Inspiration

PARIS PARIS /  by Mansuo Zhang

Filmed and created by Jimmy Mansuo Zhang
Paris: Feb. 20 to Feb. 23., 2018

Music: Le vide est ton nouveau prénom - La Femme
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A VISION IN FASHION /  by Mansuo Zhang

Sharing some of my favourite fashion designers and their talks about fashion and philosophy. Featuring Alessandro Michele (Creative Director of Gucci), Olivier Rousteing (Creative Director of Balmain), Rick Owens, and Jason Wu. 

 
 
 
 

TIME IS ROMANTIC /  by Mansuo Zhang

It is been a while but I still can't get my mind out of the Burberry short film released back in 2016, and then I got hit again by this new Lacoste Timeless short film released just two weeks ago. Both of these two short films gave me a strong feeling of being on a time machine, rewinding back to where the history started. Couldn't agree more that Europe has got a greater taste in art, fashion, design, and many more. It is a land made of magic; It is a land made of history. It is the culture which made the land romantic.... and it still lasts.

Time could be ruthless thing...but sometimes...time could be romantic. 

 

Lacoste Timeless, the Making of.

Tom Ford Talks About Marketing /  by Mansuo Zhang

I always love Tom Ford's way of thinking on almost everything, and this video is about how Tom Ford explains marketing. In this interview, he argues that he don't like the word "marketing", and I have to say I don't like the word either. During my stay at my school (Clearly I'm from art/design school), everybody in the class is talking about "marketing", how would they promote a thing on social media blah blah blah....well, turns out, I'm not enjoying it at all because I find it so templated. 

I hate when people in class burst out the word "marketing" so easily just to act like they know everything about it as designers. Clearly, "marketing" is not a simple word, and it is not what we think as. "Marketing" is more like operating the business in a cohesive environment in order to make things work in a right way. I appreciate the harmony brought by marketing to the brand, and I also appreciate the glitch triggered by the marketing to the world's market. 

It kinda makes me feel sad on how design schools like my school introduces the term "marketing" as a cheap theory to students, because marketing is way more than just a brief, an outline etc.. When it comes to the word "marketing", I always associate it with the word "environment", which means things work in a cohesive way. It is the community we create for the brand as designers, it is how we communicate. 

I used the word "templated" to criticize how people see "marketing" in my class a lot. "Templated" means things get worked in a rigid way, like a template, and such way of working is the biggest killer to "marketing" because marketing is moving all the time. I almost hear all everyone in my class talk about social media advertising like "we can post this up on instagram", "create a Facebook page", "hashtags this" etc., but the problem is I don't see any motions in their ways of marketing, for they're all executing the marketing in the same way. To me, marketing is moving all the time, like the nature, like the environment, it is changing all the time. When a project is assigned, everyone is trying to bring up as many social media portals as they can, showing that they have considered everything, but literally they have considered nothing.  Even a six-year-old kid knows the power of social media, but the difference between a kid and a designer is how you get through all those plans to get your brand worked in a cohesive way.

To me, marketing is organic. It is closely connected to the core of the brand. If marketing lost such connection with the brand, it will break all everything up in the system, and things will not gonna work in a friendly way.