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Category / Indie Shopper

The Adorable, Squishable Soho Sex Shop

Do you remember the girl who revived an abandoned corner shop last year in East London and filled it with hand-sewn “products” made of felt– over 4,000 fuzzy creations to be precise, from Mars bars to newspapers and even the shop’s till? Well the hugely talented artist Lucy Sparrow has struck again, this time, transforming a…

Today I Stumbled upon a Secret Kingdom of Lost Toys

What is it that makes someone start a collection which alters the course of their entire life? For Mel Birnkrant, it was an iron Mickey bank he saw at the Paris flea market in 1958. His hotel room rent was $30 a month and the toy was $10. It was in that moment, at the iconic Marché aux Puces,…

The Secret Lives of Fashion Mannequins

For a brief moment in the 1930s, one of the most famous celebrities of the day was a 100-pound mannequin named Cynthia. She had box seats at the Metropolitan Opera, received freebies from Tiffany and Cartier, graced the cover of Life magazine and was even invited to the wedding of Edward V111 and Wallis Simpson.…

Louis Vuitton Treasure Trunks of the Paris Puces

They say the name ‘flea market’ first originated from the legendary Paris antiques market of St. Ouen, when an unknown bargain hunter in the 1880s looked down from nearby fortifications, observed junk dealers selling their scrap and allegedly exclaimed, “My word, but it’s a market of fleas!” In reality, it is anything but. On my…

5 Areas to Shop like a Parisian: A Local Guide to Paris Boutique Shopping

If you’re coming to Paris looking for the glitzy Parisian equivalent of the Rodeo Drives, Fifth Avenues and Sloane Streets of the world, turn back now, this is not the guide for you. But if you’re looking for unique, chic and affordable Parisian fashion boutiques set in charming local neighbourhoods where actual Parisians really shop, then…

The Tiniest Antique Shop in Paris is stuck to the side of a Church (and sells fresh Eggs)

“So I heard about the tiniest antique shop in Paris that’s stuck to the side of a church,” said Mum over dinner one evening. Of course, the very next morning, I went to hunt it down… The Église Saint Roch is one of the most beautiful churches in Paris and it’s where all the fancy…

How Can Paris Let this Museum of Music Treasure Close Down?

I wasn’t exactly expecting the world when I was emailed by a local record collector urging me to visit an endangered private music museum in Paris at the foot of Montmartre. The Phono Museum? Never heard of it. Within my network of vinyl fanatic friends and small museum hunters, surely we would have come across such…

A Rock Band’s Vintage Closet on the Run

Starling and Rein Irving are on the run. In a good way, mind you, and in extremely stylish fashion. You see, the 20-year-old-ish sisters have been making pilgrimages across the United States, with a collection of vintage treasures in tow. Their vessel? A 1959 green Chevrolet Viking bus they found abandoned in a field. Their…

London’s Lost Department Store of the Swinging Sixties

If you thought that Harvey Nichols or Harrods were the epitome of a London fashion department store, it’s time to re-introduce you to Big Biba, a fallen icon of the Swinging Sixties that redefined the High Street shopping experience… It all started in 1964, when a small-time mail order business called Biba’s Postal Boutique advertised…

India’s Overlooked Concrete City of Oz

When you think of Indian cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur, you might think of the impossibly intricate architecture, ancient folklore, explosions of colour and unstoppable energy; a welcome deluge of the senses. But there is one place that is not like the others. In the north of India, on the foothills of the Himalayan…

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