Pedestrian launches Jobs

Let's face it - finding a dream job is tricky. Often it takes ALOT of networking, good luck, serendipity and skill to be in the right place at the right time and know the right people to get a job that no-one's ever heard of before but everyone envies.

We get inundated with people asking iSpyStyle to help them find jobs, suggest internships etc and we've found the perfect solution to the problem - Pedestrian Jobs.

Regular members of iSpyStyle will be familiar with us referencing Pedestrian with links to articles of interest. We are most impressed with the easy to decipher search capability and the quality of jobs on offer. It's easily categorised into internships, freelance, part time and full time with industries we all want to work for like:
Music, Fashion, Publishing /Media/Writing, Film/TV/Radio, Arts & Culture, PR & Events, Advertising & Marketing, Digital / Online, Ethical / Non Profit, Retail, Hospitality / Tourism, Design/ Photography, Architecture, Management and Sports/ Recreation.

So go check out the site, get creative and start applying. What are you waiting for?

Energise Enterprise

Energise Enterprise is a month long festival featuring events aimed to inspire, educate and help small business's in Victoria. LMFF held one such event titled "Event marketing: connecting with your customer" at one of the private screening rooms at Hoyts in Melbourne last week.

With so many markets, festivals, sponsorship opportunities and pop up exhibitions and events these days, brands are inundated with opportunities to showcase their product/service. Event marketing can be a costly exercise, however when maximised and executed well, the PR value and brand exposure can be priceless.

As L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival have been working with brands from a variety of industries for many years now, the team discussed how to really maximise your involvement with Event Marketing.

The event covered topics like:
1. Why would you consider an event as a marketing tool?
2. How do you prepare before you commit to an event?
3. How do you ensure the event is the right fit for your brand?
4. How can you ensure you are showcased effectively?
5. How do you engage?
6. How will you leverage your participation?

Some of the key points iSpyStyle picked up are listed below:

1. By associating yourself with a larger event, you will most likely have access to suppliers at a discounted price through the partnership.

2. For every $1 spent on sponsorship you need to spend $3 on making the event look amazing and executed to a high standard. e.g. If you spent $10,000 on sponsorship, you need to spend $30,000 on the actual event, marketing, promotional material, ambassadors, gift bags etc.

3. Before committing to an event, research which brands have long term relationships with that event and if they are a brand you'd like to network with or partner with, you can ask to be introduced as a result of being involved.

4. Be honest about how you will assess the success or failure of this event with the event team so they can try and help you achieve your goals as its in their best interests for you to continue to be involved with the event in the future.

5. Use the social media platforms of the event to your advantage. Offer prizes, gifts and special offers to the event's facebook or twitter followers in order to reach new audience and build awareness.

6. It's recommended to commit to a festival or event for a minimum of 3 years, so that you can build on your exposure, branding and association each year and really tap into that event's audience. Longevity helps reiterated your association.

7. Once you're involved, promote your association on your email signature, online, through you social media, in your retail store, in your newsletter etc. The more you leverage off the event, the more you'll get in return.

Designer Opportunities

So you're an up and coming designer and you want to get noticed, get some brand exposure and maybe a pat on the back at the same time? I have compiled a great list of opportunities for you to participate in (you can thank me later!)

1. Chambord Shine Awards
What: Enter for a chance to be a finalist in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane runway showcases to compete for a finalists position and then to be crowned overall winner. Past finalists include Dion Lee, Romance Was Born, Jessie Hill, Dhini, Carl Kapp and AJE.
Who: Aimed at emerging and semi-established Australian fashion designers
Conditions: Must be over 18
Details: After the runway shows, judges will select 3 finalists from each state to create a Spring Racing outfit inspired by Chambord which will go into the final held at Sydney's Strand Arcade on August 31st. The winning outfit will be worn by a celebrity at the Spring Racing Carnival and have their own collection showcase as part of LMFF in 2011.
Contact: If you think you have what it takes, email chambordshineawards@6dc.com.au
Deadline: Brisbane's showcase was 29th June, Melbourne's is 6th July and Sydney's is 7th July so get in quick!

