Our Ode to Rachel Reeves, Here is the Magic Growth Pill You Need
Dear Rachel,
I hear you are in need of a growth miracle according to Politico?
The good news (and I know how much you need good news in the recent news cycle) is that we at Fashion Roundtable might have just the remedy you need. No, it doesn't involve a 3rd runway at Heathrow, but it does grow the economy with increased traveller spending. Want to know more Rachel? Then let me tell you how.
Remember those halcyon days when we were in the EU, No Rachel, don't worry I am not telling you we want to return to full EU membership (though 97% of the sector according to our data do), but I am reminding you that it was Rishi Sunak MP when he was Chancellor, living in your house (do you like the Sunak No 11 refurb by the way?), and his ex Goldman Sachs bro crew/Treasury SPADs unilaterally decided that the UK would end tax free shopping.
I know, I know Rachel that aviation is lobbying for a third runway at Heathrow, but have you tried getting in and out of Heathrow on a Friday evening? Let me tell you as someone who came back from Berlin Fashion Week just last Friday, it is already gridlock on those roads. Also, won't the 3rd runway take quite a long time to build? Yes, it would be in place long before 2139. Isn't what you want an easy win? No, not a magic money tree, a money pot. Yes, we do really have one, it is called tax free shopping. Even better, the billionaires in Davos will LOVE this too!
Here's some data for you Rachel, as I know all good economists love data: Value Retail, the people behind Bicester (you know Rachel, where you can pick up designer goods for bargain prices, no not like gifts from Peers Rachel, actual bargains), say that reinstating the VAT Retail Export Scheme (that's tax free shopping to laypeople) would boost the economy by £11.1Bn.
Guess what, if you do this Rachel, not only will it mean Macron stops enjoying having Charles de Gaulle as the number one European flight destination, the UK will draw global tourists for longer back to shopping, wining and dining and it would also mean we in the UK could attract EU shoppers to spend here as guess what at the moment our British shoppers are having a rather jolly time promenading the Rue de Rivoli, eating at Angelinas and saving, yes saving, on their retail spend by claiming the tax back at Eurostar or CdG.
Like I said, this would be a win-win.
Please let me know if you would like to hear more.
Best wishes,
Tamara.
Clare Press reflects on interviewing Marianne Faithfull back in 2005
Author, podcast host & sustainable fashion trailblazer, Clare Press, reflects on interviewing Marianne Faithfull, the singer & actress who died last week aged 78. Clare’s words, with her permission, from Instagram:
I loved Marianne Faithfull - her style, her music, her insane memoir (try & find a copy). In 2005, I got to interview her ahead of her appearance at the Sydney Festival. She was growling Tom Waits’ music set to a William Burroughs story, The Black Rider, and of course she’d known Burroughs, & the whole production was incredible like she was.
Yesterday, I heard she’d died & dug out the transcript. The file was corrupt but I managed to open it in text edit. These are the best quotes. So long Marianne. So much more than Mick’s ex.
ON TIME “It’s a shame I’m so bloody old, it would have been more convenient for me to do my best work in my 30s, but I obviously couldn’t do that; my whole life has been a learning curve.”
ON COLLABORATION “I haven’t got a choice. I hear music in my head all the time, but I can’t play an instrument, so I have to go to other people to put it together. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman too? A man’s ego is much bigger; a man would have learnt to play an instrument. But I find it much more interesting to do it with someone else. I want to do that. I’m very willing to listen to others, sometimes too willing.”
ON SUCCESS “I’ve been working now for 30 years & never made much money. [The records] they’ve never really, apart from my very early work, charted... But that’s the only way I can know people really like it. The only way they can show me is by buying the record and I think I’m getting to need that. If I don’t get that quite soon, I might just say TO HELL WITH IT.” I said, “No! Really?” And she said, “Well, you’d better tell your friends to buy it!” I did. The current record, I think, was Before The Poison, she’d done tracks with Nick Cave, PJ Harvey. It was fantastic. She was fantastic.
