Last week, we were lucky enough to find ourselves at the Blue Bottle Coffee Shop at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. While us Topshop girls had heard great things about their coffee we had no idea about their art-inspired cakes so you can imagine our excitement when we laid eyes on a piece of Mondrian cake. Yes, a perfectly formed blue, red and yellow Mondrian cake!
Piet Mondrian’s Composition (No. III) with Red, Yellow, and Blue 1935–42, SFMOMA
Inspired by the amazing modern art at the museum, Caitlin Freeman, the coffee shop’s pastry chef decided to put her dessert-making skills to the test! From Frida Kahlo inspired Mexican wedding cookies to a Cindy Sherman ice cream and sorbet float, Caitlin has quite literally created her own collection of edible masterpieces. We just love that you can go look at a work of art and then once your feet get weary, enjoy it alongside a coffee!
Sherman Ice Cream Float Photography by Clay McLachlan
Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #41, 2004Roy Lichtenstein’s Rouen Cathedral Set V (detail), 1969, SFMOMA
The best thing is that if you fancy yourself a baker-stroke-artist, you can get your hands on her truly beautiful book Modern Art Desserts: Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Confections, and Frozen Treats Based on Iconic Works of Modern Art. We had to buy one of course and plan to astound our friends the next time we bake with a Roy Lichenstein polka dot sponge cake!
Lichtenstein Cake Photography by Clay McLachlan
Roy Lichtenstein’s Rouen Cathedral Set V (detail), 1969, SFMOMA
Once we’ve mastered the art of that and we know it may take us more than one attempt, there are another 29 to keep us busy! Cooking and art class all in one go – how cool is that?
Stevie Dance is one of those girls. Beautiful, stylish and endlessly talented, she’s got the world at her feet. So, who better than to kick start our TopshopAustralia Edited? The creative consultant and stylist, who calls New York home but was born and bred in Oz, will be taking over a section of our Gowings store in Sydney and Chapel Street in Melbourne with a guest edit of her favourite items. Dance currently has projects galore: Contributing Editor of Vogue Australia, Fashion Director of Pop and Creative Director of Shop Ghost and will this month be taking on yet another task. Dance is curating her most-loved pieces from the whole of Topshop and from 4th – 14th April, you’ll be able to find them in the stores above and snap them up yourselves!
We spoke with the multi-tasking creative and designer lover stylist here.
My earliest fashion memory is…
Insisting on wearing my long johns with leotards as my go to. I was heavily into Flash Dance.
Growing up I wanted to be…
A Dancer. A choreographer.
My all time favourite designers are…
Nicolas Ghesquière, Marques Almeida, and basics like James Perse, vintage Levi’s, & Acne.
The highlight of my career so far has to be…
Any time I am lucky enough to be on set in the middle of nowhere with the ones I love.
My fashion weakness is…
Dressing down. Vintage t-shirts.
If I could go back to any era, I’d love to live in…
Young, blonde, blue-eyed and with a beautiful voice to boot, Leslie Clio is almost too cute to be true! She writes all her lyrics herself, refuses to have a stylist and with her sunny disposition goes against every cliché of the cold blonde from the high North of Germany.
Photography by Paul White
From looking at those big baby blue eyes, you wouldn’t expect a boldly refreshing artist who has a voice full of drama and emotion. As soon as you start listening to her latest single “I Couldn’t Care Less” you realise that this is a girl who knows what she wants, what she doesn’t and who does things in her very own way.
Born in Hamburg, Leslie moved to Berlin after she graduated in 2010, loving its “poor but sexy” appeal. It was there that she unexpectedly met her producer, Nikolai Potthoff (guitarist of the popular German Indie band Tomte) who was the missing ingredient to her music and helped her create her sound that she describes as “modern Soul-Pop with a touch of retro.”
Together, they created her just-released Album “Gladys“. Why Gladys you may wonder? Well, Leslie just liked the name, that it was short and pretty! This project was like a baby for her, the folder containing the lyrics always called Gladys on her computer. Now that it’s been born, she describes herself as a super proud mum.
Photography by Kate Bellm
Her sound reminds us of Dusty Springfield and Adele but at the same time it’s filled with some flashes of self-assured girly pop, a la Lily Allen. “Everything kind of involves heartache,” says Leslie of her songs but as you’ll find out, it’s as shameless and as direct as a slap in the face!
While there’s always a bit of autobiography in songs about love and relationships, Leslie says she’s not giving the finger to former boyfriends but that she’s just making art, recording the soulful sounds that have been echoing in her head all these years and following her dream.
If you’re anything like us, you won’t be able to stop swinging your hips while you listen to her latest single “I Couldn’t Care Less” and her album definitely gets a special place on our summer play-list ranking.
