On 15th – 20th September, fashions latest and greatest descended on London for a London fashion week to be remembered, which highlighted the key looks and collections of designers for spring/ summer 08. This year we were not to be disappointed with a whirlwind of events set at the Natural History Museum and other inspiring venues across London and attended by amongst others Tom Ford, Anna Wintour and Anna Piaggi.

The exhibition at London fashion week played home to over 210 fashion and accessory designers. New this year was Esthetica which included the best of eco sustainable and ethical fashion, with collections showing commitment to fairtrade, organic and / or recycled materials.

New Generation was set up in 1993 to support the best up and coming designers at London Fashion Week. Currently sponsored by TOPSHOP, New Gen is recognised internationally and has helped launch the careers of some of Britain’s top designers, including Alexander McQueen, Clements Ribeiro, Matthew Williamson, Julien Macdonald and Sophia Kokosalaki. This year was no exception in showing a great selection of unique British talent.

The highlights of London fashion week were the Antoni and Alison collection shown as a cinema screening of Click to continue »

Traditionally society wore their clothes and then either threw them away or sold their ‘designer’ and ‘vintage’ threads to specialist stores.

However with a recession looming, everyone has had to become a little bit more fashion savvy. Quality rather that fast/cheap/third world fashion and selling the good stuff on. Most of us have jobs/lives and although there is a pretty penny to be had on eBay, who has the time to get to the post office? Step in these stores, as featured in The London Paper, undercutting the 60% commission charges for selling your clothes and making your purchasing feel a little bit more refined than eBay. You’ll also make some cash, thus giving more money to spend, boosting the economy. Win, win!

They accept high street, designer and even unwanted vintage, and thanks to the stores’ central location, you can expect your stuff to get snapped up fast.

Best of all, Bang Bang buys your stuff up front – so you get the cash immediately rather than waiting for them to shift your style mistakes.

You get only 30 per cent of what they hope to sell it for, but it’s the only place we know that will sell on your cheapie high-street clothes.
21 Goodge St, W1, 020 7631 4191, 9 Berwick St, W1
Commission taken 70%

The Closet Bureau

How come nobody thought of this before? The Closet Bureau is a chi-chi new website that takes designer fashion and sells it for you on eBay.

Founder Sophia Greene (a fashion PR, naturellement) was inspired by her own mama. “Because they didn’t know how to use eBay, my mother and her friends would take their clothes to dress agencies, on a monthly basis, where they were charged up to 60 per cent commission for selling the clothes and got little  back,” says Greene. “We charge 35 per cent and take care of everything from cleaning to photography and shipping.”

Besides shouldering the admin, Greene knows all the ­insider eBay tricks. In fact, this canny clothes horse once sold a pair of Louboutins she bought for £200 at a sample sale for £1,200 . We’ll have a bit of that.
www.theclosetbureau.com, FREE collection from Zones 1-2
Commission taken 35%

Writen about in Vogue here

Seconda Mano
Don’t be confused when you arrive at ­Seconda Mano on Upper Street. The ground floor is a hairdresser, but below stairs you’ll find a cache of second-hand designer ­treasures (well, we say second-hand, but most of it is unworn).

Seconda Mano will sell your unwanted clobber at 50 per cent commission. It sounds like a lot, but their prices are quite high so if they sell your stuff you can still make a tidy profit.

They take clothes, jeans, shoes and accessories, but everything must be in mint condition, preferably with a designer label attached. In other words, that ill-advised Topshop playsuit need not apply.
53 Upper Street, 020 7359 5284
Commission taken 50%

Peaches Geldof has been accused shop lifting clothes from the designer store Luna & Curious, in West London.

Peaches, who reportedly gets paid up to £5,000 just to attend a party, and was recently the new face of Agent Provocateur , has already been accused of stealing from shops 4 times before. Including taking clothes from Urban Out fitters in 2006, and taking a dress in early 2008, from Victim Fashion Boutique, also in London

As many designers would be happy to give their products to Peaches, and she is certainly not short of money, she can only be doing this to further attract attention. Perhaps, as many people have commented, she is only trying to gain attention from her father who was not very impressed by the lingerie campaign, and was even less impressed by the snap wedding to Max Drummey.

The giant indoor shopping center, Westfield, London has now opened. But is this a good time to be opening?

