RawandToasted
Author

RawandToasted

  • Fashion

    M&S Had No Business Being This Good

    Sep 26 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, Oat flat white in hand and please sugarcups, sit down. You need to be brought back down to Earth. London Fashion Week was all about main character energy this season. McQueen returned after 25 years and seriously made front row gasp with their stunning chain mail. Mulberry had a revival under Christopher Kane and honestly, I would die for their new Bayswater bag. The neutral looks from Kim K made me think more about the branding than half of the decks I’ve sat through this quarter. I’m not going to be answering any questions on the bows. They…

  • Fashion

    The Luxury Designer Is Now Working at Zara, And Honestly? We Should Have Seen This Coming.

    Jul 21 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, Hey Sugarcups Just in the fashion world this week. Let me tell you how good is this, brands are innovating. If you love change, hold on and read this one. GU-the designer brand that pioneered $18 jeans and Uniqlo’s more affordable, more playful little bro-just unveiled its debut collection under the creative direction of Francesco Risso. Yes: Francesco Risso-the man you’ve only ever seen at Milan Fashion Week, at Marni (a star) and Prada (a former star)-who’s now making $18 jeans. And Zara certainly isn’t staying in the quiet corner of the room. In 5 months, it will…

  • summer-shoes-2026-raw-and-toasted-by-Jasmin
    Fashion

    The Shoes That Make Rich Energy Look Effortless

    Jul 01 - By 

    Hey Sugarcups! I wanted to make this week’s post focused on shoes. Not those ‘Here are 20 sandals you need this month’ posts that I just can’t get on board with (scroll, save, forget by Thursday). This post is all about the reality of what’s trending, why, and how it will directly affect how you’ll dress this Tuesday, whether you’re running a board deck, dropping kids off to school, going into a pitch or all of the above. The key thing to note about these shoes is that they’re not a fashion accessory. They’re the most truthful piece of your…

  • shein-paris-england-loophole
    Fashion

    This Is Why Shein Just Lost Its First Real Estate in Europe

    Jun 17 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, Paris department store BHV Marais has done exactly what UK High Street retailers have been encouraging Downing Street to do for years. The department store, located only a few hundred metres from Notre-Dame has announced that it will be cutting ties with Shein due to a decline in sales, and the closing of multiple concessions at the top of the store. Their new owners admit that while ‘having Shein has definitely helped protect our brand’ they have also admitted that Shein was actually a mistake to have because they’re the most modern, aggressive fashion brand. This is something…

  • Zara-High-Street-Strategy-Raw-and-Toasted-by-Jasmin
    Fashion

    The Copy, The Bet, and The Gamble: What Zara and H&M Are Really Doing Right Now

    Jun 05 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, We’ve all been there, gone into a Zara on Oxford Street and seen a blazer we know we just can’t afford. But, since a pattern cutter in Arteixo, drawing on 30 years of fashion experience, has cracked how they get the shoulders and lapel roll so perfect for this price. Break it down into three parts. What are they copying? What do they think is going to be viral? And what is the big risk they could either be the smartest retailers or total failures? It can be misleading because it is easily confused, but in fact they…

  • Fashion

    The Most Viral Fashion Content Right Now? People Touching Fabric. Seriously.

    May 20 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, We inhabit the age of the perpetual fashion; and for the first time we have never been so plundered. Last week I was wandering round a charity shop in Dalston and I saw a girl. She was familiar with the fashion triangle and was at least three decades old. She bustled her way past a long line of plastics, blouses and-er-plastics, polyestery, midis, for a khaki knitted cardigan. Well a kind of very, very cream/old oatmeal, thick, bitchily handknitted piece of monstrosity in with bigthumpy/umbilical/soitgoes, button and border and non-tribalised pockets and no discernible rings of trendiness. She…

  • brand-voice-ghostwriter-raw-and-toasted-by-Jasmin
    My Take on AI

    Every Fashion Founder Suddenly Talks Like a Lifestyle Podcast Host

    May 06 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, Today, any fashion brand has an unlimited content resource. The most scarce and valuable content any industry has is content that is human and has a human brand voice. My email inbox has been flooded with fashion brands eager to talk all the while. From smaller indie London brands to mid size brands with real marketing teams and actual editors – they’ve all had a go with AI content tools and now they need our help to sound more human / like themselves. But how do we even sound like ourselves? And why is that even harder now…

  • TikTok-fashion-trend-raw-and-toasted-by-Jasmin
    My Take on AI

    The Most Dangerous Thing About TikTok Shop? It Works

    Apr 16 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, Tik Tok Shop, the world’s biggest runway – and it has no idea if the clothing is worthy. There’s a complicated kind of love/hate relationship I have with Tik Tok Shop (I’ll let you decide which one is which). As a seller, I have to be serious about it, and it is very serious. US social commerce has already hit $100 billion this year. Tik Tok Shop alone will hit $23.4 billion in sales in 2026. There will be a 48% jump in annual sales and by the end of 2026 half of social media shoppers will have…

  • Fashion

    The New Rules of Looking Good: 5 Sustainable Fashion Signals Shaping 2026 in the UK and India

    Apr 14 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, The newest scandalous way to get your holiday on in London… because getting green is totally hot right now baby. I’ve been in this for virtually a 10 years looking for that “perfect” white t-shirt, the “best” pair of denims, the bag to maintain my laptop-and look really good carrying it. And I’ll tell you, it’s a chore. Certainly. We get boosted with more “sustainable” sorts of apparel and use the term “is eco-friendly” so much that it truly is usually makes the activities ineffective as they could be, which are various dangerous good h2o companies. But 2026…

  • AI-Design-Moodboard-fashion-designers
    Fashion - My Take on AI

    AI Killed the Mood Board, Now What Do Designers Actually Do All Day?

    Apr 03 - By 

    Hola Sugarcups, The Mood Board is Dead! Imagine it: You’re at a vibrant, innovative technology event and you overhear a conversation that’s so captivating you just stop in your tracks. Well, that was me last month when I was in a discussion with a senior designer working for a fashion house in London, a mid-sized one. Here’s a person who had seen successive waves of “this is going to change everything” about AI, but remains grounded. This is what they said. “And what is really weird about AI is you feel like you need to justify yourself as a decision-maker.”…