2. Bloom at Magnolia Square
What: This is a dedicated space for showcasing new/emerging talent amongst the established design market stall holders. A great chance to get noticed on a budget.
Who: Listen up designers of craft, fashion, food, jewellery, illustration, paper, ceramics etc.
Conditions: To be eligible to apply you need to be a start up or newly commenced business, have a unique concept and be well executed and finished with a strong hand worked design aesthetic.
Details: You'll get a 1.5 sq metre space with no height restrictions for only $350 including insurance. Limited spaces available.
Contact: email applications to bloom@magnoliasquare.com.au
Deadline: 15th July 2010

3. Y-chic by Australian Academy of Design
What: Generation Y students are asked to express their point of view about what "chic" means for their Generation by submitting a mood board.
Who: Fashion and creative Students
Conditions: You'll have to email an image of your moodboard in jpg or pdf format, a completed entry form with artists release form, an artists statement and a model release form (if you've used a model).
Details: Prizes for 1st, 2nd & 3rd plus Top 10 finalists for both Tertiary and Secondary categories. Prizes vary from a sewing & design kit to a gift voucher valued at $500 from Carmel's Fabric Store.
Contact: awards@designacademy.edu.au
Deadline: 14 July 2010

For more great competitions for creatives to enter click here
Stay tuned for a Soya feature of which I am the fashion category producer.

Joining the Dots

I love a good play on words and I love a progressive social media integrated website, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear about Dotti's new campaign "Dotti Nation".

They've re-launched their website to incorporate web 2.0 with social media and allow more user generated content with a catchy tag line of "Join the dots". Features include:
1. Wardrobe - It's a virtual wardrobe with styling tips via video and showcases what's in store right now
2. Dotti Nation - Members can upload their outfits and win prizes for sharing
3. Design-A-Bits - If you're a designer in the making, you could share your ideas with Dotti for instant fame and prizes
4. Connections to facebook

Its interesting that Dotti have chosen this expensive financial set-up and ongoing management of their site, when you compare other retailers in the market like Bardot, Forever New, Supre, Glassons and Portmans. Sportsgirl obviously launched their interactive site last year and were one of the first in Australia to do so.

I am curious to see the audience reaction to this kind of site, given Australians (whilst spending so much time online) are not the most interactive when it comes to retailers sites, we tend to support forums and blogs that are neutral and not brand driven (case in point - Vogue's notoriously popular forum).

The changing face of Fashion Online

As many of you would have read, I was privileged to meet with Piera and Philippe from Refinery 29 to have lunch with them on Monday and then listened to them speak at the Portable presentation held at Penthouse Mouse. They are two of the most humble and genuinely nice people I’ve met from New York to have achieved such success and yet still be so grounded and driven about what they want to do next.

Notes:
* They began (in 2005) at a time when there was a trend away from mass towards grass roots designers. Individualism was important and there was a big gap in the online publishing space for a niche fashion magazine.

* Their first version of Refinery 29 was like a department store map to the best shops in New York and offered an insiders guide to what was cool and happening at the time.

* They launched by supporting emerging talent like Alexander Wang, Opening Ceremony, Vera Cava, Rag & Bone and Erin Featherson.

* They believed and still believe that Risk is more important than experience and being flexible, organic and dynamic with their choices in both content and business strategies is what makes them successful.

* They currently have 1 million unique visitors per month with 100,000 email subscribers.

* They feel fashion has become a conversation and not a monologue and this ability to react to their subscriber’s comments has helped shape the business.

* Their top 5 inspirational sites they reference are:
Garance Dore
The Selby
The Cut
Polyvore
Lookbook.nu

* They believe there are 3 main ingredients to their content; entertainment, inspiration and information.

* They try to offer a real “mixture” of content, styling tips and information that appeals to a broad database but is still cutting edge so that they satisfy their growing database but also push their readers to try or adopt new trends.

* They monitor results closely; each team member (4 full time staff and 4 interns) gets an email from Piera each morning with stats from Google Analytics about what sections of the site were most popular, had the most click throughs and were commented on the most.

* They believe that Fashion is really just one big conversation and technology affords huge opportunity to communicate with others.

* The next 4 interesting trends in technology are:
1. Content – being true to your signature
2. Mobile – apps, e-commerce and entertainment
3. Crowd sourcing – the website Quirky
4. Location based services – FourSquare

I've got Refinery-itis!

