colourliving

lego for adults – brick city

The LEGO group began in the workshop of ole kirk christiansen (born 7 april 1891), a carpenter from billund, denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called “LEGO”, from the danish phrase leg godt, which means ‘play well’. LEGO began manufacturing interlocking toy bricks in 1949.

Ever since childhood, i’ve loved LEGO and even today i will gladly walk into a lego shop and get inspired by all the creativity and genius this company produces. A trip to legoland is still a highlight and i’m not sure i will ever grow out of it!

Do you know what AFOL is? No? Apparently it stands for ‘adult fans of LEGO’. Go figure! Yes, there is a big following and one of those fans, warren elsmore, just brought out a book, entitled: brick city: LEGO for Grown Ups.

Warren has built some of the world’s most iconic landmarks out of LEGO bricks and now you can see his st pancras station masterpiece up close at waterstone’s in piccadilly until June 4.

You can imagine my excitement. I rushed down to bring you some close-ups first hand and i hope you enjoy the little tour. I was told by a member of staff that warren came in with a female colleague and spent the best part of 7 hours building the entire station from memory. No drawings, no measurements. Incredible!

If you’re wondering about the next picture here, this is something for the little people. Basically there are some famous movie characters hidden amongst the st pancras model. They want children to find them. Here is one of them!

A small selection of what you’ll find inside the book. Anyone fancy their luck at building these?

For the geeks amongst us! Some facts and stats about this LEGO edition of st pancras station. It is 140cm high, 350cm long and 150cm wide. The scale is approximately 1:100 and it’s built out of 180,000 bricks.

So, if you find yourself near piccadilly, do pop in and see this masterpiece for yourselves. Have a great weekend and i see you monday.

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a day of good design with ilse crawford

Everyone that reads my blog or who knows me personally won’t be surprised to know that i love creativity, emotional and intelligent design, slow living, well-being and authentic food. I go on about these often enough!

I don’t follow groups, religions, trends, am not a groupie and don’t have many role models. There are very few people that i identify with on many levels and who inspire me. One of them is ilse crawford!

I first came across ilse when i bought my very first issue of elle decoration, back in 1990, a year after she founded the british magazine, hailed as an international decorating bible. Ilse is often credited with teaching the british to love modern interiors.

My interest was piqued and i started following her career. After a short stint in new york (working for donna karan), she came back to the uk and in 2000 became the editor of a new magazine – ‘bare’, a stylish, but very much ahead of its time, bible to well-being. I loved it but it was short-lived!

Then came the position of head of department for man and well-being at design academy eindhoven in holland (regarded by many as the best design school in the world) and ilse had also started her own design studio and consultancy: studioilse.

For those of you who are not familiar with studioilse and its DNA, it’s very much based on the fact that it gives a human perspective to design which is emotional and intelligent. Really quite different to your usual interior design practice. I don’t like calling them that anyway. They are so much more! Studioilse once described their values as:

“we are fascinated by what drives us, brings us together and ultimately makes us feel alive. The studio manifests this through brand development, concept creation, interiors, furniture and products – design that can provide a frame for life”

For me they design a blueprint to entire environments, from thinking about the human experience, to creating a unique identity which can then evolve and morph into its own, thus adding meaning to our lives. They’ve done this with soho house, new york, babington house and with every single project undertaken since. Some further examples: high road house, kettner’s in soho, the electric cinema, the olde bell.

You wouldn’t think that with all this there is much time left to write books. But, hey, we all know women are great at multi-tasking and ilse is a pro at it! I urge everyone of you to obtain a copy of both, the sensual home and home is where the heart is.

Apart from beautiful, they both illustrate ilse’s philosophical approach of seeking the emotional needs before tackling the design side of an environment or space! This was a huge influence for me when designing my own home. It was more about how i navigate my space, how i like to sit, eat, lounge, entertain, over the pure colour, look or style of a piece of furniture or where to place it so it fits within the design parameters . It’s a philosophy that has enhanced my daily life at home and is contributing to my overall well-being.

So, i was delighted when i first read that ilse crawford joined the school of life (TSOL) faculty. I’ve been a huge fan and supporter of TSOL since their launch in 2008. I had missed out on the very first ‘a day of good design with ilse crawford’ back in 2011 so was super excited to get on the list for this second event last saturday!

Our group of 20 people met at her lovely apartment and although i had seen many photographs in magazines, there is nothing really like seeing something in real life and getting that ‘sense’ and ‘feeling’ of it. It’s full of personality and personal touches, lots of keepsakes, invites, postcards and a multitude of books! It is exactly how i imagined it to be. A ‘real’ home lived in by people (ilse and her columbian husband oscar pena angarita) who understand their needs and habits – a truly ‘human’ space. I didn’t take any pictures of the apartment as after brief introductions we went straight up to the studio, but also i didn’t want to intrude in their private space!

