Our Elevator Pitch

Jemima Kiss at The Guardian interviewed me recently, you can read the interview here.

And of course, her first paragraph of her story explains the radio silence - Dave and I have been at 2gether08 conducting social experiments with our friends at Qype.

I'll be posting more info over the weekend about the experiment and how it worked.

Stay tuned.

Welcome to the first Unchained Podcast

Oooh look at us getting all multimedia! First Lea posts a video of her being interviewed together with Rob from Qype and now I post our first podcast. You can listen to it right here using the player above. Or if you've got an iPod (or anything that plays enhanced MP4s) you can get the fancier version with pictures and stuff here.

So let me tell you a bit about the audio extravaganza we have for you. On Saturday I headed off to Crystal Palace with my daughter to go to a ‘love our shops’ day that had been organised by Annette from Vintage Hart. The day was absolutely fantastic with a lovely atmosphere and lots of activity. So, with the help of my eight year old sound engineer, I strolled around the area talking to shopowners and punters to see what they thought of it. And you can hear some of these amazing people on the podcast.

Here's a quick name check for the shopowners kind enough to talk to us:
Liz at Smash Bang Wallop
Jonathan at The Bookseller Crow on the Hill
Colin at Planta Health Foods
Annette at Vintage Hart
Andy at Bambinos

We're planning to do some more podcasts in the next few weeks. So please tell us what you think of this one and tell us if there's anything you think we should be featuring.

2gether08 here we come

Supporting small, local and excellent from David Wilcox on Vimeo.

I am really, really sorry (that we got caught)

The Guardian today reported that Primark has dumped its unethical suppliers in Asia. The clothing retailer said it "felt very let down" by the discovery that the clothing were sub-contracting embroidery work on dresses to child home workers.

You can read the full story here.

Now I hate to bring my cynicism our to play, but hey, we are talking child labour, £1 t-shirts and some of the gravest wrongs of this capitalist century. So, on that note, here goes:

Perhaps most interesting of all is the fact that the suppliers had been audited by the chain three times in the past year and half - clearly their audits aren't as thorough as the BBC's journalism. With these ills uncovered in such a public way, I guess Primark felt their usual way of dealing with such issues (i.e. "working with manufacturers to fix practices they don't like") would be a little inappropriate. Hear, hear.

Remember being a kid and doing something you'd been warned not to do? And then being caught red handed? Were you really sorry, or just sorry you were caught?

What do you think? And what of the other High St mammoths who - according to the article - are buying the same stuff and charging way more? Comments dear readers, send me your comments.

Thank you Qype and Tsuru

Our lovely friends at Qype invited us for a night of sushi and sake tasting on Wednesday night. Qype are great at taking all their site's virtual good vibes into the real world. Dave and I were chuffed to be part of it all and in such good company with Annie Mole, Mex, Chris & Hazel from Londonist, Niamh, Tim and of course, Rob and Sabrina from Qype.

Our destination was a little corner of Southwark, tucked behind the Tate. We arrived and found ourselves in a new development of offices and retail units. Now (if you allow me to jump on my soap box for just a moment), if there's one thing we hate at Unchained it's the property developers who think housing decent independent places in their granite, steel and glass creations is too risky. Bah to them. It seems that every new place being developed in this city brings with it a newfangled cocktail of homogenised dullness.

So imagine my relief when we found Tsuru nestled in amongst it all. For anyone thinking Japanese food consists of sushi and soba think again. Our hosts Tsuru restaurant with Akashi-Tai Sake Brewery created an evening of Japanese joy that would make the hardest amongst you melt. We enjoyed a 5 course feast with sake pairing. Take a look at the menu (with the paired sake in brackets):

Eadamame and cocktails (Kappa Saketini)
Carpaccio of Seabass (Daiginjo)
Roasted Aubergine (Honjozo)
Free-range chicken yakitori (Genmai Aged Sake)
Sushi platter (Honjozo Genshu)

Learning about sake was really interesting. My favourite story of the night is that of the Genmai Aged Sake. Apparently their first attempt at creating the sake wasn't very good. In fact, they completely forgot about their creation for a couple of years - allowing it to age in its cask. When they tasted their aged brew they realised they were on to a winner. I have to agree, it is definitely one of my new tipples of choice. If you'd like to sample some of this good stuff, visit drinkshop.com

To read the reviews on Qype click here.

Big love to Qype for the invite.

Heritage vs. Hangover. You tell me.

I love Savile Row.

