Anyone whose worked in retail learns about the MANY many holidays celebrated for sales. At Belks, we did 254 DIFFERENT sales per year. This week, it’s St. Patty’s Day in the US with lots of green splashed everywhere. It’s a lot of fun with beer, celtic music, and time spent with family and friends. All good stuff, but not necessarily very profitable for retail fashion. Is there a potential to change that and make some money? March Women’s Day has always seemed to have the most potential and zero great marketing. Why? Guest lecturing at Animazement, you learn about White Day in Japan which also falls around now. It’s the reverse of Valentine’s Day in which instead of men giving...
The Japanese tea shop had a line out the door. Only the kids were ordering icecream, not drinks. One of the interesting things about fashion is the colors and prints are often influenced a year before by housegoods and food. Saw this fantastic documentary by a Japanese farmer who grows edible flowers and herbs for Japan's top 3-star chefs. He says the trend for 2025 (which is probably 2026 for fashion) is: "Small plates, small flowers." As I'm busy planting the spring garden and noticing the icecream trend sweeping NC, some fancy American chef is going to look across the sea and start putting small edible flowers...
If you’re in Raleigh, it’s the start of planting season, namely flower bulbs. In typical NC fashion, it’s also decided to snow. The timely Robert Malone blog covers his favorite gardening tools and the $50-150 indoor starter gardens on Amazon this week is worth a read. We have a greenhouse and cold-frame thanks to a neighbor for now, but growing salads and herbs is great. Talking about indoor gardening, locals seem more interested in new indy musicians, $1 Tuesday Tacos foodtrucks, and tea/lunch houses than Fashion Week. Street fashion seems to be an 80s retro vibe complete with high-waisted mom jeans and guys sporting Tom Cruise Risky business haircuts, not what the runways are showing. Except Ralph Lauren. Is the lack...
Busy pruning and putting down diatomaceous earth for spring gardening while checking into indy musicians. Got into a fairly interesting discussion on Australia and paper routes still being popular there around our local NC State Technician school newspaper. For anyone not might not know, the Technician is a niche newspaper for young college professionals that punches above its weight. In the newspapers vs. magazine debate, college students prefer newspapers as they can be recycled in moving boxes and it’s something to keep in mind for advertising purposes. Not saying one or the other is better, but newspapers seem to have a longer shelf life with the younger generation. Another popular newspaper is the weekly African-American Raleigh newspaper, Carolina Tribune, which...
Let’s discuss something fun based on friend’s kids in high school who are looking forward to the future: AI jobs and technology. RFK JR is the single biggest financial gift to US agriculture, ai, and space technology to jump forward since the 90s when the internet started. This is a bit of a sci-fi/technology rabbit hole, but several gardening friends have pointed out that most Gen X and younger have played Farmville on Facebook and someone with a health interest for profit could redesign it in the real world as space garden beds 2’x4’, 3’x5’, and 4’x6’. Maybe also do a table top or window version. Instant flower beds are a pretty low tech way for new gardeners and have...