The studio, up one flight of stairs from the apartment is filled with daylight, and has this wonderful ‘creative’ feeling you get in a space where many talented people come together to work on brands, buildings, furniture and products. All white, including the wonderful eames chairs and wästberg lights, it seems as if the plain backdrop helps with the creativity. Colour is introduced through magazines, books and magazine tear sheets, used as mood boards. Sitting there you get a real sense of being part of the outside. It’s quite magical.

Ilse was incredibly generous with sharing about her business, her design principles, how projects are tackled, the different phases of a project and the good, the bad and the ugly! The main points were that with every new project the team first analyses context, background, history and the surroundings of the building. Then they look at the needs of the people using the space. Now the process begins with getting the client to agree while also liaising with the architects. Studioilse likes to use local tradesmen. Private projects can take between 2-4 years. Commercial ones take less and always need to be rushed. Few clients understand design and the impact it can have. Studioilse prefers to head a project from its initial conception, rather than being called in as an afterthought and often to remedy a project gone wrong!

Ilse talked us through a recently completed project. Ett hem. They converted a 100-year-old house in stockholm into a boutique hotel. Designed and intended to be used like staying in a friend’s house, ett hem has a number of communal spaces where guests are encouraged to mingle. You can “sit in the kitchen, have a drink in the sitting room, pick up a book in the library or snuggle down by the fireplace.”

Ilse also introduced us to the precious collection studioilse did for denmark’s biggest design brand georg jensen (see below). My favourite was the mama vase. Watch the video that supports this collection here.

The collection “brings a renewed sense of ritual to enhance our everyday habits”. Water is a basic need and ilse, as well as consulting on an ongoing exhibition, 1% water is also writing her third book on this subject.

I was happy to see the studio as they’ll be moving to new premises to accomodate more staff. It was a real honour to have been given the opportunity to see the space where so many wonderful designs have originated from, a really special treat for me!

We left for our next destination. The wapping project. Although i’ve been there a couple of times before, it’s years since i last went and hence it felt like the first time. Impressive, full of history and depth.This was our destination for lunch and we also got treated to an interesting and uplifting talk by founder and curator jules wright (a personal friend of ilse crawford). I will blog separately about jules and the wapping project as it’s such an amazing story and she’s an incredible woman.

Suffice to say, lunch was superb! The food at the wapping project is simple, delicious and fuss-free. Ingredients are carefully sourced and the service was outstanding!

From there we went on to the garden museum, based in the deconsecrated parish church of st mary-at-lambeth adjacent to lambeth palace.  The museums main gallery is the main space for their collection of tools, prints, photographs and library. You’ll find insight into the social history of gardening as well as the practical aspects of the subject. The museum covers the whole range of gardening, from royal gardens to allotments. In the early 1980s, a 17th century style ‘knot garden’ was created in the churchyard, planted with authentic plants of the period.

We stopped off for afternoon tea and a talk by alun jones of dow and jones architect.

Alun jones talked to us about their award-winning design in transforming the museum into a centre for exhibitions and events through the construction of contemporary gallery spaces.

” The garden museum is housed in a listed former church. We designed a two-storey structure that wraps around the aisles of the existing building. The new structure creates new galleries for the permanent collection and for temporary exhibitions, and an education room”

They are about to go into phase 2, where they’ll double the space for display of the permanent collection, 95% of which is in store, and create extra space for schools and community outreach work, in addition to a bigger café and modern visitor services.

From there, we took a short stroll along the river to vauxhall where our next stop was lassco, brunswick house. I blogged about it here and here. This was a perfect ending to our day. A great space that had nothing done to it and yet it lives and breathes through the fantastic objects and artefacts it sells. It’s success comes from the ever changing unique stock and the way it gets displayed and moved around. Every time you walk in there you feel as if you’re in a different space. It’s like an aladdin’s cave.

We all had a rummage around and then congregated in the café for a drink, a little chat and our good-byes.

For me, it was the perfect day. The sun was shining and i got to spend time in the company of a woman who’s been a great influence on my own design and well-being philosophy. There is so much more i could have asked ilse.

More importantly, she is even nicer than i expected. Warm, unassuming, intelligent, softly spoken, thought-provoking, vulnerable, strong, generous and very wise. She has an incredibly calm aura and what struck me most were her impeccable communication skills.

“Ilse is also an influential author, international public speaker and has been named one of britain’s most influential women.” MONOCLE

Yes, all of these are true, but ilse understands that people and teams are at the core of the most wonderful visions and without them very little of any significance can be achieved. Having met phil and janis on the day, it is evident that ilse leads with heart and mind, empowering her staff and allowing them to flourish in their own rights. Ilse is definitely the face for studioilse but i think in her mind it’s all about the people around her, her brood, her (maybe) biggest achievement to date.

Thank you to clemmy and mary (TSOL) for organising this wonderful day!

This post will stay up till next thursday.

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pick me up – somerset house

The embankment galleries at somerset house have been, for the fourth year, transformed into this vibrant art and design event. Pick me up is a 11-day festival of contemporary graphic art, design and illustration from around the world. It runs until the 28th april and i popped in last thursday for an hour or so to take a peek and get you the lowdown.

