Our mood boards on the trend story 'Active'

Hi guys - thank you for joining me back on my blog again today.

Just under two weeks ago we were briefed in our lectures and seminars all about what our first task would be that we would be receiving feedback on by our lecturers. It felt a bit daunting sitting there and thinking about how we could do it to make sure it was a good piece of work. We had done a few tasks prior to this that were really interesting and exciting but it felt a bit different receiving feedback from our peers rather than directly from the lecturers.

However, it was really fun further learning how to work in a group and how to use the time that we were given effectively in order to do the best that we could. It also helped to give me more skills that would be very valuable for the future such as working under time restrictions and sharing the work load between all of the members of our group.

Each group was given a specific trend word. Our group was given 'active' but you could have also been giving either 'romance', 'purity' or 'rebel'. From this we had to produce three mood boards. One on shops, history and people.

In one of our lectures we were taught about the different ways we can conduct research and what the difference between primary and secondary research was. We looked at the fact that in order to make our work better we needed to incorporate both of these research methods with primary being research we had conducted ourselves such as taking a street style photograph of somebody and secondary being different things such as finding photographs on the internet or finding reports or quotes that other people had already done. This lecture was very interesting as it showed us how we could elevate our work, not only for now but for the future too.

With all this in mind, we started to gather everything we were going to use for our mood boards. I found various photos online such as an iconic image of Melanie C as sporty spice as I thought it would be really cool to show how active wear has always been a major trend and was a strong part of this music identity. We also went out as a group to the beautiful Victoria Centre at the heart of Nottingham City Centre to conduct some primary research as we took photographs of different visual merchandising techniques that different active wear stores were adopting.

We felt as a whole and as a group that this trend story of 'active' was a really interesting one to explore and we didn't seem to struggle conducting our research because active wear is so popular and easy to wear. Most people would own something in their wardrobe that fits in perfectly with this trend. From this we were able to get to the exciting part which was putting our mood boards together. We all brought the photographs we had gathered along with some quotes and started getting down to business. We all shared responsibility on the tasks that needed to be completed in order to make our mood boards such as cutting things out, arranging our images and sticking them down. I personally helped with the cutting and the sticking.

After a few hours our mood boards were complete and ready to go. It was a lot of work but the whole process was enjoyable and even better as it helped me to meet some amazing new friends.

As a group we presented our mood boards to a group of our peers along with our lecturer Rose who was writing some feedback in order to guide us in the future. Myself and one of my other group members presented the mood board on 'shops' and I discussed the fact that not all active wear items such as trainers are solely worn as an active piece. For example, the Alexander McQueen oversized sneaker and the Gucci Ace trainers were one of the "hottest and most popular" menswear items in 2019 yet they are being worn to make a fashion statement and not for running on a treadmill. I also touched on celebrity influences on active wear fashion such as the collaboration Beyoncé and Adidas did together. This meant that more people were buying in to Adidas products because of the celebrity name behind it rather than perhaps buying another product from the website that wasn't to do with a celebrity.

It was a very nerve wracking process presenting these mood boards but again, it got me feeling more prepared for any public speaking I may have to do in the future. We received feedback on what was good and on what could be improved by Rose before we were able to relax and really enjoy what the other groups were going to be presenting.

I hope that this blog post has been exciting and enjoyable to read by giving you all an insight in to what we have been getting up to so far in this wonderful uni experience. I will add some photos of the mood boards so that you guys can see our final piece.

Thank you for reading guys - have an amazing day,

Niamh x