Pupils win makeover for Britain's scruffiest teacher

Pity the teacher constantly under the critical eye of fashion-savvy pupils, especially one at West Town Lane junior school, Bristol where tracksuit trousers and T-shirts are simply not cool enough.

Tired of seeing their teacher, Jay Wright, turn up to school in "boring" clothes, the Year 6 pupils took a stand and nominated him for an award for worst-dressed teacher in Britain.

To his surprise and slight embarrassment, he says, the unfashionably attired Mr Wright won the award and a prize of a £1,000 wardrobe and celebrity-style makeover from a leading London stylist - transforming him from dowdy teacher to hip metrosexual.

Mr Wright's pupils had thought he wore "scruffy student-teacher clothes in boring colours". They desperately wanted him to "wear the right clothes" and to be "more up-to-date and trendy", they said.

So when Kelkoo, an online shopping search engine, launched a competition to find the country's scruffiest teacher, Mr Wright's pupils wasted no time. It no doubt also helped that an excursion for 10 students to the search engine Yahoo!'s headquarters in London was part of the prize.

Mr Wright said: "It seems that the whole school, including my wife, who also teaches here, had an opinion about my clothes. They think I'm quite scruffy and wear boring colours. The consensus is that I need to be more adventurous."

Shanghai image as fancy retail center is all show

Amid the towering glass-and-steel splendor of the Plaza 66 mall -- packed with boutiques offering Dior, Prada, Cartier and other luxury brands -- shop clerk Xu Junyuan idly scratched his head as a lone shopper browsed the deserted aisles.

"I'm just bored," said Xu, who works at the Diesel jeans boutique.

At Fendi, black-suited clerks yawned as they propped themselves against counters. At the palatial Louis Vuitton shop next door, a 7-foot-tall plasma television played to no one.

In this populous city of fanatical shoppers, Plaza 66 is what some locals call a "gui gouwu zhongxin" -- a ghost mall.

The prices are so high that no one buys much. But then, no one really cares.

The real Chinese high-end spending is taking place in Hong Kong and in smaller mainland cities such as Dalian and Shenyang in the north.

Just as Stalin erected Potemkin villages to display the glories of communism to outsiders, Shanghai is creating its own illusion of prosperity out of the world's most luxurious brands.

Fall sale now at Nordstrom

Today is the first day of the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale, and the store at Somerset Collection North in Troy is open 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

What makes this sale so special? This time of year, most stores are marking down the dregs of summer merchandise.

But not our Nordie!

Here, you will find new fall merchandise marked down.

Look for a Kenneth Cole leather satchel regularly $418, on sale for $279.90 Look for Stuart Weitzman mules, regularly $225, now $149.90. Look for Diesel jeans for men, regularly $200, now $133.90.

The store will also have extended hours from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Prices go up July 31.

Tender's summer sale

Streets in Birmingham's downtown shopping district will be closed Saturday so stores can move their racks outside for the city's Day on the Town shopping extravaganza, which takes place from 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

If high-end designer clothing is your thing, you'll want to line up early Saturday for the ultra-popular tent sale at Tender, where all summer merchandise -- the stuff from Miu Miu and Valentino and Zac Posen and all those other exclusive designers that most of us can't afford at regular retail -- will be at least 75% off.

Expect a line of well-heeled (literally) women to form about 9 a.m. In past years, the line has extended down Maple and around the corner of Bates.

"It's a free-for-all," says Karen Daskas, one of the owners. "Last year they were fighting over shoes."