Camilla's Store

Photos my friends sent me this week

2012-01-20T05:35:00.000-08:00

There's some life lessons right there. (via @ellen_tm_ and @kowchow)

The Instagram post

2012-01-14T01:35:00.000-08:00

Instagram - the photo sharing app - was one of the overnight successes of 2011. No sooner had users everywhere discovered the joy of snapping, filtering and sharing photographs of their daily lives, than big name brands like Burberry and H&M were signing up. Hell, even President Obama got in the game last week. And yet, despite the uptake, the app has remained small. It still has no online presence, preferring instead to release its API and allow others to make of the content what they will. Indeed, a friend remarked recently how Instamap had revealed loads of new users in his area - presumably as a result of getting an iPhone for Christmas.

Most interesting, perhaps, is how people are using the app amongst their other social platforms. For me, Instagram is to Twitter, what Vimeo is to YouTube; quality not quantity; all about the "ooh lovely!", not so much the LOLs. Twitter is quick-witted, fast-paced and brutal. Instagram is sedate, considered and subtle; real life but in sexy soft focus.

I purposely only follow a few people on Instagram (63), so my experience is somewhat limited. I'm also unusually protective of my privacy settings - aware of the fact that I'm posting photos of my actual life - not just tweeting from behind the curtain of Twitter. Mills from ustwo allegedly unfollows anyone posting more than two photos without filters, or of their kids, in a row. How's about them guidelines? I get a real kick out seeing the world through the eyes of the people I follow - the things they notice, the moments they capture, and all the little things that really matter to them.

Yet, despite the very simple purpose of the app, we are still hard wired to share thoughts and communicate in the form of words. As if we haven't got enough platforms requiring us to coherently string sentences together, I see example after example of the written word on Instagram; paragraphs from articles, headlines, and post-it notes. Maybe it's the tangibility of a typeface or handwriting that we're really missing on other platforms and which Instagram reinstates. Trapped in a world of fonts dictated by Apple, Google and Twitter, we are deprived of that extra layer of meaning provided by a serif, or the amusing quirk found in someone's scrawl.

On a final note @thekingmob posted a photo of a web page yesterday (below). Seeing this, the humble link suddenly looks like a modern day equivalent of the Internet dial-up tone. Why are we clicking meaningless lists of numbers and letters, when a visual has so much power? For now, I can't get my head around this photo at all. But I'm pretty certain it is of great significance.

A wishlist for 2012

2011-12-30T04:51:00.000-08:00

EARNED SUCCESS. BOUNDLESS ENERGY. ENTHUSIASM. EXCITEMENT. MOMENTS. SEA AIR. ALPINE HEIGHTS. DESERT SPACE. UNDISCOVERED CITIES. FLEETING ROUTINES IN NEW PLACES.

OPPORTUNITY. TRUST. BELIEF. BREAKTHROUGHS. WELCOME SOLITUDE. WARMTH OF FRIENDSHIP. HEAT OF LOVE. COOL AS CATS. RELENTLESS RESTLESSNESS. WORK WITH THE BEST. LEARN FROM THE GREATEST. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES. CHALLENGES THAT CHANGE ME. CURIOSITY. RICH NETWORKS. POWERFUL CONNECTIONS. PERFECTIONISM.

"SCRIBBLED, SECRET NOTE BOOKS IN WILD, TYPE WRITTEN PAGES FOR YOUR OWN JOY."

LOUD MUSIC. FANTASTIC FOOD. ROOM SERVICE. SHORTER SKIRTS. GOOD FEAR. ADRENALIN. CONSTANT FEEDS OF CREATIVITY. HUMAN INNOVATION. CLARITY. TRUTH. TIME TO LISTEN, THINK, CONSIDER. LETTING GO. SWITCHING OFF. RECOVERY.

LOST IN THE WORLD.

Absolutely Unfabulous

2011-12-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

Downton mania aside, one of the most anticipated shows in the festive TV schedule this year was the return of Absolutely Fabulous. As early as November, coverage of the forthcoming episode began to appear, and Jennifer Saunders joined Twitter as @ferrifrump. Fashion, celebrities, gossip and debauchery - not since the 90's have we seemed quite so obsessed with "Who's in, who's out, who's sexy, who's not sexy, who's clever, who's not clever". Clearly its creators, and the nation, felt like a contemporary institution was about to make a much welcomed comeback.

I was 10 when Ab Fab first aired, and - as a full-blown media brat - I instantly recognised the Edina "type" from the kind of people who regularly populated our family kitchen of a weekend, talking of Harvey Nic's, Bolly, and lunches at Bibendum in South Ken. It was that halcyon moment in the mid-90's, when the rich were rich, the supermodels really were super, and the "we live like this" generation properly came into their own. As Edina quips in Season 2, "what you can't tell about a person by what they have chosen you to see on their coffee table isn't worth knicker elastic". My parents and their friends laughed at Ab Fab, the same way my friends and I laugh now about Dalston Superstars; they could hardly bear to admit it, but it was funny because there were elements which were oh so true.

But Ab Fab had something more. It wasn't just a comic reflection or parody; like the very best comedy, it stayed one step ahead of its audience. At the risk of sounding hideously "industry", it was like a trend report in a show. From the clothes, to the brand references, to the interior design, Ab Fab seemed to be the zeitgeist, not just represent it. Even Mary Portas, then Head of Visual Merchandising at Harvey Nichols, understood the PR value in allowing Edina to park her car on the pavement outside the store. Where else on TV at that time, was the image of a modern, aspirational lifestyle available? Coronation Street wasn't exactly heaving with Brabantia bins, Emma Bridgewater porcelain and bottles of Aqualibre, now was it, darling? And let us never forget that Edina was adopting children "one in every colour, one in every room", long before the Jolie-Pitts got going.

So, what made me really sad about the latest episode, was the gaping hole where real cultural insight used to lie. Yes, there were jokes about Twitter and the Kardashians, but those were easy wins, and fairly obvious ones at that. The media industry has evolved from the 90's into an engorged, self-propogating monstrosity, simply heaving with do's and don'ts, ins and outs. How could the Ab Fab writers have failed to leverage the fertile comedy ground today's Edinas are currently stomping around on? You'd think twenty minutes spent swathed in a cape from APC, on a sun lounger at Babington House with an iPad in one hand, and a cup of flat white in the other should at least get them started.

DA3

2011-12-12T08:50:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday Matt Judge launched Design Assembly 3 - a printed compendium of archive material from the Design Assembly blog, plus additional new work created especially for the book. Having recently lost his father to cancer, Matt is giving 100% of profits from the sale of the book to three cancer charities globally, so stop reading this for a moment and buy it here NOW.

The launch party was held at Wolff Olins and was well attended by the Shoreditch Twitterati, and the who's who of graphic design. Check shirts, designer facial hair and a considerable amount of heavy drinking characterized an evening which truly celebrated all the love, hard work and effort contained within DA3.

I was very touched to be asked to contribute to the compendium and felt in very grown-up company alongside some of the luminaries of branding and design. Having written predominately in short-form online, to tackle 2,000 words for print felt like a bit of a mountain. Nevertheless, it was great to really dig deep into a subject knowing that it needed more permanence than a fleeting blog post. As a result, I ended up giving my inner geek an early Christmas present by really going to town on the power of data. A few of my colleagues from Moving Brands have also contributed to the book - Nick Jones, Jon Hewitt, Mat Heinl, and ex-colleagues Hector Pottie and Lisa Smith are also in there.

Tonight there's a slightly more low key event to promote the book - the Graphic Design Xmas Quiz. I don't own a check shirt, but I'm seriously hoping that three years in the design industry will have imbued me with more than a simple appreciation for some quality kerning.

Again… BUY THE BOOK! HERE.

VHS: Off the shelf

2011-12-07T13:23:00.001-08:00

When I was a kid, a friend of mine used to make me MTV mix tapes on VHS, because she felt bad that my family didn't have satellite TV. Anyway... enough of my deprived childhood. To capture the response to this tweet...

Thanks to Daniel Hutchinson (@danielhutch) for the links!

Swagger jumper

2011-11-29T12:13:00.001-08:00

Well, given that we’re now just hours away from being legally able to listen to Mariah’s “All I want for Christmas” on repeat for 25 days solid, I feel it is only appropriate to do a little round up of Christmas jumpers for 2011. To many, the Christmas jumper, is just a polyester novelty item suitable only for a cheap laugh and to retain one’s Christmas turkey meat sweats like some ill-conceived human boil in the bag experiment gone fatally arwy.

To others, like me, however, the Christmas jumper is an investment piece, a visual signifier that the festive season has begun, and an indication that we are soon to be playing Nat King Cole records, digging in to Fortnum & Mason’s hampers, and letting no wine go un-mulled. The Christmas jumper, Hanukkah sweater, Festive gilet, Crimbo knit... call it what you will is a key piece for December, and it seems the fash pack think similarly.

The reigning visionary auteur of the CJ is Ralph Lauren. Each year, their deep-pile chunky knit offering grows more complex. For 2011, Ralph steps into the realm of the Gothic, with a cheeky nod to Damien Hirst and Donnie Darko. Sultry and controversial. Love it.

Next up, a newcomer to the scene, Marcus Lupfer presents us with a kitsch stitch that wouldn’t look out of place on YouTube. Puppies, kittens and sequins, oh my!

Now, two CJ’s for the Mad Aunt in us all. Ideal attire for the annual sherry-fuelled family argument and a great kick-start to the Boxing Day migraine. Sonia Rykiel and Proenza Schouler.

And finally, if you insist on being the only hipster in the village, arriving home laden with Whole Foods bags, and little lovely things from Aesop, then this CJ will serve you well. Inspired by Nordic sea heroes, woven in Japan and native to Hoxton, it’s the clothing equivalent of a flat white.

Please send other super Christmas Jumper spots to me @CamillaStore. These aren’t just jumpers. These are Christmas jumpers.

Young Money

2011-11-27T09:39:00.001-08:00

Last night I spent a few hours propping up the bar at the BFI, soaking up the scene that is the onedotzero audio visual festival. I'm lucky enough to work alongside many uber-talented motion graphics people, some of whom were featured in the festival, such as Simon Jones' collaborative film project, Resonance, and "rising star" Sam Blain's In Dreams.

I also got chatting to a recent graduate Hannah Blackmore, who made this beautiful film which poignantly captures the silent extinguishing of traditional retail going unnoticed in middle-England.

The weird turn pro

2011-11-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

With all the buzz surrounding the release of The Rum Diary film, I've been imploring my friends to read the book before giving in to the visual delights of Johnny Depp. The novel, written when Hunter S. Thompson was still just a kid, is one of my greatest literary indulgences - a vivid depiction of anarchic escapism that I return to year after year.

I first read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was 16, sparking a near-feverish devouring of every bit of "Gonzo" and New Journalism I could get my hands on. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Armies of the Night, In Cold Blood, Hell's Angels, the articles of Tom Wolfe… after years spent wading through the tomes associated with English Literature GCSE, the realisation that writing could be this electric blew my teenage mind. But I didn't just want to write like Thompson, I wanted to think like him - to experience life through rolling eyes and be able to nail it still bleeding to the page.

I recently read Fear and Loathing in America - the collected letters of Thompson. From his long correspondences with friends, to stern notes to American Express, his gonzo style teeters constantly between powerfully charming and indiscriminately threatening. Across it all and most surprising, perhaps, is his organisation. With all the tales of drug abuse, politico baiting and cop taunting, it's easy to forget that Thompson was a highly successful and diligent journalist. Quite a lesson to writers who simply want to talk the talk; walking the walk, no matter how stumbling or crazed, takes a business-like dedication.

"Because what happens to anybody who gets into any kind of forced/regular writing is that he's bound to make a useless fool of himself now & then… and it's hard to set a price on that kind of reality."

Through all of Thompson's work runs his ability to overcome the most basic of human emotions, and one so raw in anyone attempting any form of creative endeavour - the fear of failure. Even at his most ranting, he possesses a self-belief which seems to transcend ego or arrogance. Incredibly, Thompson never fears or loathes his own opinion.

But while Thompson's journalistic style hugely inspires my own writing, he also stands - cigarette in one hand, gun in the other - on a great pedestal in my mind. In times of great stress or emotional turmoil, Thompson represents the promise of being able to go missing from one's own life, should circumstances dictate. As he wrote in The Rum Diary, "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who see it coming and jump aside". There's great comfort to be found in the notion that - for the price of an airline ticket and large bottle of Habana Libre, one can abandon one's grocery shopping in the Whole Foods car park, leave a message at home to let them know you've "gone to take care of matters", and simply "jump aside" somewhere where the rum is cheap and the sea stays warm late into the night. Hey, The Bible may work for some, but I sometimes need something a little stronger.

"PS - I'm definitely in a writing mood these days; the angst has come to a head - let's not blow it this time."

Back to my roots

2011-10-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

Just a gentle reminder to readers of Camilla's Store, that you can also find my brand ramblings over on the Moving Brands blog. This past week delivered lots to think and write about, and I found myself posting three blog posts up - a record number not seen since my early days as MB Marketing Manager when clients were just a by-word for left over pastries.

So, if you just can't get enough, do check out my look at how Whale Trail hit 40,000 app store downloads in 4 days, why the power of hashtags may now be greater than the dollar, and what happened when an 11 year old tried to imagine life without the internet.

Siri says...

2011-10-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

This past week, I spent quite a bit of time writing one of my longest articles yet on the future of technology (2,000 words biatches! But, more on that soon). In it, I talked about how exciting change is, and what a positive force it can be. On Wednesday, at a trend briefing by LS:N Global, I sat there shaking my head as they used the word "scary" over and over in the context of social networks and our digital lives online. In fearing the pace of change, we are no different to the Victorians opposed to the speed of steam engines. Technology and the progression of mankind are intertwined - each driving the other forward.