As you enter you immediately see ‘pick me up selects’, featuring 17 international up-and-coming illustrators and graphic artists that have been specially selected by a distinguished panel from the graphics world. The designers range in experience, style, and focus and i’ve selected some of my favourites for you.

Wild cats by tom edwards. I particularly liked the lion.

Some doodle-bombing by hattie stewart (self-professed professional doodler), where she draws over the covers of influential fashion publications.

American born ping zhu works primarily with gouache on paper and cites charles harper and henri matisse as stylistic and colour inspiration for her work. I found her illus­tra­tion style exciting with expres­sive brush­strokes that bring so much life to each image. Judge for yourselves.

Daniel frost graduated from the royal college of art in 2012. I really loved the imaginary worlds and characters inspired by the strangeness of everyday life. The mix of originals and 3d creations are from his forthcoming children’s book ‘a day in frostville’.

Damien florébert cuypers graduated in 2006 in lyon, france. His small format crayon illustrations appear weekly in the french grazia magazine, as well as the new york times t magazine. For the past 2 years damien has been producing one minute portraits in crayons.

Damien will be available on thursdays, saturdays and sundays from 2-5pm throughout the event to create live one minute portraits. To commission a portrait, book a slot with damien. £25 per portrait. Aren’t these great?

Damien in action.

Upstairs you’ll find art collectives and galleries, my favourite part. It’s vibrant, alive and interactive and you need to check out the daily events that are on offer. Walking through, it feels more like visiting their art studios. It has this lived-in feel that lends the event this vibrant atmosphere. There’s food, drink and people get involved in printing, gaming and talking to the artists and designers. In the past years i did spent much more time and really enjoyed it. There was far too much to photograph and write about, so here’s just a snippet of what you’ll find!

Loved this bus by charlotte mei. A worthy addition to any ceramics collection!

Human After All presents #FaceStamp, an ink-teractive art experience that lets you create faces using ink stamps. Participants can choose their favourite stamps from the face stamp! collection and create their own unique works of art.

A highlight for me was meeting some of the girls that belong to the zombie collective. For this event they came up with this rather ingenius ideas machine. The collective is made out of joely brammer, rebecca jay, alice lickens, maggie li, frann preston-gannon.

How much fun is this? Once you spinned, this draw would open and you can pick up your present. Fab!

Every year there’s a studio in residency for the whole event. This year they’ve invited back print club london. This year, it’s all about the graphic designer bob gill. They’ve invited 10 illustrators to use bobs hand coloured screenprints as inspiration and produce new pieces in their own styles. You can get involved and print and colour-in your own. Magic!

See nelly duff‘s area. A series of pablo delgado originals and screen-printed editions, as well as unique paste-ups created especially for the exhibition are currently on display.

This is the first year there’s a online shop. Apart from that you can buy pretty much everything on display. Prints, limited-editions, one-offs, everything can be ordered at various checkpoints and picked up when you exit. A lot of the art is very affordable which makes this a popular event to go to.

In the gallery shop you’ll find everything from books to magazines to prints, artefacts et cetera.Here i’ve picked 2 pieces that caught my eye but are more expensive.  Mark ward is a graphic artist & art director living and working in london. His work is fuelled by an adoration of americana that is fragmented through his british perspective. These cost £1500 each.

I hope that some of you have already been or are maybe planning a visit. There’s a lot to see, a lot to buy and you’ll come away with tons of inspiration.

I seriously could get used to the weather we had over the weekend. It was just magical. I’m also glad that the marathon was incident free and that they paid tribute to the lives lost in the boston bombing. I hope you have a good start to the week and will see you back here on thursday.

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has spring sprung?

Greetings from a fairly sunny and spring like london!

The burning question that everyone is scared to ask is: has spring sprung? Winter was so long that any amount of sunlight still sends shockwaves to my body. I was looking through my blog posts of last april as i remembered blogging about early flowering trees. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about this april.

Yesterday the sun graced us with its presence and as i was due to meet up with the lovely yvonne from yvestown, what better place to show off our city than a short stroll in kensington gardens, followed by afternoon tea at the stunning orangery?

This map shows you the vastness of green space around the area, from kensington gardens to hyde park.

In all royal parks cycling is not permitted. Sadly, i saw plenty today while strolling along! If caught, there is a penalty of £50.

Mostly bare trees did not reflect from the gorgeous sunshine and the warmth on my skin and face.

And then there were some flowers……

It was lovely to see dogs enjoying themselves.

…. and ducks walking about!

Swans were out in full force.

Hello mr. pigeon!

Bins were being emptied – in style!

Off we trotted to the orangery for a cuppa of posh tea. If you live in london or you’re visiting, do try it out. The grounds are beautiful, the house stunning, the interiors gorgeous and the afternoon tea a complete delight. Quintessentially british. You won’t be disappointed.

