Spring VM Research

It was back in Feburary of this year when I went around the centre of Nottingham researching retail environments in such detail. I found some of the images just now - I looked with my two team mates at how the retail environments varied in vintage independent boutique stores, in highstreet stores and in designers shops.

Vintage Boutique Stores

COW - this was when I first noticed the use of crates in VM.

This is actually from Oxfam, however the new one in Nottingham is more like an independent store, and they sell vintage - along with these old Vogue issues.

This was a beautiful display case - with a select product range this independent felt more luxurious and expensive. Back in Feburary the dripping paint motif along with grafitti was being seen everywhere, including on this shops door.

Highstreet Stores

Bank

JJB - it was also around this time that neon lighting was being seen in the majority of stores/windows - even in Paris as I recall. DieselJack Wills - these suitcases and the mend and repair trend are still around as the credit crunch remains. Of course obtaining photos of inside designers stores was much harder, do we were only able to get one very blurry image from Paul Smith - not worth even posting! However all these images give a good indication of how stores have budgeted with their visual merchandising. It actually almost requires for stores to be more creative - as you can see with COW they used brown paper bags! Jack Wills piled some old books and placed clothes in old suitcases and Diesel used old crates. I actually really like this contrast of old objects mixed with new garment designs - this sense of heritage is set to stay for as long as the recession does.