M&S hires Knicker Queen Janie Schaffer November 5, 2012 MARKS & Spencer has hired Janie Schaffer (left), Victoria’s Secret’s chief creative officer and the founder of lingerie chain Knickerbox, to be its director of lingerie and beauty. Schaffer, known as “The Knicker Queen”, is to join the retailer early next year and will succeed Frances Russell, who has been promoted to director of womenswear, [...]
Skyfall takes Bond to new heights October 25, 2012 FILM SKYFALL Cert 12A | **** AFter deftly eluding MGM’s creditors and safely delivering the Queen to the Olympic opening ceremony, James Bond is out of bankruptcy, off diplomatic protection detail, and back on the big screen for a superbly crafted and confident action thriller. With a dangerously unpredictable enemy bent on vengeance, Sam Mendes’ [...]
All aboard the magnificent Orient Express August 19, 2012 ITALY’S in debt, you say? Well, I’m on the Orient Express headed straight to Venice – fiddling while Rome burns, you might say – and there’s no sign of the Italian economy crashing here. As if to prove my point, the flamboyant Massimo shows me another popular purchase from the train’s on-board shop. “These diamond [...]
London 2012 must be the starting gun in a race for a stronger Britain August 12, 2012 WITH the closing ceremony bringing the stupendously successful Olympic Games to an end, we should recognise what the Games has taught us about our national character. The Games have taught us something about ourselves that we never dared believe. The combined power of the British people, who embraced the Games, and our Olympians who have [...]
VICTORIA’S SECRET OWNER DISAPPOINTS STREET May 17, 2012 LIMITED Brands, parent of the Victoria’s Secret lingerie store chain, posted a quarterly profit that topped Wall Street’s view but its shares fell after its forecast for the current quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations. The company reported first-quarter net profit of $124.6m, or 41 cents per share, and net sales slipped to $2.15bn from [...]
WALL STREET WEEK AHEAD May 13, 2012 MORE volatility could be in store for US stocks this week as investors grapple with less certainty about the US economic outlook and a new blow to the financial sector after JP Morgan Chase’s trading loss. Europe is expected to keep investors jumpy as well, with inconclusive results from the recent Greek election and the [...]
Live it up in Melbourne, Australia’s city of plenty April 3, 2011 EARLY morning Melbourne, the sun is rising, and we are drifting over this modern metropolis and its spectacular skyline of skyscrapers and spires in a hot air balloon. Rising high above the city, we gaze down on icons such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), the Formula One racetrack, Government House, Melbourne Park, and the [...]
The Codfather on life, fish and Nobu’s enduring success February 14, 2011 IF it weren’t for Nobu, it’s hard to know where Victoria Beckham, Madonna and Kate Moss would eat out when in London. Synonymous with tip-top Japanese fusion cuisine and celebrity glamour, nobody has ever synthesised food with “scene” in quite the dynamite way that Nobu has. With restaurants in LA, New York, London, Mykonos, Dubai, [...]
FACEBOOK: A LITTLE TOO SOCIAL NETWORK? January 23, 2011 YOU might think former Facebook president Sean Parker, who described Justin Timberlake’s portrayal of him in the movie The Social Network as “a complete fiction,” may have reason to be slightly annoyed. Trousersnake plays Parker as a Machiavellian, cocaine snorting wise guy who impresses a young Mark Zuckerberg by dating a Victoria’s Secret model. So [...]
How to start a cyber revolution October 14, 2010 FLM THE SOCIAL NETWORK Cert: 12A Zoe Strimpel THERE is almost nobody I can think of that will not be absorbed by Seven director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin’s scarily well-made and well-acted film about the founding of Facebook. The social networking empire the then-undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg dreamt up at Harvard in 2004 now [...]