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

TOP SHOP: kids love design

WHILST THE FRENCH have come to contemporary design later than their Italian cousins, they have fully embraced the world of contemporary design for kids in an incredibly short time. First Milk magazine, then Little Fashion Gallery, and now ‘kids love design‘ - currently the ultimate design e-boutique for kids.

Begun by Séverine Herbeth Limon - French but now based in Switzerland, and mother to Mathis 4, and Amelie, 1 - who began researching the idea of modern children’s design whilst resident in Luxembourg, London and Brussels, the store was a culmination of realising, “all these cities have great modern furniture shops, but after the birth of my children I became so frustrated that the only room in the house I wasn’t happy with was also perhaps the most important for a new parent - the baby’s room. So I decided to do something about it.”  

She has spent the last three years scouring Europe for “fresh, modern, inspiring, environmentally-friendly” design for little people that surpasses the obvious brands. In their stead are niche European names from 12 countries - names like Domestic, Ineke Hans and Fellin who promote true innovations for children and babies, and create designs that would not only look precisely at ease in the most modern of homes, but are probably a great deal more cutting edge than much of your own furniture. Read the rest of this article

Posted 10 December 2008 in Shop Watch

TOP SHOP: Museum of Childhood online store

NOT ONLY IS THE V&A’s Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green one of London’s best-kept secret kid-friendly venues - it’s also free! - but its online shop (launched last year in addition to the museum’s ‘real-life’ shop) is full of inspirational goodies for children aged 10 and under. Oh, and nostalgic adults too.

There are exclusive designs by the likes of design hero Clifford Richards (see our profile of Clifford here) including his lion and robot print drinking cups with in-built curly-wurly straws, and his cardboard fairy wings (the museum has taken his illustrations on as their own graphic identity, and frequent commissions will follow); and all-time-classic toys including tiddly-wink sets and modelling balloons; plus techno-freak kits such as rubber band powered planes for older kids. All of it is affordable and stuff you would actually want to buy. 80% of the shop’s sales come from purchases under £10 - intended as pocket money purchases.

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Posted 20 July 2008 in Shop Watch