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A New Year......
A NEW YEAR and a new resolve! I for one made those annual claims intended to improve quality of life in 2006. Realistically I can see the “drink only mineral water and avoid junk food” bit going straight out of the window as we start the winter trade show
season. Which basically means that the list is relegated to the trash pile.
What we actually regard as rubbish is a matter of opinion, portrayal or our frame of mind at the time. Daily news, the words on which the public at large (ourselves included) thrive is, as we all know, nothing but chip paper in the end. Read, gossiped and discarded, but not before damage may have been done, sometimes irreparably. I am as guilty a reader as the rest, but have the advantage of suspending belief most of the time, after all, if I don’t appreciate the power of interpretation or spin then who does.
So I have rewritten my list to keep some very simple thoughts. Firstly, to mind the spirit in which things are intended. As we go to press, Jodie Marsh is receiving a roasting as her housemates in that sick infernal Big Brother House decide that they are fit to judge her. Really? What is the point (as was once said famously about Paris Hilton), so starts the exhausting circle of unnecessary justification that such things create and she may not be my favourite person, but let’s keep a perspective. With an edit, a little twist or a subjective slant, anything and anyone can be as good or bad as you like. I myself have recently had to explain how an email comment made in good humour appeared as if I was condemning a friend’s behaviour when read clinically and out of context. What to me was just throwaway cheeky comment, from a different erspective was entirely open to misinterpretation.
There is no doubt that this is an age where we thrive on and assume the worst, it’s always more interesting it seems. In the year ahead there will be news, views and information that we all give and receive - and each time in our world of impersonal txt talk (lol) and e speak, fast and furious comment, marketing manipulation and headline hunting, it is very easy for reality and objectives to get lost in translation. Secondly, let’s all cut ourselves some slack. It may be another tough year ahead. We are in a difficult business in a tough world! On the high street many have thrown their hands up in despair, wondering where and how things have gone wrong. Maybe they haven’t; they have just changed. By keeping an open mind, conviction in our beliefs and some creativity, things can carry on
changing, for the better – it is creativity that drives the fashion world after all!
Finally, reinvention is not a bad thing (worked for Madonna every time) and what has been, can positively shape what is ahead, after all familiarity can breed content. I received a letter during the holidays from a designer who used to work for a once hot and happening footwear brand. They had been looking at some age old designs from their good old days and wryly observed that the cutting edge creations in demand now are no different. There is, as my designer friend has pointed out, no such thing as a new idea – what goes around comes around, techno, retro and life.
How we portray things, from the shop front to the simplest of merchandising, we need to do with passion, not disillusionment. Trusting in what we know and putting it forward with real sparkle is what creates optimism and catches the eye of those whose attention we seek.
Nor is there really a bad idea. It’s the way you communicate something. Sport has much to be bold about – a new national stadium in the pipeline, a World Cup year and an Olympic adventure forging ahead amongst other things. The heritage of our industry provides vintage opportunity at a time when there is little that futuristic technology can top. Footballers and rugby players can take to the ice rink and dance floor and unashamedly win new friends. While reading between the lines it is easy to be cynical, there is of course motive, but does it matter when the spirit of intent is creatively bringing energy and fun… and that can only be positive!
Lauren Fox, Editor