What do you need to keep up with the future of fashion retail? Innovative ideas. And where else would you find a bigger bunch of creative minds, than in the Royal College of Art (RCA). For the Boutique and Unique space at our Oxford Circus Flagship store, we asked Interior Design students from the RCA to compete for the chance to give it a brand new makeover.
The winning design was by Rob Vinall – who is studying his MA in Interior Design – and was unveiled in-store in time for London Fashion Week and shines with ingenious concept. “The initial concept was an idea of cause and effect, giving importance to the elements of hanging and balance,” explained Vinall. His vision features a triangular ceiling grid from which products can be suspended, and which can be altered periodically to create different moods. We’re more then impressed!
We spoke with Vinall about the project, the clothes and his favourite designers.
What was the brief given to you for the project?
The brief was to come up with an expandable, flexible and energetic interior retail space which had to be able to entice the customer toward the Boutique and Unique section of the store. The brief was split into four phases, each of which focused on separate elements of the space as a whole. We all knew from the start that it was a live project so it was an exciting short project to work on but we weren’t told who the client was until the latter stages. Not knowing the client or the exact space until the later stages meant there was an element of detachment and we could really explore our ideas without constraint.
What was your inspiration behind the space?
I wanted to make the store feel less crowded, to give the Boutique a bit of breathing space and somewhere special to shop and browse. Everything in the store is almost immediately at eye level, especially the clothing. I wanted to have something above to entice you to that corner of the store. I became interested by the notion of balance and tried to simplify all the elements within the concept. The triangular forms came from an exploration into simplifying the geometry – which then evolved into a grid structure that invaded the space. The clothing and hanging elements are all hung and supported by the undulating triangular structure above. The colour of the triangles and gradient on the walls can be changed according to collections and campaigns to Topshop’s needs.
Did you use any specific reference?
There is a dance studio by Tsutsumi and Associates, and that has a really beautiful gradient fade on the mirror treatment which illudes to a top heavy kind of dream like space. I also like a bench designed by h220430 that looks like its weightless and floating. I think there’s definitely some Brutalist influences in the simple geometry of the ceiling design as well.
Which designers or architects do you most admire?
Francis Alys, Mitch Epstein, Carmody Groarke, Gordon Matta Clark, Troika, Max Lamb, Ken Adam, Erno Goldfinger, 6a.
What’s your favourite space in London?
I love the Barbican, both internally and externally. I have a passion for post war architecture and the interior is a beautiful example of Brutalist post-war concrete construction. I also love the interior of the Commercial Tavern in Spitalfields when drinking.
Head down to our flagship store Topshop Oxford Circus in London to see the new Boutique and Unique space for yourselves.
WOW, what a party! We always knew that when we eventually reached Tinseltown, we’d do it in style, and thanks to a little help from some of LA’s most fabulous ladies-in-residence, our predictions rang true.
The fun started as soon as we landed, as we hopped into waiting Topshop black cabs to check out the store – it’s our fourth flagship in the States, and it’s bigger and better than anything we’ve done before. 30,000 square feet of fabulous clothes, including the upcoming Lux collection, which LA will be the first store in the world to sell.
The Grove mall was a perfect home from home for the Topshop crew, and we took over the entire place to throw a street party to end all street parties, giving LA residents a proper taste of how we Brits like to party. Along to a blaring soundtrack of DJs spinning fresh beats, there were male models on bicycles providing some welcome eye candy, as well as that plenty of cotton candy, homemade lemonade and TopshopLucky Gift Cards containing up to $1000 worth of store credit. The crowds had started gathering at a ridiculously early hour to be the first to catch a glimpse of the new store, so we made sure to make it worth their while.
The excited atmosphere reached a peak when Demi Lovato took to the stage to sing ‘Give Your Heart a Break’, which whipped the crowds into a frenzy as the store opened its doors. We stopped to chat to a few of the shoppers as they made their way around the store, and some of them had been planning their shopping list for months!
The night before was nearly as exciting when we piled back into the black cabs to make our way to Cecconi’s, where Sir Philip Green was hosting a soiree to end all soirees to celebrate the launch. Who knew there were so many Topshop fans amongst the legions of actresses, singers and superstars of LA? Not only was our campaign star Kate Bosworth there (looking fabulous in a digi-print cut-out mini-dress), but she was joined by a pregnant Kim Kardashian (who brought her mum, how sweet!), Nicole Scherzinger, Katherine Jenkins, Emma Roberts, Miranda Cosgrove, Julianne Hough and – possibly our favourite – Lionel Richie!
The ever-incredible Solange Knowles worked a Unique look with aplomb, then took to the stage to get everyone dancing. There were plenty of specially created bottles of Topshop Tipple to go around, ensuring the party was rollicking and rolling – most people didn’t leave until 2am!
We didn’t want to leave all our starry new friends and the warm LA sunshine, but now that we’re back in cold rainy Blighty we can take comfort in the fact that we have not only brought Topshop to the excited LA masses, but we also threw a mighty good bash.
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