This is the last of the London photos..

Liberty is definitely my favourite London department store. It is in a building which was built with parts of an old ship, and it feels so much more intimate and special than the big department stores. And they have the most fantastic selection of brands, the cool luxury brands, like Preen, A.P.C, Ann Demeulemeester, Filippa K, Alexander Wang, McQ by Alexander McQueen, Nudie Jeans, Christopher Kane, and Rick Owens.

The main entrance. They have the most fantastic florist.

This Givenchy bag is so beautiful.

The Liberty shoe department is like walking into someone's old house, with rooms of lovely furniture and beautiful shoes poised on shelving, chairs, and tables.

All the shoes feel so special (except the hideous amount of Kurt Geiger shoes on display, which is a very tacky, wannabee-luxury footwear brand that controls all the department store's shoe departments and insists its shoes are in every one.)

The displays feel so friendly and welcoming.

A wall of Wallpaper travel guides. The best city guides if you're feeling flush.

On the complete other end of the spectrum is Primark, one of the most hideous places to shop in London. Why do I go there? Cheap socks and leggings. And I picked up a bunch of really cheap jewelry too, which will be great for holidays where you want to wear bikinis and jewelry, but you don’t want to worry about having any thing too expensive on you. Primark is ALWAYS busy, to the point where I’ve never used a changeroom, and always expect to wait half an hour in the line ups to pay. Here are some photos of Primark on a normal Thursday afternoon.

This is not boxing day sales...

it is like this every day of the week.

You have to fight to get anything...or anywhere.

7 pairs of socks for just under $4.

Beach earrings for $4.

Leggings with fun little silver snaps on the bottom, $8.

When I was sitting on the tube, I noticed this girl’s Doc Martens, and I felt a bit nostalgic for my teenage grunge days where I wore Doc Martens boots. I also thought this looked pretty cool, in context with today. I might dig my boots out. There’s something a bit rock’n'roll about the way her jeans and boots look. I’ve been trying to convince myself they are coming back in for the past three years, but now I really thinking they will, since they have been getting a lot of press over their 50 year anniversary.

Am I the only one who is feeling this? Is it lame?

Back to Vancouver, and I finally got to sample Butter Bakery’s homemade Oreo cookie. I also bought the peanut butter cookie sandwiches. Let’s just say, I won’t be going back. They were far too delicious to resist any further temptations, so I’ll just avoid that factory of deliciousness altogether, if I want to continue to fit into all my new London clothes.

The packaging is so pretty.

Peanut Butter sandwiches and Oreo Cookies. My mouth is watering just looking at this photo.

They also make homemade marshmallows, which are soft mounds of tastiness beyond your wildest dreams.

Tonka is wearing the Butter Bakery ribbon around his neck. He is trying to get his nose into one of the Oreo cookies. No way would we waste one of those on a dog.

Check out the other London Photo Diaries…
London Photo Diary Part 1
London Photo Diary Part 2
London Photo Diary Part 3
London Photo Diary Part 4

If Christopher Kane is trying to create a younger, hiper, more fun version of Versace for the Versus collection, then this show is spot on. It feels like fun versions of the Versace brand, little mini dresses that are the younger sister of the Versace brand. They are colourful, fun, and cute. (But please stick to the cocktail dresses, the day wear looks a bit too high street for me.)

I Love…

a bright colour and great details on a fun cocktail dress.

a sexy straps dress.

great little details on a perfect LBD.

I Loathe…

that this is Topshop, not Versus.

boring daywear for Versus. Stick to the dresses!

All images from Style.com.

Christopher Kane takes a theme and runs with it. This collection was about black leather embroidered with flowers, and black lace. Kane’s collection are always exciting, because we never know what to expect. The downside to that is if you don’t like his inspiration and general theme, there will be nothing in the collection you will like.

I Love…

the beautiful floral embroidery in this collection.

the shape of this tailored coat.

the combination of the lace with the leather and embroidery throughout the colection. This is a great dress shape, and the sleeves give it a girlishness, while the leather and lace toughen things up.

I Loathe…

the proportions in this outfit. The skirt length looks odd with the mid calf lace-up sandal.

All images from Style.com.

The new Alice in Wonderland movie directed by Tim Burton is bound to be a visual feast. It will come out on March 5th, and the stars include Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway. I looked up some of the visuals on the movie’s website, and they look amazing.

Now, with that in mind, maybe someone can explain this disastrous Alice in Wonderland themed window at Printemps.

A bit of background, Printemps is a big luxury department store in Paris. Powerful retailers, such as Printemps, sometimes ask brands to create special pieces for them, which can be exclusive limited edition collections or special display items, which will help the store to sell the brands.

Just looking at this photo reminds me of how much I miss shopping in Europe...

So, Printemps has asked designers like Ann Demeulemeester, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Chloé, Charles Anastase, and Haider Ackermann to design special pieces for their Alice in Wonderland-themed window displays. These are all designers that I respect and like, so I really cannot understand why the resulting window displays do not look very Alice in Wonderland, or fairy tale, or interesting at all. It basically looks like the designers, aside from Maison Martin Margiela and Nicholas Kirkwood, couldn’t be bothered to actually make something for the window, so they took an old piece from an old collection and made up an Alice “story” to go along with it.

Seriously, how is any of this related to Alice in Wonderland? (By the way, the images and quotes below come from an article on Style.com, you can read more about it here.)

Chloe says: "“Running around careless and free in a romantic dress, falling down the rabbit hole, chasing time in a dreamlike state of mind, meeting unexpected characters with many tales to tell—sounds like many a girl’s night out!” I say: boring navy blue dress worn best on a "fat day."

