This vase isn’t something found at grandma’s house nor picked up in a dusty second-hand shop. It is in fact a new, albeit very-much retro style, piece from Graham and Green.
Called simply “Retro Vase”, it is made from textured orange glass on the outside with a contrasting white inlay. It costs £25, which is more than you’d pay for a charity shop find for which it could easily be mistaken, but quite cheap by Graham and Green standards.
Visit the Graham and Green website for a closer look.
The “Keep Calm and Carry On” products have been so successful that they have inspired various similar designs such as the ‘Wake Up and Smell the Coffee” print we featured recently. Pedlars, who have been selling the original “Keep Calm” poster, have now commissioned their own exclusive prints in the same fashion.
The “Make Do and Mend” print consists of this wartime slogan printed using traditional wood block techniques, printed by one of the few printers in the country still using this method. The design has been created by Gail Bryson exclusively for Pedlars.
The price of a framed print is £125. There is also another design bearing the warning “Don’t Talk Over Music” also available from the Pedlars site.
Viisit Pedlars for more details.
The shop of the V&A museum keeps on surprising us with its unusual gift ideas. The latest item to leave me slightly bewildered is this pair of Baby Pants.
Made from rubberised cotton they are designed to slip over a nappy. The fabric is printed with a 1950s design taken from wrapping paper. There is a choice of umbrellas or mushrooms. They cost £12 a pair and are available in two sizes, 6-12 months or 12-24 months.
Visit the V&A Shop for more details.
This item is not a new version of the Rubik’s Cube, but you can’t help but feel that is where the idea for its came from. It is in fact The Magic Chair, part of Habitat’s Very Important Products for Kids range.
It is credited to Daniel Radcliffe, although I’m not sure how much actual design input the young actor/wizard had, but his royalties for the Magic Chair go to charity which is another good reason to buy it.
It costs £120 from Habitat.
Islington-based After Noah stocks a huge range of vintage and retro-influenced items, including gifts, toys and furniture, but is their range of Industrial Factory Vintage Lamps that has particularly caught my eye.
Mainly dating back to the 1930s, these lights come from a time when the UK had a manufacturing industry and made its own lighting. Their website shows a wide range of examples of styles that may be available although you will need to contact After Noah to find out their exact stock. The lights are made from spun steel and then coated in an oven with a vitreous enamel finish and they have been rewired or the electrical fittings have been replaced to bring them up so they are safe to use.
Visit After Noah to browse their selection.
And while on the subject of the Routemaster bus, if you loved the bus, but perhaps not quite enough to want to recreate it in your own home, you may be interested instead in this book, “The Bus We Love: London’s Affair with the Routemaster” by Travis Elborough.
The book takes a light-hearted nostalgic look at London’s favourite bus, starting with its conception and going right up to its sad recent last trip.
The paperback version can be bought from Amazon for around £6.
