Archive for October 2005

Sen is a a new chain of stores from Hong Kong that are opening up in London. The stores offer a modern angle on traditional chinese medicine. We popped by at the weekend and took some cool photos and put them up on IF for subscribers.

IF <paid subscribers only>

Disney is planning to launch a new mobile company in the UK, the Times of London suggests. Headhunters have been approaching potential executives in a move that “apes” Disney’s initiative with Sprint.

We’ve all done it - had a few too many sherberts one night, then decided it’s a good idea to buy the pork pie being sold ebay which looks a little like yoda - well, apparently you were joining the ranks of many other BLOTO people…

BLOTO stands for Buying Loads Of Tat Online and has been coined in some research by Conchango.  They found that 7% of purchases online were made when ‘under the influence’ - only 7%?

“Customers will behave very differently when in the comfort of their own homes and ‘hidden’ behind the anonymity afforded by the Internet. This is underlined by the fact that many do it in a state of undress.”

NetImperative article link and image source

Simon and I have always been fans of Shoreditch and the surrounding environs. When we first ran the first iteration of PSFK (where Simon chose the colour ‘purple’!) we had an office above the Vibe Bar (quite a distraction).

Brick Lane was always vibrant - it a used to be an area of boutiques, Indian Stores, cafes and clubs. Venturing back into the area last Sunday, I saw a transformation – a move from vibrant to uber-vibrant. Walking from Liverpool Street station I found modern architecture twisted into the ancient Spitalfields market. Patisserie Valeris was here and the food chain S&M had a perfectly retro sausage and mash café.

Further inside Spitalfield Market, new concept stores mixed buffeted against flea market stores. Crossing Commercial Road I walked with the swarms of hipsters and pram-chair-prowlers down to Brick Lane. I passed the W+K office and found that the Truman Brewery had extended more of its property into retail and leisure space. The new Up Market is full of fashion stalls (Soo Lee from Portobello Market has a stall here too), and old empty spaces have been converted to bars. Retail spaces that were always empty a few years ago are now full with superb stores like Butchers Of Distinction.

Japanese, Italians and French mix with the don’t-call-us-cool Brits while the indigenous Bengali population watch the world change from their stores and curry houses. The area still seems to arguably have kept its edge. There were newer stores, yeah but catering to a population of creative folk that were already visiting or even living in the area. Some constants remain to keep the area’s charm. Rosa’s is still there where I used to get my eggy breakkie. Beigel Bakery still serves a nocturnal hunger.

But other signs remind you that you’re still in the inner city where folk from all walks of life rub shoulders. At @Coffee I just stopped a professional pick pocketing couple as they sat next hands by my jacket pocket. Further up Brick Lane a team of bike thieves stole a silver bike chained behind a parked silver police car and the sales assistant at the Butcher of Distinction couldn’t serve me when I returned as she was too busy removing two tops from underneath a shoplifters jumper.

Photos

On a recent TV show, British actor Stephen Fry discussed how his nephew replied ‘Book!’ when the actor gave him a PSP as a present. Book means cool. It comes from text messaging culture. When you type with predictive text on your mobile phone the word ‘cool’ the word ‘book’ first appears. Users should then flick through the list of possible words to get to ‘cool’. British youth appears to be avoiding the additional keystrokes and using the word ‘book’ instead.

In just over fifteen years, one third of households in the UK will be lived in by single people. A British government report suggests that 35% of households by 2021 will be inhabited by a sole occupant. The ramifications are huge on social policy, business and commerce and culture.

A new tartinerie restaurant has opened in Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship location overlooking New York’s Rockefeller Center.

Located on the women’s contemporary floor, this space has been designed to be multi-functional, so it can be used for special functions such as fashion shows and product launches.

The fresh, contemporary dining room look, by II BY IV Design (Toronto), features a soft white and lavender palette, “a bright and feminine backdrop for the live and ever-changing fashion show made up of the store’s chic customers themselves,” according to II BY IV’s Andrea Wilson.

Online Retailer Oki-Ni and teen fragrance Lynx have teamed together to create a customizable men’s scent this Christmas.

For 100 Euro’s a bottle, now men can have their own signature fragrance. After a personal consultation that identifies the creator’s personality traits, likes, dislikes and favorite smells, senior Parisien perfumers create a perfume profile which is later sent to Paris where the fragrance is perfected and polished. The whole process takes only one month!

Men are also invited to bring in their girl-friends who can assist in them in the fragrance-creation process.

(Via AgendaInc)

Colr Pickr is a supercool experimental application that come once again from Jim Bumgardner (of Coverpop fame). It uses a color palette and pictures from the Flickr group Color Fields (a collection of user-submitted photos each focusing on a single color) to allow you to retrieve pictures filled with any hue you’re looking for.