OUGD601 - Synthesis

 The conclusion of the essay outlined that with every successful fashion brand comes a consistent and instantly recognisable branding campaign. As well as aesthetics such as logos, styles and the clothes themselves, these branding campaigns aim to play to the consumer’s emotions, thoughts and memories. The practical outcome that came from this conclusion included using Bape as an existing lifestyle brand and one that is described in detail within the essay. The focus was the recent store opening in Paris and the outcome was an exclusive event launch pack. The pack includes a small-scale editorial that features photographs from the event that was given to attendees. The small booklet acts as a physical memory of the event as well as an exclusive collectable. The publication, therefore, supporting the statement that brands aim to create memories for the consumer.

Another key point concluded from the essay is that lifestyle brands aim to target all aspects of a consumer’s lifestyle. In the past, this has come in the form of branding completely obscure merchandise items such as toilet roll and fishing hooks. By producing these items, the consumer will be reminded of the brand throughout everyday life. Informed by this was the decision to brand a pack of toothpicks using the Bape Paris imagery and logo. The item is only available to people who attended the exclusive launch and means that, with limited numbers produced, it will also become a collectable amongst streetwear fans, especially Bape’s committed followers. With exclusivity and limited availability playing key roles in Bape becoming the lifestyle brand that it is considered today, producing merchandise that is both of those things supports the research and conclusion of the essay.

As well as using emotion, memory and merchandise, the other important means of lifestyle branding mentioned in the essay is social media. Social media applications such as Instagram and Twitter allow brands to share and spread their story to a global audience in a matter of minutes. These apps are also used by most consumers on a daily basis and so brands can be sure that their target audience will most likely view their content at least once a day. This, therefore, informed the decision to redesign Bape’s Instagram feed for the purpose of taking the viewer’s focus off of the clothes, and promote the event put on for the store launch instead.

To sum up the link between the essay and supporting practical investigation, the aim has been to demonstrate a range of different branding techniques used by a fashion brand that takes some of the focus off of the clothes and earns them the ‘lifestyle brand’ status.

OUGD601 - Research - Semeotics

- The scientific study of production and use of signs

- Symbolic behaviour can be observed in cultural phenomena within systems of signification

- Since a brand is a system of sensory signs that incites consumers in a symbolic process, which then contributes to tangible value, semiotics is the keystone of brand building

- Through the action of signs, brands accomplish a perceptual presence in consumers; envisaged as a mental representation and emotional connection

- Brands became symbol triggers in reconstructive memory in the consumers brain

OUGD601 - Practical - Japanese Youth Culture

Lookbook Imagery

As one possible outcome for the practical investigation is to study Japanese youth culture and the imagery that comes with it, research included sourcing high quality images depicting key elements of that culture than can then be used within an editorial/ social media campaign.

One set back of choosing an outcome of this nature is that I am not able to take photos of my own to use throughout the project. I will try to keep this limitation as minor as possible so that the end result is not compromised in quality. Therefore the outcome will not heavily depend on other peoples photographs, but will merely feature them in some way. One way of controlling this would be to edit the images to create a series that is unique and suitable for this project. This could be in the form of editing colours/ layout/ or even collaging the images by using sections of each.

Key elements of Japanese youth culture include fashion trends such as Genderless Kei. This is a popular fashion trend in Japan that is growing in popularity rapidly. The direct translation is genderless style and is the trend where boys will wear what look like girls clothes but making it their own style, completely unrelated to dressing as the opposite gender. This is seen more of a style or trend as opposed to a statement or any kind of gender reorientation.

OUGD601 - Visual Research - 01

Practical Idea Development

- Tell a brand's story (using digital media)
- Taking focus off of the clothes themselves
  > and focusing on the brand story/ identity/ imagery/intentions etc

- Produce a digital collage for an existing brand that promotes their lifestyle/story that people would want to buy into
  > As an instagram feed

- Imagery - Take existing models wearing bape clothes
  > place them on/in images relating to brand/story
  > cut out clothes, leaving just models body parts on show, the image behind becoming the garment

- Needs to tell a story/narrative... promote a lifestyle
  > youth culture in Japan?
  > something more specific to chosen brand

- Using a combination of Bape imagery and Japanese youth culture imagery

Research
Lifestyle brands - Selling more than just clothes

Black Eye Patch

Online Lookbook

As well as selling their clothes, their digital lookbook also sheds light on the lifestyle and story behind the brand. The photoshoots will feature models in particular environments, with some images not including their clothes at all.

