Living at the other end of the Earth is no fun if you love to keep an eye-spy on what's happening in retail in Europe and the USA.  Eighteen months ago I decided to ignore the tyranny of distance and make sure I spent more time OS looking at merchandising and emerging trends. I have just returned from my 3rd trip to London in just over 12 months. It's a fabulous city with brilliant retail benchmarks for fashion, food and lots of things in between.

The windows at White Stuff have caught my eye on every visit ... ranging from squirrel heads on mannequins to celebrate autumn, to 'village fete' tea type sets ... each time I have loved their kooky approach. Last week I spotted their super hero cartoon character windows ... too much fun. White Stuff started out as a ski apparel brand ... over the past 25 years they have gone mainstream whilst retaining an indie feel through store design and careful location selection, and from what I can gather continue to post fab sales growth figures. They were onto retro wall papers and props seemingly before everyone else in retail land and their casual, easy to wear, clothing is presented as colour stories. Their VM makes me smile, if not laugh out loud. The 25 year Silver Jubilee theme was a right royal corker ... or should I say a corg-er!  Coronation chicken sandwich anyone?