Harvey Nichols, London

Welcome to the 21st Century.  We finally have a Valentines scheme from the ever talented team at Harvey Nichols (without a heart motif in sight - thankfully) that really celebrates the various sections of society that we are made up of.  We saw the incredible scheme at Maison LV with their Diwali installation which as far as I am aware is the first we have seen from a significantly powerful brand and here good old Harvey Nichols is at least nodding to the diverse community that we are.  The rest of the scheme is incredible too of course, but it really was worth showing this as these guys are now leading the way forward in 2011.  Amazing guys..! 

The Kooples, London / Paris

The launch of this brand has been quite incredible, almost appearing from no where to storming the retail scene and gracing every glossy magazine and just about every main high street and even the the side of a London bus.  It seems so new that their isn't even a wiki entry on this company yet.  Their website declares that  "The couples are The Kooples! Masculine/ Feminine". "The Kooples gathers its inspiration from the codes of rock, from music, but with its own signature traits that only truly belong in 2010" (I think someone forgot to update their website here). "It doesn’t matter if it’s night or day, if you’re wearing The Kooples it’s just plain chic".  We've had a quick scan over their merchandise and so far so good.  In fact we're going to swing by one of the stores this week to take a closer look.

Concept Boards, London

We couldn't resist showing you some of the new concept development that our M.A. Fashion buying students produced recently.  While of course Harvey Nichols by no means needs our help, the students were tasked to produce a new concept for 2011 simply as a means of idea generation.  This can of course be produced for just about any retailer, in here, out there or at least somewhere, but anyway,  here are the results.  While one of favourite stores in the world is Bergdorf Goodman, New York, the students were free to decide what they wanted to do and the direction in which they wished to take their schemes with only guidance from the brief we issued.  Our grateful thanks to Lycia, Tatjana and Amaya for allowing us to show you off.

Seen / Shown, London

Images Courtesy and Copyright Danny Letton

We came across this site on face book recently published by the ever talented Danny Letton.  Besides being probably the most talented stylist known to the commercial industries in the UK, he also produces these incredible images.  What makes these so special is that they were captured as seen on his travels with a mobile telephone - testament that one doesn't need highly specialised equipment to be creative.  We love the quality and honesty of these images and while they are still at the embryonic stage of development we cant wait to see what he does next. He has a whole range of stuff you can view at his face book site too, which can be found at:
http://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/SeenShown/178047442233255 

Koldo Esparza, Madrid

Images Courtesy and Copyright Koldo Esparza

We love the work of Koldo Esparza right now.  Koldo, a floral designer from Spain produces these incredible architectural installations for global brands such as Cartier, Stua, Loewe and here at Gunni and Trentino in Madrid.  There is something quite uplifting about flowers within interiors and we definately want to see more and more of this stuff.  If you want to have a look at some more of Koldo's work check out their website at http://koldoesparza.com/ 

Abercrombie and Fitch

Be afraid, be very afraid.  Aberzombie (our spelling) and Fitch is coming to Paris.  We don't normally include images of people in our images while capturing the zeitgeist,  but this one is simply to indicate the presence and scale of this bland (our spelling again). Are we really in need of yet another slice of Denim, another t-shirt or Rugby top surrounded with parlour palms?  We cant imagine that our readers actually love the crass-ness of brands like this.  Naturally this entry will appear in the global search engines and someones 'G' alert, however as blogs are all about influence......or possibly effluence......this entry about this brand is certainly about  the latter.    Of course even talking about it is influence itself, so what can we do?  We will just nod to the Aberzombies across the room all knowing and that you bought what you did and got hooked into the faux-ness of it all.    In the meantime, where are these lobotomy operations actually performed?

John Galliano, Paris

This was such a wonderful find here in Paris viewing the John Galliano store, and through pure serendipity too.  We've never seen a store of his anywhere else on our travels so this was a particular treat.  The styling of this merchandise is like no other retailer and really does communicate how talented this guy really is.  Using mannequins in a Silver chrome finish, cogs and wheels in vinyl placed on the fenestration, this store is stunning.  We particularly also like the newsprint furniture inside too.

Michel Cluizel, Paris

We know we will hear groans of horror when you hear this,  but at www.retailstorewindows.com towers, we're not massive fans of the ole' sugary, gooey stuff.  Yep, the old box of chocs. does nothing for us at all -  and we have a whole fridge full of the stuff sent from various readers from before Christmas and we just cant face eating any of it, save for the odd nibble around 4.00pm each day of course.  However, here at Michel Cluizel, we had a divine and spiritual experience and found ourselves chomping through many of  these delights.  OK, well the Chocolate fountain was given a wide berth, but how incredible does it look? And the packaging here beautifully presented is just as delicious and as the chocolates themselves - heaven.  The flavours, and the variety is staggering.  Our favourites are the little soft pieces of Lemon and Orange deftly dipped in South Americas finest cocao and arranged delicately in a repetition format on glass stands which was enough to convert anyone.  If you happen to be in Paris, please do and check out this brand.  Incredible.

