Archive for August, 2009

[image via Style Bubble]

I said a while ago that I’d spent a breakfast meeting with some high street folks talking about bloggers…and last night I saw some of the results of that meeting. It was the Arcadia Online Press Day, an event especially for bloggers and online writers showcasing the best new stuff from Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Evans, Dorothy Perkins, Topman and co.

Bloggers / online press do get invited to the regular Arcadia press days earlier in the year, but there are tight restrictions on photography (especially at Topshop) and we’re limited as to what we can and can’t say so early on, so having an event a bit later, when we have free reign to snap away and write everything up as soon as we get home (or, indeed, on one of the computers they had set up in the showroom for that purpose) is fantastic.

What was even more fantastic was the photography on offer. In our meeting we’d discussed the fact bloggers love to try things on, get creative and have something unique to put on their blogs rather than cut-outs or model shots. And Arcadia really pulled it out the bag with their solution to this!

Head through a mock photobooth in the first room, and you found yourself in a photography studio with rails of samples to try on and pose in. Photos went on a USB stick so they could be blogged about straight away. Sadly I had very little time at the event because I was off to Qype’s birthday quiz, so I didn’t have chance to do this myself (I was also limited by those pesky sample sizes – the only stuff that would have fit me was the Evans stuff, and I think Tor has showcased that much better than I ever could) but loads of others did and the results are awesome. See Mademoiselle Robot, Disney Rollergirl, Miggy Likes The Internet and Style Bubble for what’s gone live so far.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what Isabelle, Rachael and Laura got up to!

I make a small unexpected cameo (looking very shocked indeed) in this Dollyrockers music video. Needless to say, I didn’t know they were filming a video. I was at a shop opening and suddenly these tiny girls with big bouffants suddenly appeared, miming to music I couldn’t hear from outside. Only in London!

Thanks to Leon for spotting it.

EDIT: It would appear Catwalk Queen, along with most of the other women’s sites I worked on or created with Shiny Media have now been sold to the newly formed Aigua Media.

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I’m moving house tomorrow, and we’ll be without broadband for a while. I think it’ll be September before we’re sorted, and that’s quite a crazy month, so this may be goodbye for a while (unless I get bored on my lunch hour).

Before I go, though, I noticed ‘What happened to Catwalk Queen?’ is the most common search leading people to this site at the moment, so I suppose I should update.

I’m afraid I know as much as most of you. Nothing! My last involvement with the site was in April before I left my job at Shiny Media. I don’t have any claim on CQ now, and I haven’t heard whether it’s coming back following the administration. I assume it will eventually (it was always one of the most profitable Shiny sites) but it won’t be with the original team and it’ll be a very different site to the one I created when I was 18.

In the meantime, Isabelle – the fantastic editor of CQ up until July, is now writing here instead.

A few things I’ve written recently…

On The Nod: The top 10 most unusual celebrity product ranges

On Big Girls Browse: From Beth Ditto to Big Girl – trying the Evans range on for size.

On The Gumtree blog: The Gumtree guide to spotting designer fakes

On Domestic Sluttery: Five fab cake stands