It seems like the British public’s appetite for a bargain is showing little sign of waning. The value fashion sector had a very strong end to 2009, with Primark (*), Peacocks (boosted greatly by the Pearl Lowe dresses range), New Look, and Matalan all reporting year on year sales rises over the festive period. However, the British Retail Consortium director general Stephen Robertson, has sounded a note of caution predicting no growth in consumer spending over 2010, and questioning whether the positive results from the festive period may be something of a false dawn.

He told the BBC:

“…………with customers now reacquainting themselves with concerns about jobs and tax rises there is a risk that a healthy December may be only a temporary respite on the painful road to recovery.”

Whatever the case, 2010 is sure to be an interesting year on the High Street.

We’ve been thinking about what colours are going be influential over the course of 2010.

What are you buying this winter?

Well folks, here we are – slap bang in the middle of one of the coldest winters for decades. This is a rather unusual experience here in the UK, we have not seen a Winter Wonderland like this since we were trying to figure out the what the heck a ‘hypotenuse’ was (a long time ago). What we tend to get is a slightly colder and wetter few months than ususal – kind of like a permanent Autumn – oh joy! Although things seems to have been thawing out in recent days, it is only January and we have a nagging feeling that we are not out the woods yet.

Being positive souls however, we see Winter as a great fashion opportunity – you can evolve your entire style with a new winter wardrobe.

So with that in mind – we are interested in what you will be splashing out on this winter, thanks for your input and enjoy the weather!

Buying Jeans? – have alook at these

This blog has been in existence since July 2008 and in that time we have written 72 posts. That is quite alot for anyone to get through and extract the information they need – therefore, we thought that it would be handy to compile some of our older entries in one handy post.

Those of you lacking in sales inspiration might want to take a look back at some of our ‘what clothes we like’ type posts, where we gave our fashion advice, opinions and tips – we think that some of them still provide some good insight.

• Wardrobe Essentials – Jeans
• Six Styles of Jeans
• 2008 Favourite Jeans Poll - Still worth voting for your favourite jeans styles – get in there

Ladies looking for some new dress ideas, have a read at these

• Knitted Dresses Usher in Autumn 2009 – Still looking great in 2010
• Jumper Dresses – Winter Fashion Winner 2008 – like these as well, still a major high street staple
• Christmas Party Season Dresses – The Rules – Can be adapted to suit any party occassion

Are you with child and in the need of Maternity Clothes?, you can still look stylish, honest……

• Maternity Fashion
• Maternity Clothing – We Know What We Want!

Need a new pair of shoes but don’t know what to plump for? – have a shifty at these….

• Shoes To Love
• Womens Shoes We Like This Winter

This is our top ten most visited posts of all time……………

1. Christmas Party Season Dresses – The Rules
2. Five Fashion Trends of Summer 2009
3. Jumper Dresses – Winter Fashion Winner 2009
4. Cosy Up In Pyjamas This Winter
5. Five Cool Summer T-Shirts for Men
6. Gilets – Stylish Yet Practical Winter Clothing
7. Anticipating 2009 Fashion Trends
8. Six Styles of Jeans
9. Michelle Obama inspired fashion
10. Knitted Dresses Usher in Autumn 2009

We hope that there was something valuable in here that you may have missed. Thanks for reading and we look forward to the next 73 posts!

In reality the January clothes sales start on about the 15th of December these days, but anyway we only just plucked up the courage to hit the streets yesterday to find out what was happening in bargain land. We have to say that the whole experience was not pleasant – as always seems to be the case with sales the good stuff is either:

• Gone by the time you get to it
• Your size is inevitably the most popular and hence – sold out
• Whats left is so unpleasant you wouldn’t even spend a few quid on it

So, in short we bought nothing, and instead ventured online where there are still some real bargains to be had. Here are some great clothes sales that hopefully won’t leave you with the same lingering feelings of disappointment that we experienced yesterday.

Designer/Labels

End Clothing Sale

Size Online Footwear Sale

Triads Sale

High Street

Peacocks Sale

TopShop

Debenhams

John Lewis

What did you get in the sales? (either offline or online) – give us a shout with your findings!

This year the number of people shopping online during the festive period is set to rise again this year. We are also just over a week away from what has come to be known amongst online retailers as ‘Cyber Monday’. This is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year, Amazon are hiring extra staff and opening new warehouses to deal with the increase in demand.

Christmas Shopping

 

We were having a think about this at Cheap Clothes Rule – what are the reasons behind this continual increase in online activity whilst the High Street continues to dip? Is it down to improvments in the online shopping experience? or are Christmas shoppers getting fed up with the barrage of Christmas related activity from October onwards? We would welcome your thoughts…..

In the meantime, fill out our exciting Christmas shopping behaviour poll!

iPhone Fashion Apps

Those of us who like to follow the continual comings and goings within the fashion industry can now keep in touch with a pretty cool range of apps that enable you to follow the latest trends on the catwalk and beyond.

Here are our pick of some of the best available fashion apps for iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones:

• Net-A-Porter’s free fashion application – a slick app which keeps you up to date with cutting edge fashion……

• Style.com – An app to keep you up to date with the latest gossip and fashion events from the Style File

• Stylebook – A nice app that helps you build a look from your wardrobe…….

Other iPhone Fashion Applications worth trying are:

• D&G Fashion Channel Winter 2010
• The Ralph Lauren Collection
• Donna Karan
• Lucky magazine
• Lookz Lite
• Stylish Girl

See the full range at iPhone Apps

Blackberry Fashion Apps

• Fashion News Service by 360Fashion
• Fashion Mogul – This fun App lets you design and develop your own Fashion Boutique
• Elle Magazine – Various Blackberry Apps are available from Elle
• Shoewawa – One of the top fashion blogs for years has its own application where you can customise the blog to your hearts content
• London Fashion Week

See more Blackberry Fashion Applications.

Google Android Fashion Apps

Those with an Google Android phone may want to keep an eye on the fast-growing Android App Marketplace where there are likely to be a good range of fashion applications appearing in time. For now, have a look at

• ShopSavvy – scan barcodes of any product

• OI Shopping list

These are some of our top apps, if you know of any other useful fashion applications – please let us know!