Originally published on Monday, 9th February 2009

Crunch Time

Personal Shopper is not generally one for shame. Morning-afters and prolonged bouts of Living’s ANTM episodes do not faze her. And yet she’s having her Gucci purchases packed into brown paper bags and is calling Matches to the secrecy of her home. Such is the effect of luxury shame… 

Online

Time to downsize luxury lovers: sure we miss the good old days of carefree credit, but tough times call for tough measures, and, as Tesco would have us believe, every little helps. In that vein, the supermarket giant are planning on launching an online clothing offering to rival George at Asda (who, by the way, have introduced genius mid jeans sizes in 9, 11 and 13).

For those stricken with fear at the very thought, hold out until April when Net a Porter’s bargain basement sister, The Outnet, launches with heavily reduced designer pieces.

On the catwalk

Not much sign of a recession on the couture catwalks last week – though mass depression did set in when we realised we couldn’t all afford the floral Chanel headpieces.

So the upcoming ready-to-wear shows should be interesting, with Marc Jacobs cutting his audience down from 2000 to 700, Alice Temperley showing her designs via video, and, according to a little luxury PR whisper, foreign publications putting the kibosh on scores of editors’ flights, sending small teams instead. As long as the goodie bags remain casualty-free, we’re happy.

On the backburner

Three reasons to sit pretty:

H&M Homewares. With selected European cities receiving shipments this month, it won’t be long before London gets some living loving.

Topshop’s EDIT collection launches this Sunday, and promises a directional selection of unique international designers’ mainline pieces. UJ loves KTZ’s jewel appliquéd pieces.

Cocosa is going from strength to strength with its exclusive online sales. We can’t wait for Jonathan Saunders and . Use the UJ code xxxxxxx to sign up.