Press Release

July 2010

From Bicester to Bath; hot on the heels of the highly successful ‘British Designers Collective’ concept in Bicester Village comes a follow-on initiative at Milsom Place in the World Heritage City of Bath. The ‘British Designers Boutique’ will showcase the very best in British fashion direct from the catwalk.

Bath, and Milsom Quarter in particular, has long been established as a fashion shopping destination with its diverse mix of independent boutiques alongside high street favourites; and this year Bath’s Milsom Street won the title of ‘UK’s Best Fashion Street’ in the Google Street Awards. The ‘Fashion Museum’ and the growing success of Bath Spa University’s fashion department add further weight to the city’s style credentials.

JoJo Iles manager & PR of the concept boutique comments: “We’ve had our eye on Bath for sometime and we feel that the British Designers Boutique will bring a unique offer to its door. Not only will we house key designers from the catwalks of London Fashion Week but we aim to provide space and support for up and coming talent.”

Development manager Vanessa Isaia adds: “The British Designers Boutique will enable people to buy designer pieces that are normally only found in London. The boutique will stock designers such as Emma Cook, Jean Pierre Braganza & Julien MacDonald and will offer fantastic reductions on limited samples and pieces from previous seasons. We are naturally very excited about this new project and look forward to working with the designers as well as the Universities and local talent in and around Bath.”

The recently completed Milsom Place estate uses an innovative blend of old and new architecture to link Bath’s most established fashion streets and is already home to mainstream names such as Hobbs, Ted Baker, Cath Kidston and Phase Eight. Ken Elliott, Director at Milsom Place Ltd, comments: “We are thrilled to provide a home for British Designers Boutique here, we are always looking for concepts that will continue to enhance the vibrant mix of both established and new fashion brands we have here and BDB will fit in extremely well.”

The British Designers Boutique will initially launch as a pop-up concept and is due to open at 14/15 Milsom Place, Bath on the 1st September 2010.

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For more information, interviews or images for press use please contact JoJo – jojo@fashionpr.co.uk  

Notes:

About Fashion Enter Ltd, FashionCapital and British Designers @ FashionCapital:

+ Fashion Enter Ltd & FashionCapital, the online portal, provides a one-stop online support resource for all areas of the fashion industry. Established in 2001 FashionCapital has a wealth of expertise to provide all users a unique insight into the fashion industry crossing all sectors of the business. www.fashioncapital.co.uk  

+ FashionCapital combined with Fashion Enter Ltd in September 2006 to ensure a full offer of complete business support. Fashion Enter, a not-for-profit company, has a network of boutiques, the fashion event Profile, a production workshop, provides talks & seminars and gives members access to on-going mentoring and business advice. The amalgamation of the two businesses provides one of the most powerful forces in fashion today.

+ The British Designers Boutique will be co-managed by Vanessa Isaia and JoJo Iles. Vanessa has a wealth of industry experience as both a creative – designs/trends/illustration and as a business organiser; she helped set up the highly successful ‘British Designers Collective’ at Bicester Village. JoJo spent her formative years as a fashion model; she later studied at the London College of Fashion and became established in the industry as a journalist, PR and editor.

About Milsom Place, Bath, managed by L&R Group:

+ Milsom St was voted UK’s most fashionable street – Google Street View Awards 2010.

+ Milsom Quarter has the greatest concentration of quality retail brands outside of London.

+ With its 26 shops and 4 restaurants the recently completed Milsom Place lies at the heart of Milsom Quarter, current tenants include Ted Baker, Hobbs, Cath Kidston, Yo Sushi and Jamie’s Italian.

+ The L&R Group is a private group of companies whose directors, unusually, have extensive previous experience in the ownership of retail, catering and other leisure businesses, as well as their current property interests. They are often involved with town centre initiatives and currently Operations Director, Sarah Mansfield, sits on the boards of City Centre Management and Bath Tourism Plus. The head office is based in Bath.

+ The L&R Group specialises in the creation and management of new destinations within sensitive, complex and historic town centres. Their particular brand of development has involved discovering and opening up new routes and frontages and the refurbishment and integration of listed buildings to create one-off, retail-led environments. Notable developments include Windsor (Windsor Royal Station) which rejuvenated an area focused on a Grade II* Listed Victorian railway station in front of Windsor Castle introducing  8 new restaurants and 25 new shops into the town and connecting its main shopping streets, and Bath (Milsom Place) where an existing 1980’s shopping centre has been refurbished and linked into a network of new ‘streets’ and listed buildings on adjoining land to create an ‘estate’ forming the heart of the city’s prime retail area. www.milsomplace.co.uk