Leeds Retail Therapy Awards

This past Sunday we attended the Retail Therapy Awards at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. The show is now in it's sixth year and this year attracted almost 32,000 votes from the public on who are their favorite retailers in Leeds. The night has an intimate atmosphere as most of the retailers seemed to know each other. It was nice to see that when an award was given to a shop, the other stores will cheer for them.

This bond is really visible between the independent retailers. Check out the video above of Rose & Co giving their speech about the independent scene in Leeds (Rose & Co won best womenswear)

See the winners here

Clash of The Titans: Rebecca Charles & James Steward Showcase

Last week we attended 'Clash of the Titans' at the Rebecca Charles salon in Leeds. James and Rebecca are two of the most respected creatives in Leeds and it was great to see the two of them team up on this project.

The evening was an intimate affair where we had a look at some of Jame's designs from his Autumn / Winter 2010 collection. After an introduction from Sam Ward, Rebecca provided commentary on the season's latest hair trends as the models made their way downstairs and showcased some of the amazing designs from James.

We always love intimate events like this, it always feels more personal and exclusive and the evening created even more excitement about the 'Leeds in Vancouver' project that we are all looking forward to.

Leeds Street Style: 22/10/2010

Yasmin Rusell

Top: Topshop
Bottom: Pink Cadillac
Coat: Topshop
Shoes: Catwalk
Bag: Magic Vintage
Belt: Magic Vintage
Necklace: Magic Vintage
Earrings: Primark
Hair Accessories: Hand M
Tights/ Socks: Topshop

Yasmin's favorite Leeds clothes shop: Best Vintage
Describe the Leeds fashion scene in 1 word: Good

Jordan Lee

Top: Sixers jersey
Bottom: Upset Cream Jeans
Coat: American Apparel
Shoes: Vans
Belt: Shoe laces
Earrings: Stretchers

Jasmine Hassett

Top: Vivienne Westwood
Coat: Vivienne Westwood
Shoes: Vivienne Westwood
Ring: Vivienne Westwood

My Thoughts:

As a coolhunter, I find cool couples always catch my eye. Yasmin's style is very much on the street trend, I like how she uses many vintage accessories to complete her look. Jordan's outfit is interesting to me, I find it very rare to see people wearing basketball shirts in England. I also like Jordan used shoe laces as a belt. I found Jasmine in Victoria Quarter, she worked in Vivienne Westwood which was why she wore everything from the brand... so everything on her was fabulous!

Leeds Fashion Show

Photo by Shang Ting Peng and Stacey Hicken

Leeds Loves Shopping: Style House Thoughts

Friday, Day 1

The main highlight of the first day of the style house for us was the 'Vancouver Send Off' for Leeds designers heading out to showcase at Vancouver Fashion Week. Lee actually wrote a guest blog post for the Guardian Leeds about this here. From my point of view it was cool to see the room full of influential bloggers and fashion people in the city gathering to show support for the project.

Also earlier in the first day we have the SHE Magazine 'SHE DRESS-O-S'. During this show they gave us a few themes of this winter's look. They used high street brands to show how to re-create some of the catwalk trends we have seen for this season. This event is definitely for the public and everyone in the crowd seemed to enjoy it.

Saturday, Day 2

Saturday featured high street brands such as Harvey Nichols, GAP and Dr Martins.

Harvey Nichols used the event to showcase some of their more affordable brands and did so in an interesting way by using models of different sizes.

GAP put on an excellent show. Presented by their in-store staff, they showed ways to mix and match this winter for men, women and children. The presenters seemed to really know what they were talking about and spoke a lot about the way their clothes are made and the materials used, I found this interesting.

Before the event I had been looking forward to the Bobbi Brown show. It was a bit of a let-down. On stage we had two models being made up but they did not communicate very well how to apply the look yourself. This could of been a lot better.

Sunday, Day 3

On Sunday we stopped by the check out the How Bizaar show which focused on some of the brands and work coming out of Leeds Kirkgate Market. How Bizaar is an initiative set up to help and promote local design talent and give a platform for people to sell their work. The designers spoke about how shoppers can go into the market and be custom fitted and created together with the designer which is cool.

On a side note Lee and I spoke about the market a lot and from a fashion point of view, there are so many interesting things that could happen in there. If it focused on fabrics, buttons, and even some vintage it could begin to build a very interesting community and brand. We can see that there is the starting point for this, with some of the great fabric and haberdashery stalls already in the market, but there is even more potential to explore in this area.

Overall

The Style House was a good way for some of the brands and stores in Leeds to showcase to the public. It was nice to see people coming in from Briggate to see the shows. Looking around Leeds, lots of stores including Gap, Primark, Joy and others were displaying the Leeds Loves Shopping brand in the windows so in terms of visibility and interaction with the public this year was a good event.