Video of the week - Harpers Bazaar on Marc Jacobs

Back seat with Harpers Bazaar, Derek Blasberg and co, who chat about Marc Jacobs's Spring/Summer 2013 fashion show at New York Fashion Week, and their own personal highlights and model inspirations.

Marc Jacobs show gathered a large audience including celebrities such as Kelly Osbourne and Ricky Martin.

What stands out the most is the strong sixties feel to the collection. Models walked down the catwalk in tailored skirt suits with thick stripes and bold patterns. The collection is outstanding as ever and very definitely Marc Jacobs!

Interested in Jacobs's street inspired or tailored looks? Then have a look at this video.

More photos from the collection:

What do you think of the Marc Jacobs collection?

Please leave your comments.

By Sophie Gunn

Pinterest Tips to Promote Fashion Brands

Pinterest, the virtual scrapbooking site, has become one of the fastest growing media platforms around, especially among women. Its visually driven content has led to millions of fashion brands and retailers to use Pinterest to promote their goods as it can prove to be a valuable way to build brand awareness for a fashion label.

I like it because it's also one of the easiest platforms to set up and maintain!

Below are my 5 tips to help you get the most from Pinterest:-

1. Plan a range of boards
First research what your target customer is pinning and other pins, boards and brands that are getting results. Then decide on the themes for your range of pin boards.

Create pin-worthy content. Pinterest is a highly effective tool to share your personality and unique view of the world, all while building a relationship with your existing and potential customers.

Choose great images and videos from your blog - you may - want to consider adding a watermark with your website URL to each of your own images, so that pinners know where it originally came from. Fashion favourites, travel destinations, exhibitions and things that inspire you work well on Pinterest. If you're selling a product then add the price to the pin description. If you want to pin an image from other sources, be sure to ask permission, or make sure the image is royalty free.

It’s good to mix personal content while marketing your business, so try to incorporate your Pinterest content into your blog or website. For example, if you sell jewellery, make your product images as attractive as possible so people will want to buy (and re-pin) them. What you want is for people to find something on your board they emotionally resonate with and repin to their board. This will increase exposure to your board, and ultimately your brand.

Fashion Angel Pinterest Board

2. Start pinning.
In addition to giving your website visitors something pretty to pin, visit other sites and pin, comment and repin their images as you browse online. You don’t want to limit yourself to just pinning your own images, as it will seem too self-promotional and could turn off other users. Plus, the more you can show your audience what a great authority you are in your field, the more you’ll establish yourself in your niche. Tag other pinners by name and say thank you for repins.

Another example: if you’re a footwear designer, you could create boards devoted to historical shoe designs you love, photos of your designs worn by celebrities, images of outfits you think work well with particular shoes, your inspiration behind a forthcoming collection etc.

Being creative and genuine will help build your Pinterest following, which ultimately boosts your business’s potential reach.

Fashion Angel Pinterest Board

3. Get your pins found. 
Consider what content will bring users to your pins and what you want them to take away (repines). Add categories, keywords, hashtags and urls to make your profile and pins SEO-friendly.

Optimize your website for pinning by encouraging your website visitors to pin your content by adding a “pin it” icon to every page of your website. This will let anyone on your site repin any image on your site they might like. Before you do this, you will want to put your website on Pinterest and make sure that the images on your site are “pinnable”. If you’re not sure about this, ask your web designer.

Once you’re up and running, you can then post a “follow on Pinterest” button (available on the Pinterest goodies page) on your blog, email signature, and integrate Pinterest share buttons on your other social media platforms.

4  Host a competition on Pinterest.
Several businesses large and small have hosted “pin-to-win” contests on Pinterest, which can create a tremendous amount of viral excitement around your Pinterest presence. When you get comfortable with Pinterest, you might want to give this strategy a go. Everyone loves free stuff, so the cooler the prizes you offer, the more excited people will be to share with their followers.
I’ll be covering tips on running a successful contest in a future blog.

Fashion Angel Pinterest Board

5: Keep at it. 
As with all social media sites , it require maintenance. If you decide to start a Pinterest board, it’s important that you stay in the game, rather than starting and forgetting your Pinterest account. Dormant Pinterest boards won’t attract new followers. If you download the Pinterest App for mobile/tablet and add the Pin It button to your browser it makes it easy for you to create and add boards wherever you are. You can use the dead time in between meetings or sitting on a train
to browse and add new pins .

