Hi, I’m Laura from the girlswear team. Earlier this month I and two of the other girlswear designers Sarah and Rachel went style spotting at The Clothes Show live at the NEC Birmingham. It’s a great place to go to see new trends and get some great inspiration for our next collection.

The Clothes Show is one of the key shopping events of the year. Shoppers flock from miles around to snap up some super bargains in time for Christmas. There was so much to see and we were in our element people watching and style spotting.

We started the day by having a look around the boutique and vintage stalls to spot new prints, shapes and trends for the new season. We saw some lovely all-over-prints, fairisle leggings, tons of knitwear and the amazing lip art trend. We saw so many people with glitter encrusted, leopard print and Union Jack lips channelling their inner Jessie J.

A lot of the looks we saw were quite casual. One of our favourite spots was this girl in head-to-toe colour block she was so colourful and bold that she caught our eye immediately.

We also loved a girl in her geek chic glasses and quilted jacket – and we spotted lots of girls still rocking their summer denim shorts styled up for winter with chunky knits and tights.

If your looking to brighten up your winter wardrobe or cosy up in some chunky knits head over to George.com to check out our latest collections.

A couple of weeks ago, our Style Scout winner – Ellen, mum Karen and myself hopped on the red eye to Barcelona to soak up the latest trends that will inspire our fabulous new teen range.

We were on a bit of a mission – Barcelona has an amazing young relaxed vibe and we had a lot to see – and only two days to do it in! Once we had checked in to our hotel, we headed off to check out a few vintage shops to look for prints and shapes – we saw loads of cute little conversational prints, sparkle and lace and some great ideas for party dresses!

After a quick lunch of yummy tapas, we wandered down into the buzzing district of El Born, where we found quite a few hidden gems – little boutiques and great cafes where we sat and spotted lots of trendy tourists and cool locals getting their fashion fix.

One of our favourite street shots of day one was actually of an English tourist who was wearing a cute coral floral playsuit.

On day two we grabbed a taxi and spent the morning at Park Guell – we wanted to capture some of the fab Barcelona street style and see Gaudi’s amazing creation. The colours and patterning in the tiles that make up areas of the park were really very inspirational and we came away with lots of great ideas.

Another street shot favourite was a girl wearing a fab lace shift dress accessorised with a tan belt & sandals. The Barcelonians were obviously dressing for the heat but stylishly too!

After a busy morning we headed down to the Marimagnum near the beach for some well deserved tapas and a spot of shopping. The shops looked brilliant – one of the biggest messages from Barcelona was colour, colour and more colour – even the fruit smoothies we picked up on the way back to the hotel were in pop colours.

Hi, I’m Rachel and I work on our women’s formalwear team with another of our designers, Amanda.

We’ve both recently been on our first trend spotting trip to Rome, where we came across some fantastic new trends and ideas for next year’s spring/summer formal collection.

Once we’d arrived and checked into our hotel we headed to the shops on the main street – Via Del Corso – which has a shopping arcade, one of Rome’s biggest department stores and leads onto lots of cobbled side streets where you can find cute nic nac shops and traditional Italian restaurants. Some of our best finds were down these streets.

We were also close to the high-end designer shops which was amazing as we got to see all the big designer collections and their window displays were fab. This street was full of local people and tourists getting their latest fashion fix pieces. We loved the look of this trendy lady in her striped maxi and printed scarf (left).

Our trip was very successful and we found that Rome is a fantastic place for formalwear. Dresses were strong in every store, particularly draped jersey dresses with a good mix of solid colours and prints. Stripes were also a key message to us as they were everywhere.

The key colours were citrus brights in yellows, oranges and reds as well as lots of mono collections mixing white, black and stone. These will be great to build into our our spring/summer collections.

If you’re looking to add some new formalwear to your wardrobe now, take a look at our current collections online and in-store.

Last week I went to Vintage at the iconic Southbank Centre in London. This was previously known as the Vintage at Goodwood Festival – but they changed the location this year and brought vintage to the masses in the capital, showcasing the best in vintage fashion, art and culture.

The organisers decked out the inside of the Royal Festival Hall as little time capsules capturing the vibes from the 1970s to the 1920s.

Everyone who attended put a lot of effort into making sure they went all out in terms of vintage clothing – from men dressed in 1940s military uniforms to ladies wearing 1940s fur collars with their hairstyles or styled and quaffed for the occasion.

