Paris Trip

Collette

Collette is a French clothing and accessory boutique. It contains an exhibit space, book shop and "water bar" serving over 100 different types of bottled water. The Visual Merchandising in this store is extremely good, the window displays are interesting and pull you in and the clothes are displayed in such a way that they are easy to see on you and encourage you to buy. The shop is laid out well and brightly lit. Shoes are even at the bottom of the mannequin displays to complete the look!



Louvre
We walked down to the Louvre to see the controversial glass triangle and to see some more of the sights as well as the architecture which I was particularly interested in since it is extremely different to English architecture especially the older buildings i.e. Churches etc.
Merci

We also went to Merci and saw all of the womens and mens department and all of the different things that they had, such as the make your own perfume and all of the little bicycle parts on sale. It sells many vintage designer items such as burberry coats and dior jackets.
Boat Trip/Bus trip
We were taken down a river on a boat to see all of the major sites such as Notre Dame, the eiffell tower, the concorde etc. We then went on a bus tour around them as well so that we could take lots of photo's which helped since the architecture in France is very different to english architecture and had new and interesting shapes that could be encorporated into designs.
Fabric District
The fabric district showed off many different types of fabrics as well as having many haberdashery stores in the area. the Marche St Pierre fabric store has a variety of silks, wools, linen, cotton and jersey. The Tissus Reine shop has a variety of patterns and there was a huge variety of buttons and trimmings to choose from. They also sold the liberty fabrics as well.
Premier Vision
We went to Premier Vision which is a trade share and showed us all of the different and diverse materials that there are as well as the companies that there are, from printing, to lingerie, to colour etc. It also showed different ways to put fabrics together as they had many types of different displays to pull you in and you got to watch people ordering fabric which was interesting to see how it was done.

Paris has helped because it has shown me a new culture for which to draw inspiration from, has allowed me to see different fashions. Has also allowed me to go to places like premier vision which I wouldn't have been able to go to otherwise and has allowed me to discover businesses that I may wish to intern with after uni or at least watch  what they do because I liked their style. It has also allowed me to see Collette which I can take inspiration from since I am interested in Visual Merchandising and can put some of what I've seen into practice. The fabric district has also allowed me to see more fabrics, to look at prices and to find out about different materials that are less popular in the UK.