Mary Portas Charity Shops

I heart Mary Portas!! Ever since first seeing her on Mary Queen of Shops a few years ago I have really admired her and everything she stands for in the retail industry…I may even use the old cliché and say she is one of my idols. If you don’t already know who she is, Mary Portas is one of the UK’s foremost authorities on retail and brand communication and is definitely the person to thank for turning Harvey Nichols into the fashion powerhouse it is today. After leaving Harvey Nichols Mary Portas launched the communications agency, Yellow Door, which she now runs with Peter Cross. Yellowdoor (www.yellow-door.com) advises clients in fashion, retail and beauty brands on PR, Communications Strategy and Marketing. Imagine how much of a dream job it would be to work at this company and for Mary Portas.

Anyways, back to the theme of this post…Mary Portas has launched her own chain of charity shops under the Mary’s Living and Giving Shop fascia. This comes following her TV series Mary Queen of Charity Shops which was on earlier in the year, with the first store opened in Edinburgh earlier this week. Next year will see the opening of five more branches, all with the aim of persuading consumers to buy second-hand and used designer clothes instead of mass-produced throw-away fashion.

The charity which Mary Portas’ shops will support is Save the Children, and Portas told The Guardian newspaper: “I don’t think there’s any shop which looks as cool and as fabulous as this. The whole concept is how do we rethink the charity shop and create a business model that has real potential in the next 10 to 20 years”. The Edinburgh shop is stocked with donations from a selection of designer brands and with a bag of clothes donated by TV presenter Carol Smillie

 I would add some photo’s of the shop, but I don’y have/can’t find any

Missguided Website

Today is the first day I have ever been on the Missguided website (www.missguided.co.uk), and I was suprised to find that they actually have some pretty nice clothes, at a bargain price!! When you go onto the website it is a bit too similar to the ASOS hompage and when you start looking through the clothes on offer you do come across a few ‘tacky’ bits and pieces, however, if you search there are surprisingly some rather nice items!

These are a few of my favourites (ok…so I like the colour black):

 

 

 

Cool Barcodes

You are probibly wondering how barcodes could possible be cool…well, check out these designs by by Japanese firm d-barcode (www.d-barcode.com) they really do add a quirky edge to something usually rather boring and totally overlooked by consumers.

Burberry Art of the Trench

Burberry has launched a social networking site which celebrates its iconic trench coat. The Art of the Trench (www.artofthetrench.com) is a living document of the people around the world who wear the trench coat and is a collaboration between Burberry and some of the world’s greatest photographers, as well as participation from the world’s creative community. Visitors to the site are also invited to submit images of themselves or friends wearing the trench coat which Burberry will regularly look through and upload their favourites to the site.

For the site’s launch, Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey commissioned a collection of photographs of trench wearers around the world taken by photographer Scott Schuman – The Sartorialist, especially for the site…seeing all these photographs just makes me want a Burberry trench coat even more!

These are some of my favourite photographs from the site:

 

Gawd I love the Burberry trench coat!!

Wish List…

I started to care about fashion at around the age of about 15 (a bit of a late starter, I know) but before then fashion never used to be of any interest to me. I remember my dad having to persuade me to go shopping with him to buy me some clothes, he used to work in a fashion store in London when he was younger so had a lot more of an interest in it than I did. Anyways, his persuasion finally worked and my interest in fashion has grown and grown (which I bet my dad regrets now as every spare penny I have is spent on clothes). Since my interest in fashion began I started a mental wish list of things I really really wanted before I was 25…the list only has three items in it, however, they are items that I love and which are absolute classics. The fact that they are timeless pieces meant I could somewhat justify spending my money on them in the future…also the fact that I could pass them down to my children – I mean what child wouldn’t love Chanel?! These three pieces are:

Chanel 2.55

The Chanel 2.55 is an obvious wish list bag for any girl who likes fashion, not only is it beautiful but it’s the classic Chanel bag and will never ever go out of fashion! To justify the cost to myself I have worked out that it would only cost 17p per day if I use it every day until i’m 80…pretty good deal I would say  

Burberry Trench Coat

Another timeless classic which can be worn with everything and at any time of year…due to rubbishy English weather. I first tried one on last year when I was in London in the hope of getting it for my 21st present, but dragged myself away. It really is beautiful, the image and the one I want is the Short Double Breasted Trench in Nutmeg. Since I still haven’t decided what I want as my 21st present which was over 6 months ago I feel this may be my gift of choice, at least then it will stop be dreaming of it.

Chanel Pumps

The final item on my ‘wish list’ and the only one which I have only gone and blummin bought are the Chanel Flats/Pumps. I bought them when I was on a University trip to Paris last year and I love them lots, (Same style as picture above but beige and black).They are so comfy and like the other two, they are a classic, especially in the beige and black colourway. Since I bought them they have even gone up in price by around £90 which means they were definitely a good investement…or so I like to tell myself.

It may seem silly that I dream about clothes, but i’m a girl…what do you expect. They will last me forever and ever and are so beautiful, and as they say, one down two to go…then I will be a very happy girl

Reka Reisinger

After purchasing Art Review Magazine today I came across the work of Reka Reisinger (http://www.nootnatdit.net/reka/index.html) the artist/photographer was born in Hungary and currently lives in New York, she makes lifesize cardboard cut-outs (usually of herself) and then rephotographs them in different scenes using a view camera, creating rather beautiful and thought provoking images…none of which are digitally manipulated.

(Elevation,2009)

(Mirage)

(Accident)

(Spirit)

Channel 4’s 3D Week

This November on Channel 4 come’s 3D Week in association with Sainsbury’s which will feature unseen footage of The Queen during her Coronation year, Derren Brown’s 3D Magic Spectacular with some of the world’s greatest and most shocking magic performances, and a load of 3D films. The 3D isn’t going to be state of the art IMAX technology, but it’s definitely worth giving the films a watch! In order to see the films in 3D you need to pick up a pair of £D glasses which are available from 4th November – 22nd November at Sainsbury’s stores.

Sainsbury’s In-Store Promotion:

Sainsbury’s 3D Glasses:

 

Innocent – The Big Knit 2009

Innocent have joined forces with Sainsbury’s again this year in order to try and raise over £250,000 for Age Concern and Help the Aged with The Big Knit 2009(www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/thebigknit/) To raise the money Innocent and Sainsbury’s will give 35p for each behatted smoothie, veg pot or squeezie sold. The money raised will then be used to fund projects and advice centres offering information on healthy eating as well as cooking clubs and get-togethers where older people can sit down and enjoy a meal in each other’s company. The hats and knits on the products are so cute, each one is knitted by members of the public and then sent to Innocent who put them onto the products and send them out to Sainsbury stores. So far over 513,000 little hats have been knitted!

He’s some I spotted in Sainsbury’s today, the cute little hats really do make them stand out of the shelf!

 

There are loads of unique knits in different shapes,colours and sizes, like these from the shown below (from the Innocent website):

 

2012 Subway Flood Promotion

This cool advertisement in the subway Cantagalo, in Copacabana – Rio de Janeiro is advertising Sony Pictures 2012 movie! Around 45m of wall each side of the walkeway are plastered with advertisement to simulate a flood in the subway…even covering part of the floor, its definitely pretty eye-catching!

 

Levi van Veluw

Levi van Veluw is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in the Netherlands. His work has been features in a huge number of publications and he has had exhibitions all around the world. Levi van Veluw’s images consist of often unlogical combinations of materials, patterns, colours and forms, he used models with expressionless, universal faces so that they don’t distract from the work. The great part about Levi van Veluw’s work is that none of it is digitally manipulated!

The images below are from his ‘Landscapes’ 4 piece series…the photo series are self-portraits, drawn and photographed by himself: a one-man-process.  The series ‘reinterprets the traditional landscape painting, removing plots of grass, clusters of trees, babbling brooks from their intimate 2 dimensional formats and transposing them onto the 3 dimensional contours of his own face.’    www.levivanveluw.nl/work/landscapes