I’m praying that this weather will continue. It was great to spend a couple of hours in beautiful nature and spending time with the gorgeous yvonne.

I hope you guys have a lovely weekend and i look forward to seeing you on monday:-)

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the monocle café

It’s finally here, well sort of. The monocle café has arrived in london. You’ll find a soft opening at the moment until the doors officially open on monday 15th april at 7am. This is their second café, it follows on from the success of the first one opened in tokyo at end of 2011.

The café’s great location just happens to be near the monocle HQ. Chiltern street is a perfect spot as it’s round the corner from foodie’s haven in marylebone high street, only a few minutes walk from the monocle shop and very close by to selfridges. Perfect!

I arrived at the end of the day, near closing time. Instead of a calm and quiet, not yet fully opened café, I found a heaving place already very much alive and lived in. Why was i surprised? It’s a monocle venture after all! Judging from the photos i’d seen in the press, i thought i might not connect with the space in the same way i connect with the magazine. Well, how wrong can a girl be? It’s every bit as inviting and stimulates your senses. On reflection, it did help that it was full of handsome men. But seriously, the place oozes personality and as soon as I walked in, I definitely felt I entered the monocle world that I’ve grown to love, from its magazine to the radio show, the shops, the products and all other offerings that so seamlessly encompass their brand.

I was scheduled to see stewart, the lovely café manager, for a little interview but as mr tyler brûlé himself was in the house, i didn’t get to spend more than 5 minutes with him as all staff were running around tyler while simultaneously serving everyone. But hey, they haven’t officially opened yet and as we’ve come to expect from the monocle brand, detail is key and tyler is the master at it. I did, however, get a chance to spend a couple of moments catching up with the boss himself. I must say, he was looking very dapper! (don’t worry, i told him so).

Back to the two-floor café, as I was saying, it already looked very much lived in and that’s mostly due to the brilliant design, furniture and materials used throughout. I particularly liked the lighting, which lends the atmospheric ambience. The black ebolicht pendants lights from manufactum are robust and perfect for the upstairs space. Although very japanese/scandinavian in its design, normally associated with minimalism, the café feels somehow sumptious and abundant.

Monocle’s in-house design team, led by yoshitsugu takagi, worked with edo design and construction, a trusted band of 12 japanese architects and joiners, based in london. The tasmanian oak tables, stools and barstools are from onethird, a young australian design firm of tasmanian craftsmen.

At the back of the ground floor you have a salon/living room where they’ll be broadcasting live on monocle 24. There you can relax on the feather upholstered japanese oak sofa and ottomans from truck in osaka.

Throughout the café there are back-issues of the monocle magazine and there’s wi-fi for subscribers.

Downstairs, available for hire (exclusively to subscribers) you can hold meetings and presentations. Kitted out in vintage ercol chairs and tables from local store, century. Don’t you love the le klint pendants? One wall is adorned with framed prints, all featured in monocle magazines.

You won’t be surprised to know that the coffee and food has been meticously sourced and selected. Coffee comes from allpress espresso, the new zealand suppliers. As of 15th april, there’ll be daily deliveries of fresh macarons, green tea roll cake and strawberry gateau, curteousy of japanese chef masayuki hara. Food will see the likes of a range of dishes, including their swiss-inspired bircher muesli, a rich and cheesy monocle toasty and their own midori salad, made with seasonal ingredients. I believe, these are some of tyler’s favourite snacks. For now, until they open, you can find cake and these..

The staff, of course, wear special aprons, each one hand-made and sewn by master craftsmen with yarn canvas.

Let’s please not forget another important part. The bathroom, as monocle likes to call it. Oak-panelled and installed with a toto washlet and hand basin, it wraps up the entire monocle philosophy.

For me, it was like walking into a familiar world. As a fan and long-time monocle reader i pretty much loved everything about it and cannot wait to return when it officially opens. It feels like a small version of a membership club (without the membership), where you can have a coffee and read the papers or actually stop for some lunch. On the other hand you might want to lounge, do some work and listen to live broadcasting of monocle 24 or maybe you just want to meet up with friends and business colleagues. Its warm, friendly and inviting and i believe it’s everything tyler wants it to be. Go and see for yourselves.

The Monocle Café opens 15th April at 7am
18 Chiltern Street
London W1U 7QA
Please check for opening times.

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attendant espresso & food café

Oh, you know i like a good story. Boy have i got a good one for you today!

Sometimes this morning, just as i was about to publish my latest blog post I saw a tweet my friend mr walnutgrey put out. He was also going to alert me personally of a post he read on this new discovery of an underground 1890 victorian gentleman’s toilet converted into an espresso and food café, called attendant! They opened their doors on 18th February 2013.

I took one look and was hooked. I simply had to go down there and see for myself. A quick change of arrangements, a phone call to see if the owner was present, 30 minutes later, wet and cold from being on the vespa in snowy conditions i had arrived! (the things i do for my readers:-) I don’t know why but something drew me there….