That said, however, the new ad from Apple (released on Friday) showcasing the Siri feature sent a chill down my spine. Compared to the warm, sentimental, intimate even, nature of the FaceTime ad of June 2010, this spot left me cold. And I had to ask, are we really getting to the point where we no longer talk to people on the phone, we just talk to the phone?

To be fair, I'm not condemning the technology. Intuitive, voice activated interfaces make perfect sense and I can imagine a number of situations in which Siri would be incredibly useful. It is Apple's depiction of user behaviour - the highlighted "consumer benefit" for which they are known to lead with - which I object to. Unlike the iMac, or iPod or iPad, Siri isn't positioned as being about freedom, fun, beauty or utility. What the ad, and copy like "Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back", suggests is that we are all ultimately alone in the world, attempting to communicate with computers.

I may argue that the evolution of human behaviour in line with technology is progress, but Apple's idea that a phone can replace some of the few people in your life who are there for you when you've locked yourself out, or need to get to a hospital, who listen to you and understand you, and who know how to help you with all the little things like packing for a trip and tying a bow tie... now that really is scary.

After Wes Anderson

2011-10-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

Massive new Internet crush on Alex Cornell. Today, his painfully funny app pastiche, jotly, blew up across Twitter. But, having scouted around on his website a little bit, the video I'm particularly loving is this one. Acutely observed and charming.

Letter from Havana: The land that brands forgot

2011-10-13T05:07:00.000-07:00

Ernest Hemingway, who made Havana his home for thirty years, once wrote that "you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another". I've spent enough time in enough places to know that this is largely true, but maybe it's not about getting away from yourself, maybe it's about getting away from who you feel you ought to be, who you're expected to be at 'home'.

As I write, I am in Havana - amidst the crumbling buildings, under the scorching Caribbean sun, and in the sunset of a Socialist regime. I came to Cuba expecting little more than some beautiful weather and a bit of a rest, but what I'm finding is a city reverberating with a style and strength so powerful, it's almost impossible to believe it operates under such political and economic restraints. Foremost, what Havana proves is that Western capitalist culture can be as much of a burden and limitation to society as any government regime. With no private enterprise and, therefore, no advertising, branding or publicity, Havana feels like a time capsule in the process of bursting free from its casing.

Yes, they may be driving cars from the 1950's, but they know how to fix a car and make it last. No, they may not have iPhones and Blackberries, but everywhere you look couples are flirting and canoodling - getting to know each other the old fashioned way. And no, the kids don't have Xbox or Wii, but they are bright-eyed and full of energy, making up games in the park without a constant parental fear of pedophiles and predators.

Most noticeable for me is the lack of brands. I'm both programmed and trained to read my surroundings based on the cultural signalling of brands. I, like most Westerners, rely on brands to confirm or contest my assumptions about people, places and things. Here, without my trusted way-finding system, I feel lost, vulnerable and uncertain. I have been stripped of the self created for me by the brands I interactive with in my daily life. It has been an enlightening challenge to make choices based on the things that really matter, not just on logos, typefaces and colour.

In our modern, capitalist world, we too readily trust brands to make our decisions for us. 'There's a Wholefoods on this street? Oh, I must be in a good neighbourhood'. 'That guy's pushing a Bugaboo? Well, soy my latte, I'm sold!' This afternoon I sat for lunch in a leafy square, where families cooed over their little ones, dogs chased each other barking, and a Cuban reggae band jammed together on a nearby bench. A small part of me initially felt nervous - without a landscape of corporate badging, how was I to know if the food was well-prepared, or if I was to be taken advantage of as a tourist. But I quickly realised that, here instincts and wisdom are what counts - when choosing a restaurant the smell from the kitchen, the demeanour of the staff and the mood of the patrons are all you have to go on. You have not only to trust them, but to trust yourself as well.

Moving from one place to another isn't about losing yourself, or finding yourself, or whatever it says in The Rough Guide. It's about accepting that, if the reflection of ourselves provided by brands and media is taken away, we remain. And if the Cuban people I've seen are anything to go by, we live on more vibrant than ever.

First wave

2011-09-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

This past week, I watched my 1,000th Twitter follower clock in. Sure, a huge proportion of those are bots, but many are real-life friends and colleagues, and people I've never met but hugely admire. Bizarrely, my 1,000th follower was Chris at Rizzo Tee's - the first person to ever comment on my blog back in 2008. Today Chris is a VP of Social Media - a job title which barely even existed when he and I briefly exchanged emails just one year after Twitter's debut at SXSW.

But it's not just me who's marking milestones. Another first generation blogger released her first book this week - Grace at Design Sponge. To my memory, Design Sponge was among the first blogs to really challenge print. When I first started reading her blog, I was working in a design studio which had a vast wall of carefully chronicled magazines spanning Elle Deco, Domino, Interiors, Wallpaper, Monocle and so on. But with Grace's daily postings, that wall quickly started to feel outdated and static. When Grace blogged about her fears over losing her job at Domino, neither she nor her readers could have anticipated the power and influence her blog would ultimately obtain.

Anyway, we know all about the "transformative power" of the internet, and I believe we are gradually arriving at the point where it's no longer seen as a separate conversation. But there really is something wonderful about hearing Grace Bonney say that she started her blog in 2004 "as a way to talk about the things that I love" and to see how far she's come today - through changes in her own life and changes in technology. Camilla's Store was started for exactly the same reason, and it remains one of my proudest and constantly evolving achievements. So, before I start to get too emo, thanks for the follows, thanks for reading, and here's to the next milestone whatever that may be.

GIFS are so hot right now

2011-09-11T02:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes nothing makes me happier - or more of a geek - than to see something bubble up and go mainstream. Working with a load of hipsters in Shoreditch obviously makes the challenge of spotting trends a little like shooting fish in a barrel - odds are that eventually one of their unique foibles will catch on. So, it is not with too much self-congratulation that I see the animated GIF style appear in Kanye West's new video "Marvin and Chardonnay".

Nevertheless, the GIF tag on my bookmarks has been steadily growing in examples since November 2010. Running almost concurrently with our ever decreasing attention spans, animated GIFs have been circulating via email and on Twitter more and more this year. In August, Fast Company even went so far as to call Animated GIFs an "art form" having featured Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg's fashionista "cinemagraphs" several months previously.

Photographs are too static, two-minute YouTube videos are too time consuming; somehow these bite-sized pieces of entertainment consisting sometimes of no more than a few frames, now represent just about all the visual stimulation we can handle. And now there's even an App for that.

Find your Ness

2011-08-31T15:01:00.000-07:00

Last week saw the launch of Ness to the App Store - a smart decision engine which takes your social feeds and helps you to decide where you want to eat that night. Moving forward, the technology can be applied to a range of "verticals" - from nightlife and shopping, to travel and movies.

Being a start-up - conceived, financed and developed by a young, bright team in Silicon Valley - Ness became the perfect client with whom to push the boundaries of strategic approach. It was exhilarating to work with people who represent both the beating heart and the future of technological innovation. On a personal level, Ness allowed me to put a lot of my additions to the MB digital offer into practice - embedding moving world thinking into the brand from the very beginning.

I also got to point charismatically at a lot of post-it notes.

You can read more about the app here and see the Moving Brands case study here.

2011-08-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Whatever/Whenever - The W brand

There's beach balls in the swimming pool, condoms in the mini-bar and a concierge service that promises to bring you "Whatever, Whenever" - the W Hotel really is a home away from home for the Executive Hipster. Working abroad in San Francisco means I occasionally have the good fortune (and good budgets) to stay there and they are true to their word. I once ordered fried chicken, hair straighteners and the original manuscript of The Rum Diary, and they had it to my door in under ten. Ok, maybe not the manuscript, but they're pretty bloody on it.

Aside from all the frills and fluff, The W makes for an interesting case study. They seem to have embraced the scope of a hotel brand, to truly "own" each touchpoint a guest (or potential guest) might encounter. The scent in the lifts, the textures of the soft furnishings, the music in the bar, even their own fashion magazine all add up to a 360 degree brand world which somehow makes sending work email from bed feel cool.

Two elements really stand out for me. First, is the genius copywriting found throughout your stay. The messaging acts as a written extension of their service offer - a little note under your water glass says "Why not?", their in-room massage is described as "In, Aah, and Out", and their porters wear t-shirts with "Ask me what's next" written on the back. Without sounding sycophantic, it's these tiny little moments which somehow transform what can be an isolating experience into a conversation. You may be alone in strange city, but someone's looking out for you. "Who wants eggs?" asks the in-room dining card. I do please!

The second element is their pairing with Bliss salons. Bliss was "the" spa and beauty product brand post-Millenium. With its soft blue packaging and charming product naming such as "FatGirl Slim", it was one of the quintessential touchy-feely brands to take us out of the minimalist 90's along with Innocent Smoothies and Carluccios. Today, Bliss is no Aesop, but its comfort clinical (comflinical?) tone puts you at ease, whilst somehow justifying a $200 massage. Bliss products are in all W bathrooms, and are often found in spa form down in the basement. Their similar messaging style and "I deserve it" clientele, make W and Bliss firm friends and a great example of a successful brand collaboration.

Working in branding it can sometimes be hard sit back and just enjoy a good brand at work, but The W is one I am always more than happy to let get on with it. Sometimes it's seeing the smoke and mirrors behind the magic which makes it all so much more impressive.

2011-07-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

App Watch

Can't give too much away just yet, but I highly recommend you sign up to get notified about the upcoming launch of Ness, "the first personal search engine based on your unique tastes".

http://signup.likeness.com/

Check out the TechCrunch article here and get involved.

2011-07-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

All the young dudes.

Taking a moment away from all the tech talk to get back to my roots with a post on fashion.

When my contemporaries and I were teenagers, we didn't have the Gossip Girls and Willow Smiths of today's world to look up to. In the mid-nineties, tweenage fashion was defined in three key moments: Cher's knee-high socks in Clueless, Ginger Spice's Union Jack dress at the Brit awards and Britney's school uniform in Baby One More Time. The last correlating directly to my parent's decision to send me to boarding school.

But before all that, and before Girl Power with its ghastly Buffalo boots and belly chains, there was one TV show setting the benchmark for post-grunge tween style. Blossom. Blossom was an American series which managed to combine important life lessons with some fashion statements even Carrie Bradshaw couldn't compete with. No other show before or since and been single-handedly responsible for the comeback of hats. Hats baby.

I recently found this interview with the costume designer on Blossom who explains how she mixed ethnic materials with vintage pieces to create a look that defined a generation.

Talking with my friends, its seems we are all in agreement that teenage fashion was not easy to come by in our youth. For those of us not into the pint-sized prostitute look peddled by the likes of Tammy Girl and Miss Selfridge (pre-overhaul), we had no choice but to be creative. Our response to a waif-like Kate Moss on the cover of Dazed & Confused, and the final days of Kurt Cobain manifested itself in Doc Marten's, slouch socks, floral leggings and our Dad's washed out denim shirts. Fashion inspiration didn't just come neatly packaged from celebrities and magazines, it was much more a reflection of our culture, our moods, music, art and movements.

To illustrate my point, I had a quick dig through the family albums. Having a photographer father means that my developing style - for good or bad - has been painstakingly documented. In the shots below - both from the mid-nineties - you'll see my fashion homages to both Nirvana and Pulp Fiction.

However odd us Nineties kids must have looked at times, I'm glad we didn't have our fashion fed to us quite as prescriptively as we seem to now. The grunge-y, ramshackle look not only gave us freedom to express ourselves as we pleased, but also allowed us to remain kids, if only for a couple more years. Covered in baggy tees and stomping around in DM's meant we didn't feel the pressure young girls must experience today of having the "perfect" Nicole Scherzinger body. We weren't about being "so hot you'd melt a popsicle", we came as we were. Fake boobs and botox? Ugh, as if!

2011-07-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

Life lesson from lady geek homegirl and Google exec - Marissa Mayer:

"She advises people pursuing careers in the high-tech industry, whether at startups or Fortune 500 firms, to consider four things when choosing between jobs:

"Work with the smartest people you can find, do something you're not ready to do, find an environment in which you're very comfortable so you can find your voice, and work for someone who believes in you -- because when they believe in you, they'll invest in you."

Via Huff Po's new "Women in Tech" section. Click here for full article.

2011-07-09T05:51:00.000-07:00

Portability. Mobility. Accesss

Despite the slight awkwardness of the interview, this chat with the Internet's wild child, Sean Parker, makes for interesting viewing. Parker's thoughts on his latest investment - Spotify - are especially insightful. For him, Spotify represents all his hopes and dreams for Napster made real. And, although he had to learn the hard way, time and experience have turned Parker into the ideal spokesperson and mentor for the new way to consume music legally and profitably for all concerned.

"We get the user building playlists… they accumulate a library… they get the song stuck in their head... Portability, mobility and access - that's the point where we monetise it". Lesson learned.

Speaking of Spotify, All Things Digital recently laid its hands on some of Spotify's US-oriented marketing materials. Not that it's going to need much push - the Americans have been salivating over Spotify for as long as us Brits have been pining for Netflix. Swapsies?

2011-07-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

The Power of Influence -or- What It Really Means To Get A Tweet From Ashton

In a recent article from the New York Times, Joe Fernandez CEO and co-founder of Klout said, “For the first time, we’re all on an even playing field... it’s not just how much money you have or what you look like. It’s what you say and how you say it.” And, for about 24 hours last week, I watched astounded as this came to life in front of me.

