House of Fraser, London

I was strangely drawn to this scheme at House of Fraser while perusing and flaneuring Oxford street here in London the other evening. Barbara Hulanicki must be 'kerchinging' this month from her haven in Miami whilst this brand promote London Fashion week from this one tiny window - and incidentally on the side of buses etc. Clearly this is a sign of bigger things to come but I just cant drag myself to google to find out what is going on out of sheer lethargy of the google lifestyle and Bing world that I find myself in. However, I do love the Black finish on these mannequins with their, just almost, Clockwork Orange eyelashes. It does look wonderful and the team here have done a fantastic job which I have great joy in sharing with you, however, I must admit that these 20th Century references to nostalgia bore me to tears. How often to we need to rake this stuff up, hey? If its not the 40's, its the 50's. If its not the 50's its the 60's. I know we live on an island but do we need to have the dull Cool, Rule (and all the other adjectives) Britannia mentality for much longer from which we seem to need to define ourselves? Can we just be British, creative and move forward (and supported in that please Prime Minister) and ultimately simply be confident and enjoy the country and world rather than be told by some populist dross glossy 'trend' glam rags that we should keep digging around in the past which clearly is where this stuff comes from?

Selfridges, London

I think Selfridges here in London has a new shoe department? OK well, judging from their latest scheme they clearly have. You have to admire the humour of this scheme from the ever creative team here. It is subtle in places and unashamedly and wonderfully brash in others. Based on popular nursery rhymes the scheme takes us on a journey of just about every combination and perspective to communicate this (they have a lot of windows). Movable parts, giant shoes, the old lady who lived in a shoe, Dorothy (or rather a friend of) in glittery bow tied flats screams from another window. If you pop along the side of the store there is an even greater treat of concept shoes that would make Lady Gaga salivate - maybe she already has these who knows. Anyway, in the tradition of department stores, from an historical perspective, one could stay all day here to enjoy the spectacle, so why don't you.

Louis Vuitton, London

We have all marvelled at the latest (and second) installation at the new Louis Vuitton store along Bond st. here in London, although have you been inside yet? An installation of vintage LV luggage, moving fixtures, digital staircases, hand painted luggage in a glass trunk, so limited in its production that you may possibly be the only person in the world to own one. While way, way out of my affordability - although that doesn't matter as this is what makes these things so special - it does create an incredibly exciting experience. On the first floor is the exhibition space with handmade Adel Rootstein mannequins, painstakingly produced and suspended in front of old style theatrical mirrors which reflect the spectacle around this site. The details, details, details. This site truly is extraordinary. A variety of figures and fixtures give each area its own personality and each delivering the perfect rhythm around the space which in turn are supported with Art installations that would rival the greatest international collections. Can you imagine the high street multiples producing something like this? Certainly not. We would never leave. I don't want to wish time away, however I cant wait for my next luxurious fix from this brand and to share it with you. Judging by the queue outside of this store recently, I guess others cant either. If you haven't been here yet, I can guarantee that you too will be mesmerised.

