Having recently interviewed Ben Demiri of SIX Showroom, I’m delighted to hear from him that SIX’s London b-store has just been awarded ‘Shop of the Year’ at the British Fashion Awards.

Congratulations to all at the company - I heard from Ben how much passion and hard work go into SIX’s business, so it’s good to see them rewarded. Here’s a video of the awards ceremony - b-store’s is the second award on the clip.

The next interview for my research into Perceptions of Coaching in the UK Creative Industries was with Ben Demiri, Brand Manager and International Sales and Marketing Manager at SIX Showroom.

SIX Showroom is the collective behind Swear and b store (own brands) and 5 worldwide footwear licenses (Eley Kishimoto, Bernhard Willhelm, Peter Jensen for b store, Henrik Vibskov and Opening Ceremony).

Working with mainly UK designers and emerging design talent, supporting them with distribution and a unique production infrastructure, SIX is the roof of an international operation encompassing London’s b Store which is the international flagship for its line of ‘b’ footwear (formerly Buddhahood), Swear in London’s Carnaby Street, and a synergetic marketing and branding operation.

SIX specialises in the design, development, production and wholesale of fashion footwear collections. It operates a production-sourcing agency in Portugal and in Hong Kong, and has more than 20 agencies worldwide covering all continents, including Scandinavia, France, UK, USA, Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, South east Asia, Italy and Spain.

SIX’s first venture into premium footwear design and production happened with the internationally acclaimed brand Swear founded in 1994, opening its flagship in London in 1996. Since then, the company has evolved, launching Buddhahood in 2001.

SIX has developed close ties with many designers resulting in collaborations to launch footwear for Eley Kishimoto, DIE for Swear, Peter Jensen for b, Judy Blame for b, Bernhard Willhelm and in the recent past, Zakee Shariff, YMC, Burro and PPQ.

SIX now handles all product development, international sales and distributions of the following footwear lines: Bernhard Willhelm, Eley Kishimoto, Swear, b store, Peter Jensen for b store and the last additions to our family, the new Spring Summer 2007 footwear collections for Opening Ceremony and Henrik Vibskov. Read the rest of this entry »

 Interview with Ben Demiri: Download