Thursday, September 24, 2009

A little bit of Moseley and Kings Heath opens on Corporation Street

14 fashion designers, most of whom either live or work in Moseley and Kings Heath, have opened a 3 day ‘pop up’ fashion shop at 37 Corporation Street, Birmingham – the shop is in the former Jade shows shop, four doors away from House of Fraser.

This initiative is designed to showcase independent fashion designers and provide a fringe event to the official 3 day Style in the City fashion event taking place in the House of Fraser, Mailbox and the Bull Ring this weekend..

Among the goods on offer at the shop are vintage shoes, hats, lingerie and clothing by various specialist designers and stores including Benjamin Vaughan’s (York Road, Kings Heath), Top Banana (York Road, Kings Heath), People (Poplar Road, Kings Heath) and Chatterbox Boutique (York Road, Kings Heath).

The idea of the shop is the brainchild of Councillor Martin Mullaney, who pulled together the fashion designers and worked closely with Nikki Carr, the new town centre manager for Moseley and Kings Heath.

Many thanks are also due to Cllr Neville Summerfield, Cabinet member for Regeneration, who negotiated a substantial discount for the use of the shop unit for the three days.

The shop was officially opened this morning jointly by Cllr Neville Summerfield and Kings Heath based pop group Poppy and the Jezebels – Poppy’ recently had their new pop single selected as Single of the Week by the Guardian newspaper.

The ‘Pop-Up Shop’ will be open until 6pm Saturday. Itis part of a wider Council strategy of both supporting smaller retailers and bringing empty retail units back into use for the benefit of all shoppers and retailers in any given area.

It is also hoped that this shop will raise the profile of fashion designers within Birmingham and the region and will be the nucleus of a much large annual Birmingham fashion week.