My last post reviewed A+ - the Twitter client from Ashton Kutcher and UberMedia. Just as the West Coast turned in for the night, and I jumped on the 67 bus into work, Ashton tweeted his thanks and appreciation for my review. My fellow bus passengers were totally freaked out by my screams of excitement. By the time I arrived at my desk, my blog had received 3,000 hits. At close of play on 22nd June the post had reached an amazing 8,000 views - up 7,900 on my usual daily visitors.

Now, let's calm down and do the math. Ashton has 7,075,316 followers on Twitter. Of those followers, about 0.1% clicked through to my blog. Amongst the 8,000 who read the post, 30 then followed me on Twitter. That's a fair downward slide in engagement - a key indicator of influence. So I got to wondering, just how influential is Ashton and about what, because despite being a key investor and consultant in tech, it seems his audience aren't a geeky lot - they aren't interested in blog posts about desktop apps. And, conversely, the key tech influencers don't appear to view Ashton as a hot source on tech news. In one Silicon Valley workshop I ran earlier this year, I was surprised when the client insisted on putting Ashton on the "We are not" board.

Ultimately, Ashton (and his wife Demi Moore) are known globally for their celebrity. For most of the world, Ashton is the dude from "Dude, Where's My Car" and Punk'd. He has fans - 7 million of whom follow him on Twitter. And, when it comes to his causes and charities, those followers are something powerful to leverage into action. Equally, for the execs behind Two and a Half Men, Ashton has both the star quality and dedicated following to drown out Sheen's incoherent rantings come the new season.

Having witnessed the power of "God-like" influence first-hand, I must agree with the NYT piece, "focus your digital presence on one or two areas of interest. Don’t be a generalist". Ashton's celebrity following prevents him from being a leading influencer in the very area of interest he is attempting to focus on, he is a victim of his own digital presence. All praise to him for starting Katalyst, his own digital media company, but if I were Ashton and really wanted to cultivate influence in tech? I'd start a side stream (@AKTech ??), get down and geeky, and aim to be the first person to get 1 million tech tweeters to take you off the "We are not board" and get on board with Ashton the media mogul.

Ashton's App

2011-06-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

For some time now I've been toying with the A.plus app - Ashton Kutcher's Twitter client which launched in late May. It was a brave move but one that not only cemented Ashton as leader of the Twitter flock, but also changed the game for branded apps. Writing about it further for a case study today at work, it really hit home how Ashton not only understands the needs and wants of Twitter users, but also their likely acceptance of branded content in return for intelligent interface.

Here's how it works. A.plus is a desktop Twitter client which splits into three key content areas. There's your personal Twitter stream and the ability not just to tweet, but also to quickly add links and @ mentions, as well as a slightly dubious "tweet shortening" tool. The tool basically removes vowels and makes for some pretty hideous tweets, but the sentiment is there. Secondly, there is the Live Preview. It's this which really sets the app above Tweetdeck et al - by clicking on a tweet in your stream, the Live Preview shows you the webpage/image/video right there in-app - no more new tabs and clicking back and forth. It's brilliant.

And in return for all this lovely previewing? Streaming content from Ashton world - updates from Ashton himself, his wife Demi Moore, his company Katalyst and his charity, DNA Foundation. Or, by scrolling through the channels listed above, further content from Ashton supported streams linked to Apps, the Arts, Campus Life and so on.

Ashton really is a clever bitch. A.plus has gone beyond hoping that people will actively seek out or notice tweets from brands - or in his case "Celebrities" - and positioned it right there next to your Twitter stream. As Twitter, and indeed other social networks, age and grow, the idea that your brand's voice will be heard through the noise just because you're good at tweeting is not a risk worth taking. What A.plus proves, is that if you have the insight on your audience to give them something they'll truly use - like a great Twitter client - then you have also created the opportunity and right to give your voice, your message priority. Genius.

2011-06-05T02:22:00.000-07:00

Check This: CheckThis

Online, there's nothing that says VIP like getting in early on a Beta. "Beta" is the testing period for new tech. It's usually limited-invite only, meaning only people close to the developers and their resulting network get a look in. And, if the product's good, there's really no greater way to build buzz than restricting availability to a few geeky influencers. Especially when those influencers are also doing the testing leg work to make it great ahead of mainstream launch. It's old school marketing in a new school sphere.

One new Beta I was invited to recently is CheckThis - "a beautifully simple publishing tool designed for the new web". At first, I couldn't work out the point of it - if I want to share content, I post it to my blog, or Twitter, or Facebook. So a week went by, and I forgot all about it. I had basically failed as a Beta tester.

But then something came up that made me want to make something - a little collection of content all in one place in a context of its own to be communicated just to the people I chose. And suddenly CheckThis had a point. Because we don't really sit down and write letters anymore, or make mix tapes as a way of connecting with people. To convey our state of mind, feelings and taste now we update, tweet and "Like". In front of everyone. It was time to find a corner of the web that could be personalised and shared, but shared quietly.

Meet checkthis from checkthis on Vimeo.

CheckThis allows you to create a unique webpage and easily add copy, images and video. The page can then not only be protected to just those with the link, but also set to expire after a day, a week, a month. An interesting feature in an age where we're all worrying about that Facebook update from 2008.

Makers can never really be sure how consumers are going to adopt their product into their lives, and that's why the Beta stage can change the whole direction of how that product is communicated on launch. I can imagine CheckThis generating a huge and loyal user base, but I would not be surprised if most of those users are protecting their pages. Saving a small part of themselves online for just one other person, not the networked whole.

ps. I have ONE invite for CheckThis left. Get in touch if you want in.

2011-05-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

"We focus on SEO keyword-rich, trend tracking that's had a lot of success on the mobile-to-mobile tablet based client side in the cloud-sourced integration field"

And, by the way, I've decided that were I ever to move to Silicon Valley and create a start-up consulting with start-ups, the over-inflated job title I would give myself would be...

"BAMF of SoLoMo Strat Jazzing"

And by BAMF, I mean Bad Ass Mutha Flippa. And by SoLoMo, I mean Social/Location/Mobile. And by Jazzing, I mean bringing the Tiger Blood.

One day... one day....

2011-05-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

(Wo)mandatory viewing

Just found this TED talk from Sheryl Sandberg over on the Watermark website and was absolutely blown away. While I usually shy away from anything with a glimmer of feminist debate about it, this talk speaks only to the value of balance for men and women both in the workplace and at home. Not only did Sandberg's words resonate with me as I push forward with my career and make my "place at the table", but her delivery and style also proved how impactful honed presentation skills can be. Brilliant.

2011-05-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

Appiquette

A code of behavior that delineates expectations for social networking behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, tweet-up, or Facebook group. The British word Appiquette, literally made up by Camilla in 2011.

Most of us are now accustomed to the modern table setting - knife, fork, phone (at home) or notepad, pen, laptop, phone (at work). The occasional glance at incoming emails, goes barely noticed by present company. But how are we managing the new wave in location-based social networking? At what point and with whom can one politely check-in on Foursquare, or ping out a Hashable? It's a modern conundrum.

I've noticed three distinct groups emerging.

The Social Show-Offs - The meeting itself will have been organised across so many different platforms, they both turn up late, made even later by the fact that they are texting and DM-ing each other as they approach. The restaurant will have been selected through Yelp, the location Google-mapped, photos from Foodspotting screen-grabbed and the event iCal-ed, and tweeted ad infinitum. Once actual IRL life contact has been made, both then sit in silence for the first 10 minutes updating, before spending the rest of the night looking at apps on each other's phones.

The Denier - This is the trickiest one of all. It's your friend with the Nokia N79, the one you love dearly but who probably still enjoys the occasional CD-Rom of a weekend. You don't want to get into a debate about how "expensive iPhones are, and what's the point anyway?", but equally, you are eating at that super-cool new restaurant and you need (NEED!) to create some content around it. Here, you have two options - keep filling their water glass and pray they go to the bathroom long enough for you to check-in and Instagram a shot of your food. Alternatively, you can re-consider your relationship - either with your friend or with your social media problem.

The Responsible Networker - This person knows just how pretentious all this checking-in business is, but isn't going to let that stop them becoming Mayor of Foursquare. Yes, they may choose meet up spots based on the social cache attached to it ("I'm at Shoreditch House with 5 others"/ "I'm at Heathrow Terminal 5"/ "I'm at The Infinite Loop, Cupertino". And yes, they may turn up 10 minutes early to guarantee some alone time with Facebook and the bar's free wi-fi. And though, once their companion arrives it's phones down and interacting in real-time, they may occasionally be caught in dreamland, wistfully composing a description of the night in 140 characters or less.

2011-05-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

@millsustwo: Do you believe 'social' influence will become a key asset going forward for 'individuals' to prosper from?

@Camillastore: Yes. Five reasons why...

1. Being a part of this "moving world". Achieving social influence represents a deep understanding of the nuances and mechanics of the world we live in today, namely one which blurs the line between online and offline. We are fast moving into a place where the relationships we nurture and protect in the digital world are as important and "real" as the ones in the physical world. Just as it is great to be around people who are socially comfortable, so it goes for people who behave engagingly online.

2. Thought leadership. Today, it's easy to share your passion with world - from a simple online portfolio, to a Vimeo channel, to blogging. It's when others pick up on that work and share it with their networks, that influence starts to be generated. It opens doors to other thought leaders in the same sphere and ignites conversation and debate. @millsustwo uses the word "prosper" - financial prosperity may be a by-product of influence, but social influencers prosper mainly through exchange of information and a strong eco-system.

3. Recruitment gold dust. It's exciting to find people who are both passionate about what they do and are great at it. For an employer, social influence is like a whole stack of letters of recommendation. If the people of the Internets are prepared to give the candidate their eyeballs and attention, then so might a client. For any employer, it's reassuring to know they're adding clout to their team and, if they play their cards right, potentially gain exposure to a new network themselves.

4. Going to market. Perhaps where influence as a key asset is most critical is for anyone working to bring a brand, product, service or personality to market. I'm so bored of hearing how "it's important to engage customers online", it's not "important", it's even beyond critical. It's pretty much the norm. That's not to say that it's the only way to reach your audience, the traditional components of the marketing mix are still powerful and relevant. But any brand working without "socially networked" people will be missing conversations, threats and opportunities.

5. SO hot right now. Overall, I think it's worth remembering that "social is so hot right now". Social and Apps - that's all anyone wants to talk about. Insinuate you've got a bit of social influence and they're throwing iPad 2s at you like there's no tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow and eventually everyone and every brand will feel a lot more comfortable operating in the social space. Social influence will still be a key asset, but in the same way being a "Team Player" or "Proficient in Microsoft Office" is today. It will be expected, a given. That said, the cream always rises to the top and the real influencers online will become ever more powerful, constantly turning the tide in 140 characters or less.

What do you think? Is social influence important for individuals? Please comment below or tweet us at @camillastore @millsustwo

The Sunday Times Social List

2011-05-15T01:44:00.000-07:00

These days, it's not often that you find something decently digital emerging from a traditional media outlet. And, when you do, it's generally from the stable of the big digital hitters, namely Wired, Fast Company and certain bits of The Guardian. But this morning, I noted a little tweet pointing to The Sunday Times Social List. A clear, well animated video succinctly explained what on earth this was all about and (despite the fact that it was not embedded from YouTube and, thereby shareable) I clicked on through.

After a simple set-up interface and a few nice infographics later, I was told I was a "Pioneer" and 129th on the Social List. Not bad for a Sunday morning with a cup of tea.

I'm interested to see how this develops. Unlike Wired's recent "Most Influential People in Tech" issue which was put together through investigative journalism (read nepotism and favouritism), this list seems to be growing out of real influence across the four key social networks - Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and LinkedIn. Even better, its success and failure will rely on the very people hopefully to be included in it. It's a win-win situation - The Sunday Times has their work done for them and meets the leading lights in Social, while social influencers get their clout verified.

It may not have the smug factor of The Rich List, but I'll be watching my ranking like a hawk! Come on Ashton, please RT me into the top ten!

2011-05-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

A wise investment

Very exciting news Camilla's Store readers (yes Mum, that means you!). I've decided to get my game face on about this site. What started in April 2008 as an outlet for my thoughts, has now become one of my most important assets. This blog has got me interviews, got me jobs, and helped me hone my craft as a blogger, writer and, ultimately, strategist. So it's time to give it its dues and show it some love.

My friend Ellen Turnill and her boyfriend Sam Putera are going to design and develop Camilla's Store 3.0 over on Wordpress. So watch this space and get ready for some BAMF upgrades!

2011-05-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

Kinder not-very-Suprised

Kinder Eggs clearly had no idea who they would be dealing with when they Kinder Surprised me with an Augmented Reality toy. The only related video I could find on YouTube was this one from the makers - Total Immersion.

Unlike these happy-go-lucky kids rocking out to a bit of Phoenix and enjoying the "Engaging Digital Experience", I was left struggling with a UI exclusively in Polish while waving a marker around. After trying several games (one of which required a different marker to the one in my egg, and another which filled a white screen with red dots), I finally ended up on one where you "bop" the characters in the corners with your head to win points. Fun times.

If I'm 27 and felt more than a little jealous of my friend cracking on with assembling a self-propelled boat, I can only imagine the frustrated tears of a child attempting to get this thing going. The Kinder Magic smacks of a bored creative team attempting to band-wagon on the "cool new thing" yet ultimately alienating the very digital instinctives they were trying to engage with. Kids today may be digitally savvy, but they are still kids - they won't love something just because it's on a computer, they will love it if it's simple, fun and - ideally - in a language they speak.

2011-04-28T01:45:00.000-07:00

Gay for Fey

Absolutely loved this hour long Q&A with Tina Fey at Google. Wonderful to see a funny, articulate and ambitious woman achieve so much well-deserved success.

And some sound advice on picking who you work with: "Never work with someone you wouldn't want to bump into outside the bathroom at 3 o'clock in the morning". Fact.

