A Japanese supplier of no-frills essentials at no-frills prices

A Japanese supplier of no-frills essentials at no-frills prices.Crombie (opens Thursday)99 Jermyn Street London (0171-409 0220)Think of Crombie and an overcoat comes to mind. Here are just a few that have opened their doors in the past week, and a preview of some which launch next week

Morgan
393 Oxford Street, London W1 (right) (0171-499 4101)Morgan’s flagship store on Oxford Street stocks the full range of streetstyle and catwalk-inspired womenswear and accessories.Yohji Yamamoto14-15 Conduit Street London W1 (0171-491 4129)Everything the designer has put his name to is under one roof, except the perfume, which will be available in two weeks’ time.Muji187 Oxford Street London W1 (0171-437 7503)For something to wear, to sit on, to write with and something to store it all in then look no further than Muji. As I left Goodrich School an anxious-looking man panted past. I couldn’t be certain, but I think he was wearing a pedometer.John Thorogood: 0171 228 7474; Roy Brooks: 0181 299 3021; Goodrich School: 0181 693 1050..

Shops are springing up all the time. Mr Coleman tells of parents he’s turned down who immediately put their house on the market and others who are prepared to rent just to get in.Fraudsters should beware: “We catch people who don’t live where they say they do and we can withdraw the place.” Mr Coleman meticulously measures the more contentious areas around the school but parents still challenge his measurements for – largely unsuccessful – appeals. The marketing ploy was effective as an alternative to “betwixt the commons”, but the school said it could never guarantee places even for houses in the same road.Parents denied places at schools often sacrifice their homes for education. Parents buy on the strength of estate agents’ blurb and it’s just not true.” So why say it? “Because it shifts houses,” says Mr Coleman.John Thorogood, a Battersea estate agency, recently got a ticking off from a local school for advertising properties as being in its “catchment area”. Priority areas were abandoned in favour of distance to the school, as people assumed they would get places and didn’t.”We can’t offer places to people who live nearer another school.” He blames estate agents for misleading parents: “They advertise houses as being in our `catchment area’ but there’s no such thing.

If you’ve got a property very near to a good school they’ll pay more and be prepared to suffer one room less or a small garden just to get in.” In fact, another agent admits that, in its view, it may be cheaper to pay for private schooling rather than buy an overpriced house for its position.Parents should be wary of taking estate agents’ advice on catchment areas as local authorities use different criteria Mr Coleman explains: “It’s convoluted. One even slapped his cheque book down and said `how much?’”Not even a “donation to school funds”‘ guarantees a place: “We won’t consider you until exchange of contracts.” Mr Coleman links desperation to the family’s particular circumstances: “It’s acute when people move into the area with three school-age children and have to find a house and three places simultaneously.”Diana Hamilton at Roy Brooks, a firm of estate agents with offices in south London, describes buyers who are also looking for schools: “They come in and you can see anxiety on their faces We’ve all been there, they’re desperate. Peter Coleman, head of Goodrich School, in East Dulwich, London, received over 200 applications for 90 places this year and has seen it all: “Parents show letters from estate agents [or] solicitors. We’d drive past their old school, they’d see their friends and demand `Why can’t we go there?’ I just gritted my teeth, I thought it would go on forever,” says Joy Darwen. The family finally moved eight months later.Schools do not generally take children before their housing situation is resolved despite parents’ pleas. The Darwens became exhausted by the daily 24-mile trip to the new school “The children thought it was bizarre. A lot of shopkeepers wouldn’t put up the posters until they’d looked themselves.