Dorothy Perkins and Faith: time to bag a bargain

I don't think the mid-season sales this season have been anything to write home about, and the Dorothy Perkins sale seems like a prime example of this: with just four rails of sale clothes in the store (and this is the big Oxford street store) there was more sale jewellery available than there were sale clothes.

I really like the peachy flats (although at £20 the original price was only £25, so it's not a massive discount!) and there were some great earrings on the jewellery racks: I think the best bargains can be found if you're looking for new costume jewellery. In terms of the clothes, knitwear was well represented, and if you like Dorothy Perkins jeans you have the potential to pick up a pair very cheaply! There were also some lovely soft cullote type shorts in various colours and patterns: these were the best buy for wearing for the coming season, and came in at just £12.

On Friday the news was announced that Faith had gone into administration: the latest victim of the recession we're slowly coming out of, this is more bad news for the British high street. However in the short term it can be good news for your wardrobe and especially good news for your feet:

The window grandly declares discounts of 50%, however in reality there are only about 8 designs which have 50% off (their normal seasonal sale) The rest of the stock in the store has 10% off: this is still a decent discount if you were looking to buy new shoes anyway, but if not then my advice is to do what i'm doing: wait and see if the discounts get bigger!

I don't really need any new shoes, so i'm only buying them if they're an absolute bargain, however there are so really gorgeous sandals in store so it's definitely worth checking out if you need new season shoes! You have to do into the store though: because the store has gone into administration the website has been suspended.

Have a great day!

Tor xx

Should we all be spending more?

Friends, today I have an important message: Go out and spend, because the fashion editor is suffering!

This is the start of a press email I received last night: "Due to the financial downturn and the low number of designers and sponsors that have registered, it is with regret that the management of London Designers Fashion Show have decided to postpone the event scheduled for 22-23 August 2009 to February 2010, at The Royal Horticultural Hall, exact date and venue to be confirmed. "

I was supposed to be going to that! You're slowing spending means that lowly bloggers such as myself are missing out on catwalk shows and canapes! Damn your eyes!

It was inevitable I suppose. But it's still sad. For me, the moment I realised that the fashion industry was suffering as hard as any other was when I read that Christian Lacroix had gone under; the first time I went to Paris I saw a Christian Lacroix wedding dress and I promised myself I would have one when I got married. Lacroix had never been a viable business (I read somewhere that even in the good times they never turned a profit) but it's still frightening that a house hold name can tumble so dramatically; it's like the fashion equivilent of the crash of Woolworths.

Shopping in Edgeware yesterday I also noticed a big gaping hole where the bay trading used to be. It made me shudder. Our once glorious highstreets are starting to resemble ghost towns, and i'm frightened that if we let them sit in ruination for too long, they'll never be restored. I'm as bored as everyone else of talking about the recession, the credit crunch, the current financial climate, the economic downturn, the doom and gloom. But this stuff matters, even if it only penetrates your consciousness enough for you to notice that your favourite shop doesn't exist any more.

Pop up shops are being touted as a temporary solution: I went into a lovely pop up store in Brent Cross on Saturday. It launches new and under exposed brands to the UK, which I think is a great idea, and one that will be of particularly good news to young and up and coming designers.
But that's all they are- a very short term solution. If there isn't enough expendable money in circulation to keep our current stores afloat then I struggle to see how opening more stores is the answer to the problem.

I dont have any answers; I don't think anyone has answers that can solve all the problems.

Kate of Makedostyle wrote a fantastic article on Friday about disposable fashion and the importance of buying investment pieces. This made amazing sense. But I have the inkling that to drag our country back out of the mess we dumped it in, curbing our spending and changing our habits isn't the answer; the answer could well be to take advantage of the wonderful unprecidented sales that are all over the highstreet in a desperate bid to counteract the affect of slowed spending, and spend all your disposable income on a pretty dress or two, at a bargain price that you know you wouldn't have got last summer. Yes, as usual my answer to any problem is to shop; not on your credit cards, not at the expense of paying your bills. But just that bit of money you have left at the end of the week: buy something fabulous, take advantage of the weather and thow a party or a barbeque in your garden.

That way you get to have a good time looking amazing, and hopefully my calendar doesn't get any emptier as more events are cancelled! Damn all your eyes again!!

Love, Tor xx