Womeninmaking competition and runway print trend analysis AW/14: Florals!

This post is a bit of a mash up. I'd like to start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who follows me on bloglovin and google+ and everyone who has ever viewed my page as this week I surpassed 30,000 page views (I'm now on around 35,000) such a motivation to feel like people are actually reading and responding to what I'm posting.

Secondly I would really love it if everyone could take 2 minutes to click on the link below and vote for me to be shortlisted for the Women in making competition. If i get shortlisted I have the chance to win £10,000!I'd really appreciate it if as many of you as possible could vote. I am currently in the lead with the most votes but there are 38 days left of the competition and I am eager to keep up the voting momentum! If you do vote please comment on this post saying "Done" as I am adding each voters name into a limited edition print which will be released if I get shortlisted!

Anyway here's the link, get voting please and encourage your friends/families/colleagues to do the same:

https://campaign.triumph.com/uk/profiles/rebecca-lois-burns#profile-wim_profile

                           ...........................

Now that the shameless plug is out of the way I can move on to the long awaited runway print trend analysis...

Let's start with florals!Consistently popular amongst the high end and high street designers, florals are feminine, commercial and completely changeable-hence their appeal. The most popular floral update for the next season was the dark ground floral, championed by anna sui, msgm, Diane Von Furstenerg and topshop unique to name a few. Darker florals for Autumn/Winter aren't particularly groundreaking, but this floral trend provides a new update for the dark ground floral moving away from the tired dark floral/dark ground combo towards florals with a stark black ground and bright bold floral imagery. I am a huge fan of any trend that prevents a return to minimalism and promotes print and colour, these dark ground florals are the perfect way to inject colour into the default monochromatic winter wardrobe.

Blurred florals are the second new AW/14 floral update, reminiscent of watercolour paintings and slow shutter speed motion photography, could this be an offshoot of the artistic painterly trend?Maybe as a reaction to the art attack fashion movement that has emerged over the past year, blurred photographic prints are going to increase in popularity. If this is the case it's going to be problematic for printed knitwear which favours screen over digital printing.

 Although the blurred floral trend wasn't as prolific as the dark ground update, it provides a softer floral alternative which I think has the longevity to continue through to SS/15. The majority of designers who introduced the blurred trend into their collections( MSGM, Peter Som and Vera Wang) combined this with the dark ground floral.

Over the next week I will post all of my catwalk print trend boards and follow them up with style posts interpreting the high end AW/14 trends on a high street budget.