This London Fashion week, we’ve got some exciting news.

On Monday (28th Feb), an exclusive range of gorgeous scarves are being launched through ASOS. It's a fantastic Fairtrade cotton project we've been working on. The Fairtrade Foundation has teamed up with leading designers including Julie Verhoeven, Marios Schwab, Holly Fulton and Hussein Chalayan, for ‘Fairtrade Collective’, to create a range of beautiful scarves made from Fairtrade certified cotton.

The scarves, available from ASOS during Fairtrade Fortnight (28 February – 13 March) and beyond, will be packaged in drawstring bags made from Fairtrade certified cotton using the same fabric and design as the scarf.

‘It's vital to utilise cotton in a modern fashion through strong design,’ says Holly Fulton. ‘Hopefully, projects such as this will encourage that; I certainly look at Fairtrade in a different light now.’

Have a look on the website for the stories behind the scarves and go and purchase on asos.com from Monday. We’ll be wearing ours in a nonchalant fashion, loosely draped around the neck with a casual knot.

http://www.fairtradecollective.org.uk/

The Heads of Planning from the various offices of W+K across the world met up last week for a big strategic think-off and future planning session in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil seemed like a very sensible location given the latest office opening in 2011)

London was represented by joint heads, Paul Colman & Kevin Chesters

 
Two days spent in a windowless conference room were punctuated by the occasional virtual visitor such as global COO, Dave Luhr.

 
The location did make the post-meeting analysis and 'wash up' sessions a little more pleasant. Here Stu Smith (NY), Sunaina Gupta (Delhi), Dave Terry (Portland) and Paul chat over some thoughts on the roof terrace overlooking Ipanema.

 
And when things got a little tough Sunaina and Stu decided to take a big strategic think on the beach:

And finally there was some time to go out and about exploring some of the more fascinating parts of Rio, such as a trip behind the scenes of the carnival and a trip to some social projects connected to the Mangueira salsa school. Here with Kevin, Sunaina, Stu, Dave and the new head of planning of W+K Brazil, Adriana.

 
And then we went up to the Christ the Redeemer statue to pray for the future of planning.

 
A fascinating, excellent, fun and useful trip. Already planning the next one….