With the summer that never was – I am tempted to call it an austerity summer – almost at its end, it is only right that we should indulge in some autumn and winter clothes shopping and hope for a colourful autumn and a snowy winter.

As in previous seasons, I have again compiled the fashion colour trends from the most authoritative industry sources: (left click to open, right-click to save)

Pantone fashion color report fall 2011

SpinExpo Autumn/Winter 2011-12

APLF Colour & Materials Trends Fall/Winter 2011-12

When you are done with the shopping, why not book a photo session to show off the new you? Visit Wolf Kettler Photographer for information and to book.

Fashion colour trends archive

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I saw this illustration from a knitting recipe (recipe? instructions) book at Hungerford Antiques Arcade. Cast your eyes over the man’s hat, the shawl, gloves and the pipe and let us resign to the fact that we have lost the style.

Click on the picture to see it bigger.

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The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld rules out T-shirts for himself categorically. He finds them offensive to his taste. Lagerfeld says that a properly tailor-made shirt not only looks better but it will actually keep you cooler, dryer and more comfortable in hot weather. For at least 25 years I have not heard him change his opinion on this subject. Lagerfeld creates fashion but he has style.

Some people at certain times will buy a pair of jeans with a ready-made hole because they see other people wearing them. Mass products for the impatient. That’s fashion.

This hole in my jeans has developed naturally from wear. I first noticed it two or three weeks ago. It may not be fashionable at this moment but it is authentic. That’s style.

When I talk about creating stylish portrait photography for my clients, this is what I mean. Authenticity that brings out my sitters’ finest features.

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It is an odd kind of day today. The sun is making a rare appearance and said “hasch mich, ich bin der Frühling” to me, loosely translated as “catch me, I am spring”. I knew that she, the sun, only wanted to tease me and I returned to craving a late winter holiday, prompted by the arctic draught elbowing its way in through the open window.

We could of course look at next year’s fashion and colour trends, they are all out and the producers know already what we brain-washed and profoundly conditioned consumers will yearn for in 18 months’ time, but let’s not. I am trying to imagine – and believe me, it is not easy – that we will have a sunny and warm spring and a heat wave from June through to the end of August. Ah, skimpy clothes, the sweetness of summer air, the tenderness of a summer’s breeze on my arm, two ice cubes gently petting in my pastis and my dearest stretching contentedly next to me in the long grass underneath the greengage tree.

A prolonged heatwave, if you think about it, is what we need. The country grinding to a halt, everybody on enforced heat-leave and the double-act could divert their attention from pushing the country’s populace into poverty to something altogether more interesting.

Shall we stick with what we can reasonably expect to buy in the shops shortly? Scrap that, nobody will have the money to buy anything but we can all enjoy a spot of window shopping before heading down to the unemployment office, if they still have the funding to operate by the summer.

It looks like there will be a good dose of pink in the future and no, this is not a subliminal political message. The Pantone colour of the year 2011 is Honeysuckle, a reddish pink. They call it a “perfect post-winter-pick-me-up” and a “flirtatious feel-good hue that brings a sense of playfulness to this season’s palette”.

Le Cuir A Paris shows a more earthy range of colours and Lenzing presents a distinctly 1980s inspired palette.

For more detailed research, visit the inimitable fashiontrendsetter.com website.

By the way, if you can work out what “underneath the greengage tree” is a reference to, post a comment below and if you are right, I will give you a free photo session.

More fashion colour trends (for other seasons)

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I admit that I feel a little extravagant about publishing this post now, with summer in full swing and August yet to come. Actually, as I am writing this, there is no sign of summer: It has started to rain and the thermometer says that it cannot be bothered to climb to 16º C here in England’s south.

I do not like looking at next season’s clothes in the shops beyond a few days in advance. I do not want to buy clothes that I cannot wear for another three months. I want to buy them when I can wear them.

Fake autumn leaves in July and fake snow in October are just silly, and Father Christmas with his elves and reindeers should not go on shift until the beginning of December. Give Rudolph a rest!

Did I say fake snow in October? This year may turn out to be worse. Several retailers have announced that they want to encourage Christmas shoppers as early as, … well, now. It is all in the interest of consumers, apparently, but I suspect that it is more a matter of despair and greed.

Show off your lovely new colours in a photo session with Wolf Kettler. Photography of exquisite quality at affordable prices.

In the context of all this it may not be too early after all to talk about the fashionable colours for the autumn/winter 2010/11 season. Pantone, one of the major players in colour forecasting for fashion and design, says that “fashion designers continue to exhibit a degree of caution for fall 2010″. I cannot imagine what they are cautious about but for consumers this means trying not to outshine nature.