There were interactive workshops to learn how to cross-stitch and make-do-and-mend just like they did in the 40s, turning old rags in your wardrobe into new fashionable pieces – and you were even given the chance to show off your unique vintage style by taking a turn on the vintage catwalk!

Outside down by the river there was a huge vintage market selling all sorts of delightful vintage gear from clothes and accessories to furniture and footwear.

It was a great day out and I even sported my very own 70s daisy print jumpsuit for the occasion to fit in with the vintage-loving crowd.

Vintage is a great source for inspiration for design in terms of prints and shapes for our new forthcoming collections, so it was great to be around masses of inspiration and to get inspired for our next formal range!

I recently visited Nice and St Tropez with some of our designers to look for the latest trends in womenswear.

The south of France is known for its glamorous jet set lifestyles so I knew it would be great for spotting the latest formal shapes, colours and prints.

We started the trip by flying into Nice and spent the day people watching and walking around the cobbled shopping streets. The shopping here is laid back but compact enough to be able to cover the majority of main shopping areas by foot.

St Tropez is small but really glamourous and has a real holiday vibe. It’s home to some of the top super brands with smaller boutiques dotted in between and people make a big effort with their stylish summer wardrobes. We were in our element with people watching and taking photos of them in their fabulous day-to-beach attire.

The key colours we saw coming through for next spring and summer were white, cobalt blue, coral and aqua greens. Being a port it was no surprise to see that the nautical trend is still going strong and we also saw a lot of colour blocking, especially in bright shades of orange and purple. I saw a fabulous lady wearing a deep purple jersey maxi dress and large hessian floppy hat (pictured above). She had even teamed it perfectly with an orange leather handbag to get that true holiday colour blocking look.

Another favourite street shot was of a lady wearing a knitted maxi kaftan (pictured above). It’s a casual shape done in a formal fabric and I thought she looked great in it. It was a great trip for casual and formal ladies wear and one that we’ll definitely be doing again next year.

If you’re looking to brighten up your summer wardrobe or follow the white-on-white trend take a look at our latest collections at George.com.

I recently went on a trip to Sri Lanka with our formal womenswear buyer, merchandiser and technologist to develop our spring and summer ranges for 2012.

Sri Lanka is a great place for us to develop more structured designs including trousers, soft blouses and dresses as well as jersey items. It’s not like India with all their hand bead work and sequins – the product from Sri Lanka is more tailored.

Before we went I had prepared my trend boards and colour palettes so I could be focused on the exact colour, shape and detail I wanted to develop. My main focus was on a story called ‘Miami Heat’ which is a bright, bold story inspired by the S/S12 catwalks and early trend books. It’s all about colour in this story with lots of colour blocking and contrasting shades of blue, yellow, orange and pinks underpinned with black and white. It should be a really fresh look for spring!

The key features are fluid trousers, linen dresses, coloured lace, colour-blocked shift dresses and blouses.

While we were there we spent some time at the factories which currently manufacture some of our womenswear – it was great to see my designs in work and being created by the thousands!

I also spent some time working with our suppliers to review designs we’d sent over and explaining how I wanted each garment to fit. There was also time to sketch some new designs and look at some of the new fabrics they’ve designed for us.

The next time I see my new developments they’ll be in garment form – which is really exciting!

Stay tuned to see how they turn out – the collection will hit the shops next spring. If you can’t wait for some bright clothes for summer, take a look at our women’s collections at George.com.

If you’re a regular reader of the blog you’ll know New York is one of our favourite places to go for inspiration and ideas for future formalwear and other ranges – and I was recently over there with Ruth, one of our buyers, to look for trends that will influence our Spring/Summer 2012 collections.

We covered our usual districts – SoHo, Fifth Avenue, Greenwich village and the meat packing district – and came across some amazing people just walking the streets dressed in upcoming trends and styled perfectly for the spring weather. In fact we were very lucky with the weather as the sun came out on the last day, so we got to see people in everything from heavy layered outerwear to knotted front cut-out maxi dresses.

I especially liked the girls here (left), who looked really cool just strolling around Central Park.

We also squeezed in a visit to the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market to look out for vintage prints and shapes we can adapt for more contemporary trends.

With the 70s being a major trend at the moment we looked for real 70s prints which can be the starting point of our next collection.

