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As we all know, there’s  no such thing as an original idea,  particularly in fashion, absolutely everything has been done before.  The best we can hope for is that the ideas, prints and shapes that DO come back do justice to the originals…this is a wonderful example and we’re thrilled to have been involved.

We first met ‘Joanne’ last summer, a fabric designer for High St and designer homewares, when she dropped into the store on a visit to Warwick. We’ve since furnished her with some amazing collectable vintage pieces each with inspirational prints, just waiting for her magic touch.

This beautiful 1940′s dress (1947 to be precise and worn by the Warwick Carnival Queen of that year!), has since been used as the inspiration for the new Spring/Summer ‘Fashion Vintage’ Bedset collection from M&S!

It’s absolutely lovely to be a small link in this interesting chain, and we’re so happy that such a beautiful dress has found new life and some of it’s loveliness can now be appreciate by so many new people – I wonder what the Carnival Queen would have thought?!

M&S  Fashion Vintage Bedset

Hi and happy new year!

Hope everyone had a lovely festive season and is fully rested and ready for 2011.

We’ve got great plans for this year so whilst we endeavour not to bombard you with info we’re going to be busy with events and projects all year so be prepared to get involved!

Its our first day back in the shop today as you know so, first things first, we need to de-Christmas and do a post festive season clean and window change, that will put us just in the right frame of mind to hit the beginning of the year running.

Oh! and the small matter of a ONE DAY SALE in store on Saturday to organise, it will be the first of our FLASH SALES planned for throughout the year, so keep an eye on your email (sign up to the newsletter if you haven’t already done so) to be the first to know about great bargains and special treats…

Right! onwards..anyone have any ideas what to do with a gingerbread house?

Yey we’ve almost made it! It’s nearly Christmas and hopefully everyone is still in one piece and not too stressed out!

We’re making a few tweaks to how we work in the New Year so I just wanted to let you all know In good time…

Firstly, we shall be closed on Mondays up until Easter, we’re working on lots of exciting behind-the-scenes projects so we’re taking an extra day to progress with those; as well as scouting out lots more super designer bargains for you to browse in store.

Secondly, our very own ‘Reworked Vintage’ designer Rebecca Francis will be manning the store every Tuesday so do drop in if you want to chat to Becky about the reworked collection or other reworking ideas or alterations.

These changes mean that we really have to be on the ball with our consignment appointments so please do ensure that you give us a call in advance when you want to drop garments into us for sale; as we shall be closed on Mondays we have extended appointment availability into Saturday mornings up until 11am  - hope that helps!

Over the holidays our opening times will be…

24^th Dec: 10am until Mulled Wine O’clock (about 4pm!)

25^th to 28^th Dec : Closed

29^th to 31^st Dec: 11am until 4pm

1^st to 5^th Jan : Closed

Open as usual from 6^th Jan.

Our Christmas pressie to you… 15% off everything in store until the end of January when you quote this code: DecNews10 (or just bring along your Christmas card if you received one in the post).

We’re also planning several One Day Flash Sales with some great reductions in January so keep an eye on your inbox for news of those.

Well what a year! We’ve done everything from gig outfits for singers at the Leamington Assembly to a stall at the Strawberry tea party for Breast Cancer Care, and everything in between!

Thanks once again for your loyalty, support and friendship throughout the year, hopefully you’ll agree that the shop is going from strength to strength and that couldn’t happen without you all…so thank-you, and a very Merry Christmas, and best wishes for 2011!

With love

Ella x

What a crazy world we live in! increasingly so when you bring the wonderful world of Twitter into the equation because, as I’ve learned, just about anything can happen via this incredible community.  I’ve found fabulous blogs, worked with talented folk and passed many an hour just commenting on life with my lovely friends…but I digress, because this blog isn’t to sell you the wonders of Twitter…but more to tell you about the latest lovely tweeting of minds (get it? ;->) between us here at corina corina and the incredible world of live music.

Part of our twitter world is the super writer, blogger, stylist and PR extrordinaire Katie Antoniou, and Katie represents the unique and talented songstress Gabby Young of Gabby Young and the Other Animals fame (there’s a lot of links there folks! bear with us!).

Gabby has an amazing, quirky and striking style and we concocted a plan to create a fabulous gig outfit for her as part of our Reworked Vintage collection, as you know Becky has already created gig outfits for Cara Dillon and Thea Gilmore but this was her chance to go really theatrical! We loved the result, and so did Gabby! who wore the dress to her homecoming gig in Swindon on 13th November…and here…courtesy of Chris Fay.co.uk (images copywright Chris Fay 2010)…are some photos of Gabby on the evening.

Thanks to everyone involved…what a great job we have!

Hi everyone,

Who’d have thought that a simple newsletter could be so daunting? Well if you’ve ever stared at a blank sheet of paper not knowing where to start you’ll know where I’m coming from, silly really because there are only a few things I want to tell you about, so I put it down to pre Christmas jitters…the time where there are simply so many things to do that we all get a blank moment occasionally,  and when the only solution is a list!