Uno de 50, Paris

We had never seen this brand before walking the streets of Paris, although we were reliably informed that this is a Spanish jewellery brand.  We were particularly drawn, not by the windows here, but of the glimpse inside of this space with its repetition of these little bags on a raised plinth and suspended semi bust forms in, probably fibreglass.  We have to confess that we were a little dismissive of this brand as the name, which may sound cool in Spanish or any other language -  where it may just be meaningless - to us it sounded a little like a value retailer called "Under 50".  We have since seen some of the product which in fact is actually quite interesting.  Guess you cant judge a book by its cover after all?  Or can you?  Well, once they sort out their lighting i.e. illuminate their product evenly, and raise the product away from the floor in the windows, we may take a little more notice.  As it is, we nearly walked on by.  Luckily the door was left wide open in the bracing Paris winter cold and we got the shot below.  The website raised a little curly smile as it announces that it has limited edition (only 50 in the world, yes, that's right, only 50) eraser lamps and paint brushes stamped with Uno de 50.  Naturally we had to rush out and buy one - yeah that will be the one then.  Ya not quite LV yet, Uno de 50..!  (did you buy one?)

Laurent Debraux, Paris

Images Courtesy and Copyright Laurent Debraux

We love the work of Laurent Debraux here in Paris right now.  Born in Paris in 1965, Laurent worked initially  as software programmer before developing his kinetic sculptures in May 2010 for a neighbourhood event (open doors for Belleville’s artists workshops , Paris) purely for his own interest. However, after peer group encouragement, he decided to continue with the development of his work.

Laurent's work "aims are to transmit emotions by movement".  After all, "95% of communication between two people is non verbal" say Laurent, "and a lot of it passes by with very little perception of movement". What Laurent tries to recreate is an experience with minimal materials, in order for the viewer to see only the movement itself. Laurent confesses that he has no "talent to do beautiful things".  We disagree and can see all sorts of commercial applications for his incredible work.  If you have a scan on Youtube you can find all sorts of interesting videos of his work.  Really fascinating stuff, we think.

Louis Vuitton, Paris

We have to confess that we do love our, quite often these days, indulgence into the world of LV.  As these guys do such fun and interesting stuff, we are drawn to keep coming back to get our fix.  Here in Paris, in yet another one of their stores, LV, playing on the theme of travel, have included these fun bright Red bell boys popping out of their very desirable luggage placed underneath suspended and even more desirable bags.  As the backdrop we have a whole variety of hotel keys in a repetition format.  This scheme is so simple and allows our own imaginations to fill in any gaps.  As always, beautifully produced and great fun.

Lanvin, Paris

Strangely, Lanvin has always been very low on our radar although was suddenly rocketed last year to our attention when launching their new collection for H&M (or maybe rather for Ebay?).  Of course here in Paris, it is rather more cool and well known as one would expect.  Since it began in 1946 Lanvin has changed  hands on countless occasions.  One only has to input a cursory google search to see how incredible this brand really is.  We haven't had the time to have a good root around the inside of the store yet but we certainly are going to swing by the Saville row site once we get back to London.  In the meantime, their window schemes are great fun.  With men's and women's wear on opposite sides of the street here on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore the public become the models on the catwalk of the street.  High White gloss seated mannequins view the viewers through their dark glasses or enlarged eyelashes.  Fun stuff.

Hackett, London

Images Courtesy and Copyright http://www.harlequin-design.com/

We do love the visual presentation differentiation that this brand offers from the rest of the high street that, at least to us, currently just all looks the same particularly within this market range.  This installation by the creative team at Hackett in collaboration with the very cool Harlequin Design really does make this brand so much more interesting, desirable and we want a closer inspection.  Harlequin are "a design agency offering clients skills and services across a range of disciplines including Brand development, Retail, Print, Online and Marketing and PR solutions" have just completed this installation of moving cogs and vinyl letter form that gives this mid range brand a whole new feel.   We have enjoyed the fun narratives this brand have presented over the past year which are pitched at just the right level. In the meantime, do have a look at Harlequins site and see some of the projects that these guys have produced.  Fun, sensitive and absolutely right for the brands that they work with, what more could you ask?  http://www.harlequin-design.com/