PPD

This project was certainly the most challenging one I faced in 2 years of the course. It was very academic and artistic at the same time.
Before selecting the topic, it was quite difficult as there were many multiple topics that I was interested in. During the Easter break I did the research on what luxury brands don't have their brand perfume and I didn't succeed to find one, as most of the luxury brands already have one or more fragrances. Only in the middle of my Victoria Beckham and H&M collaboration project I came up with the idea of Giuseppe Zanotti perfume as I've realize the brand doesn't have one yet, but I decided to stick to my topic. Another idea I had was the brand extension for Victoria Beckham, that would be Victoria Beckham Jewelry, including fine jewelry such as earrings, necklaces, rings etc
. However, I decided to take this topic to challenge myself and research for both brands Victoria Beckham and H&M. H&M proves excruciatingly difficult to find but one example of a luxury brand high street collaboration that hasn’t been a roaring success and  the research showed that having VB as a next collaboration designer as well as a fashion influential figure would benefit both parties.
Perhaps the most obvious benefits lie with the high street retailer. Luxury brand collaborations are notoriously effective for driving foot traffic, frenzied sales and immeasurable buzz, which permeates both the mainstream media sphere and luxury consumers outside its current influence.
H&M collaborations call for higher prices, resulting in increased revenues and healthier margins. They also serve as a point of differentiation over other fast retailers and give consumers a new reason to visit stores. In terms of sell through, these limited ranges generally completely sell-out.
These collaborations can also greatly benefit the brand lending its cache, which often includes significant financial remuneration. It has been reported that Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney were paid $1 million for their H&M collections. The brand is also able to raise awareness in consumer segments or geographical markets where awareness is low. That is how I came up with the idea to bring VB for H&M collection to Russia. VB has stores in 32 countries excluding Russia, however the brand has a established customers base (showrooms in Moscow order the collections online and sell it for higher prices), so introducing VB to Russian customers through the collaboration collection will be the first step to enter the market in Russia.
I have enjoyed the artistic part, including making the video, working with Photoshop and writing in the blog. In the academic part I have enjoyed the secondary research and working in Excel creating the budget as I like working with the numbers.
The main problem I faced is the time management, as we had to do more work in less time I found difficult to deal with the pressure and believe I could've done better if I had more time. But at the same time I have learnt how important the balance is, I have started working productively at the last 10 days before the deadline, if I had started writing and creating in the first week I wouldn't be as stressed as I was at the end.