Have you ever wanted a glass of champagne to welcome you to your favourite fashion shop, followed by a complimentary manicure or makeover? Then you should have been in London on Wednesday.
Wednesday night was party night for the fashion crowd in London. Many fashion retailers were putting on special events in their shop for this event organised by Vogue to promote retail sales. What better way to shop. It was really fun and there was such a buzz around the main shopping streets.
For fashion’s sake, I went along to as many of the events as possible. Here are some highlights:
Manolo Blahnik, the king of shoes was at his pop up shop in Liberty’s on Regent Street.
Selfridges had a Vivenne Westwood Shoe event and the Chanel counter was doing free manicures with their sold out nail varnish colours, their fabulous nail artists were doing a lovely camouflage design with 3 of the top colours.
Chanel Nail Varnish Particuliere - Camouflage design
Chanel were also doing mini makeovers and getting some glam photos taken in their photobooth.
South Molton Street was all abuzz with activity with so many shops in party mood. Browns had so many special edition dresses for sale in a special department (if you missed it, they are now all available in Brown’s Focus across the street.) The Hix collaboration of the food hut was to raise fund for a children’s charity.
Browns South Molton Street - Hix stand
On Bond Street, Anya Hindmarch was doing a photo competition with any one of the bags in the shop. The winning pic gets the bag chosen and there was a crazy photographer making people do the silliest poses and the queues were long. Anything for a designer handbag.
Drinks and canapes galore at Mulberry, mini makeovers in the basement and lots of beautiful people hanging around the shop upstairs. Sales were good as the smaller Alexa bag had sold out, even all the unusual colours like purple that was brought in especially for the event. No signs of recession here. Spotted Christina Ong and her husband Ong Beng Seng, owners of Mulberry and Giorgio Armani and other top fashion brands, wandering around incognito in the shop being totally ignored by staff who had no idea who they were.
At Smythsons, customers were ebign enticed with champagne and Primrose Bakery’s cupcakes and it was thronging. A few doors down, the Emporio Armani shop looked more like a night club with bouncers and velvet rope. The man himself, Giorgio, was making an appearance with Alexandra Shulman and various celebs.
Emporio Armani Shop Bond Street
There was a massive gaggle of papparazzi in front of the Burberry shop which was one of the main stops on the celebrity party circuit for the night.
AT Louis Vuitton, there was a massive queue for non invite holders to get in. Invitees were all seen clutching goodie bags but the plebs just got to enjoy the free drinks and everyone queued to get their pictures taken in 2 of the photobooths in the shop. There were so many gorgeous looking people in the shop as they seem to have invited all the male models in town.
Nicole Farhi was transformed into a French creperie for the night and there was a lovely cafe atmosphere in the shop.
Pixie Lott was spotted at the Juicy Couture shop on Bruton Street.
The biggest scrum of the night was at Stella McCartney’s shop on Bruton Street. I got trampled by the paparazzi just as Claudia Schiffer turned up. Gwyneth Paltrow was “hosting” the party there at the shop and the crowds outside were like that at a rock concert. Wild.
Claudia Schiffer at Stella McCartney's shop
The whole evening was really fun and there was such a buzz on the streets, thought not sure how good it was for sales. For PR, it was a homerun as the celeb pictures were on the front pages of tabloids the next day. Mark your calendars for next year’s event or you can sign up for on their site.
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