I have a confession! I’m got a severe case of Refinery-itis! I need my daily fix and I seem to die a little inside without it! This online fashion site just begs to be bookmarked with its distinct edge and point of view and has gathered some major momentum of late. I was fortunate enough to interview Phillipe von Borries (one of the co-founders) who is visiting Australia as part of the Portable Content presents Refinery 29 east coast tour. The Melbourne seminar is part of LMFF and held at Penthouse Mouse.

1. Refinery 29 has really hit a niche in the saturated fashion online market. What do you owe the popularity too? Luck, timing, specific strategies?
We’re just breaking through a 1,000,000 visitors a month and the site is among the leading fashion/shopping/style sites in the US. It’s bigger than Lucky Mag, Barneys and a range of other power players in this space. The success of it is due to a number of factors. Adaptability has been very important. We’ve tried out different things again and again to see what our audience responds to. Innovation online is key and it’s critical to challenge yourself and your audience over and over. We also got into the space at a critical juncture four years ago when there were very few players, which allowed us to foster very unique relationships with fashion most exciting new designers. Lastly, we engage our audience. We know fashion is not a one-way street and we make sure every day to build a relationship with our readers. That is the most important part of digital fashion media today.

2.We are currently experiencing a significant shift in the fashion media industry with the power of the consumer, social networking and street style blogs etc. What do you think will happen next in the online space in fashion?
I think consumers will own the space more and more. Fashion used to be about limits and restrictions. Today it’s about access, transparency and immediacy. Readers/consumers etc want to be part of the creative process. Look at sites such as polyvore.com which allow readers to collect tidbits from around the web and build scrapbooks that you can share and even shop from! It’s all about personal expression these days.

3. Your “How to get snapped by the Sartorialist” diagram was a viral hit. It’s a great case study of how viral communication operates in the current landscape. Did it inadvertently bring you new subscribers, new traffic and a new kind of notoriety?
Yes and yes. That story was the most successful we ever published and our editorial team is incredibly proud of it. It’s a great example of the creative power of our staff as well as our ability to always innovate. The format of the feature was an infographic, which is very engaging and entertaining. We know the importance of our readers simply wanting to be entertained. Fashion is about having fun. It’s not serious and that’s an important part of our editorial standpoint every day. The Sartorialist feature received over 100,000 unique views, it was republished in GQ South Africa, Italy and Russia and picked up by dozens of blogs.

4. What do you think of the Australian fashion industry? Who has caught your attention and what do you think makes up the Australian style?
We love Australian fashion. We are HUGE fans of Australian designers. Australian fashion is kind of a cross between LA and London. It’s casual but still accessibly glamorous. These are women who love fashion but they’re down to earth too.

5. What are some of your favourite Australian and international blogs/sites?
Lover, Sass & Bide, Karen Walker and Chronicles of Never

Fashioning Melbourne

On Thursday 4th March, I attended the Fashioning Melbourne forum which is part of the LMFF 2010 Cultural Program. It was held at the State Library and a sell out event. Robert Buckingham was the moderator and the panel featured The Age fashion editor Jan Breen-Burns, Bec Cole (stylist and co-creator of Madame Virtue & Co), Sener Besim (GM of Scanlan & Theodore) and Debra Mar of Blacklisted. The forum was a discussion about retailing in Melbourne and what makes Melbourne unique. Here are some edited highlights discussed throughout the night:

Melbourne’s Patchwork of Retail
Melbourne is a ‘gorgeous soup of retail’ according to Jan Breen Burns; from Bourke Street’s home of the flagship/mega stores (Sportsgirl, Forever New, Supre and General Pants) to the many twisting historical arcades, to the destination designer boutiques found hidden away up flights of stairs to the mix of cluster villages in inner city suburbs to the mega retail shopping centres of Westfield and Chadstone.

Exciting Retail Experiences
* Captain of Industry – offering a modern day version of the tailored bespoke service of yesteryear.
* Le Louvre – the new home in South Yarra offers the ultimate retail experience of surprise, delight and prestige mixing exclusivity with accessibility.
* Sportsgirl – for a hit of fun, fast fashion with a fresh, must see approach.
* Thousand Shop – honest, genuine retailing with a lifestyle approach and strong personality.
* Shag – for an injection of vintage storytelling and nostalgia.