If you want to learn more about Pinterest and how social media and blogs in general can help promote your fashion brand, you’ll find our forthcoming Social Media for Fashion Brands talk on 30th January very useful. We’ll be joined by fashion blogger Lois Waller from Bunni Punch and Fashion Communications lecturer Jayne Sheridan.

Tickets are FREE for Fashion Angel Business Club members or £18 for non members. You can book online on the Fashion Angel Events page.

Have you joined Pinterest yet? How do you use it to promote your business?
Please share your tips and experiences with us.

By Alison Lewy

Cara Delevingne: Britain’s Model of the Year

Cara Delevingne, 20 year old British Fashion Model wins award for Model of the Year.

Face of vogue.

She is currently the face of Burberry's beauty campaign, and has also worked with  other companies such as H&M, Victoria Secret, Shiatzy Chen, Jason Wu, Oscar de la Renta, Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, Stella McCartney and Chanel.



Burberry beauty campaign.

Words from Mario Testino “She’s great, I work with her on all the Burberry ads. She is like the new Kate in a way, if you think of her personality and energy and attitude.”

By Sophie Gunn

Video of the week - how to dress for the Christmas party season

Dont know what to wear to your christmas parties this year?

In this video stylist Nicole Smallwood talks to Head of Design at Monsoon Sheradene Rose to give you some tips!

I love the short cream dress, with a mixture of textiles. The feathers really stand out and make the dress look very pretty.

Dont forget, wear a lot of sequins and embelishment this christmas!

By Sophie Gunn

Using Trade Marks To Protect Your Business

Your brand is an important and valuable asset!

This weeks guest blog is by Tahir Basheer, a partner at Sheridans law firm and advises clients in a wide variety of sectors on brand protection. Tahir shares with us his top tips on using trade marks to protect your brand.

'Your brand is the part of your business that communicates to the outside world who you are, the quality of your goods and services, and your company’s image. One way of protecting your brand is through registering it as a trade mark. Trade marks are also a valuable asset for your company.

1. Why register? Registered trade mark protection gives the registered proprietor the exclusive right to use the brand. Furthermore, the trade mark registration is evidence that the registered proprietor is the owner of the brand.  Once registered trade marks last for an initial period of 10 years (for the UK at least).
   
2. Protecting your brand identity It is possible to register most names, slogans and logos as trade marks. The more distinctive the trade mark the more likely it is to be registrable and also the stronger trade mark protection you will have once it is registered.    Therefore, it is important to identify the key aspect of your brand identity and seek to protect it.
   
3. Picking your goods and services of interest Trade Marks are registered in respect of goods and services divided into groups called classes. A carefully and strategically drafted specification will be important for both brand protection and brand exploitation.
   
4. Select your key territories Trade marks are territorial in nature. Therefore, you should apply to register your trade mark in your key territories of interest. This may be where you are currently operating or where you have an interest in expanding in the future. Think about the territories where your manufacture and the territories where you exploit. If you have a number of territories of interest, we can advise on a trade mark filing strategy that will meet your brand protection needs whilst being sensitive to your budget.
   
5. Make your brand work for you Once your trade mark portfolio is in place you can use these assets to work for you. You can licence your trade marks, or enter into franchise deals with, third parties in return for a royalty/receive share. You should note that in some territories, trade mark registrations are required before you can licence, commercially exploit or import goods into that market.
   
6. Trade mark as an asset As well as licensing, trade marks can be bought and sold. A registered trade mark is an identifiable asset which attracts value. Therefore make sure your trade mark and its value are maintained.
   
7. Recognising trade marks as value for money Whilst the application costs are upfront, given that the trade mark protection covers 10 years, spread out over the 10 year period they are good value for money.
   
8. Preserving the value of your brand Once registered it is important to monitor any third party use of an identical or similar brand. Any unauthorised use may infringe your trade mark rights, which in turn affects the value of your company name and the business which the brand attracts. Therefore you should identify a strategy which deals with infringer's in terms of their risk to your brand.
   
9. Important Notice Registering your company name with Companies House provides you some (albeit weak) protection to protect your brand. However, this does not give your business the same protection or benefits as a registered trade mark.
   
10. Other strategies Consider protecting your brand through other means. This includes copyright and also registering domain names for your brand.

We are pleased to offer Fashion Angel Business Club members a 10% discount on our standard fees. For more information, please feel free to contact me on
T: 0207 079 0103, E: tbasheer@sheridans.co.uk.

By Tahir Basheer