Craig Hewitt, Graphic and Digital Designer

Image Courtesy and Copyright Craig Hewitt

Image Courtesy and Copyright Craig Hewitt

With such apparent pressures to look good (and however we interpret what looking good actually means) that we must look thinner (the only thing my bum looks big in is underwear fashioned from dental floss – not that I’ve ever tried and please don’t try to visualise that), that we must look younger (or lie about it) is growing more and more within male communities. However, as we grow older perhaps the focus on looking 20 years old again clearly becomes an untouchable and obviously unobtainable concept? Well one would have thought so. Have you ever scanned the personal adverts at the back of newspapers or magazines and wondered who actually replied to any of them? Who were the people behind them writing this stuff and what kind of lives they lead? If anything we all have a view about it or at least maybe have wondered about it?
With the massive rise of internet dating and internet chat – with webcam too no less - we come ever closer to the ‘real thing’ that (possibly we think) we may be looking for. From a male perspective this is possibly less about browsing and scanning with a cursory glance and more about semi-feverish hunting – as males tend to do. What we often find of course is that the thrill of the hunt was far more exciting than the end result, leaving us to wonder why we ever spent so much time chasing ‘it’ in the first place (sound familiar?). What is particularly fascinating however is how the internet allows us to be whatever we want to be, whenever we want it, how we want it and so on. We can become the fantasy guy, the glossy magazine cover guy, the guy who can crack walnuts between his thighs, the guy with cruel eyes, the blonde stallion and all the other dreadful stereotypes. We can be the lawyer, the accountant, the Doctor, the astronaut, and whoever else we want to be, in cyber dating. This type of digital social interaction which is clearly not actually particularly sociable can perhaps be a sanctuary and haven for the deliberately creative, deftly crafted and often also demanding personal profile descriptions. That tiny blurred and grainy image of some 20 – 30 year old called ‘HornyandHot’ is perhaps more likely to be pasty and saggy skinned 70 year old Gerald, dog food tester rather than Pascal the sun kissed Parisian supermodel aged 25. Of course, that’s a massive generalisation which I have completely fabricated, there’s nothing wrong with 70 year old people who test dog food but don’t breathe near me please Gerald – oh you get the gist. However, it is perhaps fair to say that generally, we would prefer old age to creep up on us, rather than all over us (however old we are).
The designer, Craig Hewitt, explores these concepts and notions of misleading descriptions through his digital art works - portraits which unravel some of the extremes that people go to, to be perceived other than they actually are. Their agenda perhaps as Hewitt describes is “to be chosen, I’m Mr. Right”. Hewitt analyses the language of profiles and what each of us considers beautiful or otherwise. Hewitt’s subjects with their shiny, metallic surfaces begin their life as photographs taken by him or gleaned from personal profiles (with the owner’s permission of course) which then go through a process he has developed using filters and layering, adding and subtracting various visual elements until the final piece is created. What particularly interests Hewitt is what and who is actually behind these visuals. “It is, after all what is not said in personal profiles as much as what is that fascinates me”.
As a commercial application I find the concept particularly exciting. Whether the visuals are created within a three dimensional format within which product can be placed or whether the visuals themselves can be adapted to cover large areas of spaces and places and form focal points within spaces, I don’t know. As ever the only limitation here is our own imagination. Now, where's that dental floss, I need to fashion a little something for myself.

Image Courtesy and Copyright Craig Hewitt

Image Courtesy and Copyright Craig Hewitt

The Sting, London

The Sting here at Piccadilly Circus have been producing some interesting stuff recently. Their merchandise is a just a little like everyone else's on the high street, although their presentation is actually very vibrant, fun and very appealing to their target market. With such enormous window spaces to fill, there's no wonder large format graphics are being used. It would seem quite enviable to have this many windows to 'play' with although with the high volume turnover that this store must have, these would prove incredibly difficult and impractical to maintain. Still, there are some interesting bits within their scheme which are fun, such as the mannequins in the Grey high gloss finish with realistic faces. Each of the windows also have a variety of themes based around the various brands carried in the store.

Gucci, London

Gucci, London.

Fortnum and Mason, London

If you want to view quality of product presentation you can do no worse than look toward Fortnum and Mason here in London. With painstaking and meticulous detail these guys strive for excellence, achieving nothing less. Their current fantasy woodland scheme with church ruins, brick walls and trees carrying their exquisite product, out sized toadstools and mossy bases is their latest offering to the high street. I know how hard these guys work and I always look forward to capturing their schemes. This is a traditional style of presentation which requires absolute dedication - text book stuff really. Also, the skills and knowledge that these guys have are sadly dying with so many 'multiple' retailers on the high street producing out-of-the-manual-stuff, so if you want or need to know how to do this kind of work correctly with the same conviction and authority that these guys have then keep following them, and you cant go wrong.
Unfortunately, my images don't do this scheme justice, so if you can, swing by the store and have a look for yourself.

