London students rule

During a prestigious ceremony at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, students from London’s Fashion Retail Academy were named winners of the Retail Futures Challenge at the World Retail Congress in Barcelona. Lisa Storrier, Arianna Wright, Julia Shipton and Michelle Hammon were wowed by the judges with their post recession retail concept of updatemywardrobe.com.

The London team, the New York Fashion Institute of Technology and the Hong Kong Polytechnic but all gave strong and innovative presentations to leading industry experts at the Congress, including the judging panel which consisted of Phil Wrigley, Executive Chairman of New Look, Jim Stengel, CEO of Jim Stengel LLC and Former Global Marketing Officer at Proctor & Gamble, Vittorio Radice, CEO of La Rinascente and Bernie Brooks, CEO of Myer.

With 80 per cent of 18-21 year olds using social networking sites, updatemywardrobe would be developed as a one stop social networking site allowing customers to shop across retailers whilst chatting to friends and swapping outfit ideas. The concept also includes a swap shop for the environmentally friendly consumer which aims to reduce the amount of good clothing sent to landfill every year.

As with facebook, updatemywardrobe.com will be available as a mobile phone application and with near field technology it will allow shoppers to take pictures of garments in store and upload them onto their profile whilst out shopping to find out how the garment looks like with other garments in their wardrobe via their ‘virtual me’.

Sir Philip Green, who fronted the launch of the Fashion Retail Academy in London, said: "The team’s innovative retail concept 'updatemywardrobe.com' shows real understanding of how fashion retail is becoming increasingly interactive, and must be exciting with a point of difference, as well as ever changing great product, to keep ahead in a very competitive and challenging market.”

Image: Granda Woman, Hermen Anglada Camarasa (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya)