When redesigning my collection for Laura Petites, I was inspired by the process of smelting.  The image of white hot metal, changing colour to fiery reds and golds as it's poured into a mold, sparks flying everywhere, is what I wanted to incorporate into my collection.

After doing a little research, identifying trends for Fall/Winter 2010/11 that my target market may be interested in adopting this season, I chose the following colours from Pantone's Fall Color Report 2010:

According to Million Looks.com (http://www.millionlooks.com/trends/outfits-trends/fashion-trends-fall-winter-2010-2011/), a few trends for Fall/Winter 2010/11 are high collars, quilting, and wide legged pants.  I chose these trends in particular for my collection because I feel my target market would be comfortable wearing them; especially the quilting since it's evocative of Chanel, which Laura Petites customers aspire to own (as told to me by the Pacific Centre store's manager on October 11, 2010).

As for finding evidence that this inspiration may actually be present in street fashion today, I ran into some difficulty.  I certainly saw many women in my target market wearing quilted coats and wide legged pants, but since the weather took a turn and it's been downright CHILLY, all I could really see were the coats and pants!

I found a website that is kind of a lifestyle/fashion blog for women 50+ that named metallics as a major fashion trend to follow for the Fall/Winter 2010/11 season, plus, when speaking to the Pacific Centre store's manager, she mentioned that metallics sold well during the holiday season, and the majority of their accessories in store were made of metals and chains, so I'm fairly confident that I've chosen an appropriate inspiration for my target market.

I've kept the tailoring fairly soft instead of my usual design aestetic of angular, hard tailoring, but it is still alluded to in the sharp pleats, french cuffs, funnel neck and pointed blazer hem.  I anchored metallic pieces with a neutral piece (metallic shirt and matte wool pants...) to avoid over-saturating the look with the inspiration and appearing to trendy for my target market.