I have collected the best resources for your autumn and winter clothes shopping research. Check out the links below for the essentials on autumn 2010 and winter 2010/11 colours.

We would not want you to run the risk of buying the wrong clothes now, would we?

Pantone Fashion Color Report for Fall 2010

Must-have Colours for Autumn 2010

Autumn/Winter 2010/11 Fashion & Color Trends

Color & Material Trends Fall/Winter 2010/11

Now that you have all the information for the right gear you’ll look great this season. Why not book yourself in for a photo session and show off all those lovely colours? I offer photography of exquisite quality and a first-class service at sensible, affordable prices.

View my work, find out about the services I offer and see how little it costs.
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More fashion colour trends (for other seasons)

Fashion colour trends Autumn/Winter 2011-2012

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Colour forecasting for fashion is serious business and Pantone is one of the heavyweight players in this game, setting trends, which are being used by many fashion houses.

If you ever wondered how a season’s colours are all represented in a coordinated colour palette, this is how.

The colours you will be buying this spring have been designed about a year ago already. Check out the spring 2010 fashion colours in the Pantone Fashion Color Report and download the full report for more inspiration.

More fashion and colour trends for spring/summer 2010: Interfilière

The autumn/winter 2010/11 colours are out already but I think us mortals are allowed to look forward to the spring and summer for now.

More fashion colour trends (for other seasons)

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Brigitte

Now, Brigitte has announced its “ohne Models” (without models) campaign. From next year, all their editorial photo shoots will use amateur models. Brigitte says that fashion has changed, women have changed, the world around us has changed and therefore they want to start a revolution. Something along the lines of real fashion and real beauty with real models for real people. It is hard to tell whether the campaign is a mere marketing stunt or indicates a genuine shift.

I suspect that the term “amateur” is being used as a concept for a more real look. New opportunities could open up to models, who up until now have found little work because they do not conform to today’s standard model proportions.

The announcement has been promptly criticised by some figures in the fashion industry for the simple reason that any item of clothing looks good on a barely three-dimensional model. One fashion insider claimed that women did not want to look at real women in magazines when, in fact, the most voiced criticisms from women concern body shape and age. The fashion industry’s fantasy body ideals are disrespectful to women, who do not (want to) conform to those artificially created ideals.

Many photographers, too, I suspect, will be less than enthusiastic. It is much easier to work with professional models of standard specifications. They are a known quantity and you know exactly what you get. With amateur models, you have to work much harder.

Ultimately, though, and from experience, working with amateur models is much more satisfying. I photograph people for a living. My clients come to me because they want to look good but remain themselves. I think that Brigitte’s announcement is really exciting, not just for women but for everybody. Women (men too, but not quite as much) are constantly expected to conform to ideals, which hardly anybody can match. Most annoyingly, looks seem to overrule personality, intellect and individuality.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Brigitte’s announcement is the fact that it promotes precisely the kind of individuality that commerce is trying to eliminate. To a greed based business community, which forms the basis of today’s society, only standardised products are profitable. A standard product with few variations means cheap production and high profits. Standard products, in turn, require standardised consumers, who are all content with buying the same or virtually indistinguishable products.

Client studio portrait without digital retouching

In my own work, I have always known that no one person is like another. My bespoke portraiture aims at expressing not someone’s looks but their personality. I believe that everybody is beautiful, it just depends on how you look at them.

In practise, this means that I have to work a bit harder than many photographers, who compete in the same market. To tailor a photo session to a client, I have to reject standard poses and set-ups, and I cannot re-use ideas over and over. I find out about my clients and their requirements and plan individual photo sessions accordingly.

Photographers need to show examples of their work to prospective clients. Nobody wants to commission a photographer, whose work they have not seen, nor should they. Around 80% of my work is for private clients. For clothed portraiture, I like to have examples of actual commissions in my portfolio. It is the only way of truthfully showing prospective clients what I am capable of doing for them. For lingerie and nude portraits, which accounts for nearly half of all my private client work, I have to use models in my portfolio. These models, too, are more often than not amateurs. When they are professional or part-time models, I like to use life models. So-called, because models pose – usually naked – for an artist to draw, paint, sculpt, etc., “from life”. In photography, life models are as close to “real” people as you can get without using amateurs.

One can only hope that Brigitte will also go easy on the digital retouching and the skin smoothing, which produces the ugly plastic skin effect that is so fashionable at the moment and faces far removed from reality.

Let us see the imperfections, too, and let us remember that imperfections are always only perceived. In any case, we all have them.