Now we’re back we’ve got some amazing styling ideas from trailing through the flea market and looking through rails of vintage clothes. By looking through the shops we can see that the big colour messages for S/S12 will be blue, green and coral, so we’ll be working these into new designs for our next spring summer collections.

We were accompanied by journalist Rebecca Gonsalves and you can read her account of the trip – and how we develop collections for George – in her article in the The Independent.

Hi, I’m Felicity and I’m a print designer for George. I’ve just come back from a trip to Amsterdam with one of our womenswear designers Amy, where we were shopping the latest trends and getting inspired for our Spring/Summer ‘12 collections.

Amsterdam is a really beautiful city to visit, with impressive architecture surrounded by loads of canals, bicycles, graffiti, restaurants, flower markets and cool and quirky shops. The shops in Amsterdam are fantastic – a mix of cool European high street retailers and a few home grown favourites so it gave us a great idea of what’s happening out there.

On our second day we got the very efficient high speed train to Antwerp and marvelled at how we could get to a different country in just over an hour! Antwerp is a stunning city and it certainly has the grandest central station I’ve ever seen. It’s also a very small city and the shops are located off one street making it ideal for a day trip.

Our final day in Amsterdam was spent dashing around trying to see anything we missed on the first day, heading off the beaten track to look at some quirky independent clothes stores and, one of my favourite things, looking in cute card shops – always great for print and pattern inspiration.

The key message from our trip was that summer has finally arrived! Bright corals, greens, blues, yellows and pinks were mixed back with washed neutrals to create a really vibrant and optimistic feel. Happily for me, prints were everywhere! Amsterdam was awash with a sea of florals, tropical, paisley and tribal prints. You could really see the inspiration from the S/S11 catwalks coming through – keep an eye out for this in our Vintage Dolls collection coming soon. The tropical prints were fantastic, on everything from bikinis, maxi dresses, playsuits and beach bags to basic vests and t-shirts.

Stripes were definitely one of the big messages, too. Clean and graphic stripes in bright clashing colours were a must and there was also a strong nautical theme coming through in bold primary colours – look out for these in our New Nautical collection, in store soon for summer.

Amanda from our design team recently went to Delhi in India to source and develop our Autumn/Winter 2011 ladies formal ranges for Christmas. Here she explains the thinking behind two key themes – Show Girls and 1920s Vintage – and why Delhi is the perfect place to look for Chrsitmas sparkle.

Read more and see Amanda's photos

Like the rest of the fashion world, here at George we’ve been paying close attention to London Fashion Week and we’ve spotted a few trends that will influence what we’ll be wearing this Autumn/Winter. Kausar from our design team gives us the lowdown on longer hemlines, maxi skirts and fabric mixing – all key trends that will be appearing later this year. And Amanda checks out what the celebrities were wearing – including Paloma Faith’s eye-catching outfit.

Read more about the key trends from London Fashion Week

We went out to Florence to attend the SS12 Pitti Filati Yarn Show. It was a fantastic show, buzzing with atmosphere and excitement for the Spring/Summer 2012 trends and looks.

We arrived in Florence early afternoon, after starting our day at 4am! Rather bleary-eyed we hit the shops straight away, looking at mix of great little Italian boutiques and high street stores. It was great to see the Spring collections launching, even though we were all wrapped up in chunky scarves and boots! All stores had lovely, fresh Spring colours emerging with soft honey colours sat with chalky blush tones alongside pops of colour.

The second day we hit the show and “Welcome to Pitti City” greeted us for the showcase of trends and looks for SS12. It was such an exciting day, jam-packed with great ideas and developments and beautiful colours and yarns. The show is visually amazing, with half-size garments made up in new yarn and colour developments.

The yarn companies also create great visuals, with one even having a dinner party set up with all knitted place settings and food to showcase their SS12 colour and yarn (pictured above). A great stand that always grabs attention is the “Millefilli” stand which this year offered “stamp your own t-shirt” allowing you to stamp a Millefilli t-shirt with you hand-print and offering out mini pots of fresh made tortellini!

Key messages from the show were a continuation of texture, including mini-textures for SS12 and patterning created through mixes of stitch and colour, there is still a retro vibe coming through in the patterning and the vintage prints that were sitting alongside the mini-textures.

