Debenham’s Designer Diet: Fashion Food for Thought

Fashion week has stimulated the creative juices to flow through the hearts and veins of London’s window dressers and creative merchandisers.

 

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From monotone and monochrome to coordinated costumes and colour explosions the windows of the city vie for visual supremacy and a slice of the passing traffic.

More ingenious than most is the clever concept that sits inside the newly constructed windows of the refurbished Debenham’s on Oxford Street. Colour statements are created within a supermarket setting with mannequins wheeling painted trolleys through a series of colour cameos from Winter Greens and Sweet Pastels to Berry Pink and Blue Washes.

The backdrop shelves serve up an imaginative assortment of toned tins and packets; washing powder to jams, bay leaves to garden peas.

With fashion neighbours such as Selfridges, Debenhams has pulled out all of the supermarkets stops, propelling mass market down the aisle to the high alter of aspiration.

 

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VM-Unleashed monitors, benchmarks and celebrates best practice to provide the most relevant and expert analysis & conclusions.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal: Tune in to Tiger

Tiger is not just another Rock ‘n’ Roll animal

 

Tiger is not just one of the coolest brands around, with an amazing assortment of quirky, original and beautifully designed products, but is embracing a holistic brand message through its involvement with world music.

 

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Always certain to surprise is a rich vein in the Tiger anatomy, now tapping into a selection of jazz, blues, world, classical and fusion music perfect for re-enforcing the uniqueness of this truly international brand. Roaming the world, collecting new admirers, opening stores, selling to customers of every culture, gathering inspiration, ideas and enthusiasm through colour, materials and now music.

Listen at leisure, download with pleasure , attend a Tiger concert – perfect ways to stay in tune with the most vibrant of brands.

 

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The brand played on.

Tiger Earns Its Stripes: The Cat In Search of the Cream of London

Natural survivors evolve and expand beyond their traditional habitats widening their historical distribution.

 

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Tiger, with its impulse offer and low prices, is thriving and turning up not only in secondary locations and low-rent backwaters but on some of the most expensive streets in London. After a trial in Tottenham Court Road, the Danish destination has opened its doors on Oxford Street, rubbing shoulders with value giants such as Primark and Sports Direct.

Rather than changing its spots, Tiger is earning its stripes converting the passing pedestrian in huge numbers, filling their baskets to overflowing with everything from drawing pins to rolling pins, toilet to paint brushes, dried spices to coconut ices.

But this stalker of the unsuspecting is no stranger to breaking convention, creating impulse assortment, creaming the easy sales, unburdened by the necessity to create unwieldy assortment widths, chasing choice that the modern shopper cannot cope with.

In common with cross-sector stars such as Lidl and Aldi buying narrow but buying smart is a formula that works both far and wide.

When it comes to choice there is currently only one winner in the urban jungle. Tiger takes its turn on the golden streets of London.

 

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Are you missing the easy sales, whilst chasing the hollow promise of choice?

Soho Alive & Kicking: The Jimi Hendrix Experience

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Soho returning to its roots as the 21st Century Jimi Hendrix experience returns to its streets, for a few weeks at least.

 

“People, Hell & Angels” is the latest and most authentic posthumous album from the 60’s guitar hero. And to launch the album a unique Pop-up shop has arrived just off Carnaby Street, in a music launch that captures the life & spirit of that bygone, psychadelic age.

The store is home to the entire Hendrix catalgoue collection, merchandise and memorabilia, but to really soak up the Hendrix experience visit the basement. Here Fender, the instrument of choice for the guitar great, has taken its home for 2 weeks, displaying its range of guitars, with hourly masterclasses on re-creating the Hendrix sound for any budding guitar greats.

A fitting tribute to Soho, and a fitting tribute to Hendrix, brought together again 50 years after.

 

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Monki Mania: Refreshing Fashion in a Stagnant Sea

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The sum is often bigger than the parts, although in the case of Monki it is the fascinating and intriguing parts that very much bring the Monki world to life.

 

On the one hand the carefully conceived store concepts from the Forgotten Forest where shoppers walk on a floor of flowers, becoming lost in the trees and discovering fashion gems in discarded tree trunks, through the distressed and decaying City of Oil & Steel where urban regneration is the setting for Monkis ethical clothing policies to the latest underworld extravaganza, fishing for fashion in a sea of Scallops.

On the other hand, personalities abound in the Monki magazine, from phsychic scandinavians and individual designers to fashionistas with a flair for cosmic thermodynamics.

Individuality is celebrated as a whole, and being different creates a glorious commonality.

 

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The Monki Puzzle: Selling in a Sea of Scallops

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Welcome to the wonderful & truly unique world of Monki.

Monki is a philosophy for life and style, brought to life, through conceptual store design, that encourages the individual to be – individual, true to themselves and not afraid to express their values through fashion.

Carnaby Street is the latest Monki incarnation based on an undersea world of decaying wrecks, sunken carousels, barnacled rigging, giant jellyfish and a myriad of underwater embellishments.

The fashion style is fun and free, encouraging shoppers to break the rules, be inspired by their senses and shop to their impulsive potential. Refreshing fashion in stagnant waters.

 

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Irregular Heartbeat: The Life & Soul of Footwear

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In the heart of Carnaby Street, at the centre of Soho is a footwear store that embodies and embraces the entrepreneurial spirit and ethos of excitement of the area like no other.

Irregular Choice will set the pulse racing of anyone on the prowl for individual and exciting footwear. 600 footwear ideas a year come from the creative mind of Dan Sullivan the inspiration and energy behind the brand.

The store embraces this individuality and breaks away from the blandness and banality of many footwear retailers, as sequined walls, iconic graphics, bold prints and patterned places create the perfect setting for ones mans vision of what fashion footwear should be.

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Try this for size!: “One Small step…Cool Haan”

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Classic New York Footwear Retailer Cole Haan bursts through the time-warp bubble with a cool as you like New Store concept in Smooth Soho.

 

Iconic imagery creates dramatic wall impact communicating the brands origins, whilst a stylised Subway Map adopts a tube line for each of Col Haan’s hero shoe designs. Low volume for high impact.

Clear the Classic Clutter for Style Stories that Stride the Decades.

 

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