(Not so) Muliti-Coloured Swap Shop

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Just to give you a heads up on what’s going on at the moment. We are making some exciting changes to our shops in Hampton Hill.

We’ve decided to ‘swap shops’. This Sunday (22nd Oct) – Tuesday, the furniture shop (38 High Street) will be moved to the gifts & accessories shop (34-36 High Street) and the gifts & accessories shop will then reside in the furniture shop premises.

 Here’s why……

  Due to increasing trade in the gifts & accessories side of our business, there is a strong need for more space. There will be more room to create better displays/visuals and we can merchandise the stock in such a way that products will have their own space. It will hopefully be a far more relaxed environment as well, so we can provide a better shopping experience with more room to offer the customer, services such as gift wrapping etc.

 Although the open space of the current furniture shop is fantastic, we have always felt that the original site (34-36) worked better. The layout of the original shop is far better suited to furniture.  It is made up of individual, smaller rooms, which will enable us to create more inspiring rooms and interiors collections. Hopefully it will be easier for customers to imagine the furniture in their own homes. We’ll be able to group together home office, living and kitchen/dining in a far more coherent way, giving each area more clarity.

 So that’s the plan. As I said we’ll be closed this Sunday (as usual), but we’ll also be closed this Monday, Tuesday and maybe Wednesday. Re-opening on Thursday 27th October. Check back to this blog on Tuesday, for updates. We’ll let you know the definite re-opening day.

 By the way, we’ll also be opening on Sunday, from November 6th, until Christmas, 12 – 4pm

James Brown

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We don’t tend to sell much art.  Not because we don’t want to, we’ve tried in the past, but nothing has really worked in the context of our shops. There has been work we have liked but it’s been more suited to a gallery type environment. Then we discovered James Brown….We’ve been selling James Brown’s wonderful  screen-prints for a while now. We love his use of bold graphic designs, coupled with vintage styling. Right up our street!

Here’s a bit about him (taken from his website)………..

“James Brown is an illustrator and printmaker, living and working in London. Trained as a textile and surface print designer, James worked in the clothing industry for 10 years producing print designs for numerous fashion brands from Levis to Louis Vuitton. James has been commissioned to produce work by publishing houses, magazines and newspapers and advertising and design agencies. Recent clients include GQ,  Random House, The Guardian and The Poetry Society. Alongside his commercial practice (www.generalpattern.net)  James produces limited edition screen prints and linocuts. James’ prints reflects his interest in the printed and typographic ephemera of  pop culture. The traditional processes that go into the production of James’ prints are very important.”

We stock a selection of James’ work. They range in price from £40 – £130, (framed in classic black frames) some are Limited Editions.

Spread the word words.

Serendipity.

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A month or so ago, one July Sunday, D and I went up to the Southbank during the festival of Britain weekend.

While we were up there, we took the opportunity to rummage /browse round the many vintage stalls that were pitched up there. We can never resist, mainly because you never ever know what you’re going to find. It was mainly fashion and accessories, but there was a fair amount of furniture, homewares and general ‘collectables’.

For example, i picked up three mint condition original vinyl Beatles albums for a very reasonable price. One of which (Sgt Peppers) i’ve been looking for for many years. That kept me happy for the rest of the day!!

Anyway, as we were about to leave, we chanced upon this particular stall that was selling a bit of everything and we spotted this……

On first inspection we thought it was a quirky old correspondence case,  we particularly liked the “Boomps-a-Daisy’ nursery rhyme (we’re always a sucker for graphics/typography) As we looked at it closer D said “That’d make a great ipad case” (we’d been looking for an ipad case with a difference for some time) So, without knowing the exact size or whether it would fit, we took a punt and handed over a crisp £20 note to the grateful stall holder.

Later that evening, we tried it out for size.

Low and behold….. fitted perfectly.

Serendipity indeed.

Ain’t that the coolest thing.

Parlez vous Anglais?

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We go over to Paris twice a year and every time, before we go, we always start to wonder about whether we’ll get out of it as much as we hope.  We wonder if we’re going to find the right products for the season, new products, new suppliers and probably most important of all…we hope we’ll be inspired. Well, as usual we needn’t have worried. The trip was fantastic on all fronts.

Anyway, the plan now, is to get the right stock in at the right time, which can be frustrating when dealing with some continental suppliers. They tend to do things their way, whether you like it or not. C’est la vie! It’s always worth it when it arrives though, and by the way, the new stock will start coming in, in a couple of weeks and continue coming in up until December. We’ll be posting some of it here, so watch this space.

Couple of great places for lunch…………..

As planned, we had a day to wander round the city, and the highlights, in no particular order were:

Tea at Merci…..

Wonder at Dayrolle…

The allure of the flea markets …

……..for Deb it was discovering new boutiques in the Marais. And for me, it was finding these little Pathe baby film rolls featuring Charlie Chaplin movies!

Now if only I had something to play them on…………

Off to Paris.

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So, it’s that time of year again, when we’re off and about, here there and everywhere buying new stock for the season ahead. (Sorry, but Christmas starts early for us!!)

The highlight of the buying season for us is always our trip to the trade show in Paris. We usually have 3 days at the show and a day to soak up Paris; the sights, the sounds, the food, the wine, the architecture…..pretty much everything really. For inspiration, you can’t beat it!
Usually, the way we work when we’re there is, we cherry-pick from our usual suppliers and mix it up with (hopefully) one or two new suppliers. And take on board some display/styling ideas from some of the many wonderful stores/boutiques in Paris itself. The stock we’ve ordered starts trickling through from end of September pretty much all the way up to December. Here’s a few pics to set the tone………..