2011-04-25T06:19:00.000-07:00

David Armano - Media isn't Social

These days, not many YouTube videos are worth 16 minutes your time, but TED talks are always something special and this TEDx one is no exception. From how to avoid becoming an asshole online, to some pretty sweet and simple graphics on social media, Armano makes some good points.

One part which particularly resonated with me, was his chart on Planning and Improvising. As in life, successful brand strategy in today's world is based on both the ability to PLAN and the freedom to IMPROVISE. Setting guidelines for look, feel, tone of voice, messaging and so on are all vital for the core of a brand, but so too are the more flexible elements which allows the company to respond in real time to its environment.

Right now, social media is one way brands - and the people responsible for marketing them - are able to bring this flexibility to life. But, as Armano goes on to say, "Social media is this hot thing right now. Marketers tend to [go after the new thing] without fully understanding it and doing their homework, or really digesting what's changing." Finding ways to spot and integrate the new and the next, is just as important as being on top of what's hot now.

For a whole treasure trove of charts, graphs and continuums, check out Armano's Flickr set here.

And thanks to Mills at ustwo for Showyou-ing me this vid and disrupting my breakfast!

2011-04-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

This...

Just happened! *Puts on game face*

2011-04-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

20 Reasons...

Been thoroughly enjoying everyone's feedback to my "20 reasons not to date a digital strategist". Some very funny responses, including a few people who thought they were all very good reasons to date a strategist! Well, we try!

A couple more reasons have been added to the post, so have scroll and check them out. Meantime, thanks to @joesafiend for sending this Twitpic over today - very funny!

2011-04-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

OMFG!

20 Reasons Not To Date A Digital Strategist

2011-04-14T14:27:00.001-07:00

In response to 50 Reasons Not To Date a Graphic Designer...

20 REASONS NOT TO DATE A DIGITAL STRATEGIST

1. They won’t date you unless you are followed by someone who follows them
2. They only want to eat at places with Foursquare specials
3. They will live tweet your date. Even the third one!
4. They will start a Tumblr about your relationship, with supporting Twitter feed
5. They will try to send you naughty pics via Photoswap
6. They will introduce you to their friends via Hashable
7. Their idea of a gift is to get you in on the Beta of a new app
8. Their idea of sending flowers is to take a picture of some on Instagram and @ you
9. If you make a joke they will LOL
10. When you have sex they imagine Pete Cashmore
11. They saw the new viral video two weeks ago
12. If they had to choose between saving you or their iPhone from a burning building...
13. They crowdsource where you should go on holiday
14. They have no idea what’s going on in Libya, but will send you 5 videos of cats talking before breakfast
15. They dream in 140 characters or less
16. They still won’t let you shop in Gap because of the whole logo thing
17. They judge the seriousness of the relationship based on the number of platforms you are connected on
18. SXSW is just a chance for them to catch up with everyone they’ve ever slept with
19. When you don’t update your status on Facebook for more than a day they assume you are dead
20. When they #ff people, you only find out later they were Furiously F*cking them

.... 21. They call themselves "Digital Strategists"
.... 22. According to Mashable, "Active Twitter Users Have Shorter Relationships".

2011-04-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

Let me Showyou

Most of the time when people ask me what I do in my job everyday, my response is "I blog and I tweet". It's simpler than going into some in-depth explanation about brand strategy, and is far more effective in alienating people who do "real" jobs like saving lives and changing the world. As my friend used to say "It's PR, not ER".

Anyway, an app I did the brand strategy for launched yesterday, so I can finally reveal what I get up to during the week. Showyou is an app for the iPhone and iPad which gives people the fun of serendipitously discovering and sharing new videos via their social graph. The Twitter buzz today has described it as "Flipboard for videos".

You can check out the full case study for the project by clicking HERE.

It's still quite a new arena, but I'm really enjoying working on app brands for several reasons. Firstly, the clients are usually from a tech/digital background so they are well tuned in to the "moving world" and up for taking risks. Secondly, stand alone app companies are generally quite small, if not in start-up mode so you are working directly with the founders. It's their baby, they're really excited and you all want to get the best out of a branding exercise. And finally, app brands by their very nature give you room to think right up to the edge, if not off it. Living on a smart phone or tablet, apps can come to life visually, sonically, gesturally and socially - all amazing opportunities to create ownable, branded assets.

Showyou is an absolutely fabulous app. The designer on the team, Marian, and I spent practically a whole weekend passing the iPad between us, drifting through the 'infinite grid' of Showyou videos. I'm thrilled I got to be a part of how it came to life.

2011-04-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

Game Changing

I recently read that the Starbucks Mobile Card app has had over 3 million users, making Starbucks "the nation’s largest mobile payment network". Not Amex, not Visa, not Bank of America. Starbucks.

I also read that Google has set aside $100 million to pay for original programming across ten YouTube channels. Fox, CBS, HBO, ABC... looks like you're going to have a new network to contend with - one with in excess of 2 billion viewers per day. That's more than double the prime time viewing figures of all of the major U.S networks combined.

Ten years ago Nokia wouldn't have dreamt that their biggest competitor would be a computer brand. Just as a hundred years ago, Nokia couldn't have imagined moving from making rubber galoshes to mobile phones.

Brands know that competitors emerge from the most unlikely of places and, with today's incredible pace of change, they are doing it faster and harder. It seems if you don't own the platform, the device, or sell caffeinated drinks to Americans, then no industry is safe.

2011-04-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

I saw the best minds of my generation...

Picked up O - The Oprah Magazine at the airport this weekend. It's the poetry issue - Oprah shares her private journals, and there's "words that soothe, ideas that delight". For the most part, it's not a bad read. It's poetry lite or poetry for dummies, and I'm all for getting people into poetry at any level. But just when I started to think this could really impress me, I get to "Eight poets accessorized with snippets of their own verse - celebrate freedom of expression". One up-and-coming young poet has this byline:

"By day, Whited is the communications director for Schools That Can, an educational nonprofit; by night, she's working on publishing her first book of poems. "I write a lot about questioning the boundaries of self," she says. "I like experimenting with new things." Case in point: this suede miniskirt, shorter than Whited would normally wear but comfortably balanced by a long-sleeved oxford and cotton sweater."

I'm sure a pink suede miniskirt is precisely what Stephanie Ann Whited has in mind when writes. It's such a shame that Oprah couldn't get to the end of an issue without commercialising the heart out of it. And, without getting all feminist on ya, it points again to a greater issue with publishing. As women, magazines only offer us reasons to hate ourselves and feel ugly, unfit, unhealthy, poor and bereft of Jennifer Aniston's upper arms.

Wired and Fast Company (the other mags I picked up), however, are packed with men's advertising insinuating I am an interloper to these publications, yet they always leave me inspired and excited. You don't see 10 page spreads of "Tech's Hottest App Developers Programme Pool Side in 2011's hottest swim trends"!

Can't now decide if that's a good or bad thing. There's my feminism argument out of the window.

2011-03-26T17:51:00.000-07:00

The Art of Hotel Living

In art, literature, film and personalities I've always been drawn to doomed decadence. To me, the journey from having it all to having nothing is fascinating. Whether that "all" is money or talent or social standing, I am gripped by people's ability to waste it all in the most dramatic way.

Caravaggio's astounding painting and genius for capturing light was all set against an infamous backdrop of dead prostitutes, brawling and, eventually, exile. Gatsby had everything he wanted except the flashing green light at the end of East Egg where Daisy lived. The Tenenbaum children were prodigies, making them all flawed and flailing adults, unable to cope in the real, chaotic world. And Edie Sedgwick, raised riding horses in the bosom of a large, wealthy family wound up cast out of Warhol's Factory addicted to drugs and dead at 28.

Deviance, decadence, escapism, denial - these base and torturous human behaviours often manifest themselves in one particular place. A hotel. Since the invention of maid service, room service and the mini-bar, checking out of your life and into a hotel has firmly represented that all is not - or is about to be not - well. A person's state of mind must be considerably altered to find solice in arming oneself with just the bare essentials and take up residence in a hotel.

The Chelsea in New York has a long history of writers and artists in residence. Jack Kerouac wrote much of 'On the Road' there. Dennis Hopper met the man who would eventually produce 'Easy Rider' there. And Leonard Cohen wrote a song about it. More recently, The Chateau Marmont, temporary home to Hollywood's runaways, featured as the third character in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere". The audience quickly learned everything they needed to know about Johnny's character by his disconnected existence at the Hollywood hotel.

My friend Rosanna told me about Patti Smith's autobiography. Rosanna felt that Patti's stay at The Chelsea was more about looking cool than realising that people in hotels often produce great work because they are alone, lonely and without distractions. My friend went on to explain how she believed that "living in an impersonal space makes you want to create things that defines who you are, and express yourself".

As I enter my third week in a hotel, Rosanna's words resonated strongly. With the clothes in the wardrobe the only link to my real life, to myself even, I recognise the desire to define myself through creating things. Hence why this is one of the longer blog posts.

The Shakespeare & Co. bookshop in Paris embraces the traveller's need to create themselves out of a rut. As you roam the Narnia-esque bookshop, tiny enclaves holding typewriters and rudimentary bunks appear through the gloaming. Artists and writers passing through are welcome to a bed for the night so they can gather their thoughts and, possibly, their minds.

Bur perhaps my favourite study of hotel living is Wes Anderson's prologue to The Darjeeling Limited - 'Hotel Chevalier'. Natalie Portman's character tracks down Jason Schwartzman ordering grilled cheese in a Paris hotel room.

Portman: How long have you had this hotel room?
Schwartzman: I don't know.
Portman: More than a week?
Schwartzman: More than a week.
Portman: More than a month?
Schwartzman: More than a month.

Hotel Chevalier is the perfect capture not only of decayed love, but of the cathartic aloneness one finds at the other end of the world in a hotel bathrobe.

All photos by me, except the typewriter which I stole from here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deanno/3703658172/sizes/m/

2011-03-24T19:06:00.001-07:00

Stuff hipsters hate

Thanks to Instagram and Picnik, now you too can create emo hipster photos for your blog!

Speaking of emo hipsters - I'm thinking of moving this blog over to Tumblr. Anyone who
- Has a view on that
- Knows how to do it
- Wants to offer moral and emo support
...please get in touch.

2011-03-20T18:50:00.000-07:00

Letter from America: Third time's a charm.

I am back in fabulous San Francisco for a couple of weeks with work and, now clocking up a total of 3 months here since May of last year, it really does feel like a very nice home away from home.

On the work side, I'm here doing brand strategy for a super cool app with some very exciting technology behind it. As such, I had the opportunity to do a brand workshop from the client's Command HQ in Paolo Alto. Just south of SF, Paolo Alto is a sweet suburban enclave just riddled with tech start-ups. You can't buy a Soy Latte without overhearing someone discussing their latest round of VC funding.

The client's house is your classic American modern home pimped out to the nines with screens and servers. Every room has been re-purposed to house tech and engineering teams all "wired in" and making the future happen. For someone with a barely concealed Geek Fetish, such as myself, their place is pretty nerd-tastic. The app I'm working on has already launched in Beta, so watch this space to see how the project develops!

Outside of work, there is only really time to eat. So I have been hitting the breakfast, lunch and dinner scenes pretty hard. For breakfast, I can nip out of my hotel to The Ferry Building for a Bluebottle coffee with a goat's cheese and apricot jam sandwich. Lunches, grabbed from nearby South Park in the Soma district consist of "Super Tacos" from Mexico au Park, or a Jalapeno Popper from The American Grilled Cheese Company. And dinner has been anything from hipster pizza at Delfina, Lobster Po Boys at Anchor & Hope, posh fried chicken at Foreign Cinema and even a quick and dirty Burger from In "n" Out. Calories on location don't count, right?

And finally, in this travel journal-esque post, to note that I have just returned from a rather wonderful weekend in Napa. Carrie Bradshaw's response to Mr Big's announcement that he was moving to Wine Country was "If you're tired you take a nap-a, you don't move to Napa!". And how wrong she was. My friend and I left SF yesterday morning with bags under our eyes and full of work anxieties. After mucho vino and mucho lolling in the hot tub in the cool and pleasant rain, we drove back today feeling well-rested and ready for another week.

Working abroad has its downsides - jetlag, disorientation and feeling forced to pull the plug on your life at home. But they are far outweighed by the upsides - new sights, new friends, new experiences and - for those who find it hard to switch-off - the chance to have a change of scene while still showing up for work each day! Clearly Napa didn't quite get its hold on me, yet!

2011-03-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

How does Mr. Porter measure up?

Check out my piece on the Pitch Design blog now. Currently available log-in free! Click here.

2011-03-01T04:53:00.000-08:00

Checking out – a new buzz word or the answer to monetizing location-based social networking?

Last week I feverishly posted about Venmo’s new “check out” service without much pause for explanation or analysis. So now, in a slightly calmer state of mind and with a few days spent mulling over the benefits, I’m back with more.

Venmo is an app which “makes it fun and easy to pay and charge friends” and is currently only operational in the US. Venmo acts as a social payment platform by allowing people to exchange money using their phones. Users can then socialise that transaction by attaching a message to the payment and posting it to Twitter or Facebook. It’s this social element which builds unique user stories around purchases – every brand’s dream.

Last week Venmo announced an extra service, which allowed users to attach their location to their socialised transactions – a behaviour Venmo have termed “checking out”. To me, this is exceptionally exciting.

Retailers are already getting on board with the idea of rewarding customers who check-in to their stores and unlock badges associated with offers and deals. A couple of weeks ago, Foursquare launched the ‘Century Club’ badge for people checking in for 100 days on the trot at the same place – rewarding their most frequent and loyal customers. I’m assuming it’ll be coffee shops and delis who will win Century Clubbers – low value purchases which are part of a person’s daily routine.

