Issue #019

Welcome to your Friday dose of TOO x TOO – Featuring The National Trust's 125^th Anniversary, Weekday's New London stores, Alexander McQueen’s Mayfair exhibition and Vans new London flagship store.

A very special anniversary

This year, the National Trust celebrates its 125^th anniversary. To commemorate with their various audiences, they chose to use the words of their co-founder, Octavia Hill in a short brand film.

Although she cited these words at the time of the National Trust’s conception, they remain incredibly current. They perfectly recall the charity’s mission to protect and promote nature, beauty, and history and suggest us to look for our own quiet space.

“[…] Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently”.

A useful reminder in times of social turmoil and ecological devastation. 

Weekday’s latest London additions

Weekday, the casual streetwear brand owned by H&M, has recently opened two new London stores, one in Soho and one in Shoreditch.

Both stores have been designed in coherence with the brand’s urban style, with yellow-fluo stairs, visible-brick walls, and metal display units.

The Shoreditch space is also aimed at representing a hub for customers’ ‘creativity and self-expression’.

It is home to Project Zeitgeist, an in-store studio where it will be possible to take part in weekly screen-printing sessions and where the screen-printing stations will reflect global events and happenings.  

Coming up roses

Alexander McQueen’s Mayfair flagship store has been hosting an exhibition dedicated to young and creative talent, and to Lee McQueen’s love for nature.

The show, co-curated by the fashion house’s creative director Sarah Burton, showcases two of the brand’s most iconic pieces, unsurprisingly rose-styled.

Besides showcasing amazing work, the exhibition aims to show the process behind the works themselves, demonstrating how McQueen as a brand has foundations built on a strong sense of community.

For the Roses exhibition, Sarah Burton invited a group of fashion students from all over Britain to the private view, where she shared memories and techniques now alive in the fashion brand house. Her hope is to make open access of resources to share knowledge across future generations.

VANS open their biggest flagship store

After succeeding with its first concept and boutique stores in Covent Garden and Carnaby Street, skate brand VANS just opened its new flagship store on London’s Oxford Street.

The store is the brands biggest flagship in Europe, which besides offering a wide range of items for adults and kids across both skate and surf lines, includes a Custom Lab where new products can be personalised with the help of in-store artists.