Fashion's Night out, London, 2010

After a whirlwind of an evening of stores to visit, images to capture and record, eavesdropping on all of the 'working-the-floor' excuses why someone from somewhere should be allowed into the store right now, polished Porche's, glittery Bentley's, security guards ten to the dozen, high heeled wannabees, hasbeens, neverwerebeens, oh you name it, they were all here tonight. Camera phones, pocket cameras, paparazzi, telescopic lenses, were in abundance. Cocktails, mocktails, juices and Champagne flowed all evening. I limited myself to the centre of town tonight even though my invitations stretched across the whole of the city although how many places can one realistically do? And so I limited myself to the places that I was interested in seeing for myself. Anyway, it was incredibly buzzing along Bond St. here in the centre of London for this amazing event. I wandered and weaved through the crowds and here are just a selection of some of the images. This was an incredibly exciting event and if you weren't there or couldn't get there, well maybe next time, for now enjoy the images.


Bluey Robinson playing at Nicole Farhi, London

Gary Wright and Sheila Teague at Teague and Wright - the nicest and friendliest people you could ever meet.

Tata Naka, London (there may be trouble ahead guys, get those scrubbing brushes out)

Kenzo, London

Michael Kors, London

Daks.......excellent, thank you Daks creative team

Lladro, London

I've always felt that this kind of merchandise is quite difficult to present well. Its small and detailed and ordinarily would have been placed within much smaller illuminated showcase environments in order to focus the viewers eye toward the piece in question, possibly with a glossy enlarged image behind it - although everyone does it so I would almost certainly avoid this. As Lladro along Piccadilly have quite an open space this does make their job very difficult, however there are a whole range of solutions which before now they have never seemed to have adopted. I was quite compelled to show this one to you as I do think this is actually a great solution to their perpetual presentation problem as it is clear they are not going to reduce the size of their fenestration to accommodate their merchandise - it would have been advisable to have done this in the first instance as the merchandise is simply lost in the volume of space they have. Here in the store Lladro have placed the merchandise on these - probably laser cut - cardboard 'environments' in bright Yellow. What this does of course is immediately draw us in to these tiny 'spaces'. Some of the cut outs have been flipped up although I cant quite work out what they actually are? This could have been a great opportunity to have created a kind of narrative using alternating flipped bits to either spell something, tell a story, information about the product, reveal a brand name.....the list goes on. Obviously this is quite an inexpensive scheme, but there were opportunities to have taken this a lot further than they have. I know a few things that I would have spelt out here for a bit of fun, including 'Lladro', of course.