For any retailer or brand, loyal customers are their bread and butter – a guaranteed flow of trusted consumers. But for retailers with a higher ticket price, or for those wishing to distinguish between frequent, low-spending customers and occasional, high-spending ones, Venmo Places will be right up their street.

In my first job out of university I worked as the wholesale manager for a small boutique food company. After a few months I noticed that I was spending most of my time liasing with, negotiating with, advising and managing a handful of small independent food stores who, together, contributed to just a fragment of yearly sales. Meanwhile, our biggest wholesale customers were being ignored – placing high orders but rarely given the time to be sold in on new products and up-sold on their monthly orders. Having recognized this, I developed a simplifyed order process for our smaller customers, which took the pain out of managing them, and in turn, gave me more time to focus on our more profitable customers.

This is exactly what Venmo Places can offer – visibility on who your most valuable customers are. Not just those routine-orientated Foursquare Mayors who will stop by and check-in every day regardless.

By seeing spend against check-ins, retailers can map tailored rewards to a broad range of customers. They will have invaluable insight on the customers who spend $4 a day every day for a year ($1,460p/a) deserving little treats, and the customers who come in once a month and drop $250 ($2,400p/a) and who, with a little bit more attention and incentivizing, might be upgraded to a bigger monthly spend. It’s business basics with a modern flair. Call me geeky, but that seems like pretty powerful stuff.

2011-02-24T03:25:00.000-08:00

Magazine apps fail to stack up (Via Design Week online)

For those of you without a Design Week log in - here's the copy from my vox pop on magazine apps. No copyright infringement intended

"At a time when print media is having to pull its socks up on the digital front, most magazine apps fail to stack up to their digitally-native competitors. The Net-à-Porter magazine looks great and is regularly updated with new fashion tips, but many of the things that an app interface offers have been neglected. It is not possible to ‘shop the look’ by tapping on certain elements, nor can you share pages to your social network or through email. It’s not even possible to pinch in to get a closer look at the clothes. With iPhones and Blackberries now as much as an accessory as a piece of tech, fashion magazines have a real opportunity to collaborate with brands to develop profitable apps that mix great editorial with the chance to share, comment and buy."

2011-02-21T04:49:00.001-08:00

Then I saw his face, now I’m a Belieber

Last night I went to see the Justin Bieber movie – Never Say Never. In 3D. Now, before you forever delete Camilla’s Store from your Google Reader, please give me a few paragraphs to explain myself.

I’ll admit, it just sounded like a fun thing to do with @celialikesbooks on a quiet Sunday night. But more importantly, as a digital strategist it’s important to know what’s going on with the kids (da kidz) and millions of hysterical teenage girls worldwide can’t be wrong.

Bieber may be a study in poorly managed ADHD but he is also a carefully curated, expertly executed, cross-platform brand who rose from a few YouTube videos to an 86 gig tour culminating in a sell-out show at Madison Square Gardens. There’s got to be some social media strategy lessons in there somewhere. And if they’re delivered in 3D, so much the better.

Firstly, The Bieb. He’s alright – ticks all the boxes of cute, non-threatening, triple threat youth dynamo. But it’s his team – consisting of Mom, grandparents, vocal coach, costume designer, manager and “jester” (their words, not mine) – who really run the show. This is pushy parenting taken to whole new levels, and you are left wondering whether stardom is an excellent outlet for Bieber’s effervescent energy, or a depressing theft of his youth.

In the film, Justin is joined on stage by other celebabies Myley Cyrus and Jaden Smith (“my papa is a guy named Will”), both of whom have an unnerving world-weariness. Poor Jaden only found out his parents had made the helicopter to NYC moments before he went on stage at The Garden. And to think I freaked out if I lost my mum in the supermarket.

Secondly, the film. I hate to admit it, but part of me feels it belongs in the “Films of our era” drawer along with The Social Network. It’s by no means as beautifully crafted, but it’s the first example of large-scale storytelling via YouTube videos, Twitter updates and comments sections I’ve seen.

Justin is the perfect product of the “Digital Instinctive” generation – discovered, followed, and loved by a dedicated online community. And he gives the love back – tweeting his fans to let them know how he’s feeling, giving away front row tickets to kids outside the venue, and regularly updating his YouTube diary. His hit “Baby” has had 468,497,309 views on YouTube. 21,665,394 people “like” him on Facebook”. And he has 7, 481,097 followers on Twitter. That is power. That is a massive slap in the face to any brand who thinks it doesn’t need to engage its customers – and most importantly its future customers – online.

You may not feel a slow-motion hair flick in 3D is an entirely necessary part of the cinema experience, but if you’re wanting a crash-course in the art of digital strategy driving both brand and comms, Bieber is your guy. Never say never.

Photo credit: @celialikesbooks - you keep me real.

2011-02-17T09:56:00.000-08:00

Sorry – not available in your country

I thought the days of being the odd kid no one wanted to play with were over. But no, turns out that just living in England can keep you out of the metaphorical sandpit of tech start-ups popping up Stateside. Already this year, I had to suffer the indignity of asking an American what The Daily app interface was like. Ok, it was the guy that designed it, but still.

And today I find out that app-based payment service, Venmo, has added an incredibly exciting feature which, you guessed it, “isn’t available in my country”. Sometimes I wonder why my ancestors couldn’t have just stayed on the boat from Russia for another couple of stops across the Atlantic. Show me the apps Granny!

Anyways, enough whining. Until I get the call from MB SF, I must live vicariously through Mashable and Fast Company. And that new Venmo feature? Location-based payment publishing.

“The Venmo apps for iPhone and Android make it super simple to settle the bill evenly (to the penny, if you like), and given the number of people that are using Venmo to split the bill when they go out, we have integrated with Foursquare and Facebook places to allow you to attach a location to every payment you make.

Venmo Places also makes it really easy to see how often and how much you are spending with your friends at your favorite spots.”

The money shot? This: “Plus, when you publish a payment tagged with a place, it’s a fun way to share your experience with any of your Facebook, Twitter, or Venmo friends who might not have been there. We like to think of it as the “check-out” followup to a Foursquare or Facebook “check-in.””

VERY exciting. Watch this space.

2011-02-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

New post now live on Eye Magazine blog. Click HERE.

Re-posted here...

The Self as Brand

I recently wrote a post on the Moving Brands blog about living in the era of the over-share, about how, with so many life-casting tools at our fingertips, we are able to share anything and everything as we go through our day. But just because we can, does it mean we do? Or do these platforms actually allow us to create a rich brand around who we really are by carefully curating and broadcasting a life that is, in fact, a slightly heightened version of the truth?

Most users probably don't think of themselves and their behaviours in terms of 'brand', but that is exactly what social media enables. Apart from those deviants and sociopaths, we've evolved from creating entirely new selves online - like the Barbie and Ken avatars on Second Life. Today, most of us have learned how to portray a pretty accurate interpretation of reality through who we follow, what we 'like', what links we share and the content we post.

As social networking platforms proliferate and the lines between our different selves (the work self, the friend self, the family self) blur and break, it is no wonder that we feel compelled to control how the online world sees us. We wouldn't go to a glamorous party in a pair of old pyjamas, so why would we project anything other than our best selves online?

http://www.howardgrey.com

Today I came across a blog with the mission statement 'This is a blog intended to trick strangers into thinking my life is more exciting than it actually is'. The blog may be called "Slutever…" but the author's frank admission is not so shocking. Who isn't guilty of de-tagging the odd Facebook photo to ensure we look cool, fun and attractive in every picture in our profile?

The location-based check-in services FourSquare and Facebook Places has added an interesting element to personal content curation. The privacy activists may well be concerned about broadcasting their exact location to strangers but, for the self publicist, there are bigger concerns at play, namely where to be "seen" online. The average Londoner could dutifully check in at their tube stop, their place of work and Pret a Manger day in day out, but what's aspirational or taste-making about that? Better, surely, only to check-in at the more exciting places. The places that tell your followers something about you and the kind of person you want to be seen as.

Furthermore, as we identify the self as 'brand' via our allegiances to brands, so companies are reflecting our choices back. More than ever, brands are listening and watching our moves online and rewarding their biggest advocates. From the people who start great Facebook fan pages, to those who become Mayor of their local Starbucks on Foursquare, brands are reaching out and giving them the tools to do the selling for them. As Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, said recently, - "What marketers have always been looking for is trying to get you to sell things to your friends".

From the Middle Eastern beads found in ancient burial sites in Suffolk, to the tribal people of Papua New Guinea using Pentel pens as nose decorations, to the young people of Berlin whose first goal, once the wall came down, was to eat a Big Mac, we have used trading, shopping and brands as a way to enlarge our sense of self. So, is this digital age turning us all into products? Or is it simply another platform on which to communicate a very basic human urge - self-expression? Are the selves that we can create and control online in fact more 'ourselves' than in real life?

2011-01-23T10:55:00.000-08:00

Shoreditch Beat Poetry.

For those of you missing out on the feted Project 10 circulation list, here is my contribution.

And So This is Christmas, And What Have You Done?

This year I learned that a film which makes your CEO look like a ruthless jerk can only make people love you more. I learned that in an age where we're obsessed with privacy, we're actually sharing more than ever. I learned how being on a horse changed advertising forever. I learned that having over a billion hits on YouTube means you don't have to worry about being in the charts. I learned that touchscreen devices can be beautiful. I learned that augmented reality still has some way to go. I learned that a new logo can divide opinion and that crowdsourcing in a crisis makes you look desperate. I learned it all first on Twitter.

I've blogged, tweeted, updated and checked-in. I've Googled it, Bing-ed it, Yahoo!-ed it and gone back to Googling. I swiped, pinched, tapped and flicked. Booted up, started up, switched on, signed in, accepted, allowed, downloaded, friended, followed and liked. I forwarded it, I tagged it, I attached keywords and uploaded it. I was always-on, on Skpye, on Twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, online. I declined, ignored and turned off. I was offline and IRL (in real life).

I did 14 hour days, 10 hour flights, 8 hour jet lags, made four 2 minute films, and wrote seven brand strategy documents. Gave two talks, got 5,000 followers across 3 Twitter accounts and posted over 200 blog entries. I ate my 5 a day, topped up my Oyster, got my Nectar points, paid my council tax, my mortgage, my phone bill, my gas bill, my water bill, my car insurance, my MOT, my parking permit, and waited 2 months to get broadband. I did coffee and lunch and dinner and drinks and networking and schmoozing and catch-ups and crits and conference calls and feedback and sign offs.

I bought clothes and shoes and accessories and apps and magazines and chocolate bars and stuff for my house and ingredients to cook and take-out so I didn't have to cook. I loved Mad Men and X Factor and 30 Rock and Glee and celebrity gossip and mexican food. And hated the cold and the dark and the early mornings. I saw my old friends and made new friends and worked with the best and fancied the wrong people.

I have been energetic and excited and hyperactive and inspired and nervous and frustrated and absolutely exhausted… and so this is Christmas and what have I done? I've done my best and my hardest and with focus and with passion and I've tried and I've failed and I've tried again and I've succeeded. And I'm bloody glad it's Christmas because I intend only to do two things til January… Eat. And Sleep.

2011-01-16T01:46:00.000-08:00

Checking into to Hauling

In this month's edition of UK Wired magazine, there is a fascinating article called "Commerce Gets Social - How Your Networks Are Driving What You Buy". The piece looks at different ways innovators and consumers are sharing their purchasing data. From Blippy - a site that lets you share your purchases and see what your friends are buying online, to Groupon - a location-orientated deal-of-the-day site, the race, according to Wired, "is on to monetise the social graph".

Furthermore, and in a move that made me feel like the Winklevoss twins to Wired's Zuckerberg, the piece went on to mention the phenomenon for "hauling". In low-fi YouTube videos, girls share their latest purchase, or hauls, with the world. Stars of hauling have earnt hundreds of thousands of views and lucrative promotional deals. Not so low-fi now.

History tells us that technological advancement and consumer behaviour will continue to evolve. So, can we hypothesise on a potential future based on the evidence around us? We are already hardened "We Live Like This" consumers - surrounding ourselves with the brands, products, services and content which seem best to convey who we are and what we like. This brand-orientated peacocking while pretty normal to us, is instinctive to the digital generation. The 'Like' button is testament to that. Combine this with the new behaviour of "checking in" and something interesting presents itself.

In 2010 alone we went from tentatively checking in to locations on Foursquare in January, to happily checking in to TV shows on Get Glue in December. The fast pace of technology is shortening the distance between the absurd and the mundane. So, what if we can start 'checking in' to products? What if "hauling" goes beyond bedroom videos and onto the highstreet? The scope is huge - from checking in to a new purchase to detailing entire outfit.

So, what data sets could we be sharing with our friends, our network and the brands themselves?
Our username
Our location (place and time)
Our context (captions and comments)
Our spending habits (how much we spent, what partner brands we are pairing alongside)
And the exact moment all the brand's marketing efforts translate into a purchase. That's kind of exciting.

Struggling within the confines of "You are not "creative" therefore you may not have In Design installed" as set by the MB IT department, I have attempted to visualise how this future might look. See below.

Maybe checking it to all this data will prove too much. Maybe registering our every move will render us stationary, but - as Wired states - "The new generation want to scream from the mountaintops what they've bought, and to the largest audience" this hypothesis may not be too far from the truth. Time will tell.

2011-01-13T11:51:00.001-08:00

Gleeful

It's been tough, but I somehow struggled through the past few months since the close of Glee Season One. And now, just as January began to defeat me, Glee has triumphantly returned to our screens. And not a moment too soon.

But this post is not simply an excuse to get #Glee into the old keyword search (if I was in that game, I'd write about Justin Bieber's Facebook page). No, I want to write about their recent cast addition - Charice aka Sunshine.

