Bargainista favourite TK Maxx will be opening the doors to its brand new Charing Cross Road flagship store on Thursday 22nd July, giving the West End’s shoppers a chance to snaffle famous name fashion at up to 60% off.

The new store, at the site formerly occupied by Borders bookshop, will boast 21,00 square feet packed with bargains for the style-savvy – to give you an idea of scale, the Apple Store on Regent Street is 20,000sq.ft.  Huge, right?!  It will also play host to two exciting new departments: a Gold Label area filled with high-end designer pieces at knock-down prices, and a Mod Box area featuring hot trends from the world’s most fashionable cities.

Even better, the first 500 shoppers through the doors of the new store on Thursday will each receive a £10 TK Maxx giftcard and an exclusive goody bag.  There will also be refreshments available and special guests on hand to pamper customers.

TK Maxx already has several stores across London (click here to find your nearest) but this new offering will definitely attract bargain-hungry crowds from nearby Oxford Street and Covent Garden.  We’ll be checking it out at the preview evening, so watch out for a store review going up soon!

TK Maxx, 120 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0JR

Stuck in a style rut?  Help is at hand.  Today and tomorrow you can get expert advice from a top stylist, make-up artist, colourist, nail technician and bra fitter courtesy of the Brunswick shopping centre in Bloomsbury.

You’ll get your own private changing room while the experts do the running around for you – sounds like a no-brainer to us!  Celebrity stylist Bradley Taylor, who’s worked with such luminaries as Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, is offering his tips to help you look your very best.  An opportunity not to be missed.

Places are limited for this event, so call 0845 234 8002 to reserve your complimentary appointment.

Te Brunswick Shopping Centre, London WC1N 1AFh

We don’t generally need much encouragement to buy new make-up – it’s as important a part of your new season look as your clothes after all.  So just imagine how excited we were when we got wind of Illamasqua‘s brilliant make-up amnesty scheme: in a nutshell, if you take your rubbish old cosmetics to their counter in Selfridges (and a number of other counters across the UK – see here for full details of the offer and locations), they will get rid of it for you AND give you 25% percent off something new and gorgeous from their range.

From tomorrow until 31st July you’ll be able to take your clumpy mascara, watery nail polish or smashed eye shadow to the Illamasqua counter in Selfridges beauty hall, and for each item you bring you’ll get 25% off another item.  It doesn’t have to be a like-for-like swap either, so you can take along that stub of lipstick and exchange it for 25% off a Powdered Metal shimmery face powder if you wish.  Or a super-bold new Nail Varnish.  Or a Liquid Eye Liner (essential for the 50s vibe seen all over the A/W ’10 catwalks).  Or … well, anything!

The fabulous Illamasqua make up artists will be on hand to advise you on colours, application and anything else you want to know, so you’ll no longer have to be confronted with the depressing sight of all those lip glosses you thought you’d wear but that just didn’t look right when you tried them at home.  There is no limit on the amount of items you can bring to the amnesty and you can take any brand, be it the supermarket’s own or your expensive-but-unused designer compact.

We can’t wait to swap some our wishy-washy colours for some of Illamasqua’s signature dramatic shades – a pile of busted eye-shadows is appearing on the desk already!

Illamasqua, Ground Floor, Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street, London W1A 1AB

Here at fashionista:london we’ve been trying to get excited about the Olympics coming to town in 2012 but somehow all we can think of is how crowded the tube is going to be …

Happily, this morning we heard some good news: Stella McCartney has been named as the designer of the uniforms for the British Olympic and Paralympic teams.  Working with adidas, for whom she already designs a super-chic range of workout apparel, McCartney will not only design pieces with the technical capabilities required by our world-class athletes, but also a lifestyle collection that we’ll all be able to buy into.

Launching in autumn this year, the range will include both women’s and men’s styles and will be available from adidas stores.  They probably won’t turn you into Victoria Pendleton overnight, but at least you’ll look good in the gym whilst supporting our nation’s sporting hopefuls!

Commenting on her appointment, Stella McCartney said, “As a British fashion designer it is an amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity to be creative director of Team GB as the hosting nation of the London 2012 Olympic Games.”  McCartney is keen to ensure that her designs don’t negatively impact on the performance of the athletes, as she told Vogue.co.uk this morning, but we think being dressed by one of Britain’s most successful fashion designers could only boost spirits – after all, don’t we all feel our best when we know we look fab?!

Who ordered the rain?  It certainly wasn’t us!  Never mind: luckily, those lovely people at Beyond The Valley are offering you the perfect distraction from the miserable weather!  Their annual sample sale kicked off this morning and runs until 14th August at the Beyond The Valley store on Newburgh Street, just off Carnaby Street.

Pieces on offer are from the past two seasons and are available at up to 90% off – talk about an offer we can’t refuse!  Twitter yields reports of silk tops for £20 and Harris tweed skirts for £50, and those sound like bargains if ever we heard them.

