Click through. You know you’re curious.

Great find Zoe.

Topshop’s ‘Dress Me Up’ initiative started yesterday – where clothing donated by celebrities and designers is up for hire for a night each.

I think it’s a great idea – the celebrity/label-obsessed pay a relatively small sum to wear one-offs and feel special, but are required to make three visits to Topshop in the meantime (one to try, one to collect, and one to return).

It almost goes without saying that the pieces are all up for auction at the end, with the proceeds of the entire exercise going to charity.

What I’m curious about is whether this would have any chance of working in Australia.

Australia’s fashionistas have been begging for fast fashion chains for years – Topshop has only just opened in Sydney, and H&M, Zara and Mango are still yet to make an appearance. Australians love their celebrities and designers, but the following is less cult-like than overseas. Target’s designer collaborations, executed in similar style to collections overseas, have sparked less mass rioting around Target’s doors on release.

Would Aussies actually pay to hire celeb clothing?

A select few would, I think, but how many people could tell you what dress Naomi Watts wore to the last awards show? (Errm…) The success of the campaign relies not just on the mindset of the customers, but how they will be perceived by everyone else for having the clothing.

I’m pretty sure it will be successful in London though, and if the buzz on fashion blogs is anything to go by there will be a select few fashionistas walking around with a huge smile on their face for the next couple of weeks!

As some may know, I’ve flown out to Edinburgh on another one of my crazy stints, this time determined to improve my French and read some of those Booker Prize winners I’ve been telling myself to read.

So, in explanation for why I haven’t been blogging much – blame exams, jetlag and a sense of wonder at why such a picturesque city gets so little of its share of sunlight to admire it in.

Finding it an interesting place from a communications kind of view. There’s a pervading quirky sense of humour, coupled with a very direct method of communicating. This city tells it like it is, but in an amusing kind of way. It’s my kind of city.

I promise to atone for my non-blogging sins, but first I’m told I have to get into the phenomenon known as The X Factor. This may or may not include a comparison of the evolution of supermarkets, discussions on the fall of the advertising industry and whether or not the ad business is good for your career, and…sandwiches.

A few years back I signed up for Soup, a website that giveaways in return for feedback on ideas. As it turned out they only ever sent me two surveys (guess my demographic isn’t in high demand, or maybe I just never ended up answering them) but they’ve got a cool new thing out. Check it.

–

When you joined Soup you told us that you’re interested in environmental issues. As part of this new project we’re looking for Soupers (or Souper friends) who are interested in taking action on climate change. The UK’s leading cultural relations agency, the British Council is the brains behind this recently-launched programme and they’d like your help making this, and future projects, the best they can be.

Plus, if you (or your friends) have got a green idea of your own, the British Council is offering five grants of $10,000 for visionary projects that will positively contribute to Australia’s environmental future.

Who are the British Council and what’s this all about?

• The British Council has been creating ties between people in the UK and across the globe for 75 years and is one of the UK’s largest not for profit organisations. It has a small office in Sydney and staff in Melbourne.
• Their work is based on the belief that the future of all nations depends on people working together better. They run projects in education, arts, sport and science to help create mutually beneficial relationships between people of all cultures.
• Their projects reach over 221 million people a year world-wide.
• The Big Green Idea is part of the British Council’s International Climate Champions programme that works in sixty countries across the globe. This is its first year in Australia!
• Nowadays more and more people are living in urban areas; as a result we’re facing an even bigger challenge to keep these areas sustainable. The Big Green Idea is an initiative developed to support people’s efforts to minimise climate change

You can click here to check out the Big Green Idea website to find out more.

What we’d like you to do for this project:

As part of this project we’ll ask for your honest opinion on the Big Green Idea (based on the website information) and how you might improve it. So if you’re interested in getting involved click here to start now before 24th November.

Also, you don’t have to have a big green idea of your own but if do, or if you know someone with one, why not enter yourself! Entries close at midnight on 4th December.

Everyone knows that the best thing you can do right before an exam is procrastinate, or something.

So here I am, innocently checking my stats and I note that not once but TWICE I have been found by people looking for the nude photoshoot from SUPERMODELME.

Regulars will remember that I did a fair bit of blogging at various stages of the online reality show and declared it to be by and large successful.

Seems that if even several months after the completion of the show people are still searching for it then there’s an ongoing interest (even if it’s just for the nudie pics).

Definitely the contestants have benefitted – have been seeing plenty of photos of them from the Singaporean socialites!

