Blog

In December I was fortunate enough to be in Dubai. When there, I spent a day in The Mall of Dubai… ironically not to shop, but to see what the biggest mall in the world had to offer – and literally the whole day was only just enough time!

My thoughts on the retail can wait for another time; what interested me most was what happened in the main food court… the word ‘court’ seems somewhat euphemistic… “Mega colossal food stadium” may have been more appropriate.

Towards the end of 2011 there was an uncomfortable conversation in the world of ecommerce as online brands and retailers started to consider creating a real world presence through the opening of physical stores. But why now when so much of the nations’ shopping has moved away from the high street and is instead carried out on desktops, laptops, phones and tablets?

Welcome to Miami, the location of Prénatal’s S/S 2012 Mother to Be and Kids campaign and catalogue photoshoot, the sixth collection we have art directed for this amazing brand.

With each season, Prénatal’s collections are getting stronger, whilst the brand’s essence which we helped define, is being translated into looks that now have tons of personality and ‘wearability’. This time, we let the exotic location and the collection cross-pollinate and influence our approach, but even more so we wanted to push the fashion side of the brand.

I decided to wrap this year with a note on 2011’s great escapes.

It came to me at last month’s Drapers Fashion Summit, where the air was abuzz with words of in-house designer collections, collaborations and multichannel drives for sales. The battle for brand differentiation and sales generation leaves little room for experimentation and self-fulfilment in these austere times, unless we are talking about the luxury sector.