It turns out Charice and her mind-blowing vocals came to the show via internet viral stardom. According to her Wikipedia page, young Charice notched up an impressive 13 million YouTube hits in 2007, winning her spots on Ellen, Good Morning America and even Oprah (I'm really clocking up those keywords!)

So why Glee? And why my fascination? Well, Glee more or less paved the way for "consume what you see TV" - as the songs rolled out, their iPhone toting, click-happy tween fanbase could immediately jump on iTunes and get downloading. And that almost inaudible sound in the background? That is the sound of easy money. Glee's previously unknown cast became Triple Threat cash machines overnight.

And when it came to gearing up for Season Two, what lessons had they learned?
1. Tweens love Glee
2. Tweens love the Internet
3. Tweens have the attention deficit capability to love both at the same time

The solution? Book the biggest thing on the Internet pronto. Sadly Beiber, Double Rainbow Guy and David had been lost to pre-pubescent anarchy, Microsoft and the dentist respectively. Charice (and her millions-strong fan base) it had to be. Genius. With her at the helm, and guest appearances from Britney and Gwyneth Paltrow this season is going to be a whole world of good.

Now, did I mention Bieber enough to get him in the tweet out for this post?

2011-01-03T05:49:00.001-08:00

Why?

Had a bit of a shifty around Westbourne Grove yesterday checking out the sales. And I was amused by the gratuitous and largely pointless use of iPads throughout the stores. In Aubin & Wills, I was smugly told that I could order those black velvet shorts "through the iPad" - wow! In Matches, a sales assistant seemed simply to be rocking the iPad as part of a carefully thought out S/S2011 outfit. And, in All Saints (below) the place was practically riddled with the little things. At every turn, Italian tourists were desperately trying to check Facebook, as elder shoppers looked on in awe. Fascinating.

2010-12-31T08:18:00.000-08:00

New Year's Resolutions for 2011

If my bulging Google Reader list is anything to go by, then it seems 2011 cannot begin without a few goals and resolutions set down. One of Fast Company's bloggers already posted this, citing "Associating". "Observing", Experimenting", "Questioning and "Networking" amongst the key attributes for an innovative 2011. My past resolutions have ranged from the practical ("Get a job I love") to the absurd ("Be more slutty") to the conceptual ("Hedonistic Anarchy"), so what will I choose for 2011?

___

Staying ahead of the curve is certainly a priority. 2010 was the year when being a bit of a geek became mainstream. The most unlikely of my friends started using Twitter and my Mum got an iPad. Suddenly knowing a bit of basic HTML and talking about apps was not so unusual. In desperate bids to be bleeding edge, I found myself shunning YouTube videos older than a few days, I refused to go see Avatar, and practically passed out with excitement by getting the two minute screen grab of the Gap Logo Facebook announcement. As we approach the new year, I'm wondering how I can cure this digital paranoia. Well, fact is, innovation is a fast paced game - unless you are glued round the clock to various feeds, missing things is part of life. And, if you can't be there for the start of something special, I can at least strive to say something special about it.
Resolution 1: If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes.

Linked closely to my previous comment, 2011 needs also to be about unchaining myself from both my desk and my devices. Many of the serendipitous and inspirational moments in my life have taken place when out and about. Before my iPhone, I'd sit on the bus, the tube or in a pavement cafe and watch the world go by - seeing trends emerge, overhearing conversations and watching life unfold. The mobile phone has replaced the cigarette as our tool for being alone in public. And, while definitely better for our lungs, it is removing us from the present moment. Our digital lives are so filtered and personalised according to settings and preferences, we cannot possibly access this kind of circumstantial chaos via our phones, nor do I really want to.
Resolution 2: iPhone, therefore I am not in the moment.

Finally, and perhaps more personally, I would like to find strength in 2011. Having an opinion takes conviction, writing it down for the benefit of your peers, your clients and even the world takes strength. If I am to become the best at what I do - and that is the plan - I will need to discover the strength to really go for what I believe. To do this, I will need to continuously educate myself by asking questions, learn from the best and be open to everything. I'll need to stop hiding behind my laptop screen and get over the fact that I'm usually the youngest, only lady in the room at client meetings. On this front, I'm afraid daily aphorisms will not cut it. Killer heels, however, probably will.
Resolution 3: Dress to kill it.

2010-12-24T05:42:00.000-08:00

2010 Round Up - The sites, ads, products, services and people that stood out from the noise this year.

Geek crushes

2010 was the year that made geeks hot - largely due to films like The Social Network, Tron and Inception. It was also the year where I spent 10 weeks in San Francisco - home of the nerds. They had me at "tech start-up". Swoon.

Dennis Crowley/ Foursquare

Mark Zuckerberg/ Facebook

Case study examples

Every digital strategy document I write is obviously tailored to the client, but these campaigns somehow kept sneaking in every time. Why? They pushed boundaries, made the most of the medium and enthralled audiences.

Old Spice/ Real-time YouTube video responses to tweets. Hilarious and genius - W&K becomes the hottest agency on the block.

Square/ The new way to pay took the iPad from a big, beautiful iPhone to a functional piece of kit.

MySpace/ Coming hot on the heels of the Gap logo fiasco, the new MySpace logo gave control back to its users, accepting that people want things their way and becoming the visual manifestation of this personalisation trend.... If MySpace was on Facebook, I'd "like" it

Straight talking

Sometimes it's refreshing just to read something in plain English - no "cross-channel multiplatform social media communication plans" bullshit.

The Man Repeller/ Fashion blog about the clothes that repel men. Also introduced the concept of a 'lady boner' to the mainstream.

A Bajillion hits/ Jacking your strat, jacking my lady boner.

Noah Stokes/ This website is so old school it's epic. Who needs HTML5 when you've got it all laid out in primary colours and no bullshit.

Digital life

If, like me, you can't start your day without that surge of serotonin caused by the arrival of an email, then you'll be relying on a heady mix of tools and services to get you through the day.

Google Reader/ Is there a greater feeling for the digitally addicted than over 200 unread articles?

Cross-platform syncing/ Personally, I like living in a world where I can check in using Foursquare and know that the fact that i just walked into a pub will be published across all my social networking sites for my adoring and ever alert 'friends' to comment upon. #don'tbelieveyourownGoogleAlerts

And finally, some of the stuff to watch out for in 2011...

Whipping your hair becomes a cultural phenomenon. I'm doing right now, as I type.

Check-in culture will get out of control, as we start checking in to TV, films and books.

And, finally... cool ad man says, "What?"

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

2010-12-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

The Nell arrives

Yesterday a little bit of magic happened, which saw the completion of a project that had been in the pipe line for a little while. Guy Wolstenholme - one of the founders of Moving Brands - is also an incredibly talented furniture designer. He has made pieces for his home, as well as all the tables for the MB Zurich studio. Video below.

When I told Guy I was looking for a dining table for my new place, he very kindly offered to design it for me. This is the original render...

Then the designs were sent as a CAD file to CNC Workshop in London Fields... This is the single sheet the table was cut from.

And the parts were cut out using a 3 Axis CNC Router... Those are the legs

And that's Guy's logo...

We then drove through the snow to my place and sanded the sharp edges...

And, just two hours later, assembled it all. Guy designed it so no glue is required - the pieces slot together simply.

Presenting: The 'Nell' Dining Table...

Isn't she a beauty?

2010-12-10T04:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2010 update

Following yesterday's post, two friends got in touch with these beauties.

First a jew-tastic LV menorah... oy vay!

And secondly, for the staunch Christmas jumper fanatics, I present this roll-neck, deep knit Ralph Lauren number. Amazing.

Thanks to @celialikesbooks and Bantin - still at the cutting edge of fashion even from Afghanistan!

2010-12-09T06:41:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2010

With the Spotify Christmas tune list growing larger each day, it seems only appropriate to post my top three festively themed items spotted so far...

First up, I'm loving this Christmas jumper inspired tee. Perfect for avoiding the meat sweats after a large lunch.

Then, as a bacon-sarnie munching, Christmas loving, only-in-it-for-the-chicken-soup jewish princess, this tree feels so right, even when it's a little bit wrong.

And finally, as an accessory to my "countryside" fantasy where I'm striding through snow-flecked woods clad in silver Hunters and a black patent Barbour (one day the Country Alliance will catch up with fashion!), this Porsche sledge. Eat your heart out Rosebud!

2010-11-29T09:49:00.000-08:00

Three things I'm loving… and it's only Monday!

1. The Evening Standard
Yes, this little Fame Whore got another slice of the action in tonight's Standard on the subject of snow in fashion. According to me, "snow lay flat on the ground in the Nineties". Don't understand? no, neither do I. Oh well.

2. PhotoSwap
Next time the chat dwindles in a group-outing scenario, whip this baby out. Take a picture, get one back. What could be more fun? Oh, I know… visually abusing people who send you penis photos, that's what. Fun times.

3. Krrb
The "commerce enabler". Are you an arty, hipster-type living in a pocket of urban cool? Why not connect with your neighbors by selling, swapping and giving away trinkets? Another lovely example of the online going offline.

2010-11-25T06:41:00.000-08:00

Digital strategy explained

For anyone not quite clear on what it is I do everyday, here's a little insight.

digital ninja from moon stuff on Vimeo.

...time to re-train I think!

2010-11-16T05:55:00.000-08:00

Current affairs

For all those of you who missed my shameless bragging across platforms (on and offline, I'll have you know), I was pleased as punch to be quoted in last night's Evening Standard.

Ok, so the piece was on the topic of designer raisins, but we've all got to start somewhere. News Night… I'm waiting for my call!

2010-11-14T06:56:00.000-08:00

Molotov Jukebox launch their first single

My old friend Nat and her band Molotov Jukebox launched their first single at Cargo on Wednesday night and it is a goodie! Nat is one of those people who has been a star since she could first hold a microphone - and it's great to see her become a part of such a class act that is Molotov Jukebox. They absolutely kill it live and have just released their first official epic and sexalicious music video here...

Go! Please tweet it, blog it, buy it!!

2010-11-11T06:21:00.000-08:00

Neglect

Oompht! How time does pass! As someone who is incredibly condescending of "Dead" blogs, I am ruthlessly negligent of tending to this one. I guess the unfortunate demise of various guinea-pigs, rabbits and hamsters in my youth are indicative of that.

Anyways, a little update and boast to say that I was asked to contribute to the latest edition of Eye Magazine in a piece they did on iPad apps. I was honoured to be asked and it is great to be in print as well as their blog - even if it does mean I can't link to it!! ...Seems odd writing a piece about iPad apps which you can't read on an iPad.

Speaking of which, I've been gathering a few iPad vids together this week and here's one great one and one awkward and weird one. Enjoy!

2010-10-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

Help them, help you

What happens to brands when the sun never sets online? How can they possibly manage an audience that comes on and offline with the turn of the earth? The Gap Logo 'event' unfolded over four days, but with Brits, New Yorkers and West Coasters all waking up and weighing in every 6 hours, there could be no respite, no time for Gap to gather their thoughts and work out what to do. Exhausted and defeated, they wound up retracting and apologizing - letting more people down than if they'd come back fighting.

By the same token, Foursquare had an unfortunate outage which no doubt gave Facebook Places an unprecedented boost and marked the end of the era when we were happy just to show up someplace without broadcasting it.

Maybe, however, check-in services will be the salvation for brands. As people check into emotions and feelings as well as places, events, products and services, brands will be able to get a hold on what's really going on out there. People feeling angry after lunch in Manchester? Say something funny or wait till 6pm. Everyone jumped up in Austin - give them somewhere to let off some steam.

Powerful global brands of the future will be able to monitor their worldwide audience in real-time via a range of new techniques and advanced date visualization. Brands will discover a broad visibility which allows them to respond and react to their customers on a minute to minute, nation to nation, moving world basis. Big Brother really is watching you now.

2010-10-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

The long journey

So, I'm back in San Francisco with Moving Brands. I'm here doing strategy work for our new US clients, as well as to attend the launch of a new brand we created the identity for. You can see their new website here.

This is my 7th week in SF for 2010 - it's great to have the opportunity to really get inside a city and lose the tourist feeling. The MB studio is based in SOMA - a Shoreditch type area downtown of the main city centre. From the studio you can see the Bay on one side and West SF on the other. The famous fog literally rolls in and out depending on the wind direction - either plunging the city into clouds, or revealing that crisp Californian sunshine.

Gertrude Stein apparently said that "Wherever you go, you meet yourself" and, though in many ways she is quite right, getting away from it all also gives you the space to come to terms with the big changes and mentally grow into the 'you' you have become.

When I was growing up my Dad spent many months away on location. To me, his trips only represented the tan and presents he returned home with. Now, I know what he experienced - the exhilaration of travel and working abroad but also the jet lag and the boring nights in with room service. I wouldn't change these experiences for anything and feel like I have worked hard to get these opportunities. My Dad had a family to get back to - but apart from friends, I am gloriously free to skip town and try something new for a while.

One of my friends from the London studio arrives tomorrow and I can't wait to show him around and have a pal to enjoy the city with. From the buzzy, hippy Mission district to posh shops on Fillmore, San Francisco is a fabulous, fabulous place to be. I just hope I can get back to Stokey by Christmas!!

2010-09-15T06:12:00.001-07:00

She Decos

Well, work is nearly finished on the S&M Barbie Palace in Stoke Newington. The white goods have arrived, the paint colours have been chosen and the new floor is ready to go down. Time now, to start thinking about what's going to go IN it!

As a girl geek, I'm entranced by this QR code wallpaper. How cool to link to my latest thoughts, to-do notes and inspirations simply by holding up my iPhone!