Roberto Foddai, Photographer

Image Courtesy and Copyright Roberto Foddai

Image Courtesy and Copyright Roberto Foddai

Contemporary commercial spaces and places with ever (sadly) growing prevalence of homogenised multiples’ retail experiences, using a multitude of large format graphics in every combination one would care to mention seem more and more to be exploding images on to the high street of the latest ‘darling’ of the internet or the celebrity-turned-designer (I always wonder if they actually design anything at all – probably not?). Often so many contain unknown faces of people no-one has never heard of - although one feels one should know them - unless you happen to be fourteen years old (maybe I’m showing my age here). With this mass pollution of the high St., it seems an ever impossible task to suggest alternatives and overcome at least a little, the might of these global chain stores and the way that they present their product to us in and throughout their commercial spaces. If there isn’t a formula and it hasn’t been budgeted to the penny or dime then very few companies seem to want to know that there are in fact a multitude of opportunities yet to be explored. It seems an even greater task too, to wrench the creative process out of the hands of the number crunchers and uncreative marketing. Personally, I don’t actually care that my hair has got its mojo back – or that it lost it - although what little hair I do have left, I grew myself. No suburban Russians former locks are going to be glued to my mane of spun Gold thanks very much. And so it seems that, at least for now, we are destined to live here in large format and bland ‘Graphic land’ for some time yet.
However perhaps we can look beyond the latest glossy gossip rag promoting the latest nobody-who-has-ever-done-anything-significant rut that we find ourselves in and inject perhaps a little more thought and depth into the process?
With a little scratching below the surface and a quick trawl around the internet, a visit to an exhibition or gallery, one can find some real gems ‘in here’ and ‘out there’ and none more so than photographer Roberto Foddai. Foddai, of Sardinian origin has worked in London for well over a decade. I found him through pure serendipity and was immediately drawn to his work. With his series of images, such as Men Wearing Dresses (stick that in Prada’s windows why don’t you?) Despair, Strength, the Hitler series, and portraits of Catherine AD, Foddai explores a range of narratives developed through social story telling. Exploring the complex layers of what it means to be human, he unravels some of its complexities and opens a discussion for us to decide what we think rather than telling us what he thinks we should think. The areas which Foddai explores are initially perhaps seemingly a little confrontational, although this is very much from an intellectual rather than an aggressive perspective. He confronts and challenges, through Men wearing Dresses, for example, the whole essence of masculinity and what we perceive this to be. It is the emotional discomfort that Foddai captures in his images of these very masculine men photographed while wearing female apparel. New concepts for images are also developed through the product itself, most of which are found items or purchased second hand and therefore are already loaded with their own narratives and sense of journey before Foddai reinvents and challenges their original context and purpose while simultaneously capturing the outcome.
If we can persuade commercial monoliths to at least scratch a little beyond the latest reality television programme winner and/or adopt the kind thinking and working that Roberto Foddai does, surely we could all live with the pollution of the high street a little better? I’m not suggesting however that Topshop design dresses for men or that L'Oreal suddenly adopts images of a vulnerable Hitler, this would be a literal translation of Foddai’s work, however, with a little more thought, depth and selection of visuals surely this would make the high St. rather more interesting? In the meantime, c’mon then Hitler lets say it, "because we’re worth it".

http://robertofoddai.com/

Image Courtesy and Copyright Roberto Foddai

Image Courtesy and Copyright Roberto Foddai

Liberty, Fashion's Night Out

This week in London we can look forward to the events of Vogue's Fashion's night out. One thing I am particularly looking forward to seeing is the Manolo Blahnik Pop up store at Liberty here in London. Apparently Blahnik himself is also directing the Christmas scheme here which will be particularly interesting to see, and you can guarantee I'll be there to record it for you. I've only ever seen one Blahnik store which was in the Mall of Dubai in the worlds shopping mecca itself, although like many of the stores with big brand names in Dubai they are mostly franchises and the store wasn't particularly impressive although one has to wonder how much the man himself had to do with it (you can track back into the archives on the site to see some visuals of it) Anyway, with tonnes of events happening this week, I will be out with my camera to record what I can and share my images with you later this week. In the mean time swing by Liberty and have a look at the temporary store, I'll be there and I don't even buy this stuff, but we can all at least just enjoy the spectacle.

Max Mara, London

One of my favourite paintings in the world must be Jan Van Eycks, The Arnolfini Portrait, where the use of a convex mirror reflection in the background of the portrait reveal his (the painter) own presence. I do find mirrors within schemes a fascinating concept which have been enormously unexplored within retail design and visual merchandising. We, as viewers, are simultaneously captured elsewhere within the scheme in the mirrors reflection while the product acts as an instrument of imitation capturing the reality (at least in part). Our reflection ensures our participation within the scheme while being able to view the front and back of the fashion merchandise. This is the commercial angle. The perpetual image captured here at Max Mara with its intelligent use of tube lighting absolutely fascinates me. While figures are used as a reflection of oneself, here we have the addition of a mirror which also reflects us and thus ensures that we feel part of this scheme or at least a little more than we would have otherwise. If we feel included we are more likely to make a purchase. Interesting stuff. And we thought we were just looking at a box with a mirror in it.

Diesel, London

Steel Chains, paper chains, steel wigs. Diesel is probably one of the coolest multiples right now on the high street. Interesting and entertaining this scheme is their latest treat for us. Using the currently fashionable monochromatic tones with just a hint of colour in the form of accessories and / or props these figures look incredible. Their slightly disheveled Renaissance wigs placed on the heads of these Gray sprayed featureless mannequins are perfectly unkempt and work exceptionally well. How incredible that in this tiny space the creative have delivered so much. Testament that you don't need lavish schemes to have impact. Great.