(Makes me wonder whether producers could give bloggers who have previously written about their shows a subtle reminder that they exist – through their stats!)

Does social media give more self-expression, or just a bigger wave of noise to fight through? This preview of “The Fight for Significance in the Age of the Microcelebrity: Anonymity, Anonymous, Smart Mobs, Mad Mobs, Bot Mobs and the Great American Poets” argues that it makes it easier to be an individual but it’s also easier to be anonymous. Or…anony-me. [via I love marketing pocketbooks]

An interesting thought for brands who want to establish their own identity online.

I’m on the hunt for a new bag and after trawling hundreds online…there is hardly any expression of individuality. If I hadn’t heard of these brands before, I would come away from each flash-embedded site with only a vague idea of where they stand based on their pricing.

What does it take to stand out?

Do we have to go back to basics like Margiela? (See my last post…)

websites de la mode

beauty in simplicity

minimalism

As important as the destination is, I love a good journey.

So when an advisory chat about entrepreneurship turned into a conversation about what it takes to be an expert I was taken aback but up for the ride. When you see the fire of enthusiasm burning in someone’s eyes, you know you’re about to discover just as much about them as you are about their favourite topic.

His big talking point is the research saying that most experts, top of their field kinda experts, have spent 10,000 hours honing their knowledge.**

That’s 10,000 hours of focussed, intense effort.

To put that in perspective, that’s about 418 days straight, or 1254 working days.

If you wanted to be at that level in 5 years, you’d need to spend 40 solid hours a week.

That kind of concentration is beyond most of us, and only a small percentage will put in the hours they need to be an expert.

(Good luck to the next person who tells me they’re a social media expert.)

The point is; to be good at something, you need to submerge yourself in it.

A similar chat with another person went in the direction of visualisation and whether it can help you achieve your goals. She’d found that meditation, conceptualising issues and writing down what she needed often resulted in lightbulb moments the next day. The mind can do amazing things if you submerge it.

Okay, so far, so good…now enter Gen Y.

We’ve grown up with the miracles of instant gratification, lottery success and thinking in windows. Multitask, diversify your skills and always be connected to everything.

As I write I’ve 8 windows open, three of which have at least 5 tabs each.

Where’s the time or focus to become an expert when the next distraction is an ALT + TAB away?

True, not everybody needs or wants to become an expert. But are we going to see fewer ascend to the heights of knowledge?

**I should note that the research was on sportspeople, chess players and musicians, but the point is the same.

This ‘learning French’ thing has come in handy sooner than I’d thought.

An agency in Montreal called CARTEBLANCHE has a strange proposition. When faced with the problem of how to recruit interns, they came up with a big idea…

“Ce concept, une première mondiale selon une source bien informée, vise à offrir une chance unique à un artisan du milieu des communications de vivre à fond sa passion et acquérir une expérience professionnelle mémorable.

En effet, CARTEBLANCHE met à la disposition d’un pensionnaire, pour une durée de 30 jours, une chambre complètement aménagée située au deuxième étage de l’agence. Après la journée de travail, le pensionnaire a accès à l’étage qui, en plus de contenir des bureaux de travail, contient tout l’ameublement nécessaire afin de rendre confortable son séjour.”

For the anglophones, I think it goes something like this… (look Mum, no Babelfish!)

“The concept, a world first according to a well-informed source, aims to offer a unique chance for a craftsman of the milieu of communications of life ground to grow their passion and get a memorable professional experience.

Basically, CARTEBLANCHE will provide board for 30 days with a fully fitted room on the second floor of the agency. At the end of a hard day’s work, the intern can access the floor which, in addition to a work table, has all the furnishings required to make their stay comfortable.”

Not quite sold? Try this: “Live the euphoria of working in an agency 24 hours a day. Persons with cardiac issues need not apply.”

Some think it was inspired by the World’s Greatest Job campaign, others think it’s just a recruitment tactic with a difference. Is it just a way of ensuring that your interns always get to work on time? Or a way of finding interns who literally want to live, breathe and sleep advertising?

Certainly not everybody gets to write on their CV ‘has lived in an ad agency’.

Don’t know if we’ll be able to find out exactly who gets to live in ‘Le Dortoir’ butI’ll be watching out and itching to do those translations…

“Ask me what the secret of comedy is.”

“What’s the secret of com–”

“Timing.”

I don’t know if it was intentional, but as I sit here sleepless at 1am I notice that the 1-line ad on my gmail inbox is for an insomnia treatment.

Google, you have mastered the art of targeted ads.

That’s all.

Night.