The country is in recession, cash has become expensive again, over a million homes are rumored to be in negative equity, and the phrase “credit crunch” and “sub-prime lending”, previously terms only used on late night news programs are now in common use.

So why open now? Is it a good time to shop or to open a shop?

There is no doubt that the center is well designed and features a wide selection of shops, including all high street brands. The building itself is very striking, and has received mixed reviews

While the site is massive, its not the worlds biggest shopping mall . That honor currently belongs to  West Edmonton Mall, in Alberta Canada (though it depends on how you measure it)

So its not the biggest, its not the best, so why open now?

Firstly when the site was planned the world economic climate could not have been predicted, and once the banks started to crash Westfield’s had to push on with the project. With that said, it is a good time to open a shop. Despite all of the doom and gloom billions will be spent on shopping this Christmas and Westfield looks set to take some of gain market share of that revenue, though at the expensive of others.

After the Christmas rush, and the post Christmas sales, all of the shops will be hurting in the financial climate, but if Westfield s can ride it out to the summer, taking market share from the other companies, when the country comes out of recession in late 2009 early 2010, no doubt WestFields will be in fine form. So Westfields are probably going to be just fine.

But is it a good place to shop? Chameleon Fridays have not road tested it yet, but it comes across well and there will be bargains to be had both in the run up to Christmas and particulary in the January sales.

For those of you that prefer the warm comforts of home and are prepared to run the risks of Royal Mail, you might want to try Westfields biggest Christams competition My Mall.

Celebrity Red Dress charity Fashion Show for Heart disease

According to a study by the University of Rochester, the woman in red is more likely to be seen as attractive than any other colour.

The colour red makes men feel more attracted to a woman than any other colour. The tests, conducted under Professor Andrew Elliot, did not show why men felt this way, only that they did.

So should women rush out shopping and buy that red dress? Not if every one else is, and not if it doesn’t suit you.

The study did not say it had to be a dress, and it had to be red all over, in fact the tests were just done on the women wearing a red shirt.

If red suits you, and you like it, then it could be good news. If not get something that does suit you, that fits you and your image and then you will be more attractive than feeling shoe horned into something that is not right you.

 

London is a place with great history in the field of fashion. It is one of the favorite locations of any person related to fashion. We cannot ignore the contribution of fashion schools in London fashion industry. These well-known fashion schools have a good reputation in the production of top designers in shoe design, men’s clothing, women’s clothing, etc. They also have professionals in areas such as fashion photography, fashion merchandising, fashion journalism, and lot more. If you are a student in fashion in London, you can learn pattern cutting, garment production, designing in both manual and digital formats, the history of fashion, etc. Most of the school is well equipped with most modern equipments. Besides all these advantages, you will be able to make a contact with successful working designers, as many tutors usually are well designers in the fashion world. Therefore, it will be a good step from your side in deciding to study fashion in London if you are interested in this field.

Fashion shows are becoming common in London. Fashion shows are event conducted by different fashion designers to display his or her upcoming line of clothing. Many models are use by these designers Click to continue »

Pamela Anderson ensured she got all of the press coverage at the Vivienne Westwood Red show this evening.

She chose to attend the event with a dapper suited man in a white plastic mask and hands. Speculation was rife amongst the crowd as to who the mystery man was, with guesses ranging from an unusually shy Tommy Lee to Michael Jackson?!

Below is the latest Wonderbra advert featuring Dita Von Teese , for their new “Sexy Science” collection.

Agent Provacateur launched their Autumn/Winter lingerie collection today, with both Peaches Geldof and friend Daisy Lowe (girlfriend of producer Mark Ronson), modelling in the new campaign.

The adverts titled ‘Season of the Witch‘ show Peaches posing in suspenders and a black see through negligee, whilst she ‘tempts’ a model with a cherry.

The company have been quoted stating “She’s hot, young and of the moment. She’s got an edginess about her and we like the face of the firm to have that hint of danger. We’ve no doubt she’ll be a huge success.” Updated photographs available here

This is much needed new publicity since Peaches married Max Drummey in a suprise wedding ceremony last month, and dominated the papers with the impromtu nuptials.

The campaign is a number of high profile lingerie ranges being launched this season, starting with the D to G, because we’re more than a handful advertising and later this month the Sexy Science by Dita Von Teese, both by Wonderbra.