Shortly after the most recent Lane Bryant magalog came out, my friend Stephanie and I were chatting about the relaunch of the Right Fit Jeans. We wondered how they were different from the last time Right Fit came out, then went off on a tangent about Venezia jeans we used to love waaaaay back in the day when we both hustled the LB sales floor during college.
Do you remember jeans from the 1990's? Pre - stretch? I seriously remember being mad when Lane Bryant added stretch to their jeans, declaring them to be unflattering and awful...and now, of course, stretch in jeans is pretty much ubiquitous to the denim genre. Anyway, during the course of our conversation Stephanie griped about the style of photography that Lane Bryant features in their magalog.
"Every model is kicking a leg up or standing on one foot. How am I supposed to figure out how the clothes fit when they're all contorted?" We went on to brain storm photos we'd like to see that would show us how clothes might look in real life situations: getting out of a car, bending over a copy machine, sitting on a bar stool...and then THIS tangent made me wonder what is it about a photo, either online or in print, that compels me to consider purchasing an item. Here's what I think:
* Clothng is shown on a person, not a mannequin. Yes, I know it's cheaper to use mannequins than models. But I don't care. It seems so impersonal and makes it even harder than contortionist models to figure out how something might fit.
* That person looks sorta, kinda like me from a body-shape standpoint. I've read quotes from designers and retailers who say their clothes look best on unshapely bodies...but if I can't identify with and imagine how a garment is going to look on my curvy hips and double-roll tummy, I'm not enticed to purchase.
* The photo clarity and production look better than what I capture with my point-and-shoot camera in the living room. Ok, maybe two steps up from that because I take pretty lame pictures.
And a nice-to-have is some kind of editorial "story" around a clothing collection - if I'm interested in a collection's theme (i.e Gatsby Goes Boating with Ansel Adams or Soccer Mom Safari...ok, maybe not those literal examples), then I'm going to be more interested in learning more about the clothes.
Funny how I didn't even get around to mentioning the clothes themselves...Ha. So what makes you stop clicking around on the Internet or flipping through a magalog and actually consider a purchase?
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