It was such an inspirational show, can’t wait for the AW show in July!

I’m back from New York where I went out with Ruth and Hayley to shop the latest fashion trends on ladieswear and gain inspiration for next Autumn Winter 2011.

I love New York, and I never get tired of returning there. From the minute you touch down at JFK airport you’re prepared for the endless queues, whether it’s queuing to get through passport control, or queuing for a yellow taxis, and then sitting in a sea of traffic, which never feels like its moving. But as soon as you reach the Brooklyn Bridge it all feels worth it when you see the famous skyline of Manhattan.

Read more about what we saw and the trends we spotted

London Fashion week was a great chance to get some inspiration for our Spring/Summer 2011 collection.

There were some really bright, eye-catching colours in the shows coming out of both London Fashion Week and New York. Colours such as poppy red, cobalt blue, yellows, oranges and corals. Miu Miu had a very striking collection of graphical prints with stripes, graphics and eye-catching colours.

And we can definitely expect to see a big 1970s vibe on the high street next year with ‘70s shapes such as tunics, flares and wide trousers making a comeback. There are two sides to the ‘70s revival: the glamorous ‘70s look from chic New York club Studio 54 and the softer 70s which is more like a Farrah Fawcett look with chiffons and paisley prints.

Marc Jacobs really delivered the whole ‘70s look in his New York collection and Anna Sui was particularly key for print direction.

We also saw midi length skirts, following on from the midi dresses we’ll be seeing this Christmas (a bit shorter than the maxi – the midi is down to the calf).

And textured fabrics and trims such as broderie anglaise will be big. There’s also a move towards sheer fabrics with designers looking to make jersey look as sheer as possible.

We’ll be incorporating some of these ideas into our own collections at George.

The George team had their eyes glued to the excitement of London Fashion Week last week where more than 80 design houses unveiled their work to fashion fans, buyers, press and celebs from all over the world.

Their shows aimed to excite and inspire for Spring/Summer 2011 and they didn’t disappoint. We were scouring collections on the lookout for the trends that will influence what we’ll be wearing next year and found most of the collections extremely accessible – even from the hippest of the hip like Christopher Kane and Giles Deacon.

By common consent the use of colour was a real theme of the week as was more than a passing reference to the 70s – not so much the bohemian look but something brighter and more glam. We saw fringes and pleating of all kinds (Topshop – the only High Street chain to show during the Week – had some great examples) which also helped amplify the 70s feel.

George designer Laura Byrne agrees the use of colour was very significant. “It’s a move away from the camel of Autumn/Winter – the key colours will be yellows, poppy red, blues (cobalt blue and 70s chambray), orange and tan/tobacco (more 70s influence here) – but with white as the neutral colour.”

Laura also agrees the 70s theme was big. “There were two strands to it,” she says, ”’Studio 54’ – which is more glamorous and refers to a trendy club in New York – and ‘love story’ which is softer, more like the Farrah Fawcett look with chiffons and paisley prints. The 70s will have a big impact on shapes for next year – so expect tunics, flares and wide leg 70s-style trousers.” It turns out London isn’t alone in pushing the 70s. “The same trends are coming out of New York. Marc Jacobs really did the whole 70s look and Anna Sui always goes quite bo-ho with pretty collections – she was key on the print direction for next season.”

Laura has picked a few other of her favourite influences to look out for in Spring/Summer 2011 including midi-length skirts, prints using paisley, animal, striping and florals, textured fabrics and trims (such as broderie anglaise), soft summer tweeds, and finally a move towards sheer fabrics.

Laura wasn’t the only designer with a close eye on events in London. Fellow designer Kausar was struck by the use of denim which she says was everywhere. “It was denim for everyone from cute denim skater skirts to smart denim jeans and casual denim dresses to denim parkas!”

I popped over to Paris for the day recently with my design assistant Alex to look for new trends, shapes and colours for Autumn/Winter in 2011.

We headed straight for the Boulevard Haussman, home of two of Paris’s most famous department stores: Printemps and Galleries Lafayette, which are next to each other. Both have several floors of fashion, ranging from young fashion through to high end designer.

We saw a lot of Aviator jackets everywhere and lots of Camel coats (look out for the George Moda Camel coat coming soon!) So think shearling/leather and fur for your winter wardrobe.

Find out what Parisians are wearing this Autumn