In the fashion loop

1.5.11 In the fashion loop

Amber is a trend forecaster and fashion designer for Mr Price, one of the most successful clothing stores in South Africa. Mr Price is the clothing retailer of choice for the middle income bracket. The first store opened in South Africa in 1987. In 2000 Mr Price stores opened in Botswana and Namibia and more recently stores can also be found in Kenya. There are now over three hundred Mr Price stores in South Africa and our neighbouring countries.

In the fashion loop, the Mr Price fashion blog was began in 2009 by Amber. More recently the Guys Stuff blog was introduced to focus on men’s fashion.
In the fashion loop mainly features new fashion trends in the fashion industry. The posts often include images from fashion shows, themed magazine photo shoots and catalogues. In the fashion loop reflects the stock of the actual Mr Price stores.
The blog also promotes new and up-and-coming artists. Readers are able to submit photographs, any form of design, illustrations and art pieces for inclusion on the blog.

The first post I will be discussing (posted on July 6th 2010) is titled Them and us. This post promotes one of Mr Price’s new t-shirts designs, know as the Breton tee. The images included in the post are examples of a similar t-shirts being worn in different ways, as well as the Mr Price version of the t-shirt. I have included this post to show how Amber encourages interaction with readers by asking them “how do you wear yours?” This is a very efficient way of marketing and gathering feedback on the Mr Price products.

In the fashion loop is utilised as a means of gathering important information about the Mr Price target market, by encouraging interaction between designers and followers of the blog and monitoring their responses.

The second example (posted Friday June 11th 2010) I will discuss is Soccer Fever. This post consists of images taken at the Mr Price Offices. All of the staff at the Mr Price Headquarters are dressed in bright colours in support of Bafana Bafana, the South African national soccer team. This post is showing a blog being used as a promotional and communication tool. The post gives a good image of the company, showing that the staff are happy and proudly South African. Readers will be able to relate well to this and it is also a great way of attracting possible employees. This post shows the Mr Price work environment as a very positive space.