be properly addressed by whoever take over David Cameron's position as Prime Minister.
I don't believe that not being part of the EU will be as alarming as people think. I have spoken with many of the non-British friends I have met while living outside of the UK and, if their opinions represent those of their countries and their countries governments, EU member states' view the Brexit with sadness rather than resentment. The EU was formed as a solution to the unrest in Europe and as a prevention from any future European wars, we are now all so closely interlinked that I think the idea that the UK would be isolated with sanctioned trade and no allies is unfounded.
Yes, the uncertainty is scary.
Yes, there are negative economic implications of leaving the EU.
BUT(I was always taught never to start a sentence with but, but here it is necessary) we should view this with optimism and hope. not despair, anger and nostalgia. Maybe we will go into an economic crisis with hyper inflation, reduced trade and no allies, but maybe we will embrace our new status of independence, retaining our trade links with the EU while forging new alliances with countries outside of Europe. We really don't know.
The current situation reminds me of some advice my parents used to give me when I was younger. As a child I was forced to go to piano lessons and I really hated it, I was no good at piano and a general theme in my life is that if I realise I'm not good at something, I stop doing it. Anyway, whenever I used to reach moments of despair and frustration I would loudly claim "I can't do this", I was always met with the response "not with that attitude you can't". I know I'm simplifying things hugely here, but I think this is the attitude the UK should now adopt. Regardless of your chosen vote, we need to unify and look to the future with a 'can do' attitude. The future is uncertain regardless of our status in the EU, that is the only certainty.
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| Just a little political humuor to lighten the mood of this post! |
It will definitely be extremely interesting to see how things pan out in the relationship between the UK and the EU over the coming months. I am particularly interested to see how negotiations around the Article 50(the article to decide the terms of the separation)pan out, let's hope and pray that we can have an amicable divorce. I also extremely interested to see what happens in October as a president will be elected at the same time as we get a new Prime Minister, which is interesting to say the least.
Wednesday, 15 June 2016
The first installment: Autumn/Winter 2016 runway print report
Hey my lovely blog readers :) so I have finally completed the runway print report for Autumn/Winter 2016. I realise it's a little late at this stage but better late than never is a motto I live by, hopefully I've compiled a trend report that's good enough for you to agree with that sentiment. It is at least 40 pages long so hopefully you aren't disappointed. I've made all of the images quite hi-resolution and printable onto A3 sheets but if you do decide to use them/pin them on pinterest please leave me a comment and let me know or email me at textilecandy@gmail.com as it's really interesting for me to see where these trend boards end up, maybe if you send me a really nice email I an even send you some of the files. Anyway with no further ado, here is the Print installment of the Textile Candy Autumn/Winter 2016 catwalk trend report. I will follow with the style and colour trends over the next few days.....and then in a few weeks I will hopefully(fingers crossed) have the Pre-Summer 2017 womenswear and the Spring/Summer 2017 menswear reports ready to go as well. This is quite a busy time of year for trend blogging so any positive feedback would be greatly appreciated to keep me motivated enough to get sifting through all of the images. ............................ So....stripes....always a fashion staple, supposedly vertical stripes are meant to be slimming and horizontal stripes not so much. Being a short, fairly rounded, female both vertical and horizontal stripes don't really work on me. Regardless of this fact there are some really nice colour options below, especially in the Missoni collection.  |
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From a print style perspective I couldn't really identify a definite theme among the catwalk florals for this season as there was such a huge variety. This being said one obvious trend emerged, dark ground florals dominated the design collections.
I particularly loved the collections where the designers paired the dark ground floral trend with a sheer fabric as shown at Valentino Red, Cinq a Sept and Etro.
One interesting thing I noticed in the A/W16 collections, which I will talk about in further detail later in this post, is how designers seem to be experimenting with texture and surfaces a lot more- both Kenzo and Etro painted floral prints onto black leather and I absolutely can't get enough of it!
At Premiere Vision, in February, one of the trend predictions for Spring/Summer 2017 was micro florals (http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2016/02/premiere-vision-springsummer-2017.html). I have also had a dislike for mini-florals for most of my life, but these dark ground interpretations with wide spacing between the motifs have just about won me over.
As previously mentioned, not a huge fan of the ditsies. I am yet to be convinced by these colourful mini floral prints but I thought I would include them anyway as this isn't a trend report of the things I like; it's a complete report separated from my opinion.
Unlike mini prints, black and white florals are something I can completely get on board with. I especially love the brushed black print effect on a white ground at Paule Ka and Alexander Wang, I think this could work pretty well on commercial knitwear too which is always a plus.
As in the Spring/Summer 2016 collections the 'As above so below' (an opposite for every print) style continues into Autumn/Winter. For every dark ground floral, there was a light ground counterpart.
Although florals seem to be more popular commercially, I think abstract prints are by far the easier to wear. The abstracts shown on the A/W16 catwalks are no exception to this rule.
As I mentioned in the Autumn/Winter 2016 Menswear runway print report (http://textilecandy.blogspot.be/2016/02/autumnwinter-2016-menswear-trend-report.html), animal has been absent from the catwalk collections for a while. Autumn/Winter 2016 has seen a return of animal print in both menswear and womenswear.
Leopard and cheetah prints are pretty standard for animal prints- I'm much more excited by the deer skin prints at Clover Canyon and the printed fur effect in the Calvin Klein collection.
I'll be completely honest here, I thought pattern mixing would be a more popular trend when I first saw it emerge at Premiere Vision. On reflection I can understand why it might not be as it isn't the most commercial trend. Of the pattern mixing examples on the runway I did find, I don't particularly think any of them were done well. This being said, it IS a runway trend so I have to include it, but I wouldn't necessarily advise anyone working into it too much as it doesn't seem to have that much of a following.
As with the animal prints, photo prints are also working there way back into the collections.
Placement graphics were also quite popular on the runway, particularly images of two facing motifs and one centrally placed image.
Conversationals are also massively on the rise. Perhaps with all the terrorism, political stress and warnings of economic recession, designers have decided to inject a little fun into our lives. Regardless of the reasoning, I love the dark spin on these conversationals.
Normally I would include the next two boards as part of the conversationals and placement graphics boards but there seemed to be just too many birds and cats to ignore.
Now for the slogans. One huge thing I noticed about the Autumn/Winter 2016 womenswear collections was how print styles that have recently been runway redundant have now been re-employed(did I extend that metaphor a little too much....maybe?) A/W16 saw a return of animal prints, photographic imagery, conversational prints and slogan graphics.
Recently I noticed an increase in runway fashion being used as a political platform to voice opinions, often controversial ones. Autumn/Winter 2016 collections took this a step further with designers commenting on sexuality(Hood by air), celebrity culture and the treatment of animals(Elisabetta Franchi) among other things. I have to say that I absolutely love it and think that this is what fashion is meant for- to express opinions and act as a canvas for personality. I'm extremely interested to see how the high street retailers interpret the new political slogans for fast fashion.
Offering a flip side to the seriousness of the above slogan styles, the 'Positive pop' slogans are upbeat and optimistic in bright, exciting colours.
That's all the print categories I have prepared for this section of the report, but I also noticed a few popular print techniques emerging on the runway, which is more of a comment on the fabric/textile techniques rather than the print. Foil/Glitter print, solid sequin patterning and sheer fabrics with printed applique are all fabric styles that create the look of a printed garment without necessarily having to be printed.
My colour and style trend reports will be live on the TextileCandy blog by Friday this week, one again apologies that it has taken so long! x
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