Food and Fashion

Fashion and Food

Richard Pink from Pink Key Licensing, explains how a lightbulb moment led to his immersion into the world of fashion!

I will never forget the moment it all began to make sense. I had been the licensing agent for Kellogg’s – or Vintage Kellogg’s as it was then – for a couple of years, and we had developed a number of very nice gifting, apparel and housewares products using the vast array of imagery that was available from the Kellogg archive which stretched back to the year the company was founded in 1906.

Standing on my stand at the Brand Licensing Show, I took a call from someone explaining that the iconic designer of high-end bags and accessories, Anya Hindmarch, was interested in using some of the imagery for a range of tote bags and clutches she was designing. I have to admit that I remained sceptical on how it might all work: on the surface the idea of cereal packs on designer handbags didn’t seem to be a natural fit.

Some months later I was invited to the launch of the range. I watched a tall, elegant model dressed in white, walk down a long catwalk at London Fashion Week sporting one of the Tony the Tiger blue tote bags. When she reached the end of the runway the lightbulbs of the cameras went off like a fireworks display, it was like something you see in the movies. Five minutes after I left, Twitter had gone mad and by noon the bags were on the fashion pages of the New York Times. I had literally had a lightbulb moment!

Since the initial range we have continued to work with Anya and her team with multiple ranges and even a takeover of the Anya Hindmarch store in Bond Street by Tony the Tiger.

To create something like this takes a spark of genius and someone with the vision to see beyond just a packet or an image or a character. However, it does demonstrate that even though most of the packs, adverts, characters and logos were created for commercial purposes and are classified as ‘marketing tools’, the key point is that they were actually designed, and as such, looked at from a different angle, they are also genuine pieces of art.

We like to think that Anya’s Kellogg range was at the very start of the realisation of what it is possible to do with the art that has been created through a multitude of commercial programmes. There is now a much stronger trend and many more examples of commercial properties and their assets being regarded as legitimate icons to be used in the development of fashion ranges.

At this year’s Brand Licensing Europe show this will be demonstrated for the very first time on a catwalk. Go back only a few years and it would perhaps have been unthinkable to consider brands such as McDonald’s, KFC or Greggs as targets for ranges of clothing. However, what it shows is a much deeper understanding of what I’ve heard in marketing circles being called ‘Consumer Passion Points’.

Initially there was a global trend driven wholly by the simplicity of single logos on a white T-shirt, undoubtedly sparked by the iconic Levi’s logo. However, this then morphed into a broader trend that saw our very own Kellogg’s logo given the same treatment in a totally unironic way. Up until that point a white T-shirt with a red Kellogg’s logo on it would have been viewed as nothing more than a piece of promotional merchandise, however, in one day at the office, we received samples from four different licensees of that very T-shirt made in four different factories for sale in four different retailers across multiple territories worldwide. That was the day we knew we were ‘on trend’.

Art is fashion and vice versa: it doesn’t matter if that art was initially created for a commercial purpose if it has a resonance with the consumer.

Trends like this may not last long, and we know from experience that it is very, very difficult to drive such a thing from the brand’s point of view. You can’t force it. It takes imagination and a creative spark to tap into the consumer psyche, and while the initial idea itself may not seem obvious, the results can be nothing less than spectacular.