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But the real reason for our new appearance is that we’ve been working hard to please our customers. Now you’ll find it even easier to locate what you’re looking for and to place your orders with the minimum of fuss. We’d love to hear your comments on our new look!

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As Britain’s beleaguered Prime Minister faces more criticism, more Treasury money being pumped into Northern Rock and more manoeuvring from his cabinet colleagues, Hadley Freeman, deputy fashion editor at The Guardian has some advice for him.  She says ‘For heaven’s sake, Gordon, take off your jacket! … buy some shirts in colours other than “starchy white”, maybe even a loose polo-shirt for your off-duty moments, ruffle your hair up a bit and don’t be afraid of showing a wrist or two. Perhaps even consider switching your facial expression from “bitter glower” to “friendly smile”.’

Would it work? It’s a certain fact that recent political stars on the world of the Western stage: Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton – all have the ability to dress down in their more relaxed moments without looking like a complete prat.  But each has had their own moment of sartorial disaster too: the anti-Obama campaign chose to use a photograph of him in West African dress at a ceremony to suggest he wasn’t really ‘American’ while we can all remember Tony Blair’s sweaty armpits on the conference platform in that light blue shirt, can’t we? As for Clinton and clothing, well … the least said about his ability to deal with his trousers, the better! There are dozens of examples of wardrobe failure in politics – for example, William Haig wore a baseball cap to a festival and lost public confidence immediately.

But there is something important about being able to dress down without looking daft. We see our politicians much more these days, and much more often when they are off duty and supposedly relaxed, but they don’t have the right that we all have to schlep around the place in old trackies and flip-flops: they have a duty to give the impression of power even while at rest.  So I echo Hadley’s call, and will go a step further: by all means sport a polo-shirt, but why not also show yourself in a hoody and reveal your inner class victim, or take to the streets in an organic sweatshirt and show that what’s closest to your heart is a bit of fair-trade and social equality in purest cotton!

Gordon Brown courtesy of fotologic

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Hitwise has announced that www.polo-shirts.co.uk was a Hitwise Top 10 Award winner for the quarter April - June 2008. 

During this period, www.polo-shirts.co.uk ranked in the top ten based on market share of visits among all United Kingdom websites in the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds - Wholesale and Relationship Sales industry. The Hitwise Top 10 Award recognises websites from over 160 industries that are leaders in their industry. To learn more about Hitwise and the Top 10 awards visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk/contact-us/top-ten-awards.php

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The hutongs (alleys to you and me) of Beijing have a new police force – of sorts.  They are called ‘Public Security Volunteers’ and there are more than 400,000 of them – arranged into neighbourhood groups that are serving the Olympic security forces which include a mixture of police, over 100,000 ‘counter-terror troops’ and more than 300,000 CCTV cameras. The PSVs patrol litter-dropping, inappropriate clothing and spitting in the street – but by the locals, not the expected foreign visitors!  Despite the attempt to distinguish the new PSVs from the old ‘neighbourhood committee’ by giving the new volunteers a snazzy red and white striped polo-shirt to wear when ‘on duty’, there’s a lot of concern in the populace – the former committees were a mixture of spies and party members who reported on the irregular activities of their neighbours, and caused many a midnight arrest or disappearance for ‘re-education’.    

The PSV polo-shirts are a big sign of changing China – they are sponsored by the Yanjing beer company, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and while every volunteer has been given one, less than half actually wear them. The other half have been put on the black market, still in their original wrappings, as part of the

Beijing street cleaners in new uniforms

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It’s an important thing to do if you’re a Mormon!  A practicing Mormon who created a calendar with pictures of shirtless (male) Mormon missionaries has been excommunicated after a disciplinary meeting with his local church leaders in Las Vegas.  

The man with a calendar mission - Chad Hardy - bears no ill will towards the council of elders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s an entrepreneur and he says ‘I spoke my truth …they still felt the calendar is inappropriate and not the image that the church wants to have.’ The calendar, called Men on a Mission had already sold over 10,000 copies and has now sold out as a result of the publicity, although Chad says there won’t be any more printed to meet the new demand.  The dozen missionaries are all wearing their uniform of black trousers but lacked the Mormon trademark white shirts.  In smaller supplementary pictures they were shown in their full missionary wear and talking about their religious beliefs.

It isn’t yet clear if action will be taken against the 12 modelling Mormons by their church elders.

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This is the question that www.nosymbolrequired.co.uk asked. 

And the answer? 

Well, it was http://www.saftag.com which was given an overall rating of 5 stars, another 5 stars for item quality, 4 stars for item value and 5 stars for item fit and sizing.

Mark Wallace, who conducted the review said,  ‘I have had difficulty in the past sourcing good enough organic cotton t-shirts which will hold the reputation of my company. I used anvil organic tees for a while, which were in the correct price range, however they didn’t stand the test of time. SAF t-shirts are good quality, are not prone to misshaping after washing, and are easy to print on. The feel of the fabric is far superior to any other organic cotton tee I have managed to get my hands on. The sizes are acceptable and what you would expect. The colours are vibrant and also last well when washing.

His only quibble?

He wants to know when SAF will be bringing out a yellow tee!

 White organic T-shirt courtesy of SAF

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A French court has ordered eBay to pay 40 million euros to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton because the company didn’t do enough to stop sales of counterfeit goods on its site. The court decided that eBay had committed ‘serious errors’ in allowing the sales of fake LVMH goods, and had also violated the sales distribution network set up by Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior Couture and issued a cease and desist order, barring eBay from running advertisements for these perfume and cosmetic brands or risk a fine of 50.000 euros per day. The ruling also prohibits the sale of four perfume brands – Christian Dior, Kenzo, Givency and Guerlain. 

eBay, the world’s largest online auctioneer, said it would lodge an appeal and said the decision was not a victory for copyright law. The appeal will be closely watched by a number of other brands including: Nike, Fred Perry, Lacoste, Burberry and Armani who all consider themselves to be victims of high volume counterfeit sales of their brands through eBay. The biggest area of counterfeiting, after perfumes and bags, is considered to be men’s casualwear, partly because men are not so good at spotting tiny differences in styling or logo that mark out knock-off goods.

Lacoste courtesy of mori chan

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