The Beyond the Valley sample sale is taking place in the store’s side gallery, but don’t forget to have a poke around the rest of the store.  Representing a host of super-talented but little-known designers as well as producing a line under its own name, BTV is the place to pick up that special piece that will automatically generate a certain smugness when your friends ask what you’re wearing.  We can’t wait for the A/W 10/11 ‘Hynogogic Owl’ collection to drop, bursting as it is with BTV’s signature geometric prints and a mix of fluid and sharp silhouettes.  Click here for a preview of what you can expect.

Until then, 90% off?  Don’t mind if we do …

Beyond The Valley, 2 Newburgh Street, London W1P 7RD

We’re shaking with excitement.  Yes, you read it right: fash pack favourite Christopher Kane is having a sample sale right here in London town.

Thanks to the fabulous Suzy Bubble for letting the world in on this amazing event!  Elbows at the ready ladies …

Some things will never get old: the Chanel 2.55 bag; the Burberry trench; Converse All Stars.  These are the items in our wardrobes that withstand the test of time, the heirlooms you’ll hand down to your children (well, OK, probably not your Converse …), the icons that represent that most elusive of qualities in the world of fashion: longevity.

Now you can find them all in one gorgeously curated space at another of fashion’s long-standing institutions, Selfridges.  Until 15th August, the Oxford Street store’s Wonder Room is transformed into a shrine to forever pieces, aptly titled the Forever Shop.  The store’s Creative Director, Alannah Weston, had the enviable task of carefully selecting those never-out-of-style pieces that are the cornerstones of chic wardrobes the world over.

Alongside such classics as mentioned above, you’ll be able to pick up Sonia Rykiel breton-stripe tees, Levi’s 501s and Alexander McQueen skull-print scarves, as well as a selection of timeless homewares from the likes of Philippe Starck and Waterford Crystal hand-picked by Elle Decoration’s Michelle Ogundheim.  Sir Paul Smith, whose own stores embody quintessential English classicism at its best, has chosen a selection of literary works which will also be available from the Forever Shop – possibly the first time that JK Rowling’s Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone and the Yves Saint Laurent biography by Alice Rawsthorn have been found in the same category, though we can’t argue that both are indeed perennial favourites.

There’s something there for people of all budgets and all styles (no, really – we can’t imagine the same woman buying a Hermes Kelly bag AND a pair of DMs, though if you can work both of those into a super-amazing outfit we want to see it!), so we thoroughly reccommend taking a wander in the halls of forever fashion.

Forever Shop, Ground Floor, Selfridges & Co, 400 Oxford Street, London W1A 1AB

Pop Store, the retail concept behind the recent takeover of the first floor at Whiteleys shopping centre in Bayswater, is offering samples from some of its best loved brands at knock-down prices in its sample sale.

Originally planned to last only one weekend, the sale proved so popular with customers that the lovely people behind Pop Store decided to extend it for another week!  But all good things must come to an end, and the Pop Store sample sale will finish on Sunday at 6pm.

Included in the sale are pieces from Cheryl Cole faves Wildfox and LnA (boths women’s and men’s), as well as Disney Couture and Disaya.  Whilst we can look forward to visiting Pop Store at Whiteleys for a while yet (it’s due to close on New Year’s Eve), these bargains won’t hang around for long, so get on over to Bayswater for your fix.

Pop Store, Whiteleys Shopping Centre, Shop 104, First Floor, 144 Queensway, Bayswater, London W2 6LY

Dutch fashion retailer The Sting opens its flagship store in London today, in the iconic building at 1 Piccadilly Circus once famously occupied by Tower Records.

Unknown in the UK until now, The Sting has more than 75 stores across the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and rather than offer own-label goods it brings together a network of over 25 brands, most of which will be new to London shoppers.   The 33,000+ sq. ft. store also houses a café and is accessible directly from Piccadilly Circus underground station.

The store officially opened at 3.00pm this afternoon and we can’t wait to get down there and see what it’s all about.  If the store is as much fun as the staff casting video on The Sting’s website looks, we’re in for a party!

The Sting, 1 Piccadilly Circus, London W1B 5

You’ve only got five more days to shop the sale at Dover Street Market!  The cooler-than-cool Mayfair store is offering discounts of up to 70% on selected stock throughout the store, but only until 6.30pm on Tuesday 13th July.

DSM will then be closed for Tachiagari (‘beginning’ in Japanese) until Saturday 17th July when they will re-open at 11.00am with a new look and new stock for the Autumn/Winter 2010/11 season.

The store offers an eclectic selection of brands, from the multiple Comme des Garçons labels through to fashion stalwarts Lanvin and Givenchy.  Described by its creative director Rei Kawakubo as “beautiful chaos”, Dover Street Market is a London treasure whose art installation/fashion and lifestyle store aesthetic needs to be seen in person to be truly appreciated.

Dover Street Market only sells a few selected items online, so to benefit from incredible discounts on the world’s foremost fashion brands get yourself down to Mayfair before Tuesday 13th July!

Dover Street Market, 17-18 Dover Street, London W1S 4LT