Love books? Love Bowie? Love Vuitton? Here’s a treat for you then. Louis Vuitton has tapped David Bowie as its latest guest curator for its Curated Bookshelf. A secret gem in itself, the ‘Librarie’ can be found in the Louis Vuitton Maison in London’s New Bond Street, one of a number of Vuitton book stores that reflect different themes. (more…)
Do we need any more curation in our lives? It seems the answer is yes, lot’s more. eBay has just launched its new look ‘curated’ interface in the States which will be rolled out internationally over the next three months:
Meanwhile, every other day I’m emailed a press release about a new ‘discovery commerce’-based start-up or an existing site gets a Pinterest-style layer added to it. Well why not? We love discovering new things, especially when there are ‘tastemakers’ involved. I did a bit of tastemaking for Discoveredd last month. The site launched by Oliver Walsh lets you create a profile to add your discoveries to and also has a section called Spotlight where it invites the likes of Caroline Issa, Amanda Harlech, Cozette McCreery (I just discovered she sat for Lucian Freud) and me to share our finds.
Mine are here. It’s actually quite hard to choose your favourite things at any one time (I have hundreds of favourites!) but mine included Bill Bernstein’s photography, J.W Anderson’s shirts, Dinh Van jewellery, RSVP Berlin, 1STDIBS.com and Agnes B tees.
In fact, the Agnes B tee was a rediscovery. They were my uniform in the 90s and I started wearing them religiously again this summer. Agnes B have carried on selling the same style for years. Here’s me with Corrine Day in my Agnes B tee and a funny hat…
These tees age really well. They shrink slightly so I buy them in a size bigger but even the really old ones are still wearable. But I digress. I think the best thing about sites like Discoveredd is when the curation is ‘meaningful’, i.e, the recommendations are true recommedations that the user wants to share, rather than just streams of ‘I want this’. I find it more useful and meaningful when people recommend beauty/fashion products that they actually use and swear by, or a cafe, book, shop etc that they genuinely love. What’s your view on discovery and curation sites?
Magazines swore they’d never do it. “Editorial is editorial; commerce is commerce,” they chorused. But things are different now. Harper’s Bazaar has just launched Shop.Bazaar.com in preview, a shoppable edit for the Harper’s Bazaar woman. In essence it’s a bit like Net-a-Porter in reverse. It has shoppable content curated via the pages of Harper’s Bazaar by its impeccably-pedigreed editors and is powered in partnership with retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue and Hirshleifers (Harper’s doesn’t hold any inventory itself; its fashion cupboards are big, but not that big), as well as mono-brands like Salvatore Ferragamo. I’ve just signed up so I’m having a play. Will report back…
An invitation from The Future Laboratory is always worth taking up. The future-forecasting think tank is known for its innovative events and trend predicting insights and the latest one promised to give a glimpse into the future of retail. (more…)
