Fashion Contrast

There are some unique challenges to online fashion retail. People are all kinds of funny shapes and sizes – and it is tough to know how a garment will look on you without trying it on.

Some of the problems of selling things online cover all areas however, and are not limited to a particular product or market. Take a look at this (very funny video). If that seems like any sites you use you need to ask yourself why you are using them.

It is important that the user experience online is improved. As the consumer the only thing you can do is vote with your feet and refuse to give business to those who make it hard to use there sites. It is also important to remember that even online you have consumer rights, and to be aware of them.

the worlds of fashion and high finance rarely overlap. This however is one incident where they did, and the results are nothing if not surprising.

As a designer Louise Goldin has caught a lot of eyes as her career has developed. Not least of these were those of the panel of judges for the coveted Coutts Fashion Forward Award. To mark the receipt of this Goldin was commissioned to make a very special dress – entirely out of paper.

The symbolism of making a dress from paper in this context is powerful. On the one hand the material, paper, reflects the work of the sponsor. Wealth management is paper shuffling, and for the most part the material stuff of this craft is paper, it is gilts and bonds. And then we come to the creative aspect.

Paper as a medium is where all designers start – perhaps the primitive childish joy in making paper clothes for dolls, creating beauty from the basest elements. There is a certain atavistic passion that this evokes, along with a celebration of all that goes with it.

Coutts and Co. are a private bank specialising in such activities as capital investment.