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Here's the high street hot list

February 13, 2012 12:59

ByJan Shure, Jan Shure

2 min read

It was sometime around 2008, just before the first credit crunch began to bite, that the UK high street began to seriously rock. Chains like River Island, Warehouse, Oasis, H&M with their guest collections, and Debenhams with their "Designers For..." collections, all began to up their game in response, some would argue, to the challenge of Primark. The high street was transformed from "meh" to must-go.

The Irish-owned budget chain, which crept quietly on to the high street to become a seemingly overnight phenomenon, pulled off the genius trick of catching trends and churning out copies - sometimes astonishingly good and sometimes truly horrid - that left breathless even those who had honed the rip-off concept. The UK's love affair with Primark has definitely cooled, but its legacy - a high street that produces brilliant, directional pieces that are often indistinguishable from a designer original - remains.

This is especially true of Spanish chain Zara, which can be relied on to work the season's strongest trends in good fabrics and great colours at good prices. For spring, that includes their hallmark pared-down, deliciously grown-up pieces like tuxedo jackets with contrast collars, cocoon skirts in bright hues worn with clashing, slash-neck tops, silky slouch tops in vertical colour blocks and understated linen coats.

Home-grown chain Oasis - founded by Bennett brothers Michael and Maurice, now owned by Aurora Fashions - has an especially covetable collection for spring 2012, featuring the season's favourite pastels and sorbet colours, plain or blended in exclusive prints designed by an in-house fabric designer. There are lace pencil skirts, sweetly retro sundresses, brilliantly wearable shift dresses, some with peplums, textured linen cocoon skirts, sheer mid-calf midi skirts and ankle-skimming pastel jeans.