Role of Customer Service
• Creating a calm but stimulating environment for customers to feel a sense of belonging (in Scanlan’s case up to 3 hours in the Armadale store at times!)
• Having knowledgeable staff that understands the difference between pouncing, educating and allowing some good quality browsing time, but also offering genuine advice.
• Involving the customer in the process – showing them how, where and why the product is made locally by creating a retail experience that shares the creative process (having a store front in the actual workroom like Blacklisted in Easy St Collingwood)

Pioneering Retail
• Le Louvre have always been the first to start a trend with their retailing – first in Collins Street before it was the Paris end of Collins St and now with their new store in South Yarra where there is no other fashion retailing.
• High Street Armadale – When Scanlan & Theodore moved there it was largely an art gallery community, however it’s become a mix of fashion, food and art now and this leads to a great overall experience.
• Madame Virtue & Co is in Crossley Street and one of the few fashion retailers inhabiting this area, instead preferring to be amongst the melting pot of food and art mixed with history.
• Blacklisted moved its premises from South Yarra to Easy St Collingwood as all their suppliers were located there and it made the experience for customers an all encompassing one.

Interesting bits & pieces
• Robert Buckingham is working with The Future Laboratory on a retail strategy for the City of Melbourne about evolving Melbourne as a city.  Can’t wait to see what comes of this association and props to City of Melbourne for engaging a trend intelligence agency to help their plans!
• Sener Besim is waiting for the dust to settle with DJ’s and Myer’s new department store re-births in Bourke Street before reviewing their next Scanlan & Theodore business development move within the CBD.
• Jan Breen Burns is curious to see how the new Department stores will change the consumer buying behaviour outlook in the CBD, given the success they are experiencing with “The house of brands” philosophy.
• Online retailing is a must do if you have a bricks and mortar store, but you need to be clever about the approach and mimic the real time experience as best as you can online to have any sort of longevity or business success!

Rebecca Thompson & August

Rebecca Thompson (like many great designers) makes gorgeous clothes and (also like many designers) doesn't have a retail presence, so when she decided to create an online boutique, she had lots of ideas but not much experience in understanding the e-commerce world. I interviewed Rebecca and then Zoe Warne of August (the team behind her new online boutique called "The Parlour").
Rebecca Thompson
1. How long have you worked with Zoe from August?
The first site was built in 2006 and achieved its aims of establishing the online presence for RT, however by 2009, RT was ready to embrace eCommerce and together we developed the RT online shopping boutique called The Parlour. The Parlour is a large eCommerce site; a full service online store with a secure shopping cart function.

Beyond web development, RT worked with August to create a social media strategy to harness the growing loyalty and passion of RT fans and devotees, which includes a Facebook and Twitter presence to stay connected to our ‘fans’ and update them with new collections, related fashion events, previews and personal behind the scenes tid-bits from RT.

2. How do you find the role of online in terms of changing your business model, particularly with the nature of your designs being so tactile, detailed and fit orientated pieces?
This is a great question and was a major concern for me initially. I find that women are becoming more confident with online shopping, and are increasingly comfortable with the concept of making a purchase prior to touching and feeling the garments.

Good photography helps in providing a stronger and more accurate visual representation of the piece, and of course we offer a full refund return policy making it easy and risk free to purchase online from RT. A detailed size chart also is available, providing the standard RT measurements used and this is a very helpful guide for choosing the correct sizing for our online customers. So in paying attention to these details, you can certainly address the various aspects of a customer’s reluctance to buy online.

3. How have you found tackling the CMS and uploading your product, media etc?
My tech skills are limited, however they provide clear direction and training in using their CMS, Minotaur, which is very simple to use. I am gaining confidence in using the system (it’s always great to learn a new skill), however I know they are always there, in case my staff or I ever need back up.

Zoe Warne of August
1. What kinds of tech solutions did you suggest for Rebecca when she decided to go e-commerce?
As with all clients seeking eCommerce solutions, we went through our process of evaluating both the creative and technical requirements of the new website for the RT label. Their internal staff and resourcing needs are also taken into account when recommending a solution.

We created Minotaur an easy to use system, which empowers site owners to manage and maintain their own content, and securely transact and manage inventory online. It presents all website content, both text, images and products very cleanly, and is a cinch to use – even for the lest technically-proficient users. It also allows us the creative flexibility to be able to design a site that is unique, to the clients brand and creative requirements, and not just have an “off the shelf” feel.

