Some interesting info just arrived in my inbox from Debenhams on the rise of the UK ‘Prom kings’. According to Debenhams, boys are spending 24% more on Prom prepping than last year, although still not as much as girls. While Prom has been a big deal in America for, well, ever, it’s only really taken off in the UK in the last 10 years. But jeez, has it taken a long time for retailers to catch on. (more…)
The new Chanel London flagship opens in New Bond Street tomorrow and at 12,600 square feet it’s a vast improvement on its Old Bond Street predecessor. In terms of trends, retail and otherwise, it weaves in quite a few. There’s the trend for ‘at home’ styling; featuring grand mantlepieces, ample couches and coffee tables (for the wealthy BRIC customers to consider their purchases I suspect, not for bored husbands and kids). (more…)
That photo above is from the Disneyrollergirl archives, AKA a pile of scrapbooks and box files containing years worth of photos, cuttings, and ephemera that I’ve held onto ‘just in case’. Yasmin Cho was a late ’90s shop on a first floor in Poland Street, an out-of-sight destination that you had to want to find in order to visit it. Run by Yasmin Sewell, it stocked a curated mix of under-radar labels like Susan Cianccolo, Carol Christian Poell, and Rick Owens. You had to press a buzzer to get in and the sign on the door was made up of coloured sticky dots. Fast forward 15 years and Yasmin Sewell’s early concept has come full circle with a Shoreditch pop-up space called Beach In the East. (more…)
…And finally, the concept of pre-collections makes perfect sense. Landing in store any day now, the pre-fall collections (AKA the collections that take up an increasing slice of a buyer’s budget) consist of the wear-all-year pieces that have become the mainstay of British wardrobes. (more…)
