Shopping

Hair today, gone tomorrow

A good hair cut usually gets put to the bottom of the to-do list when you're a student. It's hardly surprising when a cut and colour can cost more than your monthly food bill. Bad dye jobs and drunken fringe trims are regular occurrences when home…

GOODD

Goodd intentions

‘Well, I think even just in order to keep our own interest intact, we needed to do something more than a retail outlet.’ Brian Proudfoot is talking me through the philosophy behind his new Glasgow venture GOODD, which he co-runs with fellow interior…

Che Camille

In the beginning, there was The Chateau, a shambling old tenement warehouse on Glasgow’s Southside, rented out at rock bottom prices to a loose collection of artists, designers and performers, and Franz Ferdinand, who staged now-legendary guerrilla…

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe department

As a child, Kirstin Innes always wanted to go to Narnia. Instead, she got the next best thing: a whole day backstage at the Lyceum Theatre as they try and bring that world to life.

Lost in Fiction

It’s been eight years since the much-missed John Smith’s bookshop on Byres Road closed its doors and turned into a branch of Starbucks. At the time, many residents of Glasgow’s West End saw it as another, depressing, sign of the times. John Smith’s…

Yo, ho . . . ho?

Yeah, we know. Christmas is the last thing on your mind. The economy is in crisis, you’re worried about your mortgage/rent/job/bank account/pet stockbroker. And it’s November. However, the festive season is looming like a tinsel-bedecked freight train…

The Christmas crunch: Shopping on a budget

The stock market’s in turmoil, the housing market’s throwing a strop and the price of bread is skyrocketing. Not ideal conditions for celebrating our annual festival of excess and gluttony. Don’t worry, though, The List is here to help. Ahead of our…

Tinsel towns: Glasgow and Edinburgh Winter Festivals

Kirstin Innes takes a look at the free activities going on in both cities over the festive season. Ah, remember back when the civic contribution to the festive effort started and ended with a couple of lightbulb angels hanging off the lampposts, and…

Snow business: The Snow Queen

Over the last few years, Andy Arnold’s Arches has established a tradition of putting on beautiful, immersive versions of classic children’s stories for 3-8-year-olds who might find themselves a wee bit lost in traditional panto. However, when Arnold…

Dame on: Pantomimes in Scotland 2008

There’s been something of a shift in the pantomime world over the last few years. Traditional pantos – innuendo-laden fairy tales replete with dame and a couple of faces off the telly – are still going strong, but increasingly, theatres have begun to…

Eat, drink and be merry: Christmas food

‘Christmas dinner on a budget is easy, and you don’t have to end up with a can of Spam and a tub of out-of-date potato salad, either. It should be a special meal; it should feel special, and the secret to that is really simple – get a table set…

12 Days of Christmas: Festive hitlist

The Low Christmas Concert Malcolm Middleton doesn’t have the monopoly on miserablist Christmas anthems, you know. This lot have been at it since 1999, and are back on the gloomy festive trail to promote new menace-laden single, ‘Santa is Coming Over’.

Ready for the festive floor: Hot Chip interview

What are your favourite Christmas hits? My favourite is the Phil Spector Christmas album, which I think is wonderful and romantic. Of course, there are also the classics, like ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and ‘I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus’, which is about…

Have a crafty Christmas: Ethical Christmas shopping

Ethical elf Anna Docherty, visits the one-stop-shop for a guilt-free Christmas. Christmas comes but once a year and so do those niggling feelings of guilt about getting a real tree, not recycling your wrapping paper, or omitting to get charity Christmas…

GSA shop

‘You know the sort of thing. We call it Mackintrash, or Mockintosh.’ Cathy Randall is laughing as she tries to diplomatically describe the kind of thing she definitely doesn’t want in the newly opened Glasgow School of Art shop. Shoppers will just have…

Shopping Hitlist

Situated in the east end of the city, the Barras market is a Glasgow institution.Where else on earth could you find vintage gowns jostling alongside happy hardcore CDs? The odd street hawker doing some wheeling-and-dealing only adds to the ambience…

The A to Z of style

From vintage and ethnic through to leather and guyliner, Shelley O'Neill opens the closet on a treasure trove of must-have styles for the coming year

Month of Sundays - September shopping initiative

Edinburgh retailers are luring shoppers with a programme of themed days. Retail therapy is being given a facelift in September as the capital launches a brand new shopping initiative entitled Month of Sundays. Many of Edinburgh's most popular…

Watermelon

Scuttling through Glasgow’s West End to meet Gavin O’Brien, owner of the recently refurbished vintage institution Watermelon, I wonder, what on earth am I looking for? Past experience of fusty second-hand hovels hadn’t prepared me for Watermelon’s new…

Pageant

Summer 2008 A shop. Why ever not? Inspired by trips to Berlin, London and even Glasgow, my friend Anna Stride and very-soon-to-be friend Claire Anderson suggest that we collectively open a menswear boutique in Edinburgh. Despite my retail experience…

Eco-friendly festival shopping

Never mind Kasabian at Connect or Shaky at Glasto, the real headliner at this year’s festivals is the environment, stupid. The ecological impact of 80,000-odd people producing a huge amount of concentrated waste is immense but festivals are offsetting…

Summer trends

Blame Status Quo. Blame grunge. Above all, blame Christopher Kane’s continuing fascination with the clothes his babysitters wore circa 1989. But how will a summer full of bleached denim and ra-ra ruffles work on our streets? We ask the experts...

Budget Star Fashion

To hell in a handbag Let’s start with handbags. Celebrities are always snapped clutching the season’s most covetable, whether D&G’s Lily bag or a classic tote by Louis Vuitton. Fortunately, hiring a designer bag is the newest way of saying you’ve got…

Hairdressers

Family of hair Claire Fleming set up Claire Frances in Glasgow in 1997 ‘We’re a family business – our mother has been in the industry for over 40 years, and that’s a lot of hair cuts! I’ve been doing this for 20 years now and I really love my job…