Charles Anastase says: "“I went to John Tenniel’s original illustration of Alice for inspiration. She’s seated at a table having tea, and her dress looks much more asymmetrical and theatrical than that boring Walt Disney version.” I say: A white and blue pouffy dress does not equal Alice in Wonderland.

Haider Ackermann says: "“My favorite character is the Duchess, who at first seems nearly as unpleasant as the Queen of Hearts. When I was designing this piece, I was seeing Alice running, escaping through the forest destroying her shiny dress." I say: This dress looks nothing like Alice in Wonderland, or the Duchess. In fact, that horrible rounded slit on the front makes the dress go from "interesting" to "scary."

Here are some of the better pieces.

Nicholas Kirkwood says: "“I think my favorite Alice character is the March Hare. You can see I’ve made his watch rather prominent. ...this time, I figured, why not just pile as much as I can on top?” I say: Nicholas Kirkwood has one shoe shape he has redone a million times, and its starting to get boring, but at least that one shoe is pretty cool. Especially with all that stuff piled onto it.

Maison Martin Margiela says: "“Alice’s silhouette is a blue upside-down dress with cage sleeve, as if she walked through the mirror and her dress completely reversed.” I say: This dress is beautiful, combining the fantasy of the fairy tale and the innovation of Maison Martin Margiela, and the colour is exactly the right shade of Alice blue.

Cartoon Alice image source.

My friend Michaela pointed out to me recently that everyone has just sort of been ignoring the fact that we are about to enter a new decade. Well, I wouldn’t say it has been ignored, but I agree we aren’t really making a very big deal of it. Maybe we had millenium overload ten years ago, but no one can deny that a lot has happened since 2000.

I have been working on this post for a while, looking through other websites’ and newspapers’ “summaries of the decade” and trying to think what I felt was really important from the last ten years. I have combined it all under a few categories, and I am probably forgetting loads of important things, but here I go. Also, I don’t agree with Time Magazine, who has called the 00s “The Decade from Hell”, I prefer just using the term The Noughties. Nought means zero in British English. Maybe we can call it The Decade Nought to be Forgotten? Ok, that sounds cheesy. Lets just call it The Noughties.

It is a very long post, so I have broken it down into 3 parts. Here is Part 1. Enjoy!

The Politics of the Stars and Stripes really took over the world stage in the past ten years. First, the Americans had the disastrous Bush era, whose ignorance, terrible international relations, and poor leadership led to the US being the most hated country in the world. That pissed some people off so much that they flew planes into the World Trade Centre towers, which led to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and very long line ups to get through security in airports. Things started to look up at the end of the decade, when Barack Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. He hasn’t been around long enough for us to feel the effect of his good deeds, but it definitely brought hope to the world, and has calmed down their enemies… a little. And his wife is the best dressed first lady ever…she deserves mega kudos for showing off her arms, supporting young American designers, and wearing affordable clothing.

Yay!

These images from are from The Cut’s Michelle Obama Lookbook, they have been documenting all of her outfits. Definitely worth a look.

A Shift of Power took place in the fashion industry, as we saw established designers disappear, famous retirements, celebrities taking over the industry, and revived brands making headlines.

Valentino retires, and so we say goodbye to the man known for red dresses, animal prints, and perma tan.

Emanuel Ungaro also retired in 2004, which resulted in turmoil in the house for several years, leading up the current disastrous state which sees Lindsay Lohan as Artistic Director. The above images are from her first collection for the house, which was bought by only two stores.

Things are not looking good for Christian Lacroix, who has had to suspend his Haute Couture and Pret-a-porter because of financial difficulties.

The Ferre brand is also unstable, since the death of the founder, Gianfranco Ferre, in 2007. Image source.

And some very old brands have been reinvented…

Alber Elbaz is now the Creative Director behind Lanvin.

Nicolas Ghesquière is the Creative Director for Balenciaga.

and Christophe Decarnin is the Creative Director for Balmain.

Luxury Made Accessible by the high street retailers collaborating with big names. Owning a piece by Karl was no longer unattainable, as long as you were willing to wait in a line up.

H&M were the pioneers of the designer high street collaboration.

H&M designer collaborations. Clockwise from top left: Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Viktor & Rolf, Matthew Williamson, Sonia Rykiel, Comme des Garcons, Jimmy Choo, and Roberto Cavalli.

Christopher Kane for Topshop, the famous crocodile print.

Target launched collections with McQ Alexander McQueen, Anna Sui and Rodarte (shown above.)

New Media changed the way we consumed news and information. Time Magazine summed it up in 2006 when they named “You” as person of the year. Web 2.0 changed the way we consumed the web, making users the new contributors. Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Myspace changed the way we searched, researched, communicated and socialized.

The computer screen was a mirror...

This image of bloggers Bryanboy and Tommy Ton (from Jak & Jil Blog) sitting front row at the Dolce and Gabanna Spring Summer 2010 show with Anna Wintour, Hamish Bowles, Suzy Menkes and other big player fashion journalists showed that blogging was being taken seriously in the fashion industry.

Scoot Schulman’s street style blog, The Sartorialist, is known for his well-chosen photographs of men and women of all ages on the streets of the world’s fashion capitals.

Websites like Vogue’s Style.com has allowed us to view fashion catwalk images hours after the runway show itself, changing the way we consume fashion. Years ago, fashionistas would wait until the magazines published the new season’s collections, usually months after the show itself. Now we see the shows immediately after they happen, and hear about them on Twitter as they are happening.

Catch Part 2 of 3 “Remembering the Noughties” posts tomorrow!

All images from the brand’s or person’s website, except all catwalk images from style.com, unless otherwise noted.