Lighting-wise, the designers around me have been whipped up into a frenzy over the Plumen Bulb Loop - an aesthetically sensitive response to the energy-saving light bulb. Gorgeous.

Plumen Bulb Loop from Plumen on Vimeo.

Lastly, I must give a nod to the new Ikea viral which launched last week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one moggy crawled into my oven and is going to come live with me!

Check back soon for the Design Sponge orientated "sneak peek" shots. Work with me here, Grace!

2010-09-09T01:43:00.000-07:00

Fashion Night Out 2010

Last night my friends and I struck a pose and catwalked it over to Vogue's Fashion Night Out. Conduit and Bond Street were packed to the shearling gills with uber-fashionistas rocking every look imaginable.

We tottered down Conduit street, passing an over-crowded Kurt Geiger, to check out the crowds outside Armani. Skinny celebs kept turning up to a flash of paparazzi camera's making for an interesting scene of cool-looking passers-by watching well-dressed paps and bloggers watching fashioned-out D listers. Such is the hierarchy of the fashion world.

Mulberry was by far the most fun place of the night - with cocktails for everyone, a prize draw and loud, loud pop music. Everyone was happy, the staff were jolly to everyone and the bags were gorgeous. Over at Matthew Williamson, the man was welcoming - clearly enjoying the assembled masses swoon over his new, tribal inspired line. Even Vogue Editor, Alex Shulman, cracked a smile!

It was great to see a usually calm and collected area let its hair down for the night. Despite the price-tags, there was no one to stop you pausing to stroke the odd furry accessory (although I did have a Westwood coat prised from my hand at one point). Most of the stores had made a proper effort and it felt buzzy, cool and exactly what London fashion should be about.

Finally, to end the night, we felt it only appropriate to inhale a tiny, overpriced sandwich at Sketch. By 10pm, the place was teeming with anorexic, trustafarian teenagers in couture and Doc Martens. Feeling very much like my Bedalian school days were a too distant memory, it was time to head home and dream of Vivienne Westwood coats.

2010-08-29T14:07:00.001-07:00

Fail whale

Much has been written on the transformational power of social media and its groundbreaking successes. We often read of the massive boost to followers, friends and, ultimately, sales, that mark a truly engaging campaign that crosses and merges platforms. Even social media fluffs can make headline news and still manage to reach a huge audience. What we rarely hear of, however, are the ones left behind - the stragglers who never seem to get off the ground in this new digital world.

A great social media campaign can't spring to life simply because you have signed up to Twitter and uploaded a YouTube video. It is easy to think that social networks, because they are free to join and use, require little material or financial investment. Far from it. Unlike traditional advertising, which is placed before the viewer, social media relies on the 'viewer' to take a far more active role. You are looking for conversation, engagement and buzz. Here are my Top 5 elements which can make or break a social media campaign.

1/ Brand. No matter whether you are an individual, a small company or a global brand, it is vital that you are "joined up" across platforms. From Flickr to Facebook, the way you look, speak and communicate needs to be recognisable, so that no matter where people 'meet' you, they know it's you.

2/ Investment. Creating a Facebook page for your company may be free but ensuring it is well-managed and regularly updated takes carefully dedicated resource. Finding social media professionals who know what they're doing and can authentically become the voice of the brand is key. That's why there's little point in spending thousands on a super-hot, ultra-branded website and then leaving your intern to look after Twitter.

3/ Content pt1. Engagement is built on relationships. Like any friendship, you start out finding out what you have in common. Think about who you are trying to connect with and work out what will draw them in. Become a "go-to" place for the latest updates in your industry, or a unique voice on the state of the sector. Be selective about what keywords you are using to ensure you are search-tastic, and start a dialogue with those already doing it well in your area.

4/ Content pt2. Be appropriate. No, I don't mean laying off the curse words, although that's also recommended. Be conscious of what content you generate for each platform. Social Media users are like shoals of fish, you just need to guide them in the right direction. On Twitter it's about persuading someone to click a link in 140 characters. On Facebook it's about being liked. And on YouTube it's about being too good to keep to yourself. Copywriters, producers, editors... they're your new best friends!

5/ Holism. Nothing and noone exists in isolation. At least, noone with a decent internet connection. Striding into a room saying 'we need to be on Foursquare' will make you sound important, but it won't necessarily make you rich. Stride in saying 'My restaurant is choc full of people on dates, how can we make the most of this?', however, and it's time to start paying more tax. Suddenly you're inviting singles on Twitter to check-in via Foursquare and connect with other singles in your restaurant. Next thing you know you're sorting out a Facebook page dedicated to your hub of hook ups. And before you can say "poke me" you've got a YouTube channel full of love stories. Make each platform work for your audience and they'll work for you.

...Contrary to popular belief, it's not easy. Social media takes time and hard work but, if your product is good and you know your audience, there's really no reason why it can't be an integral part of your business.

2010-08-18T10:54:00.001-07:00

Brostitutes, Icing and Getting Stoked

So we live in our techy geeky little worlds, smugly feeling that, because we own iPads, read Mashable and have over 3,000 followers on Twitter, we have somehow transcended from being the dorky, unpopular kids we once were. Yes we have probably acquired some semblance of social skills and, by moving only within Shoreditch, managed to make our retarded approach to getting dressed seem like a "look" but that does not mean we are not above poking some geeky fun at the kind of people who once made our lives miserable.

First up is this hilarious mockumentary from Funny or Die, which looks at the dark underbelly of Brostitutes. Urban Dictionary describes "bro's" as such... 'An alpha male idiot. This is the derogatory sense of the word (common usage in the western US): white, 16-25 years old, inarticulate, belligerent, talks about nothing but chicks and beer, drives a jacked up truck that’s plastered with stickers, has rich dad that owns a dealership or construction business and constantly tells this to chicks at parties, is into extreme sports that might be fun to do but are uncool to claim (wakeboarding, dirt biking, lacrosse), identifies excessively with brand names, spends a female amount of money on clothes and obsesses over his appearance to a degree that is not socially acceptable for a heterosexual male.'

Brostitute with Tim Roth from Tim Roth

Recently, bro's had a moment in the digital limelight over 'Icing' - a drinking game that requires the person who has been 'iced' to drop to one knee and chug a bottle of Smirnoff Ice. In a reverse application of a trend - 'Icing' spread from being a predominantly bro recreational pastime, to be adopted by hipsters. I'm assuming purely in a post-modern ironic sense, of course. In this next video you can see some bro's experiencing some h-core icing in the city of sin.

In the final installment of bro's experiencing a rare nod of acknowledgment from their hipster counterparts, we have this piece from The Onion...

Report: Most College Males Admit To Regularly Getting Stoked

2010-08-12T01:05:00.000-07:00

Now available for weddings and bar mitzvahs

SXSW is a Music, Film and Interactive festival held every March in Austin Texas. Austin's history as a hub for musicians has long made it the mecca for bands and artists around the world. They say that 6th Street - Austin's downtown area - is the live music capital of the world and where you can see a different artist perform every night of the week. SXSW started as a music festival, to encourage new audiences to visit the southern state. The website explains how "In 1994 as the entertainment business adjusted to issues of future growth and development, SXSW added conferences and festivals for the film industry (SXSW Film) as well as for the blossoming interactive media (SXSW Interactive Festival). Now three industry events converge in Austin during a Texas-sized week, mirroring the ever increasing convergence of entertainment/media outlets."

Five years since I was a "study abroad' student at UT, I find it hard to believe that my name is on the SXSW Panel Picker list. Five years since my American friends introduced me to this new thing called "Facebook" and I got my first Wi-fi card, it's incredible that I'm planning to talk about Digital Instinctives - the babies seizing our iPads and approaching technology without reservation.

Please click HERE to check out the talk and vote for the entry! Thank you.

2010-08-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

A whole new world of consumption.

On Wednesday I get the keys to my first flat. It's pretty damn scary. Not because of the huge, great mortgage. Or because I've never lived on my own. Or because Stoke Newington is choc full of yummy mummies and doesn't have a tube station. No, my real cause for concern is that most of my shopping experience lies in clothes, shoes, bags and food. Kitchen work surfaces, wood flooring and sofas, however, I have no experience in at all. Re-enforced by the fact that recent trips to Habitat, Heals and Ikea have all lead to unsightly sweating and panic attacks.

Nevertheless, if I can get through jeggings, I can get through re-decorating a flat. Here's my inspiration... thoughts?

Or maybe this?

Thanks to Design Sponge and The Kitchn

2010-08-01T01:49:00.000-07:00

I knew the new cycling scheme would come in useful!

2010-07-28T05:43:00.000-07:00

All I wanna do is invest my monaaay

Having just bought my first flat in Stoke Newington aka Clapham-of-the-North, this new vid from Funny or Die perfectly sums up the trouble I'm having reconciling my Shoreditch lifestyle with my new-found fascination with Ikea kitchens. Boo ya.

MIA -- Paper Planes Brentwood Redux - watch more funny videos

2010-07-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

What's going on in there?

I just found myself watching a skype-skype interview on mobile apps online while simultaneously watching Gok's Fashion Fix on mute on the TV. Yesterday I found myself reading two newspapers at the breakfast table. What is going on in my brain?

Am I so conditioned to multi-tab browsing? So used to reading emails as I talk on the phone? When did tweeting, facebooking and watching television become second nature?

I'm fascinated because if that's me - and at 26 I'm old in digital terms - what is going on with "the kids"? My boss recently found his two year old son - who, I hasten to add, cannot yet talk - watching iPhone videos of himself in one hand while playing on the iPad with his toes. And it really makes me realise - his approach to learning, multitasking and problem solving is going to be unrecognisable to his elders, to the people trying to teach him when he hits school.

This week I was lucky enough to be part of a panel on "How to... Be part of the next cool thing" as part of LCC's Futurising festival. After the panel Martin Raymond (The Future Laboratory), Jaana Jatyri (Trendstop), Maggie Norden (LCF) and I went for a coffee. We were all gobsmacked by the seeming lack of curiosity from the assembled graduate audience. How could they even consider a career in trend forecasting if they were not brimming with questions for the panel? Maggie, a lecturer, voiced her concerns at the total and utter lack of investigative nous amongst her students. While Martin said interns that limit their research to page one of the Google results don't stick around long at FL.

But I'm concerned we're looking at it from the wrong point of view. Our way of thinking, our way of finding stuff out, is not the future. The extinction signs are there and we should be warned - we already don't remember telephone numbers anymore or since when did you turn to an encyclopedia? My boss's two year old will one day need to be taught by someone who understands that his brain is going to be wired in a totally different way. He is going to have skills and abilities that were once rare, just as he will have blank spots where his father is an expert.

I'm looking forward to spending the next few months figuring out what this is going to mean for brands wanting to make products and services that will thrive in the hands of these "Digital Instinctives". But until then I'm off back to my work iPhone, my personal Nokia, my 7 open tabs on Firefox, my Spotify playlist, the rest of that vid and the last 10 minutes of Gok. Wild times.

2010-05-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

Camillastore goes Stateside.
"who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue
amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regi-
ments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertis-
ing & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down
by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality"

It is my second day in the uber-cool San Francisco and, now I'm over the jet lag (For me, it's Tylenol Nighttime every time!), am able to finally string two lines together. Further evidence of my being bombed on the time difference emerged last night when I returned from a wander round the shops still wearing some unpaid for merchandise. A felony within 24 hours of landing. Awesome.

Anyway, today I am more coherent and with the weekend free to explore this great city. First up I headed over to the Ferry Building. A local foodie's heaven. a visiting, hotel-bound foodie's nightmare. Photos will follow, but picture row upon row of incredible produce set against the backdrop of San Francisco bay. Just spectacular. I also popped into Miette bakery. I first heard of Miette and got to know the owner, Meg, back when I worked for Rococo Chocolates. Meg wasn't around, but the Rococo was in prime position and the carrot cake cupcakes pretty special.

Next I sauntered - well, admittedly, heaved - my way up one of the infamous San Fran hills to make a pilgrimage to City Lights Bookshop. Though I may have sold my soul to branding and be more about power plates than Lucky Strikes these days, the Beat poets and writers still hold a very special place in my heart. I have always been fascinated by their courage and commitment to forging new forms of literature, of thinking even, in a time when America was vigilant against "non-conformist" behaviour. To finally set foot where founder Ferlinghetti hung out with Ginsberg, Kerouak and Cassidy realised a long-held dream of mine.

And now I'm back in my hotel room which overlooks the hot tub in a very Don Draper-esque manner and wondering whether a second burrito in as many days is pushing it slightly.

2010-05-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

May the road come up to meet you

I know now is probably a rare opportunity to discuss the Party leaders' journey to the election, assessing brand strength, fashion choices and social networking capabilities. But two things launched this week to draw my eye from BBC News 24.

First up TopShop launched a MAKE UP RANGE! Put that in your pipe Gordon Brown! The dreamy, indie packaging makes great use of the TopShop spots, while the hand drawn element gives it an accessible-yet-aspirational feel. As someone who was beginning to feel that M.A.C's seat was in jeapardy, TopShop's range might just be the vote for change my makeup bag was looking for. And, yes, that metaphor just happened!

Secondly, and much more interestingly, Aubin and Wills are opening a CINEMA and gallery space in Shoreditch. This is lifestyle branding gone nuts. I'll happily buy a cute top and imagine myself into the A&W world vision. I'll even consider a bit of A&W homeware, because it's post-modern ironic. But is an events programme a step to far?

Thinking about it, little brother Jack Wills manages to get away with a yearly Polo fixture. But that's Jack Wills - ostentacious Sloanies love that shit. Aubin & Wills are meant to be cool, demure, subtle. People who wear A&W generally pick at their new cashmere jogging pants and say "oh this old thing!" between mouthfuls of organic porridge.

