Our First Day at Pure London

Pure London is back and it has been great to see Olympia buzzing with business activity. The catwalk shows, brought to you in partnership with Drapers magazine, offer exciting moments during the day, featuring some of our exhibitors, from Jayley Collection to Alma en Pena.

Another highlight is certainly our amazing seminar programme, opened by Dana Thomas, a renowned fashion journalist and Contributing European Sustainability Editor at British Vogue. She spoke about sustainability and a signed copy of her book, “Fashionpolis, the Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes” was handed out to the audience.

Sustainability is definitely in everyone’s mind right now. Alan O’Neill, Managing Director at Kara Change Management, presented a compelling session about the challenges retailers face, and how best to embrace tactics that other industries already use to make their business more sustainable.

The session of trends forecasting agency Promostyl, our Pure London partner, focused on Ethic is Chic. This was not just about producing less and care for the environment, but also integrating social and inclusive values.

Retailers were also really excited to hear from Fashion Stylists Mark Heyes and Lynne McKenna, who proposed new ways of catering for the indie consumer, with their innovative approach to styling and strategic engagement.

Roo Davies, founder of The Mojo Coach, presented the last session of the day with an empowering session on how to work with one’s inner thoughts to ensure we keep functioning at our optimum level, even when facing circumstances that push us towards the edge.

She mentioned we have 60,000 thoughts a day and 90% of them are repetitive. The point is to watch out for our own particular pattern and cultivate not positive thinking, which can add an extra layer of pressure, but helpful thinking, identifying what is serving us well.

It is as simple as change the wording when talking to ourselves, instead of saying ‘I’m anxious’, say ‘I’m curious’, which is still about uncertainty, but one creates a barrier while the other allows you to embrace what is coming despite the uncertainty that lies ahead.

Focus on you can control and make sure you set time aside for yourself to do something that allows you to recharge your batteries, and cope with the high level of stress that comes with running a business. It’s up to each of us to find out what that is, always being attentive to our inner voice, and transform it whenever emotions take over and hijack us from the present moment.

It has been a fantastic first day and despite the heatwave, everyone inside the venue was chilled, as Olympia London has an upgraded Comfort Cooling system. Make sure you make the most of our Pure Chill initiative, you can get free cold water near the catwalk, and enjoy a free iced drink in the morning (9h30-11h), and a free ice cream in the afternoon (2-4pm).