A Life Less Ordinary

Tokyo Neighbourhoods

Oh my. This jet lag is insane. Woke up at some ungodly hour, despite my attempt to chemically induce sleep and after pottering around in the hideously overpriced gym, thoroughly reading all Tweets and deleting some work emails, I ventured to the breakfast buffet (which should be banned, as I have no idea when to stop) and then was forced to kill an hour and a half at Starbucks in Shibuya, waiting for the stores to open. Not so bad though, my view was the below and whilst nursing my third caffeine hit of the day (at 8am) I watching the commuters battle the famous Shibuya crossing. From an anthropological point of view it was fascinating; everyone obediently waits until the exact point when the green man is flashing, everyone. There is absolutely no jay-walking. Even when there is no traffic; amazing. 

Having realised mid-flight that I had forgotten my Lonely Planet and then reminding myself how there are no subway maps in English, I hastily joined the queue of giggling school girls standing outside Tower Records (5^th floor; apparently the only English book store in SW Tokyo) to secure a copy of Time Out, but only after elbowing my way through the crowds; it appears I timed my visit with the same day as the launch of the Japanese Boyzone’s new album. I hopped skipped on the JR line to Shinjuku, where I was greeted with the below… Not quite as impressive as it is on an eve, but still a myriad of fonts, colours, noises and crazy little cars, punctuated with vending machines dispensing coffee-in-a-can on every street corner.

 

Whilst waiting for another bloody store to open (the stores open at 11am, apparently, in Shinjuku) I discovered a wonderful shop with very strange oddities such as these… 

Yes, they are French maid's outfits… And adult-sized school girl outfits. Wrong. But the photo that makes me laugh out loud whenever I see it (and made me gasp with horror when I saw them FOR SALE) has to be this:

Yes, that is a man, he is shaven and that's just the start of the wrong-ness... 

I was tempted to buy some of the below (having allergies myself), but I don't think I could summon up the courage to wear them in public and they would only end up festering dust in a drawer, along with all the other Japanese oddities I have bought over the years. I can't even fathom how they came up with the idea....

Onto Harajuku next. I'm in love with the sugary smelling Hello Kitty café next to Kiddyland; the line of school girls munching on the cookies directly opposite unfortunately wasn't captured, and I'm kicking myself now for not asking if I could take a photo of them. As a child I drove my mother mad for anything Hello Kitty, and even in my 30's the fascination hasn't waned.

Harajuku never fails to turn up some incredible pieces...

 

Yes, that is a Buzz Lightyear necklace, a My Little Pony brooch, and those are Barbie heads as ring and shoe trinkets. Tres odd.

Off the main drag, Omotosando in Harajuku, I found myself wandering around back streets perusing Billionaires Boy’s Club and A Bathing Ape  (I have no intention of buying anything - not my style - but their wares are incredible and the retail experience is second to none). The slightly more upmarket Beams and  Porter did have a good going-over, although I'm saving pennies right now. 

Further into Omotosando and Tokyo architecture really does come into it's own. This photo doesn't do the incredible Prada building justice, but it has a James Bond style tunnel entrance at the side (which I've tried to capture) and is super cool inside. I love it. And all of the contents. 

 

Next onto the upmarket Ginza, where you need a fat wallet and pearl necklace as standard. Abercrombie have recently moved into this neighbourhood, as have Zara, H&M and now Uniqlo have a new men's concept store; the High Street is invading what was once an exclusive street wall to wall with European designer brands. This isn't such a bad thing.

Having been about all day to the point where I feel as if my feet have been bound and I've been walking on wooden sandals, I now have a sufficient amount of tat  and curiosities to bring back to the UK to pacify curious friends. I’ve just been called by my US counterpart who called to say she's arrived safely (thanks for that) and do I want to meet for dinner (um, maybe?)

Dinner tonight (unless I can muster up the courage to be social – perhaps not) will be another round of unidentified vegetables from the local 7-11 (the only thing I KNOW doesn't have shellfish in), washed down with  an over-sweetened orange juice and some sweet bread stuff (sweet flavoured bread, not sweetbreads...)

I may even be able to see past 9pm tonight. That is if I can figure out how to use this:

Please let me sleep through the night tomorrow is a big day.

Sayonara.  

Rost in transration

I'm stuck in overly elaborate and extremely painful TV conference call. One hour and 35minutes, and counting. All in Jinglish. I swear this could be wrapped up in 20 minutes if it wasn't punctuated with "one moment please, we speak in Japanese"... At least they're polite. As well as consistent in calling our technical guy "Lobin" (Robin).

I just need to be more consistent in looking less bored, since I'm bring beamed pixelated 8,000 miles away. 

Excess baggage

The checking of my Visa credit card on the busiest day back to work was probably not such a great idea, along with falling asleep in my make-up at 9pm last night. My punishment; a balance I wince at paying off and a body clock that is well and truly out of synch. I’ve been awake since 02:30 this morning and have a horrid 08:30 Tokyo conf-call to look forward to. Must remember to quaff a few Melatonin before I retire this evening.

Having been advised by The Boy to not use my Amex overseas (and foregoing additional Virgin Flying Club Miles – something to do with higher fees for non-Sterling transactions, I dunno…) I slapped all purchases from my recent trip to Hawaii and Vegas on the Visa card, which had to be dusted off for the occasion.