2. How do you think the Australian e-commerce landscape in regards to fashion has changed?
Emerging web technologies, improvements in online safety and of course the rise of social media have resulted in more fashion labels and retailers embracing digital in a big way. We’re now to the point where it would be inconceivable to launch a fashion brand without considering an online aspect to your strategy.

3. What kind of analytics do you have to track The Parlour section?
We install Google Analytics on every site August builds – it’s free and yet it’s a very powerful too. We use the data the analytics provide to gain deeper insights into online customer behaviour, and identify any possible issues. From there we work on improvements to help increase conversion rates.

www.rebeccathompson.com.au
www.august.com.au

Sportsgirl embraces Bloggers

On Monday 8th February I was invited to attend the Sportsgirl Roadshow parade for Autumn Winter 2010. Primarily, this is put on for the Sportsgirl retail team, however this year, they invited a few Melbourne Bloggers to attend to take a sneak peak at the action. It’s an interesting strategy on Sportsgirl’s behalf. The bloggers feature their own reviews and photo’s from the parade, and share this with their communities.

Jade Roberts (PR Manager) said she has been working with bloggers for 2 years and finds they are effective for reaching out to potential/existing Sportsgirl customers because of their strong community followings and unique perspectives on fashion. It’s also helpful due to the fact that online is immediate and Sportsgirl is all about fast fashion.

Whilst at the parade I chatted with Kate Elton, Online and Events Manager whose position was created to cater to the new Sportsgirl community website some 8 months ago. Kate's role varies from updating the website daily with product, blog posts and articles to managing the social networking community (twitter, facebook etc). Kate has found Twitter has been incredibly popular in the last year and uses it to offer sneak peek's to their twitter followers. She finds the website sections that are most popular are to do with 'style advice' i.e. Style Snaps and Style Me.

The parade was a high-energy event with a Circus/ Moulin Rouge/ Vaudeville theme and featured smiling models (a refreshing change that epitomised the perfect Sports-girl)! The audience gasps, laughs, claps and general buzz was a combination of lust (for the pieces they have yet to own) and $$ signs clicking over in their heads (as they saw what would sell in their respective Sportsgirl stores)! This roadshow was a great way of inspiring the Sportsgirl staff about what's coming in store as well as offering the wider Sportsgirl community the opportunity to share the night through the bloggers attending.

Styling for Twitchett & Tonge Shoot

Earlier in July, I styled /produced a photo shoot for the Autumn Winter 2010 Shoot for Twitchett & Tonge. The designers approached me to style their shoot as they were wanting to take the label in a slightly different direction. My involvement in this shoot was to style and produce the shoot including; consulting with casting the model, co-ordinating the actual shoot agenda, sourcing accessories and directing the photographer, art director, make-up /hair artist and liaising with the designers. The results are stunning. You can read the designers testimonial about my work below and see a list of the team involved.

"Being designers and looking at your own work continuously for months on end, means that sometimes you need the eye of another creative fashion expert to help with promotion and advertising. Kate stepped in and helped with our styling for our upcoming Autumn/Winter collection 2010. Her attitude and professionalism was outstanding, which inevitably allowed the shoot to run smoothly and successfully.

Kate had excellent creative ideas that were relayed in her well thought out story boards. These boards were then effortlessly executed into some fantastic images. We were impressed with her energy into the project and we will definitely use her again in the future."

Label: Twitchett & Tonge
Photographer: Jarrod Barnes
Art Director/ Re-toucher: Myamn Creative
Hair & Make Up: Siobhan Kelly at Napoleon Perdis
Model: Shoona Stanes at Scene Model Management
Stylist: Kate Vandermeer of iSpyStyle
Gloves & Belts : Tribu
Jewellery: Kitte Accessories
Shoes: Peep Toe Shoes

iSpy an affordable flash web solution!

1. What’s the concept of picaholic in a nutshell?
Picaholic is a web design service catering for the creative industry; Picaholic enables their members to establish a web presence on a subscription basis. Clients pay a low monthly fee then using their basic computer skills, they can edit the site themselves and immediately deploy sophisticated, configurable, state of the art, flash website.

