Fashion Forward: Making It

Fashion Night's Out is a genius event which was dreamt up by Anna Wintour, the inaugural event took place last year with a handful of cities taking part and this year cities all over the world joined in the Fashion's Night Out fun. Well this event has been captured in the form of a documentary called Fashion Forward: Making It. Ashley Greene who is best known for her role in Twilight hosted a documentary on what it takes to make it in the fashion industry. New generation fashionistas such as Alexandra Wang and Rag and Bone, outside talent such as Gwen Stefani and Justin Timberlake and insiders such as Tory Burch and Tabitha Simmons are featured. And of course no fashion documentary would be complete without Anna Wintour. Using last September's Fashion's Night Out as a catalyst, Ashley looks at the energy of the fashion industry. We kick off with Alexander Wang and his gradual descendant onto the fashion scene and he takes us through the themes of his collections. We meet Tabitha Simmons, a top stylist who has worked at Vogue and was solely responsible for putting together the huge fashion show that took place at Fashion's Night Out. We see how she got her foot on the styling ladder through a part time job at a shop and then a few years later she went off to NYC and worked on a variety of magazines till she landed the gig at Vogue. We then go to rag & bone aka the Brit duo Marcus Wainwright and David Neville who gave up their mundane office jobs to set up their funky menswear. We get to see the methods in which they create their quality tailored clothing.

So from bona fide designers we moved onto music artists come designers. Justin Timberlake and his best friend, Trace Ayala founded William Rast in 2006 after many hours of dreaming and discussing having their own fashion label. According to Justin Timberlake, William Rast as a little bit country and rock and roll and with leather and jean etching, the label really reflects Timberlake's lifestyle. Gwen Stefani's label Lamb has been going strong for a good few years and is basically an extention of what she wears on stage. What is interesting about Lamb and William Rast is that they have made their labels available in mainstream shops such as Target and at reasonable prices so their fan base can buy into their lifestyle without breaking the bank. There is a also mini feature on Eric Daman who is the costume designer  for Gossip Girl - remember a few months back I wrote about how Gossip Girl were dedicating two episodes of Fashion's Night Out to the show? Well Fashion Forward looks at how the event was seamlessly meshed into the explosive storylines.

The next section looked at three up and coming designers are emerging into the fashion scene. Young talent such as Prabal Gurung who has dressed Michelle Obama, Bibhal Mohapatra is a seasoned designer who has been working on his collection while slogging away for other designers and Alice Witter got hit by the fashion bug when she moved from France to New York. She started running up pieces on her sewing machine and now she has her own label which is inspired by her native Paris. The last section looks at what happens after you have made it. Tory Burch brings us into her life as a successful designer with stores in cities all over America as well as a certain Oprah Winfrey as a fan. She now has her own foundation where she invest in young women with have great ideas for businesses. Fashion Forward is a truly comprehensive look at how to get into the fashion industry with great and vibrant case studies telling us their fantastic stories. Whether you are fashion enthusiast, fascinated by glamorous image of the sector and looking to make a living out of if, this programme has something for everyone.

Those in the US can catch Fashion Forward: Making It on CWTV.