Another part of their website is called 'feature'... pictured below. This page has a short explanation about the following photoshoot and then shows the images themselves. This particular article focuses on the "Aoi industry' which is described as the method of embroidery, a process used within their designs.

"The way to deliver their designs is to sew original items with embroidery on customers' items brought in, embroidered on old clothes selected by their own aesthetic eye. Their way and stance are completely free from the subculture framework as well as the traditional apparel industry."

The article then features an interview with someone who works for the brand along side images that further tell a story, this time focusing on how the clothes are made and in what environment.

Their Instagram feed
In order to fully immerse their following in their brand story, they also use Instagram to share imagery...
Rarely featuring the clothes themselves, images shared feature graphics, art, architecture etc that all come together to form one identity/tone of voice/ story.

COS

In partnership with Design Miami 2017, COS collaborated with London-based artist studio SWINE to restage New Spring, an interactive multi-sensory installation that was unveiled at this year's Salone del Mobile in Milan.

COS × Studio Swine Design Miami/ 2017

This is another example that demonstrates clothing brands have to go further than just selling clothes in immersing their audience in a range of different ways. COS has achieved this through art installations featured on their website and also available for customers to attend. Black Eye Patch achieved this through articles, interviews, and photoshoots. This is taking focus off of the clothes themselves, but still encouraging consumers to feel part of the brand and part of the lifestyle.

Richardson

Starting out as an erotica magazine in the late 1990s, the brand has since become a lifestyle streetwear brand.

Richardson have earned their lifestyle status through targeting a range of different aspects of life through merchandise. This has included umbrellas and incense sticks.

The imagery they use the promote their clothing is also recognisable as lifestyle branding. The models are situated in unique and unconventional environments that fit in with their style and image.

OUGD601 - Research - Emotional Competence

Transmedia Storytelling by
Max Giovagnoli

OUGD601 - Research - BAPE

Anti-Marketing of
A Bathing Ape

https://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/05/22/bape-a-bathing-ape/

https://hypebeast.com/2016/8/rare-lifestyle-bape-items

http://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a55403/bape-nigo-streetwear/

About Bape

- Routes traced back to Ura-Harajuku scene of early 90s

- Nigo is a nutorious fan of 20th century pop culture

- Love for Planet of the Apes

- Japanese idiom 'A bathing Ape in lukewarm water' describes someone overindulgent, lying in a bath until water isn't hot

- Tongue in cheek reference to hyper-consumptive youth of Japan

- Ura-Harajuku - "underground Harajuku"

Bape - its a lifestyle

- Beyond clothes and sneakers, the brand has produced Kitchenware, furniture, toiletries, fishing hooks, skateboards and more

- True pioneers of the 'lifestyle brand' concept

- "How can we infiltrate your entire life and make it cooler"

- BAPE Considered as one of the original streetwear brands

- No stranger when it comes to the game of producing items in limited quantity

- Items quickly became the ultimate badge of street cred among the hipsters in the back alleys of Harajuku

- By carefully nurturing his label, Nigo turned A Bathing Ape into a cultural phenomenon by striking a fine balance between exclusivity and mass appeal

- With the ubiquitous (found everywhere) ape head appearing on everything from vinyl figures to Pepsi bottles

- It's not wonder eager fans are willing to line the blocks to get their hands on these coveted items and buy into the lifestyle that Nigo has put up for sale

- 2007 - Baby Milo could be found all over sheets of toilet paper

- Awarded to people who spent a certain amount of money in BAPE stores

- Can be found on Ebay for $40 per roll

- Keeping with toiletry theme,  BAPE teamed up with Swedish brand Tepe to release a set of toothbrushes

- Partnered up with MAC during christmas of 2005 for its own set of cosmetics, which included a lip conditioner and blot film

