Our Guide to Small Businesses We Love
This Colour Friday we’re celebrating the independent shops that we love. Find the perfect Holiday Gift from one of our favourite places.
How are you supporting independents this Black Friday?
We’re joining Holly Tucker’s campaign to boycott Black Friday on 24th November and support small businesses instead. These stats are directly from the Colour Friday campaign:
£12.3 billion on Black Friday is spent with businesses like Amazon
Despite the fact that 80% of it ends up in landfill
And nearly 60% of UK small businesses fear closure in the coming year
As an antidote to this, and to help us all shop small, please support your favourite local shop or buy a longed-for Christmas gift from an independent.
Help spread the love and the colour that independents bring to our high streets, our lives and each other.
To get you started, here’s a round-up of some of our favourite UK Independents.
Present and Correct, London: A beloved stationary shop to quiet the mind and spark your creativity
Hoxton Street Monster Supplies: this store has everything the monster in you needs (and a not-so-secret cause behind it all).
Labour and Wait, London: Timeless designs having a contemporary moment, this shop will make you think differently about your dish brush.
Meticulous Ink, Bath: A tiny print studio and store that creates human-centered designs for all of us.
Find Ubiety, Bath: A haven for your wellbeing that gives back to others too
The Bristol Artisan, Bristol: A home for local craftsmanship and creativity, that embodies the city’s spirit of community and sustainability.
Folde, Shaftsbury: connecting people with nature through beautiful books, prints and gifts
Alice in Scandiland, Cornwall: Scandinavian design comes to Cornwall courtesy of award-winning style blogger Alice Collyer.
The Department of Hope, Joy and Wonder, Cheltenham: An uplifting place to browse and meet friends that spreads joy and wonder in Cheltenham and beyond
The Poetry Pharmacy: poems (and more) for all your emotional ailments and the best range of surprising and delightful gifts
Something Good, Newcastle: a sustainable living store with a plastic-free pantry and a refillery
Lifestory, Edinburgh: Scandi inspired concept store that has everything you could possibly need for gift giving this holiday season
We’ll be adding more independent shops over the coming weeks so let us know your favorites so we can include them here too.
Golden Hare Books
Edinburgh’s Golden Hare Books keeps the city’s literary tradition alive with its thoughtful curation.
What is it: An award-winning (Bookshop of the Year 2019 UK & Ireland) indie bookstore to warm your heart (and hands by its wood-burning stove) in Edinburgh’s village within the city, Stockbridge.
What you need to know: Founded in 2012 by Sir Mark Jones – previously the Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Museums of Scotland – this is a bookstore as curated space in both how it looks and what gets to be included. Covers face out and draw attention to great design, creating an immediate visual hook for potential readers and making objects of the books themselves.
The range of its small careful selection of books changes constantly –‘the idea is that you never visit the same bookshop twice.’ Golden Hare is known for bringing in a wide range of choices, including works in translation, books by women, and diverse children’s authors
How to bring this into your life: It’s all about the reading subscription, Postbooks, which sends a beautifully packaged fiction or non-fiction book(s) each month specially chosen for you, often around a theme, like Green Transformation, and with its own reading guide. The key difference though is that Golden Hare supports indie presses and small publishers in its choices such as Charco Press, Tilted Axis, or & Other Stories, widening your reading from the usual suspects and making sure more writers get attention from readers.
Golden Hare is also a bookstore where you can become a Member, and during usual times there is an active book club and Sunday Stories reading club for kids. Golden Hare has pivoted to the ways we now shop: click and collect, and Saturday bike deliveries.
Why it caught our attention: This is a bookstore that works hard. It does a lot. Not just in its active support of indie publishers but its reach within the local community and that of the city of Edinburgh. In 2019, Golden Hare hosted its first book festival with local partners and it co-hosts the Edinburgh Book Fringe with Lighthouse Books. Books are embedded in the cultural life of Edinburgh – a UNESCO City of Literature. It was famously here that J.K. Rowling wrote some of her Harry Potter series and Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes. Golden Hare keeps the tradition alive of supporting local voices and creating a place for the writing community.
In their own words: “We are a knowledgeable team of self-confessed reading addicts who have been selling beautiful and important books since 2012.
Our charming independent bookshop is situated in Edinburgh's Stockbridge, where you can find an ever-changing collection of fiction and non-fiction for readers of all ages. We hold close to 2000 titles covering all genres of writing from cookery to travel, from flower arranging to science fiction - and many more topics in between.”
