TOP SHOP: Custard
CUSTARD. WONDERFULLY EVOCATIVE WORD. Unbeatable dessert for kids (and adults). Iconic cartoon cat of the 1970s. Great new online clothes and accessories boutique for children.
Custard is the brainchild of Charlie Bailey and Tracey Beard, mothers to Jessica 6, Emelia, 3 (Charlie), Dexter 6, and Perdy, 2 (Tracey) who were driven by their desire to dress their children as individuals and not like every other child they spotted at their local playground.
They have succeeded. What we love about Custard is not just that it makes us feel hungry for pudding, nor the incredibly cute graphics on the opening page, nor just the clear layout of the clothing / accessories, where you can buy from Summer or Winter selections (which is great for those of us who like to Read the rest of this article
Posted 13 June 2010 in Shop Watch
TOP SHOP: Shak-Shuka
SOMETHING WEIRD has happened in the world of online children’s boutiques in the last 18 months. All of a sudden there’s a lot of repetition and a whole load of same label brands.
So, it’s genuinely refreshing to come across the Netherlands-based Shak-Shuka - and not just for its eco credentials (everything in the boutique is environmentally-friendly). The e-shop is full of a whole load of brands, decor objects, genuinely covetable and useable toys and organic clothes and jewellery (for kids and mammas) you seldom see elsewhere - many we’ve never even heard of before.
Owner Joslyn Oppenheimer has searched globally to find the likes of English Muffin prints, Think Baby bottles, Read the rest of this article
Posted 3 May 2010 in Shop Watch
TOP SHOP: Present & Correct
SURELY WE CAN’T be the only ones obsessed with retro stationery, desk tidies and midcentury graphic children’s books. Which is why we are frequently found window shopping at our current favourite original stationery and graphic goods’ shop Present & Correct.
In a bid to find out more and fuel the stationery obsession fire, we spoke to owner Neal Whittington, 29, (pictured above), a designer and illustrator, who is also a fan of “a good rummage, fun knitted jumpers, making cakes and cutting up paper” about this love of all things papery.
LittleBig: Did you just get bored one day and decide to open a shop?
P&C: Since I left college I made things and sold them in other people’s shops, but in the back of my mind I guess I was working towards having one - in some shape or form - of my own. A real life bricks and mortar store would be a dream come true, something I have always wanted to do and one day hope to have. The online store was the next best thing, and to be honest it reaches a far wider audience than a London based shop would, and of course the overheads are a lot smaller!
LB: Why are there so many (retro) stationery (and the like) obsessives out there?
P&C: It’s amazing isn’t it! I think one of the big reasons is that it is reminiscent of school and college (not always a good thing!), but also because on the high street, in the UK especially, it is quite hard to find cool, original stationery and so people put more effort into seeking out the old and unwanted. The design and feel of the older things is so nice, and hard to emulate. I think most designers love stationery of all shapes and sizes - we were the ones at school with the pristine exercise books and a different pencil case for every term and season. Stationery, to me, makes me think of birthday gift vouchers from WHSmiths - this was a time when a £5 voucher would go a long way. You could get some nice rubbers in cases, a notebook or two, some stickers AND have enough for a copy of Smash Hits! Read the rest of this article
Posted 14 July 2009 in Shop Watch
TOP SHOP: Mini Moderns Shoppe
THE BOYS AT MINI MODERNS - they of the Modernist-influenced wallpapers, dinnerware and soft furnishings for kids - have finally opened their own online shop - in recognition that their customers around the world were keen to get their hands directly on the boys’ goods. The Shoppe - contains Keith Stephenson and Mark Hampshire’s best-selling wallpapers, £38 a 10 metre roll, including the newest number and our current favourite, the ‘Sitting Comfortably?’ print - featuring images of modern chair classics - in a warm buttercup yellow, as well as their brand new shopper, £20, available in ‘Are You Sitting Comfortably?’ in black 
(see right), ‘Do You Live In A Town?’ in milk chocolate and ‘Six of One’ in pear green, (LittleBig’s Ed has been using her black bag for the last few months). Plus look out for four new wallpaper designs later this year (they’re currently being printed), and a range of stationery is in the offing too… Mini Moderns’ desire to manufacture and print all their products ethically within the UK (using water based inks and sustainable papers) means a relatively slow new-launch process - but this just adds to their appeal.
*And don’t forget to see some of their prints transformed into DIY sewing kits for Clothkits
Posted 7 May 2009 in Shop Watch
TOP SHOP: Tas-ka
WARNING. YOU MAY FIND it hard to resist Tas-ka’s textile toys and soft furnishings. Certainly, co-directors Jantien Baas and Hester Worst of the textile house based in The Hague, the Netherlands, have their own designs at home: Hester the hand-made white ‘birdlight’ (pictured bottom in the gallery) made of clusters of handmade paper cranes, and Jantien their charismatic fabric monster on her couch. And she doesn’t even have kids.
All that is to come. For now, the duo who formed Tas-ka whilst at design college at the Royal College of Art in the Hague and morphed the project into a proper business post their studies - becoming full-time in October of last year - have a growing line of textile products on their minds. Read the rest of this article
Posted 31 January 2009 in Shop Watch
Loading... 
