Mary Queen of Shops - Series 1 - Ju-Ju

Retail guru, Mary Portas has a mission: to keep Britain’s nation of small shopkeepers where they belong: on our High Streets. Four failing fashion boutiques, who are struggling to survive in the face of fierce high street competition, will be taught the tricks of the trade the big boys use to get shoppers through their doors. Ju-Ju, a unisex fashion store run by fortysomethings Soly and Tim, have been fronting their distinctively-designed business in Brighton’s famous Laines area for more than a decade, and it’s started to show. The shop is dated, the stock is down-market, and they’ve been deserted in favour of new, low-budget retail competitors and as a result, they’re haemorrhaging £1000 every week. They’re surrounded by potential customers, ‘fashion rebels’ - distinctive dressers with money to burn - but instead only offer cheap student garb to a dwindling clientele. Enter Mary, who prescribes an instant fix of cool for her unfashionable duo via a whirlwind tour of the latest hip collections and cutting edge designers. It’s an opportunity for them to inject some happening fashion sense onto their lacklustre shop floor. But with only five weeks in which to execute a complete reversal of fortune, she’s not sure Soly and Tim are up to the task. Can they cope with Mary’s extreme medicine, or will they retreat back from the challenge into what Mary’s dubbed their schizophrenic insecurity?