2. Who is your concept aimed at specifically?
Our target market is the creative industry, people from photographers, artists, models, stylists, musicians, actors, fashion designers, interior designers, architects, events, actors, film, writers plus more.

3. What makes Picaholic different to other web design agencies?
Historically, people were required to hire a designer or design agency to build their website, despite exponentially high costs. Picaholic gives people an alternative. Our model is based on a shared infrastructure, which means we serve many customers with a single version of a product. We offer 5 distinct benefits:
a. Low upfront costs – Members only pay a low subscription fee. They don’t have to pay the hourly rate normally associated when hiring a designer.
b. Save time – The majority of our clients have their sites up and running within 24 hours. A custom built site can take weeks if not months to complete.
c. Constants upgrades and new innovations – We continuously update our technology to meet today’s standards and deploy them to our member’s site at no additional cost.
d. Common interest - Picaholic serves thousands of clients from around the globe who provide us with enormous amount of feedback and requirements. This common interest to enhance the product benefits all our members.
e. Focus on their business not technology – The reality is, most people have no idea what is required for a good website. At Picaholic we build all the technology including Search Engine Optimization, phone technology, hosting, etc, leaving our members to focus on the content and their business.

4. I noticed Picaholic spoke at Creative Sydney? How did that come about?
Jess Scully who was the event organiser, posted some information on LinkedIn so I made contact with her and she asked me if I wanted to speak at one of the events. I of course said YES! The topic discussed was “Finding your fans: Audiences, Markets & Communities” and Picaholic was there to offer a solution to the audience of how to get yourself out there without spending an arm and a leg.

5. I saw on your site that you welcome blogging contributors? Explain…..
Picaholic is looking for bloggers who want to share their opinions and experiences in their creative industries – from photography, fashion, art, music, design - anything cool that they can share with our customers. We are interested in hearing from anyone who has something that they want to say that could benefit them and our clients. Share your thoughts with Picaholic!

6. Who are some of your clients?
Our clients are international which makes this business more exciting. Recent works from Picaholic include local players such as Joe Gibara image consultant for the Sunday Telegraph, jewellery design label Santos Wish, food and interiors stylist, Geraldine Munoz, mobile spray tanner, Amy Erbacher.

7. What kind of sites are the most common that you are building? Eg. Online boutiques, photographers, etc…
The sites that are built are mainly online portfolios such as photographers, artists, stylists etc. However with the introduction of ecommerce, we have seen clients from fashion & jewellery designers to photographers selling their images online.

8. What trends are you seeing with the digital world in terms of branding, online and marketing?
The trends I am seeing at present and that Picaholic also use are:
- With decreased budgets I see a rise in search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). Advertisers will focus more attention on these, as it will increase search page placement and ranking.
- The use of video in Internet marketing has grown sharply. Videos are incredibly powerful and it seems to be a big traffic generator for advertisers, especially in the search engine rankings.
- Emphasis on customer engagement through the inclusion of blogs and social media. Marketers are engaging differently with the end customer by developing stronger communities and/or engaging with current standing communities. This in turn impacts their search results as search engines index them.
- An increase in Internet use of mobile phones, meaning advertisers can target customers 24/7, as people seem to spend more time on their mobile phones than on their computer. What we are seeing is great place for marketers to connect with savvy audiences and from an engagement perspective, brands will find this audience highly attentive.

9. What are some of your favourite sites for ideas, inspiration and learning?
Wired
Genart
Paper Mag
id Mag
Coolhunting

10. Plans for the future?
Picaholic is not just popular with end users; it is also popular with Web designers alike. Many in the industry would rather use Picaholic as opposed to programming the sites from the ground up. We are now working on developing a White label solution that will allow design agencies to have their own branded version of Picaholic. Our vision is to have Picaholic as a base solution for all flash enabled sites, and allow programmers to add their personal touch or code to make it unique to them.

iSpyStyle Loves Cookie's website

Stumbled upon this site when looking to book for dinner and fell in love /admiration for how whimsical, kitsch and unique this web creation is. The doily is a great brand tie-in with their decor within the restaurant, the random animals in the woods add a very childlike, naive quality and the information you need is found without much fuss. I also love how the illustration and colours change each time you visit.

Check it out