The poise and innate elegance of the street. The unconscious pomposity of it. The refined, understated, good taste that reeks of equally good breeding. The very British-ness of it. I love, love, love Savile Row. And if I was a man -forgetting for a moment that I'd probably be a casually dressed man, just as I am a casually dressed woman - I would invest in Harris Tweed, made-to-measure, bespoke suits that flatter and flaunt like no other.

Savile Row has a heritage that spans hundreds of years, a privilege customer base, an infamous name, a desirable brand and more. Why then, dear reader, do you think they'd give two hoots that Abercrombie & Fitch were to become their neighbour?

Surely the jeans and T-shirt brigade were no threat to the quality craftsmen who have inhabited the row for centuries? Alas, 'tis not the case.

You see, independent tailors on Savile Row face the same issues all the other independent stores in London face. On a cultural level, there is a danger of lost heritage. A danger that Savile Row may be the next Fleet Street or Spitalfields, homogenised by big, multi-national business (as pointed out in the show). But also, on a more fundamental, tangible level, there is a direct correlation between big business moving in and rent moving up. And when you're in the business of luxury materials, hand-made to suit every single customer, profit margins are nothing like the massive American chain that now sits at the top of their road.

So I watched the show last night, gripped and passionate about all the wrongs in the world and prophesising about who should and shouldn't be given planning permission. When suddenly, I began to feel huge amounts of utter annoyance at the tailors.

Instead of being incredibly proud of their heritage and doing everything they can to keep Savile Row alive and relevant for new generations of British men, I found these men to be stuck in the rut of their own legacy, too proud to move with the times. One tailor boasted, "we employed a salesperson once... to keep people out of the shop".

"We never advertise", said another, as the horror music played and the camera panned the A&F billboards of naked young things. While another tailor never advertised in the UK, but was happy to exploit Savile Row's good name during visits to NYC to meet customers he'd attracted through advertising over there.

Here's the thing, if you're a tailor on Savile Row, it is your priveledge and responsibility to keep this most noble tradition alive. Patrick Grant of Norton and Sons seemed to have a more business-savvy approach to his A&F neighbours. Not only does he create bespoke pieces for the owner of the company, but he understood that all the kids shopping for jeans and t-shirts today may one day be in the market for his superior product. I had the pleasure of meeting Mister Grant a couple of months ago and knowing a bit about his story, I'm not surprised he's seeing the opportunity in the A&F arrival.

Savile Row is lucky. The street is already famed as the best place in the whole, wide world for a bespoke suit. I suspect though, that people know it as the place old, stuffy guys go to get suits made. Savile Row, the brand, needs to be re-positioned as the status item of this new century - though not through advertising (because that really wouldn't be right). The truly independent Savile Row tailors should come together and work to uniquely capitalise on all movements towards sustainable, responsible, luxurious products. But I guess, in order to do any of that they'd need to figure out which parts of their amazing legacy is heritage, and which is just hangover.

I'd love to know what you think. Did you see the show? Am I giving the tailors too much of a hard time? Should they keep schtum about themselves and only allow those who know, to know?

Crystal Palace - feeling the love

Everyone I meet these days - or so it seems - raves about SE19.

They tell stories of what great community spirit is, about how they've avoided gentrification and of course, they all talk about the dinosaurs.

Needless to say when Annette at Vintagehart offered to give me a guided tour of Crystal Palace's much-famed 'traingle' I was delighted. Finally, I got to see what all the fuss was about.

Having been on my tour and chatted to Annette about the joys of SE19, I'm pleased to say that I get it.

There's nothing obvious about Crystal Palace. It's not an obvious shopping destination (though it should be) and the shops themselves don't present themselves in an obvious way. The atmosphere is unique to the area and created by the residents and shopkeepers who all seem pleased to see each other.

There is a high concentration of lovely, unique independent shops, run by people like Annette who love what they sell and the people they sell to. The shops are great, funky and very stylish, and they're also very real and incredibly affordable (scarlily so when compared with what one might pay for the same products on Upper Street or Brick Lane).

It's no wonder designers, photographers, fashionistas and young families are all moving there. The only unfortunate by-product of its well earned popularity is the density of estate agents on the triangle. With their glossy sign-writing, carefully choreographed window-displays and faux charm, they're nothing at all like the wonderful shops they're lucky to be surrounded by.

As a real testament to the community spirit in Crystal Palace, the shopkeepers have arranged a day of all the best the area has to offer and more. I can't make it unfortunately, but Dave and Pedro will be there - be sure to say hello if you see them.


Of course, Annette's shop Vintagehart is now listed on the guide, as is Bookseller Crow on the Hill with Glitter and Twisted (a fab vintage home accessories store) to follow soon. Let me know which shops you love in Crystal Palace, I'd love to give them all the chance to shine.