Lost at home: It's winter where we are. Maybe there too. Cozy down with a book. Choose one of Golden Hare’s winter picks: Once Upon a River by Diana Settenfield, The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, and The Changeling by Victor LaValle. While purchasing, make a resolution not to buy from internet giants (take this resolve into the rest of 2021).
While here: Seek out Golden Hare collaborators café Lovecrumbs and Smith & Gertrude, as well as If Lost favorites the Royal Botanic Gardens and Lifestory.
Shop Small Special: Labour and Wait
Timeless designs having a contemporary moment, London’s Labour and Wait will make you think differently about your dish brush.
What is it: This store makes buckets look good. A corner shop that combines the hardware with the artisan in a former pub (see the distinctive green tile of Truman Brewery) in Shoreditch and offers functional products for everyday life. Also now has an outpost in Tokyo.
What you need to know: Founded in 2000 by two designers, Rachel Wythe-Moran and Simon Watkins, frustrated by the endless cycles of fashion, Labour and Wait is based on their philosophy that good design should last. Their independent store is full of products that have stood the test of time – both in terms of the legacy behind them (products include blankets produced by the last remaining woolen mill in Wales) and in terms of how long they last when we get them back home (whether that be a dish brush or bottle opener). Think functional classics like Cornishware Mugs and essential hardware needs like an indoor brush that support traditional manufacturing and resist our current throwaway culture. Though very covetable, ironically Labour and Wait takes away the pressure to consume more. Rather it’s founded on durable and functional objects having their place in everyday life.
Why we think it's special: Apart from resisting our tendency to buy plastic and buy cheap with little concern for the person behind the making – the average person in North America and Western Europe consumes 100 kilograms of plastic each year — Labour and Wait is very much an ‘in-person’ store, human interactions are key to this bricks and mortar. On Black Friday instead of leading with product discounts and special offers, Labour and Wait donated 10% of sales to Crisis at Christmas which helps homeless people in the UK.
In their own words: “We believe in a simple, honest approach to design, where quality and utility are intrinsic. From hardware to clothing we offer a selection of timeless products that celebrate functional design and which are appropriate in a traditional or contemporary environment.”
In our gift edit: Carbon neutral enamelware from Riess of Austria, a recycled coffee cup made from discarded coffee grounds, a Scottish woolen blanket made from surplus yarns (it's cold out there, sometimes emotionally), and Labour and Wait’s signature apron.
In need of more Holiday inspiration? We’re a little in love with their shops of yesterday within their own shop: like a Haberdashery, Chemist and Stationer.
Something to inspire: We get stuck on toothbrushes. Or toilet brushes. The small things around our house that we somehow forget to buy sustainably. We fall very quickly into the plastic hole with these. Try to identify something in your house that you have a kneejerk anti-environment position on (there’s something, believe us) and just focus on getting that one thing more human-friendly (whether that’s how and where it’s made, how its production affects the planet and who the person is behind the product). Small steps. Later you can commit to a plastic-free lifestyle (no, we’re not there yet either).
Shop Small Special | Lifestory
Meander slowly online or off this Holiday Season with Scandi inspired concept store Lifestory.
What is it: A slow Scandi-oriented lifestyle store in Edinburgh.
What you need to know: Lifestory was founded in 2014 by Susan Doherty (who also started the city’s Hula Juice Bars) as Edinburgh’s first concept store — bringing together coffee and design — after being inspired by similar stores on her travels in places like Melbourne and Copenhagen. An airy, warm space, Lifestory offers a thoughtful edit of the Scandinavian-based (like House Doctor, ferm LIVING and Hay) and the Scandinavian-inspired (like Woolf & Moon and Kinshipped) with some Japanese simplicity added in there. During "normal times”, there’s coffee and cake for browsing the latest issue of Cereal.
Why we’ve included it here: Each independent store makes a circle of support: within the local community in which it’s located (with Lifestory located amongst the indies of Broughton Street) and the wider community of makers that it gives a platform to (in this case candle makers, jewelry designers, potters, graphic designers, furniture crafters). We often overlook the human in how we shop, the people behind stores, behind products and, behind our neighborhoods, so its good to be reminded of this by Susan: “Ultimately, the unique quality of Lifestory, as with all shops of this kind, lies with the owner’s relationship with the products, with the space itself and with their customers". A living wage employer, Lifestory also supports the people who work there.
