Wednesday, July 8, 2009
08 July 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
ZAhmad Fiirdaus Abas
Topman Product
Topman's main product offerings are fashionable men's clothing, covering everything from men's formal suits to informal indie-rock-influenced casual-styling ranges, along with footwear and accessories. Topman also sells a specially-designed range of clothing at their flagship London store in an area named 'Lens'. Its current offerings included items by Dexter Wong Ltd, Fred Perry, Licentious, Siv Stoldal, Carolyn Massey, Material Boy, Mjolk and 'Topman Design'.
Over recent years, Topman has collaborated with young designers such as Kim Jones, Markus Lupfer and Peter Jensen as well as launching its own premium label ‘Topman Design’. After showing seasonally to the menswear press arena, Topman joined forces with Fashion East to produce 'MAN', a menswear event that takes place on schedule at the London Fashion Week, showcasing new menswear design as well as the Topman Design collection.
In 2008, Topman collaborated with new label The Look Presents, the creation of rock-fashion author Paul Gorman and Soho boutique owner, Max Karie, to launch 'the Look Presents'.
This comprised three collections:
- A range of T-shirts by the 70s label Wonder Workshop which was launched in June 2008.
- A T-shirt collection by Nigel Waymouth, founder of the King's Road store Granny Takes a Trip, which was launched in August 2008.
- Priceless, the ready-to-wear capsule collection by Antony Price, designer for Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry and Duran Duran which was launched in October 2008.
- Stella McCartney for Topman, the accessory and ready-to-wear collection will be launched in November 2009.
Dunhill History
In 1907, Alfred Dunhill opened his first tobacco shop on Duke Street, London. Before the Cuban Revolution, Dunhill had numerous distribution and marketing agreements with several Cuban cigar manufacturer, selling exclusive and hard to find brands such as Don Cándido and Dunhill's own Selección Suprema line, with various sizes from many famous cigar makers such as Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta. Dunhill became famous as the tobacconist of choice for George VI and the prodigious cigar smoker Sir Winston Churchill. A popular legend tells that when the Dunhill store on Jermyn Street was destroyed in the London Blitz, Dunhill employees called Sir Winston at four o' clock at night to assure him his private collection of cigars (which he kept in the store's humidor) had been relocated beforehand to safety.
After the Revolution, Dunhill's unique relationship with Cuban cigars would continue with the communist government's tobacco monopoly, Cubatabaco. Dunhill was given the exclusive rights to three different brands: Don Cándido, its own Don Alfredo, and La Flor del Punto, plus the numerous Selección Suprema sizes produced by the marques that had survived nationalization.
In 1967 the tobacco branch of Alfred Dunhill Ltd was sold off and became its own separate entity. In 1981 tobacco blending (of the Dunhill pipe tobaccos, at least) was transferred to Murrays, of Belfast. In 2005 it was transferred to Orlik of Denmark, renewing debate about blending/flavor changes in Dunhill's pipe tobaccos.