YOU NAME IT: The growth of personalisation

Illustration by Marina Kharkover

by Jenny Dalton

IN THE EARLY 80s when it became fashionable to own accessories with your name attached (remember the original script name necklaces, way before SATC’s Carrie got her mitts on one?), I remember being constantly thwarted when I hit the shops looking for named items. A million Jennifers, but never a Jenny.

So, what must today’s kids feel like rifling through those souvenir racks, name-cards and the like, all of which are rendered pretty pointless in the face of a million and one children with exotic, one-off, individual, even made-up, names.

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Posted 2 March 2010 in Products

BUNK MATE: Ace hotel bunks

LOOK NO FURTHER for inspiration for your pre-teen or teenage son’s room than the recently opened Ace Hotel in New York. One of our (male) colleagues spent a couple of days there recently and is still extolling the virtues of the large canvas laundry bags with Navy-style typography, the masculine-chic toiletries from Rudy’s barbershop, the blankets embroidered with the Ace logo, and the mix of vintage and new interiors, devised by NYC design firm, Roman & Williams.

Our favourite part, however, confirms the return of the bunkbed: the ensuite bunk rooms in the NYC hotel are a perfect stopover for singles, guys on their stag weekends, grown-ups reliving their childhoods, or teens who you’d prefer to have their own room. We can’t help falling in love with the almost military issue, sleek, fuss-free, heavy-duty, powder-coated bunks sourced from American Bedding that would clearly last a lifetime and beyond. Can we have, please?

*Bunk rooms in March 2010 are approximately £150 per night. www.acehotel.com. Ace Hotel New York City, 20W 29th Street, New York City, NY 10001; tel: + 212 679 2222.

Posted 24 February 2010 in Furniture, Travel

HEART OF GLASSES: Zoobug

IF YOU’VE TRIED unsuccessfully to get your wee ones to wear sunglasses, then you probably haven’t heard of Zoobug.

Zoobug’s founder, 33-year-old Dr Julie Diem Le, the Vietnam-born ophthalmologist who moved to the UK aged four and trained as an eye surgeon, might not have had to do the persuading first hand, but as an aunt to her niece Emma, she’s been known to trawl the shops in search of the best in everything from snowsuits to sunnies.

Which is how Zoobug came to pass. “I was trying to find some suitable sunglasses that had enough UV protection, looked good and could also take the strain of being handled by children,” says Julie. “Since I couldn’t find any, I decided to create them myself. At the time it was an innovative idea to have adult standards of protection in kids’ sunglasses.”

The admission comes as a bit of a shock. But indeed most of us haven’t questioned the quality of cheap plastic highstreet sunglasses too rigorously.

“We’ve become used to buying ‘toy’ sunglasses for kids because there are so many available on the high street,” answers Dr Julie. “But the problem with these types of sunglasses is you can’t be sure they offer the maximum UV protection that complies to stringent international standards. Nor do their lenses necessarily offer optical clarity which means you do not see clearly when you look through the lens. It is only recently that parents have started to be more aware of the variations in quality and the different type of lenses on offer, and I’d like to see much more being done to educate parents about the importance of quality UV protection for their kid’s eyes.”

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Posted 23 February 2010 in Products

SIT DOWN: chairs for children

TO COINCIDE with Sit Down, the new V&A Museum of Childhood’s touring exhibition of children’s chairs, we asked child chair expert, collector and exhibition advisor, Molly Price of Molly Meg for her favourite, and lesser known, chairs for kids.

1. I love UK designer Peter Murdoch’s spotty chair from the 1960s. How modern does it look? This chair was incredibly forward-thinking for its use of polyethylene-coated laminated kraft paperboard, and was the first piece of commercial furniture made of paper. It was designed to be assembled at home by simply folding along the pre-scored lines: it’s an icon of the Pop era. Read the rest of this article

Posted 4 February 2010 in Furniture

FURNITURE FOCUS: sebra

MIA DELA IS THE BRAINS behind Sebra - the Danish furniture and accessories design brand with the ever-growing UK and international presence.

35-year-old Mia - mum to Gustav, 7, Alfred, 3-and-a-half, and another on the way - puts this growth down to a universality of aesthetic awareness among the new parenting generation. “Our design has a very Scandinavian feel to it, which luckily many more than just Scandinavians find nice,” says Mia. “And we may be a Danish company, but we are experiencing more and more that products are universal. Children all over the world seem to like many of the same things - animals, nice colours and patterns.” Read the rest of this article

Posted 14 January 2010 in Furniture