So last night saw the 'launch party' (one of many, it would seem) for the new independent designer-saturated 4th floor of everyone's favourite department store, Harvey Nichols. And I for one - despite having to trek across town to Knightsbridge on such a dark, cold London evening - was rather looking forward to the whole affair.
The evening itself ticked all the requisite boxes. PRs and media guest tapping away as Paloma Faith performed a flawless set as usual (toyed with mentioning that her album is currently on loop at my mater's, but decided that might not be the most diplomatic post-gig greeting); champagne flowed in abundance (while glasses were slightly tougher to come across); and the goody bags didn't appear to run out (the initial LFW warm-up scrum for them might have suggested otherwise).
However: issues there were aplenty.
First of all, who on Earth thought it wise to plonk the stage in front of the main entrance? When I turned up (a little late, perhaps - but this is a) London, and b) a fashion-ish event on a Tuesday night...) I had to ride the lift up to the fifth floor so that I could walk across the store to then take the elevator back down to the fourth. Hardly a hike, obviously. But logistics people, please.
Secondly, aside from the one wall at the back that was overflowing with fun, young products (and was the angle for many of the press releases I had received), The Fourth Floor - grand and bleeding-edge fashion/design as it was meant to be - looked an awful lot like, well, The Third Floor. And The Second. And The First. Note to self: when next breaking the in-house mould be sure to check how the old one looked first, and then actually break it. Properly. A mild chink in the exterior does not an earth-shattering breakage make, I'm afraid.
All-in-all, there is some lovely stuff up on the fourth, so do ignore my bitching go and have a poke about. Just don't expect the heavens to open and a glorious beam of design revelation to strike you in the face.
Once home, the guts of the aforementioned goody-bag spilled on the kitchen table like a prehistoric sacrifice, everything fell into place. Beneath the particularly cutsey wrapper lay a reporter-style notebook with an the same Hello Kitty-ish logo on the front, an admittedly impressive cookie, and an info pack containing several discount vouchers including, are you ready?, “25% off your first injectible procedure”. Yep, Botox.
So would anyone like to take a crack at their target audience then? 50 year old rich mothers with faces like trouts caught tail-first in a Dyson, all clad head-to-toe Chanel, out shopping with their perma-tanned daughters and husbands' credit cards perhaps?
But as so often happens in such events, one man's nightmare is another man's shopping destination. Just look at Westfield. And this, even with its floors (forgive me, flaws), is hardly a nightmare
