St Pancras station commuters got more than they bargained for, when over 100 people arrived in just their underwear, in an attempt to break a World Record today.
The attempt was for the biggest public gathering of people in their underwear, drawing 116 confident/publicity keen ‘breakers’.
The new record was set on behalf of the Fair Trade organisation, ‘Pants to Poverty’.
Not exactly an Agent Provocateur advert.
Recognised as THE fashion magazine, if it’s in ‘Vogue‘ it’s IN. Vogue is the fashionistas bible, as it shows the upcoming fashions a season in advance. Although the high street now has an incredibly fast turnaround from catwalk and fashion weeks to it appearing in store, Vogue is still at least three months ahead.
Vogue was started in 1892 by Arthur Baldwin Turnure, being published every two months. When he died in 1909, it was bought by the publishing giant Conde Nast. The magazines was slowly grown by the publishers and saw and unexpected increase for subscriptions during both the depression and World War ll.
In the 1960s, Diana Vreeland took over as editor-in-chief but more importantly was a well known ‘personality’. She changed the focus of the magazine to feature contemporary fashion and embraced the ‘free love’ spirit of the time by controversially featuring articles on sex.
Vogue changed to a monthly magazine in 1973, when Grace Mirabella took charge, giving the magazine a fresh style and direction to reflect the changes in society.
In 1988 The current editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, is a huge celebrity in the fashion circuits, often labelled the most ‘influential woman in fashion’. In Anna Wintour turns up to one of your fashion shows, overnight the brand is a success. The film ‘The Devil wears Prada’ is allegedly based on her.
Other Vogue ‘brands’ include Mens Vogue (launched in 2005) and teen Vogue, not to mention the various country specific magazines, such as the UK (Alexandra Shulman is the current editor-in-chief since 1992), Italy and more recently India (2007).
If you want to know what to wear to look ‘on trend’ Vogue is your new best friend. However, if your circle of friends is more high street, pulling off PVC three months before it hits the shops may make you uncomfortable, go for ‘Glamour’, ‘Red’ and ‘In-Style’.
Traditionally society wore their clothes and then either threw them away or sold their ‘designer’ and ‘vintage’ threads to specialist stores.
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%
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%
Ms Cole has seen her star rise to dizzying heights since she took on he role of X Factor judge. Now the fashionistas have taken note and invited her to grace the cover of Vogue (the Herve Leger dress featured certainly went down well). We already checked her fashion credentials months ago here.
Generally this ‘honor’ is reserved for the most famous UK and international celebrities, there was very public disagreement when Coleen McLoughlin (wife of footballer Wayne Rooney) was featured in the magazine. Fans of the magazine felt it ‘lowered the tone’ and Coleen didn’t even make the cover.
This will be a huge step of fashion recognition for Cheryl (her stylist has done an amazing job) as only a few
years ago she was heavily criticised for her ‘tacky’ advertising campaign with husband Ashley Cole for the national lottery (featured right).
A source confirmed: “Cheryl has been approached about Vogue and she is very excited.
Not sure if it’s the groundbreaking Itailian ‘All black issue‘, but it’s certainly a new direction.
Lap dancing clubs are back in the news again, after being front page news on the BBC.
The reason is that local residents in West Kensington, London have started to complain about a lap dancing company, Passion Nights, who are due to set up in their area. Passion Nights have applied to put lap dancing club in an old pub “The Fox”, in Avonmore area of West Kensington.
But unlike most residents these individuals are far more organized, setting up online petitions and even complaining to Parliament
Passion nights defended its right to open a club in the area with the unusual claim that it “will create new jobs”.
Lap dancing clubs are well known for its sexual encounters, are springing up everywhere, but increasingly local residents unwilling to live near these v venues.
With West Kensington better associated with boutique shops and hotels, rather than strippers and prostitution, will this location be the one which puts a stop to it all? If the West Kensington residents can block the application, then other residents will learn how they did it, and the government may come under pressure to change the law.
Lapdancing clubs, more of the same? Well, for now.
This video, by Global Keratin, shows the BKT treatment being applied. The video is aimed at hair dressers, rather than clients, but its a good introduction into the subject
A newly single Daisy Lowe (having split with Mark Ronson) caught headlines recently for venturing out in a leopard-print ‘bodysuit’. It followed on from her wearing the leotard on the catwalk for London Fashion Week, during the ‘Fashion for Relief’ charity event (see picture). The event was hosted by Naomi Campbell and was modelled by a series of celebrities including princess Eugenie, Estelle and Cheryl Cole.
What the media failed to mention was that the daring garment was part of the Agent Provocateur ‘Season of the witch‘ range that Daisy models for alongside Peaches Geldof.
The bodysuit , first made famous by Donna Karen in the 90’s is making a comeback. Muffin tops take note.
Dita Von Teese looked beautiful at the Vivienne Westwood Red show this evening, wearing her Louboutins to perfection. Unfortunately she failed to gain the publicity that Pamela Anderson did, with her white masked date. As Pamela walked along the catwalk to leave, circled by a throng of flashing bulbs, Dita walked unnoticed a few metres behind her. As one of the spectators commented, “We could just go up and touch her”. Indeed.
Shame really since the “Science of Sexy” range she has just started to launch for Wonderbra, would have benefited from the publicity.
Other noticeable celebrities at the event were Kate Moss, Pixie Geldof, Henry Holland (of House of Holland and Agnes Deyn fame) and a chatty Myleene Klass (in Red dress) and Erin O’Connor (in pale make up and black lipstick) probably discussing their next Marks and Spencers advert.
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?!
This week Yves Saint Laurent are launching a version of its bestselling highlighter/concealer ‘Touche Eclat’ specifically for men. It is released exclusively for Selfridges, tomorrow. Is it a deception too great for the modern British man though?
Interestingly, they have chosen to use recent Big Brother contestant Stuart Pilkington, AKA ’stage faller extrordinare’ (have you seen it? worth a look, best Dr Pepper moment ever, couldn’t have been worse), as the model fronting campaign.
This is interesting because the ’star power’ that contestants of the show now have is at an all time low, with many being unable to secure an agent and being ‘blacklisted’ from events before even leaving the house. A luxury brand such as Yves Saint Laurent (furthur enhanced by being under the control of Gucci), generally wouldn’t like to associate themselves with ‘Zelebrities’, perhaps it is PR savvy by appealing to the masses? Perhaps Stuarts model looks, accompanied with his Alpha Male body but, penchant for eyeliner and nail varnish, make him an advertisers dream? Only the men will tell.
Stuart has been quoted as saying;“Since leaving the Big Brother house, I’ve become increasingly self-aware of my daily appearance as I start to get recognised when I’m out on the street. I was sent a Touche Éclat For Men this week and have already started using it as a concealer under my eyes – its magic, I love it., it hides the dark circles under my eyes, especially before I go to my nans’ for lunch to avoid interrogation on the antics of the night before!”
The male version of the product ‘Touche Eclat For Men’ is unfragranced, retailing at £22.50. The company claiming that it will ‘encourage men to use cosmetics as a skin enhancer, rather than to create a full make-up look‘.
The product follows on from the recent Superdrug launch of mens make up called ‘Taxi Man’ and taps into the 700 million market for men’s grooming products.
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