Look at this beauty (peter, the owner calls it his shop front). This was 9 months in the making. Apparently it took numerous coats of paint to get the ironwork looking like this! It is literally stunning, do you agree?

Oh, i already started fantasising about the spicy carrot soup. Yum!

Yep, you see correctly. You can pull up in your ride, ring the bell and they’ll serve you curbside. Genius!

Look at that entrance…mysterious, full of anticipation and excitement. What awaits me downstairs?

In i went and was greeted by a warm and welcoming space, full of little details and wonderful smells (NO, not the smells you’re thinking of:-) Funnily enough, 2 people today told me that they weren’t sure they could eat in a place that once used to be a victorian gentleman’s toilet. Really? What about living in a house that used to be a petrol forecourt? I could go on. I tend to see these matters as historic anecdotes, nothing more and nothing less. I was so taken by the design and finish of the place that it never even crossed my mind once!

The door is the anchor to it all. It stems back to 1890 That’s where the attendant’s office used to be back when it was a gent’s loo. I LOVE that although it’s been converted  into a kitchen it’s been left as it is and although the staff go in and out of the door into the kitchen and serving area, the fact that it stops mid height brings with it an air of openness and transparency and a little humour.

Meet peter tomlinson, the brainchild of this most unusual venture. Although extremely busy and not stopping even once while i was there, he kindly answered all my probing questions and satisfied my curiosity. A fellow scooter rider, i think he appreciated i zoomed right down with the purpose to blog about ‘attendant’.

So, the story goes that peter and his mate ben, who used to live in new york, were sitting in the pub above attendant and discussing how cool it would be to open a coffee shop. Originally from sheffield, peter worked in PR and marketing. After a few beers and a couple of meetings they saw a ‘to let’ sign just outside the pub. Yes, it was a former public toilet but in 1989 had been bought by a Mr. S to turn into a design studio. Unfortunately, it didn’t take off and the site was boarded up till recently when Mr. S died.

On the market for 12 months, albeit with a lot of interest from people, the licence was only meant to allow for a sandwich and coffee shop. Bingo! Peter and ben were the lucky applicants!

The results are staggering. Being down there i completely forgot about the spaces’ history. Tiled throughout, they’ve placed a lot of importance on lighting. From ceramic lights on the ceiling, to vintage lights and mercury lights from a beachfront shop in LA. They have tolix chairs and the café still features the 1890s doulton & co. urinals. Don’t fret, now they’re being used as dividers for seats with the victorian hand dryer still being placed above. Trust me, you soon forget about them as urinals but rather will look upon them as a design statement. I think it’s genius and beautiful! Feast your eyes….

Now to the food and drink. As i was chatting to peter it daunt on me that their philosophy is one of caring for the environment and for our wellbeing. They carefully source all their produce and peter is very proud of their choices. Coffee, after much research comes from caravan, the organic milk is sourced from ivy house farm milk. They have 120 jersey cows on their farm. You can have an almond milk porridge. The brown bag crisps are hand cooked in olive oil (the only ones in the uk to do so). They use bread from the bread factory and what impressed me most was that they had reverse osmosis water filters build in to maximise on the taste and health properties of any drink made with water. I wish more places would do that!

I believe that attendant are the first café to use these ‘perfect cup’ in the UK, if not europe!

These posters hang in pride as you walk in the door!

Everything is considered and thought through. Here’s my lunch. Delicious and beautifully presented!

I knew something made me drop everything and rush there today.  To me this is a winning formula of kick-ass concept, great design with some gorgeous details and an admirable philosophy in how to serve food and drinks. I truly loved it and will be back often.

I asked peter what kind of marketing and PR they did.  He said they had agreed on a ‘people discovery strategy’. Well, rest assured, the whole world will soon know about this and i wouldn’t be surprised if it won’t be used as a case study in business and marketing courses.

Thank you peter for your time and thank you to your utterly charming staff. Sorry if i was in your way! See you soon!

I know i’m late with my blog today but i hope you’ll agree that it was worth the wait. I urge you to go and visit! Have a great weekend. Let’s not talk about the weather. See you monday!

Attendant
Downstairs, 27a Foley Street,
London W1W 6DY

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lassco – part 2

Who is looking forward to the easter break? C’mon, don’t all shout at once:-)

As promised, here’s the second part of the LASSCO post. If you missed the first one, here it is again. So once you’ve admired the outdoor offerings, you can either enter the doors leading to the brunswick house café or first go and be mesmerised by the offerings in the main house.

We are starting with the main house. Come on through. You’ll find a roomy georgian interior, divided into many rooms and floors.

It’s impossible to photograph all, so i picked out what i thought were interesting salvaged curiosities. What do you think?

They have quite a few horn trophys. In my last post i showed an oryx hunting trophy.  I know antlers are really in fashion right now, but why not have something that’s far more unique?

I fell in love with this east asian carved wooden horse. A mere £1400;-)

A ngaady helmet mask from the Kuba tribe. At £485, not too shabby.

