River Island - New look store

Whilst in Reading this weekend, I noticed that our River Island store had had a refit, I imagine that this is the new look for all the River Island shops nationally. 

While on a trend spotting trip in Manchester it was apparent that the 'urban' look seemed quite popular in store displays. Bare brick/plaster, industrial style lighting, scaffolding were seen quite often, all of this was used in the new River Island store. 

It looks much better, there is more to look at when you enter the shop, a vast improvement on the previous white walls-no decor look. 

I would compare the look of the store to All SAINTS, as you walk into the shop it looks very similar, even the signage outside has been changed. Lights spelling out the store name... where have I seen that before? 

Inside Store

Outside Store

Fantastic Virgin Advert

On Saturday night most of the UK tuned in to watch the first of the live X Factor shows.

What really caught my attention was this advert by Virgin Airways during the first commercial break, it was relatively long at 1.30 but I was mesmerised by every second of it.

It screams James Bond, like the intro to one of the films. Its cool, smart, sexy and really stood out to me.

Hope you like it,

Gary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbib-A6NpW8

Interesting Link

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Space-Tourism-Success-After-Virgin-Galactics-Enterprise-Makes-Successful-Test-Flight/Article/201010215755888

X Factor - The Gamu Backlash (The Sun Oct 7th)

I had to admit that when I first read the article in The Sun regarding the threats Cheryl Cole has been receiving for her decision not to keep Gamu in the competition, I laughed, I laughed a lot.

The main bulk of the story was centred on the fact that that one 'angry' fan had sent a Blackberry Broadcast to 89 of his friends bragging the fact he had made threats towards Mrs Cole, and that she was so distressed about these events she drafted in specialist firms to up the security on her home.

Cheryl Cole is possibly the most famous person in the country at current, she apparently lives in a £3.5 million mansion and has homes overseas. When filming the shows she is always followed buy a group of burly men, ready to snap the necks of anyone that goes within 10 feet of her.

I agree the young man that made these threats went a bit over the top, but was she really that 'distressed' and 'freaked' out? All seems a bit too Max Clifford for me.

Also its worth mentioning, that even though this is a very serious matter The X Factor branding was piled on every page that the story ran on. Hmmmm