retail concepts

Trend report: What to wear and do for SS19



Givenchy ss19 by Corey Tenold

Even though people are sniffy about trends, I still quite like tracking them. The trick is just to pay attention to the ones that work for you. So in this wee SS19 round-up, I’m deliberately ignoring anything overstatementy or hype-y that will have disappeared in a year. And instead homing in on the classics that have been reinvented or lifestyle movements that will impact how we live.

NOGO We’ve reached peak logo (sorry Gucci) and now it’s about deliberately unbranded products. I signed up to Italic last year, which is a membership-based direct-to-consumer company selling unbranded, yet high quality products that come straight from the factory. (more…)

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What’s on your reading list?



The World of Apartamento book
Continuing on last week’s #namastayinbed theme, we’ve reached peak hygge time of year, aka annual book-buying season. December and January are the only months of the year I get time to properly absorb myself in books, so I’m looking forward to getting stuck into Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Michelle Obama’s Becoming. No spoilers please!

The rest of the year, I just accept I don’t have the attention span for deep absorption books. Instead I go for dip-in-able non-fiction stuff, which is probably why I like oral histories and diaries. I’m late to Tina Brown’s The Vanity Fair Diaries but it’s on my Christmas list, as is Uncovered: Revolutionary Magazine Covers – The Inside Stories Told by the People Who Made Them  (more…)

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ASMR hometail with Gabriela Hearst



Gabriela Hearst Flagship Madison Avenue

I’m in KonMari heaven looking at this newly opened Gabriela Hearst flagship store on Madison Avenue. The perfectly folded sweaters, the pristine reclaimed oak and marble eco flooring, the minimalist styling offset with cosy honey-and-blonde colour palette; is this not the visual equivalent of ASMR? (more…)

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It’s not about product so what works in bricks and mortar retail now?



what works in bricks and mortar retail now? Tiina The store Amagansett Christopher Sturman for The New York Times

News broke last week that Debenhams, one of the UK’s biggest department store chains, is closing 50 stores. I worked as a sales girl at Debenhams in Oxford Street during my art student years and I loved it. I worked with amazing people, liked selling and would pop across the road to the Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf exhibitions at the Anthony d’Offay gallery in my lunch hour.

I haven’t really shopped there as an adult, other than occasionally for beauty or pots and pans. I’m more of a high-end heritage shopper or I go to the minimalist stores like Cos and Arket. But it’s a serious warning sign that retail really is changing. Debenhams’ competitors like John Lewis & Partners and Selfridges have been much better at creating a modern lifestyle destination, which taps into the idea that stores aren’t only for shopping. (more…)

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