A yoruba tribe mask. Yours for £420.

A large ‘white maiden’ helmet mask…. £675.

Oh, he’s not for the faint-hearted. A face mask made from fibre glass and spray painted gold. Around £300.

I really fancied these stained and painted glass panels. Prices vary.

This cheerful fella was an unusual educational plaster cast of a male torso, with detailed map showing the meridians of acupuncture. C. 1918. To be had for £1400.

The following room had much more recognisable items. Here you can find alphabet letters and numerals, door knobs, coloured flex etc.

These enamelled watering cans are gorgeous. I wanted the copper one.

So, through the house you can also get to the wonderful café. What i like best about it is the informal atmosphere. Here you will find staff that love their job. Everything displayed in the café is for sale, which makes it a pretty fantastic space. While i was there, some of the guys were busy taking down some stock exchange clocks that had been sold. When i returned an hour later, some wonderful print was hanging from the ceiling in the same spot. It’s vibrant, fun, eclectic and full of inspiration. Why not go and have a drink or meal while looking at beautiful artefacts and furniture?

These bar stools had my name on it. I really want them, so off to inquire!

The front room of the café is more interesting. You will find many mix and match seatings, beautiful lights hanging from above and lots of desirable prints.

This is the back room and seating is a little more uniform. But look at the luscious and fantastic lights displays.

Well, i hope you enjoyed this little tour of LASSCO. I urge anyone to take a trip there as no pictures or story reflects the true beauty and uniqueness of this place. Of course, their wonderful offerings come at a price. Personally, i’d rather have a unique item that will be with me forever. The question is why can LASSCO command their prices? The answer: because you’ll probably not find such interesting curiosities elsewhere and therefore they simply just can! I’m a fan!

LASSCO & Brunswick House Café
30 Wandsworth Road
Vauxhall
London SW8 2LG

Happy Easter everyone. Have a great time and enjoy yourselves. See you monday, hopefully, with another dose of vive la différence.

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lassco – part 1

It’s monday. It’s freezing. I’ve spent most of the weekend in bed nursing a cold. Happy to report i’m back on form!

A few weeks ago, when there was a hint of spring in the air, I hopped over to what is ‘the prime resource for architectural antiques, salvage and curiosities’. LASSCO, a mansion nestled in midst the vauxhall roundabout crossing and once the home of a duke, is now a vast space where reclaimed furniture and vintage paraphernalia sit alongside and share the rooms with beautiful antiques. There’s also a patio garden and the wonderful brunswick house café. And to be clear, everything you see there is for sale (bar the staff)!

There’s too much to show you in one post so i decided to split them into two. Today is all about the outdoors. Come back on thursday for some real interiors gems.

Have a look at these garden ornaments. All i needed was a big van and lots and lots of money and i would have gladly bought them all:-)
Which one do you like? Oh, go on, pretend it’s spring, it’s hot and you have a garden or roof terrace and, an unlimited budget.

I love this period fern and blackberry pattern cast iron and wooded slated garden bench. It’s £3,500, but hey, we said we won’t worry about price!

These ornate railings are beautiful. I particularly like the first one with the repeating birds and scroll design.

This planter, here below, had an incredible patina and thankfully was already sold!

Who doesn’t love an old street sign?

And now here are two heart breakers. Aren’t their expressions just wonderful? I was standing there imagining what names i would choose….

On the theme of ornaments, i thought i would include two further pictures of what you can expect to find inside LASSCO.

These last two were just a teaser. Hopefully they’ll get you excited for thursday’s post. Part 2 will show you what i found inside LASSCO and the brunswick house café. Hope to see you then:-)

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colour makes people happy

Colour makes people happy. Full stop!

I first came across simon’s first shop in clapham back in 2004 after reading and article about it. All I remember is that there was a paint shop where they had individual painted wooden clogs in their entire colour range… how cool is that? Meet simon.

The story is that he decided to open a paint company, went to holland, created a brand and found his shop in london. That was then.

Fast forward to 2007. Simon closed the shop, and started selling his paints through liberty for 2,5 years… “I made their purple (they’ve now changed it).”

“All the while I was looking for a for a place to live. Then I found this place I’m in now, in dulwich, originally bought it to live in, not to open a shop…  I was still selling my paints on the internet… I had a warehouse in acton…I produced TV paint, I sold it through a prop place in acton.. then I did decide to open a shop here and it took me 2 years to get it ready as I did it all single handedly . It opened in 2009.

When visiting I was greeted by simon and puccini’s madame butterfly and I knew I am already in love! The shop is bright, vibrant and wherever you look there’s something reflecting Simon’s taste and personality. It’s quirky, interesting and full of little gems.

So what does ‘colour makes people happy’ offer? Well, they mainly sell paints. There are 96 colours, people buy mostly off the charts – there are sample pots… there’s wood paints (for floor and furniture) and wall paints. Simon travels to holland once a month to make the paint, so most of it is made in holland. “Here, I simply customise the paint like add a bit of iron to make it magnetic etc.”

