The Mimco shoes sale starts on the 25th of May 2012 and is offering up to 50% off their great range of boots, flats and heels.  Visit http://www.mimico.com.au and click sale to peruse the range.

I have fallen in love with a the Dreamweaver Loafer, which would be perfect with neutral outfit. They have been reduced from $199.00 t0 $119.00 and they are a good range of sizes available. Pick between the black and the mink colourings.

See my styling below, for a saturday at the cafe bookshop look.

One of my favourite cafes in Sydney is Ampersand on Oxford Street. Second hand books occupy three floors of this converted terrace, with a myriad of rooms to lose yourself in. With a chai latte in hand and sunk deep into a georgian styled chair, I can spend hours reading a book or writing my diary.

Buy it here:

Welcome to Vitail – the virtual mirror for retail.

A fantastic new app called Bonn has been develop by e-commerce entrepreneur Miriam Konig. The app operates on an tablet or compute that has a webcam. Users standing front of the web cam and can use their hands to manipulate the software to enable a better understanding of the way the garments will look and fit.

The Sydney Morning Herald sums it up:

“The last obvious competitive edge that physical retailers have looks threatened by a new online app.

The app – or “augmented reality virtual mirror application” called Bonn – is designed to remove the need for an in-store try “before you buy” experience.

Bonn lets online shoppers try on clothing and accessories from the comfort of their home or office. With Bonn, which deploys image recognition and tracking software, theoretically the consumer’s base becomes a virtual changing room”.

Traditional bricks and mortar stores have always had a slight edge over the pure plays as they allow for the customer to try on, touch and feel garments before purchase. Pure plays can not offer this benefit and as such the industry average for returned stock is around 30%. Most commonly purchases are returned due to wrong sizing or poor fitting when the customer eventually got to try them on. And lets not forget how different a garment can look  on a size 0 model posed under studio lighting to when its worn in broad daylight in  a size 12. Some pure plays have been working on overcoming this hurdle predominately by employing technology to highlight how the clothes may look, Take Asos’ catwalk videos and H&M’s 3D models as examples.

Bonn however offers a fresh solution to this problem, but how will it works I have yet to test. Exciting times.

The i-media Retail Summit is being held this year from the 7-9 of May, at the Cypress lakes Resort in the Hunter Valley. Held in high esteem it’s the premier event for those involved in fashion e-commerce for the Australian retail sector.

The line up of speakers looks  amazing and includes:

Mark Sebbo, CEO from Net-a-porter

Michelle Azar, VP Emerging Digital Platforms

Gavin Merriman, Head of e-commerce for Universal

Sam Zivot, Digital Strategist at Lorna Jane

Sean Ashby, SEO & Founder of Aussiebum

I will be attending in my capacity as a consultant for Frockaholics, soaking up the latest in digital trends for the pure play ecommerce retailer.

Watch this space for thoughts, comments and learnings from the event.