This Father’s Day Firebox has been one of our most popular stores at SHOP.COM. Their quirky and cool gadgets and gifts are definitely great for dads. One of the top selling items this year is the Air Rock Guitar, recently demonstrated by Kate on the Apprentice. Wannebe rock star dads can thrash away at cords on the infra red strings whilst the built in speaker and audio sockets connect to an amp (or hopefully) headphones, then its over to dad…..Hello Cleveland!

For the Fathers that want an easier life, another of Firebox’s hottest items is the remote control drinks cooler. You simply add ice, fill with beer, then when its time to fetch your next drink, you simply guide it to wherever you’re lying using the 30ft remote control. This is the perfect present for Homer style dads.

So if you haven’t bought anything yet grab one of these items quickly.

 Air Guitar Rockstar £14.95

Remote Control Drinks Cooler £39.95

So the new whiter than white, “tailored by England” football strip, recently unveiled, is now on sale for us all to rush out and buy. If you saw England play the Ukraine yesterday you will have seen the squad kitted out in the new all white top, all white shorts and all white socks. Umbro appointed Saville Row trained Charlie Allen as head of the design team to develop the new kit. Allen took inspiration from England glory days (despite there only being one day 43 years ago) to create the all white, classic, made to measure strip complete with tailored shoulder darts and carefully placed ventilation points. The strip is apparently designed to complement Fabio Coppello’s philosophy of “unity, formality and attention to detail”. Whilst the likes of Beckham, Rooney and Ferdinand were clearly in a dilemma yesterday as to whether to wear tops with or without T-shirts, collars up or down and how high to pull up the shorts, I bet there wasn’t one mum of a footballing mad son wondering “how the hell am I going to wash that?”

 Kids New England Top £39.99

 Kids New England Shorts £19.99

 Kids New England Socks £7.99

The Sunday Mirror newspaper yesterday announced the happy news that Man United and England ace, Wayne Rooney and his much loved wife, Coleen are expecting their first baby in September. This wonderful news will no doubt mean a fevour from the paparazzi to capture snaps of baby or bump shopping from Coleen to confirm the rumour is true.Used to having her shopping trips and resulting looks documented in the press, Coleen will no doubt want to make sure she’s awash with maternity must-haves during this first trimester and happy with her featured image. Here are our tips to help:

• The first things to remember when shopping for clothes to incorporate your expanding waistline is don’t just go for a bigger size.  Invest in carefully selected pieces that will give comfort and shape to an ever expanding you. Wrap and rouched dresses and tops are great for this. 
• Don’t change your personality when you’re pregnant, continue to wear your favourite styles and don’t adopt a twinset and pearl look just because you’re joining a new club!
• The High Street puts on a poor show for mums-to-be, although with both ASOS and Top Shop now stocking maternity capsules it is possible to track down trendier items if you look hard enough. Littlewoods Direct have similarly taken note of a desire for new mums to stay on trend and recently launched some glowing designs by TV presenter, Holly Willoughby.
• And if you can’t find, and it is tough, the clothes you would wish to wear to complement the new you, then stick with simple designs and invest in fabulous shoes, treat yourself to the perfect bag and splurge on designer sunglasses instead. You can then use your favourite accessories to showcase your style. I’m sure Coleen will have no problem doing that.

  Cap Wrap Dress from Isabella Oliver £80

   ASOS Jersey Wrap Bust Dress £27.50

 Holly Willoughby Maternity Shawl Cardigan £35

The Sunday Times Style magazine printed an article this weekend entitled Transgenerational dressing. The article confirmed that mums are just as likely to raid their daughter’s wardrobes as the other way round.In our house my daughter’s clothes have been fair game for me for a long while. I poach everything from socks to blouses, jumpers and jackets. Best areas to raid for me are all her casual clothes, t-shirts, sweat pants, hoodies, sweat tops. I begrudge spending money on casual clothes for myself preferring to spend my hard earned cash on some key tailored items. My daughter’s drawers however are rich pickings for Nike and Adidas. And whilst she steels my heels for an occasional night out I take her trainers and ballet pumps for my more dressed down days.  But do I leave her clothes at my friends’ houses, screw them up and leave them under my bed for weeks, deny ever having borrowed them or customise, cut, sew or alter bits…? No, not yet anyway. Perfect pickings - Nike Composure Trainers were £45, now £39 at SHOP.COM 

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So the gorgeously stylish guys at Apple have just launched their latest version of the  iPod shuffle. Costing just £59 the shuffle is jaw droppingly small, has 4GB of memory and holds up to 1,000 tunes. It is also the first ever MP3 player with a voice over feature that tells you what song is playing, although that could be annoying.