In their own words: “Independently-owned and constantly evolving, Lifestory is a destination for lovers of Scandinavian design and lifestyle, considered products that share the traits of beauty and function.”
Our Christmas gift edit: We’re coveting many of the wall-based pieces such as Soo Burnell’s prints and the We Haven’t Located Us Yet print.
Something to do: Browse your neighborhood, even if virtually. Many independents have had to scramble to put their wares online in the last few months, extending their business ethos of bricks and mortar into digital platforms. That’s a huge transition and a very different way of working for many people who started shopfronts for the community aspect. This season if you’re not allowed, or able, to go out, take a virtual shopping journey through a local town, and shop like you would if you were able to meander with carols in the background and snow falling (yes, we’re romanticizing as we huddle inside). For inspiration, read this piece about how our neighborhood stores are coming together online.
To find out more: Website / Instagram / Twitter
Pilea Plant Shop
Head to Pilea to choose a houseplant that won’t just brighten your room but also brighten your day.
What is it: A gorgeous shop devoted to houseplants situated at the top of Frome’s hill of independents.
Why you’ll love it: With names like Monstera deliciosa cheese plants, Calathea lancifolia rattlesnakes, and Sedum burritos you might be confused about what you are choosing, and how to care for it. But at Pilea, it's all about bringing you together with a plant that you love and that you feel able to care for.
What you need to know: With everyday and exotic selections, the people who work here are happy to consult with you about which plant will thrive in your home. They’ll even send you on your way with a short guide to making your plant happy (ie keeping it alive).
How to bring this into your life: When the store closes, the carefully chosen plants head online. Workshops aren’t running at the moment, but when they are we recommend you check them out for some creative plant inspiration.
Why we think it matters: Bringing greenery into our home is an act of conscious self-care. Having houseplants around us has been connected to a better sense of calm and well-being, reduced anxiety, and a happier mood. They have even been connected to better concentration and improved memory, as well as physiological benefits like higher pain tolerance, lower blood pressure, and reduced headaches, fatigue, and cortisol levels. Add to this that some houseplants have been shown to improve air quality – NASA even has a list of which ones to buy for your homes. That Ficus plant that you may be coveting for your lounge looks good but it also supports human health.
In their own words: “Pilea plant shop provides beautiful and more unusual houseplants. It's really important that our customers feel confident taking a plant home to nurture. These days there are so many varieties of houseplants available. We love getting excited with people about the varieties that can be sourced, helping them understand how to look after them in their homes, replicating the tropical climates that the plants often originate from.”
Parnassus Books
In Nashville author Ann Patchett gives bookstores the happy ending that they deserve.
“An Independent Bookstore for Independent People.”
At the precise moment that it felt like the end of bookstores and the victory of Amazon, author Ann Patchett jumped into the void. In 2011 when the last bookstore in Nashville closed, together with business partner Karen Hayes, Patchett somewhat counterintuitively opened a bookstore. She couldn’t quite stomach the fact that there would no longer be a place in her hometown to buy books. She was also banking on the fact that others would feel the loss and feel the same. And there was that niggling memory from long ago of wandering around Mills bookstore and finding magic within its walls. There’s a happy ending here that runs counter to the narrative that we’ve been sold; her bookstore has since thrived. The business model that we thought was broken, maybe it isn’t.
Parnassus Books is all the things you’d hope for in an independent bookstore. Shelves (perversely from closed-down Borders) of books chosen not by algorithms but by people who know, love and can recommend them, the staff who work here. Author events (a massive 250 a year) to build the connections between people who read and those who write. Storytime for children to develop a lifelong love of the printed word. Chairs to lounge in, a store dog to pet. Such was its success, that there’s a spin-off, Parnassus Books on Wheels.
Parnassus Books attests to the fact that bookstores are more than books; they go beyond words on pages to other things like getting us off screens and getting us into space with other people whether we know them or not. They allow our minds and curiosity to wander, creating safe environments to emotionally sink into. They are also community centers and empathy makers. Bookstores give us other people; books give us compassion within their pages.
The question at the heart of Parnassus Books is this: Do you want to live in a city without an independent bookstore? It’s all about choice. We have the agency to shape the towns in which we live, to share in the co-creation of the spaces that we love to spend time in. As Patchett says: “Amazon doesn’t get to make all the decisions; the people can make them, by choosing how and where they spend their money. If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore. If you feel that the experience of reading a book is valuable, then read a book. This is how we change the world: We grab hold of it. We change ourselves.”
We get to write the ending.