The wonderful Old Curiosity Shop captured by Dazed DigitalIt was a beautiful sunny day in London today and I spent it wandering the town and visiting my favourite stores and looking in on a few new ones. The first stop on my shopping tour was the beautiful Old Curiosity Shop which was of course immortalised by the Dickens' novel of the same name and is apparently the oldest shop in London (it was built in 1567). If the history of the building wasn't enough, the store now holds BLAAK's aw 08 collection and some beautiful handcrafted footwear and accessories by some designers handpicked by the design duo to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the brand. With it's cottage like appearance and all together parochial feel, it seems like an odd location for cutting edge London designers to be selling their collections but this make it all the more special.
As well as selling their own A/W 08-9 collection (highlights shown above), BLAAK have selected other products to sit alongside such as Oliver Goldsmith glasses exclusively made for BLAAK or Daiko Kimura's handcrafted shoes. If you find yourself around the Holborn area (or anywhere in London for that matter) you have to visit this store, if it wasn't for the lack of funds I would've bought a number of pieces and left and extremely happy chap...Despite not being able to afford anything, the cornucopia of curiosities make it a must see.
7 comments:
hello. i saw NYT bill cunningham's wonderful coverage for this week and i immediately thought of your blog. i'm very interested to hear your thoughts! i love the look of the 'thin man'- more 'precise' 'serious' and cleaner. but what he said about how fashion style (just men's style perhaps?) reflects the economy is an interesting thought. does 'fashion precedes what happens in real life'??
Hey Jess, thanks so much for thinking of us. I must admit though that I'm really a regular reader of NYT. The article sounds great, is there any chance you can send me the link...I can see a post coming out of this!
oh my that shops looks so cool, the oldest shop in london you say, and now it sells menswear. i wonder what it originally sold, any ideas?
It's quite fun to wander around such stores but the hard part is leaving without a thing because the wallet won't allow you to. I've always hated that feeling.
but seriously, this sounds like an interesting retail space.
oh of course! sorry i just assume people read nytimes. here's the link to the thin man article:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/20/style/20080920-street/index.html
and you can check out bill cunningham's work here:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_cunningham/index.html?8qa&scp=1-spot&sq=Bill+Cunningham&st=nyt
he's an adorable old man and i love his weekly photo essays. enjoy!
Jess - Thanks so much for posting the links! I will have a read through during my lunch break!
mat ahoy - Sorry I missed your question. Apparently the shop was initially a dairy on the estate of King Charles II. That's all I know.
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