PESTEL Analysis of New Look

My team and I chose to re-brand New Look. Of course New Look is a well-known brand in the United Kingdom with many costumers. We still felt that something is missing. I started looking through the annual reports of New Look of the past 4 years and I saw this graph:

I noticed that over the past 4 years the gross profit margin has declined quite much and the reason is because in 2010 New Look decided to raise its prices by 8%, as it states in the financial times. I believe that the products of New Look are overpriced and if they continue like this they will never be better where they were some years ago or even better than this. Apart from this, New Look is based in the UK and although it has many shops outside of the UK, I don't feel like they are as strong as brands like ZARA. They are not as internationally known as they should be.

I made a visual PESTEL Analysis of New Look. 

Political.

Due to the Crimean Crisis and the political instability, New Look is pulling out of Russia and Ukraine. However it is expanding in China and Poland and it is opening concession outlets in Germany.

Economical.

As I mentioned before, New Look increased its prices which resulted in a declined gross profit margin. However, its E-Commerce services helped New Look improve.

Social.

New Look uses social media like Facebook and Instagram, but it is not active enough. Apart from this, New Look established the 'New Look Foundation' in 2009 and since then they have raised over £850.000 through fundraising events like fashion jumble sales and marathons.

Technological.

New Look's website has an average of 2.7 million visits each week and in 2014 more costumers than even before used the Click and Collect and Order in Store services. They have 7 3rd Party E-Commerce partners, including ASOS.

Environmental.

New Look has signed up the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP) 2020 Commitment, pledging to measure and reduce their environmental footprint. In 2013, New Look held an energy efficiency workshop in Bangladesh with representatives from 52 factories covering topics such as the business case for energy efficiency. 

Legal.

Respecting their employees, New Look has banned any sandblasting process because it can cause cancer or other diseases. New Look trained in 2013 supervisors and management at 129 factories on topics like improving working environments, health and safety, and communication between workers and management.

Moodboard 1

Inspired by Architecture, Lines and Shapes, I conducted a research on fashion designers that have used this thematic before and I created a moodboard. 

I included this amazing Iris van Herpen dress and the Zaha Hadid shoe, because of their weird unconventional shape. 

Who am I?

I had to create a Moodboard showing my local area, the last album I bought, the last film I saw at the cinema, the last exhibition I went to and my ideal muse. I have to admit that it was quite tricky because who can combine Jennifer Lawrence, Interstellar and my city, Athens, in the same mood board? 

This idea came to me out of the blue. I used google maps to capture a screenshot of my local area from the satellite. Then I cropped a picture of the earth from an Interstellar poster I found online. The last album I bought was Born to Die by Lana Del Rey, so I took a snapshot of the videoclip of the song Born to Die and I placed it in front of the earth. Horst-Photographer of style was the last exhibition I went to, so I chose one iconic picture of his and I cropped it a bit and I placed it in the picture to. Last but not least, my muse is Jennifer Lawrence. It is a bit cliche, but I find her gorgeous. I think she is a very good role model, very good actress and has the perfect body, since she is normally skinny.

Architecture Inspiration

Enhancement Week: Part B

During the second part of the enhancement week I had to travel to the centre of London and to look at fashion brands and how they are divided in shopping districts. I have to admit apart from the Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street I was completely clueless that London was divided in so many different shopping parts. I was given some instructions of what to do and where to go, so I followed them. It was a nice experience and I had fun, since I combined it with some shopping- of course! In the end I was in the shopping centre of Europe and I really couldn’t help it. The shopping district I liked the most was Mount Street, in the new area of Mayfair. I really liked the fact that although there were so many shops there, I could barely see people shopping there. I don’t know why. Perhaps because not many people know about this district (?) or because tourists just prefer to go to Oxford street. As I was told, I went to the Balenciaga store and had a look inside and I have to say that this store was so beautiful -and it wasn’t only because of the garments. The way that the clothes were displayed on the rails was amazing. It felt like the changing rooms were a sun, since they were in the middle of the store, and the rails were like its sunbeams. I also enjoyed walking down both new and old Bond Streets. They both contain Haute Couture stores like the Louis Vuitton flag store.