ON HARD CHOICES “I haven’t made it easy. I certainly haven’t been down the commercial road. My choices are mine. Choices are one of the very interesting things about an artists’s work. There’s never been any question about me making a commercial choice. I obviously enjoy a challenge. I just feel that I have these talents, & there was a time in my life when I wasn’t using them, & I think that’s one of the worst things you can do. It’s something about being alive - that’s what you can give back to life: do what you’re best at. I’m good at this.”
I asked, would she do anything differently, looking back over her extraordinary highs and lows, the songs, the clothes, the muse years, the junkie years, the homeless bit where she lived for 2 years on a Soho wall…
“Do it differently? I don’t know. I think that having those kinds of thoughts doesn’t get us anywhere. Everything that has happened to me has contributed. My whole life has been a learning curve, let’s hope it goes on that way. This year I’ve really raised the bar - that means I’ve learned something. My addiction, that was my pact with the devil. Thank god that’s over”
We talked about clothes, and those iconic photos:
“I didn’t realise people were taking so many great pictures. They are kind of classics aren’t they? My favourite is the Ossie Clarke snakeskin suit. I have a collection now but not from the 60’s, I lost everything.”
Then I ventured, (well, wouldn’t you?): “You’ve known some legends” and she said, “incredible people. I really have. I knew Allen very well.” As in Ginsberg. “Gregory Corso was a great friend of mine.”
I said, “Bob?” (Couldn’t help myself).
“Bob. Yeah, I went to see Bob in Sydney, what a great week. I was playing, Bob was playing, and The Stones were playing. I went to see Bob and Bob wanted me to go somewhere in the country. I wouldn’t go because The Stones were playing, he was quite cross.” Bob, cross!
“Whenever I can, I go and see Bob. It’s not that often.” she said.
She talked about The Stones and how “Bob is awfully fond of Ronnie Wood, 40 years on, all still friends. We obviously, all of us, shared something incredible, we were all together at an amazing moment in time and in our own lives. We were young, we were talented, we were lovely, we were delightful.”
Then she said, BECAUSE SHE WAS MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “I think people should remember though, yes it’s wonderful that I met all these great people, but it’s equally wonderful that they met me. I gave as much as I got.”
Shaping Fashion’s Future: Tamara Cincik joined the Metamorphosis Panel at Berlin Fashion Week
During this years Berlin Fashion Week, Fashion Council Germany hosted ‘Metamorphosis – dialogues about change’, a dynamic talk series powered by eBay.
With keynotes, panels and interviews, the event provided a platform to discuss topics such as sustainability, circularity, digital transformation, and creative visions for the future. Together they created an inclusive dialogue that highlighted the challenges and opportunities facing the fashion industry and provided forward-looking inspiration.
Fashion Roundtable’s CEO, Tamara Cincik, took part in the Next Gen Power: Shaping Fashion’s Future panel where she shared her insights.
“It was an honour to speak at Metamorphosis for Berlin Fashion Week, sponsored by Ebay DE, about our work at Fashion Roundtable, where we are keen to integrate systems change thinking with regenerative practice. I was fascinated by the speakers who it is clear are leading the debate on how we square AI and digital with creativity, ethics and the invaluable joy of handmade creative practice.”
Event: A Shaded View on Fashion: in Conversation with Diane Pernet, 19th February, London
In the lead up to London Fashion Week, The House of Koko welcome maverick fashion commentator and designer Diane Pernet. Her platform A Shaded View On Fashion earned her the title of "the original style blogger" from The New York Times, and in 2008 she founded the world's first international fashion film festival, A Shaded View On Fashion Film, which helped incubate fashion film from its infancy to the popular genre it is today.
Listen to our podcast episode with Diane:
Diane joins designer and sculptor, Daniel Lismore, in conversation on 19th February to delve into her work and the creative community she has built.