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>> Kat: Don’t forget this is an interactive video, every time you see this symbol, click to find out more.
>> Philip: I think fashions meant to reflect your personality, it says something about you as a person, and as a character.
My names Andrew Phillips-Baynes and I’m the menswear design manager for Matalan.
I have a team of nine menswear designers underneath me doing every product from tailoring to casual to essentials.
Menswear has changed quite a lot of the last couple of years. Men are more conscious of what they wear; they are more conscious of colour, more conscious of silhouette and their more conscious of fit.
The perception of Matalan especially in menswear hasn’t always been great.
I think anyone who has been in our store over the past year of so will start to realise that we’ve made a lot of changes, we very much more fashion led, much more trend led.
Matalan’s tailoring range over the past two years has changed dramatically; it was all very much traditional tailoring, it was all there for the old in general, there was nothing there for the younger guy.
But we’ve worked really hard over the past couple of years to update it and to improve our tailoring.
One of the main things we’ve done to improve our tailoring offering to make it a bit more modern is that we brought on a tailoring specialist designer
and she has really pushed the range forward in regards to she taken all her years of experience in tailoring and brought them into the Matalan suit, which we’ve never had before.
>> Specialist: so these are our work to weekend shirts, so they can be worn with a tie – you’ve also got that detail that’s come through, so more formal for the office…
>> Philip: is that a table line?
>> Specialist: yes, that’s table line
>> Philip: Just came back from a research trip in New York; we just go to have a look at what other people are doing.
We go to check our trends are correct, and see that we see them in the little boutiques.
The thing about the little boutique is that they tend to be different because all the brand new brands that are trying to be different from everyone else – they just tend be a little bit more fresh.
We don’t like to copy exactly because that’s not in our core of ethics, it’s not something we want to do as a company – we want to be original.
It’s nice to just see how they do it, and where the thought process has come from. And sometimes you can follow the thought process and come up with something completely different, which is then exclusive to Matalan.
So we’re just going to give you a little sneak preview for spring summer 13 – two trends that we are following. First one’s an offshore fisherman’s type look, is still got the nautical stripes, but there’s also some pop colour in there, so it’s not just navy or whites.
The second trend is focusing more on colour and pastels. Its sun-kissed type colours, slightly bleached, that look like they’ve been out in the sun.
At the moment, for a designer, it’s really exciting times at Matalan. The way we’ve moved on from the past 2 to 3 years is absolutely fantastic, and there doesn’t seem any end in sight.
The design team keeps growing and progressing as much as they can, so I really think the sky’s the limit for Matalan at the moment definitely.