But have no fear Camillastore readers, I'll hit up the launch on 20th May and get back to you.

2010-04-25T05:28:00.000-07:00

New horizons

Brilliant day yesterday getting away from Shoreditch and brands, brands, brands. First up, my friend and I were pleased to see that we could bring some "hot young thing" to a morning cookery class at Books for Cooks in Notting Hill. The class - an awesome birthday present from friends - was "A Taste of Spain". We sped through 5 recipes in 2 hours and then stuffed ourselves with chorizo, Andalucian salad, chicken with prawns, and a gorgeous apple cake. Who knew that one could roast peppers whole before peeling? Ooh!

Following a few mouthfuls of Pimm's, we ventured south of the river to check out Molotov Jukebox. The "up-beat reggae gypsy" band, fronted by my very old friend Nat Tena, absolutely smashed it and got everyone jigging around like it was going out of style. Nat brought some much needed sex appeal to the accordion by sporting suspenders and a captain's hat marked "H M Slut". She and her tricked out band steered the assembled cool kids through some incredible life lessons (ie. Don't live with your boyfriend) all set to a funky folk-hop beat.

If it weren't for the last tube home, we'd have also stuck around to check these guys out - The Correspondents.

2010-04-21T14:20:00.001-07:00

Check out the Slideshare version of April's Project10 edition, with a contribution from me on p6.

Project10 Newspaper April (Ladies) issue

View more documents from Steve Price.

Next up, Steve's looking for people to help him explore the relationship and influence that design has on politics. If you're interested you can contact him via Twitter @planbstudio. Spread the love.

2010-04-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

Camillastore for Project10.

Check out the latest edition of the Project10 newspaper, with a tweeted contribution from yours truly and Panja Gobel, with gorgeous illustration by Emma Barratt. Panja and I ourselves the challenge to discuss women in design and technology within a 140 character field on Twitter. Under the hashtag #unPandC, we ranted at each other for 3 days. To spice things up a bit we added the extra challenge to include five quotes each from our feisty heroine, Mae West, in our tweeted dialogue. To find out more about the wonderful Project10, click this.

2010-04-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

Liberty for the masses!

Liberty - one of the last bastions of true British retailing, the shopping equivalent of tea at 4 o'clock and cricket whites on the green - has got itself a little bit of rough by pairing up with Target. When I lived in Texas, Target was the place to go when you needed to buy 56 rolls of toilet paper and gallon bottles of nail varnish remover. We fondly called it "Targé" and now it seems to be living up to its posher side. The new range is pretty lovely, actually, and it makes a change to have a "Liberty Lite" range tas opposed to the mortgage-inducing prices we are used to. I'm love, love, loving this bicycle - perfect for the springtime sunshine!

2010-03-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

Women! Know your (140 character) limits!

Just finished working on a collaborative project with Designers, Panja Gobel and Emma Barratt, for Project 10. Project 10 is Steve Price's philanthropic plan to work on 10 projects/collaborations in the next 10 months with 10 NFP/NGO organisations on projects that are ‘fun’. Bored of sending out generic press releases to promote the work Steve's doing, he's started printing a monthly newspaper stuffed with contributions from the great and good of the design world.

Steve and I forged a very modern friendship over Twitter and I feel very honoured to know him and to be invited to contribute to the up-coming women's only edition of the Project 10 newspaper. Keep an eye on Steve's site for updates.

2010-03-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

Smoking is not cool

Unless it's the inspiration for my new spring pumps!

2010-03-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

Oh la Le Labo

Took a sunny stroll down Marylebone High Street yesterday and popped into perfumier Le Labo, who has recently set up shop following their concession in Liberty. The new Le Labo store follows in the retail footsteps of other "rough luxe" concepts such as Aesop and All Saints. Exposed birck work and wooden floorboards act as a background to a well-defined selection of scents. What sets Le Labo apart is their belief that perfume begins to degrade as soon as it is made, so they handmake every bottle there, in-store. The receipients name or message can also be added to the bottle. Everything was very beautiful and the staff were lovely, but as L`Artisan Parfumeur closes just up the road and Dyptique barely just opened not 500 yards away, one does begin to ask questions. Firstly, just how many perfume shops does the Marylebone shopper really need at her disposal? It's like an upmarket version of Reading, with perfumiers and Waitrose instead of Morrisons and charity shops. Secondly, as a retail concept it is fantastically executed and incredibly aspirational, but I would need the advice of an insider in order to understand what sets these new kids on the block apart when it comes to their scents. When is a rose not a rose? When it's crushed to order and presented in reclaimed tins.

2010-02-25T14:15:00.000-08:00

Living the dream.

Ok pro-brand post coming up. I finally did it. I went and bought a mac book pro. And, sweet lord jesus, it is incredible. Everything about it is incredible.

So it's not every Sunday that one gets up, eats breakfast and moseys into central london to spend nearly a thousand pounds. I needed a bit of a pre-amble, some low-fi spending to get me and my credit card in the mood. And so, it was laden with a week's shopping from Waitrose, that I strolled into Apple on Regent Street ready to do some damage.

As usual, the store was filled with the politically correct mixture of ages, races and gender all gazing aspirationally at screens as chirpy 'Mac Geniuses' circled. And then the branded fun began. The person who served me was chatty and amiable. He helpfully gave me a knapsack style bag, so I could sling my 'pro on my back and still schlep my shopping. How very modern, how very hip.

Back home, and after some pretty judgemental looks on the tube (waitrose and mac, could I be anymore smug?), the de-boxing began. What a ritual! Lovely little tabs and layers which all make the final unveiling feel almost climactic. The installing was a joy. And, with my old G4 slung mercilessly in my wardrobe, I am now penning this post. Smooth, fast, and oh so slick. And that's just the computer.

2010-01-18T09:55:00.000-08:00

Is this the best website ever?

YES.

http://www.dukeofuke.co.uk/

2010-01-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

Luxury brands learn to chillax

Doing trends for a luxury brand at work right now and, consequently, been getting heavily into luxury's place in the digital world. Given the rules luxury brands break, and the barriers they overcome in the fashion world it is surprising how slow they have been to find their place in the new world of online. Naturally, the democratic, free-for-all that is the Internet is the very culture fashion houses abhor. They no doubt fear the dilution of brand and total lack of control.

Unfortunately for luxury, however, this need to "own" the spaces they exist in is outdated. Up-and-coming wealthy people are no different to up-and-coming regular people - they are on Facebook and read their paper online and send emails and expect their brands to be just as instant and available. Add this to the fact that recession-time spending is best done behind closed doors, away from the judgmental poor, and you have a compelling argument for creating an amazing luxury presence online.

Through the research, I'm seeing some (if surprisingly minimal) luxury successes online. DKNY have an in-house PR who tweets on behalf of the brand. Rather than pretending to be Donna herself, the PR is a well placed voice to make announcements about the company. Gucci has gone all out with an extensive and regularly updated Facebook page. The page now boasts over 500,000 friends and includes product and show news, photos and films. Proving that a luxury brand can "let go" and make thousands of new friends around the world. Best in show is Start, the Shoreditch boutique owned by TV personality Brix, who promotes herself and the store across platforms on Twitter, YouTube, blogs and the transactional website.

As high-end brands wake up to the fact they will gain, rather than lose customers, by claiming their www's, I'm excited to see luxury brands shape the future of online in the same way they approach their clothing lines. If Alexander McQueen can reach an audience of 77 million by allowing Lady Gaga to wear his shoes in her latest video, there's got to be something right about signing up.

2010-01-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

Blog love

Kind of obsessed with this photographic blog from Purple Magazine right now. Each photo summons up that wonderful Parisian knack for effortless style, sexiness and decadence. How do they manage it?

2010-01-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

Incredible where you can get sartorial advice these days!

Send your queries to the Innocent Rabbit by clicking here.

2010-01-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

Snow day

Well, it turns out that splurging in Jack Wills will only see you good for the first two days of a big chill and several inches of snow. Day Three and I'm pining for a selection of Brora longjohns and pretty much anything from the Chanel ski range. Love love love it.

2010-01-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

Firstly, Happy New Year Camilla's Store readers!

And what better way to launch into 2010 with a slow stroll around the new Jack Wills store in Islington? Maybe I've been in the bosom of my North London "Intelligentsia" family for too long, but I fell upon the JW sale as if my Sloanie little life depended on it. Antiques lovers will no doubt be mourning the loss of the emporium at the end of Camden Passage, but the space does wonderful justice to the Fabulously British brand. JW is expert at working with a location, rather than against it. Like their townhouse in Marlow, which retains the original layout of the house to create a unique retail experience, the new digs in Islington highlight the high ceilings and ornate finishings. Downstairs, beside the roomy changing rooms, a small stage, no doubt for their "Unsigned" to play, has also been created. It's a fun store, perfect for the Yuppie Islington clientele.

2009-12-29T02:03:00.000-08:00

Glee: The phenomenon cometh.

Paid for or otherwise, today's Guardian ran a full page spread on upcoming new show to E4, Glee. The teaser, pilot episode, which aired a few weeks ago, was a heady cocktail of High School Musical 1,2, and 3 combined with Mean Girls, American Idol and 30 Rock. Feeling sick yet? Think what you will, but this show has already been a massive hit in the US due, in no small part, to its escapist appeal across all the generations. There's singing and dancing for the kids, hot teenagers for the teenagers, and biting wit for the grown-ups. It really is one for all the family.

Furthermore, there are two trends into which it has brilliantly, if obviously, tapped. Firstly, everyone feels like hell - they've no money, no jobs and they've just had a pretty slim Christmas. The family appeal of Glee allows everyone an hour of Betty Draper-style family time in front of the flat screen. And by Betty Draper I mean perfect, charming and happy not Manhatten-slinging, gun-toting blonde bombshell. That comes later. Watching Glee, Americans can escape to the Disney fantasy they grew up with. But will Brits do the same?

Secondly, Glee follows in the footsteps of shows like X Factor and American Idol in sending old songs straight back into the charts. And the charts mean money. As more and more people watch TV on their computers, the distance between watching and purchasing is narrowing. Like that song? Buy it in seconds on iTunes. Love what they're wearing? It can be delivered the next day. Gossip Girl goes part of the way there, in terms of making the products the characters use integral, if not downright critical, to the plot. But Glee seems to be the first drama which actively ties entertainment to purchasing.

Glee airs over here from 11th January. Watch this space.

2009-12-22T04:43:00.000-08:00

Holidays are coming.

So nearly there now, just another few days and we can collectively collapse onto our respective sofas and start drunkenly demanding Ferrero Rocher for breakfast and being thoroughly unreasonable about practically everything. And so, it may be that this little find has come too late for us to send on to our misguided loved ones, but perhaps bookmark it ready for next year, thus avoiding the inevitable Christmas morning tantrums.

Vital Stats Cheat Sheets from Cookie (who, I think, I may have just fallen into deep, graphic design related, love with).

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-14T04:25:00.000-08:00

So freakin' Christmas

I've seen the Holidays are Coming coca cola ad, I've started a Spotify xmas playlist, I've punched a tourist on Oxford Street, and I've made mincemeat part of my 5 a day. One could say Christmas '09 has arrived. But it wasn't made properly official until my friend unveiled his Ralph Lauren Xmas Jumper in an unsuspecting pub in Highgate. You could have heard a bauble drop off the tree when he threw open his Aquascutum trench to reveal the wonder that is a £200 xmas sweater. The heavy knit, the square cut, the obligatory reindeer... it ticked all the boxes. Christmas has begun. Now, when does the pre-lunch mulled wine drinking begin?

2009-12-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

Loving verbally abusive cotton bags right now. Just because we're being eco-friendly doesn't mean we need to be cheerful about it.

Top: Modern Toss. Bottom: Goodone

*For those reading this today in the Shoreditch area, Goodone are having sample sale til 10pm tonight.

2009-11-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

Trend addict, moi?

On a blissful day off work, I nipped down to the Royal Academy to see what all the fuss is about the Anish Kapoor exhibition. A Renaissancist at, I struggled to understand exactly what made it 'art', but the show is certainly entertaining and engaging. Best of all was a egg-timer shaped mirror which reduces your reflection to a single stripe of colour. When surrounded by people, the mirror acts as a perfect chart for "trending" colours. It seems black, dusky blue, dark grey and highlights of teal are all hot amongst art lovers right now. Who knew?

2009-11-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

The dark future of social networking

Check out my latest blog post on the Eye Magazine blog
http://bit.ly/Camilla3

And for those of you who just cannot get enough of me, I suggest you also swing by the Moving Brands blog too.

2009-11-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Amazing

Who is this child? Where does he live? And might he sell me his t-shirt?

2009-11-10T01:19:00.001-08:00

Mad about Mad Men

Season 3 of cult series Mad Men had its finale on US tv last night, causing my friend, The Austin Blonde, to exclaim "OMG OMG OMG... I cried and was shocked and I felt like my heart was being squeezed the WHOLE episode. I can't bear the thought of having to wait a year to see what happens next!!!! Torture". So, as you can imagine, us Brits are climbing the walls for the latest season to make an appearance in the schedules. Not least in the hope that it will be accompanied by the commercial tie ins our cousins across the pond enjoyed. Banana Republic (below) and Brooks Brothers both payed homage to the show in the States, allowing both Mad Men and Mad Women to get that 50's, Martini-for-breakfast, "Not on my watch", look.

So what can us Brits look forward to in terms of Mad-Menning our wardrobes? TopShop does Mad Men?? Maybe we need to ask ourselves... What would Don Draper do?

2009-11-06T04:57:00.001-08:00

WAH Nails pops up at Selfridges

Dammit, now EVERYONE will have leopard print nail do's!

2009-10-27T02:11:00.001-07:00

Textures from Anthropologie