They also sell coloured flex. Cool, eh?

Then there are the parties, the children entertainment, the hen parties, the film screenings. So, it’s a shop, a gallery space, a screening room. There are spinning machines, they even make waffles and dutch chocolate milk!

I was fascinated by the spinning machine. It produces art for everyman! Magic. The best part is that when there is a group of 3-4 years old at it, the parents then decide to frame their young geniuses’ artwork and hang it in their room. Fabulous idea!

Another part of the business is the colour cards, hand done colour cards. For £75 you can make your own colour card. Simon explains:”Simply send in a list of 25 pithy sayings that you really like and i make you a colour card you can frame!  They will be our own colours!! We’ve been doing this for a year and a half now and it’s very popular. You come with the sayings…it’s great as gift! We are developing it on the site a the moment. You’ll soon be able to order it online.”

Some more colour stimulation for you…

The accents on dutch is to be felt throughout.

Simon lives upstairs but the kitchen is downstairs. Full of retro and personal belongings, I wanted to invite myself for breakfast:-)

All I know is that it’s a place for people to have fun, be inspired and come away with something exciting!

Simon is quirky, an individualist, loves colour and making people happy. Asking him about future goals, he told me he wants more shops in london (10, to be exact) and is currently also looking at berlin, as well as within the UK. I say, fill this town with colour and get everyone smiling!

Simon, see you soon:-)

Let’s see? Who of you loves colour? Have a great weekend everyone. See you monday! x

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sugru – self setting rubber

Have you heard of sugru? No? Well, let me introduce you to the material that might become this century’s duct tape! Read on to find out more…

I first came across this innovation back in 2010. I remember stumbling across the website and being fascinated by what i saw. A self-setting rubber that could fix stuff. Wow! sugru has been on my radar on and off ever since but I’d never truly got to grips with it. I bought a multi-pack last year and am determined to get the fix and improving bug!

OK, fast forward to last month. On a flight back home, i saw a fantastic write up in BA business life magazine telling the story of sugru’s inventor jane ni dhulchaointigh. How great is that next picture? Apparently people have asked whether jane is indeed hanging upside down and simply held up by the sugru slippers. No, she’s not!

After reading the article, I met with jane to find out more. I hope you guys get tons of inspiration from what she has to say – and maybe even the fixing and improving bug. Let’s go!

The first thing that greeted me when i arrived for my interview were those slippers. I picked them up, and boy they’re heavy!

Meet jane, female entrepreneur extraordinaire. Sharp, witty and determined!

You moved to this warehouse space in hackney less than 2 years ago and run the entire business from here. Can you explain a little? We are a bit of an unusual company in that we are a new kind of materials company that is characterised by taking a web 2.0 approach to materials. We have in-house film making facilities, we have design, we have material science, we have our factory here and we run the entire business from sales to marketing to finance all from this building.

The great thing is that we have all kinds of people here, a really good mix. In the film studio we do all our own demonstration tutorials and all our youtube promotional videos which have really helped to spread the word and get people excited. Fixing and improving projects are not always obvious and can often be ignored. We try and highlight through film, photography and social media all those places where you can solve problems. It’s great when we get feedback from people saying stuff like: “oh, I’ve been living with that broken toilet handle for years and years and never before found a way to solve it.” We just try and help people notice where that problem might be!

We are creative and playful but on the other hand we’re very serious about the science. That’s because we’re selling something for fixing things and it really has to work, every single time. We have 3 full-time scientists working to optimise the formulation on a regular basis and monitor the quality control. We’re also working towards kid-safe and food safe formulations. My dream is that maybe someday we’ll get a medical grade so that sugru can be used in hospitals too.

Then we have design, marketing, sales and finance. We have dedicated staff for media and blogs, and use customer support as a marketing function. We believe in giving everyone a really good customer experience and then that feeds into word of mouth. It’s all about community building.

You tell a great visual story of how it all began on your website. Tell me when you actually launched? We started as an online business and we’ve been selling mainly online for the first 2.5 years. We launched our first batch (1000 packs) of sugru in december 2009. We made them in our lab and they all sold out in 6 hours! Then we then had to close down for 6 months because we didn’t yet have a factory. We opened properly in june 2010. The first people that bought sugru were real enthusiasts from the tech community, not from the design community as often perceived.

I imagine your audience is of a younger generation… Of course, we have the 20-30 cool design community, as well as engineers, makers and outdoor enthusiasts, but in actual fact the demographics of people that use sugru is very mixed – I’d say from young teenagers all the way to people in their 80’s and 90’s – at the extreme ends of the scale people are very comfortable with making things work for them – customising is second nature to teenagers, as is fixing for the older generations. We started with people who are online, now we are also, for example, seeing young families buying sugru who want to repair toys and buggies.

