You may remember that last year John Lewis invited me to Christmas in July and it was truly a fabulous thing! This year I was invited back again (yes, I can behave occasionally) but due to the usual work commitments, sadly couldn't make it. As the people that work for John Lewis are so lovely they invited me to have my own personal tour at my local store. Yesterday, I duly went and met the lovely Louise who is the Marketing Manager at the Nottingham store, who gave me a whistle stop tour. I could have actually spent all day there to be honest......
Obviously the first thing that we had to talk about was the John Lewis Christmas advert that everyone has been raving about on Twitter and in the press and I must admit that the first time I saw it there may have been tears *ahem*
If you haven't seen it....which rock have you been living under??? With it being the season to be jolly, Christmas was obviously our hot topic of conversation!! We started off with the trees and decorations:
What I really like about this years John Lewis Christmas campaign is that they seem to have gone back to basics. Most of the in-store decorations were wooden or paper and very simple but effective. Of course there is still plenty of room for cosiness and colour too:
A brilliant new idea that they also have in-store is a picture/art gallery. I was amazed by how reasonably priced they were and also what a selection they had (*ahem* if 'the man' reads this he should take note of the shoe picture which would look so nice in my bedroom ;-) :
One of the other things that I wasn't aware of until yesterday is that John Lewis have specialists in a number of departments. The most obvious ones are probably the personal shoppers in Ladies wear who are just absolutely lovely and have so much knowledge about fashion and what looks good....they are in fact a bit like Gok!!!
Also they have specialists in Home and in Nursery that you can make an appointment with and who can discuss what you may or may not need for an imminent arrival or can give you advice on what trends would suit your home and lifestyle.
Back to the Season of Goodwill and the number one recommended Christmas present is probably on the wish list of millions of people:
There are of course plenty of goodies in-store for the kids, my favourite of which was the Lego Sort and Store head. It not only stores Lego (as the name would suggest!!) but also sorts it by size and stores over 1,000 pieces!!! What a brilliant idea. I'm also a fan of the Sylvanian Families John Lewis store and spotted some cooking bits for Chick:
To top off my lovely visit, I received a fabulous goodies bag with some London Olympic 2012 goodies (John Lewis are one of the sponsors), two boxes of gorgeous chocolates (one by Hotel Chocolat that I've managed to nibble my way through today.....without sharing!!), a spaghetti measure and some lovely cashmere socks for 'the man's' stocking!!!
A huge thank you to Louise and John Lewis for their hospitality.
