A unique mixture of old and new shops, including twenty creative pop-ups and new community-driven businesses have opened recently in the Brixton Village indoor market (aka Granville Arcade) run by the Space Makers Agency.
On Saturday, January 16th, 2010, I joined members of the Space Makers Network and others in Brixton Market to to celebrate the market's revival, a day that promised plenty of tasty events and creativity. The perfect anecdote to a rainy day.
Strolling around the market I found creativity everywhere. My favourite shops were:
Bricolage Project - set up in August 2009 by five design graduates.
In the shop, that Saturday, Katherine May told me that the idea behind the project was to combine their 'make do attitudes' and produce designs that are both unique and affordable.
Unfortunately, this was the last week the shop would be here, according to Katherine, the group have enjoyed and benefited from the opportunity. From this experience they intend to projects to markets around London and then around the UK. country.
The shop displayed custom-made wall paper, knitted floor cushions (£250), greeting cards, custom-made chairs (small £150 and large £800) and hand-made badges. All their creations are made from reclaimed materials. In addition to the shop, the project runs darning and mending, and quilting and patchwork workshops.
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The Wonderful World Of... - The paper lanterns caught my eye as I passed this shop. So, I popped in, and over a home-made cookie learnt more about the various lanterns from the designer and maker Sean Adrian. The inspiration behind Sean's designs come from his contemplation of the cultural and spiritual aspects of nature.
Sean has designed and made lanterns for various festivals around London, such as the Thames, Hackney and Latin American festivals. He turned to lantern-making after several years in film, TV and music.
There were many things in this shop I would've love to buy, however my limited funds could only stretch to one lamp. One with a travel theme, decorated with several maps of Africa and African women caught my eye (see picture left) and at a very reasonable sum of £8 was my find of the day.
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Sweet Tooth, the market's newly-opened old-fashioned sweet shop is run by artist and accessories designer Georgina. This stylish sweet shop had shelves, floor to ceiling, of sweet jars of sunshine yellow pineapple cubes, reddish-brown cola cubes - 100g of each sold at £1.30 - chewy drumsticks, and
my favourite hard multi-coloured candy bracelets and necklaces from 25p each.
Although, Georgina had not never run a sweet shop, she jumped at the chance to do something different. The idea for Sweet Tooth, came to Georgina in a dream, the perfect replacement to replace Woolworth's pick and mix. Not surprisingly there was a constant stream of children of all ages, buying sweets and designing a cake for an under 11s competition, the winners won a jar of sweets.
Although it looks like Georgina is on to a winner, she has not given up being a designer. In a corner of the shop she displayed accessories from her evoke label - leather trimmed, 'loop' bags and badges made from and wrapped in West African material, I bought two of the latter.
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I spent an enjoyable time chatting with the owners of the above shops that I didn't have any time left to visit a shop recommended by a Japanese tourist, I met in Sweet Tooth. After sharing our experiences of the day, she recommended I pay a visit to her friend's shop, Leftovers.
Leftovers is a vintage and antique clothes shop run by Margot Waggoner. Margot sells French antique costumes and a selection of unique vintage fashion items and accessories. All items are from the 1850s to the 1950s, including vintage aprons and kitchenware.
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