If this isn’t the ultimate way to kickstart the post-pandemic shopping era, we don’t know what is. We’re talking British designer Anya Hindmarch‘s audacious opening of not just one boutique, but five separate establishments in London‘s chic Chelsea shopping district. The endeavour is the result of two years of meticulously planning and has been aptly baptised The Village as all retail spaces sit huddled together on Pont Street, the address where Hindmarch opened her first boutique, and also part of the so-called Cadogan Estates, an influential land and property owner in the British capital. The innovative cluster of spaces is anchored by Anya Café, a stylish yet informal place where to sit back and relax or meet a friend over breakfast, coffee, lunch, tea or evening drinks.
The café also offers a selection of specially created cakes and biscuits, designed to eat in or be taken away as gifts in beautiful boxes. On the corner across the street, for the next three weeks only, sits the Anya Hair Salon, managed in partnership with nearby Neville Hair and Beauty salon, it’s inspired by the fashion designer’s book If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair, it offers wash and blow-dries from morning to evening in a setting inspired by classic 1960s hair salons with vintage hair dryers. Further down the road, the original Anya Hindmarch shop and headquarters can be found. First opened in 1996, it’s now called The Bespoke Shop, it offers a range of personalised gifts that are not about a season but mark a moment in time and can be embossed by a trained craftsman with anything you can write or draw.
Across the street at number 16, The Plastic Shop is inspired by Hindmarch’s passion for circularity of materials and reducing plastic going into landfill and exclusively stocking the brand’s I Am A Plastic Bag sustainable collections. Right next door The Labelled Shop can be found, yes another shop, and this one’s brimming with items from Anya Hindmarch‘s best-selling Labelled collection of cases and bags that keep anyone organised. The coveted merchandise is presented alongside collaborations and workshops exploring the subject of organisation with an on-site embosser also offering personalisation services. The Village is set up as an evolving retail concept, and as such the cluster of spaces will see regular tweaks aligned with Anya Hindmarch‘s creative scope as time goes by.
Anya Café
9 Pont Street (Chelsea)
London SW1X 9EH
Telephone: +44 20 45290924 (walk-ins only)
Mon-Sat 8am-8pm
Sun 9am-6pm
Anya Hair Salon
11 Pont Street (Chelsea)
London SW1X 9EH
Telephone: +44 20 45290929
Mon-Sat 10am-8pm
The Bespoke Shop
15-17 Pont Street (Chelsea)
London SW1X 9EH
Telephone: +44 020 78389177
Mon-Sat 10am-6pm
Sun 12pm-5pm
The Plastic Shop
16 Pont Street (Chelsea)
London SW1X 9EH
Telephone: +44 20 45290926
Mon-Sat 10am-6pm
Sun 12am-5pm
The Labelled Shop
14 Pont Street (Chelsea)
London SW1X 9EH
Telephone: +44 20 45290925
Monday – Saturday 10am-6pm
Sunday 12am-5pm
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
