Welcome to WGSN Content Director Juliet Warkentin's
style and trend blog.

Juliet is a communications strategist, marketer and editor. Since joining WGSN in 2007, she has led content strategy across web and consultancy, heading a team of 200 experts in 5 creative hubs.

Her Creative Intelligence blog explores the true value of a trend.
Style, Innovation, Fashion Analysis and Comment. What more could you ask for? Grab a cup of tea, a glass of wine and read on...

We’ve been talking about brand partnerships at WGSN for a few months now: and by that I literally mean brands who are brave enough to hand over some of the responsibility for shaping the personality of their brand to the customer. Apparel brands and retailers might shiver at the thought - although think about it - the inspiration design studios currently take from street shots certainly connects real time style to fashion brands.

Here’s my favourite example of true customer connection from Cannes Lions Advertising Festival:

The story behind the ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYVynoLjQQ&feature=related

The ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtL51VME4Qo 

Basically Orcon, a New Zealand broadband provider, commissioned Iggy Pop to record a version of The Passenger via broadband with a group of musicians who all auditioned online. 

Orcon + Iggy Pop + and a bunch of New Zealand musicians all playing together from their bedrooms makes for a fantastic brand partnership. The question is, how does the fashion industry take inspiration from this?

The communications platforms are all available Facebook, Foursquare, I-Pad, Mobile are all ready to go, it’s the brave ideas that are needed now. Go on, you know you want to!

There’s no getting around it with a name like WGSN – Worth Global Style Network - a global perspective is in our DNA. We have clients in 80 plus countries and our coverage of course spans the world. This week alone the team are reporting from Berlin, Tokyo, Paris, New York and Minneapolis, Brisbane and [...]

We talk a lot about the global local effect at WGSN these days - there is a growing trend for global brands to try and reach into local execution - making sure the colour connects with the customer base or that the block is the right block for the market. But it’s rare that you [...]

Before I begin this post I need to hold my hand up and admit that I am biased about this magazine, because years ago I had the privilege of editing Marie Claire and I loved every second of my time there. Our positioning tag line was ‘For Women of The World’ and it worked beautifully [...]

We’ve been talking a lot recently about the importance of storytelling and tone of voice when communicating fashion and style messages. The question is, how do you make it come alive in-store? Here’s a great example from The Room at The Bay in Toronto. Bonnie Brooks, chief exec of the company, has always been a [...]

We’ve been talking about augmented reality for a few years at WGSN - the oldest reference is May 2005 – which in tech terms is the dark ages. The power of AR to change the way we shop is just starting to impact retail – although many markets still don’t have customers with advanced mobile [...]

This blog is all about creative intelligence - so you may well ask what am I doing writing about feminism this morning? As always, our job at WGSN is to track where the zeitgeist is going and help our customers interpret what this might mean for their businesses. So it’s been fascinating to observe the [...]

A lot has been written about the sugary sweet embroidery that plays a central role in Christopher Kane’s latest collection. Kane is the master of the ‘edit’: he always sends a series of capsule signature looks down the catwalk that are designed to make his clothes memorable - stylists have a field day with his [...]

It’s rare that the fashion industry achieves cut through in the UK newspaper world unless there is a fashion week on… and that’s usually just an excuse to put a pretty girl on the front page.
So the blanket coverage of Alexander McQueen’s death, from The Sun to the Financial Times this morning is impressive.  In [...]

As becomes increasingly clear in this sped up, digitally focused world of ours, timing is everything in life. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that having just finished looking at the work our creative direction team are putting together on the concept of beauty last weekend, that I came across this small scene in the [...]