You’ve been through your fair share of ups and downs in your young business. As a female entrepreneur , in your opinion, do you feel we’ve reached equality with men? The investment scene was different when i started. They used to be in general older and male. Today, in london, it’s been completely transformed through things like tech city and the growth in interest in young companies in general, and there are now thousands of start-ups around. The atmosphere is completely different. The advisors and investors are now much younger and more mixed. Last week for instance, there was an international women’s day event at Poke for women involved in start-ups in tech city. It was a real celebration of women in the area and there were lots of really exciting companies.

Maybe there still is inequality but i haven’t encountered it on my journey with sugru so far. Our investors are really buying into our vision to help get the world to get fixing again. There’s a cultural mission as well as a great business opportunity. The type of investors that are interested in our business are ones that share our vision so sexism doesn’t come into it!

It’s fascinating to see so many applications for sugru. I love the fact you can fix but also improve products. Yes, there are many examples of fixing, but improving products is a big part of it all too. Many people will use the product for that purpose. For example, bumpers (see below) are much better than phone covers because you can enjoy your whole phone and if you drop it, nothing happens to the screen.

Other people have found that applying grips to a computer mouse makes it more comfortable to use. There are endless possibilities.

Here are some more examples of fixing solutions I found at sugru HQ. For many more look no further than on their website.

You are seriously stepping up your presence in retail stores - can you tell me a bit about that?
Until recently, we had such a small team we couldn’t go out and do retail sales. It was all about getting the word out and building a knowledge base of what people use sugru for and what kind of people use it. Our online launch was incredible because it wasn’t us telling people what to use sugru for but people telling us what they used it for. That’s really powerful: we never even had a sales team until a few months ago. It was all word of mouth online and we concentrated on building and growing a community and inspiring them with what they can do with their sugru.

We came to a certain point when our confidence in sugru and people’s need for it grew. On amazon, it gets an average 4.5 rating which is incredible, despite it not being our website or even our community. Building up insights is invaluable to us. We also evolved our branding last year and became much clearer about our messaging so that now we are very confident about selling into retail stores. We’ve been working on this for the past 6 months.

Congratulations are in order. sugru is now available at B+Q! How do you feel about it? It’s fantastic – my vision for sugru is to be in every home. I believe it has the potential to be this century’s duct tape or super glue. It’s about getting the world to fix and make again and to do that retail is very important. If people want to fix things they will search in stores for a solution and not just online. Packs are already for sale in B+Q stores and later this March we’re doing staff education training, which we’re combining with a bit of a road trip around the country. Toyota have sponsored us a brand new Prius, which we’ve had some fun with, keep an eye on our facebook or twitter for more on this as it happens

And you’re exhibiting at this year’s ideal home show for 18 days - what led you there? Videos, and live demonstrating make a great difference to general awareness. Amongst our target group, which I think we are getting clearer about, we have these amazing communities, like the designer-maker, engineering, outdoor and sport communities…but I guess if we want the world to get fixing again, we now need to be talking to people who don’t yet fix, who may not design or improve things at the moment. We did our first slot on QVC recently, and the stock sold out in 4 minutes. That’s amazing for us. We look forward to working with them again soon. And we are excited about the ideal home show!

You hitting the big boys, what about the small retailers? Communities are such a big part of what we do and small retailers are part of that community so we’d really like to build out our network of small retailers. Those people are so powerful. You have someone who is in their shop every day and knows everything about the product they sell. They know their customers and often recommend things to them. Footfall in B+Q is great but you might not have the same customer support and knowledge.

Do you sell worldwide? Online, we have users in 130 countries. About half of our business is in the US so we opened a distribution centre there and will be building a small team there this year.

For now, we are focused on the UK, the US and we also have distribution partners in scandinavia, which is going really well and we’re in discussion with some people for distribution in germany because it’s a strong market for us. A disproportionate number of our fixer of the month competition is won by german people. Australia and canada are also important markets.

Do you tend to bring out new product lines? We don’t necessarily need to bring out new products to stay fresh because we tell new stories about what people use sugru for all the time. As for colours, we’ve brought out new options twice. We didn’t have white when we launched and we introduced that in response to demand. We also changed from a set of colours to primary colours so that people could mix any colours and blend. The blending is perfect. You take 2 pieces, ie. red and yellow and you get orange.

Can you see many more colours being introduced to the sugru range? When we get to a certain stage with our main product line, then we can think about doing special editions.

How fantastic you won the first london design entrepreneur medal back in september 2012. What an incredible achievement and what a great medal designed by the so very talented hannah martin.

Last but not least, meet jane’s newest member of staff, 10 weeks old ‘buddy’.

Jane thank you for flying the flag for incredible female entrepreneurs. It looks like sugru is the next duct tape or super glue, so enjoy the journey to the top!

Oh yes, one more thing.. I know sugru is now in 300 B+Q stores all over the UK and ireland, BUT it’s just a 3-month trial. There are 48 packs in every store and they need to sell every last one. So readers, if you want to help, spread the word. It’s really a fantastic product! Watch the very entertaining video here. (psst, a donkey is involved!)

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