Curiosity got the better of me and I checked my statement online yesterday morning. I was amused to see in my absence, Barclaycard have updated their website with a thermometer-style balance display, that ‘grows’ as the statement loads on the screen. I’m undecided if this is a good thing or not, but it is amusing to watch the balance ‘heat up’ and the grand total run through in a numerical petrol-pump ticker style.

Trawling through the slightly more acceptable transactions at MAC, American Eagle and Abercrombie (Christmas presents – allowed), Target, CVs and WallMart (the US being the purveyor of all pharmacy items and the reason why my luggage rattled all the way home), I gasped at the five separate transactions at Victoria’s Secret glaring at me, each one enough to cover a weekly zone 1 and 2 travelcard. I felt guilty enough at the time as I handed the card over to the cashier, but it’s more than obvious in the cold light of day; I have no self-control...

However, being female and having learnt from the best, I have developed the ability to justify all purchases, in only the way girls can.

Having never been bra fitted before, and not being the most well endowed of girls, I’ve never seen any point in spending more than 10GBP on a bra and a couple of quid on knickers. I’m ashamed to say my underwear drawer (you could hardly call it lingerie) was mostly from TopShop, H&M and (embarrassingly) Primark… So I was justifiably shocked to realise how much bras actually cost – do people seriously pay upwards of 30GBP for a bra? For three bras you could have got yourself a nice pair of shoes from Kurt Geiger. Sod that. 

Clearly it was time I grew up, so I put myself in the capable hands of the Victoria’s Secret salesgirls. It was their lucky day and I was putty in their hands.

A few slightly flustered hours later, having been prodded, pushed, hoicked and squeezed into various ill-fitting ensembles; I am now the proud owner of an extremely attractive lingerie drawer. Most of which is in varying shades of bright through to neon (I’m not THAT ready to grow up), as well as 10 pairs of matching lacy knickers and boyshorts – the first boyshorts I’ve found that actually cover my ample bottom, which I was terribly excited about. Hence the 10 pairs. Excessive? Moi?

Added to my new lingerie wardrobe are two neon sports bras; one coral, one yellow (which I am extremely excited about wearing under a black racer tank I also discovered in the sportswear section) and the most flattering strapless bikini I have ever found. So I bought two; one bright lime and one in coral, both perfect for my pale skin, even if it does decide to turn beige. As mother said; when you find a good bikini, buy two. Or words to that effect.

The only real disappointment is that I don’t look anything like the model on the swing tag when I wear any of them.

 

 

 

Back to the Floor

 

This week saw the launch of the much anticipated “+J” Jil Sander x Uniqlo collection. It also meant I have spent very little time in my bed and now need to be reacquainted with it.

Wednesday night was spent clearing fixtures, vacuuming dust bunnies (with my new Ghostbusters-style backpack vacuum cleaner), counting rubber tiles, and realising at 2am that we didn’t have enough rubber tiles, making executive decisions to reduce the number of said rubber tiles and therefore the footprint of the +J area, and pacifying Jil Sander’s Visual Merchandising team, who had been sent over to ‘keep an eye on things’.

Little did I know the very same spot I was vacuuming at 11pm, would be where I will stand in ten hours time, surrounded by very wealthy middle-aged women, with more gold jewellery than Liberace and a Hermes bag for every day of the week, baying for my blood and fighting over the last light grey cut out fitted jacket..

Launch day and I was dog tired, but running on pure adrenalin – and the promise of my Hawaiian holiday in a week’s time. The queue started forming from 8am with two very excited lovely ladies, who were die-hard Jil Sander aficionados and promised 'we're here to buy stuff for us, not put it on eBay!' - I didn't even question... They were quickly joined by a lady who had flown down from Scotland for the occasion (that’s fashion dedication for you), and then a hoard of extremely well dressed architects, designer and doctor-looking types. Safe to say, I think the queue alone boosted the average demographic of Uniqlo customer up by a few socio-economic, and salary, grades.

The doors opened an hour early and it was soon apparent that the earlier request to help out from the retail operations team quickly turned into an ‘all hands on deck’ demand. Everyone was drafted in, including our CEO who’s face flitted between utter joy (meeting target) and sheer panic (running out of product) throughout the course of the day. Meanwhile, the ecommerce team were busy balancing the tricky task of taking phone calls from exasperated customers trying to log on to the website, whilst at the same time, trying to stop the website from falling over and crashing, as anyone outside of London tried to log on and buy the product.

Although I was dreading the thought of having to deal with customers (having heard so many horror stories from various store managers over the year, putting myself at the mercy of customers on the busiest day since the brand opened in 2001, was not top of my agenda), I actually realised I wasn't a bad sales girl, and instead I found myself rising to the challenge of trying to flog as much gear as possible. Never having worked in retail before (the weekends of my youth were spent serving cakes and petrol, although never together), I soon learnt the oldest trick in the book; wear a short dress and high heels, then position oneself in the menswear department. Easy prey. I reckon I banked a few grand alone.

All in all, the +J FW09 collection launch, thankfully, was a huge success – beyond all expectations and of course, all thanks to a phenomenal marketing and PR campaign… ;-) Our CEO is delighted, targets were made in the first two hours of trade and even though the website crashed, it still managed to achieve 2000% of average daily takings.

I have been pretty much working on this for the last 12 months and now it’s over, I feel as if I have just given birth – although I have nothing to show (we’re not allowed to buy the collection. Don’t ask…) Now the hype is dying down, I worry; if pretty much every publication wrote about the collaboration this time around, will they be that interested in four months time when we start the PR bandwagon again? Time will tell.