Forever 21 comes to the UK

Obviously I read other peoples blogs...and lots of them feature Forever 21.  The outfits they posted looked good and were priced cheaply, so I was jealous we didn't have them here in the UK.  I could have ordered online but it's just not the same so Forever 21 was shunned on my bookmarks until such a time that England was deemed worthy.  We took Topshop to America after all, it's only fair to share!

Now that time has come, hurrah!  Forever 21 have taken over a shop in Birmingham's Bull Ring, directly opposite H&M.  It was announced months ago but now the signs are up and everything.  My first thought was that it will be probably be like H&M...very good in the press, very shit in real life.  I mean, nothing H&M has featured in magazines is ever available in the stores.  Plus, they inevitably end up looking like a jumble sale.  Needless to say my brief excitement was replaced by nervous curiosity.  Any American readers want to tell me what we can expect from Forever 21 here in Birmingham?

 Images of Forever 21 Interiors from Blood Sweat and Fashion

London for mothers?

On Saturday I'll be having a mother daughter day (awww bless) journeying to London with my mom to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria.  I love London, especially when I'm not there for meetings, and so I can't wait to go as a tourist again...it's been well over six months since I've done that.  Too long.

So I asked my mom today what she'd like to see/do before the show: Harrods, Buckingham Palace, Towers of London, London Eye?  "I could do with a new summer coat.  Can we go to a few shops and have lunch?  I don't really know what's there."

Everything mom!  Everything is there!  My usual haunts of Topshop, Portobello Road and various markets will not suffice.  Please someone advise me where you're supposed to take your mother, who is not rich, to find a summer coat.  "Oxford Street" is too broad an answer.

Unique store design...at a butchers!

I'm not much of a meat eater.  I don't like the taste, the fattyness (not in terms of my own diet in terms of the chewy-factor) and I definitely don't like the smell or even the look of meat.  Basically I only eat chicken and only because if I eliminated this I'd have very little left to eat.  I'm picky.  Extremely.

Needless to say, I was amazed when The Cool Hunter highlighted a Sydney based butchers that actually makes meat look worth my time.  Victor Churchill's store utilises rich timber walls, marble flooring, refrigerated glass fronted copper cabinets and a ‘chook cam’ wall (a nod to the recent 2008 Fall Louis Vuitton window display, with multiple video cameras trained onto our daily special within a glass domed display pedestal).

Theatrically Victor Churchill's butchers slice and carve at timber block 'stages' and behind the glass fronted cooler where cuts of meat rotate for viewing purposes.  Of course, "the backdrop for all this is a Himalayan rock salt brick wall that infuses the hanging meat with flavor and sterilizes the air."  The designers (Dreamtime Australia Design) have thought everything through visually and practically...a far cry from the butchers in my village, from which the stench of meat permeates through the sliced plastic door curtain.  Nothing is hidden but nothing puts me off either.  This is reinventing the expected and it's what more brands should be doing!