This third generation shuffle is half the size of it’s predecessor at a staggeringly small 18 mm wide and 27 mm long. It is the smallest music player ever and lays claim to being about the size of a door key. Naturally the shuffle, in either silver or grey, is a super stylish must-have item but as I’m always losing my door keys I don’t know if I’d be able to keep it for very long.

Ipod Shuffle £59.00

Another week and another interest rate cut (yippee!- sorry but I’m a borrower not a saver) and yet another high street store has a 25% of everything sale. This week it’s Debenhams who are cutting prices in a attempt to join the government and get us spending again. The sale started Wednesday 4^th March and runs through until Saturday 7th. There’s some great tote handbags from Misha Barton , killer heels from Faith and super stylish skirts, Julien MacDonald’s are my favourites. And,if like me, the light that comes with the new season suggests a spring clean and fresh look for your home then you’ll find some great deals from Denby, Dyson, Dorma and even Ditton Hill.

But if Sunday comes and you realize you’ve missed the Debenhams sale you’ll have to get to the YOOX website for some discount designer gear instead. To celebrate World Women’s Day on March 8^th YOOX are also offering 15% discount this time on seriously chic items in their Wonder Woman section. Find new releases from favourites like Viktor & Rolf, Balenciaga, Vivienne Westwood and Prada. Simply select your purchase and enter WOMAN@YOOX as the promotional code at checkout to get you discount.

International Women’s Day, in case you didn’t know, started in the early 1900’s and is now promoted by the UN as an occasion to reflect female issues surrounding work, fairness and equality. So you owe it to the government’s efforts to revive the economy, to save high street stores and to celebrate women everywhere, to shop till you drop this weekend. And remember just think how much you’ll spend save.

“Discount is not a dirty word in fact it’s beginning to feel like an entitlement” highlighted Edwina Ings-Chambers in the Sunday Times’ barometer of all things chic - The Style Guide -yesterday. And right they are. Whilst Edwina comments on how her friend managed to get 15% off a £5,000 pair of Channel earrings, is still way beyond my level of spending, the message that discounting is an expected part of retailing is now also clear with fashionistas.

A few years ago I would rather have died than pull a voucher out my purse in full view of other shoppers demonstrating how much I needed a £5 rebate. Now however it would be more embarrassing to say you paid full price for an item.  I recently fell in love with a pair of shoes from Nine West at the Shoe Studio in Debenhams and noticed from their in store signage that an offer was running in conjunction with the Daily Mail newspaper. Following the sales assistant’s advice I left the shoes behind the till and ran the entire length of the shopping centre to buy a newspaper in search of the voucher. I certainly couldn’t have done that in the shoes I was buying but the satisfaction that I had saved 15% was worth every puff and pant and cheer from the other shoppers when I reappeared with a voucher in hand. 

How great it is then that the perception of discount shopping has changed and how empowering it is for the consumers that the savvy shopping we’ve been doing for months has the endorsement of the style gurus at The Sunday Times.

Spring Styles at the Shoe Studio

We are seeing on SHOP.COM that value proposition still remains key for the many of the retailers we work with. This time of year traditionally marks the end of “sales items” as new spring clothing collections are launched and the latest colour palettes for the home are unveiled.

However despite the marked disappearance of discounted goods there are still some great offers around to help spring you into a new season.

Littlewoods are giving you £15 off your first order and free standard delivery and returns. And, if your purchase is over £100 you can even buy now and pay nothing until 2010!

We’ve also been alerted to early discounts at Laura Ashley, whose online site is brimming with inspirational ideas for the home. On Friday 27^th, Saturday 28^th and Sunday 1^st off March they will be conducting a “mega weekend” with 25% off everything from their new Spring Summer 09 catalogue.

So don’t worry if it seems sales are disappearing, with a little digging around you can still unearth some great offers to help you update you and your home for the new season ahead. Watch this space!

Laura Ashley SS09

Littlewoods Direct, Buy Now Pay Later

The colour Purple. The girls in the office are loving anything purple right now. Purple totes, purple bangles, purple tops, purple shoes, purple nail varnish. Not all together - just a bright accessory to an otherwise boring black outfit. A little bit of purple seems is pulling us out of the doldrums and providing us with the green shoots of spring. Think crocuses think bluebells and think Spring is nearly here.

 Francesco Biasia Eco-leather Satchel. Was £165.15, Now £99.15

 Thick Purple Resin Bangle £4.50