WALPOLE, the trade body that represents the British luxury industry, whose members include; Burberry, Jimmy Choo, Mulberry, Fortnum & Mason and Harrods today announces the eight new brands that have the potential to become tomorrow’s luxury leaders.
 Now in its sixth year, WALPOLE selects between six and eight up coming British luxury brands from more than one hundred applicants that they feel have the potential to become leading British luxury brands in the future. These brands are given the opportunity to utilise the expertise of the Walpole ‘Brands of Tomorrow’ mentoring group, through a bespoke business mentoring and coaching programme, kindly sponsored by Mishcon de Reya.

LUCAS HUGH was selected along with Aravore, luxury children’s label, Demarquette Fine Chocolates, Elvis & Kresse, re-engineered accessories, Lily and Lionel, luxury scarves, Field Candy, a design-led brand, Patterson Boatworks, stunning bespoke yachts and Vivien Sheriff, traditional and cutting edge millinery.

Michael Ward the Managing Director of HARRODS London, will be mentoring LUCAS HUGH for the year.

John Ayton, Founder & Chairman of Walpole Brands of Tomorrow commented “We are delighted to unveil this year’s 2012 Brands of Tomorrow. This year’s brands cover a broad section of the luxury industry combining cutting edge design with quality and originality. We very much look forward to working closely with them over the coming year”

IT DOESN’T get much better than this. It’s a moonless night and you are on a deserted beach in the Maldives. As the waves lap the shore, the beach lights up like Las Vegas. Glowing organisms stick to your feet. It is one of the most magical sights in the natural world: a bloom of bioluminescent plankton.

This picture was taken on Vaadhoo Island, but bioluminescing organisms are found all over the world. The ones here are probably single-celled protists and marine crustaceans called copepods. Both glow when they are disturbed.

“Every so often, one of these bright specks of light would appear to take off and run up the beach,” says photographer Doug Perrine. Ghost crabs were grabbing the glowing organisms and carrying them back to their burrows.

It doesn’t work so well on the beach, but bioluminescence usually distracts predators by disrupting their swimming behaviour and preventing them from feeding. It may also act as a burglar alarm to attract animals that feed on the predators. So what to us is a beautiful spectacle of light is to them a minefield (Journal of Plankton Research, DOI: 10.1093/plankt/fbh141).

The light is produced by devilishly named twins: a pigment called luciferin and an enzyme, luciferase. Luciferin reacts with oxygen, and luciferase speeds up the reaction. A range of unrelated animals use the same pigment-enzyme pair to produce light, including fireflies, anglerfish and jellyfish. Bioluminescence evolved independently many times: in the bigger picture, it ain’t so magical after all.

Rowan Hooper, news editor  NEW SCIENTIST

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