If you work in Fashion, Music, Product Design, Creative Events, Media or any other creative venture please Step Forward. Have your say and help the ‘Mayor of London’s’ brains shape the future opportunities for your creative businesses here in London.

As a member of the YCE Club – Young Creative Entrepreneur Club, brainchild of the British Council’s Creative Economy unit – I have been invited to meet some of the brains behind the policies that shape the future of London’s cultural & creative turf. Next week on Tuesday, 15th June, I will be meeting Justine Simons, Head of Cultural Policy to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London. She will be presenting the new draft of London’s Cultural Strategy and discuss the future agenda that will shape London’s creative economy.

Email me any burning issues, concerns, questions and suggestions you may have regarding the future of our creative and cultural scope in the Big Smoke. I will have the opportunity to present a list of questions and at the end of next week I will report back to you on my blog. With Boris’ setting out the future vision and strategy - read here - for London while lobbying for a Harry Potter theme park, with Dragon’s Den, tycoon Peter Jones, proactively putting his money into Grant Schemes for small businesses to stimulate economic and innovative growth while huge spending cuts are looming over Britain, it’s the best time for us to be creative and shape it up!

Email me your questions & suggestions: annegret@choolips.com

Follow my visit on Twitter

Let’s be creative and shape it up.

Terra Plana’s Choolips shoes & bags made with our fairly traded fabrics are now availabe in Terra Plana’s online store. www.terraplana.com

They are stunning and a superb match to our dresses. Hence we’ve teamed up with our friends at Terra Plana to give away the following prize to one lucky winner:

1 Choolips dress
1 Terra Plana Choolips Bag & 1 pair Terra Plana Choolips Marti Sandals

Enter the competition  Here

visit CHOOLIPS’  ‘Head to Toe’ online boutique

We are proud to announce the opening of our online POP-UP boutique ‘Head to Toe’ go to and our first collaborations with Terra Plana & Funky Mutts celebrating Head to Toe Eco Fashion. Available for Spring/Summer, we have joined forces with the like-minded brands to make dressing head-to-toe in sustainable fashion easy.

Choolips’ online “pop-up” boutique will present our first exclusive collection of limited edition dresses available. The site, which will only be live for one month, will also feature a range of one-off Terra Plana shoes and bags using Choolips fairly-traded fabrics. These are only available online from 25th April through the Terra Plana website: www.terraplana.com

In addition you will be able to purchase matching accessories made with our fairly-traded for your Mutt or Mog from www.funkymutts.co.uk

You will be able to create a personalised dress; choosing from a combination of silhouettes, colours and prints, and then watch step-by-step as we produce the garment from design through to print and production. You can see first-hand the fair trade, sustainable supply chain that is making a real difference to our producers (batikers, tailors, seamstresses etc) in Ghana.

‘We all like something beautiful made especially for us – a proper exciting treat. Personalised products are my answer. To add to the excitement we like to invite people to get a real impression of what it takes to make their garment. This way we offer the best of both worlds – a personalised garment and transparency to our buyers, all the way through our supply chain. Our ethics run much deeper than this season’s fashion. The idea is to revive textiles traditions by building chic, fair-trade collections that make a conscious difference at grass-roots level, without compromising the thrill for good style.‘

Choolips & Terra Plana are currently working on a new “Head to Toe” collection for SS11.

Here at Choolips we champion Terra Plana and love their beautiful products.  This young, dynamic company is constantly pushing boundaries with innovative styles that respect traditional shoemaking, the environment, and the body. All products come complete with an eco-matrix to show the environmental components of each shoe. Check it out www.terraplana.com

We also love Funky Mutts for loving the four legged kind. Using a selection of Liberty &  Choolips delicious fabrics, Funky Mutts brings style to the ‘dog walk.’  All collars are carefully handmade in the UK by the small Funky Mutts team using locally sourced materials where possible.  The product range includes dog collars, dog leads, made to measure harnesses, matching hair slides and headbands for humans and cat collars. Visit www.funkymutts.co.uk

To visit CHOOLIPS ‘Head to Toe’ online Boutique