Blog Archives
Biscuiteers
Love love love this company
Visit their amazing store at
Biscuiteers Boutique and Icing Cafe
194 Kensington Park Road, London, W11 2ES
Visit their fabulous website
Altered Clothing – Tailoring and alterations – Jersey
Saw this fab tailoring and alteration store whilst on a business trip to Jersey the other week.
They have done a beautiful job of their shop front and window decal.
Its so nice to see independent stores that looked loved.
Style Salvage – A men’s fashion and style blog.
Style Salvage is blog about how men could (and do) dress. Started back in June 2007, the blog aims to showcase emerging and established design talent alike. It features style commentary, 7 day style diaries, interviews with designers, journalists and shop owners mixed in with the occasional personal style shot.
Click the banner image or the link below to visit the website.
Style Salvage – A men’s fashion and style blog..
Harris and Hoole – Independent Coffee Chain?
Getting out of a cab last week in Uxbridge the first thing to greet Lynda and I was a sign saying “great coffee served here” quite a statement.
Looking up we saw a new coffee house called Harris and Hoole, the name sounded very poetic [the names originates from a diary exert by Samuel Pepys], the glass fronted exterior was covered in doodles telling me lots of info about the company and their ambitions.
It dosnt take more than a few doodles and a sniff of an independent to draw us in; and we weren’t disappointed the interior decor looked really great. The design is following the very popular trend of recycling, renewing and reinventing.
There were all the ingredients of an independent store a community notice board, great music playing, people playing board games, live events advertised, hand written signage, quirky toilets and very friendly, knowledgable staff.
But there was something a little bit too ordered about the place, it looked and felt like an independent but in a “Disney” sense, i couldn’t quite put my finger then my business partner googled the company and found out that they were independent but financially backed by Tesco a big sigh followed this news.
But after looking at their website reading about the owners the Tolleys and reading quite a few press articles a few of which were giving them a hard time for supposedly deceiving their customers by not mentioning Tesco [it does clearly and proudly mention that they are backed by Tesco on their website] I thought does it really matter that they are backed by one of the biggest companies in the UK? Arnt a lot of companies looking for investors? And the banks are forthcoming with their money these days; and didn’t Tesco start out as an independent.
After drinking one of the best lattes i have had in a while i came to the conclusion that it dosnt matter, the most important thing is that its a great new business giving the public a choice, the town a lovely looking shop and lots of people job opportunities.
But don’t let my rantings sway you, pop along to one of their branches, look at their website and and decide for your self.
PS, it did feel a bit ordered but hopefully will get a little bit rough around the edges once the hoards stark flocking to it, which I’m sure they will.
Click here to read an interview with Nick Tolley, Chief executive of Harris and Hoole.
Click here to visit the Harris and Hoole website.
Shutter Art Brixton London
Wandering around Brixton London the other night it was great to see independent stores thinking about how they can improve the look of the high st. Lots of stores there has decorated their shutters turning them into works of art and helping to make the street look interesting and not like a ghetto. I hope more stores do this and turn our streets into living art galleries.
Snapshots from East Dulwich Christmas 2012
Its great to see our local high street stores pulling out the stops for Christmas.
There was definitely a trend for hand painted window art this Christmas in East Dulwich.
I really liked that fact that so many stores had their windows hand painted it was a great theme for the high street and very cost effective. And even those stores not celebrating still did a painted scheme.
Independent and proud of it
Love what this independent wine store has done on the side of its building.
Hand painted graphic – Shoreditch
Love this hand painted Graphic on the corner of a cafe in Shorditch. This just goes to show that we do not need to buy horrible plastic signs, use the natural architecture of your premises and go back to the old traditions, they will get better with age and outlive the nasty plastics signs.
Thats my rant of the day out of the way – feel better for that.
Long live traditional sign signwriting.
The Cool Hunter – Restaurant Farma Kreaton – Komotini, Greece
Restaurant Farma Kreaton (Meat Farm in Greek)is the recently opened addition to the well publicized Fabrica Kreaton restaurantlocated in the center of the city of Komotini, (Adrianoupoleos 4) in northeastern Greece.
The architecture and interior design of both spaces are by Minas Kosmidis (Μηνάς Κοσμίδης) with offices in Thessaloniki and Komotini.
In the case of Farma Kreaton, graphic designer Yiannis Tokalatsidis created the minimalist, hand-drawn graphics and cut-outs of cows, chickens and the scenery of the countryside that set the whimsical barn-yard chic tone to the entire space.
The 270 square-meter (almost 3,000 square- feet), 150 seat new restaurant is in essence an additional open-concept eating area to the existing Fabrica Kreaton that, in turn, is themed around a Greek butcher shop. Both are housed in a renovated 1950s farm house with a large yard.
In Farma Kreaton, in addition to the graphic components, we were attracted to the lovely, white-painted wood floors and the overall feel of a temporary barn-raising supper.
The simple plank tables, the mismatched, unpretentious chairs, the humble potted plants and herbs on the tables, all exude a feel of a space dedicated — just for the moment — to sumptuous eating and enjoyment of good company.
The hay bales, pick forks, watering cans and cut-out animals remind the diners of the work done and to-be done on the farm, the dinner beings just a moment of celebration — perhaps of a good hay harvest or a successful calving.
In short, Minas Kosmidis and his team have managed to create a believable semblance of a working farm without going overboard and ending up with a contrived, pretentious “concept” instead.
The food at Farma Kreaton is typical Greek meat-based plates, and the diners are predominantly locals. Tuija Seipell.
The Cool Hunter – Restaurant Farma Kreaton – Komotini, Greece.