So here goes: things I must remember to tell my lovely customers about:

Menswear

We now have a small but perfectly formed Gentleman’s Gifts collection, designer and vintage ties, cufflinks and tie pins, and even some objet d’art for the discerning chap, now there’s a Christmas idea for the man who has everything!

Check it out at http://www.corinacorina.com/shop/category/gentlemans-gifts/

Smith Street ‘Dark Side Tour’ – Thursday 25^th November

To mark this years’ Warwick Victorian Evening we’ve appointed the wonderful ‘Dark Side Walking Tour Company’ to take our customers on a spooky historical tour of Smith St.  There will be 6 short tours throughout the evening and to reserve your free place, courtesy of corina corina and Smith St traders, get in touch, it’ll be a really fun and interesting addition to your Victorian Evening and when you’re done you can pop in for a glass of mulled wine!

Smith Street Offers

All your favourite Smith St traders have joined forces to create some really fabulous offers to make your trip to Smith St an all round great shopping experience, feel free to print and use the attached flyer, or pick one up next time you’re in store and use your 10% discount.

So that wasn’t so hard after all, lists are my saviour!  J Lovely to catch up with you, and hope to see you soon.

Ella x

Those of you who follow us on Twitter or are a member of our Facebook group may have noted my lamentation recently at something monumentally stupid that I’ve done, well, I figure its time to come clean as confession cleanses the soul – or so they say!

As you know, corina corina has been shortlisted for the Godiva Awards 2010 for Best New Venture (the awards are on the 14th October and we’re still absolutely chuffed as little beans to have been shortlisted and fingers and toes are all crossed).

Well, the Godiva Awards also run an award where the customers can vote for their favourite shop, restaurant, bar and so on, and so for the last few months we’ve been convincing, cajoling and generally pestering our lovely customers into filling in a voting slip and popping it into our voting box…Hmm…and here comes the terrible terrible truth…*swallows hard, breathes deeply, sets jaw*…we missed the deadline to submit our votes!!!!

Lovely customers, you have no idea how absolutely wretched we feel about not submitting the votes on time , that you generously gave, and for that we apologise, and excuses such as being snowed under with new stock, photography, building the new website and the general mayhem of running a business should cut absolutely no ice with you!

In times of disspointment (and whatever the term is for ‘kicking oneself’) I find it helps to look for the – ever present – silver lining and so I figured, that despite being lucky enough to have some fabulously loyal and devoted customers, we simply couldn’t compete  on voting numbers with other amazing local companies also in the running such as the wonderful Be Gorgeous (our hot tip for an award because they’re simply fab!)….and by not returning the slips it meant that we had a chance to read through all the lovely comments and feedback that people had written to support their vote for the shop…and to cheer us up we’re going to list a few here….

‘A gem of a shop’

‘fantastic boutique, amazing clothes, top notch customer service’

‘most amazing dresses and shoes ever, fab relaxed but helpful atmosphere’

‘..amazing ongoing care, collections and service – best shop in Warwick!’ (Wow! praise indeed *sniff*)

‘Great collection, super friendly, an enrichment to Warwickshire’

‘…welcoming and a treasure trove of beautiful and unusual clothes’

‘gorgeous designer items, great service’

‘Ella goes the extra mile’

‘Delightful shop, colourful stock, charming assistant thus a happy customer’

‘Lovely to see such an original unique shop…very helpful and friendly’

‘Brilliant store, beautiful items, very unique and stylish’

Thanks to all of you who took the trouble to vote …we’re very lucky.

Ella x

P.S If you voted on-line your vote will still be entered for the Godiva prize draw

Wowee!

We’re absolutely thrilled to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for the Godiva Awards ‘Best New Venture 2010′ !

Glad rags at the ready for the awards ceremony at the Ricoh Arena in October – eeek!

In the meantime, you could be darlings and give us a vote for another award they are running, your favourite shop in Coventry and Warwickshire…you get the chance to win £1000 too!

How exciting! my first ever blog entry….and I’ve always got something to say so this could be dangerous! (oh! and I’m always using silly emoticons instead of just expressing myself like a grown up so I really must ween myself off this terrible habit before it drives you all crazy!) *slaps own wrist*

OK, so this, my very first entry, is, I must admit, as much of a practice as anything else (there’s a lot to making this website so fab you know, and not just the wonderful skills – not to mention patience – of my lovely web guy Ian at www.ianrichardson.com) (Yes, I entered that link all by myself – I know! impressive huh?)

What I really wanted to share were these fabulous photos from our project with Cara Dillon, we were hoping to get a little bit of lovely glossy PR as it was such a great story but hey, sometimes you just have to shout about it yourself right?

We made Cara a Reworked Vintage outfit for her July performance at the Leamington Assembly, and Becky – being the absolute star she is – had two hours to make it fit around her none-too-tiny 6month baby bump! We like a challenge

I’m sure you’ll agree she looks gorgeous, Cara was thrilled and she’s now a bone fide corina corina fan, we think she’s pretty fab too!

Oh! and that amazing looking 1950′s trailer that we’re in was Tammy Wynettes! Yep! Sadly we couldn’t get it into our handbags!

Cara on stage at the Award Winning Leamington Assembly