- Collab with Japanese fishing gear label Daiwa on the aptly named 'A Fishing Ape' line

- Included lures designed with 1st edition camo

- Bape managed to rise to the level of mass consciousness

- Arguably the first brand to go "this hoodie us a premium product, lets charge $400 for it"

- Even after Nigo's departure, the impact of Bape could be felt across various streetwear cultures

Bape, though it might have overextended its lifestyle brand in Japan, avoided that sort of dilution in the US

- Also avoided fading away like some brands have done since the 2000s

- No one would say something like "I can't believe how much BAPE I wore in 2006" as it was the first of its kind

- Other brands that may have faded since then can sometimes be thought of in this way, with former consumers looking back and regretting or further still, cringing at their own fashion choices.

- "The BAPE full-zip hoodie is still a status symbol"

- "It still represents that high-end street kind of aesthetic that so many brands try to emulate"

- Even after the company was sold to another owner, the company didn't spread thin

- Instead keeping supply limited and prices at higher end of streetwear spectrum

- "BAPE represents where the origins of modern streetwear lay"

- Talk about the wearing of BAPE in music videos

- Soulja Boy & Pharrell

- People see the clothes in popular music videos, worn by idols and creates a lifestyle/image/brand story that people have bought into

- Keeping stock limited gives clothes exclusivity which makes people buy into it in order to be a part of this exclusive group

- The less people in a group, the more people want in as it makes them unique

- BAPE has never formally advertised themselves, only through word-of-mouth

- Nigo actively discouraged celebrities from being photographed in his label

- "I really do not want a lot of people wearing my clothes"

- Part of the mystique lies in how difficult it is to find a store and purchase the items

- Nigo did not advertise the store locations and shopfronts are intentionally unmarked with a very fine etching of the word 'nowhere' above the entrance

- Customers are made to wait in line to get into the store

- Then they are only allowed to buy one item and only in their own size

- Nigo's first US store attracted a crowd through only word of mouth publicity

- Exclusivity and unattainability 

- Make it difficult for people who are not in the know to find them

- The idea is if you do not know what it is and where it is, you have no business being there

- Thrive from the buzz and chatter created by their regular customers

- Anti-marketing 

- This is branding at the other end of the spectrum to other examples

- Nigo created something that people wanted to be a part of without actually advertising it

- There was no lifestyle or story created to entice customers

- Nigo forcefully kept advertising to a minimum 

Graphique Couture

- Bape started out as a highly exclusive label
- In its first two years, Nigo produced between thirty and fifty T-shirts per week, giving half of them to friends and selling the rest
- Nigo ran his label from a small shop in the Harajuku district of Tokyo, in the days before it became annexed by the young and trendy
- Word soon spread about Bape, but despite long queues forming in front of the door, Nigo resisted the temptation to increase production
- His reasoning was that limiting the availability would lead to further surge in demand and ensure his Bape T-shirts retained their aura or exclusivity
- Collaborations have included Nintendo, DC Comics, MAC, Pepsi, Carhartt and Casio
- Nigo also combined Bape graphics with well-known cartoon characters such as Hello Kitty, Sponge Bob and KAWS
- It is their strong, graphic style that ensures that BAPE products are so recognisable
- The label makes heavy use of a number of logo, the first of which is Bape, based on the ape Cornelius in the film Planet Of The Apes
- Bape features in the camo print
- Second logo is Baby Milo, a simple cartoon drawing of a baby monkey, representing Cornelius's son

- Originated as a T-shirt brand
- Reflects Japanese youth culture in which comic books, games, streetwear and pret-a-porter influences appear to converge seamlessly
- Nigo took the liberty of intergrating other cartoon characters such as Hello Kitty into his graphic visual language, which led to a new narrative and visual culture
- Nigo was aware of the crucial role the T-shirt plays in his visual language: "Just as Ralph Lauren is known for its polo shirts, the T-shirt is both a staple and a symbol of A Bathing Ape"
- It's expressive and uncomplicated at the same time, making it a medium best suited to our needs"
- Nigo strived for a graphic presence that did not tie him down to a particular product - this allowed for the lifestyle murch
- With a Bape T-shirt, you will feel as if you have been transported into another universe