Shopping and entertainment destination, The Rock, in Bury, has stamped its mark on the fashion map by commissioning an alternative ‘Little Black Dress’ for the party season, made from the town’s biggest export, Black Pudding.

Local design duo, HussainDeyn, was commissioned by The Rock to create a dress which would highlight the shopping and entertainment destination’s fashion credentials, but also give a nod to a local institution, by incorporating the much-loved Full English Breakfast accompaniment into the design.

Located in the heart of Bury, The Rock, which launched in July, is the only new shopping centre to complete outside of London this year. The outdoor shopping and entertainment destination provides a fantastic mix of high street retailers, including, Primark, M&S, Debenhams, H&M and Topshop, as well as a host of family entertainment and restaurants.

Since opening, The Rock has hit the ground running with various initiatives to embed the scheme into the local psyche. David Laycock, centre director for The Rock, commented: “North of Manchester, the retail offer for towns and villages in Greater Manchester and Lancashire is limited, and shoppers previously had to travel to Manchester City Centre or The Trafford Centre to get their fashion fix. With the introduction of The Rock this year however, shoppers now have a quality alternative on their doorstep, and with footfall increasing month on month, it certainly seems to be hitting the mark with shoppers in the region.”

“The Rock’s ‘Little Black Pudding Dress’ perfectly represents the town’s fashion-forward thinking whilst highlighting their ‘down-to-earth’ characteristics and traditional values.”

On the making of the dress, Aliyah Hussain of HussainDeyn, added: “After a week of experimenting to see how best we could incorporate this unusual material into the dress design and making our way through 30 individual Black Puddings, we settled on slicing it vertically and sewing each piece on to card. This allowed us to keep the recognizable shape of the sausage, and helped to secure the contents of Black Pudding, so that each piece could almost be used as an embellishment on the dress.

“The dress itself was designed as a classic 60’s glam striped mini dress, made using cream and grey vinyl with black shirting fabric. We also designed a cape to accompany the dress, which made a dramatic addition to the overall design.”

In conjunction with the unveiling of the ‘Little Black Pudding Dress’, The Rock has launched a limited edition Bag4Life, also created by HussainDeyn. The bag will be available from one of The Rock’s independent retailers, Sole Food, from the 3rd December and will cost £4.99. All proceeds from the sale of the bags will go to local charity, Footsteps4Poppy, which is raising money for five year old Poppy, who suffers from Cerebral Palsy. For more information please visit; http://footsteps4poppy.blogspot.com/

To find out more about The Rock please read the feature